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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/2234-h.zip b/2234-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..60f47de --- /dev/null +++ b/2234-h.zip diff --git a/2234-h/2234-h.htm b/2234-h/2234-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..14446bb --- /dev/null +++ b/2234-h/2234-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7083 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + TD { vertical-align: top; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green, by Jerome K. Jerome</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green, by +Jerome K. Jerome + + +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: Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green + + +Author: Jerome K. Jerome + + + +Release Date: May 7, 2007 [eBook #2234] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES IN LAVENDER, BLUE AND +GREEN*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1920 J. W. Arrowsmith edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>Sketches in Lavender<br /> +Blue and Green</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +JEROME K. JEROME<br /> +<span class="smcap">author of “three men in a +boat”</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">“three men on the bummel,” +“novel notes”</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">“the idle thoughts of an idle +fellow,” etc.</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">BRISTOL<br /> +<span class="smcap">J. W. Arrowsmith Ltd.</span>, <span +class="smcap">Quay Street</span><br /> +LONDON<br /> +<span class="smcap">Simpkin</span>, <span +class="smcap">Marshall</span>, <span +class="smcap">Hamilton</span>, <span class="smcap">Kent & Co. +Limited</span><br /> +1920</p> +<p>Contents:</p> +<p>Reginald Blake, Financier and Cad<br /> +An item of Fashionable Intelligence<br /> +Blasé Billy<br /> +The Choice of Cyril Harjohn<br /> +The Materialisation of Charles and Mivanway<br /> +Portrait of a Lady<br /> +The Man Who Would Manage<br /> +The Man Who Lived For Others<br /> +A Man of Habit<br /> +The Absent-minded Man<br /> +A Charming Woman<br /> +Whibley’s Spirit<br /> +The Man Who Went Wrong<br /> +The Hobby Rider<br /> +The Man Who Did Not Believe In Luck<br /> +Dick Dunkerman’s Cat<br /> +The Minor Poet’s Story<br /> +The Degeneration of Thomas Henry<br /> +The City of The Sea<br /> +Driftwood</p> +<blockquote><p>La-ven-der’s blue, did-dle, did-dle!<br /> + La-ven-der’s green;<br /> +When I am king, did-dle, did-dle!<br /> + You shall be queen.</p> +<p>Call up your men, did-dle, did-dle!<br /> + Set them to work;<br /> +Some to the plough, did-dle, did-dle!<br /> + Some to the cart.</p> +<p>Some to make hay, did-dle, did-dle!<br /> + Some to cut corn;<br /> +While you and I, did-dle, did-dle!<br /> + Keep ourselves warm.</p> +</blockquote> +<h2>REGINALD BLAKE, FINANCIER AND CAD</h2> +<p>The advantage of literature over life is that its characters +are clearly defined, and act consistently. Nature, always +inartistic, takes pleasure in creating the impossible. +Reginald Blake was as typical a specimen of the well-bred cad as +one could hope to find between Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park +Corner. Vicious without passion, and possessing brain +without mind, existence presented to him no difficulties, while +his pleasures brought him no pains. His morality was +bounded by the doctor on the one side, and the magistrate on the +other. Careful never to outrage the decrees of either, he +was at forty-five still healthy, though stout; and had achieved +the not too easy task of amassing a fortune while avoiding all +risk of Holloway. He and his wife, Edith (<i>née</i> +Eppington), were as ill-matched a couple as could be conceived by +any dramatist seeking material for a problem play. As they +stood before the altar on their wedding morn, they might have +been taken as symbolising satyr and saint. More than twenty +years his junior, beautiful with the beauty of a Raphael’s +Madonna, his every touch of her seemed a sacrilege. Yet +once in his life Mr. Blake played the part of a great gentleman; +Mrs. Blake, on the same occasion, contenting herself with a +singularly mean <i>rôle</i>—mean even for a woman in +love.</p> +<p>The affair, of course, had been a marriage of +convenience. Blake, to do him justice, had made no pretence +to anything beyond admiration and regard. Few things grow +monotonous sooner than irregularity. He would tickle his +jaded palate with respectability, and try for a change the +companionship of a good woman. The girl’s face drew +him, as the moonlight holds a man who, bored by the noise, turns +from a heated room to press his forehead to the +window-pane. Accustomed to bid for what he wanted, he +offered his price. The Eppington family was poor and +numerous. The girl, bred up to the false notions of duty +inculcated by a narrow conventionality, and, feminine like, half +in love with martyrdom for its own sake, let her father bargain +for a higher price, and then sold herself.</p> +<p>To a drama of this description, a lover is necessary, if the +complications are to be of interest to the outside world. +Harry Sennett, a pleasant-looking enough young fellow, in spite +of his receding chin, was possessed, perhaps, of more good +intention than sense. Under the influence of Edith’s +stronger character he was soon persuaded to acquiesce meekly in +the proposed arrangement. Both succeeded in convincing +themselves that they were acting nobly. The tone of the +farewell interview, arranged for the eve of the wedding, would +have been fit and proper to the occasion had Edith been a modern +Joan of Arc about to sacrifice her own happiness on the altar of +a great cause; as the girl was merely selling herself into ease +and luxury, for no higher motive than the desire to enable a +certain number of more or less worthy relatives to continue +living beyond their legitimate means, the sentiment was perhaps +exaggerated. Many tears were shed, and many everlasting +good-byes spoken, though, seeing that Edith’s new home +would be only a few streets off, and that of necessity their +social set would continue to be the same, more experienced +persons might have counselled hope. Three months after the +marriage they found themselves side by side at the same +dinner-table; and after a little melodramatic fencing with what +they were pleased to regard as fate, they accommodated themselves +to the customary positions.</p> +<p>Blake was quite aware that Sennett had been Edith’s +lover. So had half a dozen other men, some younger, some +older than himself. He felt no more embarrassment at +meeting them than, standing on the pavement outside the Stock +Exchange, he would have experienced greeting his brother jobbers +after a settling day that had transferred a fortune from their +hands into his. Sennett, in particular, he liked and +encouraged. Our whole social system, always a mystery to +the philosopher, owes its existence to the fact that few men and +women possess sufficient intelligence to be interesting to +themselves. Blake liked company, but not much company liked +Blake. Young Sennett, however, could always be relied upon +to break the tediousness of the domestic dialogue. A common +love of sport drew the two men together. Most of us improve +upon closer knowledge, and so they came to find good in one +another.</p> +<p>“That is the man you ought to have married,” said +Blake one night to his wife, half laughingly, half seriously, as +they sat alone, listening to Sennett’s departing footsteps +echoing upon the deserted pavement. “He’s a +good fellow—not a mere money-grubbing machine like +me.”</p> +<p>And a week later Sennett, sitting alone with Edith, suddenly +broke out with:</p> +<p>“He’s a better man than I am, with all my +high-falutin’ talk, and, upon my soul, he loves you. +Shall I go abroad?”</p> +<p>“If you like,” was the answer.</p> +<p>“What would you do?”</p> +<p>“Kill myself,” replied the other, with a laugh, +“or run away with the first man that asked me.”</p> +<p>So Sennett stayed on.</p> +<p>Blake himself had made the path easy to them. There was +little need for either fear or caution. Indeed, their +safest course lay in recklessness, and they took it. To +Sennett the house was always open. It was Blake himself +who, when unable to accompany his wife, would suggest Sennett as +a substitute. Club friends shrugged their shoulders. +Was the man completely under his wife’s thumb; or, tired of +her, was he playing some devil’s game of his own? To +most of his acquaintances the latter explanation seemed the more +plausible.</p> +<p>The gossip, in due course, reached the parental home. +Mrs. Eppington shook the vials of her wrath over the head of her +son-in-law. The father, always a cautious man, felt +inclined to blame his child for her want of prudence.</p> +<p>“She’ll ruin everything,” he said. +“Why the devil can’t she be careful?”</p> +<p>“I believe the man is deliberately plotting to get rid +of her,” said Mrs. Eppington. “I shall tell him +plainly what I think.”</p> +<p>“You’re a fool, Hannah,” replied her +husband, allowing himself the licence of the domestic +hearth. “If you are right, you will only precipitate +matters; if you are wrong, you will tell him what there is no +need for him to know. Leave the matter to me. I can +sound him without giving anything away, and meanwhile you talk to +Edith.”</p> +<p>So matters were arranged, but the interview between mother and +daughter hardly improved the position. Mrs. Eppington was +conventionally moral; Edith had been thinking for herself, and +thinking in a bad atmosphere. Mrs. Eppington, grew angry at +the girl’s callousness.</p> +<p>“Have you no sense of shame?” she cried.</p> +<p>“I had once,” was Edith’s reply, +“before I came to live here. Do you know what this +house is for me, with its gilded mirrors, its couches, its soft +carpets? Do you know what I am, and have been for two +years?”</p> +<p>The elder woman rose, with a frightened pleading look upon her +face, and the other stopped and turned away towards the +window.</p> +<p>“We all thought it for the best,” continued Mrs. +Eppington meekly.</p> +<p>The girl spoke wearily without looking round.</p> +<p>“Oh! every silly thing that was ever done, was done for +the best. <i>I</i> thought it would be for the best, +myself. Everything would be so simple if only we were not +alive. Don’t let’s talk any more. All you +can say is quite right.”</p> +<p>The silence continued for a while, the Dresden-china clock on +the mantelpiece ticking louder and louder as if to say, “I, +Time, am here. Do not make your plans forgetting me, little +mortals; I change your thoughts and wills. You are but my +puppets.”</p> +<p>“Then what do you intend to do?” demanded Mrs. +Eppington at length.</p> +<p>“Intend! Oh, the right thing of course. We +all intend that. I shall send Harry away with a few +well-chosen words of farewell, learn to love my husband and +settle down to a life of quiet domestic bliss. Oh, +it’s easy enough to intend!”</p> +<p>The girl’s face wrinkled with a laugh that aged +her. In that moment it was a hard, evil face, and with a +pang the elder woman thought of that other face, so like, yet so +unlike—the sweet pure face of a girl that had given to a +sordid home its one touch of nobility. As under the +lightning’s flash we see the whole arc of the horizon, so +Mrs. Eppington looked and saw her child’s life. The +gilded, over-furnished room vanished. She and a big-eyed, +fair-haired child, the only one of her children she had ever +understood, were playing wonderful games in the twilight among +the shadows of a tiny attic. Now she was the wolf, +devouring Edith, who was Red Riding Hood, with kisses. Now +Cinderella’s prince, now both her wicked sisters. But +in the favourite game of all, Mrs. Eppington was a beautiful +princess, bewitched by a wicked dragon, so that she seemed to be +an old, worn woman. But curly-headed Edith fought the +dragon, represented by the three-legged rocking-horse, and slew +him with much shouting and the toasting-fork. Then Mrs. +Eppington became again a beautiful princess, and went away with +Edith back to her own people.</p> +<p>In this twilight hour the misbehaviour of the +“General,” the importunity of the family butcher, and +the airs assumed by cousin Jane, who kept two servants, were +forgotten.</p> +<p>The games ended. The little curly head would be laid +against her breast “for five minutes’ love,” +while the restless little brain framed the endless question that +children are for ever asking in all its thousand forms, +“What is life, mother? I am very little, and I think, +and think, until I grow frightened. Oh, mother, tell me, +what is life?”</p> +<p>Had she dealt with these questions wisely? Might it not +have been better to have treated them more seriously? Could +life after all be ruled by maxims learned from copy-books? +She had answered as she had been answered in her own far-back +days of questioning. Might it not have been better had she +thought for herself?</p> +<p>Suddenly Edith was kneeling on the floor beside her.</p> +<p>“I will try to be good, mother.”</p> +<p>It was the old baby cry, the cry of us all, children that we +are, till mother Nature kisses us and bids us go to sleep.</p> +<p>Their arms were round each other now, and so they sat, mother +and child once more. And the twilight of the old attic, +creeping westward from the east, found them again.</p> +<p>The masculine duet had more result, but was not conducted with +the <i>finesse</i> that Mr. Eppington, who prided himself on his +diplomacy, had intended. Indeed, so evidently ill at ease +was that gentleman, when the moment came for talk, and so +palpably were his pointless remarks mere efforts to delay an +unpleasant subject, that Blake, always direct bluntly though not +ill-naturedly asked him, “How much?”</p> +<p>Mr. Eppington was disconcerted.</p> +<p>“It’s not that—at least that’s not +what I have come about,” he answered confusedly.</p> +<p>“What have you come about?”</p> +<p>Inwardly Mr. Eppington cursed himself for a fool, for the +which he was perhaps not altogether without excuse. He had +meant to act the part of a clever counsel, acquiring information +while giving none; by a blunder, he found himself in the +witness-box.</p> +<p>“Oh, nothing, nothing,” was the feeble response, +“merely looked in to see how Edith was.”</p> +<p>“Much the same as at dinner last night, when you were +here,” answered Blake. “Come, out with +it.”</p> +<p>It seemed the best course now, and Mr. Eppington took the +plunge.</p> +<p>“Don’t you think,” he said, unconsciously +glancing round the room to be sure they were alone, “that +young Sennett is a little too much about the house?”</p> +<p>Blake stared at him.</p> +<p>“Of course, we know it is all right—as nice a +young fellow as ever lived—and Edith—and all +that. Of course, it’s absurd, but—”</p> +<p>“But what?”</p> +<p>“Well, people will talk.”</p> +<p>“What do they say?”</p> +<p>The other shrugged his shoulders.</p> +<p>Blake rose. He had an ugly look when angry, and his +language was apt to be coarse.</p> +<p>“Tell them to mind their own business, and leave me and +my wife alone.” That was the sense of what he said; +he expressed himself at greater length, and in stronger +language.</p> +<p>“But, my dear Blake,” urged Mr. Eppington, +“for your own sake, is it wise? There was a sort of +boy and girl attachment between them—nothing of any moment, +but all that gives colour to gossip. Forgive me, but I am +her father; I do not like to hear my child talked +about.”</p> +<p>“Then don’t open your ears to the chatter of a +pack of fools,” replied his son-in-law roughly. But +the next instant a softer expression passed over his face, and he +laid his hand on the older man’s arm.</p> +<p>“Perhaps there are many more, but there’s one good +woman in the world,” he said, “and that’s your +daughter. Come and tell me that the Bank of England is +getting shaky on its legs, and I’ll listen to +you.”</p> +<p>But the stronger the faith, the deeper strike the roots of +suspicion. Blake said no further word on the subject, and +Sennett was as welcome as before. But Edith, looking up +suddenly, would sometimes find her husband’s eyes fixed on +her with a troubled look as of some dumb creature trying to +understand; and often he would slip out of the house of an +evening by himself, returning home hours afterwards, tired and +mud-stained.</p> +<p>He made attempts to show his affection. This was the +most fatal thing he could have done. Ill-temper, +ill-treatment even, she might have borne. His clumsy +caresses, his foolish, halting words of tenderness became a +horror to her. She wondered whether to laugh or to strike +at his upturned face. His tactless devotion filled her life +as with some sickly perfume, stifling her. If only she +could be by herself for a little while to think! But he was +with her night and day. There were times when, as he would +cross the room towards her, he grew monstrous until he towered +above her, a formless thing such as children dream of. And +she would sit with her lips tight pressed, clutching the chair +lest she should start up screaming.</p> +<p>Her only thought was to escape from him. One day she +hastily packed a few necessaries in a small hand-bag and crept +unperceived from the house. She drove to Charing Cross, but +the Continental Express did not leave for an hour, and she had +time to think.</p> +<p>Of what use was it? Her slender stock of money would +soon be gone; how could she live? He would find her and +follow her. It was all so hopeless!</p> +<p>Suddenly a fierce desire of life seized hold of her, the angry +answer of her young blood to despair. Why should she die, +never having known what it was to live? Why should she +prostrate herself before this juggernaut of other people’s +respectability? Joy called to her; only her own cowardice +stayed her from stretching forth her hand and gathering it. +She returned home a different woman, for hope had come to +her.</p> +<p>A week later the butler entered the dining room, and handed +Blake a letter addressed to him in his wife’s +handwriting. He took it without a word, as though he had +been expecting it. It simply told him that she had left him +for ever.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>The world is small, and money commands many services. +Sennett had gone out for a stroll; Edith was left in the tiny +<i>salon</i> of their <i>appartement</i> at Fécamp. +It was the third day of their arrival in the town. The door +was opened and closed, and Blake stood before her.</p> +<p>She rose frightened, but by a motion he reassured her. +There was a quiet dignity about the man that was strange to +her.</p> +<p>“Why have you followed me?” she asked.</p> +<p>“I want you to return home.”</p> +<p>“Home!” she cried. “You must be +mad. Do you not know—”</p> +<p>He interrupted her vehemently. “I know +nothing. I wish to know nothing. Go back to London at +once. I have made everything right; no one suspects. +I shall not be there; you will never see me again, and you will +have an opportunity of undoing your mistake—our +mistake.”</p> +<p>She listened. Hers was not a great nature, and the +desire to obtain happiness without paying the price was strong +upon her. As for his good name, what could that matter? he +urged. People would only say that he had gone back to the +evil from which he had emerged, and few would be surprised. +His life would go on much as it had done, and she would only be +pitied.</p> +<p>She quite understood his plan; it seemed mean of her to accept +his proposal, and she argued feebly against it. But he +overcame all her objections. For his own sake, he told her, +he would prefer the scandal to be connected with his name rather +than with that of his wife. As he unfolded his scheme, she +began to feel that in acquiescing she was conferring a +favour. It was not the first deception he had arranged for +the public, and he appeared to be half in love with his own +cleverness. She even found herself laughing at his mimicry +of what this acquaintance and that would say. Her spirits +rose; the play that might have been a painful drama seemed +turning out an amusing farce.</p> +<p>The thing settled, he rose to go, and held out his hand. +As she looked up into his face, something about the line of his +lips smote upon her.</p> +<p>“You will be well rid of me,” she said. +“I have brought you nothing but trouble.”</p> +<p>“Oh, trouble,” he answered. “If that +were all! A man can bear trouble.”</p> +<p>“What else?” she asked.</p> +<p>His eyes travelled aimlessly about the room. “They +taught me a lot of things when I was a boy,” he said, +“my mother and others—they meant well—which as +I grew older I discovered to be lies; and so I came to think that +nothing good was true, and that everything and everybody was +evil. And then—”</p> +<p>His wandering eyes came round to her and he broke off +abruptly. “Good-bye,” he said, and the next +moment he was gone.</p> +<p>She sat wondering for a while what he had meant. Then +Sennett returned, and the words went out of her head.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>A good deal of sympathy was felt for Mrs. Blake. The man +had a charming wife; he might have kept straight; but as his +friends added, “Blake always was a cad.”</p> +<h2>AN ITEM OF FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE</h2> +<p>Speaking personally, I do not like the Countess of ---. +She is not the type of woman I could love. I hesitate the +less giving expression to this sentiment by reason of the +conviction that the Countess of --- would not be unduly depressed +even were the fact to reach her ears. I cannot conceive the +Countess of ---’s being troubled by the opinion concerning +her of any being, human or divine, other than the Countess of +---.</p> +<p>But to be honest, I must admit that for the Earl of --- she +makes an ideal wife. She rules him as she rules all others, +relations and retainers, from the curate to the dowager, but the +rod, though firmly held, is wielded with justice and kindly +intent. Nor is it possible to imagine the Earl of +---’s living as contentedly as he does with any partner of +a less dominating turn of mind. He is one of those +weak-headed, strong-limbed, good-natured, childish men, born to +be guided in all matters, from the tying of a neck-cloth to the +choice of a political party, by their women folk. Such men +are in clover when their proprietor happens to be a good and +sensible woman, but are to be pitied when they get into the hands +of the selfish or the foolish. As very young men, they too +often fall victims to bad-tempered chorus girls or to middle-aged +matrons of the class from which Pope judged all womankind. +They make capital husbands when well managed; treated badly, they +say little, but set to work, after the manner of a dissatisfied +cat, to find a kinder mistress, generally succeeding. The +Earl of --- adored his wife, deeming himself the most fortunate +of husbands, and better testimonial than such no wife should hope +for. Till the day she snatched him away from all other +competitors, and claimed him for her own, he had obeyed his +mother with a dutifulness bordering on folly. Were the +countess to die to-morrow, he would be unable to tell you his +mind on any single subject until his eldest daughter and his +still unmarried sister, ladies both of strong character, +attracted towards one another by a mutual antagonism, had settled +between themselves which was to be mistress of him and of his +house.</p> +<p>However, there is little fear (bar accidents) but that my +friend the countess will continue to direct the hereditary vote +of the Earl of --- towards the goal of common sense and public +good, guide his social policy with judgment and kindness, and +manage his estates with prudence and economy for many years to +come. She is a hearty, vigorous lady, of generous +proportions, with the blood of sturdy forebears in her veins, and +one who takes the same excellent good care of herself that she +bestows on all others dependent upon her guidance.</p> +<p>“I remember,” said the doctor—we were dining +with the doctor in homely fashion, and our wives had adjourned to +the drawing-room to discuss servants and husbands and other +domestic matters with greater freedom, leaving us to the claret +and the twilight—“I remember when we had the cholera +in the village—it must be twenty years ago now—that +woman gave up the London season to stay down here and take the +whole burden of the trouble upon her own shoulders. I do +not feel any call to praise her; she liked the work, and she was +in her element, but it was good work for all that. She had +no fear. She would carry the children in her arms if time +pressed and the little ambulance was not at hand. I have +known her sit all night in a room not twelve feet square, between +a dying man and his dying wife. But the thing never touched +her. Six years ago we had the small-pox, and she went all +through that in just the same way. I don’t believe +she has ever had a day’s illness in her life. She +will be physicking this parish when my bones are rattling in my +coffin, and she will be laying down the laws of literature long +after your statue has become a familiar ornament of Westminster +Abbey. She’s a wonderful woman, but a trifle +masterful.”</p> +<p>He laughed, but I detected a touch of irritation in his +voice. My host looked a man wishful to be masterful +himself. I do not think he quite relished the calm way in +which this grand dame took possession of all things around her, +himself and his work included.</p> +<p>“Did you ever hear the story of the marriage?” he +asked.</p> +<p>“No,” I replied, “whose marriage? The +earl’s?”</p> +<p>“I should call it the countess’s,” he +answered. “It was the gossip of the county when I +first came here, but other curious things have happened among us +to push it gradually out of memory. Most people, I really +believe, have quite forgotten that the Countess of --- once +served behind a baker’s counter.”</p> +<p>“You don’t say so,” I exclaimed. The +remark, I admit, sounds weak when written down; the most natural +remarks always do.</p> +<p>“It’s a fact,” said the doctor, +“though she does not suggest the shop-girl, does she? +But then I have known countesses, descended in a direct line from +William the Conqueror, who did, so things balance one +another. Mary, Countess of ---, was, thirty years ago, Mary +Sewell, daughter of a Taunton linen-draper. The business, +profitable enough as country businesses go, was inadequate for +the needs of the Sewell family, consisting, as I believe it did, +of seven boys and eight girls. Mary, the youngest, as soon +as her brief schooling was over, had to shift for herself. +She seems to have tried her hand at one or two things, finally +taking service with a cousin, a baker and confectioner, who was +doing well in Oxford Street. She must have been a +remarkably attractive girl; she’s a handsome woman +now. I can picture that soft creamy skin when it was fresh +and smooth, and the West of England girls run naturally to +dimples and eyes that glisten as though they had been just washed +in morning dew. The shop did a good trade in ladies’ +lunches—it was the glass of sherry and sweet biscuit +period. I expect they dressed her in some neat-fitting grey +or black dress, with short sleeves, showing her plump arms, and +that she flitted around the marble-topped tables, smiling, and +looking cool and sweet. There the present Earl of ---, then +young Lord C---, fresh from Oxford, and new to the dangers of +London bachelordom, first saw her. He had accompanied some +female relatives to the photographer’s, and, hotels and +restaurants being deemed impossible in those days for ladies, had +taken them to Sewell’s to lunch. Mary Sewell waited +upon the party; and now as many of that party as are above ground +wait upon Mary Sewell.”</p> +<p>“He showed good sense in marrying her,” I said, +“I admire him for it.” The doctor’s +sixty-four Lafitte was excellent. I felt charitably +inclined towards all men and women, even towards earls and +countesses.</p> +<p>“I don’t think he had much to do with it,” +laughed the doctor, “beyond being, like Barkis, +‘willing.’ It’s a queer story; some +people profess not to believe it, but those who know her ladyship +best think it is just the story that must be true, because it is +so characteristic of her. And besides, I happen to know +that it is true.”</p> +<p>“I should like to hear it,” I said.</p> +<p>“I am going to tell it you,” said the doctor, +lighting a fresh cigar, and pushing the box towards me.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>I will leave you to imagine the lad’s suddenly developed +appetite for decantered sherry at sixpence a glass, and the +familiar currant bun of our youth. He lunched at +Sewell’s shop, he tea’d at Sewell’s, +occasionally he dined at Sewell’s, off cutlets, followed by +assorted pastry. Possibly, merely from fear lest the affair +should reach his mother’s ears, for he was neither +worldly-wise nor vicious, he made love to Mary under an assumed +name; and to do the girl justice, it must be remembered that she +fell in love with and agreed to marry plain Mr. John Robinson, +son of a colonial merchant, a gentleman, as she must have seen, +and a young man of easy means, but of a position not so very much +superior to her own. The first intimation she received that +her lover was none other than Lord C---, the future Earl of ---, +was vouchsafed her during a painful interview with his +lordship’s mother.</p> +<p>“I never knew it, madam,” asserted Mary, standing +by the window of the drawing-room above the shop, “upon my +word of honour, I never knew it”</p> +<p>“Perhaps not,” answered her ladyship coldly. +“Would you have refused him if you had?”</p> +<p>“I cannot tell,” was the girl’s answer; +“it would have been different from the beginning. He +courted me and asked me to be his wife.”</p> +<p>“We won’t go into all that,” interrupted the +other; “I am not here to defend him. I do not say he +acted well. The question is, how much will compensate you +for your natural disappointment?”</p> +<p>Her ladyship prided herself upon her bluntness and +practicability. As she spoke she took her cheque-book out +of her reticule, and, opening it, dipped her pen into the +ink. I am inclined to think that the flutter of that +cheque-book was her ladyship’s mistake. The girl had +common sense, and must have seen the difficulties in the way of a +marriage between the heir to an earldom and a +linen-draper’s daughter; and had the old lady been a person +of discernment, the interview might have ended more to her +satisfaction. She made the error of judging the world by +one standard, forgetting there are individualities. Mary +Sewell came from a West of England stock that, in the days of +Drake and Frobisher, had given more than one able-bodied pirate +to the service of the country, and that insult of the cheque-book +put the fight into her. Her lips closed with a little snap, +and the fear fell from her.</p> +<p>“I am sorry I don’t see my way to obliging your +ladyship,” she said.</p> +<p>“What do you mean, girl?” asked the elder +woman.</p> +<p>“I don’t mean to be disappointed,” answered +the girl, but she spoke quietly and respectfully. “We +have pledged our word to one another. If he is a gentleman, +as I know he is, he will keep his, and I shall keep +mine.”</p> +<p>Then her ladyship began to talk reason, as people do when it +is too late. She pointed out to the girl the difference of +social position, and explained to her the miseries that come from +marrying out of one’s station. But the girl by this +time had got over her surprise, and perhaps had begun to reflect +that, in any case, a countess-ship was worth fighting for. +The best of women are influenced by such considerations.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>“I am not a lady, I know,” she replied quietly, +“but my people have always been honest folk, well known, +and I shall try to learn. I am not wishing to speak +disrespectfully of my betters, but I was in service before I came +here, ma’am, as lady’s maid, in a place where I saw +much of what is called Society. I think I can be as good a +lady as some I know, if not better.”</p> +<p>The countess began to grow angry again. “And who +do you think will receive you?” she cried, “a girl +who has served in a pastry-cook’s shop!”</p> +<p>“Lady L--- came from behind the bar,” Mary +answered, “and that’s not much better. And the +Duchess of C---, I have heard, was a ballet girl, but nobody +seems to remember it. I don’t think the people whose +opinion is worth having will object to me for very +long.” The girl was beginning rather to enjoy the +contest.</p> +<p>“You profess to love my son,” cried the countess +fiercely, “and you are going to ruin his life. You +will drag him down to your own level.”</p> +<p>The girl must have looked rather fine at that moment, I should +dearly love to have been present.</p> +<p>“There will be no dragging down, my lady,” she +replied, “on either side. I do love your son very +dearly. He is one of the kindest and best of +gentlemen. But I am not blind, and whatever amount of +cleverness there may be between us belongs chiefly to me. I +shall make it my duty to fit myself for the position of his wife, +and to help him in his work. You need not fear, my lady, I +shall be a good wife to him, and he shall never regret it. +You might find him a richer wife, a better educated wife, but you +will never find him a wife who will be more devoted to him and to +his interests.”</p> +<p>That practically brought the scene to a close. The +countess had sense enough to see that she was only losing ground +by argument. She rose and replaced her cheque-book in her +bag.</p> +<p>“I think, my good girl, you must be mad,” she +said; “if you will not allow me to do anything for you, +there’s an end to the matter. I did not come here to +quarrel with you. My son knows his duty to me and to his +family. You must take your own course, and I must take +mine.”</p> +<p>“Very well, my lady,” said Mary Sewell, holding +the door open for her ladyship to pass out, “we shall see +who wins.”</p> +<p>But however brave a front Mary Sewell may have maintained +before the enemy, I expect she felt pretty limp when thinking +matters calmly over after her ladyship’s departure. +She knew her lover well enough to guess that he would be as wax +in the firm hands of his mother, while she herself would not have +a chance of opposing her influence against those seeking to draw +him away from her. Once again she read through the few +schoolboy letters he had written her, and then looked up at the +framed photograph that hung above the mantelpiece of her little +bedroom. The face was that of a frank, pleasant-looking +young fellow, lightened by eyes somewhat large for a man, but +spoiled by a painfully weak mouth. The more Mary Sewell +thought, the more sure she felt in her own mind that he loved +her, and had meant honestly by her. Did the matter rest +with him, she might reckon on being the future Countess of ---, +but, unfortunately for her, the person to be considered was not +Lord C---, but the present Countess of ---. From childhood, +through boyhood, into manhood it had never once occurred to Lord +C--- to dispute a single command of his mother’s, and his +was not the type of brain to readily receive new ideas. If +she was to win in the unequal contest it would have to be by art, +not by strength. She sat down and wrote a letter which +under all the circumstances was a model of diplomacy. She +knew that it would be read by the countess, and, writing it, she +kept both mother and son in mind. She made no reproaches, +and indulged in but little sentiment. It was the letter of +a woman who could claim rights, but who asked only for +courtesy. It stated her wish to see him alone and obtain +from his own lips the assurance that he wished their engagement +to cease. “Do not fear,” Mary Sewell wrote, +“that I shall be any annoyance to you. My own pride +would not let me urge you to marry me against your desire, and I +care for you too much to cause you any pain. Assure me with +your own lips that you wish our engagement to be at an end, and I +shall release you without another word.”</p> +<p>The family were in town, and Mary sent her letter by a trusty +hand. The countess read it with huge satisfaction, and, +re-sealing it, gave it herself into her son’s hands. +It promised a happy solution of the problem. In +imagination, she had all the night been listening to a vulgar +breach of promise case. She herself had been submitted to a +most annoying cross-examination by a pert barrister. Her +son’s assumption of the name of Robinson had been +misunderstood and severely commented upon by the judge. A +sympathetic jury had awarded thumping damages, and for the next +six months the family title would be a peg on which music-hall +singers and comic journalists would hang their ribald +jokes. Lord C--- read the letter, flushed, and dutifully +handed it back to his mother. She made pretence to read it +as for the first time, and counselled him to accord the +interview.</p> +<p>“I am so glad,” she said, “that the girl is +taking the matter sensibly. We must really do something for +her in the future, when everything is settled. Let her ask +for me, and then the servants will fancy she’s a +lady’s maid or something of that sort, come after a place, +and won’t talk.”</p> +<p>So that evening Mary Sewell, addressed by the butler as +“young woman,” was ushered into the small +drawing-room that connects the library of No. --- Grosvenor +Square with the other reception rooms. The countess, now +all amiability, rose to meet her.</p> +<p>“My son will be here in a moment,” she explained, +“he has informed me of the purport of your letter. +Believe me, my dear Miss Sewell, no one can regret his +thoughtless conduct more than I do. But young men will be +young men, and they do not stop to reflect that what may be a +joke to them may be taken quite seriously by others.”</p> +<p>“I don’t regard the matter as a joke, my +lady,” replied Mary somewhat curtly.</p> +<p>“Of course not, my dear,” added the countess, +“that’s what I’m saying. It was very +wrong of him altogether. But with your pretty face, you +will not, I am sure, have long to wait for a husband; we must see +what we can do for you.”</p> +<p>The countess certainly lacked tact; it must have handicapped +her exceedingly.</p> +<p>“Thank you,” answered the girl, “but I +prefer to choose my own.”</p> +<p>Fortunately—or the interview might have ended in another +quarrel—the cause of all the trouble at this moment entered +the room, and the countess, whispering a few final words of +instruction to him as she passed out, left them together.</p> +<p>Mary took a chair in the centre of the room, at equal distance +from both doors. Lord C---, finding any sort of a seat +uncomfortable under the circumstances, preferred to stand with +his back to the mantelpiece. Dead silence was maintained +for a few seconds, and then Mary, drawing the daintiest of +handkerchiefs from her pocket, began to cry. The countess +must have been a poor diplomatist, or she might have thought of +this; or she may have remembered her own appearance on the rare +occasions when she herself, a big, raw-boned girl, had attempted +the softening influence of tears, and have attached little +importance to the possibility. But when these soft, dimpled +women cry, and cry quietly, it is another matter. Their +eyes grow brighter, and the tears, few and far between, lie like +dewdrops on a rose leaf.</p> +<p>Lord C--- was as tender-hearted a lout as ever lived. In +a moment he was on his knees with his arm round the girl’s +waist, pouring out such halting words of love and devotion as +came to his unready brain, cursing his fate, his earldom, and his +mother, and assuring Mary that his only chance of happiness lay +in his making her his countess. Had Mary liked to say the +word at that moment, he would have caught her to his arms, and +defied the whole world—for the time being. But Mary +was a very practical young woman, and there are difficulties in +the way of handling a lover, who, however ready he may be to do +your bidding so long as your eyes are upon him, is liable to be +turned from his purpose so soon as another influence is +substituted for your own. His lordship suggested an +immediate secret marriage. But you cannot run out into the +street, knock up a clergyman, and get married on the spot, and +Mary knew that the moment she was gone his lordship’s will +would revert to his mother’s keeping. Then his +lordship suggested flight, but flight requires money, and the +countess knew enough to keep his lordship’s purse in her +own hands. Despair seized upon his lordship.</p> +<p>“It’s no use,” he cried, “it will end +in my marrying her.”</p> +<p>“Who’s she?” exclaimed Mary somewhat +quickly.</p> +<p>His lordship explained the position. The family estates +were heavily encumbered. It was deemed advisable that his +lordship should marry Money, and Money, in the person of the only +daughter of rich and ambitious parvenus, had offered +itself—or, to speak more correctly, had been offered.</p> +<p>“What’s she like?” asked Mary.</p> +<p>“Oh, she’s nice enough,” was the reply, +“only I don’t care for her and she doesn’t care +for me. It won’t be much fun for either of us,” +and his lordship laughed dismally.</p> +<p>“How do you know she doesn’t care for you?” +asked Mary. A woman may be critical of her lover’s +shortcomings, but at the very least he is good enough for every +other woman.</p> +<p>“Well, she happens to care for somebody else,” +answered his lordship, “she told me so herself.”</p> +<p>That would account for it.</p> +<p>“And is she willing to marry you?” inquired +Mary.</p> +<p>His lordship shrugged his shoulders.</p> +<p>“Oh, well, you know, her people want it,” he +replied.</p> +<p>In spite of her trouble, the girl could not help a +laugh. These young swells seemed to have but small wills of +their own. Her ladyship, on the other side of the door, +grew nervous. It was the only sound she had been able to +hear.</p> +<p>“It’s deuced awkward,” explained his +lordship, “when you’re—well, when you are +anybody, you know. You can’t do as you like. +Things are expected of you, and there’s such a lot to be +considered.”</p> +<p>Mary rose and clasped her pretty dimpled hands, from which she +had drawn her gloves, behind his neck.</p> +<p>“You do love me, Jack?” she said, looking up into +his face.</p> +<p>For answer the lad hugged her to him very tightly, and there +were tears in his eyes.</p> +<p>“Look here, Mary,” he cried, “if I could +only get rid of my position, and settle down with you as a +country gentleman, I’d do it to-morrow. Damn the +title, it’s going to be the curse of my life.”</p> +<p>Perhaps in that moment Mary also wished that the title were at +the bottom of the sea, and that her lover were only the plain Mr. +John Robinson she had thought him. These big, stupid men +are often very loveable in spite of, or because of their +weakness. They appeal to the mother side of a woman’s +heart, and that is the biggest side in all good women.</p> +<p>Suddenly however, the door opened. The countess +appeared, and sentiment flew out. Lord C---, releasing +Mary, sprang back, looking like a guilty school-boy.</p> +<p>“I thought I heard Miss Sewell go out,” said her +ladyship in the icy tones that had never lost their power of +making her son’s heart freeze within him. “I +want to see you when you are free.”</p> +<p>“I shan’t be long,” stammered his +lordship. “Mary—Miss Sewell is just +going.”</p> +<p>Mary waited without moving until the countess had left and +closed the door behind her. Then she turned to her lover +and spoke in quick, low tones.</p> +<p>“Give me her address—the girl they want you to +marry!”</p> +<p>“What are you going to do?” asked his +lordship.</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” answered the girl, +“but I’m going to see her.”</p> +<p>She scribbled the name down, and then said, looking the boy +squarely in the face:</p> +<p>“Tell me frankly, Jack, do you want to marry me, or do +you not?”</p> +<p>“You know I do, Mary,” he answered, and his eyes +spoke stronger than his words. “If I weren’t a +silly ass, there would be none of this trouble. But I +don’t know how it is; I say to myself I’ll do, a +thing, but the mater talks and talks and—”</p> +<p>“I know,” interrupted Mary with a smile. +“Don’t argue with her, fall in with all her views, +and pretend to agree with her.”</p> +<p>“If you could only think of some plan,” said his +lordship, catching at the hope of her words, “you are so +clever.”</p> +<p>“I am going to try,” answered Mary, “and if +I fail, you must run off with me, even if you have to do it right +before your mother’s eyes.”</p> +<p>What she meant was, “I shall have to run off with +you,” but she thought it better to put it the other way +about.</p> +<p>Mary found her involuntary rival a meek, gentle little lady, +as much under the influence of her blustering father as was Lord +C--- under that of his mother. What took place at the +interview one can only surmise; but certain it is that the two +girls, each for her own ends, undertook to aid and abet one +another.</p> +<p>Much to the surprised delight of their respective parents, +there came about a change in the attitude hitherto assumed +towards one another by Miss Clementina Hodskiss and Lord +C---. All objections to his lordship’s unwilling +attentions were suddenly withdrawn by the lady. Indeed, so +swift to come and go are the whims of women, his calls were +actually encouraged, especially when, as generally happened, they +coincided with the absence from home of Mr. and Mrs. +Hodskiss. Quite as remarkable was the new-born desire of +Lord C--- towards Miss Clementina Hodskiss. Mary’s +name was never mentioned, and the suggestion of immediate +marriage was listened to without remonstrance. Wiser folk +would have puzzled their brains, but both her ladyship and +ex-Contractor Hodskiss were accustomed to find all things yield +to their wishes. The countess saw visions of a +rehabilitated estate, and Clementina’s father dreamed of a +peerage, secured by the influence of aristocratic +connections. All that the young folks stipulated for (and +on that point their firmness was supernatural) was that the +marriage should be quiet, almost to the verge of secrecy.</p> +<p>“No beastly fuss,” his lordship demanded. +“Let it be somewhere in the country, and no mob!” and +his mother, thinking she understood his reason, patted his cheek +affectionately.</p> +<p>“I should like to go down to Aunt Jane’s and be +married quietly from there,” explained Miss Hodskiss to her +father.</p> +<p>Aunt Jane resided on the outskirts of a small Hampshire +village, and “sat under” a clergyman famous +throughout the neighbourhood for having lost the roof to his +mouth.</p> +<p>“You can’t be married by that old fool,” +thundered her father—Mr. Hodskiss always thundered; he +thundered even his prayers.</p> +<p>“He christened me,” urged Miss Clementina.</p> +<p>“And Lord knows what he called you. Nobody can +understand a word he says.”</p> +<p>“I’d like him to marry me,” reiterated Miss +Clementina.</p> +<p>Neither her ladyship nor the contractor liked the idea. +The latter in particular had looked forward to a big function, +chronicled at length in all the newspapers. But after all, +the marriage was the essential thing, and perhaps, having regard +to some foolish love passages that had happened between +Clementina and a certain penniless naval lieutenant, ostentation +might be out of place.</p> +<p>So in due course Clementina departed for Aunt Jane’s, +accompanied only by her maid.</p> +<p>Quite a treasure was Miss Hodskiss’s new maid.</p> +<p>“A clean, wholesome girl,” said of her Contractor +Hodskiss, who cultivated affability towards the lower orders; +“knows her place, and talks sense. You keep that +girl, Clemmy.”</p> +<p>“Do you think she knows enough?” hazarded the +maternal Hodskiss.</p> +<p>“Quite sufficient for any decent woman,” retorted +the contractor. “When Clemmy wants painting and +stuffing, it will be time enough for her to think about getting +one of your ‘<i>Ach Himmels</i>’ or ‘<i>Mon +Dieus</i>’.”</p> +<p>“I like the girl myself immensely,” agreed +Clementina’s mother. “You can trust her, and +she doesn’t give herself airs.”</p> +<p>Her praises reached even the countess, suffering severely at +the moment from the tyranny of an elderly Fraulein.</p> +<p>“I must see this treasure,” thought the countess +to herself. “I am tired of these foreign +minxes.”</p> +<p>But no matter at what cunning hour her ladyship might call, +the “treasure” always happened for some reason or +other to be abroad.</p> +<p>“Your girl is always out when I come,” laughed the +countess. “One would fancy there was some reason for +it.”</p> +<p>“It does seem odd,” agreed Clementina, with a +slight flush.</p> +<p>Miss Hodskiss herself showed rather than spoke her +appreciation of the girl. She seemed unable to move or +think without her. Not even from the interviews with Lord +C--- was the maid always absent.</p> +<p>The marriage, it was settled, should be by licence. Mrs. +Hodskiss made up her mind at first to run down and see to the +preliminaries, but really when the time arrived it hardly seemed +necessary to take that trouble. The ordering of the whole +affair was so very simple, and the “treasure” +appeared to understand the business most thoroughly, and to be +willing to take the whole burden upon her own shoulders. It +was not, therefore, until the evening before the wedding that the +Hodskiss family arrived in force, filling Aunt Jane’s small +dwelling to its utmost capacity. The swelling figure of the +contractor, standing beside the tiny porch, compelled the +passer-by to think of the doll’s house in which the dwarf +resides during fair-time, ringing his own bell out of his own +first-floor window. The countess and Lord C--- were staying +with her ladyship’s sister, the Hon. Mrs. J---, at G--- +Hall, some ten miles distant, and were to drive over in the +morning. The then Earl of --- was in Norway, salmon +fishing. Domestic events did not interest him.</p> +<p>Clementina complained of a headache after dinner, and went to +bed early. The “treasure” also was +indisposed. She seemed worried and excited.</p> +<p>“That girl is as eager about the thing,” remarked +Mrs. Hodskiss, “as though it was her own +marriage.”</p> +<p>In the morning Clementina was still suffering from her +headache, but asserted her ability to go through the ceremony, +provided everybody would keep away, and not worry her. The +“treasure” was the only person she felt she could +bear to have about her. Half an hour before it was time to +start for church her mother looked her up again. She had +grown still paler, if possible, during the interval, and also +more nervous and irritable. She threatened to go to bed and +stop there if she was not left quite alone. She almost +turned her mother out of the room, locking the door behind +her. Mrs. Hodskiss had never known her daughter to be like +this before.</p> +<p>The others went on, leaving her to follow in the last carriage +with her father. The contractor, forewarned, spoke little +to her. Only once he had occasion to ask her a question, +and then she answered in a strained, unnatural voice. She +appeared, so far as could be seen under her heavy veil, to be +crying.</p> +<p>“Well, this is going to be a damned cheerful +wedding,” said Mr. Hodskiss, and lapsed into sulkiness.</p> +<p>The wedding was not so quiet as had been anticipated. +The village had got scent of it, and had spread itself upon the +event, while half the house party from G--- Hall had insisted on +driving over to take part in the proceedings. The little +church was better filled than it had been for many a long year +past.</p> +<p>The presence of the stylish crowd unnerved the ancient +clergyman, long unaccustomed to the sight of a strange face, and +the first sound of the ancient clergyman’s voice unnerved +the stylish crowd. What little articulation he possessed +entirely disappeared, no one could understand a word he +said. He appeared to be uttering sounds of distress. +The ancient gentleman’s infliction had to be explained in +low asides, and it also had to be explained why such an one had +been chosen to perform the ceremony.</p> +<p>“It was a whim of Clementina’s,” whispered +her mother. “Her father and myself were married from +here, and he christened her. The dear child’s full of +sentiment. I think it so nice of her.”</p> +<p>Everybody agreed it was charming, but wished it were +over. The general effect was weird in the extreme.</p> +<p>Lord C--- spoke up fairly well, but the bride’s +responses were singularly indistinct, the usual order of things +being thus reversed. The story of the naval lieutenant was +remembered, and added to, and some of the more sentimental of the +women began to cry in sympathy.</p> +<p>In the vestry things assumed a brighter tone. There was +no lack of witnesses to sign the register. The verger +pointed out to them the place, and they wrote their names, as +people in such cases do, without stopping to read. Then it +occurred to some one that the bride had not yet signed. She +stood apart, with her veil still down, and appeared to have been +forgotten. Encouraged, she came forward meekly, and took +the pen from the hand of the verger. The countess came and +stood behind her.</p> +<p>“Mary,” wrote the bride, in a hand that looked as +though it ought to have been firm, but which was not.</p> +<p>“Dear me,” said the countess, “I never knew +there was a Mary in your name. How differently you write +when you write slowly.”</p> +<p>The bride did not answer, but followed with +“Susannah.”</p> +<p>“Why, what a lot of names you must have, my dear!” +exclaimed the countess. “When are you going to get to +the ones we all know?”</p> +<p>“Ruth,” continued the bride without answering.</p> +<p>Breeding is not always proof against strong emotion. The +countess snatched the bride’s veil from her face, and Mary +Susannah Ruth Sewell stood before her, flushed and trembling, but +looking none the less pretty because of that. At this point +the crowd came in useful.</p> +<p>“I am sure your ladyship does not wish a scene,” +said Mary, speaking low. “The thing is +done.”</p> +<p>“The thing can be undone, and will be,” retorted +the countess in the same tone. “You, +you—”</p> +<p>“My wife, don’t forget that, mother,” said +Lord C--- coming between them, and slipping Mary’s hand on +to his arm. “We are both sorry to have had to go +about the thing in this roundabout way, but we wanted to avoid a +fuss. I think we had better be getting away. +I’m afraid Mr. Hodskiss is going to be noisy.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>The doctor poured himself out a glass of claret, and drank it +off. His throat must have been dry.</p> +<p>“And what became of Clementina?” I asked. +“Did the naval lieutenant, while the others were at church, +dash up in a post-chaise and carry her off?”</p> +<p>“That’s what ought to have happened, for the whole +thing to be in keeping,” agreed the doctor. “I +believe as a matter of fact she did marry him eventually, but not +till some years later, after the contractor had died.”</p> +<p>“And did Mr. Hodskiss make a noise in the vestry?” +I persisted. The doctor never will finish a story.</p> +<p>“I can’t say for certain,” answered my host, +“I only saw the gentleman once. That was at a +shareholders’ meeting. I should incline to the +opinion that he did.”</p> +<p>“I suppose the bride and bridegroom slipped out as +quietly as possible and drove straight off,” I +suggested.</p> +<p>“That would have been the sensible thing for them to +do,” agreed the doctor.</p> +<p>“But how did she manage about her travelling +frock?” I continued. “She could hardly have +gone back to her Aunt Jane’s and changed her +things.” The doctor has no mind for +minutiæ.</p> +<p>“I cannot tell you about all that,” he +replied. “I think I mentioned that Mary was a +practical girl. Possibly she had thought of these +details.”</p> +<p>“And did the countess take the matter quietly?” I +asked.</p> +<p>I like a tidy story, where everybody is put into his or her +proper place at the end. Your modern romance leaves half +his characters lying about just anyhow.</p> +<p>“That also I cannot tell you for certain,” +answered the doctor, “but I give her credit for so much +sense. Lord C--- was of age, and with Mary at his elbow, +quite knew his own mind. I believe they travelled for two +or three years. The first time I myself set eyes on the +countess (<i>née</i> Mary Sewell) was just after the late +earl’s death. I thought she looked a countess, every +inch of her, but then I had not heard the story. I mistook +the dowager for the housekeeper.”</p> +<h2>BLASÉ BILLY</h2> +<p>It was towards the end of August. He and I appeared to +be the only two men left to the Club. He was sitting by an +open window, the <i>Times</i> lying on the floor beside +him. I drew my chair a little closer and +remarked:—“Good morning.”</p> +<p>He suppressed a yawn, and replied +“Mornin’”—dropping the +“g.” The custom was just coming into fashion; +he was always correct.</p> +<p>“Going to be a very hot day, I am afraid,” I +continued.</p> +<p>“’Fraid so,” was the response, after which +he turned his head away and gently closed his eyes.</p> +<p>I opined that conversation was not to his wish, but this only +made me more determined to talk, and to talk to him above all +others in London. The desire took hold of me to irritate +him—to break down the imperturbable calm within which he +moved and had his being; and I gathered myself together, and +settled down to the task.</p> +<p>“Interesting paper the <i>Times</i>,” I +observed.</p> +<p>“Very,” he replied, taking it from the floor and +handing it to me. “Won’t you read +it?”</p> +<p>I had been careful to throw into my voice an aggressive +cheeriness which I had calculated would vex him, but his manner +remained that of a man who is simply bored. I argued with +him politely concerning the paper; but he insisted, still with +the same weary air, that he had done with it. I thanked him +effusively. I judged that he hated effusiveness.</p> +<p>“They say that to read a <i>Times</i> leader,” I +persisted, “is a lesson in English composition.”</p> +<p>“So I’ve been told,” he answered +tranquilly. “Personally I don’t take +them.”</p> +<p>The <i>Times</i>, I could see, was not going to be of much +assistance to me. I lit a cigarette, and remarked that he +was not shooting. He admitted the fact. Under the +circumstances, it would have taxed him to deny it, but the +necessity for confession aroused him.</p> +<p>“To myself,” he said, “a tramp through miles +of mud, in company with four gloomy men in black velveteen, a +couple of depressed-looking dogs, and a heavy gun, the entire +cavalcade being organised for the purpose of killing some +twelve-and-sixpence worth of poultry, suggests the +disproportionate.”</p> +<p>I laughed boisterously, and cried, “Good, +good—very good!”</p> +<p>He was the type of man that shudders inwardly at the sound of +laughter. I had the will to slap him on the back, but I +thought maybe that would send him away altogether.</p> +<p>I asked him if he hunted. He replied that fourteen +hours’ talk a day about horses, and only about horses tired +him, and that in consequence he had abandoned hunting.</p> +<p>“You fish?” I said.</p> +<p>“I was never sufficiently imaginative,” he +answered.</p> +<p>“You travel a good deal,” I suggested.</p> +<p>He had apparently made up his mind to abandon himself to his +fate, for he turned towards me with a resigned air. An +ancient nurse of mine had always described me as the most +“wearing” child she had ever come across. I +prefer to speak of myself as persevering.</p> +<p>“I should go about more,” he said, “were I +able to see any difference between one place and +another.”</p> +<p>“Tried Central Africa?” I inquired.</p> +<p>“Once or twice,” he answered. “It +always reminds me of Kew Gardens.”</p> +<p>“China?” I hazarded.</p> +<p>“Cross between a willow-pattern plate and a New York +slum,” was his comment.</p> +<p>“The North Pole?” I tried, thinking the third time +might be lucky.</p> +<p>“Never got quite up to it,” he returned. +“Reached Cape Hakluyt once.”</p> +<p>“How did that impress you?” I asked.</p> +<p>“It didn’t impress me,” he replied.</p> +<p>The talk drifted to women and bogus companies, dogs, +literature, and such-like matters. I found him well +informed upon and bored by all.</p> +<p>“They used to be amusing,” he said, speaking of +the first named, “until they began to take themselves +seriously. Now they are merely silly.”</p> +<p>I was forced into closer companionship with +“Blasé Billy” that autumn, for by chance a +month later he and I found ourselves the guests of the same +delightful hostess, and I came to liking him better. He was +a useful man to have about one. In matters of fashion one +could always feel safe following his lead. One knew that +his necktie, his collar, his socks, if not the very newest +departure, were always correct; and upon social paths, as guide, +philosopher, and friend, he was invaluable. He knew every +one, together with his or her previous convictions. He was +acquainted with every woman’s past, and shrewdly surmised +every man’s future. He could point you out the +coal-shed where the Countess of Glenleman had gambolled in her +days of innocence, and would take you to breakfast at the +coffee-shop off the Mile End Road where “Sam. Smith, Estd. +1820,” own brother to the world-famed society novelist, +Smith-Stratford, lived an uncriticised, unparagraphed, +unphotographed existence upon the profits of +“rashers” at three-ha’pence and +“door-steps” at two a penny. He knew at what +houses it was inadvisable to introduce soap, and at what tables +it would be bad form to denounce political jobbery. He +could tell you offhand what trade-mark went with what crest, and +remembered the price paid for every baronetcy created during the +last twenty-five years.</p> +<p>Regarding himself, he might have made claim with King Charles +never to have said a foolish thing, and never to have done a wise +one. He despised, or affected to despise, most of his +fellow-men, and those of his fellow-men whose opinion was most +worth having unaffectedly despised him.</p> +<p>Shortly described, one might have likened him to a Gaiety +Johnny with brains. He was capital company after dinner, +but in the early morning one avoided him.</p> +<p>So I thought of him until one day he fell in love; or to put +it in the words of Teddy Tidmarsh, who brought the news to us, +“got mashed on Gerty Lovell.”</p> +<p>“The red-haired one,” Teddy explained, to +distinguish her from her sister, who had lately adopted the newer +golden shade.</p> +<p>“Gerty Lovell!” exclaimed the captain, “why, +I’ve always been told the Lovell girls hadn’t a penny +among them.”</p> +<p>“The old man’s stone broke, I know for a +certainty,” volunteered Teddy, who picked up a mysterious +but, in other respects, satisfactory income in an office near +Hatton Garden, and who was candour itself concerning the private +affairs of everybody but himself.</p> +<p>“Oh, some rich pork-packing or diamond-sweating uncle +has cropped up in Australia, or America, or one of those +places,” suggested the captain, “and Billy’s +got wind of it in good time. Billy knows his way +about.”</p> +<p>We agreed that some such explanation was needed, though in all +other respects Gerty Lovell was just the girl that Reason (not +always consulted on these occasions) might herself have chosen +for “Blasé Billy’s” mate.</p> +<p>The sunlight was not too kind to her, but at evening parties, +where the lighting has been well considered, I have seen her look +quite girlish. At her best she was not beautiful, but at +her worst there was about her an air of breeding and distinction +that always saved her from being passed over, and she dressed to +perfection. In character she was the typical society woman: +always charming, generally insincere. She went to +Kensington for her religion and to Mayfair for her morals; +accepted her literature from Mudie’s and her art from the +Grosvenor Gallery; and could and would gabble philanthropy, +philosophy, and politics with equal fluency at every +five-o’clock tea-table she visited. Her ideas could +always be guaranteed as the very latest, and her opinion as that +of the person to whom she was talking. Asked by a famous +novelist one afternoon, at the Pioneer Club, to give him some +idea of her, little Mrs. Bund, the painter’s wife, had +remained for a few moments with her pretty lips pursed, and had +then said:</p> +<p>“She is a woman to whom life could bring nothing more +fully satisfying than a dinner invitation from a duchess, and +whose nature would be incapable of sustaining deeper suffering +than that caused by an ill-fitting costume.”</p> +<p>At the time I should have said the epigram was as true as it +was cruel, but I suppose we none of us quite know each other.</p> +<p>I congratulated “Blasé Billy,” or to drop +his Club nickname and give him the full benefit of his social +label, “The Hon. William Cecil Wychwood Stanley +Drayton,” on the occasion of our next meeting, which +happened upon the steps of the Savoy Restaurant, and I +thought—unless a quiver of the electric light deceived +me—that he blushed.</p> +<p>“Charming girl,” I said. “You’re +a lucky dog, Billy.”</p> +<p>It was the phrase that custom demands upon such occasions, and +it came of its own accord to my tongue without costing me the +trouble of composition, but he seized upon it as though it had +been a gem of friendly sincerity.</p> +<p>“You will like her even more when you know her +better,” he said. “She is so different from the +usual woman that one meets. Come and see her to-morrow +afternoon, she will be so pleased. Go about four, I will +tell her to expect you.”</p> +<p>I rang the bell at ten minutes past five. Billy was +there. She greeted me with a little tremor of +embarrassment, which sat oddly upon her, but which was not +altogether unpleasing. She said it was kind of me to come +so early. I stayed for about half an hour, but conversation +flagged, and some of my cleverest remarks attracted no attention +whatever.</p> +<p>When I rose to take my leave, Billy said that he must be off +too, and that he would accompany me. Had they been ordinary +lovers, I should have been careful to give them an opportunity of +making their adieus in secret; but in the case of the Honourable +William Drayton and the eldest Miss Lovell I concluded that such +tactics were needless, so I waited till he had shaken hands, and +went downstairs with him.</p> +<p>But in the hall Billy suddenly ejaculated, “By +Jove! Half a minute,” and ran back up the stairs +three at a time. Apparently he found what he had gone for +on the landing, for I did not hear the opening of the +drawing-room door. Then the Honourable Billy redescended +with a sober, nonchalent air.</p> +<p>“Left my gloves behind me,” he explained, as he +took my arm. “I am always leaving my gloves +about.”</p> +<p>I did not mention that I had seen him take them from his hat +and slip them into his coat-tail pocket.</p> +<p>We at the Club did not see very much of Billy during the next +three months, but the captain, who prided himself upon his +playing of the <i>rôle</i> of smoking-room +cynic—though he would have been better in the part had he +occasionally displayed a little originality—was of opinion +that our loss would be more than made up to us after the +marriage. Once in the twilight I caught sight of a figure +that reminded me of Billy’s, accompanied by a figure that +might have been that of the eldest Miss Lovell; but as the spot +was Battersea Park, which is not a fashionable evening promenade, +and the two figures were holding each other’s hands, the +whole picture being suggestive of the closing chapter of a +<i>London Journal</i> romance, I concluded I had made an +error.</p> +<p>But I did see them in the Adelphi stalls one evening, rapt in +a sentimental melodrama. I joined them between the acts, +and poked fun at the play, as one does at the Adelphi, but Miss +Lovell begged me quite earnestly not to spoil her interest, and +Billy wanted to enter upon a serious argument as to whether a man +was justified in behaving as Will Terriss had just behaved +towards the woman he loved. I left them and returned to my +own party, to the satisfaction, I am inclined to think, of all +concerned.</p> +<p>They married in due course. We were mistaken on one +point. She brought Billy nothing. But they both +seemed quite content on his not too extravagant fortune. +They took a tiny house not far from Victoria Station, and hired a +brougham for the season. They did not entertain very much, +but they contrived to be seen everywhere it was right and +fashionable they should be seen. The Honourable Mrs. +Drayton was a much younger and brighter person than had been the +eldest Miss Lovell, and as she continued to dress charmingly, her +social position rose rapidly. Billy went everywhere with +her, and evidently took a keen pride in her success. It was +even said that he designed her dresses for her, and I have myself +seen him earnestly studying the costumes in Russell and +Allen’s windows.</p> +<p>The captain’s prophecy remained unfulfilled. +“Blasé Billy”—if the name could still be +applied to him—hardly ever visited the Club after his +marriage. But I had grown to like him, and, as he had +foretold, to like his wife. I found their calm indifference +to the burning questions of the day a positive relief from the +strenuous atmosphere of literary and artistic circles. In +the drawing-room of their little house in Eaton Row, the +comparative merits of George Meredith and George R. Sims were not +considered worth discussion. Both were regarded as persons +who afforded a certain amount of amusement in return for a +certain amount of cash. And on any Wednesday afternoon, +Henrick Ibsen and Arthur Roberts would have been equally welcome, +as adding piquancy to the small gathering. Had I been +compelled to pass my life in such a house, this Philistine +attitude might have palled upon me; but, under the circumstances, +it refreshed me, and I made use of my welcome, which I believe +was genuine, to its full extent.</p> +<p>As months went by, they seemed to me to draw closer to one +another, though I am given to understand that such is not the +rule in fashionable circles. One evening I arrived a little +before my time, and was shown up into the drawing-room by the +soft-footed butler. They were sitting in the dusk with +their arms round one another. It was impossible to +withdraw, so I faced the situation and coughed. A pair of +middle-class lovers could not have appeared more awkward or +surprised.</p> +<p>But the incident established an understanding between us, and +I came to be regarded as a friend before whom there was less +necessity to act.</p> +<p>Studying them, I came to the conclusion that the ways and +manners of love are very same-like throughout the world, as +though the foolish boy, unheedful of human advance, kept but one +school for minor poet and East End shop-boy, for Girton girl and +little milliner; taught but the one lesson to the +end-of-the-nineteenth-century Johnny that he taught to bearded +Pict and Hun four thousand years ago.</p> +<p>Thus the summer and the winter passed pleasantly for the +Honourable Billy, and then, as luck would have it, he fell ill +just in the very middle of the London season, when invitations to +balls and dinner parties, luncheons and “At Homes,” +were pouring in from every quarter; when the lawns at Hurlingham +were at their smoothest, and the paddocks at their smartest.</p> +<p>It was unfortunate, too, that the fashions that season suited +the Honourable Mrs. Billy as they had not suited her for +years. In the early spring, she and Billy had been hard at +work planning costumes calculated to cause a flutter through +Mayfair, and the dresses and the bonnets—each one a work of +art—were waiting on their stands to do their killing +work. But the Honourable Mrs. Billy, for the first time in +her life, had lost interest in such things.</p> +<p>Their friends were genuinely sorry, for society was +Billy’s element, and in it he was interesting and +amusing. But, as Lady Gower said, there was no earthly need +for his wife to constitute herself a prisoner. Her shutting +herself off from the world could do him no good and it would look +odd.</p> +<p>Accordingly the Honourable Mrs. Drayton, to whom oddness was a +crime, and the voice of Lady Gower as the voice of duty, +sacrificed her inclinations on the social shrine, laced the new +costumes tight across her aching heart, and went down into +society.</p> +<p>But the Honourable Mrs. Drayton achieved not the success of +former seasons. Her small talk grew so very small, that +even Park Lane found it unsatisfying. Her famous laugh rang +mechanically. She smiled at the wisdom of dukes, and became +sad at the funny stories of millionaires. Society voted her +a good wife but bad company, and confined its attentions to cards +of inquiry. And for this relief the Honourable Mrs. Drayton +was grateful, for Billy waned weaker and weaker. In the +world of shadows in which she moved, he was the one real +thing. She was of very little practical use, but it +comforted her to think that she was helping to nurse him.</p> +<p>But Billy himself it troubled.</p> +<p>“I do wish you would go out more,” he would +say. “It makes me feel that I’m such a selfish +brute, keeping you tied up here in this dismal little +house. Besides,” he would add, “people miss +you; they will hate me for keeping you away.” For, +where his wife was concerned, Billy’s knowledge of the +world availed him little. He really thought society craved +for the Honourable Mrs. Drayton, and would not be comforted where +she was not.</p> +<p>“I would rather stop with you, dear,” would be the +answer; “I don’t care to go about by myself. +You must get well quickly and take me.”</p> +<p>And so the argument continued, until one evening, as she sat +by herself, the nurse entered softly, closed the door behind her, +and came over to her.</p> +<p>“I wish you would go out to-night, ma’am,” +said the nurse, “just for an hour or two. I think it +would please the master; he is worrying himself because he thinks +it is his fault that you do not; and just now”—the +woman hesitated for a moment—“just now I want to keep +him very quiet.”</p> +<p>“Is he weaker, nurse?”</p> +<p>“Well, he is not stronger, ma’am, and I +think—I think we must humour him.”</p> +<p>The Honourable Mrs. Drayton rose, and, crossing to the window, +stood for a while looking out.</p> +<p>“But where am I to go, nurse?” she said at length, +turning with a smile. “I’ve no invitations +anywhere.”</p> +<p>“Can’t you make believe to have one?” said +the nurse. “It is only seven o’clock. Say +you are going to a dinner-party; you can come home early +then. Go and dress yourself, and come down and say good-bye +to him, and then come in again about eleven, as though you had +just returned.”</p> +<p>“You think I must, nurse?”</p> +<p>“I think it would be better, ma’am. I wish +you would try it.”</p> +<p>The Honourable Mrs. Drayton went to the door, then paused.</p> +<p>“He has such sharp ears, nurse; he will listen for the +opening of the door and the sound of the carriage.”</p> +<p>“I will see to that,” said the nurse. +“I will tell them to have the carriage here at ten minutes +to eight. Then you can drive to the end of the street, slip +out, and walk back. I will let you in myself.”</p> +<p>“And about coming home?” asked the other +woman.</p> +<p>“You must slip out for a few minutes before eleven, and +the carriage must be waiting for you at the corner again. +Leave all that to me.”</p> +<p>In half an hour the Honourable Mrs. Drayton entered the +sick-room, radiant in evening dress and jewels. Fortunately +the lights were low, or “Blasé-Billy” might +have been doubtful as to the effect his wife was likely to +produce. For her face was not the face that one takes to +dinner-parties.</p> +<p>“Nurse tells me you are going to the Grevilles this +evening. I am so glad. I’ve been worrying +myself about you, moped up here right through the +season.”</p> +<p>He took her hands in his and held her out at arm’s +length from him.</p> +<p>“How handsome you look, dear!” he said. +“How they must have all been cursing me for keeping you +shut up here, like a princess in an ogre’s castle! I +shall never dare to face them again.”</p> +<p>She laughed, well pleased at his words.</p> +<p>“I shall not be late,” she said. “I +shall be so anxious to get back and see how my boy has +behaved. If you have not been good I shan’t go +again.”</p> +<p>They kissed and parted, and at eleven she returned to the +room. She told him what a delightful evening it had been, +and bragged a little of her own success.</p> +<p>The nurse told her that he had been more cheerful that evening +than for many nights.</p> +<p>So every day the farce was played for him. One day it +was to a luncheon that she went, in a costume by Redfern; the +next night to a ball, in a frock direct from Paris; again to an +“At Home,” or concert, or dinner-party. Loafers +and passers-by would stop to stare at a haggard, red-eyed woman, +dressed as for a drawing-room, slipping thief-like in and out of +her own door.</p> +<p>I heard them talking of her one afternoon, at a house where I +called, and I joined the group to listen.</p> +<p>“I always thought her heartless, but I gave her credit +for sense,” a woman was saying. “One +doesn’t expect a woman to be fond of her husband, but she +needn’t make a parade of ignoring him when he is +dying.”</p> +<p>I pleaded absence from town to inquire what was meant, and +from all lips I heard the same account. One had noticed her +carriage at the door two or three evenings in succession. +Another had seen her returning home. A third had seen her +coming out, and so on.</p> +<p>I could not fit the fact in with my knowledge of her, so the +next evening I called. The door was opened instantly by +herself.</p> +<p>“I saw you from the window,” she said. +“Come in here; don’t speak.”</p> +<p>I followed her, and she closed the door behind her. She +was dressed in a magnificent costume, her hair sparkling with +diamonds, and I looked my questions.</p> +<p>She laughed bitterly.</p> +<p>“I am supposed to be at the opera to-night,” she +explained. “Sit down, if you have a few minutes to +spare.”</p> +<p>I said it was for a talk that I had come; and there, in the +dark room, lighted only by the street lamp without, she told me +all. And at the end she dropped her head on her bare arms; +and I turned away and looked out of the window for a while.</p> +<p>“I feel so ridiculous,” she said, rising and +coming towards me. “I sit here all the evening +dressed like this. I’m afraid I don’t act my +part very well; but, fortunately, dear Billy never was much of a +judge of art, and it is good enough for him. I tell him the +most awful lies about what everybody has said to me, and what +I’ve said to everybody, and how my gowns were +admired. What do you think of this one?”</p> +<p>For answer I took the privilege of a friend.</p> +<p>“I’m glad you think well of me,” she +said. “Billy has such a high opinion of you. +You will hear some funny tales. I’m glad you +know.”</p> +<p>I had to leave London again, and Billy died before I +returned. I heard that she had to be fetched from a ball, +and was only just in time to touch his lips before they were +cold. But her friends excused her by saying that the end +had come very suddenly.</p> +<p>I called on her a little later, and before I left I hinted to +her what people were saying, and asked her if I had not better +tell them the truth.</p> +<p>“I would rather you didn’t,” she +answered. “It seems like making public the secret +side of one’s life.”</p> +<p>“But,” I urged, “they will +think—”</p> +<p>She interrupted me.</p> +<p>“Does it matter very much what they think?”</p> +<p>Which struck me as a very remarkable sentiment, coming from +the Hon. Mrs. Drayton, <i>née</i> the elder Miss +Lovell.</p> +<h2>THE CHOICE OF CYRIL HARJOHN</h2> +<p>Between a junior resident master of twenty-one, and a backward +lad of fifteen, there yawns an impassable gulf. Between a +struggling journalist of one-and-thirty, and an M.D. of +twenty-five, with a brilliant record behind him, and a career of +exceptional promise before him, a close friendship is however +permissible.</p> +<p>My introduction to Cyril Harjohn was through the Rev. Charles +Fauerberg.</p> +<p>“Our young friend,” said the Rev. Mr. Fauerberg, +standing in the most approved tutorial attitude, with his hand +upon his pupil’s shoulder, “our young friend has been +somewhat neglected, but I see in him possibilities warranting +hope—warranting, I may say, very great hope. For the +present he will be under my especial care, and you will not +therefore concern yourself with his studies. He will sleep +with Milling and the others in dormitory number two.”</p> +<p>The lad formed a liking for me, and I think, and hope, I +rendered his sojourn at “Alpha House” less irksome +than otherwise it might have been. The Reverend +Charles’ method with the backward was on all fours with +that adopted for the bringing on of geese; he cooped them up and +crammed them. The process is profitable to the trainer, but +painful to the goose.</p> +<p>Young Harjohn and myself left “Alpha House” at the +end of the same term; he bound for Brasenose, I for +Bloomsbury. He made a point of never coming up to London +without calling on me, when we would dine together in one of +Soho’s many dingy, garlic-scented restaurants, and +afterwards, over our bottle of cheap Beaune, discuss the coming +of our lives; and when he entered Guy’s I left John Street, +and took chambers close to his in Staple Inn. Those were +pleasant days. Childhood is an over-rated period, fuller of +sorrow than of joy. I would not take my childhood back, +were it a gift, but I would give the rest of my life to live the +twenties over again.</p> +<p>To Cyril I was the man of the world, and he looked to me for +wisdom, not seeing always, I fear, that he got it; while from him +I gathered enthusiasm, and learnt the profit that comes to a man +from the keeping of ideals.</p> +<p>Often as we have talked, I have felt as though a visible light +came from him, framing his face as with the halo of some pictured +saint. Nature had wasted him, putting him into this +nineteenth century of ours. Her victories are +accomplished. Her army of heroes, the few sung, the many +forgotten, is disbanded. The long peace won by their blood +and pain is settled on the land. She had fashioned Cyril +Harjohn for one of her soldiers. He would have been a +martyr, in the days when thought led to the stake, a fighter for +the truth, when to speak one’s mind meant death. To +lead some forlorn hope for Civilisation would have been his true +work; Fate had condemned him to sentry duty in a well-ordered +barrack.</p> +<p>But there is work to be done in the world, though the labour +lies now in the vineyard, not on the battlefield. A small +but sufficient fortune purchased for him freedom. To most +men an assured income is the grave of ambition; to Cyril it was +the foundation of desire. Relieved from the necessity of +working to live, he could afford the luxury of living to +work. His profession was to him a passion; he regarded it, +not with the cold curiosity of the scholar, but with the +imaginative devotion of the disciple. To help to push its +frontiers forward, to carry its flag farther into the untravelled +desert that ever lies beyond the moving boundary of human +knowledge, was his dream.</p> +<p>One summer evening, I remember, we were sitting in his rooms, +and during a silence there came to us through the open window the +moaning of the city, as of a tired child. He rose and +stretched his arms out towards the darkening streets, as if he +would gather to him all the toiling men and women and comfort +them.</p> +<p>“Oh, that I could help you!” he cried, “my +brothers and my sisters. Take my life, oh God, and spend it +for me among your people.”</p> +<p>The speech sounds theatrical, as I read it, written down, but +to the young such words are not ridiculous, as to us older +men.</p> +<p>In the natural order of events, he fell in love, and with just +the woman one would expect him to be attracted by. Elspeth +Grant was of the type from which the world, by instinct rather +than by convention, has drawn its Madonnas and its saints. +To describe a woman in words is impossible. Her beauty was +not a possession to be catalogued, but herself. One felt it +as one feels the beauty of a summer’s dawn breaking the +shadows of a sleeping city, but one cannot set it down. I +often met her, and, when talking to her, I knew myself—I, +hack-journalist, frequenter of Fleet Street bars, retailer of +smoke-room stories—a great gentleman, incapable of +meanness, fit for all noble deeds.</p> +<p>In her presence life became a thing beautiful and gracious; a +school for courtesy, and tenderness, and simplicity.</p> +<p>I have wondered since, coming to see a little more clearly +into the ways of men, whether it would not have been better had +she been less spiritual, had her nature possessed a greater alloy +of earth, making it more fit for the uses of this work-a-day +world. But at the time, these two friends of mine seemed to +me to have been created for one another.</p> +<p>She appealed to all that was highest in Cyril’s +character, and he worshipped her with an unconcealed adoration +that, from any man less high-minded, would have appeared +affectation, and which she accepted with the sweet content that +Artemis might have accorded to the homage of Endymion.</p> +<p>There was no formal engagement between them. Cyril +seemed to shrink from the materialising of his love by any +thought of marriage. To him she was an ideal of womanhood +rather than a flesh-and-blood woman. His love for her was a +religion; it had no taint of earthly passion in its +composition.</p> +<p>Had I known the world better I might have anticipated the +result; for the red blood ran in my friend’s veins; and, +alas, we dream our poems, not live them. But at the time, +the idea of any other woman coming between them would have +appeared to me folly. The suggestion that that other woman +might be Geraldine Fawley I should have resented as an insult to +my intelligence: that is the point of the story I do not +understand to this day.</p> +<p>That he should be attracted by her, that he should love to +linger near her, watching the dark flush come and go across her +face, seeking to call the fire into her dark eyes was another +matter, and quite comprehensible; for the girl was wonderfully +handsome, with a bold, voluptuous beauty which invited while it +dared. But considered in any other light than that of an +animal, she repelled. At times when, for her ends, it +seemed worth the exertion, she would assume a certain wayward +sweetness, but her acting was always clumsy and exaggerated, +capable of deceiving no one but a fool.</p> +<p>Cyril, at all events, was not taken in by it. One +evening, at a Bohemian gathering, the <i>entrée</i> to +which was notoriety rather than character, they had been talking +together for some considerable time when, wishing to speak to +Cyril, I strolled up to join them. As I came towards them +she moved away, her dislike for me being equal to mine for her; a +thing which was, perhaps, well for me.</p> +<p>“Miss Fawley prefers two as company to three,” I +observed, looking after her retreating figure.</p> +<p>“I am afraid she finds you what we should call an +anti-sympathetic element,” he replied, laughing.</p> +<p>“Do you like her?” I asked him, somewhat +bluntly.</p> +<p>His eyes rested upon her as she stood in the doorway, talking +to a small, black-bearded man who had just been introduced to +her. After a few moments she went out upon his arm, and +then Cyril turned to me.</p> +<p>“I think her,” he replied, speaking, as was +necessary, very low, “the embodiment of all that is evil in +womanhood. In old days she would have been a Cleopatra, a +Theodora, a Delilah. To-day, lacking opportunity, she is +the ‘smart woman’ grubbing for an opening into +society—and old Fawley’s daughter. I’m +tired; let us go home.”</p> +<p>His allusion to her parentage was significant. Few +people thought of connecting clever, handsome Geraldine Fawley +with “Rogue Fawley,” Jew renegade, ex-gaol bird, and +outside broker; who, having expectations from his daughter, took +care not to hamper her by ever being seen in her company. +But no one who had once met the father could ever forget the +relationship while talking to the daughter. The older face, +with its cruelty, its cunning, and its greed stood reproduced, +feature for feature, line for line. It was as though +Nature, for an artistic freak, had set herself the task of +fashioning hideousness and beauty from precisely the same +materials. Between the leer of the man and the smile of the +girl, where lay the difference? It would have puzzled any +student of anatomy to point it out. Yet the one sickened, +while to gain the other most men would have given much.</p> +<p>Cyril’s answer to my question satisfied me for the +time. He met the girl often, as was natural. She was +a singer of some repute, and our social circle was what is +commonly called “literary and artistic.” To do +her justice, however, she made no attempt to fascinate him, nor +even to be particularly agreeable to him. Indeed, she +seemed to be at pains to show him her natural—in other +words, her most objectionable side.</p> +<p>Coming out of the theatre one first night, we met her in the +lobby. I was following Cyril at some little distance, but +as he stopped to speak to her the movement of the crowd placed me +just behind them.</p> +<p>“Will you be at Leightons’ to-morrow?” I +heard him ask her in a low tone.</p> +<p>“Yes,” she answered, “and I wish you +wouldn’t come.”</p> +<p>“Why not?”</p> +<p>“Because you’re a fool, and you bore +me.”</p> +<p>Under ordinary circumstances I should have taken the speech +for badinage—it was the kind of wit the woman would have +indulged in. But Cyril’s face clouded with anger and +vexation. I said nothing. I did not wish him to know +that I had overheard. I tried to believe that he was +amusing himself, but my own explanation did not satisfy me.</p> +<p>Next evening I went to Leightons’ by myself. The +Grants were in town, and Cyril was dining with them. I +found I did not know many people, and cared little for those I +did. I was about to escape when Miss Fawley’s name +was announced. I was close to the door, and she had to stop +and speak to me. We exchanged a few commonplaces. She +either made love to a man or was rude to him. She generally +talked to me without looking at me, nodding and smiling meanwhile +to people around. I have met many women equally +ill-mannered, and without her excuse. For a moment, +however, she turned her eyes to mine.</p> +<p>“Where’s your friend, Mr. Harjohn?” she +asked. “I thought you were inseparables.”</p> +<p>I looked at her in astonishment.</p> +<p>“He is dining out to-night,” I replied. +“I do not think he will come.”</p> +<p>She laughed. I think it was the worst part about the +woman, her laugh; it suggested so much cruelty.</p> +<p>“I think he will,” she said.</p> +<p>It angered me into an indiscretion. She was moving +away. I stepped in front of her and stopped her.</p> +<p>“What makes you think so?” I asked, and my voice, +I know, betrayed the anxiety I felt as to her reply. She +looked me straight in the face. There was one virtue she +possessed—the virtue that animals hold above +mankind—truthfulness. She knew I disliked +her—hate would be, perhaps, a more exact expression, did +not the word sound out of date, and she made no pretence of not +knowing it and returning the compliment.</p> +<p>“Because I am here,” she answered. +“Why don’t you save him? Have you no influence +over him? Tell the Saint to keep him; I don’t want +him. You heard what I said to him last night. I shall +only marry him for the sake of his position, and the money he can +earn if he likes to work and not play the fool. Tell him +what I have said; I shan’t deny it.”</p> +<p>She passed on to greet a decrepit old lord with a languishing +smile, and I stood staring after her with, I fear, a somewhat +stupid expression, until some young fool came up grinning, to ask +me whether I had seen a ghost or backed a “wrong +’un.”</p> +<p>There was no need to wait; I felt no curiosity. +Something told me the woman had spoken the truth. It was +mere want of motive that made me linger. I saw him come in, +and watched him hanging round her, like a dog, waiting for a kind +word, or failing that, a look. I knew she saw me, and I +knew it added to her zest that I was there. Not till we +were in the street did I speak to him. He started as I +touched him. We were neither of us good actors. He +must have read much in my face, and I saw that he had read it; +and we walked side by side in silence, I thinking what to say, +wondering whether I should do good or harm, wishing that we were +anywhere but in these silent, life-packed streets, so filled with +the unseen. It was not until we had nearly reached the +Albert Hall that we broke the silence. Then it was he who +spoke:</p> +<p>“Do you think I haven’t told myself all +that?” he said. “Do you think I don’t +know I’m a damned fool, a cad, a liar! What the +devil’s the good of talking about it?”</p> +<p>“But I can’t understand it,” I said.</p> +<p>“No,” he replied, “because you’re a +fool, because you have only seen one side of me. You think +me a grand gentleman, because I talk big, and am full of noble +sentiment. Why, you idiot, the Devil himself could take you +in. <i>He</i> has his fine moods, I suppose, talks like a +saint, and says his prayers with the rest of us. Do you +remember the first night at old Fauerberg’s? You +poked your silly head into the dormitory, and saw me kneeling by +the bedside, while the other fellows stood by grinning. You +closed the door softly—you thought I never saw you. I +was not praying, I was trying to pray.”</p> +<p>“It showed that you had pluck, if it showed nothing +else,” I answered. “Most boys would not have +tried, and you kept it up.”</p> +<p>“Ah, yes,” he answered, “I promised the +Mater I would, and I did. Poor old soul, she was as big a +fool as you are. She believed in me. Don’t you +remember, finding me one Saturday afternoon all alone, stuffing +myself with cake and jam?”</p> +<p>I laughed at the recollection, though Heaven knows I was in no +laughing mood. I had found him with an array of pastry +spread out before him, sufficient to make him ill for a week, and +I had boxed his ears, and had thrown the whole collection into +the road.</p> +<p>“The Mater gave me half-a-crown a week for +pocket-money,” he continued, “and I told the fellows +I had only a shilling, so that I could gorge myself with the +other eighteenpence undisturbed. Pah! I was a little +beast even in those days!”</p> +<p>“It was only a schoolboy trick,” I argued, +“it was natural enough.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” he answered, “and this is only a +man’s trick, and is natural enough; but it is going to ruin +my life, to turn me into a beast instead of a man. Good +God! do you think I don’t know what that woman will do for +me? She will drag me down, down, down, to her own +level. All my ideals, all my ambition, all my life’s +work will be bartered for a smug practice, among paying +patients. I shall scheme and plot to make a big income that +we may live like a couple of plump animals, that we may dress +ourselves gaudily and parade our wealth. Nothing will +satisfy her. Such women are leeches; their only cry is +‘give, give, give.’ So long as I can supply her +with money she will tolerate me, and to get it for her I shall +sell my heart, and my brain, and my soul. She will load +herself with jewels, and go about from house to house, half +naked, to leer at every man she comes across: that is +‘life’ to such women. And I shall trot behind +her, the laughing stock of every fool, the contempt of every +man.”</p> +<p>His vehemence made any words I could say sound weak before +they were uttered. What argument could I show stronger than +that he had already put before himself? I knew his answer +to everything I could urge.</p> +<p>My mistake had been in imagining him different from other +men. I began to see that he was like the rest of us: part +angel, part devil. But the new point he revealed to me was +that the higher the one, the lower the other. It seems as +if nature must balance her work; the nearer the leaves to heaven, +the deeper the roots striking down into the darkness. I +knew that his passion for this woman made no change in his truer +love. The one was a spiritual, the other a mere animal +passion. The memory of incidents that had puzzled me came +back to enlighten me. I remembered how often on nights when +I had sat up late, working, I had heard his steps pass my door, +heavy and uncertain; how once in a dingy quarter of London, I had +met one who had strangely resembled him. I had followed him +to speak, but the man’s bleared eyes had stared angrily at +me, and I had turned away, calling myself a fool for my +mistake. But as I looked at the face beside me now, I +understood.</p> +<p>And then there rose up before my eyes the face I knew better, +the eager noble face that to merely look upon had been +good. We had reached a small, evil-smelling street, leading +from Leicester Square towards Holborn. I caught him by the +shoulders and turned him round with his back against some church +railings. I forget what I said. We are strange +mixtures. I thought of the shy, backward boy I had coached +and bullied at old Fauerberg’s, of the laughing handsome +lad I had watched grow into manhood. The very restaurant we +had most frequented in his old Oxford days—where we had +poured out our souls to one another, was in this very street +where we were standing. For the moment I felt towards him +as perhaps his mother might have felt; I wanted to scold him and +to cry with him; to shake him and to put my arms about him. +I pleaded with him, and urged him, and called him every name I +could put my tongue to. It must have seemed an odd +conversation. A passing policeman, making a not unnatural +mistake, turned his bull’s-eye upon us, and advised us +sternly to go home. We laughed, and with that laugh Cyril +came back to his own self, and we walked on to Staple Inn more +soberly. He promised me to go away by the very first train +the next morning, and to travel for some four or five months, and +I undertook to make all the necessary explanations for him.</p> +<p>We both felt better for our talk, and when I wished him +good-night at his door, it was the real Cyril Harjohn whose hand +I gripped—the real Cyril, because the best that is in a man +is his real self. If there be any future for man beyond +this world, it is the good that is in him that will live. +The other side of him is of the earth; it is that he will leave +behind him.</p> +<p>He kept his word. In the morning he was gone, and I +never saw him again. I had many letters from him, hopeful +at first, full of strong resolves. He told me he had +written to Elspeth, not telling her everything, for that she +would not understand, but so much as would explain; and from her +he had had sweet womanly letters in reply. I feared she +might have been cold and unsympathetic, for often good women, +untouched by temptation themselves, have small tenderness for +those who struggle. But her goodness was something more +than a mere passive quantity; she loved him the better because he +had need of her. I believe she would have saved him from +himself, had not fate interfered and taken the matter out of her +hands. Women are capable of big sacrifices; I think this +woman would have been content to lower herself, if by so doing +she could have raised him.</p> +<p>But it was not to be. From India he wrote to me that he +was coming home. I had not met the Fawley woman for some +time, and she had gone out of my mind until one day, chancing +upon a theatrical paper, some weeks old, I read that “Miss +Fawley had sailed for Calcutta to fulfil an engagement of long +standing.”</p> +<p>I had his last letter in my pocket. I sat down and +worked out the question of date. She would arrive in +Calcutta the day before he left. Whether it was chance or +intention on her part I never knew; as likely as not the former, +for there is a fatalism in this world shaping our ends.</p> +<p>I heard no more from him, I hardly expected to do so, but +three months later a mutual acquaintance stopped me on the Club +steps.</p> +<p>“Have you heard the news,” he said, “about +young Harjohn?”</p> +<p>“No,” I replied. “Is he +married?”</p> +<p>“Married,” he answered, “No, poor devil, +he’s dead!”</p> +<p>“Thank God,” was on my lips, but fortunately I +checked myself. “How did it happen?” I +asked.</p> +<p>“At a shooting party, up at some Rajah’s +place. Must have caught his gun in some brambles, I +suppose. The bullet went clean through his head.”</p> +<p>“Dear me,” I said, “how very +sad!” I could think of nothing else to say at the +moment.</p> +<h2>THE MATERIALISATION OF CHARLES AND MIVANWAY</h2> +<p>The fault that most people will find with this story is that +it is unconvincing. Its scheme is improbable, its +atmosphere artificial. To confess that the thing really +happened—not as I am about to set it down, for the pen of +the professional writer cannot but adorn and embroider, even to +the detriment of his material—is, I am well aware, only an +aggravation of my offence, for the facts of life are the +impossibilities of fiction. A truer artist would have left +this story alone, or at most have kept it for the irritation of +his private circle. My lower instinct is to make use of +it. A very old man told me the tale. He was landlord +of the Cromlech Arms, the only inn of a small, rock-sheltered +village on the north-east coast of Cornwall, and had been so for +nine and forty years. It is called the Cromlech Hotel now, +and is under new management, and during the season some four +coach-loads of tourists sit down each day to <i>table +d’hôte</i> lunch in the low-ceilinged parlour. +But I am speaking of years ago, when the place was a mere fishing +harbour, undiscovered by the guide books.</p> +<p>The old landlord talked, and I hearkened the while we both sat +drinking thin ale from earthenware mugs, late one summer’s +evening, on the bench that runs along the wall just beneath the +latticed windows. And during the many pauses, when the old +landlord stopped to puff his pipe in silence, and lay in a new +stock of breath, there came to us the murmuring voices of the +Atlantic; and often, mingled with the pompous roar of the big +breakers farther out, we would hear the rippling laugh of some +small wave that, maybe, had crept in to listen to the tale the +landlord told.</p> +<p>The mistake that Charles Seabohn, junior partner of the firm +of Seabohn & Son, civil engineers of London and +Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Mivanway Evans, youngest daughter of the +Rev. Thomas Evans, Pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Bristol, +made originally, was marrying too young. Charles Seabohn +could hardly have been twenty years of age, and Mivanway could +have been little more than seventeen, when they first met upon +the cliffs, two miles beyond the Cromlech Arms. Young +Charles Seabohn, coming across the village in the course of a +walking tour, had decided to spend a day or two exploring the +picturesque coast, and Mivanway’s father had hired that +year a neighbouring farmhouse wherein to spend his summer +vacation.</p> +<p>Early one morning—for at twenty one is virtuous, and +takes exercise before breakfast—as young Charles Seabohn +lay upon the cliffs, watching the white waters coming and going +upon the black rocks below, he became aware of a form rising from +the waves. The figure was too far off for him to see it +clearly, but judging from the costume, it was a female figure, +and promptly the mind of Charles, poetically inclined, turned to +thoughts of Venus—or Aphrodite, as he, being a gentleman of +delicate taste would have preferred to term her. He saw the +figure disappear behind a head-land, but still waited. In +about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour it reappeared, clothed +in the garments of the eighteen-sixties, and came towards +him. Hidden from sight himself behind a group of rocks, he +could watch it at his leisure, ascending the steep path from the +beach, and an exceedingly sweet and dainty figure it would have +appeared, even to eyes less susceptible than those of +twenty. Sea-water—I stand open to correction—is +not, I believe, considered anything of a substitute for curling +tongs, but to the hair of the youngest Miss Evans it had given an +additional and most fascinating wave. Nature’s red +and white had been most cunningly laid on, and the large childish +eyes seemed to be searching the world for laughter, with which to +feed a pair of delicious, pouting lips. Charles’s +upturned face, petrified into admiration, was just the sort of +thing for which they were on the look-out. A startled +“Oh!” came from the slightly parted lips, followed by +the merriest of laughs, which in its turn was suddenly stopped by +a deep blush. Then the youngest Miss Evans looked offended, +as though the whole affair had been Charles’s fault, which +is the way of women. And Charles, feeling himself guilty +under that stern gaze of indignation, rose awkwardly and +apologised meekly, whether for being on the cliffs at all or for +having got up too early, he would have been unable to +explain.</p> +<p>The youngest Miss Evans graciously accepted the apology thus +tendered with a bow, and passed on, and Charles stood staring +after her till the valley gathered her into its spreading arms +and hid her from his view.</p> +<p>That was the beginning of all things. I am speaking of +the Universe as viewed from the standpoint of Charles and +Mivanway.</p> +<p>Six months later they were man and wife, or perhaps it would +be more correct to say boy and wifelet. Seabohn senior +counselled delay, but was overruled by the impatience of his +junior partner. The Reverend Mr. Evans, in common with most +theologians, possessed a goodly supply of unmarried daughters, +and a limited income. Personally he saw no necessity for +postponement of the marriage.</p> +<p>The month’s honeymoon was spent in the New Forest. +That was a mistake to begin with. The New Forest in +February is depressing, and they had chosen the loneliest spot +they could find. A fortnight in Paris or Rome would have +been more helpful. As yet they had nothing to talk about +except love, and that they had been talking and writing about +steadily all through the winter. On the tenth morning +Charles yawned, and Mivanway had a quiet half-hour’s cry +about it in her own room. On the sixteenth evening, +Mivanway, feeling irritable, and wondering why (as though fifteen +damp, chilly days in the New Forest were not sufficient to make +any woman irritable), requested Charles not to disarrange her +hair; and Charles, speechless with astonishment, went out into +the garden, and swore before all the stars that he would never +caress Mivanway’s hair again as long as he lived.</p> +<p>One supreme folly they had conspired to commit, even before +the commencement of the honeymoon. Charles, after the +manner of very young lovers, had earnestly requested Mivanway to +impose upon him some task. He desired to do something great +and noble to show his devotion. Dragons was the thing he +had in mind, though he may not have been aware of it. +Dragons also, no doubt, flitted through Mivanway’s brain, +but unfortunately for lovers the supply of dragons has +lapsed. Mivanway, liking the conceit, however, thought over +it, and then decided that Charles must give up smoking. She +had discussed the matter with her favourite sister, and that was +the only thing the girls could think of. Charles’s +face fell. He suggested some more Herculean labour, some +sacrifice more worthy to lay at Mivanway’s feet. But +Mivanway had spoken. She might think of some other task, +but the smoking prohibition would, in any case, remain. She +dismissed the subject with a pretty <i>hauteur</i> that would +have graced Marie Antoinette.</p> +<p>Thus tobacco, the good angel of all men, no longer came each +day to teach Charles patience and amiability, and he fell into +the ways of short temper and selfishness.</p> +<p>They took up their residence in a suburb of Newcastle, and +this was also unfortunate for them, because there the society was +scanty and middle-aged; and, in consequence, they had still to +depend much upon their own resources. They knew little of +life, less of each other, and nothing at all of themselves. +Of course they quarrelled, and each quarrel left the wound a +little more raw. No kindly, experienced friend was at hand +to laugh at them. Mivanway would write down all her sorrows +in a bulky diary, which made her feel worse; so that before she +had written for ten minutes her pretty, unwise head would drop +upon her dimpled arm, and the book—the proper place for +which was behind the fire—would become damp with her tears; +and Charles, his day’s work done and the clerks gone, would +linger in his dingy office and hatch trifles into troubles.</p> +<p>The end came one evening after dinner, when, in the heat of a +silly squabble, Charles boxed Mivanway’s ears. That +was very ungentlemanly conduct, and he was heartily ashamed of +himself the moment he had done it, which was right and proper for +him to be. The only excuse to be urged on his behalf is +that girls sufficiently pretty to have been spoilt from childhood +by everyone about them can at times be intensely +irritating. Mivanway rushed up to her room, and locked +herself in. Charles flew after her to apologise, but only +arrived in time to have the door slammed in his face.</p> +<p>It had only been the merest touch. A boy’s muscles +move quicker than his thoughts. But to Mivanway it was a +blow. This was what it had come to! This was the end +of a man’s love!</p> +<p>She spent half the night writing in the precious diary, with +the result that in the morning she came down feeling more bitter +than she had gone up. Charles had walked the streets of +Newcastle all night, and that had not done him any good. He +met her with an apology combined with an excuse, which was bad +tactics. Mivanway, of course, fastened upon the excuse, and +the quarrel recommenced. She mentioned that she hated him; +he hinted that she had never loved him, and she retorted that he +had never loved her. Had there been anybody by to knock +their heads together and suggest breakfast, the thing might have +blown over, but the combined effect of a sleepless night and an +empty stomach upon each proved disastrous. Their words came +poisoned from their brains, and each believed they meant what +they said. That afternoon Charles sailed from Hull, on a +ship bound for the Cape, and that evening Mivanway arrived at the +paternal home in Bristol with two trunks and the curt information +that she and Charles had separated for ever. The next +morning both thought of a soft speech to say to the other, but +the next morning was just twenty-four hours too late.</p> +<p>Eight days afterwards Charles’s ship was run down in a +fog, near the coast of Portugal, and every soul on board was +supposed to have perished. Mivanway read his name among the +list of lost; the child died within her, and she knew herself for +a woman who had loved deeply, and will not love again.</p> +<p>Good luck intervening, however, Charles and one other man were +rescued by a small trading vessel, and landed in Algiers. +There Charles learnt of his supposed death, and the idea occurred +to him to leave the report uncontradicted. For one thing, +it solved a problem that had been troubling him. He could +trust his father to see to it that his own small fortune, with +possibly something added, was handed over to Mivanway, and she +would be free if she wished to marry again. He was +convinced that she did not care for him, and that she had read of +his death with a sense of relief. He would make a new life +for himself, and forget her.</p> +<p>He continued his journey to the Cape, and once there he soon +gained for himself an excellent position. The colony was +young, engineers were welcome, and Charles knew his +business. He found the life interesting and exciting. +The rough, dangerous up-country work suited him, and the time +passed swiftly.</p> +<p>But in thinking he would forget Mivanway, he had not taken +into consideration his own character, which at bottom was a very +gentlemanly character. Out on the lonely veldt he found +himself dreaming of her. The memory of her pretty face and +merry laugh came back to him at all hours. Occasionally he +would curse her roundly, but that only meant that he was sore +because of the thought of her; what he was really cursing was +himself and his own folly. Softened by the distance, her +quick temper, her very petulance became mere added graces; and if +we consider women as human beings and not as angels, it was +certainly a fact that he had lost a very sweet and lovable +woman. Ah! if she only were by his side now—now that +he was a man capable of appreciating her, and not a foolish, +selfish boy. This thought would come to him as he sat +smoking at the door of his tent, and then he would regret that +the stars looking down upon him were not the same stars that were +watching her, it would have made him feel nearer to her. +For, though young people may not credit it, one grows more +sentimental as one grows older; at least, some of us do, and they +perhaps not the least wise.</p> +<p>One night he had a vivid dream of her. She came to him +and held out her hand, and he took it, and they said good-bye to +one another. They were standing on the cliff where he had +first met her, and one of them was going upon a long journey, +though he was not sure which.</p> +<p>In the towns men laugh at dreams, but away from civilisation +we listen more readily to the strange tales that Nature whispers +to us. Charles Seabohn recollected this dream when he awoke +in the morning.</p> +<p>“She is dying,” he said, “and she has come +to wish me good-bye.”</p> +<p>He made up his mind to return to England at once; perhaps if +he made haste he would be in time to kiss her. But he could +not start that day, for work was to be done; and Charles Seabohn, +lover though he still was, had grown to be a man, and knew that +work must not be neglected even though the heart may be +calling. So for a day or two he stayed, and on the third +night he dreamed of Mivanway again, and this time she lay within +the little chapel at Bristol where, on Sunday mornings, he had +often sat with her. He heard her father’s voice +reading the burial service over her, and the sister she had loved +best was sitting beside him, crying softly. Then Charles +knew that there was no need for him to hasten. So he +remained to finish his work. That done, he would return to +England. He would like again to stand upon the cliffs, +above the little Cornish village, where they had first met.</p> +<p>Thus a few months later Charles Seabohn, or Charles Denning, +as he called himself, aged and bronzed, not easily recognisable +by those who had not known him well, walked into the Cromlech +Arms, as six years before he had walked in with his knapsack on +his back, and asked for a room, saying he would be stopping in +the village for a short while.</p> +<p>In the evening he strolled out and made his way to the +cliffs. It was twilight when he reached the place of rocks +to which the fancy-loving Cornish folk had given the name of the +Witches’ Cauldron. It was from this spot that he had +first watched Mivanway coming to him from the sea.</p> +<p>He took the pipe from his mouth, and leaning against a rock, +whose rugged outline seemed fashioned into the face of an old +friend, gazed down the narrow pathway now growing indistinct in +the dim light. And as he gazed the figure of Mivanway came +slowly up the pathway from the sea, and paused before him.</p> +<p>He felt no fear. He had half expected it. Her +coming was the complement of his dreams. She looked older +and graver than he remembered her, but for that the face was the +sweeter.</p> +<p>He wondered if she would speak to him, but she only looked at +him with sad eyes; and he stood there in the shadow of the rocks +without moving, and she passed on into the twilight.</p> +<p>Had he on his return cared to discuss the subject with his +landlord, had he even shown himself a ready listener—for +the old man loved to gossip—he might have learnt that a +young widow lady named Mrs. Charles Seabohn, accompanied by an +unmarried sister, had lately come to reside in the neighbourhood, +having, upon the death of a former tenant, taken the lease of a +small farmhouse sheltered in the valley a mile beyond the +village, and that her favourite evening’s walk was to the +sea and back by the steep footway leading past the Witches’ +Cauldron.</p> +<p>Had he followed the figure of Mivanway into the valley, he +would have known that out of sight of the Witches’ Cauldron +it took to running fast till it reached a welcome door, and fell +panting into the arms of another figure that had hastened out to +meet it.</p> +<p>“My dear,” said the elder woman, “you are +trembling like a leaf. What has happened?”</p> +<p>“I have seen him,” answered Mivanway.</p> +<p>“Seen whom?”</p> +<p>“Charles.”</p> +<p>“Charles!” repeated the other, looking at Mivanway +as though she thought her mad.</p> +<p>“His spirit, I mean,” explained Mivanway, in an +awed voice. “It was standing in the shadow of the +rocks, in the exact spot where we first met. It looked +older and more careworn; but, oh! Margaret, so sad and +reproachful.”</p> +<p>“My dear,” said her sister, leading her in, +“you are overwrought. I wish we had never come back +to this house.”</p> +<p>“Oh! I was not frightened,” answered +Mivanway, “I have been expecting it every evening. I +am so glad it came. Perhaps it will come again, and I can +ask it to forgive me.”</p> +<p>So next night Mivanway, though much against her sister’s +wishes and advice, persisted in her usual walk, and Charles at +the same twilight hour started from the inn.</p> +<p>Again Mivanway saw him standing in the shadow of the +rocks. Charles had made up his mind that if the thing +happened again he would speak, but when the silent figure of +Mivanway, clothed in the fading light, stopped and gazed at him, +his will failed him.</p> +<p>That it was the spirit of Mivanway standing before him he had +not the faintest doubt. One may dismiss other +people’s ghosts as the phantasies of a weak brain, but one +knows one’s own to be realities, and Charles for the last +five years had mingled with a people whose dead dwell about +them. Once, drawing his courage around him, he made to +speak, but as he did so the figure of Mivanway shrank from him, +and only a sigh escaped his lips, and hearing that the figure of +Mivanway turned and again passed down the path into the valley, +leaving Charles gazing after it.</p> +<p>But the third night both arrived at the trysting spot with +determination screwed up to the sticking point.</p> +<p>Charles was the first to speak. As the figure of +Mivanway came towards him, with its eyes fixed sadly on him, he +moved from the shadow of the rocks, and stood before it.</p> +<p>“Mivanway!” he said.</p> +<p>“Charles!” replied the figure of Mivanway. +Both spoke in an awed whisper suitable to the circumstances, and +each stood gazing sorrowfully upon the other.</p> +<p>“Are you happy?” asked Mivanway.</p> +<p>The question strikes one as somewhat farcical, but it must be +remembered that Mivanway was the daughter of a Gospeller of the +old school, and had been brought up to beliefs that were not then +out of date.</p> +<p>“As happy as I deserve to be,” was the sad reply, +and the answer—the inference was not complimentary to +Charles’s deserts—struck a chill to Mivanway’s +heart.</p> +<p>“How could I be happy having lost you?” went on +the voice of Charles.</p> +<p>Now this speech fell very pleasantly upon Mivanway’s +ears. In the first place it relieved her of her despair +regarding Charles’s future. No doubt his present +suffering was keen, but there was hope for him. Secondly, +it was a decidedly “pretty” speech for a ghost, and I +am not at all sure that Mivanway was the kind of woman to be +averse to a little mild flirtation with the spirit of +Charles.</p> +<p>“Can you forgive me?” asked Mivanway.</p> +<p>“Forgive <i>you</i>!” replied Charles, in a tone +of awed astonishment. “Can you forgive me? I +was a brute—a fool—I was not worthy to love +you.”</p> +<p>A most gentlemanly spirit it seemed to be. Mivanway +forgot to be afraid of it.</p> +<p>“We were both to blame,” answered Mivanway. +But this time there was less submission in her tones. +“But I was the most at fault. I was a petulant +child. I did not know how deeply I loved you.”</p> +<p>“You loved me!” repeated the voice of Charles, and +the voice lingered over the words as though it found them +sweet.</p> +<p>“Surely you never doubted it,” answered the voice +of Mivanway. “I never ceased to love you. I +shall love you always and ever.”</p> +<p>The figure of Charles sprang forward as though it would clasp +the ghost of Mivanway in its arms, but halted a step or two +off.</p> +<p>“Bless me before you go,” he said, and with +uncovered head the figure of Charles knelt to the figure of +Mivanway.</p> +<p>Really, ghosts could be exceedingly nice when they +liked. Mivanway bent graciously towards her shadowy +suppliant, and, as she did so, her eye caught sight of something +on the grass beside it, and that something was a well-coloured +meerschaum pipe. There was no mistaking it for anything +else, even in that treacherous light; it lay glistening where +Charles, in falling upon his knees had jerked it from his +breast-pocket.</p> +<p>Charles, following Mivanway’s eyes, saw it also, and the +memory of the prohibition against smoking came back to him.</p> +<p>Without stopping to consider the futility of the +action—nay, the direct confession implied thereby—he +instinctively grabbed at the pipe, and rammed it back into his +pocket; and then an avalanche of mingled understanding and +bewilderment, fear and joy, swept Mivanway’s brain before +it. She felt she must do one of two things, laugh or scream +and go on screaming, and she laughed. Peal after peal of +laughter she sent echoing among the rocks, and Charles springing +to his feet was just in time to catch her as she fell forward a +dead weight into his arms.</p> +<p>Ten minutes later the eldest Miss Evans, hearing heavy +footsteps, went to the door. She saw what she took to be +the spirit of Charles Seabohn, staggering under the weight of the +lifeless body of Mivanway, and the sight not unnaturally alarmed +her. Charles’s suggestion of brandy, however, sounded +human, and the urgent need of attending to Mivanway kept her mind +from dwelling upon problems tending towards insanity.</p> +<p>Charles carried Mivanway to her room, and laid her upon the +bed.</p> +<p>“I’ll leave her with you,” he whispered to +the eldest Miss Evans. “It will be better for her not +to see me until she is quite recovered. She has had a +shock.”</p> +<p>Charles waited in the dark parlour for what seemed to him an +exceedingly long time. But at last the eldest Miss Evans +returned.</p> +<p>“She’s all right now,” were the welcome +words he heard.</p> +<p>“I’ll go and see her,” he said.</p> +<p>“But she’s in bed,” exclaimed the +scandalised Miss Evans.</p> +<p>And then as Charles only laughed, “Oh, ah—yes, I +suppose—of course,” she added.</p> +<p>And the eldest Miss Evans, left alone, sat down and wrestled +with the conviction that she was dreaming.</p> +<h2>PORTRAIT OF A LADY</h2> +<p>My work pressed upon me, but the louder it challenged +me—such is the heart of the timid fighter—the less +stomach I felt for the contest. I wrestled with it in my +study, only to be driven to my books. I walked out to meet +it in the streets, only to seek shelter from it in music-hall or +theatre. Thereupon it waxed importunate and over-bearing, +till the shadow of it darkened all my doings. The thought +of it sat beside me at the table, and spoilt my appetite. +The memory of it followed me abroad, and stood between me and my +friends, so that all talk died upon my lips, and I moved among +men as one ghost-ridden.</p> +<p>Then the throbbing town, with its thousand distracting voices, +grew maddening to me. I felt the need of converse with +solitude, that master and teacher of all the arts, and I +bethought me of the Yorkshire Wolds, where a man may walk all +day, meeting no human creature, hearing no voice but the +curlew’s cry; where, lying prone upon the sweet grass, he +may feel the pulsation of the earth, travelling at its eleven +hundred miles a minute through the ether. So one morning I +bundled many things, some needful, more needless, into a bag, +hurrying lest somebody or something should happen to stay me, and +that night I lay in a small northern town that stands upon the +borders of smokedom at the gate of the great moors; and at seven +the next morning I took my seat beside a one-eyed carrier behind +an ancient piebald mare. The one-eyed carrier cracked his +whip, the piebald horse jogged forward. The nineteenth +century, with its turmoil, fell away behind us; the distant +hills, creeping nearer, swallowed us up, and we became but a +moving speck upon the face of the quiet earth.</p> +<p>Late in the afternoon we arrived at a village, the memory of +which had been growing in my mind. It lies in the triangle +formed by the sloping walls of three great fells, and not even +the telegraph wire has reached it yet, to murmur to it whispers +of the restless world—or had not at the time of which I +write. Nought disturbs it save, once a day, the one-eyed +carrier—if he and his piebald mare have not yet laid their +ancient bones to rest—who, passing through, leaves a few +letters and parcels to be called for by the people of the +scattered hill-farms round about. It is the meeting-place +of two noisy brooks. Through the sleepy days and the hushed +nights, one hears them ever chattering to themselves as children +playing alone some game of make-believe. Coming from their +far-off homes among the hills, they mingle their waters here, and +journey on in company, and then their converse is more serious, +as becomes those who have joined hands and are moving onward +towards life together. Later they reach sad, weary towns, +black beneath a never-lifted pall of smoke, where day and night +the clang of iron drowns all human voices, where the children +play with ashes, where the men and women have dull, patient +faces; and so on, muddy and stained, to the deep sea that +ceaselessly calls to them. Here, however, their waters are +fresh and clear, and their passing makes the only stir that the +valley has ever known. Surely, of all peaceful places, this +was the one where a tired worker might find strength.</p> +<p>My one-eyed friend had suggested I should seek lodgings at the +house of one Mistress Cholmondley, a widow lady, who resided with +her only daughter in the white-washed cottage that is the last +house in the village, if you take the road that leads over Coll +Fell.</p> +<p>“Tha’ can see th’ house from here, by reason +o’ its standing so high above t’others,” said +the carrier, pointing with his whip. “It’s +theer or nowhere, aw’m thinking, for folks don’t +often coom seeking lodgings in these parts.”</p> +<p>The tiny dwelling, half smothered in June roses, looked +idyllic, and after a lunch of bread and cheese at the little inn +I made my way to it by the path that passes through the +churchyard. I had conjured up the vision of a stout, +pleasant, comfort-radiating woman, assisted by some bright, fresh +girl, whose rosy cheeks and sunburnt hands would help me banish +from my mind all clogging recollections of the town; and hopeful, +I pushed back the half-opened door and entered.</p> +<p>The cottage was furnished with a taste that surprised me, but +in themselves my hosts disappointed me. My bustling, comely +housewife turned out a wizened, blear-eyed dame. All day +long she dozed in her big chair, or crouched with shrivelled +hands spread out before the fire. My dream of winsome +maidenhood vanished before the reality of a weary-looking, +sharp-featured woman of between forty and fifty. Perhaps +there had been a time when the listless eyes had sparkled with +roguish merriment, when the shrivelled, tight-drawn lips had +pouted temptingly; but spinsterhood does not sweeten the juices +of a woman, and strong country air, though, like old ale, it is +good when taken occasionally, dulls the brain if lived +upon. A narrow, uninteresting woman I found her, troubled +with a shyness that sat ludicrously upon her age, and that yet +failed to save her from the landlady’s customary failing of +loquacity concerning “better days,” together with an +irritating, if harmless, affectation of youthfulness.</p> +<p>All other details were, however, most satisfactory; and at the +window commanding the road that leads through the valley towards +the distant world I settled down to face my work.</p> +<p>But the spirit of industry, once driven forth, returns with +coy steps. I wrote for perhaps an hour, and then throwing +down my halting pen I looked about the room, seeking +distraction. A Chippendale book-case stood against the wall +and I strolled over to it. The key was in the lock, and +opening its glass doors, I examined the well-filled +shelves. They held a curious collection: miscellanies with +quaint, glazed bindings; novels and poems; whose authors I had +never heard of; old magazines long dead, their very names +forgotten; “keepsakes” and annuals, redolent of an +age of vastly pretty sentiments and lavender-coloured +silks. On the top shelf, however, was a volume of Keats +wedged between a number of the <i>Evangelical Rambler</i> and +Young’s <i>Night Thoughts</i>, and standing on tip-toe, I +sought to draw it from its place.</p> +<p>The book was jambed so tightly that my efforts brought two or +three others tumbling about me, covering me with a cloud of fine +dust, and to my feet there fell, with a rattle of glass and +metal, a small miniature painting, framed in black wood.</p> +<p>I picked it up, and, taking it to the window, examined +it. It was the picture of a young girl, dressed in the +fashion of thirty years ago—I mean thirty years ago +then. I fear it must be nearer fifty, speaking as from +now—when our grandmothers wore corkscrew curls, and low-cut +bodices that one wonders how they kept from slipping down. +The face was beautiful, not merely with the conventional beauty +of tiresome regularity and impossible colouring such as one finds +in all miniatures, but with soul behind the soft deep eyes. +As I gazed, the sweet lips seemed to laugh at me, and yet there +lurked a sadness in the smile, as though the artist, in some rare +moment, had seen the coming shadow of life across the sunshine of +the face. Even my small knowledge of Art told me that the +work was clever, and I wondered why it should have lain so long +neglected, when as a mere ornament it was valuable. It must +have been placed in the book-case years ago by someone, and +forgotten.</p> +<p>I replaced it among its dusty companions, and sat down once +more to my work. But between me and the fading light came +the face of the miniature, and would not be banished. +Wherever I turned it looked out at me from the shadows. I +am not naturally fanciful, and the work I was engaged +upon—the writing of a farcical comedy—was not of the +kind to excite the dreamy side of a man’s nature. I +grew angry with myself, and made a further effort to fix my mind +upon the paper in front of me. But my thoughts refused to +return from their wanderings. Once, glancing back over my +shoulder, I could have sworn I saw the original of the picture +sitting in the big chintz-covered chair in the far corner. +It was dressed in a faded lilac frock, trimmed with some old +lace, and I could not help noticing the beauty of the folded +hands, though in the portrait only the head and shoulders had +been drawn.</p> +<p>Next morning I had forgotten the incident, but with the +lighting of the lamp the memory of it awoke within me, and my +interest grew so strong that again I took the miniature from its +hiding-place and looked at it.</p> +<p>And then the knowledge suddenly came to me that I knew the +face. Where had I seen her, and when? I had met her +and spoken to her. The picture smiled at me, as if rallying +me on my forgetfulness. I put it back upon its shelf, and +sat racking my brains trying to recollect. We had met +somewhere—in the country—a long time ago, and had +talked of common-place things. To the vision of her clung +the scent of roses and the murmuring voices of haymakers. +Why had I never seen her again? Why had she passed so +completely out of my mind?</p> +<p>My landlady entered to lay my supper, and I questioned her +assuming a careless tone. Reason with or laugh at myself as +I would, this shadowy memory was becoming a romance to me. +It was as though I were talking of some loved, dead friend, even +to speak of whom to commonplace people was a sacrilege. I +did not want the woman to question me in return.</p> +<p>“Oh, yes,” answered my landlady. Ladies had +often lodged with her. Sometimes people stayed the whole +summer, wandering about the woods and fells, but to her thinking +the great hills were lonesome. Some of her lodgers had been +young ladies, but she could not remember any of them having +impressed her with their beauty. But then it was said women +were never a judge of other women. They had come and +gone. Few had ever returned, and fresh faces drove out the +old.</p> +<p>“You have been letting lodgings for a long time?” +I asked. “I suppose it could be fifteen—twenty +years ago that strangers to you lived in this room?”</p> +<p>“Longer than that,” she said quietly, dropping for +the moment all affectation. “We came here from the +farm when my father died. He had had losses, and there was +but little left. That is twenty-seven years ago +now.”</p> +<p>I hastened to close the conversation, fearing long-winded +recollections of “better days.” I have heard +such so often from one landlady and another. I had not +learnt much. Who was the original of the miniature, how it +came to be lying forgotten in the dusty book-case were still +mysteries; and with a strange perversity I could not have +explained to myself I shrank from putting a direct question.</p> +<p>So two days more passed by. My work took gradually a +firmer grip upon my mind, and the face of the miniature visited +me less often. But in the evening of the third day, which +was a Sunday, a curious thing happened.</p> +<p>I was returning from a stroll, and dusk was falling as I +reached the cottage. I had been thinking of my farce, and I +was laughing to myself at a situation that seemed to me comical, +when, passing the window of my room, I saw looking out the sweet +fair face that had become so familiar to me. It stood close +to the latticed panes, a slim, girlish figure, clad in the +old-fashioned lilac-coloured frock in which I had imagined it on +the first night of my arrival, the beautiful hands clasped across +the breast, as then they had been folded on the lap. Her +eyes were gazing down the road that passes through the village +and goes south, but they seemed to be dreaming, not seeing, and +the sadness in them struck upon one almost as a cry. I was +close to the window, but the hedge screened me, and I remained +watching, until, after a minute I suppose, though it appeared +longer, the figure drew back into the darkness of the room and +disappeared.</p> +<p>I entered, but the room was empty. I called, but no one +answered. The uncomfortable suggestion took hold of me that +I must be growing a little crazy. All that had gone before +I could explain to myself as a mere train of thought, but this +time it had come to me suddenly, uninvited, while my thoughts had +been busy elsewhere. This thing had appeared not to my +brain but to my senses. I am not a believer in ghosts, but +I am in the hallucinations of a weak mind, and my own explanation +was in consequence not very satisfactory to myself.</p> +<p>I tried to dismiss the incident, but it would not leave me, +and later that same evening something else occurred that fixed it +still clearer in my thoughts. I had taken out two or three +books at random with which to amuse myself, and turning over the +leaves of one of them, a volume of verses by some obscure poet, I +found its sentimental passages much scored and commented upon in +pencil as was common fifty years ago—as may be common now, +for your Fleet Street cynic has not altered the world and its +ways to quite the extent that he imagines.</p> +<p>One poem in particular had evidently appealed greatly to the +reader’s sympathies. It was the old, old story of the +gallant who woos and rides away, leaving the maiden to +weep. The poetry was poor, and at another time its +conventionality would have excited only my ridicule. But, +reading it in conjunction with the quaint, naive notes scattered +about its margins, I felt no inclination to jeer. These +hackneyed stories that we laugh at are deep profundities to the +many who find in them some shadow of their own sorrows, and +she—for it was a woman’s handwriting—to whom +this book belonged had loved its trite verses, because in them +she had read her own heart. This, I told myself, was her +story also. A common enough story in life as in literature, +but novel to those who live it.</p> +<p>There was no reason for my connecting her with the original of +the miniature, except perhaps a subtle relationship between the +thin nervous handwriting and the mobile features; yet I felt +instinctively they were one and the same, and that I was tracing, +link by link, the history of my forgotten friend.</p> +<p>I felt urged to probe further, and next morning while my +landlady was clearing away my breakfast things, I fenced round +the subject once again.</p> +<p>“By the way,” I said, “while I think of it, +if I leave any books or papers here behind me, send them on at +once. I have a knack of doing that sort of thing. I +suppose,” I added, “your lodgers often do leave some +of their belongings behind them.”</p> +<p>It sounded to myself a clumsy ruse. I wondered if she +would suspect what was behind it.</p> +<p>“Not often,” she answered. “Never that +I can remember, except in the case of one poor lady who died +here.”</p> +<p>I glanced up quickly.</p> +<p>“In this room?” I asked.</p> +<p>My landlady seemed troubled at my tone.</p> +<p>“Well, not exactly in this very room. We carried +her upstairs, but she died immediately. She was dying when +she came here. I should not have taken her in had I +known. So many people are prejudiced against a house where +death has occurred, as if there were anywhere it had not. +It was not quite fair to us.”</p> +<p>I did not speak for a while, and the rattle of the plates and +knives continued undisturbed.</p> +<p>“What did she leave here?” I asked at length.</p> +<p>“Oh, just a few books and photographs, and such-like +small things that people bring with them to lodgings,” was +the reply. “Her people promised to send for them, but +they never did, and I suppose I forgot them. They were not +of any value.”</p> +<p>The woman turned as she was leaving the room.</p> +<p>“It won’t drive you away, sir, I hope, what I have +told you,” she said. “It all happened a long +while ago.</p> +<p>“Of course not,” I answered. “It +interested me, that was all.” And the woman went out, +closing the door behind her.</p> +<p>So here was the explanation, if I chose to accept it. I +sat long that morning, wondering to myself whether things I had +learnt to laugh at could be after all realities. And a day +or two afterwards I made a discovery that confirmed all my vague +surmises.</p> +<p>Rummaging through this same dusty book-case, I found in one of +the ill-fitting drawers, beneath a heap of torn and tumbled +books, a diary belonging to the fifties, stuffed with many +letters and shapeless flowers, pressed between stained pages; and +there—for the writer of stories, tempted by human +documents, is weak—in faded ink, brown and withered like +the flowers, I read the story I already knew.</p> +<p>Such a very old story it was, and so conventional. He +was an artist—was ever story of this type written where the +hero was not an artist? They had been children together, +loving each other without knowing it till one day it was revealed +to them. Here is the entry:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“May 18th.—I do not know what to say, +or how to begin. Chris loves me. I have been praying +to God to make me worthy of him, and dancing round the room in my +bare feet for fear of waking them below. He kissed my hands +and clasped them round his neck, saying they were beautiful as +the hands of a goddess, and he knelt and kissed them again. +I am holding them before me and kissing them myself. I am +glad they are so beautiful. O God, why are you so good to +me? Help me to be a true wife to him. Help me that I +may never give him an instant’s pain! Oh, that I had +more power of loving, that I might love him +better,”—and thus foolish thoughts for many pages, +but foolish thoughts of the kind that has kept this worn old +world, hanging for so many ages in space, from turning sour.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Later, in February, there is another entry that carries on the +story:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Chris left this morning. He put a +little packet into my hands at the last moment, saying it was the +most precious thing he possessed, and that when I looked at it I +was to think of him who loved it. Of course I guessed what +it was, but I did not open it till I was alone in my room. +It is the picture of myself that he has been so secret about, but +oh, so beautiful. I wonder if I am really as beautiful as +this. But I wish he had not made me look so sad. I am +kissing the little lips. I love them, because he loved to +kiss them. Oh, sweetheart! it will be long before you kiss +them again. Of course it was right for him to go, and I am +glad he has been able to manage it. He could not study +properly in this quiet country place, and now he will be able to +go to Paris and Rome and he will be great. Even the stupid +people here see how clever he is. But, oh, it will be so +long before I see him again, my love! my king!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>With each letter that comes from him, similar foolish +rhapsodies are written down, but these letters of his, I gather, +as I turn the pages, grow after a while colder and fewer, and a +chill fear that dare not be penned creeps in among the words.</p> +<blockquote><p>“March 12th. Six weeks and no letter +from Chris, and, oh dear! I am so hungry for one, for the last I +have almost kissed to pieces. I suppose he will write more +often when he gets to London. He is working hard, I know, +and it is selfish of me to expect him to write more often, but I +would sit up all night for a week rather than miss writing to +him. I suppose men are not like that. O God, help me, +help me, whatever happens! How foolish I am to-night! +He was always careless. I will punish him for it when he +comes back, but not very much.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Truly enough a conventional story.</p> +<p>Letters do come from him after that, but apparently they are +less and less satisfactory, for the diary grows angry and bitter, +and the faded writing is blotted at times with tears. Then +towards the end of another year there comes this entry, written +in a hand of strange neatness and precision:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“It is all over now. I am glad it is +finished. I have written to him, giving him up. I +have told him I have ceased to care for him, and that it is +better we should both be free. It is best that way. +He would have had to ask me to release him, and that would have +given him pain. He was always gentle. Now he will be +able to marry her with an easy conscience, and he need never know +what I have suffered. She is more fitted for him than I +am. I hope he will be happy. I think I have done the +right thing.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>A few lines follow, left blank, and then the writing is +resumed, but in a stronger, more vehement hand.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Why do I lie to myself? I hate +her! I would kill her if I could. I hope she will +make him wretched, and that he will come to hate her as I do, and +that she will die! Why did I let them persuade me to send +that lying letter? He will show it to her, and she will see +through it and laugh at me. I could have held him to his +promise; he could not have got out of it.</p> +<p>“What do I care about dignity, and womanliness, and +right, and all the rest of the canting words! I want +him. I want his kisses and his arms about me. He is +mine! He loved me once! I have only given him up +because I thought it a fine thing to play the saint. It is +only an acted lie. I would rather be evil, and he loved +me. Why do I deceive myself? I want him. I care +for nothing else at the bottom of my heart—his love, his +kisses!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And towards the end. “My God, what am I +saying? Have I no shame, no strength? O God, help +me!”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>And there the diary closes.</p> +<p>I looked among the letters lying between the pages of the +book. Most of them were signed simply “Chris.” +or “Christopher.” But one gave his name in +full, and it was a name I know well as that of a famous man, +whose hand I have often shaken. I thought of his +hard-featured, handsome wife, and of his great chill place, half +house, half exhibition, in Kensington, filled constantly with its +smart, chattering set, among whom he seemed always to be the +uninvited guest; of his weary face and bitter tongue. And +thinking thus there rose up before me the sweet, sad face of the +woman of the miniature, and, meeting her eyes as she smiled at me +from out of the shadows, I looked at her my wonder.</p> +<p>I took the miniature from its shelf. There would be no +harm now in learning her name. So I stood with it in my +hand till a little later my landlady entered to lay the +cloth.</p> +<p>“I tumbled this out of your book-case,” I said, +“in reaching down some books. It is someone I know, +someone I have met, but I cannot think where. Do you know +who it is?”</p> +<p>The woman took it from my hand, and a faint flush crossed her +withered face. “I had lost it,” she +answered. “I never thought of looking there. +It’s a portrait of myself, painted years ago, by a +friend.”</p> +<p>I looked from her to the miniature, as she stood among the +shadows, with the lamplight falling on her face, and saw her +perhaps for the first time.</p> +<p>“How stupid of me,” I answered. “Yes, +I see the likeness now.”</p> +<h2>THE MAN WHO WOULD MANAGE</h2> +<p>It has been told me by those in a position to know—and I +can believe it—that at nineteen months of age he wept +because his grandmother would not allow him to feed her with a +spoon, and that at three and a half he was fished, in an +exhausted condition, out of the water-butt, whither he had +climbed for the purpose of teaching a frog to swim.</p> +<p>Two years later he permanently injured his left eye, showing +the cat how to carry kittens without hurting them, and about the +same period was dangerously stung by a bee while conveying it +from a flower where, as it seemed to him, it was only wasting its +time, to one more rich in honey-making properties.</p> +<p>His desire was always to help others. He would spend +whole mornings explaining to elderly hens how to hatch eggs, and +would give up an afternoon’s black-berrying to sit at home +and crack nuts for his pet squirrel. Before he was seven he +would argue with his mother upon the management of children, and +reprove his father for the way he was bringing him up.</p> +<p>As a child nothing could afford him greater delight than +“minding” other children, or them less. He +would take upon himself this harassing duty entirely of his own +accord, without hope of reward or gratitude. It was +immaterial to him whether the other children were older than +himself or younger, stronger or weaker, whenever and wherever he +found them he set to work to “mind” them. Once, +during a school treat, piteous cries were heard coming from a +distant part of the wood, and upon search being made, he was +discovered prone upon the ground, with a cousin of his, a boy +twice his own weight, sitting upon him and steadily whacking +him. Having rescued him, the teacher said:</p> +<p>“Why don’t you keep with the little boys? +What are you doing along with him?”</p> +<p>“Please, sir,” was the answer, “I was +minding him.”</p> +<p>He would have “minded” Noah if he had got hold of +him.</p> +<p>He was a good-natured lad, and at school he was always willing +for the whole class to copy from his slate—indeed he would +urge them to do so. He meant it kindly, but inasmuch as his +answers were invariably quite wrong—with a distinctive and +inimitable wrongness peculiar to himself—the result to his +followers was eminently unsatisfactory; and with the shallowness +of youth that, ignoring motives, judges solely from results, they +would wait for him outside and punch him.</p> +<p>All his energies went to the instruction of others, leaving +none for his own purposes. He would take callow youths to +his chambers and teach them to box.</p> +<p>“Now, try and hit me on the nose,” he would say, +standing before them in an attitude of defence. +“Don’t be afraid. Hit as hard as ever you +can.”</p> +<p>And they would do it. And so soon as he had recovered +from his surprise, and a little lessened the bleeding, he would +explain to them how they had done it all wrong, and how easily he +could have stopped the blow if they had only hit him +properly.</p> +<p>Twice at golf he lamed himself for over a week, showing a +novice how to “drive”; and at cricket on one occasion +I remember seeing his middle stump go down like a ninepin just as +he was explaining to the bowler how to get the balls in +straight. After which he had a long argument with the +umpire as to whether he was in or out.</p> +<p>He has been known, during a stormy Channel passage, to rush +excitedly upon the bridge in order to inform the captain that he +had “just seen a light about two miles away to the +left”; and if he is on the top of an omnibus he generally +sits beside the driver, and points out to him the various +obstacles likely to impede their progress.</p> +<p>It was upon an omnibus that my own personal acquaintanceship +with him began. I was sitting behind two ladies when the +conductor came up to collect fares. One of them handed him +a sixpence telling him to take to Piccadilly Circus, which was +twopence.</p> +<p>“No,” said the other lady to her friend, handing +the man a shilling, “I owe you sixpence, you give me +fourpence and I’ll pay for the two.”</p> +<p>The conductor took the shilling, punched two twopenny tickets, +and then stood trying to think it out.</p> +<p>“That’s right,” said the lady who had spoken +last, “give my friend fourpence.”</p> +<p>The conductor did so.</p> +<p>“Now you give that fourpence to me.”</p> +<p>The friend handed it to her.</p> +<p>“And you,” she concluded to the conductor, +“give me eightpence, then we shall be all right.”</p> +<p>The conductor doled out to her the eightpence—the +sixpence he had taken from the first lady, with a penny and two +halfpennies out of his own bag—distrustfully, and retired, +muttering something about his duties not including those of a +lightning calculator.</p> +<p>“Now,” said the elder lady to the younger, +“I owe you a shilling.”</p> +<p>I deemed the incident closed, when suddenly a florid gentleman +on the opposite seat called out in stentorian tones:—</p> +<p>“Hi, conductor! you’ve cheated these ladies out of +fourpence.”</p> +<p>“’Oo’s cheated ’oo out ’o +fourpence?” replied the indignant conductor from the top of +the steps, “it was a twopenny fare.”</p> +<p>“Two twopences don’t make eightpence,” +retorted the florid gentleman hotly. “How much did +you give the fellow, my dear?” he asked, addressing the +first of the young ladies.</p> +<p>“I gave him sixpence,” replied the lady, examining +her purse. “And then I gave you fourpence, you +know,” she added, addressing her companion.</p> +<p>“That’s a dear two pen’oth,” chimed in +a common-looking man on the seat behind.</p> +<p>“Oh, that’s impossible, dear,” returned the +other, “because I owed you sixpence to begin +with.”</p> +<p>“But I did,” persisted the first lady.</p> +<p>“You gave me a shilling,” said the conductor, who +had returned, pointing an accusing forefinger at the elder of the +ladies.</p> +<p>The elder lady nodded.</p> +<p>“And I gave you sixpence and two pennies, didn’t +I?”</p> +<p>The lady admitted it.</p> +<p>“An’ I give ’er”—he pointed +towards the younger lady—“fourpence, didn’t +I?”</p> +<p>“Which I gave you, you know, dear,” remarked the +younger lady.</p> +<p>“Blow me if it ain’t <i>me</i> as ’as been +cheated out of the fourpence,” cried the conductor.</p> +<p>“But,” said the florid gentleman, “the other +lady gave you sixpence.”</p> +<p>“Which I give to ’er,” replied the +conductor, again pointing the finger of accusation at the elder +lady. “You can search my bag if yer like. I +ain’t got a bloomin’ sixpence on me.”</p> +<p>By this time everybody had forgotten what they had done, and +contradicted themselves and one another. The florid man +took it upon himself to put everybody right, with the result that +before Piccadilly Circus was reached three passengers had +threatened to report the conductor for unbecoming language. +The conductor had called a policeman and had taken the names and +addresses of the two ladies, intending to sue them for the +fourpence (which they wanted to pay, but which the florid man +would not allow them to do); the younger lady had become +convinced that the elder lady had meant to cheat her, and the +elder lady was in tears.</p> +<p>The florid gentleman and myself continued to Charing Cross +Station. At the booking office window it transpired that we +were bound for the same suburb, and we journeyed down +together. He talked about the fourpence all the way.</p> +<p>At my gate we shook hands, and he was good enough to express +delight at the discovery that we were near neighbours. What +attracted him to myself I failed to understand, for he had bored +me considerably, and I had, to the best of my ability, snubbed +him. Subsequently I learned that it was a peculiarity of +his to be charmed with anyone who did not openly insult him.</p> +<p>Three days afterwards he burst into my study +unannounced—he appeared to regard himself as my bosom +friend—and asked me to forgive him for not having called +sooner, which I did.</p> +<p>“I met the postman as I was coming along,” he +said, handing me a blue envelope, “and he gave me this, for +you.”</p> +<p>I saw it was an application for the water-rate.</p> +<p>“We must make a stand against this,” he +continued. “That’s for water to the 29th +September. You’ve no right to pay it in +June.”</p> +<p>I replied to the effect that water-rates had to be paid, and +that it seemed to me immaterial whether they were paid in June or +September.</p> +<p>“That’s not it,” he answered, +“it’s the principle of the thing. Why should +you pay for water you have never had? What right have they +to bully you into paying what you don’t owe?”</p> +<p>He was a fluent talker, and I was ass enough to listen to +him. By the end of half an hour he had persuaded me that +the question was bound up with the inalienable rights of man, and +that if I paid that fourteen and tenpence in June instead of in +September, I should be unworthy of the privileges my forefathers +had fought and died to bestow upon me.</p> +<p>He told me the company had not a leg to stand upon, and at his +instigation I sat down and wrote an insulting letter to the +chairman.</p> +<p>The secretary replied that, having regard to the attitude I +had taken up, it would be incumbent upon themselves to treat it +as a test case, and presumed that my solicitors would accept +service on my behalf.</p> +<p>When I showed him this letter he was delighted.</p> +<p>“You leave it to me,” he said, pocketing the +correspondence, “and we’ll teach them a +lesson.”</p> +<p>I left it to him. My only excuse is that at the time I +was immersed in the writing of what in those days was termed a +comedy-drama. The little sense I possessed must, I suppose, +have been absorbed by the play.</p> +<p>The magistrate’s decision somewhat damped my ardour, but +only inflamed his zeal. Magistrates, he said, were +muddle-headed old fogies. This was a matter for a +judge.</p> +<p>The judge was a kindly old gentleman, and said that bearing in +mind the unsatisfactory wording of the sub-clause, he did not +think he could allow the company their costs, so that, all told, +I got off for something under fifty pounds, inclusive of the +original fourteen and tenpence.</p> +<p>Afterwards our friendship waned, but living as we did in the +same outlying suburb, I was bound to see a good deal of him; and +to hear more.</p> +<p>At parties of all kinds he was particularly prominent, and on +such occasions, being in his most good-natured mood, was most to +be dreaded. No human being worked harder for the enjoyment +of others, or produced more universal wretchedness.</p> +<p>One Christmas afternoon, calling upon a friend, I found some +fourteen or fifteen elderly ladies and gentlemen trotting +solemnly round a row of chairs in the centre of the drawing-room +while Poppleton played the piano. Every now and then +Poppleton would suddenly cease, and everyone would drop wearily +into the nearest chair, evidently glad of a rest; all but one, +who would thereupon creep quietly away, followed by the envying +looks of those left behind. I stood by the door watching +the weird scene. Presently an escaped player came towards +me, and I enquired of him what the ceremony was supposed to +signify.</p> +<p>“Don’t ask me,” he answered grumpily. +“Some of Poppleton’s damned tomfoolery.” +Then he added savagely, “We’ve got to play forfeits +after this.”</p> +<p>The servant was still waiting a favourable opportunity to +announce me. I gave her a shilling not to, and got away +unperceived.</p> +<p>After a satisfactory dinner, he would suggest an impromptu +dance, and want you to roll up mats, or help him move the piano +to the other end of the room.</p> +<p>He knew enough round games to have started a small purgatory +of his own. Just as you were in the middle of an +interesting discussion, or a delightful +<i>tête-à-tête</i> with a pretty woman, he +would swoop down upon you with: “Come along, we’re +going to play literary consequences,” and dragging you to +the table, and putting a piece of paper and a pencil before you, +would tell you to write a description of your favourite heroine +in fiction, and would see that you did it.</p> +<p>He never spared himself. It was always he who would +volunteer to escort the old ladies to the station, and who would +never leave them until he had seen them safely into the wrong +train. He it was who would play “wild beasts” +with the children, and frighten them into fits that would last +all night.</p> +<p>So far as intention went, he was the kindest man alive. +He never visited poor sick persons without taking with him in his +pocket some little delicacy calculated to disagree with them and +make them worse. He arranged yachting excursions for bad +sailors, entirely at his own expense, and seemed to regard their +subsequent agonies as ingratitude.</p> +<p>He loved to manage a wedding. Once he planned matters so +that the bride arrived at the altar three-quarters of an hour +before the groom, which led to unpleasantness upon a day that +should have been filled only with joy, and once he forgot the +clergyman. But he was always ready to admit when he made a +mistake.</p> +<p>At funerals, also, he was to the fore, pointing out to the +grief-stricken relatives how much better it was for all concerned +that the corpse was dead, and expressing a pious hope that they +would soon join it.</p> +<p>The chiefest delight of his life, however, was to be mixed up +in other people’s domestic quarrels. No domestic +quarrel for miles round was complete without him. He +generally came in as mediator, and finished as leading witness +for the appellant.</p> +<p>As a journalist or politician his wonderful grasp of other +people’s business would have won for him esteem. The +error he made was working it out in practice.</p> +<h2>THE MAN WHO LIVED FOR OTHERS</h2> +<p>The first time we met, to speak, he was sitting with his back +against a pollard willow, smoking a clay pipe. He smoked it +very slowly, but very conscientiously. After each whiff he +removed the pipe from his mouth and fanned away the smoke with +his cap.</p> +<p>“Feeling bad?” I asked from behind a tree, at the +same time making ready for a run, big boys’ answers to +small boys’ impertinences being usually of the nature of +things best avoided.</p> +<p>To my surprise and relief—for at second glance I +perceived I had under-estimated the length of his legs—he +appeared to regard the question as a natural and proper one, +replying with unaffected candour, “Not yet.”</p> +<p>My desire became to comfort him—a sentiment I think he +understood and was grateful for. Advancing into the open, I +sat down over against him, and watched him for a while in +silence. Presently he said:—</p> +<p>“Have you ever tried drinking beer?”</p> +<p>I admitted I had not.</p> +<p>“Oh, it is beastly stuff,” he rejoined with an +involuntary shudder.</p> +<p>Rendered forgetful of present trouble by bitter recollection +of the past, he puffed away at his pipe carelessly and without +judgment.</p> +<p>“Do you often drink it?” I inquired.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he replied gloomily; “all we fellows +in the fifth form drink beer and smoke pipes.”</p> +<p>A deeper tinge of green spread itself over his face.</p> +<p>He rose suddenly and made towards the hedge. Before he +reached it, however, he stopped and addressed me, but without +turning round.</p> +<p>“If you follow me, young ’un, or look, I’ll +punch your head,” he said swiftly, and disappeared with a +gurgle.</p> +<p>He left at the end of the term and I did not see him again +until we were both young men. Then one day I ran against +him in Oxford Street, and he asked me to come and spend a few +days with his people in Surrey.</p> +<p>I found him wan-looking and depressed, and every now and then +he sighed. During a walk across the common he cheered up +considerably, but the moment we got back to the house door he +seemed to recollect himself, and began to sigh again. He +ate no dinner whatever, merely sipping a glass of wine and +crumbling a piece of bread. I was troubled at noticing +this, but his relatives—a maiden aunt, who kept house, two +elder sisters, and a weak-eyed female cousin who had left her +husband behind her in India—were evidently charmed. +They glanced at each other, and nodded and smiled. Once in +a fit of abstraction he swallowed a bit of crust, and immediately +they all looked pained and surprised.</p> +<p>In the drawing-room, under cover of a sentimental song, sung +by the female cousin, I questioned his aunt on the subject.</p> +<p>“What’s the matter with him?” I said. +“Is he ill?”</p> +<p>The old lady chuckled.</p> +<p>“You’ll be like that one day,” she whispered +gleefully.</p> +<p>“When,” I asked, not unnaturally alarmed.</p> +<p>“When you’re in love,” she answered.</p> +<p>“Is <i>he</i> in love?” I inquired after a +pause.</p> +<p>“Can’t you see he is?” she replied somewhat +scornfully.</p> +<p>I was a young man, and interested in the question.</p> +<p>“Won’t he ever eat any dinner till he’s got +over it?” I asked.</p> +<p>She looked round sharply at me, but apparently decided that I +was only foolish.</p> +<p>“You wait till your time comes,” she answered, +shaking her curls at me. “You won’t care much +about your dinner—not if you are <i>really</i> in +love.”</p> +<p>In the night, about half-past eleven, I heard, as I thought, +footsteps in the passage, and creeping to the door and opening it +I saw the figure of my friend in dressing-gown and slippers, +vanishing down the stairs. My idea was that, his brain +weakened by trouble, he had developed sleep-walking +tendencies. Partly out of curiosity, partly to watch over +him, I slipped on a pair of trousers and followed him.</p> +<p>He placed his candle on the kitchen table and made a bee-line +for the pantry door, from where he subsequently emerged with two +pounds of cold beef on a plate and about a quart of beer in a +jug; and I came away, leaving him fumbling for pickles.</p> +<p>I assisted at his wedding, where it seemed to me he +endeavoured to display more ecstasy than it was possible for any +human being to feel; and fifteen months later, happening to catch +sight of an advertisement in the births column of <i>The +Times</i>, I called on my way home from the City to congratulate +him. He was pacing up and down the passage with his hat on, +pausing at intervals to partake of an uninviting-looking meal, +consisting of a cold mutton chop and a glass of lemonade, spread +out upon a chair. Seeing that the cook and the housemaid +were wandering about the house evidently bored for want of +something to do, and that the dining-room, where he would have +been much more out of the way, was empty and quite in order, I +failed at first to understand the reason for his deliberate +choice of discomfort. I, however, kept my reflections to +myself, and inquired after the mother and child.</p> +<p>“Couldn’t be better,” he replied with a +groan. “The doctor said he’d never had a more +satisfactory case in all his experience.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I’m glad to hear that,” I answered; +“I was afraid you’d been worrying +yourself.”</p> +<p>“Worried!” he exclaimed. “My dear boy, +I don’t know whether I’m standing on my head or my +heels” (he gave one that idea). “This is the +first morsel of food that’s passed my lips for twenty-four +hours.”</p> +<p>At this moment the nurse appeared at the top of the +stairs. He flew towards her, upsetting the lemonade in his +excitement.</p> +<p>“What is it?” he asked hoarsely. “Is +it all right?”</p> +<p>The old lady glanced from him to his cold chop, and smiled +approvingly.</p> +<p>“They’re doing splendidly,” she answered, +patting him on the shoulder in a motherly fashion. +“Don’t you worry.”</p> +<p>“I can’t help it, Mrs. Jobson,” he replied, +sitting down upon the bottom stair, and leaning his head against +the banisters.</p> +<p>“Of course you can’t,” said Mrs. Jobson +admiringly; “and you wouldn’t be much of a man if you +could.” Then it was borne in upon me why he wore his +hat, and dined off cold chops in the passage.</p> +<p>The following summer they rented a picturesque old house in +Berkshire, and invited me down from a Saturday to Monday. +Their place was near the river, so I slipped a suit of flannels +in my bag, and on the Sunday morning I came down in them. +He met me in the garden. He was dressed in a frock coat and +a white waistcoat; and I noticed that he kept looking at me out +of the corner of his eye, and that he seemed to have a trouble on +his mind. The first breakfast bell rang, and then he said, +“You haven’t got any proper clothes with you, have +you?”</p> +<p>“Proper clothes!” I exclaimed, stopping in some +alarm. “Why, has anything given way?”</p> +<p>“No, not that,” he explained. “I mean +clothes to go to church in.”</p> +<p>“Church,” I said. “You’re surely +not going to church a fine day like this? I made sure +you’d be playing tennis, or going on the river. You +always used to.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” he replied, nervously flicking a rose-bush +with a twig he had picked up. “You see, it +isn’t ourselves exactly. Maud and I would rather like +to, but our cook, she’s Scotch, and a little strict in her +notions.”</p> +<p>“And does she insist on your going to church every +Sunday morning?” I inquired.</p> +<p>“Well,” he answered, “she thinks it strange +if we don’t, and so we generally do, just in the +morning—and evening. And then in the afternoon a few +of the village girls drop in, and we have a little singing and +that sort of thing. I never like hurting anyone’s +feelings if I can help it.”</p> +<p>I did not say what I thought. Instead I said, +“I’ve got that tweed suit I wore yesterday. I +can put that on if you like.”</p> +<p>He ceased flicking the rose-bush, and knitted his brows. +He seemed to be recalling it to his imagination.</p> +<p>“No,” he said, shaking his head, “I’m +afraid it would shock her. It’s my fault, I +know,” he added, remorsefully. “I ought to have +told you.”</p> +<p>Then an idea came to him.</p> +<p>“I suppose,” he said, “you wouldn’t +care to pretend you were ill, and stop in bed just for the +day?”</p> +<p>I explained that my conscience would not permit my being a +party to such deception</p> +<p>“No, I thought you wouldn’t,” he +replied. “I must explain it to her. I think +I’ll say you’ve lost your bag. I +shouldn’t like her to think bad of us.”</p> +<p>Later on a fourteenth cousin died, leaving him a large +fortune. He purchased an estate in Yorkshire, and became a +“county family,” and then his real troubles +began.</p> +<p>From May to the middle of August, save for a little fly +fishing, which generally resulted in his getting his feet wet and +catching a cold, life was fairly peaceful; but from early autumn +to late spring he found the work decidedly trying. He was a +stout man, constitutionally nervous of fire-arms, and a +six-hours’ tramp with a heavy gun across ploughed fields, +in company with a crowd of careless persons who kept blazing away +within an inch of other people’s noses, harassed and +exhausted him. He had to get out of bed at four on chilly +October mornings to go cub-hunting, and twice a week throughout +the winter—except when a blessed frost brought him a brief +respite—he had to ride to hounds. That he usually got +off with nothing more serious than mere bruises and slight +concussions of the spine, he probably owed to the fortunate +circumstances of his being little and fat. At stiff timber +he shut his eyes and rode hard; and ten yards from a river he +would begin to think about bridges.</p> +<p>Yet he never complained.</p> +<p>“If you are a country gentleman,” he would say, +“you must behave as a country gentleman, and take the rough +with the smooth.”</p> +<p>As ill fate would have it a chance speculation doubled his +fortune, and it became necessary that he should go into +Parliament and start a yacht. Parliament made his head +ache, and the yacht made him sick. Notwithstanding, every +summer he would fill it with a lot of expensive people who bored +him, and sail away for a month’s misery in the +Mediterranean.</p> +<p>During one cruise his guests built up a highly-interesting +gambling scandal. He himself was confined to his cabin at +the time, and knew nothing about it; but the Opposition papers, +getting hold of the story, referred casually to the yacht as a +“floating hell,” and <i>The Police News</i> awarded +his portrait the place of honour as the chief criminal of the +week.</p> +<p>Later on he got into a cultured set, ruled by a thick-lipped +undergraduate. His favourite literature had hitherto been +of the Corelli and <i>Tit-Bits</i> order, but now he read +Meredith and the yellow book, and tried to understand them; and +instead of the Gaiety, he subscribed to the Independent Theatre, +and fed “his soul,” on Dutch Shakespeares. What +he liked in art was a pretty girl by a cottage-door with an +eligible young man in the background, or a child and a dog doing +something funny. They told him these things were wrong and +made him buy “Impressions” that stirred his liver to +its deepest depths every time he looked at them—green cows +on red hills by pink moonlight, or scarlet-haired corpses with +three feet of neck.</p> +<p>He said meekly that such seemed to him unnatural, but they +answered that nature had nothing to do with the question; that +the artist saw things like that, and that whatever an artist +saw—no matter in what condition he may have been when he +saw it—that was art.</p> +<p>They took him to Wagner festivals and Burne-Jones’s +private views. They read him all the minor poets. +They booked seats for him at all Ibsen’s plays. They +introduced him into all the most soulful circles of artistic +society. His days were one long feast of other +people’s enjoyments.</p> +<p>One morning I met him coming down the steps of the Arts +Club. He looked weary. He was just off to a private +view at the New Gallery. In the afternoon he had to attend +an amateur performance of “The Cenci,” given by the +Shelley Society. Then followed three literary and artistic +At Homes, a dinner with an Indian nabob who couldn’t speak +a word of English, “Tristam and Isolde” at Covent +Garden Theatre, and a ball at Lord Salisbury’s to wind up +the day.</p> +<p>I laid my hand upon his shoulder.</p> +<p>“Come with me to Epping Forest,” I said. +“There’s a four-horse brake starts from Charing Cross +at eleven. It’s Saturday, and there’s bound to +be a crowd down there. I’ll play you a game of +skittles, and we will have a shy at the cocoa-nuts. You +used to be rather smart at cocoa-nuts. We can have lunch +there and be back at seven, dine at the Troc., spend the evening +at the Empire, and sup at the Savoy. What do you +say?”</p> +<p>He stood hesitating on the steps, a wistful look in his +eyes.</p> +<p>His brougham drew up against the curb, and he started as if +from a dream.</p> +<p>“My dear fellow,” he replied, “what would +people say?” And shaking me by the hand, he took his +seat, and the footman slammed the door upon him.</p> +<h2>A MAN OF HABIT</h2> +<p>There were three of us in the smoke-room of the +<i>Alexandra</i>—a very good friend of mine, myself, and, +in the opposite corner, a shy-looking, unobtrusive man, the +editor, as we subsequently learned, of a New York Sunday +paper.</p> +<p>My friend and I were discussing habits, good and bad.</p> +<p>“After the first few months,” said my friend, +“it is no more effort for a man to be a saint than to be a +sinner; it becomes a mere matter of habit.”</p> +<p>“I know,” I interrupted, “it is every whit +as easy to spring out of bed the instant you are called as to say +‘All Right,’ and turn over for just another five +minutes’ snooze, when you have got into the way of +it. It is no more trouble not to swear than to swear, if +you make a custom of it. Toast and water is as delicious as +champagne, when you have acquired the taste for it. Things +are also just as easy the other way about. It is a mere +question of making your choice and sticking to it.”</p> +<p>He agreed with me.</p> +<p>“Now take these cigars of mine,” he said, pushing +his open case towards me.</p> +<p>“Thank you,” I replied hurriedly, “I’m +not smoking this passage.”</p> +<p>“Don’t be alarmed,” he answered, “I +meant merely as an argument. Now one of these would make +you wretched for a week.”</p> +<p>I admitted his premise.</p> +<p>“Very well,” he continued. “Now I, as +you know, smoke them all day long, and enjoy them. +Why? Because I have got into the habit. Years ago, +when I was a young man, I smoked expensive Havanas. I found +that I was ruining myself. It was absolutely necessary that +I should take a cheaper weed. I was living in Belgium at +the time, and a friend showed me these. I don’t know +what they are—probably cabbage leaves soaked in guano; they +tasted to me like that at first—but they were cheap. +Buying them by the five hundred, they cost me three a +penny. I determined to like them, and started with one a +day. It was terrible work, I admit, but as I said to +myself, nothing could be worse than the Havanas themselves had +been in the beginning. Smoking is an acquired taste, and it +must be as easy to learn to like one flavour as another. I +persevered and I conquered. Before the year was over I +could think of them without loathing, at the end of two I could +smoke them without positive discomfort. Now I prefer them +to any other brand on the market. Indeed, a good cigar +disagrees with me.”</p> +<p>I suggested it might have been less painful to have given up +smoking altogether.</p> +<p>“I did think of it,” he replied, “but a man +who doesn’t smoke always seems to me bad company. +There is something very sociable about smoke.”</p> +<p>He leant back and puffed great clouds into the air, filling +the small den with an odour suggestive of bilge water and +cemeteries.</p> +<p>“Then again,” he resumed after a pause, +“take my claret. No, you don’t like +it.” (I had not spoken, but my face had evidently +betrayed me.) “Nobody does, at least no one I have +ever met. Three years ago, when I was living in +Hammersmith, we caught two burglars with it. They broke +open the sideboard, and swallowed five bottlefuls between +them. A policeman found them afterwards, sitting on a +doorstep a hundred yards off, the ‘swag’ beside them +in a carpet bag. They were too ill to offer any resistance, +and went to the station like lambs, he promising to send the +doctor to them the moment they were safe in the cells. Ever +since then I have left out a decanterful upon the table every +night.</p> +<p>“Well, I like that claret, and it does me good. I +come in sometimes dead beat. I drink a couple of glasses, +and I’m a new man. I took to it in the first instance +for the same reason that I took to the cigars—it was +cheap. I have it sent over direct from Geneva, and it costs +me six shillings a dozen. How they do it I don’t +know. I don’t want to know. As you may +remember, it’s fairly heady and there’s body in +it.</p> +<p>“I knew one man,” he continued, “who had a +regular Mrs. Caudle of a wife. All day long she talked to +him, or at him, or of him, and at night he fell asleep to the +rising and falling rhythm of what she thought about him. At +last she died, and his friends congratulated him, telling him +that now he would enjoy peace. But it was the peace of the +desert, and the man did not enjoy it. For two-and-twenty +years her voice had filled the house, penetrated through the +conservatory, and floated in faint shrilly waves of sound round +the garden, and out into the road beyond. The silence now +pervading everywhere frightened and disturbed him. The +place was no longer home to him. He missed the breezy +morning insult, the long winter evening’s reproaches beside +the flickering fire. At night he could not sleep. For +hours he would lie tossing restlessly, his ears aching for the +accustomed soothing flow of invective.</p> +<p>“‘Ah!’ he would cry bitterly to himself, +‘it is the old story, we never know the value of a thing +until we have lost it.’</p> +<p>“He grew ill. The doctors dosed him with sleeping +draughts in vain. At last they told him bluntly that his +life depended upon his finding another wife, able and willing to +nag him to sleep.</p> +<p>“There were plenty of wives of the type he wanted in the +neighbourhood, but the unmarried women were, of necessity, +inexperienced, and his health was such that he could not afford +the time to train them.</p> +<p>“Fortunately, just as despair was about to take +possession of him, a man died in the next parish, literally +talked to death, the gossip said, by his wife. He obtained +an introduction, and called upon her the day after the +funeral. She was a cantankerous old woman, and the wooing +was a harassing affair, but his heart was in his work, and before +six months were gone he had won her for his own.</p> +<p>“She proved, however, but a poor substitute. The +spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. She had neither +that command of language nor of wind that had distinguished her +rival. From his favourite seat at the bottom of the garden +he could not hear her at all, so he had his chair brought up into +the conservatory. It was all right for him there so long as +she continued to abuse him; but every now and again, just as he +was getting comfortably settled down with his pipe and his +newspaper, she would suddenly stop.</p> +<p>“He would drop his paper and sit listening, with a +troubled, anxious expression.</p> +<p>“‘Are you there, dear?’ he would call out +after a while.</p> +<p>“‘Yes, I’m here. Where do you think I +am you old fool?’ she would gasp back in an exhausted +voice.</p> +<p>“His face would brighten at the sound of her +words. ‘Go on, dear,’ he would answer. +‘I’m listening. I like to hear you +talk.’</p> +<p>“But the poor woman was utterly pumped out, and had not +so much as a snort left.</p> +<p>“Then he would shake his head sadly. ‘No, +she hasn’t poor dear Susan’s flow,’ he would +say. ‘Ah! what a woman that was!’</p> +<p>“At night she would do her best, but it was a lame and +halting performance by comparison. After rating him for +little over three-quarters of an hour, she would sink back on the +pillow, and want to go to sleep. But he would shake her +gently by the shoulder.</p> +<p>“‘Yes, dear,’ he would say, ‘you were +speaking about Jane, and the way I kept looking at her during +lunch.’</p> +<p>“It’s extraordinary,” concluded my friend, +lighting a fresh cigar, “what creatures of habit we +are.”</p> +<p>“Very,” I replied. “I knew a man who +told tall stories till when he told a true one nobody believed +it.”</p> +<p>“Ah, that was a very sad case,” said my +friend.</p> +<p>“Speaking of habit,” said the unobtrusive man in +the corner, “I can tell you a true story that I’ll +bet my bottom dollar you won’t believe.”</p> +<p>“Haven’t got a bottom dollar, but I’ll bet +you half a sovereign I do,” replied my friend, who was of a +sporting turn. “Who shall be judge?”</p> +<p>“I’ll take your word for it,” said the +unobtrusive man, and started straight away.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>“He was a Jefferson man, this man I’m going to +tell you of,” he begun. “He was born in the +town, and for forty-seven years he never slept a night outside +it. He was a most respectable man—a drysalter from +nine to four, and a Presbyterian in his leisure moments. He +said that a good life merely meant good habits. He rose at +seven, had family prayer at seven-thirty, breakfasted at eight, +got to his business at nine, had his horse brought round to the +office at four, and rode for an hour, reached home at five, had a +bath and a cup of tea, played with and read to the children (he +was a domesticated man) till half-past six, dressed and dined at +seven, went round to the club and played whist till quarter after +ten, home again to evening prayer at ten-thirty, and bed at +eleven. For five-and-twenty years he lived that life with +never a variation. It worked into his system and became +mechanical. The church clocks were set by him. He was +used by the local astronomers to check the sun.</p> +<p>“One day a distant connection of his in London, an East +Indian Merchant and an ex-Lord Mayor died, leaving him sole +legatee and executor. The business was a complicated one +and needed management. He determined to leave his son by +his first wife, now a young man of twenty-four, in charge at +Jefferson, and to establish himself with his second family in +England, and look after the East Indian business.</p> +<p>“He set out from Jefferson City on October the fourth, +and arrived in London on the seventeenth. He had been ill +during the whole of the voyage, and he reached the furnished +house he had hired in Bayswater somewhat of a wreck. A +couple of days in bed, however, pulled him round, and on the +Wednesday evening he announced his intention of going into the +City the next day to see to his affairs.</p> +<p>“On the Thursday morning he awoke at one +o’clock. His wife told him she had not disturbed him, +thinking the sleep would do him good. He admitted that +perhaps it had. Anyhow, he felt very well, and he got up +and dressed himself. He said he did not like the idea of +beginning his first day by neglecting a religious duty, and his +wife agreeing with him, they assembled the servants and the +children in the dining-room, and had family prayer at half-past +one. After which he breakfasted and set off, reaching the +City about three.</p> +<p>“His reputation for punctuality had preceded him, and +surprise was everywhere expressed at his late arrival. He +explained the circumstances, however, and made his appointments +for the following day to commence from nine-thirty.</p> +<p>“He remained at the office until late, and then went +home. For dinner, usually the chief meal of the day, he +could manage to eat only a biscuit and some fruit. He +attributed his loss of appetite to want of his customary +ride. He was strangely unsettled all the evening. He +said he supposed he missed his game of whist, and determined to +look about him without loss of time for some quiet, respectable +club. At eleven he retired with his wife to bed, but could +not sleep. He tossed and turned, and turned and tossed, but +grew only more and more wakeful and energetic. A little +after midnight an overpowering desire seized him to go and wish +the children good-night. He slipped on a dressing-gown and +stole into the nursery. He did not intend it, but the +opening of the door awoke them, and he was glad. He wrapped +them up in the quilt, and, sitting on the edge of the bed, told +them moral stories till one o’clock.</p> +<p>“Then he kissed them, bidding them be good and go to +sleep; and finding himself painfully hungry, crept downstairs, +where in the back kitchen he made a hearty meal off cold game pie +and cucumber.</p> +<p>“He retired to bed feeling more peaceful, yet still +could not sleep, so lay thinking about his business affairs till +five, when he dropped off.</p> +<p>“At one o’clock to the minute he awoke. His +wife told him she had made every endeavour to rouse him, but in +vain. The man was vexed and irritated. If he had not +been a very good man indeed, I believe he would have sworn. +The same programme was repeated as on the Thursday, and again he +reached the City at three.</p> +<p>“This state of things went on for a month. The man +fought against himself, but was unable to alter himself. +Every morning, or rather every afternoon at one he awoke. +Every night at one he crept down into the kitchen and foraged for +food. Every morning at five he fell asleep.</p> +<p>“He could not understand it, nobody could understand +it. The doctor treated him for water on the brain, hypnotic +irresponsibility and hereditary lunacy. Meanwhile his +business suffered, and his health grew worse. He seemed to +be living upside down. His days seemed to have neither +beginning nor end, but to be all middle. There was no time +for exercise or recreation. When he began to feel cheerful +and sociable everybody else was asleep.</p> +<p>“One day by chance the explanation came. His +eldest daughter was preparing her home studies after dinner.</p> +<p>“‘What time is it now in New York?’ she +asked, looking up from her geography book.</p> +<p>“‘New York,’ said her father, glancing at +his watch, ‘let me see. It’s just ten now, and +there’s a little over four and a half hours’ +difference. Oh, about half-past five in the +afternoon.’</p> +<p>“‘Then in Jefferson,’ said the mother, +‘it would be still earlier, wouldn’t it?’</p> +<p>“‘Yes,’ replied the girl, examining the map, +‘Jefferson is nearly two degrees further west.’</p> +<p>“‘Two degrees,’ mused the father, ‘and +there’s forty minutes to a degree. That would make it +now, at the present moment in Jefferson—’</p> +<p>He leaped to his feet with a cry:</p> +<p>“‘I’ve got it!’ he shouted, ‘I +see it.’</p> +<p>“‘See what?’ asked his wife, alarmed.</p> +<p>“‘Why, it’s four o’clock in Jefferson, +and just time for my ride. That’s what I’m +wanting.’</p> +<p>“There could be no doubt about it. For +five-and-twenty years he had lived by clockwork. But it was +by Jefferson clockwork, not London clockwork. He had +changed his longitude, but not himself. The habits of a +quarter of a century were not to be shifted at the bidding of the +sun.</p> +<p>“He examined the problem in all its bearings, and +decided that the only solution was for him to return to the order +of his old life. He saw the difficulties in his way, but +they were less than those he was at present encountering. +He was too formed by habit to adapt himself to +circumstances. Circumstances must adapt themselves to +him.</p> +<p>“He fixed his office hours from three till ten, leaving +himself at half-past nine. At ten he mounted his horse and +went for a canter in the Row, and on very dark nights he carried +a lantern. News of it got abroad, and crowds would assemble +to see him ride past.</p> +<p>“He dined at one o’clock in the morning, and +afterwards strolled down to his club. He had tried to +discover a quiet, respectable club where the members were willing +to play whist till four in the morning, but failing, had been +compelled to join a small Soho gambling-hell, where they taught +him poker. The place was occasionally raided by the police, +but thanks to his respectable appearance, he generally managed to +escape.</p> +<p>“At half-past four he returned home, and woke up the +family for evening prayers. At five he went to bed and +slept like a top.</p> +<p>“The City chaffed him, and Bayswater shook its head over +him, but that he did not mind. The only thing that really +troubled him was loss of spiritual communion. At five +o’clock on Sunday afternoons he felt he wanted chapel, but +had to do without it. At seven he ate his simple mid-day +meal. At eleven he had tea and muffins, and at midnight he +began to crave again for hymns and sermons. At three he had +a bread-and-cheese supper, and retired early at four a.m., +feeling sad and unsatisfied.</p> +<p>“He was essentially a man of habit.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>The unobtrusive stranger ceased, and we sat gazing in silence +at the ceiling.</p> +<p>At length my friend rose, and taking half-a-sovereign from his +pocket, laid it upon the table, and linking his arm in mine went +out with me upon the deck.</p> +<h2>THE ABSENT-MINDED MAN</h2> +<p>You ask him to dine with you on Thursday to meet a few people +who are anxious to know him.</p> +<p>“Now don’t make a muddle of it,” you say, +recollectful of former mishaps, “and come on the +Wednesday.”</p> +<p>He laughs good-naturedly as he hunts through the room for his +diary.</p> +<p>“Shan’t be able to come Wednesday,” he says, +“shall be at the Mansion House, sketching dresses, and on +Friday I start for Scotland, so as to be at the opening of the +Exhibition on Saturday. It’s bound to be all right +this time. Where the deuce is that diary! Never mind, +I’ll make a note of it on this—you can see me do +it.”</p> +<p>You stand over him while he writes the appointment down on a +sheet of foolscap, and watch him pin it up over his desk. +Then you come away contented.</p> +<p>“I do hope he’ll turn up,” you say to your +wife on the Thursday evening, while dressing.</p> +<p>“Are you sure you made it clear to him?” she +replies, suspiciously, and you instinctively feel that whatever +happens she is going to blame you for it.</p> +<p>Eight o’clock arrives, and with it the other +guests. At half-past eight your wife is beckoned +mysteriously out of the room, where the parlour-maid informs her +that the cook has expressed a determination, in case of further +delay, to wash her hands, figuratively speaking, of the whole +affair.</p> +<p>Your wife, returning, suggests that if the dinner is to be +eaten at all it had better be begun. She evidently +considers that in pretending to expect him you have been merely +playing a part, and that it would have been manlier and more +straightforward for you to have admitted at the beginning that +you had forgotten to invite him.</p> +<p>During the soup and the fish you recount anecdotes of his +unpunctuality. By the time the <i>entrée</i> arrives +the empty chair has begun to cast a gloom over the dinner, and +with the joint the conversation drifts into talk about dead +relatives.</p> +<p>On Friday, at a quarter past eight, he dashes to the door and +rings violently. Hearing his voice in the hall, you go to +meet him.</p> +<p>“Sorry I’m late,” he sings out +cheerily. “Fool of a cabman took me to Alfred Place +instead of—”</p> +<p>“Well, what do you want now you are come?” you +interrupt, feeling anything but genially inclined towards +him. He is an old friend, so you can be rude to him.</p> +<p>He laughs, and slaps you on the shoulder.</p> +<p>“Why, my dinner, my dear boy, I’m +starving.”</p> +<p>“Oh,” you grunt in reply. “Well, you +go and get it somewhere else, then. You’re not going +to have it here.”</p> +<p>“What the devil do you mean?” he says. +“You asked me to dinner.”</p> +<p>“I did nothing of the kind,” you tell him. +“I asked you to dinner on Thursday, not on +Friday.”</p> +<p>He stares at you incredulously.</p> +<p>“How did I get Friday fixed in my mind?” +inquiringly.</p> +<p>“Because yours is the sort of mind that would get Friday +firmly fixed into it, when Thursday was the day,” you +explain. “I thought you had to be off to Edinburgh +to-night,” you add.</p> +<p>“Great Scott!” he cries, “so I +have.”</p> +<p>And without another word he dashes out, and you hear him +rushing down the road, shouting for the cab he has just +dismissed.</p> +<p>As you return to your study you reflect that he will have to +travel all the way to Scotland in evening dress, and will have to +send out the hotel porter in the morning to buy him a suit of +ready-made clothes, and are glad.</p> +<p>Matters work out still more awkwardly when it is he who is the +host. I remember being with him on his house-boat one +day. It was a little after twelve, and we were sitting on +the edge of the boat, dangling our feet in the river—the +spot was a lonely one, half-way between Wallingford and +Day’s Lock. Suddenly round the bend appeared two +skiffs, each one containing six elaborately-dressed +persons. As soon as they caught sight of us they began +waving handkerchiefs and parasols.</p> +<p>“Hullo!” I said, “here’s some people +hailing you.”</p> +<p>“Oh, they all do that about here,” he answered, +without looking up. “Some beanfeast from Abingdon, I +expect.”</p> +<p>The boats draw nearer. When about two hundred yards off +an elderly gentleman raised himself up in the prow of the leading +one and shouted to us.</p> +<p>McQuae heard his voice, and gave a start that all but pitched +him into the water.</p> +<p>“Good God!” he cried, “I’d forgotten +all about it.”</p> +<p>“About what?” I asked.</p> +<p>“Why, it’s the Palmers and the Grahams and the +Hendersons. I’ve asked them all over to lunch, and +there’s not a blessed thing on board but two mutton chops +and a pound of potatoes, and I’ve given the boy a +holiday.”</p> +<p>Another day I was lunching with him at the Junior Hogarth, +when a man named Hallyard, a mutual friend, strolled across to +us.</p> +<p>“What are you fellows going to do this afternoon?” +he asked, seating himself the opposite side of the table.</p> +<p>“I’m going to stop here and write letters,” +I answered.</p> +<p>“Come with me if you want something to do,” said +McQuae. “I’m going to drive Leena down to +Richmond.” (“Leena” was the young lady he +recollected being engaged to. It transpired afterwards that +he was engaged to three girls at the time. The other two he +had forgotten all about.) “It’s a roomy seat at +the back.”</p> +<p>“Oh, all right,” said Hallyard, and they went away +together in a hansom.</p> +<p>An hour and a half later Hallyard walked into the smoking-room +looking depressed and worn, and flung himself into a chair.</p> +<p>“I thought you were going to Richmond with +McQuae,” I said.</p> +<p>“So did I,” he answered.</p> +<p>“Had an accident?” I asked.</p> +<p>“Yes.”</p> +<p>He was decidedly curt in his replies.</p> +<p>“Cart upset?” I continued.</p> +<p>“No, only me.”</p> +<p>His grammar and his nerves seemed thoroughly shaken.</p> +<p>I waited for an explanation, and after a while he gave it.</p> +<p>“We got to Putney,” he said, “with just an +occasional run into a tram-car, and were going up the hill, when +suddenly he turned a corner. You know his style at a +corner—over the curb, across the road, and into the +opposite lamp-post. Of course, as a rule one is prepared +for it, but I never reckoned on his turning up there, and the +first thing I recollect is finding myself sitting in the middle +of the street with a dozen fools grinning at me.</p> +<p>“It takes a man a few minutes in such a case to think +where he is and what has happened, and when I got up they were +some distance away. I ran after them for a quarter of a +mile, shouting at the top of my voice, and accompanied by a mob +of boys, all yelling like hell on a Bank Holiday. But one +might as well have tried to hail the dead, so I took the +’bus back.</p> +<p>“They might have guessed what had happened,” he +added, “by the shifting of the cart, if they’d had +any sense. I’m not a light-weight.”</p> +<p>He complained of soreness, and said he would go home. I +suggested a cab, but he replied that he would rather walk.</p> +<p>I met McQuae in the evening at the St. James’s +Theatre. It was a first night, and he was taking sketches +for <i>The Graphic</i>. The moment he saw me he made his +way across to me.</p> +<p>“The very man I wanted to see,” he said. +“Did I take Hallyard with me in the cart to Richmond this +afternoon?”</p> +<p>“You did,” I replied.</p> +<p>“So Leena says,” he answered, greatly bewildered, +“but I’ll swear he wasn’t there when we got to +the Queen’s Hotel.”</p> +<p>“It’s all right,” I said, “you dropped +him at Putney.”</p> +<p>“Dropped him at Putney!” he repeated. +“I’ve no recollection of doing so.”</p> +<p>“He has,” I answered. “You ask him +about it. He’s full of it.”</p> +<p>Everybody said he never would get married; that it was absurd +to suppose he ever would remember the day, the church, and the +girl, all in one morning; that if he did get as far as the altar +he would forget what he had come for, and would give the bride +away to his own best man. Hallyard had an idea that he was +already married, but that the fact had slipped his memory. +I myself felt sure that if he did marry he would forget all about +it the next day.</p> +<p>But everybody was wrong. By some miraculous means the +ceremony got itself accomplished, so that if Hallyard’s +idea be correct (as to which there is every possibility), there +will be trouble. As for my own fears, I dismissed them the +moment I saw the lady. She was a charming, cheerful little +woman, but did not look the type that would let him forget all +about it.</p> +<p>I had not seen him since his marriage, which had happened in +the spring. Working my way back from Scotland by easy +stages, I stopped for a few days at Scarboro’. After +<i>table d’hôte</i> I put on my mackintosh, and went +out for a walk. It was raining hard, but after a month in +Scotland one does not notice English weather, and I wanted some +air. Struggling along the dark beach with my head against +the wind, I stumbled over a crouching figure, seeking to shelter +itself a little from the storm under the lee of the Spa wall.</p> +<p>I expected it to swear at me, but it seemed too +broken-spirited to mind anything.</p> +<p>“I beg your pardon,” I said. “I did +not see you.”</p> +<p>At the sound of my voice it started to its feet.</p> +<p>“Is that you, old man?” it cried.</p> +<p>“McQuae!” I exclaimed.</p> +<p>“By Jove!” he said, “I was never so glad to +see a man in all my life before.”</p> +<p>And he nearly shook my hand off.</p> +<p>“But what in thunder!” I said, “are you +doing here? Why, you’re drenched to the +skin.”</p> +<p>He was dressed in flannels and a tennis-coat.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he answered. “I never thought +it would rain. It was a lovely morning.”</p> +<p>I began to fear he had overworked himself into a brain +fever.</p> +<p>“Why don’t you go home?” I asked.</p> +<p>“I can’t,” he replied. “I +don’t know where I live. I’ve forgotten the +address.”</p> +<p>“For heaven’s sake,” he said, “take me +somewhere, and give me something to eat. I’m +literally starving.”</p> +<p>“Haven’t you any money?” I asked him, as we +turned towards the hotel.</p> +<p>“Not a sou,” he answered. “We got in +here from York, the wife and I, about eleven. We left our +things at the station, and started to hunt for apartments. +As soon as we were fixed, I changed my clothes and came out for a +walk, telling Maud I should be back at one to lunch. Like a +fool, I never took the address, and never noticed the way I was +going.</p> +<p>“It’s an awful business,” he +continued. “I don’t see how I’m ever +going to find her. I hoped she might stroll down to the Spa +in the evening, and I’ve been hanging about the gates ever +since six. I hadn’t the threepence to go +in.”</p> +<p>“But have you no notion of the sort of street or the +kind of house it was?” I enquired.</p> +<p>“Not a ghost,” he replied. “I left it +all to Maud, and didn’t trouble.”</p> +<p>“Have you tried any of the lodging-houses?” I +asked.</p> +<p>“Tried!” he exclaimed bitterly. +“I’ve been knocking at doors, and asking if Mrs. +McQuae lives there steadily all the afternoon, and they slam the +door in my face, mostly without answering. I told a +policeman—I thought perhaps he might suggest +something—but the idiot only burst out laughing, and that +made me so mad that I gave him a black eye, and had to cut. +I expect they’re on the lookout for me now.”</p> +<p>“I went into a restaurant,” he continued gloomily, +“and tried to get them to trust me for a steak. But +the proprietress said she’d heard that tale before, and +ordered me out before all the other customers. I think +I’d have drowned myself if you hadn’t turned +up.”</p> +<p>After a change of clothes and some supper, he discussed the +case more calmly, but it was really a serious affair. They +had shut up their flat, and his wife’s relatives were +travelling abroad. There was no one to whom he could send a +letter to be forwarded; there was no one with whom she would be +likely to communicate. Their chance of meeting again in +this world appeared remote.</p> +<p>Nor did it seem to me—fond as he was of his wife, and +anxious as he undoubtedly was to recover her—that he looked +forward to the actual meeting, should it ever arrive, with any +too pleasurable anticipation.</p> +<p>“She will think it strange,” he murmured +reflectively, sitting on the edge of the bed, and thoughtfully +pulling off his socks. “She is sure to think it +strange.”</p> +<p>The following day, which was Wednesday, we went to a +solicitor, and laid the case before him, and he instituted +inquiries among all the lodging-house keepers in Scarborough, +with the result that on Thursday afternoon McQuae was restored +(after the manner of an Adelphi hero in the last act) to his home +and wife.</p> +<p>I asked him next time I met him what she had said.</p> +<p>“Oh, much what I expected,” he replied.</p> +<p>But he never told me what he had expected.</p> +<h2>A CHARMING WOMAN</h2> +<p>“Not <i>the Mr. ---</i>, <i>really</i>?”</p> +<p>In her deep brown eyes there lurked pleased surprise, +struggling with wonder. She looked from myself to the +friend who introduced us with a bewitching smile of incredulity, +tempered by hope.</p> +<p>He assured her, adding laughingly, “The only genuine and +original,” and left us.</p> +<p>“I’ve always thought of you as a staid, +middle-aged man,” she said, with a delicious little laugh, +then added in low soft tones, “I’m so very pleased to +meet you, really.”</p> +<p>The words were conventional, but her voice crept round one +like a warm caress.</p> +<p>“Come and talk to me,” she said, seating herself +upon a small settee, and making room for me.</p> +<p>I sat down awkwardly beside her, my head buzzing just a +little, as with one glass too many of champagne. I was in +my literary childhood. One small book and a few essays and +criticisms, scattered through various obscure periodicals had +been as yet my only contributions to current literature. +The sudden discovery that I was the Mr. Anybody, and that +charming women thought of me, and were delighted to meet me, was +a brain-disturbing thought.</p> +<p>“And it was really you who wrote that clever +book?” she continued, “and all those brilliant +things, in the magazines and journals. Oh, it must be +delightful to be clever.”</p> +<p>She gave breath to a little sigh of vain regret that went to +my heart. To console her I commenced a laboured compliment, +but she stopped me with her fan. On after reflection I was +glad she had—it would have been one of those things better +expressed otherwise.</p> +<p>“I know what you are going to say,” she laughed, +“but don’t. Besides, from you I should not know +quite how to take it. You can be so satirical.”</p> +<p>I tried to look as though I could be, but in her case would +not.</p> +<p>She let her ungloved hand rest for an instant upon mine. +Had she left it there for two, I should have gone down on my +knees before her, or have stood on my head at her feet—have +made a fool of myself in some way or another before the whole +room full. She timed it to a nicety.</p> +<p>“I don’t want <i>you</i> to pay me +compliments,” she said, “I want us to be +friends. Of course, in years, I’m old enough to be +your mother.” (By the register I should say she might +have been thirty-two, but looked twenty-six. I was +twenty-three, and I fear foolish for my age.) “But +you know the world, and you’re so different to the other +people one meets. Society is so hollow and artificial; +don’t you find it so? You don’t know how I long +sometimes to get away from it, to know someone to whom I could +show my real self, who would understand me. You’ll +come and see me sometimes—I’m always at home on +Wednesdays—and let me talk to you, won’t you, and you +must tell me all your clever thoughts.”</p> +<p>It occurred to me that, maybe, she would like to hear a few of +them there and then, but before I had got well started a hollow +Society man came up and suggested supper, and she was compelled +to leave me. As she disappeared, however, in the throng, +she looked back over her shoulder with a glance half pathetic, +half comic, that I understood. It said, “Pity me, +I’ve got to be bored by this vapid, shallow +creature,” and I did.</p> +<p>I sought her through all the rooms before I went. I +wished to assure her of my sympathy and support. I learned, +however, from the butler that she had left early, in company with +the hollow Society man.</p> +<p>A fortnight later I ran against a young literary friend in +Regent Street, and we lunched together at the Monico.</p> +<p>“I met such a charming woman last night,” he said, +“a Mrs. Clifton Courtenay, a delightful woman.”</p> +<p>“Oh, do <i>you</i> know her?” I exclaimed. +“Oh, we’re very old friends. She’s always +wanting me to go and see her. I really must.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I didn’t know <i>you</i> knew her,” he +answered. Somehow, the fact of my knowing her seemed to +lessen her importance in his eyes. But soon he recovered +his enthusiasm for her.</p> +<p>“A wonderfully clever woman,” he continued. +“I’m afraid I disappointed her a little +though.” He said this, however, with a laugh that +contradicted his words. “She would not believe I was +<i>the</i> Mr. Smith. She imagined from my book that I was +quite an old man.”</p> +<p>I could see nothing in my friend’s book myself to +suggest that the author was, of necessity, anything over +eighteen. The mistake appeared to me to display want of +acumen, but it had evidently pleased him greatly.</p> +<p>“I felt quite sorry for her,” he went on, +“chained to that bloodless, artificial society in which she +lives. ‘You can’t tell,’ she said to me, +‘how I long to meet someone to whom I could show my real +self—who would understand me.’ I’m going +to see her on Wednesday.”</p> +<p>I went with him. My conversation with her was not as +confidential as I had anticipated, owing to there being some +eighty other people present in a room intended for the +accommodation of eight; but after surging round for an hour in +hot and aimless misery—as very young men at such gatherings +do, knowing as a rule only the man who has brought them, and +being unable to find him—I contrived to get a few words +with her.</p> +<p>She greeted me with a smile, in the light of which I at once +forgot my past discomfort, and let her fingers rest, with +delicious pressure, for a moment upon mine.</p> +<p>“How good of you to keep your promise,” she +said. “These people have been tiring me so. Sit +here, and tell me all you have been doing.”</p> +<p>She listened for about ten seconds, and then interrupted me +with—</p> +<p>“And that clever friend of yours that you came +with. I met him at dear Lady Lennon’s last +week. Has <i>he</i> written anything?”</p> +<p>I explained to her that he had.</p> +<p>“Tell me about it?” she said. “I get +so little time for reading, and then I only care to read the +books that help me,” and she gave me a grateful look more +eloquent than words.</p> +<p>I described the work to her, and wishing to do my friend +justice I even recited a few of the passages upon which, as I +knew, he especially prided himself.</p> +<p>One sentence in particular seemed to lay hold of her. +“A good woman’s arms round a man’s neck is a +lifebelt thrown out to him from heaven.”</p> +<p>“How beautiful!” she murmured. “Say it +again.”</p> +<p>I said it again, and she repeated it after me.</p> +<p>Then a noisy old lady swooped down upon her, and I drifted +away into a corner, where I tried to look as if I were enjoying +myself, and failed.</p> +<p>Later on, feeling it time to go, I sought my friend, and found +him talking to her in a corner. I approached and +waited. They were discussing the latest east-end +murder. A drunken woman had been killed by her husband, a +hard-working artizan, who had been maddened by the ruin of his +home.</p> +<p>“Ah,” she was saying, “what power a woman +has to drag a man down or lift him up. I never read a case +in which a woman is concerned without thinking of those beautiful +lines of yours: ‘A good woman’s arms round a +man’s neck is a lifebelt thrown out to him from +heaven.’”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Opinions differed concerning her religion and politics. +Said the Low Church parson: “An earnest Christian woman, +sir, of that unostentatious type that has always been the bulwark +of our Church. I am proud to know that woman, and I am +proud to think that poor words of mine have been the humble +instrument to wean that true woman’s heart from the +frivolities of fashion, and to fix her thoughts upon higher +things. A good Churchwoman, sir, a good Churchwoman, in the +best sense of the word.”</p> +<p>Said the pale aristocratic-looking young Abbé to the +Comtesse, the light of old-world enthusiasm shining from his +deep-set eyes: “I have great hopes for our dear +friend. She finds it hard to sever the ties of time and +love. We are all weak, but her heart turns towards our +mother Church as a child, though suckled among strangers, yearns +after many years for the bosom that has borne it. We have +spoken, and I, even I, may be the voice in the wilderness leading +the lost sheep back to the fold.”</p> +<p>Said Sir Harry Bennett, the great Theosophist lecturer, +writing to a friend: “A singularly gifted woman, and a +woman evidently thirsting for the truth. A woman capable of +willing her own life. A woman not afraid of thought and +reason, a lover of wisdom. I have talked much with her at +one time or another, and I have found her grasp my meaning with a +quickness of perception quite unusual in my experience; and the +arguments I have let fall, I am convinced, have borne excellent +fruit. I look forward to her becoming, at no very distant +date, a valued member of our little band. Indeed, without +betraying confidence, I may almost say I regard her conversion as +an accomplished fact.”</p> +<p>Colonel Maxim always spoke of her as “a fair pillar of +the State.”</p> +<p>“With the enemy in our midst,” said the florid old +soldier, “it behoves every true man—aye, and every +true woman—to rally to the defence of the country; and all +honour, say I, to noble ladies such as Mrs. Clifton Courtenay, +who, laying aside their natural shrinking from publicity, come +forward in such a crisis as the present to combat the forces of +disorder and disloyalty now rampant in the land.”</p> +<p>“But,” some listener would suggest, “I +gathered from young Jocelyn that Mrs. Clifton Courtenay held +somewhat advanced views on social and political +questions.”</p> +<p>“Jocelyn,” the Colonel would reply with scorn; +“pah! There may have been a short space of time +during which the fellow’s long hair and windy rhetoric +impressed her. But I flatter myself I’ve put +<i>my</i> spoke in Mr. Jocelyn’s wheel. Why, damme, +sir, she’s consented to stand for Grand Dame of the +Bermondsey Branch of the Primrose League next year. +What’s Jocelyn to say to that, the scoundrel!”</p> +<p>What Jocelyn said was:—</p> +<p>“I know the woman is weak. But I do not blame her; +I pity her. When the time comes, as soon it will, when +woman is no longer a puppet, dancing to the threads held by some +brainless man—when a woman is not threatened with social +ostracism for daring to follow her own conscience instead of that +of her nearest male relative—then will be the time to judge +her. It is not for me to betray the confidence reposed in +me by a suffering woman, but you can tell that interesting old +fossil, Colonel Maxim, that he and the other old women of the +Bermondsey Branch of the Primrose League may elect Mrs. Clifton +Courtenay for their President, and make the most of it; they have +only got the outside of the woman. Her heart is beating +time to the tramp of an onward-marching people; her soul’s +eyes are straining for the glory of a coming dawn.”</p> +<p>But they all agreed she was a charming woman.</p> +<h2>WHIBLEY’S SPIRIT</h2> +<p>I never met it myself, but I knew Whibley very well indeed, so +that I came to hear a goodish deal about it.</p> +<p>It appeared to be devoted to Whibley, and Whibley was +extremely fond of it. Personally I am not interested in +spirits, and no spirit has ever interested itself in me. +But I have friends whom they patronise, and my mind is quite open +on the subject. Of Whibley’s Spirit I wish to speak +with every possible respect. It was, I am willing to admit, +as hard-working and conscientious a spirit as any one could wish +to live with. The only thing I have to say against it is +that it had no sense.</p> +<p>It came with a carved cabinet that Whibley had purchased in +Wardour Street for old oak, but which, as a matter of fact, was +chestnut wood, manufactured in Germany, and at first was harmless +enough, saying nothing but “Yes!” or +“No!” and that only when spoken to.</p> +<p>Whibley would amuse himself of an evening asking it questions, +being careful to choose tolerably simple themes, such as, +“Are you there?” (to which the Spirit would sometimes +answer “Yes!” and sometimes “No!”) +“Can you hear me?” “Are you +happy?”—and so on. The Spirit made the cabinet +crack—three times for “Yes” and twice for +“No.” Now and then it would reply both +“Yes!” and “No!” to the same question, +which Whibley attributed to over-scrupulousness. When +nobody asked it anything it would talk to itself, repeating +“Yes!” “No!” +“No!” “Yes!” over and over again in +an aimless, lonesome sort of a way that made you feel sorry for +it.</p> +<p>After a while Whibley bought a table, and encouraged it to +launch out into more active conversation. To please +Whibley, I assisted at some of the earlier séances, but +during my presence it invariably maintained a reticence bordering +on positive dulness. I gathered from Whibley that it +disliked me, thinking that I was unsympathetic. The +complaint was unjust; I was not unsympathetic, at least not at +the commencement. I came to hear it talk, and I wanted to +hear it talk; I would have listened to it by the hour. What +tired me was its slowness in starting, and its foolishness when +it had started, in using long words that it did not know how to +spell. I remember on one occasion, Whibley, Jobstock +(Whibley’s partner), and myself, sitting for two hours, +trying to understand what the thing meant by +“H-e-s-t-u-r-n-e-m-y-s-f-e-a-r.” It used no +stops whatever. It never so much as hinted where one +sentence ended and another began. It never even told us +when it came to a proper name. Its idea of an +evening’s conversation was to plump down a hundred or so +vowels and consonants in front of you and leave you to make +whatever sense out of them you could.</p> +<p>We fancied at first it was talking about somebody named Hester +(it had spelt Hester with a “u” before we allowed a +margin for spelling), and we tried to work the sentence out on +that basis, “Hester enemies fear,” we thought it +might be. Whibley had a niece named Hester, and we decided +the warning had reference to her. But whether she was our +enemy, and we were to fear her, or whether we had to fear her +enemies (and, if so, who were they?), or whether it was our +enemies who were to be frightened by Hester, or her enemies, or +enemies generally, still remained doubtful. We asked the +table if it meant the first suggestion, and it said +“No.” We asked what it did mean, and it said +“Yes.”</p> +<p>This answer annoyed me, but Whibley explained that the Spirit +was angry with us for our stupidity (which seemed quaint). +He informed us that it always said first “No,” and +then “Yes,” when it was angry, and as it was his +Spirit, and we were in his house, we kept our feelings to +ourselves and started afresh.</p> +<p>This time we abandoned the “Hestur” theory +altogether. Jobstock suggested “Haste” for the +first word, and, thought the Spirit might have gone on +phonetically.</p> +<p>“Haste! you are here, Miss Sfear!” was what he +made of it.</p> +<p>Whibley asked him sarcastically if he’d kindly explain +what that meant.</p> +<p>I think Jobstock was getting irritable. We had been +sitting cramped up round a wretched little one-legged table all +the evening, and this was almost the first bit of gossip we had +got out of it. To further excuse him, it should also be +explained that the gas had been put out by Whibley, and that the +fire had gone out of its own accord. He replied that it was +hard labour enough to find out what the thing said without having +to make sense of it.</p> +<p>“It can’t spell,” he added, “and +it’s got a nasty, sulky temper. If it was my spirit +I’d hire another spirit to kick it.”</p> +<p>Whibley was one of the mildest little men I ever knew, but +chaff or abuse of his Spirit roused the devil in him, and I +feared we were going to have a scene. Fortunately, I was +able to get his mind back to the consideration of +“Hesturnemysfear” before anything worse happened than +a few muttered remarks about the laughter of fools, and want of +reverence for sacred subjects being the sign of a shallow +mind.</p> +<p>We tried “He’s stern,” and “His +turn,” and the “fear of Hesturnemy,” and tried +to think who “Hesturnemy” might be. Three times +we went over the whole thing again from the beginning, which +meant six hundred and six tiltings of the table, and then +suddenly the explanation struck me—“Eastern +Hemisphere.”</p> +<p>Whibley had asked it for any information it might possess +concerning his wife’s uncle, from whom he had not heard for +months, and that apparently was its idea of an address.</p> +<p>The fame of Whibley’s Spirit became noised abroad, with +the result that Whibley was able to command the willing service +of more congenial assistants, and Jobstock and myself were +dismissed. But we bore no malice.</p> +<p>Under these more favourable conditions the Spirit plucked up +wonderfully, and talked everybody’s head off. It +could never have been a cheerful companion, however, for its +conversation was chiefly confined to warnings and +prognostications of evil. About once a fortnight Whibley +would drop round on me, in a friendly way, to tell me that I was +to beware of a man who lived in a street beginning with a +“C,” or to inform me that if I would go to a town on +the coast where there were three churches I should meet someone +who would do me an irreparable injury, and, that I did not rush +off then and there in search of that town he regarded as flying +in the face of Providence.</p> +<p>In its passion for poking its ghostly nose into other +people’s affairs it reminded me of my earthly friend +Poppleton. Nothing pleased it better than being appealed to +for aid and advice, and Whibley, who was a perfect slave to it, +would hunt half over the parish for people in trouble and bring +them to it.</p> +<p>It would direct ladies, eager for divorce court evidence, to +go to the third house from the corner of the fifth street, past +such and such a church or public-house (it never would give a +plain, straightforward address), and ring the bottom bell but one +twice. They would thank it effusively, and next morning +would start to find the fifth street past the church, and would +ring the bottom bell but one of the third house from the corner +twice, and a man in his shirt sleeves would come to the door and +ask them what they wanted.</p> +<p>They could not tell what they wanted, they did not know +themselves, and the man would use bad language, and slam the door +in their faces.</p> +<p>Then they would think that perhaps the Spirit meant the fifth +street the other way, or the third house from the opposite +corner, and would try again, with still more unpleasant +results.</p> +<p>One July I met Whibley, mooning disconsolately along Princes +Street, Edinburgh.</p> +<p>“Hullo!” I exclaimed, “what are you doing +here? I thought you were busy over that School Board +case.”</p> +<p>“Yes,” he answered, “I ought really to be in +London, but the truth is I’m rather expecting something to +happen down here.”</p> +<p>“Oh!” I said, “and what’s +that?”</p> +<p>“Well,” he replied hesitatingly, as though he +would rather not talk about it, “I don’t exactly know +yet.”</p> +<p>“You’ve come from London to Edinburgh, and +don’t know what you’ve come for!” I cried.</p> +<p>“Well, you see,” he said, still more reluctantly, +as it seemed to me, “it was Maria’s idea; she +wished—”</p> +<p>“Maria!” I interrupted, looking perhaps a little +sternly at him, “who’s Maria?” (His +wife’s name I knew was Emily Georgina Anne.)</p> +<p>“Oh! I forgot,” he explained; “she +never would tell her name before you, would she? It’s +the Spirit, you know.”</p> +<p>“Oh! that,” I said, “it’s she that has +sent you here. Didn’t she tell you what +for?”</p> +<p>“No,” he answered, “that’s what +worries me. All she would say was, ‘Go to +Edinburgh—something will happen.’”</p> +<p>“And how long are you going to remain here?” I +inquired.</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” he replied. +“I’ve been here a week already, and Jobstock writes +quite angrily. I wouldn’t have come if Maria +hadn’t been so urgent. She repeated it three evenings +running.”</p> +<p>I hardly knew what to do. The little man was so +dreadfully in earnest about the business that one could not argue +much with him.</p> +<p>“You are sure,” I said, after thinking a while, +“that this Maria is a good Spirit? There are all +sorts going about, I’m told. You’re sure this +isn’t the spirit of some deceased lunatic, playing the fool +with you?”</p> +<p>“I’ve thought of that,” he admitted. +“Of course that might be so. If nothing happens soon +I shall almost begin to suspect it.”</p> +<p>“Well, I should certainly make some inquiries into its +character before I trusted it any further,” I answered, and +left him.</p> +<p>About a month later I ran against him outside the Law +Courts.</p> +<p>“It was all right about Maria; something did happen in +Edinburgh while I was there. That very morning I met you +one of my oldest clients died quite suddenly at his house at +Queensferry, only a few miles outside the city.”</p> +<p>“I’m glad of that,” I answered, “I +mean, of course, for Maria’s sake. It was lucky you +went then.”</p> +<p>“Well, not altogether,” he replied, “at +least, not in a worldly sense. He left his affairs in a +very complicated state, and his eldest son went straight up to +London to consult me about them, and, not finding me there, and +time being important, went to Kebble. I was rather +disappointed when I got back and heard about it.”</p> +<p>“Umph!” I said; “she’s not a smart +spirit, anyway.”</p> +<p>“No,” he answered, “perhaps not. But, +you see, something did really happen.”</p> +<p>After that his affection for “Maria” increased +tenfold, while her attachment to himself became a burden to his +friends. She grew too big for her table, and, dispensing +with all mechanical intermediaries, talked to him direct. +She followed him everywhere. Mary’s lamb +couldn’t have been a bigger nuisance. She would even +go with him into the bedroom, and carry on long conversations +with him in the middle of the night. His wife objected; she +said it seemed hardly decent, but there was no keeping her +out.</p> +<p>She turned up with him at picnics and Christmas parties. +Nobody heard her speak to him, but it seemed necessary for him to +reply to her aloud, and to see him suddenly get up from his chair +and slip away to talk earnestly to nothing in a corner disturbed +the festivities.</p> +<p>“I should really be glad,” he once confessed to +me, “to get a little time to myself. She means +kindly, but it <i>is</i> a strain. And then the others +don’t like it. It makes them nervous. I can see +it does.”</p> +<p>One evening she caused quite a scene at the club. +Whibley had been playing whist, with the Major for a +partner. At the end of the game the Major, leaning across +the table toward him, asked, in a tone of deadly calm, “May +I inquire, sir, whether there was any earthly reason” (he +emphasised “earthly”) “for your following my +lead of spades with your only trump?”</p> +<p>“I—I—am very sorry, Major,” replied +Whibley apologetically. “I—I—somehow felt +I—I ought to play that queen.”</p> +<p>“Entirely your own inspiration, or suggested?” +persisted the Major, who had, of course, heard of +“Maria.”</p> +<p>Whibley admitted the play had been suggested to him. The +Major rose from the table.</p> +<p>“Then, sir,” said he, with concentrated +indignation, “I decline to continue this game. A +human fool I can tolerate for a partner, but if I am to be +hampered by a damned spirit—”</p> +<p>“You’ve no right to say that,” cried Whibley +hotly.</p> +<p>“I apologise,” returned the Major coldly; +“we will say a blessed spirit. I decline to play +whist with spirits of any kind; and I advise you, sir, if you +intend giving many exhibitions with the lady, first to teach her +the rudiments of the game.”</p> +<p>Saying which the Major put on his hat and left the club, and I +made Whibley drink a stiff glass of brandy and water, and sent +him and “Maria” home in a cab.</p> +<p>Whibley got rid of “Maria” at last. It cost +him in round figures about eight thousand pounds, but his family +said it was worth it.</p> +<p>A Spanish Count hired a furnished house a few doors from +Whibley’s, and one evening he was introduced to Whibley, +and came home and had a chat with him. Whibley told him +about “Maria,” and the Count quite fell in love with +her. He said that if only he had had such a spirit to help +and advise him, it might have altered his whole life.</p> +<p>He was the first man who had ever said a kind word about the +spirit, and Whibley loved him for it. The Count seemed as +though he could never see enough of Whibley after that evening, +and the three of them—Whibley, the Count, and +“Maria”—would sit up half the night talking +together.</p> +<p>The precise particulars I never heard. Whibley was +always very reticent on the matter. Whether +“Maria” really did exist, and the Count deliberately +set to work to bamboozle her (she was fool enough for anything), +or whether she was a mere hallucination of Whibley’s, and +the man tricked Whibley by “hypnotic suggestions” (as +I believe it is called), I am not prepared to say. The only +thing certain is that “Maria” convinced Whibley that +the Count had discovered a secret gold mine in Peru. She +said she knew all about it, and counselled Whibley to beg the +Count to let him put a few thousands into the working of +it. “Maria,” it appeared, had known the Count +from his boyhood, and could answer for it that he was the most +honourable man in all South America. Possibly enough he +was.</p> +<p>The Count was astonished to find that Whibley knew all about +his mine. Eight thousand pounds was needed to start the +workings, but he had not mentioned it to any one, as he wanted to +keep the whole thing to himself, and thought he could save the +money on his estates in Portugal. However, to oblige +“Maria,” he would let Whibley supply the money. +Whibley supplied it—in cash, and no one has ever seen the +Count since.</p> +<p>That broke up Whibley’s faith in “Maria,” +and a sensible doctor, getting hold of him threatened to +prescribe a lunatic asylum for him if ever he found him carrying +on with any spirits again. That completed the cure.</p> +<h2>THE MAN WHO WENT WRONG</h2> +<p>I first met Jack Burridge nearly ten years ago on a certain +North-country race-course.</p> +<p>The saddling bell had just rung for the chief event of the +day. I was sauntering along with my hands in my pockets, +more interested in the crowd than in the race, when a sporting +friend, crossing on his way to the paddock, seized me by the arm +and whispered hoarsely in my ear:—</p> +<p>“Put your shirt on Mrs. Waller.”</p> +<p>“Put my -?” I began.</p> +<p>“Put your shirt on Mrs. Waller,” he repeated still +more impressively, and disappeared in the throng.</p> +<p>I stared after him in blank amazement. Why should I put +my shirt on Mrs. Waller? Even if it would fit a lady. +And how about myself?</p> +<p>I was passing the grand stand, and, glancing up, I saw +“Mrs. Waller, twelve to one,” chalked on a +bookmaker’s board. Then it dawned upon me that +“Mrs. Waller” was a horse, and, thinking further upon +the matter, I evolved the idea that my friend’s advice, +expressed in more becoming language, was “Back ‘Mrs. +Waller’ for as much as you can possibly afford.”</p> +<p>“Thank you,” I said to myself, “I have +backed cast-iron certainties before. Next time I bet upon a +horse I shall make the selection by shutting my eyes and putting +a pin through the card.”</p> +<p>But the seed had taken root. My friend’s words +surged in my brain. The birds passing overhead twittered, +“Put your shirt on ‘Mrs. Waller.’”</p> +<p>I reasoned with myself. I reminded myself of my few +former ventures. But the craving to put, if not my shirt, +at all events half a sovereign on “Mrs. Waller” only +grew the stronger the more strongly I battled against it. I +felt that if “Mrs. Waller” won and I had nothing on +her, I should reproach myself to my dying day.</p> +<p>I was on the other side of the course. There was no time +to get back to the enclosure. The horses were already +forming for the start. A few yards off, under a white +umbrella, an outside bookmaker was shouting his final prices in +stentorian tones. He was a big, genial-looking man, with an +honest red face.</p> +<p>“What price ‘Mrs. Waller’?” I asked +him.</p> +<p>“Fourteen to one,” he answered, “and good +luck to you.”</p> +<p>I handed him half a sovereign, and he wrote me out a +ticket. I crammed it into my waistcoat pocket, and hurried +off to see the race. To my intense astonishment “Mrs. +Waller” won. The novel sensation of having backed the +winner so excited me that I forgot all about my money, and it was +not until a good hour afterwards that I recollected my bet.</p> +<p>Then I started off to search for the man under the white +umbrella. I went to where I thought I had left him, but no +white umbrella could I find.</p> +<p>Consoling myself with the reflection that my loss served me +right for having been fool enough to trust an outside +“bookie,” I turned on my heel and began to make my +way back to my seat. Suddenly a voice hailed me:—</p> +<p>“Here you are, sir. It’s Jack Burridge you +want. Over here, sir.”</p> +<p>I looked round, and there was Jack Burridge at my elbow.</p> +<p>“I saw you looking about, sir,” he said, +“but I could not make you hear. You was looking the +wrong side of the tent.”</p> +<p>It was pleasant to find that his honest face had not belied +him.</p> +<p>“It is very good of you,” I said; “I had +given up all hopes of seeing you. Or,” I added with a +smile, “my seven pounds.”</p> +<p>“Seven pun’ ten,” he corrected me; +“you’re forgetting your own thin +’un.”</p> +<p>He handed me the money and went back to his stand.</p> +<p>On my way into the town I came across him again. A small +crowd was collected, thoughtfully watching a tramp knocking about +a miserable-looking woman.</p> +<p>Jack, pushing to the front, took in the scene and took off his +coat in the same instant.</p> +<p>“Now then, my fine old English gentleman,” he sang +out, “come and have a try at me for a change.”</p> +<p>The tramp was a burly ruffian, and I have seen better boxers +than Jack. He got himself a black eye, and a nasty cut over +the lip, before he hardly knew where he was. But in spite +of that—and a good deal more—he stuck to his man and +finished him.</p> +<p>At the end, as he helped his adversary up, I heard him say to +the fellow in a kindly whisper:—</p> +<p>“You’re too good a sort, you know, to whollop a +woman. Why, you very near give me a licking. You must +have forgot yourself, matey.”</p> +<p>The fellow interested me. I waited and walked on with +him. He told me about his home in London, at Mile +End—about his old father and mother, his little brothers +and sisters—and what he was saving up to do for them. +Kindliness oozed from every pore in his skin.</p> +<p>Many that we met knew him, and all, when they saw his round, +red face, smiled unconsciously. At the corner of the High +Street a pale-faced little drudge of a girl passed us, saying as +she slipped by “Good-evening, Mr. Burridge.”</p> +<p>He made a dart and caught her by the shoulder.</p> +<p>“And how is father?” he asked.</p> +<p>“Oh, if you please, Mr. Burridge, he is out again. +All the mills is closed,” answered the child.</p> +<p>“And mother?”</p> +<p>“She don’t get no better, sir.”</p> +<p>“And who’s keeping you all?”</p> +<p>“Oh, if you please, sir, Jimmy’s earning something +now,” replied the mite.</p> +<p>He took a couple of sovereigns from his waistcoat pocket, and +closed the child’s hand upon them.</p> +<p>“That’s all right, my lass, that’s all +right,” he said, stopping her stammering thanks. +“You write to me if things don’t get better. +You know where to find Jack Burridge.”</p> +<p>Strolling about the streets in the evening, I happened to pass +the inn where he was staying. The parlour window was open, +and out into the misty night his deep, cheery voice, trolling +forth an old-fashioned drinking song, came rolling like a wind, +cleansing the corners of one’s heart with its breezy +humanness. He was sitting at the head of the table +surrounded by a crowd of jovial cronies. I lingered for a +while watching the scene. It made the world appear a less +sombre dwelling-place than I had sometimes pictured it.</p> +<p>I determined, on my return to London, to look him up, and +accordingly one evening started to find the little by-street off +the Mile End Road in which he lived. As I turned the corner +he drove up in his dog-cart; it was a smart turn-out. On +the seat beside him sat a neat, withered little old woman, whom +he introduced to me as his mother.</p> +<p>“I tell ’im it’s a fine gell as ’e +oughter ’ave up ’ere aside ’im,” said the +old lady, preparing to dismount, “an old woman like me +takes all the paint off the show.”</p> +<p>“Get along with yer,” he replied laughingly, +jumping down and handing the reins to the lad who had been +waiting, “you could give some of the young uns points yet, +mother. I allus promised the old lady as she should ride +behind her own ’oss one day,” he continued, turning +to me, “didn’t I, mother?”</p> +<p>“Ay, ay,” replied the old soul, as she hobbled +nimbly up the steps, “ye’re a good son, Jack, +ye’re a good son.”</p> +<p>He led the way into the parlour. As he entered every +face lightened up with pleasure, a harmony of joyous welcome +greeted him. The old hard world had been shut out with the +slam of the front door. I seemed to have wandered into +Dickensland. The red-faced man with the small twinkling +eyes and the lungs of leather loomed before me, a large, fat +household fairy. From his capacious pockets came forth +tobacco for the old father; a huge bunch of hot-house grapes for +a neighbour’s sickly child, who was stopping with them; a +book of Henty’s—beloved of boys—for a noisy +youngster who called him “uncle”; a bottle of port +wine for a wan, elderly woman with a swollen face—his +widowed sister-in-law, as I subsequently learned; sweets enough +for the baby (whose baby I don’t know) to make it sick for +a week; and a roll of music for his youngest sister.</p> +<p>“We’re a-going to make a lady of her,” he +said, drawing the child’s shy face against his gaudy +waistcoat, and running his coarse hand through her pretty curls; +“and she shall marry a jockey when she grows up.”</p> +<p>After supper he brewed some excellent whisky punch, and +insisted upon the old lady joining us, which she eventually did +with much coughing and protestation; but I noticed that she +finished the tumblerful. For the children he concocted a +marvellous mixture, which he called an +“eye-composer,” the chief ingredients being hot +lemonade, ginger wine, sugar, oranges, and raspberry +vinegar. It had the desired effect.</p> +<p>I stayed till late, listening to his inexhaustible fund of +stories. Over most of them he laughed with us +himself—a great gusty laugh that made the cheap glass +ornaments upon the mantelpiece to tremble; but now and then a +recollection came to him that spread a sudden gravity across his +jovial face, bringing a curious quaver into his deep voice.</p> +<p>Their tongues a little loosened by the punch, the old folks +would have sung his praises to the verge of tediousness had he +not almost sternly interrupted them.</p> +<p>“Shut up, mother,” he cried at last, quite +gruffly, “what I does I does to please myself. I +likes to see people comfortable about me. If they +wasn’t, it’s me as would be more upset than +them.”</p> +<p>I did not see him again for nearly two years. Then one +October evening, strolling about the East End, I met him coming +out of a little Chapel in the Burdett Road. He was so +changed that I should not have known him had not I overheard a +woman as she passed him say, “Good-evening, Mr. +Burridge.”</p> +<p>A pair of bushy side-whiskers had given to his red face an +aggressively respectable appearance. He was dressed in an +ill-fitting suit of black, and carried an umbrella in one hand +and a book in the other.</p> +<p>In some mysterious way he managed to look both thinner and +shorter than my recollection of him. Altogether, he +suggested to me the idea that he himself—the real +man—had by some means or other been extracted, leaving only +his shrunken husk behind. The genial juices of humanity had +been squeezed out of him.</p> +<p>“Not Jack Burridge!” I exclaimed, confronting him +in astonishment.</p> +<p>His little eyes wandered shiftily up and down the +street. “No, sir,” he replied (his tones had +lost their windy boisterousness—a hard, metallic voice +spoke to me), “not the one as you used to know, praise be +the Lord.”</p> +<p>“And have you given up the old business?” I +asked.</p> +<p>“Yes, sir,” he replied, “that’s all +over; I’ve been a vile sinner in my time, God forgive me +for it. But, thank Heaven, I have repented in +time.”</p> +<p>“Come and have a drink,” I said, slipping my arm +through his, “and tell me all about it.”</p> +<p>He disengaged himself from me, firmly but gently. +“You mean well, sir,” he said, “but I have +given up the drink.”</p> +<p>Evidently he would have been rid of me, but a literary man, +scenting material for his stockpot, is not easily shaken +off. I asked after the old folks, and if they were still +stopping with him.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he said, “for the present. Of +course, a man can’t be expected to keep people for ever; so +many mouths to fill is hard work these times, and everybody +sponges on a man just because he’s good-natured.”</p> +<p>“And how are you getting on?” I asked.</p> +<p>“Tolerably well, thank you, sir. The Lord provides +for His servants,” he replied with a smug smile. +“I have got a little shop now in the Commercial +Road.”</p> +<p>“Whereabouts?” I persisted. “I would +like to call and see you.”</p> +<p>He gave me the address reluctantly, and said he would esteem +it a great pleasure if I would honour him by a visit, which was a +palpable lie.</p> +<p>The following afternoon I went. I found the place to be +a pawnbroker’s shop, and from all appearances he must have +been doing a very brisk business. He was out himself +attending a temperance committee, but his old father was behind +the counter, and asked me inside. Though it was a chilly +day there was no fire in the parlour, and the two old folks sat +one each side of the empty hearth, silent and sad. They +seemed little more pleased to see me than their son, but after a +while Mrs. Burridge’s natural garrulity asserted itself, +and we fell into chat.</p> +<p>I asked what had become of his sister-in-law, the lady with +the swollen face.</p> +<p>“I couldn’t rightly tell you, sir,” answered +the old lady, “she ain’t livin’ with us +now. You see, sir,” she continued, +“John’s got different notions to what ’e used +to ’ave. ’E don’t cotten much to them as +ain’t found grace, and poor Jane never did ’ave much +religion!”</p> +<p>“And the little one?” I inquired. “The +one with the curls?”</p> +<p>“What, Bessie, sir?” said the old lady. +“Oh, she’s out at service, sir; John don’t +think it good for young folks to be idle.”</p> +<p>“Your son seems to have changed a good deal, Mrs. +Burridge,” I remarked.</p> +<p>“Ay, sir,” she assented, “you may well say +that. It nearly broke my ’art at fust; +everythin’ so different to what it ’ad been. +Not as I’d stand in the boy’s light. If our +being a bit uncomfortable like in this world is a-going to do +’im any good in the next me and father ain’t the ones +to begrudge it, are we, old man?”</p> +<p>The “old man” concurred grumpily.</p> +<p>“Was it a sudden conversion?” I asked. +“How did it come about?”</p> +<p>“It was a young woman as started ’im off,” +explained the old lady. “She come round to our place +one day a-collectin’ for somethin’ or other, and +Jack, in ’is free-’anded way, ’e give ’er +a five-pun’ note. Next week she come agen for +somethin’ else, and stopped and talked to ’im about +’is soul in the passage. She told ’im as +’e was a-goin’ straight to ’ell, and that +’e oughter give up the bookmakin’ and settle down to +a respec’ble, God-fearin’ business. At fust +’e only laughed, but she lammed in tracts at ’im full +of the most awful language; and one day she fetched ’im +round to one of them revivalist chaps, as fair settled +’im.</p> +<p>“’E ain’t never been his old self since +then. ’E give up the bettin’ and bought this +’ere, though what’s the difference blessed if I can +see. It makes my ’eart ache, it do, to ’ear my +Jack a-beatin’ down the poor people—and it +ain’t like ’im. It went agen ’is grain at +fust, I could see; but they told him as ’ow it was +folks’s own fault that they was poor, and as ’ow it +was the will of God, because they was a drinkin’, +improvident lot.</p> +<p>“Then they made ’im sign the pledge. +’E’d allus been used to ’is glass, Jack +’ad, and I think as knockin’ it off ’ave soured +’im a bit—seems as if all the sperit ’ad gone +out of ’im—and of course me and father ’ave +’ad to give up our little drop too. Then they told +’im as ’e must give up smokin’- that was +another way of goin’ straight to ’ell—and that +ain’t made ’im any the more cheerful like, and father +misses ’is little bit—don’t ye, +father?”</p> +<p>“Ay,” answered the old fellow savagely; +“can’t say I thinks much of these ’ere folks as +is going to heaven; blowed if I don’t think they’ll +be a chirpier lot in t’other place.”</p> +<p>An angry discussion in the shop interrupted us. Jack had +returned, and was threatening an excited woman with the +police. It seemed she had miscalculated the date, and had +come a day too late with her interest.</p> +<p>Having got rid of her, he came into the parlour with the watch +in his hand.</p> +<p>“It’s providential she was late,” he said, +looking at it; “it’s worth ten times what I lent on +it.”</p> +<p>He packed his father back into the shop, and his mother down +into the kitchen to get his tea, and for a while we sat together +talking.</p> +<p>I found his conversation a strange mixture of self-laudation, +showing through a flimsy veil of self-disparagement, and of +satisfaction at the conviction that he was “saved,” +combined with equally evident satisfaction that most other people +weren’t—somewhat trying, however; and, remembering an +appointment, rose to go.</p> +<p>He made no effort to stay me, but I could see that he was +bursting to tell me something. At last, taking a religious +paper from his pocket, and pointing to a column, he blurted +out:</p> +<p>“You don’t take any interest in the Lord’s +vineyard, I suppose, sir?”</p> +<p>I glanced at the part of the paper indicated. It +announced a new mission to the Chinese, and heading the +subscription list stood the name, “Mr. John Burridge, one +hundred guineas.”</p> +<p>“You subscribe largely, Mr. Burridge,” I said, +handing him back the paper.</p> +<p>He rubbed his big hands together. “The Lord will +repay a hundredfold,” he answered.</p> +<p>“In which case it’s just as well to have a note of +the advance down in black and white, eh?” I added.</p> +<p>His little eyes looked sharply at me; but he made no reply, +and, shaking hands, I left him.</p> +<h2>THE HOBBY RIDER</h2> +<p>Bump. Bump. Bump-bump. Bump.</p> +<p>I sat up in bed and listened intently. It seemed to me +as if someone with a muffled hammer were trying to knock bricks +out of the wall.</p> +<p>“Burglars,” I said to myself (one assumes, as a +matter of course, that everything happening in this world after 1 +a.m. is due to burglars), and I reflected what a curiously +literal, but at the same time slow and cumbersome, method of +housebreaking they had adopted.</p> +<p>The bumping continued irregularly, yet uninterruptedly.</p> +<p>My bed was by the window. I reached out my hand and drew +aside a corner of the curtain. The sunlight streamed into +the room. I looked at my watch: it was ten minutes past +five.</p> +<p>A most unbusinesslike hour for burglars, I thought. Why, +it will be breakfast-time before they get in.</p> +<p>Suddenly there came a crash, and some substance striking +against the blind fell upon the floor. I sprang out of bed +and threw open the window.</p> +<p>A red-haired young gentleman, scantily clad in a sweater and a +pair of flannel trousers, stood on the lawn below me.</p> +<p>“Good morning,” he said cheerily. “Do +you mind throwing me back my ball?”</p> +<p>“What ball?” I said.</p> +<p>“My tennis ball,” he answered. “It +must be somewhere in the room; it went clean through the +window.”</p> +<p>I found the ball and threw it back to him,</p> + +<p>“What are you doing?” I asked. +“Playing tennis?”</p> +<p>“No,” he said. “I am just practising +against the side of the house. It improves your game +wonderfully.”</p> +<p>“It don’t improve my night’s rest,” I +answered somewhat surlily I fear. “I came down here +for peace and quiet. Can’t you do it in the +daytime?”</p> +<p>“Daytime!” he laughed. “Why it has +been daytime for the last two hours. Never mind, I’ll +go round the other side.”</p> +<p>He disappeared round the corner, and set to work at the back, +where he woke up the dog. I heard another window smash, +followed by a sound as of somebody getting up violently in a +distant part of the house, and shortly afterwards I must have +fallen asleep again.</p> +<p>I had come to spend a few weeks at a boarding establishment in +Deal. He was the only other young man in the house, and I +was naturally thrown a good deal upon his society. He was a +pleasant, genial young fellow, but he would have been better +company had he been a little less enthusiastic as regards +tennis.</p> +<p>He played tennis ten hours a day on the average. He got +up romantic parties to play it by moonlight (when half his time +was generally taken up in separating his opponents), and godless +parties to play it on Sundays. On wet days I have seen him +practising services by himself in a mackintosh and goloshes.</p> +<p>He had been spending the winter with his people at Tangiers, +and I asked him how he liked the place.</p> +<p>“Oh, a beast of a hole!” he replied. +“There is not a court anywhere in the town. We tried +playing on the roof, but the <i>mater</i> thought it +dangerous.”</p> +<p>Switzerland he had been delighted with. He counselled me +next time I went to stay at Zermatt.</p> +<p>“There is a capital court at Zermatt,” he +said. “You might almost fancy yourself at +Wimbledon.”</p> +<p>A mutual acquaintance whom I subsequently met told me that at +the top of the Jungfrau he had said to him, his eyes fixed the +while upon a small snow plateau enclosed by precipices a few +hundred feet below them—</p> +<p>“By Jove! That wouldn’t make half a bad +little tennis court—that flat bit down there. Have to +be careful you didn’t run back too far.”</p> +<p>When he was not playing tennis, or practising tennis, or +reading about tennis, he was talking about tennis. Renshaw +was the prominent figure in the tennis world at that time, and he +mentioned Renshaw until there grew up within my soul a dark +desire to kill Renshaw in a quiet, unostentatious way, and bury +him.</p> +<p>One drenching afternoon he talked tennis to me for three hours +on end, referring to Renshaw, so far as I kept count, four +thousand nine hundred and thirteen times. After tea he drew +his chair to the window beside me, and commenced—</p> +<p>“Have you ever noticed how Renshaw—”</p> +<p>I said—</p> +<p>“Suppose someone took a gun—someone who could aim +very straight—and went out and shot Renshaw till he was +quite dead, would you tennis players drop him and talk about +somebody else?”</p> +<p>“Oh, but who would shoot Renshaw?” he said +indignantly.</p> +<p>“Never mind,” I said, “supposing someone +did?”</p> +<p>“Well, then, there would be his brother,” he +replied.</p> +<p>I had forgotten that.</p> +<p>“Well, we won’t argue about how many of them there +are,” I said. “Suppose someone killed the lot, +should we hear less of Renshaw?”</p> +<p>“Never,” he replied emphatically. +“Renshaw will always be a name wherever tennis is spoken +of.”</p> +<p>I dread to think what the result might have been had his +answer been other than it was.</p> +<p>The next year he dropped tennis completely and became an +ardent amateur photographer, whereupon all his friends implored +him to return to tennis, and sought to interest him in talk about +services and returns and volleys, and in anecdotes concerning +Renshaw. But he would not heed them.</p> +<p>Whatever he saw, wherever he went, he took. He took his +friends, and made them his enemies. He took babies, and +brought despair to fond mothers’ hearts. He took +young wives, and cast a shadow on the home. Once there was +a young man who loved not wisely, so his friends thought, but the +more they talked against her the more he clung to her. Then +a happy idea occurred to the father. He got Begglely to +photograph her in seven different positions.</p> +<p>When her lover saw the first, he said—</p> +<p>“What an awful looking thing! Who did +it?”</p> +<p>When Begglely showed him the second, he said—</p> +<p>“But, my dear fellow, it’s not a bit like +her. You’ve made her look an ugly old +woman.”</p> +<p>At the third he said—</p> +<p>“Whatever have you done to her feet? They +can’t be that size, you know. It isn’t in +nature!”</p> +<p>At the fourth he exclaimed—</p> +<p>“But, heavens, man! Look at the shape you’ve +made her. Where on earth did you get the idea +from?”</p> +<p>At the first glimpse of the fifth he staggered.</p> +<p>“Great Scott!” he cried with a shudder, +“what a ghastly expression you’ve got into it! +It isn’t human!”</p> +<p>Begglely was growing offended, but the father, who was +standing by, came to his defence.</p> +<p>“It’s nothing to do with Begglely,” +exclaimed the old gentleman suavely. “It can’t +be <i>his</i> fault. What is a photographer? Simply +an instrument in the hands of science. He arranges his +apparatus, and whatever is in front of it comes into +it.”</p> +<p>“No,” continued the old gentleman, laying a +constrained hand upon Begglely, who was about to resume the +exhibition, “don’t—don’t show him the +other two.”</p> +<p>I was sorry for the poor girl, for I believe she really cared +for the youngster; and as for her looks, they were quite up to +the average. But some evil sprite seemed to have got into +Begglely’s camera. It seized upon defects with the +unerring instinct of a born critic, and dilated upon them to the +obscuration of all virtues. A man with a pimple became a +pimple with a man as background. People with strongly +marked features became merely adjuncts to their own noses. +One man in the neighbourhood had, undetected, worn a wig for +fourteen years. Begglely’s camera discovered the +fraud in an instant, and so completely exposed it that the +man’s friends wondered afterwards how the fact ever could +have escaped them. The thing seemed to take a pleasure in +showing humanity at its very worst. Babies usually came out +with an expression of low cunning. Most young girls had to +take their choice of appearing either as simpering idiots or +embryo vixens. To mild old ladies it generally gave a look +of aggressive cynicism. Our vicar, as excellent an old +gentleman as ever breathed, Begglely presented to us as a +beetle-browed savage of a peculiarly low type of intellect; while +upon the leading solicitor of the town he bestowed an expression +of such thinly-veiled hypocrisy that few who saw the photograph +cared ever again to trust him with their affairs.</p> +<p>As regards myself I should, perhaps, make no comment, I am +possibly a prejudiced party. All I will say, therefore, is +that if I in any way resemble Begglely’s photograph of me, +then the critics are fully justified in everything they have at +any time, anywhere, said of me—and more. Nor, I +maintain—though I make no pretence of possessing the figure +of Apollo—is one of my legs twice the length of the other, +and neither does it curve upwards. This I can prove. +Begglely allowed that an accident had occurred to the negative +during the process of development, but this explanation does not +appear on the picture, and I cannot help feeling that an +injustice has been done me.</p> +<p>His perspective seemed to be governed by no law either human +or divine. I have seen a photograph of his uncle and a +windmill, judging from which I defy any unprejudiced person to +say which is the bigger, the uncle or the mill.</p> +<p>On one occasion he created quite a scandal in the parish by +exhibiting a well-known and eminently respectable maiden lady +nursing a young man on her knee. The gentleman’s face +was indistinct, and he was dressed in a costume which, upon a man +of his size—one would have estimated him as rising 6 ft. 4 +in.—appeared absurdly juvenile. He had one arm round +her neck, and she was holding his other hand and smirking.</p> +<p>I, knowing something of Begglely’s machine, willingly +accepted the lady’s explanation, which was to the effect +that the male in question was her nephew, aged eleven; but the +uncharitable ridiculed this statement, and appearances were +certainly against her.</p> +<p>It was in the early days of the photographic craze, and an +inexperienced world was rather pleased with the idea of being +taken on the cheap. The consequence was that nearly +everyone for three miles round sat or stood or leant or laid to +Begglely at one time or another, with the result that a less +conceited parish than ours it would have been difficult to +discover. No one who had once looked upon a photograph of +himself taken by Begglely ever again felt any pride in his +personal appearance. The picture was invariably a +revelation to him.</p> +<p>Later, some evil-disposed person invented Kodaks, and Begglely +went everywhere slung on to a thing that looked like an overgrown +missionary box, and that bore a legend to the effect that if +Begglely would pull the button, a shameless Company would do the +rest. Life became a misery to Begglely’s +friends. Nobody dared to do anything for fear of being +taken in the act. He took an instantaneous photograph of +his own father swearing at the gardener, and snapped his youngest +sister and her lover at the exact moment of farewell at the +garden gate. Nothing was sacred to him. He Kodaked +his aunt’s funeral from behind, and showed the chief +mourner but one whispering a funny story into the ear of the +third cousin as they stood behind their hats beside the +grave.</p> +<p>Public indignation was at its highest when a new comer to the +neighbourhood, a young fellow named Haynoth, suggested the +getting together of a party for a summer’s tour in +Turkey. Everybody took up the idea with enthusiasm, and +recommended Begglely as the “party.” We had +great hopes from that tour. Our idea was that Begglely +would pull his button outside a harem or behind a sultana, and +that a Bashi Bazouk or a Janissary would do the rest for us.</p> +<p>We were, however, partly doomed to disappointment—I say, +“partly,” because, although Begglely returned alive, +he came back entirely cured of his photographic craze. He +said that every English-speaking man, woman, or child whom he met +abroad had its camera with it, and that after a time the sight of +a black cloth or the click of a button began to madden him.</p> +<p>He told us that on the summit of Mount Tutra, in the +Carpathians, the English and American amateur photographers +waiting to take “the grand panorama” were formed by +the Hungarian police in queue, two abreast, each with his or her +camera under his or her arm, and that a man had to stand +sometimes as long as three and a half hours before his turn came +round. He also told us that the beggars in Constantinople +went about with placards hung round their necks, stating their +charges for being photographed. One of these price lists he +brought back with him as a sample.</p> +<p>It ran:—</p> +<p>One snap shot, back or front .. +... ... 2 frcs.<br /> + +,, with +expression ... ... 3 +,,<br /> + +,, surprised in quaint +attitude . 4 ,,<br /> + +,, while saying prayers +... ... 5 ,,<br /> + +,, while +fighting ... ... +10 ,,<br /> +</p> +<p>He said that in some instances where a man had an +exceptionally villainous cast of countenance, or was +exceptionally deformed, as much as twenty francs were demanded +and readily obtained.</p> +<p>He abandoned photography and took to golf. He showed +people how, by digging a hole here and putting a brickbat or two +there, they could convert a tennis-lawn into a miniature golf +link,—and did it for them. He persuaded elderly +ladies and gentlemen that it was the mildest exercise going, and +would drag them for miles over wet gorse and heather, and bring +them home dead beat, coughing, and full of evil thoughts.</p> +<p>The last time I saw him was in Switzerland, a few months +ago. He appeared indifferent to the subject of golf, but +talked much about whist. We met by chance at Grindelwald, +and agreed to climb the Faulhorn together next morning. +Half-way up we rested, and I strolled on a little way by myself +to gain a view. Returning, I found him with a +“Cavendish” in his hand and a pack of cards spread +out before him on the grass, solving a problem.</p> +<h2>THE MAN WHO DID NOT BELIEVE IN LUCK</h2> +<p>He got in at Ipswich with seven different weekly papers under +his arm. I noticed that each one insured its reader against +death or injury by railway accident. He arranged his +luggage upon the rack above him, took off his hat and laid it on +the seat beside him, mopped his bald head with a red silk +handkerchief, and then set to work steadily to write his name and +address upon each of the seven papers. I sat opposite to +him and read <i>Punch</i>. I always take the old humour +when travelling; I find it soothing to the nerves.</p> +<p>Passing over the points at Manningtree the train gave a lurch, +and a horse-shoe he had carefully placed in the rack above him +slipped through the netting, falling with a musical ring upon his +head.</p> +<p>He appeared neither surprised nor angry. Having +staunched the wound with his handkerchief, he stooped and picked +the horse-shoe up, glanced at it with, as I thought, an +expression of reproach, and dropped it gently out of the +window.</p> +<p>“Did it hurt you?” I asked.</p> +<p>It was a foolish question. I told myself so the moment I +had uttered it. The thing must have weighed three pounds at +the least; it was an exceptionally large and heavy shoe. +The bump on his head was swelling visibly before my eyes. +Anyone but an idiot must have seen that he was hurt. I +expected an irritable reply. I should have given one myself +had I been in his place. Instead, however, he seemed to +regard the inquiry as a natural and kindly expression of +sympathy.</p> +<p>“It did, a little,” he replied.</p> +<p>“What were you doing with it?” I asked. It +was an odd sort of thing for a man to be travelling with.</p> +<p>“It was lying in the roadway just outside the +station,” he explained; “I picked it up for +luck.”</p> +<p>He refolded his handkerchief so as to bring a cooler surface +in contact with the swelling, while I murmured something genial +about the inscrutability of Providence.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he said, “I’ve had a deal of +luck in my time, but it’s never turned out well.”</p> +<p>“I was born on a Wednesday,” he continued, +“which, as I daresay you know, is the luckiest day a man +can be born on. My mother was a widow, and none of my +relatives would do anything for me. They said it would be +like taking coals to Newcastle, helping a boy born on a +Wednesday; and my uncle, when he died, left every penny of his +money to my brother Sam, as a slight compensation to him for +having been born on a Friday. All I ever got was advice +upon the duties and responsibilities of wealth, when it arrived, +and entreaties that I would not neglect those with claims upon me +when I came to be a rich man.”</p> +<p>He paused while folding up his various insurance papers and +placing them in the inside breast-pocket of his coat.</p> +<p>“Then there are black cats,” he went on; +“they’re said to be lucky. Why, there never was +a blacker cat than the one that followed me into my rooms in +Bolsover Street the very first night I took them.”</p> +<p>“Didn’t it bring you luck?” I enquired, +finding that he had stopped.</p> +<p>A far-away look came into his eyes.</p> +<p>“Well, of course it all depends,” he answered +dreamily. “Maybe we’d never have suited one +another; you can always look at it that way. Still, +I’d like to have tried.”</p> +<p>He sat staring out of the window, and for a while I did not +care to intrude upon his evidently painful memories.</p> +<p>“What happened then?” I asked, however, at +last.</p> +<p>He roused himself from his reverie.</p> +<p>“Oh,” he said. “Nothing +extraordinary. She had to leave London for a time, and gave +me her pet canary to take charge of while she was +away.”</p> +<p>“But it wasn’t your fault,” I urged.</p> +<p>“No, perhaps not,” he agreed; “but it +created a coldness which others were not slow to take advantage +of.”</p> +<p>“I offered her the cat, too,” he added, but more +to himself than to me.</p> +<p>We sat and smoked in silence. I felt that the +consolations of a stranger would sound weak.</p> +<p>“Piebald horses are lucky, too,” he observed, +knocking the ashes from his pipe against the window sash. +“I had one of them once.”</p> +<p>“What did it do to you?” I enquired.</p> +<p>“Lost me the best crib I ever had in my life,” was +the simple rejoinder. “The governor stood it a good +deal longer than I had any right to expect; but you can’t +keep a man who is <i>always</i> drunk. It gives a firm a +bad name.”</p> +<p>“It would,” I agreed.</p> +<p>“You see,” he went on, “I never had the head +for it. To some men it would not have so much mattered, but +the very first glass was enough to upset me. I’d +never been used to it.”</p> +<p>“But why did you take it?” I persisted. +“The horse didn’t make you drink, did he?”</p> +<p>“Well, it was this way,” he explained, continuing +to rub gently the lump which was now about the size of an +egg. “The animal had belonged to a gentleman who +travelled in the wine and spirit line, and who had been +accustomed to visit in the way of business almost every +public-house he came to. The result was you couldn’t +get that little horse past a public-house —at least I +couldn’t. He sighted them a quarter of a mile off, +and made straight for the door. I struggled with him at +first, but it was five to ten minutes’ work getting him +away, and folks used to gather round and bet on us. I +think, maybe, I’d have stuck to it, however, if it +hadn’t been for a temperance chap who stopped one day and +lectured the crowd about it from the opposite side of the +street. He called me Pilgrim, and said the little horse was +‘Pollion,’ or some such name, and kept on shouting +out that I was to fight him for a heavenly crown. After +that they called us “Polly and the Pilgrim, fighting for +the crown.” It riled me, that did, and at the very +next house at which he pulled up I got down and said I’d +come for two of Scotch. That was the beginning. It +took me years to break myself of the habit.</p> +<p>“But there,” he continued, “it has always +been the same. I hadn’t been a fortnight in my first +situation before my employer gave me a goose weighing eighteen +pounds as a Christmas present.”</p> +<p>“Well, that couldn’t have done you any +harm,” I remarked. “That was lucky +enough.”</p> +<p>“So the other clerks said at the time,” he +replied. “The old gentleman had never been known to +give anything away before in his life. ‘He’s +taken a fancy to you,’ they said; ‘you are a lucky +beggar!’”</p> +<p>He sighed heavily. I felt there was a story +attached.</p> +<p>“What did you do with it?” I asked.</p> +<p>“That was the trouble,” he returned. +“I didn’t know what to do with it. It was ten +o’clock on Christmas Eve, just as I was leaving, that he +gave it to me. ‘Tiddling Brothers have sent me a +goose, Biggles,’ he said to me as I helped him on with his +great-coat. ‘Very kind of ’em, but I +don’t want it myself; you can have it!’</p> +<p>“Of course I thanked him, and was very grateful. +He wished me a merry Christmas and went out. I tied the +thing up in brown paper, and took it under my arm. It was a +fine bird, but heavy.</p> +<p>“Under all the circumstances, and it being Christmas +time, I thought I would treat myself to a glass of beer. I +went into a quiet little house at the corner of the Lane and laid +the goose on the counter.</p> +<p>“‘That’s a big ’un,’ said the +landlord; ‘you’ll get a good cut off him +to-morrow.’</p> +<p>“His words set me thinking, and for the first time it +struck me that I didn’t want the bird—that it was of +no use to me at all. I was going down to spend the holidays +with my young lady’s people in Kent.”</p> +<p>“Was this the canary young lady?” I +interrupted.</p> +<p>“No,” he replied. “This was before +that one. It was this goose I’m telling you of that +upset this one. Well, her folks were big farmers; it would +have been absurd taking a goose down to them, and I knew no one +in London to give it to, so when the landlord came round again I +asked him if he would care to buy it. I told him he could +have it cheap,</p> +<p>“‘I don’t want it myself,’ he +answered. ‘I’ve got three in the house +already. Perhaps one of these gentlemen would like to make +an offer.’</p> +<p>“He turned to a couple of chaps who were sitting +drinking gin. They didn’t look to me worth the price +of a chicken between them. The seediest said he’d +like to look at it, however, and I undid the parcel. He +mauled the thing pretty considerably, and cross-examined me as to +how I come by it, ending by upsetting half a tumbler of gin and +water over it. Then he offered me half a crown for +it. It made me so angry that I took the brown paper and the +string in one hand and the goose in the other, and walked +straight out without saying a word.</p> +<p>“I carried it in this way for some distance, because I +was excited and didn’t care how I carried it; but as I +cooled, I began to reflect how ridiculous I must look. One +or two small boys evidently noticed the same thing. I +stopped under a lamp-post and tried to tie it up again. I +had a bag and an umbrella with me at the same time, and the first +thing I did was to drop the goose into the gutter, which is just +what I might have expected to do, attempting to handle four +separate articles and three yards of string with one pair of +hands. I picked up about a quart of mud with that goose, +and got the greater part of it over my hands and clothes and a +fair quantity over the brown paper; and then it began to +rain.</p> +<p>“I bundled everything up into my arm and made for the +nearest pub, where I thought I would ask for a piece more string +and make a neat job of it.</p> +<p>“The bar was crowded. I pushed my way to the +counter and flung the goose down in front of me. The men +nearest stopped talking to look at it; and a young fellow +standing next to me said—</p> +<p>“‘Well, you’ve killed it.’ I +daresay I did seem a bit excited.</p> +<p>“I had intended making another effort to sell it here, +but they were clearly not the right sort. I had a pint of +ale—for I was feeling somewhat tired and hot—scraped +as much of the mud off the bird as I could, made a fresh parcel +of it, and came out.</p> +<p>“Crossing the road a happy idea occurred to me. I +thought I would raffle it. At once I set to work to find a +house where there might seem to be a likely lot. It cost me +three or four whiskies—for I felt I didn’t want any +more beer, which is a thing that easily upsets me—but at +length I found just the crowd I wanted—a quiet +domestic-looking set in a homely little place off the Goswell +Road.</p> +<p>“I explained my views to the landlord. He said he +had no objection; he supposed I would stand drinks round +afterwards. I said I should be delighted to do so, and +showed him the bird.</p> +<p>“‘It looks a bit poorly,’ he said. He +was a Devonshire man.</p> +<p>“‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ I +explained. ‘I happened to drop it. That will +all wash off.’</p> +<p>“‘It smells a bit queer, too,’ he said.</p> +<p>“’That’s mud,’ I answered; ‘you +know what London mud is. And a gentleman spilled some gin +over it. Nobody will notice that when it’s +cooked.’</p> +<p>“‘Well,’ he replied. ‘I +don’t think I’ll take a hand myself, but if any other +gent likes to, that’s his affair.’</p> +<p>“Nobody seemed enthusiastic. I started it at +sixpence, and took a ticket myself. The potman had a free +chance for superintending the arrangements, and he succeeded in +inducing five other men, much against their will, to join +us. I won it myself, and paid out three and twopence for +drinks. A solemn-looking individual who had been snoring in +a corner suddenly woke up as I was going out, and offered me +sevenpence ha’penny for it—why sevenpence +ha’penny I have never been able to understand. He +would have taken it away, I should never have seen it again, and +my whole life might have been different. But Fate has +always been against me. I replied, with perhaps unnecessary +hauteur, that I wasn’t a Christmas dinner fund for the +destitute, and walked out.</p> +<p>“It was getting late, and I had a long walk home to my +lodgings. I was beginning to wish I had never seen the +bird. I estimated its weight by this time to be thirty-six +pounds.</p> +<p>“The idea occurred to me to sell it to a +poulterer. I looked for a shop, I found one in Myddleton +Street. There wasn’t a customer near it, but by the +way the man was shouting you might have thought that he was doing +all the trade of Clerkenwell. I took the goose out of the +parcel and laid it on the shelf before him.</p> +<p>“‘What’s this?’ he asked.</p> +<p>“‘It’s a goose,’ I said. +‘You can have it cheap.’</p> +<p>“He just seized the thing by the neck and flung it at +me. I dodged, and it caught the side of my head. You +can have no idea, if you’ve never been hit on the head with +a goose, how if hurts. I picked it up and hit him back with +it, and a policeman came up with the usual, ‘Now then, +what’s all this about?’</p> +<p>“I explained the facts. The poulterer stepped to +the edge of the curb and apostrophised the universe +generally.</p> +<p>“‘Look at that shop,’ he said. +‘It’s twenty minutes to twelve, and there’s +seven dozen geese hanging there that I’m willing to give +away, and this fool asks me if I want to buy another.’</p> +<p>“I perceived then that my notion had been a foolish one, +and I followed the policeman’s advice, and went away +quietly, taking the bird with me.</p> +<p>“Then said I to myself, ‘I will give it +away. I will select some poor deserving person, and make +him a present of the damned thing.’ I passed a good +many people, but no one looked deserving enough. It may +have been the time or it may have been the neighbourhood, but +those I met seemed to me to be unworthy of the bird. I +offered it to a man in Judd Street, who I thought appeared +hungry. He turned out to be a drunken ruffian. I +could not make him understand what I meant, and he followed me +down the road abusing me at the top of his voice, until, turning +a corner without knowing it, he plunged down Tavistock Place, +shouting after the wrong man. In the Euston Road I stopped +a half-starved child and pressed it upon her. She answered +‘Not me!’ and ran away. I heard her calling +shrilly after me, ‘Who stole the goose?’</p> +<p>“I dropped it in a dark part of Seymour Street. A +man picked it up and brought it after me. I was unequal to +any more explanations or arguments. I gave him twopence and +plodded on with it once more. The pubs were just closing, +and I went into one for a final drink. As a matter of fact +I had had enough already, being, as I am, unaccustomed to +anything more than an occasional class of beer. But I felt +depressed, and I thought it might cheer me. I think I had +gin, which is a thing I loathe.</p> +<p>“I meant to fling it over into Oakley Square, but a +policeman had his eye on me, and followed me twice round the +railings. In Golding Road I sought to throw it down an +area, but was frustrated in like manner. The whole night +police of London seemed to have nothing else to do but prevent my +getting rid of that goose.</p> +<p>“They appeared so anxious about it that I fancied they +might like to have it. I went up to one in Camden +Street. I called him ‘Bobby,’ and asked him if +he wanted a goose.</p> +<p>“‘I’ll tell you what I don’t +want,’ he replied severely, ‘and that is none of your +sauce.’</p> +<p>“He was very insulting, and I naturally answered him +back. What actually passed I forget, but it ended in his +announcing his intention of taking me in charge.</p> +<p>“I slipped out of his hands and bolted down King +Street. He blew his whistle and started after me. A +man sprang out from a doorway in College Street and tried to stop +me. I tied him up with a butt in the stomach, and cut +through the Crescent, doubling back into the Camden Road by Batt +Street.</p> +<p>“At the Canal Bridge I looked behind me, and could see +no one. I dropped the goose over the parapet, and it fell +with a splash into the water.</p> +<p>“Heaving a sigh of relief, I turned and crossed into +Randolph Street, and there a constable collared me. I was +arguing with him when the first fool came up breathless. +They told me I had better explain the matter to the Inspector, +and I thought so too.</p> +<p>“The Inspector asked me why I had run away when the +other constable wanted to take me in charge. I replied that +it was because I did not desire to spend my Christmas holidays in +the lock-up, which he evidently regarded as a singularly weak +argument. He asked me what I had thrown into the +canal. I told him a goose. He asked me why I had +thrown a goose into the canal. I told him because I was +sick and tired of the animal.</p> +<p>“At this stage a sergeant came in to say that they had +succeeded in recovering the parcel. They opened it on the +Inspector’s table. It contained a dead baby.</p> +<p>“I pointed out to them that it wasn’t my parcel, +and that it wasn’t my baby, but they hardly took the +trouble to disguise the fact that they did not believe me.</p> +<p>“The Inspector said it was too grave a case for bail, +which, seeing that I did not know a soul in London, was somewhat +immaterial. I got them to send a telegram to my young lady +to say that I was unavoidably detained in town, and passed as +quiet and uneventful a Christmas Day and Boxing Day as I ever +wish to spend.</p> +<p>“In the end the evidence against me was held to be +insufficient to justify a conviction, and I got off on the minor +charge of drunk and disorderly. But I lost my situation and +I lost my young lady, and I don’t care if I never see a +goose again.”</p> +<p>We were nearing Liverpool Street. He collected his +luggage, and taking up his hat made an attempt to put it on his +head. But in consequence of the swelling caused by the +horseshoe it would not go anywhere near him, and he laid it sadly +back upon the seat.</p> +<p>“No,” he said quietly, “I can’t say +that I believe very much in luck.”</p> +<h2>DICK DUNKERMAN’S CAT</h2> +<p>Richard Dunkerman and I had been old school-fellows, if a +gentleman belonging to the Upper Sixth, and arriving each morning +in a “topper” and a pair of gloves, and “a +discredit to the Lower Fourth,” in a Scotch cap, can by any +manner of means be classed together. And though in those +early days a certain amount of coldness existed between us, +originating in a poem, composed and sung on occasions by myself +in commemoration of an alleged painful incident connected with a +certain breaking-up day, and which, if I remember rightly +ran:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Dicky, Dicky, Dunk,<br /> +Always in a funk,<br /> +Drank a glass of sherry wine,<br /> +And went home roaring drunk,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and kept alive by his brutal criticism of the same, expressed +with the bony part of the knee, yet in after life we came to know +and like each other better. I drifted into journalism, +while he for years had been an unsuccessful barrister and +dramatist; but one spring, to the astonishment of us all, he +brought out the play of the season, a somewhat impossible little +comedy, but full of homely sentiment and belief in human +nature. It was about a couple of months after its +production that he first introduced me to “Pyramids, +Esquire.”</p> +<p>I was in love at the time. Her name was, I think, Naomi, +and I wanted to talk to somebody about her. Dick had a +reputation for taking an intelligent interest in other +men’s love affairs. He would let a lover rave by the +hour to him, taking brief notes the while in a bulky red-covered +volume labelled “Commonplace Book.” Of course +everybody knew that he was using them merely as raw material for +his dramas, but we did not mind that so long as he would only +listen. I put on my hat and went round to his chambers.</p> +<p>We talked about indifferent matters for a quarter of an hour +or so, and then I launched forth upon my theme. I had +exhausted her beauty and goodness, and was well into my own +feelings—the madness of my ever imagining I had loved +before, the utter impossibility of my ever caring for any other +woman, and my desire to die breathing her name—before he +made a move. I thought he had risen to reach down, as +usual, the “Commonplace Book,” and so waited, but +instead he went to the door and opened it, and in glided one of +the largest and most beautiful black tom-cats I have ever +seen. It sprang on Dick’s knee with a soft +“cur-roo,” and sat there upright, watching me, and I +went on with my tale.</p> +<p>After a few minutes Dick interrupted me with:—</p> +<p>“I thought you said her name was Naomi?”</p> +<p>“So it is,” I replied. +“Why?”</p> +<p>“Oh, nothing,” he answered, “only just now +you referred to her as Enid.”</p> +<p>This was remarkable, as I had not seen Enid for years, and had +quite forgotten her. Somehow it took the glitter out of the +conversation. A dozen sentences later Dick stopped me again +with:—</p> +<p>“Who’s Julia?”</p> +<p>I began to get irritated. Julia, I remembered, had been +cashier in a city restaurant, and had, when I was little more +than a boy, almost inveigled me into an engagement. I found +myself getting hot at the recollection of the spooney rhapsodies +I had hoarsely poured into her powder-streaked ear while holding +her flabby hand across the counter.</p> +<p>“Did I really say ‘Julia’?” I answered +somewhat sharply, “or are you joking?”</p> +<p>“You certainly alluded to her as Julia,” he +replied mildly. “But never mind, you go on as you +like, I shall know whom you mean.”</p> +<p>But the flame was dead within me. I tried to rekindle +it, but every time I glanced up and met the green eyes of the +black Tom it flickered out again. I recalled the thrill +that had penetrated my whole being when Naomi’s hand had +accidently touched mine in the conservatory, and wondered whether +she had done it on purpose. I thought how good and sweet +she was to that irritatingly silly old frump her mother, and +wondered if it really were her mother, or only hired. I +pictured her crown of gold-brown hair as I had last seen it with +the sunlight kissing its wanton waves, and felt I would like to +be quite sure that it were all her own.</p> +<p>Once I clutched the flying skirts of my enthusiasm with +sufficient firmness to remark that in my own private opinion a +good woman was more precious than rubies; adding immediately +afterwards—the words escaping me unconsciously before I was +aware even of the thought—“pity it’s so +difficult to tell ’em.”</p> +<p>Then I gave it up, and sat trying to remember what I had said +to her the evening before, and hoping I had not committed +myself.</p> +<p>Dick’s voice roused me from my unpleasant reverie.</p> +<p>“No,” he said, “I thought you would not be +able to. None of them can.”</p> +<p>“None of them can what?” I asked. Somehow I +was feeling angry with Dick and with Dick’s cat, and with +myself and most other things.</p> +<p>“Why talk love or any other kind of sentiment before old +Pyramids here?” he replied, stroking the cat’s soft +head as it rose and arched its back.</p> +<p>“What’s the confounded cat got to do with +it?” I snapped.</p> +<p>“That’s just what I can’t tell you,” +he answered, “but it’s very remarkable. Old +Leman dropped in here the other evening and began in his usual +style about Ibsen and the destiny of the human race, and the +Socialistic idea and all the rest of it—you know his +way. Pyramids sat on the edge of the table there and looked +at him, just as he sat looking at you a few minutes ago, and in +less than a quarter of an hour Leman had come to the conclusion +that society would do better without ideals and that the destiny +of the human race was in all probability the dust heap. He +pushed his long hair back from his eyes and looked, for the first +time in his life, quite sane. ‘We talk about +ourselves,’ he said, ‘as though we were the end of +creation. I get tired listening to myself sometimes. +Pah!’ he continued, ‘for all we know the human race +may die out utterly and another insect take our place, as +possibly we pushed out and took the place of a former race of +beings. I wonder if the ant tribe may not be the future +inheritors of the earth. They understand combination, and +already have an extra sense that we lack. If in the courses +of evolution they grow bigger in brain and body, they may become +powerful rivals, who knows?’ Curious to hear old +Leman talking like that, wasn’t it?”</p> +<p>“What made you call him ‘Pyramids’?” I +asked of Dick.</p> +<p>“I don’t know,” he answered, “I +suppose because he looked so old. The name came to +me.”</p> +<p>I leaned across and looked into the great green eyes, and the +creature, never winking, never blinking, looked back into mine, +until the feeling came to me that I was being drawn down into the +very wells of time. It seemed as though the panorama of the +ages must have passed in review before those expressionless +orbs—all the loves and hopes and desires of mankind; all +the everlasting truths that have been found false; all the +eternal faiths discovered to save, until it was discovered they +damned. The strange black creature grew and grew till it +seemed to fill the room, and Dick and I to be but shadows +floating in the air.</p> +<p>I forced from myself a laugh, that only in part, however, +broke the spell, and inquired of Dick how he had acquired +possession of it.</p> +<p>“It came to me,” he answered, “one night six +months ago. I was down on my luck at the time. Two of +my plays, on which I had built great hopes, had failed, one on +top of the other—you remember them—and it appeared +absurd to think that any manager would ever look at anything of +mine again. Old Walcott had just told me that he did not +consider it right of me under all the circumstances to hold +Lizzie any longer to her engagement, and that I ought to go away +and give her a chance of forgetting me, and I had agreed with +him. I was alone in the world, and heavily in debt. +Altogether things seemed about as hopeless as they could be, and +I don’t mind confessing to you now that I had made up my +mind to blow out my brains that very evening. I had loaded +my revolver, and it lay before me on the desk. My hand was +toying with it when I heard a faint scratching at the door. +I paid no attention at first, but it grew more persistent, and at +length, to stop the faint noise which excited me more than I +could account for, I rose and opened the door and <i>it</i> +walked in.</p> +<p>“It perched itself upon the corner of my desk beside the +loaded pistol, and sat there bolt upright looking at me; and I, +pushing back my chair, sat looking at it. And there came a +letter telling me that a man of whose name I had never heard had +been killed by a cow in Melbourne, and that under his will a +legacy of three thousand pounds fell into the estate of a distant +relative of my own who had died peacefully and utterly insolvent +eighteen months previously, leaving me his sole heir and +representative, and I put the revolver back into the +drawer.”</p> +<p>“Do you think Pyramids would come and stop with me for a +week?” I asked, reaching over to stroke the cat as it lay +softly purring on Dick’s knee.</p> +<p>“Maybe he will some day,” replied Dick in a low +voice, but before the answer came—I know not why—I +had regretted the jesting words.</p> +<p>“I came to talk to him as though he were a human +creature,” continued Dick, “and to discuss things +with him. My last play I regard as a collaboration; indeed, +it is far more his than mine.”</p> +<p>I should have thought Dick mad had not the cat been sitting +there before me with its eyes looking into mine. As it was, +I only grew more interested in his tale.</p> +<p>“It was rather a cynical play as I first wrote +it,” he went on, “a truthful picture of a certain +corner of society as I saw and knew it. From an artistic +point of view I felt it was good; from the box-office standard it +was doubtful. I drew it from my desk on the third evening +after Pyramids’ advent, and read it through. He sat +on the arm of the chair and looked over the pages as I turned +them.</p> +<p>“It was the best thing I had ever written. Insight +into life ran through every line, I found myself reading it again +with delight. Suddenly a voice beside me said:—</p> +<p>“‘Very clever, my boy, very clever indeed. +If you would just turn it topsy-turvy, change all those bitter, +truthful speeches into noble sentiments; make your +Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs (who never has been a popular +character) die in the last act instead of the Yorkshireman, and +let your bad woman be reformed by her love for the hero and go +off somewhere by herself and be good to the poor in a black +frock, the piece might be worth putting on the stage.’</p> +<p>“I turned indignantly to see who was speaking. The +opinions sounded like those of a theatrical manager. No one +was in the room but I and the cat. No doubt I had been +talking to myself, but the voice was strange to me.</p> +<p>“‘Be reformed by her love for the hero!’ I +retorted, contemptuously, for I was unable to grasp the idea that +I was arguing only with myself, ‘why it’s his mad +passion for her that ruins his life.’</p> +<p>“‘And will ruin the play with the great +B.P.,’ returned the other voice. ‘The British +dramatic hero has no passion, but a pure and respectful +admiration for an honest, hearty English girl—pronounced +“gey-url.” You don’t know the canons of +your art.’</p> +<p>“‘And besides,’ I persisted, unheeding the +interruption, ‘women born and bred and soaked for thirty +years in an atmosphere of sin don’t reform.’</p> +<p>“‘Well, this one’s got to, that’s +all,’ was the sneering reply, ‘let her hear an +organ.’</p> +<p>“‘But as an artist -,’ I protested.</p> +<p>“‘You will be always unsuccessful,’ was the +rejoinder. ‘My dear fellow, you and your plays, +artistic or in artistic, will be forgotten in a very few years +hence. You give the world what it wants, and the world will +give you what you want. Please, if you wish to +live.’</p> +<p>“So, with Pyramids beside me day by day, I re-wrote the +play, and whenever I felt a thing to be utterly impossible and +false I put it down with a grin. And every character I made +to talk clap-trap sentiment while Pyramids purred, and I took +care that everyone of my puppets did that which was right in the +eyes of the lady with the lorgnettes in the second row of the +dress circle; and old Hewson says the play will run five hundred +nights.</p> +<p>“But what is worst,” concluded Dick, “is +that I am not ashamed of myself, and that I seem +content.”</p> +<p>“What do you think the animal is?” I asked with a +laugh, “an evil spirit”? For it had passed into +the next room and so out through the open window, and its +strangely still green eyes no longer drawing mine towards them, I +felt my common sense returning to me.</p> +<p>“You have not lived with it for six months,” +answered Dick quietly, “and felt its eyes for ever on you +as I have. And I am not the only one. You know Canon +Whycherly, the great preacher?”</p> +<p>“My knowledge of modern church history is not +extensive,” I replied. “I know him by name, of +course. What about him?”</p> +<p>“He was a curate in the East End,” continued Dick, +“and for ten years he laboured, poor and unknown, leading +one of those noble, heroic lives that here and there men do yet +live, even in this age. Now he is the prophet of the +fashionable up-to-date Christianity of South Kensington, drives +to his pulpit behind a pair of thorough-bred Arabs, and his +waistcoat is taking to itself the curved line of +prosperity. He was in here the other morning on behalf of +Princess ---. They are giving a performance of one of my +plays in aid of the Destitute Vicars’ Fund.”</p> +<p>“And did Pyramids discourage him?” I asked, with +perhaps the suggestion of a sneer.</p> +<p>“No,” answered Dick, “so far as I could +judge, it approved the scheme. The point of the matter is +that the moment Whycherly came into the room the cat walked over +to him and rubbed itself affectionately against his legs. +He stood and stroked it.”</p> +<p>“‘Oh, so it’s come to you, has it?’ he +said, with a curious smile.</p> +<p>“There was no need for any further explanation between +us. I understood what lay behind those few +words.”</p> +<p>I lost sight of Dick for some time, though I heard a good deal +of him, for he was rapidly climbing into the position of the most +successful dramatist of the day, and Pyramids I had forgotten all +about, until one afternoon calling on an artist friend who had +lately emerged from the shadows of starving struggle into the +sunshine of popularity, I saw a pair of green eyes that seemed +familiar to me gleaming at me from a dark corner of the +studio.</p> +<p>“Why, surely,” I exclaimed, crossing over to +examine the animal more closely, “why, yes, you’ve +got Dick Dunkerman’s cat.”</p> +<p>He raised his face from the easel and glanced across at +me.</p> +<p>“Yes,” he said, “we can’t live on +ideals,” and I, remembering, hastened to change the +conversation.</p> +<p>Since then I have met Pyramids in the rooms of many friends of +mine. They give him different names, but I am sure it is +the same cat, I know those green eyes. He always brings +them luck, but they are never quite the same men again +afterwards.</p> +<p>Sometimes I sit wondering if I hear his scratching at the +door.</p> +<h2>THE MINOR POET’S STORY</h2> +<p>“It doesn’t suit you at all,” I +answered.</p> +<p>“You’re very disagreeable,” said she, +“I shan’t ever ask your advice again.”</p> +<p>“Nobody,” I hastened to add, “would look +well in it. You, of course, look less awful in it than any +other woman would, but it’s not your style.”</p> +<p>“He means,” exclaimed the Minor Poet, “that +the thing itself not being pre-eminently beautiful, it does not +suit, is not in agreement with you. The contrast between +you and anything approaching the ugly or the commonplace, is too +glaring to be aught else than displeasing.”</p> +<p>“He didn’t say it,” replied the Woman of the +World; “and besides it isn’t ugly. It’s +the very latest fashion.”</p> +<p>“Why is it,” asked the Philosopher, “that +women are such slaves to fashion? They think clothes, they +talk clothes, they read clothes, yet they have never understood +clothes. The purpose of dress, after the primary object of +warmth has been secured, is to adorn, to beautify the particular +wearer. Yet not one woman in a thousand stops to consider +what colours will go best with her complexion, what cut will best +hide the defects or display the advantages of her figure. +If it be the fashion, she must wear it. And so we have +pale-faced girls looking ghastly in shades suitable to +dairy-maids, and dots waddling about in costumes fit and proper +to six-footers. It is as if crows insisted on wearing +cockatoo’s feathers on their heads, and rabbits ran about +with peacocks’ tails fastened behind them.”</p> +<p>“And are not you men every bit as foolish?” +retorted the Girton Girl. “Sack coats come into +fashion, and dumpy little men trot up and down in them, looking +like butter-tubs on legs. You go about in July melting +under frock-coats and chimney-pot hats, and because it is the +stylish thing to do, you all play tennis in still shirts and +stand-up collars, which is idiotic. If fashion decreed that +you should play cricket in a pair of top-boots and a +diver’s helmet, you would play cricket in a pair of +top-boots and a diver’s helmet, and dub every sensible +fellow who didn’t a cad. It’s worse in you than +in us; men are supposed to think for themselves, and to be +capable of it, the womanly woman isn’t.”</p> +<p>“Big women and little men look well in nothing,” +said the Woman of the World. “Poor Emily was five +foot ten and a half, and never looked an inch under seven foot, +whatever she wore. Empires came into fashion, and the poor +child looked like the giant’s baby in a pantomime. We +thought the Greek might help her, but it only suggested a Crystal +Palace statue tied up in a sheet, and tied up badly; and when +puff-sleeves and shoulder-capes were in and Teddy stood up behind +her at a water-party and sang ‘Under the spreading +chestnut-tree,’ she took it as a personal insult and boxed +his ears. Few men liked to be seen with her, and I’m +sure George proposed to her partly with the idea of saving +himself the expense of a step-ladder, she reaches down his boots +for him from the top shelf.”</p> +<p>“I,” said the Minor Poet, “take up the +position of not wanting to waste my brain upon the subject. +Tell me what to wear, and I will wear it, and there is an end of +the matter. If Society says, ‘Wear blue shirts and +white collars,’ I wear blue shirts and white collars. +If she says, ‘The time has now come when hats should be +broad-brimmed,’ I take unto myself a broad-brimmed +hat. The question does not interest me sufficiently for me +to argue it. It is your fop who refuses to follow +fashion. He wishes to attract attention to himself by being +peculiar. A novelist whose books pass unnoticed, gains +distinction by designing his own necktie; and many an artist, +following the line of least resistance, learns to let his hair +grow instead of learning to paint.”</p> +<p>“The fact is,” remarked the Philosopher, “we +are the mere creatures of fashion. Fashion dictates to us +our religion, our morality, our affections, our thoughts. +In one age successful cattle-lifting is a virtue, a few hundred +years later company-promoting takes its place as a respectable +and legitimate business. In England and America +Christianity is fashionable, in Turkey, Mohammedanism, and +‘the crimes of Clapham are chaste in Martaban.’ +In Japan a woman dresses down to the knees, but would be +considered immodest if she displayed bare arms. In Europe +it is legs that no pure-minded woman is supposed to +possess. In China we worship our mother-in-law and despise +our wife; in England we treat our wife with respect, and regard +our mother-in-law as the bulwark of comic journalism. The +stone age, the iron age, the age of faith, the age of infidelism, +the philosophic age, what are they but the passing fashions of +the world? It is fashion, fashion, fashion wherever we +turn. Fashion waits beside our cradle to lead us by the +hand through life. Now literature is sentimental, now +hopefully humorous, now psychological, now new-womanly. +Yesterday’s pictures are the laughing-stock of the +up-to-date artist of to-day, and to-day’s art will be +sneered at to-morrow. Now it is fashionable to be +democratic, to pretend that no virtue or wisdom can exist outside +corduroy, and to abuse the middle classes. One season we go +slumming, and the next we are all socialists. We think we +are thinking; we are simply dressing ourselves up in words we do +not understand for the gods to laugh at us.”</p> +<p>“Don’t be pessimistic,” retorted the Minor +Poet, “pessimism is going out. You call such changes +fashions, I call them the footprints of progress. Each +phase of thought is an advance upon the former, bringing the +footsteps of the many nearer to the landmarks left by the mighty +climbers of the past upon the mountain paths of truth. The +crowd that was satisfied with <i>The Derby Day</i> now +appreciates Millet. The public that were content to wag +their heads to <i>The Bohemian Girl</i> have made Wagner +popular.”</p> +<p>“And the play lovers, who stood for hours to listen to +Shakespeare,” interrupted the Philosopher, “now crowd +to music-halls.”</p> +<p>“The track sometimes descends for a little way, but it +will wind upwards again,” returned the Poet. +“The music-hall itself is improving; I consider it the duty +of every intellectual man to visit such places. The mere +influence of his presence helps to elevate the tone of the +performance. I often go myself!”</p> +<p>“I was looking,” said the Woman of the World, +“at some old illustrated papers of thirty years ago, +showing the men dressed in those very absurd trousers, so +extremely roomy about the waist, and so extremely tight about the +ankles. I recollect poor papa in them; I always used to +long to fill them out by pouring in sawdust at the +top.”</p> +<p>“You mean the peg-top period,” I said. +“I remember them distinctly myself, but it cannot be more +than three-and-twenty years ago at the outside.”</p> +<p>“That is very nice of you,” replied the Woman of +the World, “and shows more tact than I should have given +you credit for. It could, as you say, have been only +twenty-three years ago. I know I was a very little girl at +the time. I think there must be some subtle connection +between clothes and thought. I cannot imagine men in those +trousers and Dundreary whiskers talking as you fellows are +talking now, any more than I could conceive of a woman in a +crinoline and a poke bonnet smoking a cigarette. I think it +must be so, because dear mother used to be the most easy-going +woman in the world in her ordinary clothes, and would let papa +smoke all over the house. But about once every three weeks +she would put on a hideous old-fashioned black silk dress, that +looked as if Queen Elizabeth must have slept in it during one of +those seasons when she used to go about sleeping anywhere, and +then we all had to sit up. ‘Look out, ma’s got +her black silk dress on,’ came to be a regular +formula. We could always make papa take us out for a walk +or a drive by whispering it to him.”</p> +<p>“I can never bear to look at those pictures of by-gone +fashions,” said the Old Maid, “I see the by-gone +people in them, and it makes me feel as though the faces that we +love are only passing fashions with the rest. We wear them +for a little while upon our hearts, and think so much of them, +and then there comes a time when we lay them by, and forget them, +and newer faces take their place, and we are satisfied. It +seems so sad.”</p> +<p>“I wrote a story some years ago,” remarked the +Minor Poet, “about a young Swiss guide, who was betrothed +to a laughing little French peasant girl.”</p> +<p>“Named Suzette,” interrupted the Girton +Girl. “I know her. Go on.”</p> +<p>“Named Jeanne,” corrected the Poet, “the +majority of laughing French girls, in fiction, are named Suzette, +I am well aware. But this girl’s mother’s +family was English. She was christened Jeanne after an aunt +Jane, who lived in Birmingham, and from whom she had +expectations.”</p> +<p>“I beg your pardon,” apologised the Girton Girl, +“I was not aware of that fact. What happened to +her?”</p> +<p>“One morning, a few days before the date fixed for the +wedding,” said the Minor Poet, “she started off to +pay a visit to a relative living in the village, the other side +of the mountain. It was a dangerous track, climbing +half-way up the mountain before it descended again, and skirting +more than one treacherous slope, but the girl was mountain born +and bred, sure-footed as a goat, and no one dreamed of +harm.”</p> +<p>“She went over, of course,” said the Philosopher, +“those sure-footed girls always do.”</p> +<p>“What happened,” replied the Minor Poet, +“was never known. The girl was never seen +again.”</p> +<p>“And what became of her lover?” asked the Girton +Girl. “Was he, when next year’s snow melted, +and the young men of the village went forth to gather Edelweiss, +wherewith to deck their sweethearts, found by them dead, beside +her, at the bottom of the crevasse?”</p> +<p>“No,” said the Poet; “you do not know this +story, you had better let me tell it. Her lover returned +the morning before the wedding day, to be met with the +news. He gave way to no sign of grief, he repelled all +consolation. Taking his rope and axe he went up into the +mountain by himself. All through the winter he haunted the +track by which she must have travelled, indifferent to the danger +that he ran, impervious apparently to cold, or hunger, or +fatigue, undeterred by storm, or mist, or avalanche. At the +beginning of the spring he returned to the village, purchased +building utensils, and day after day carried them back with him +up into the mountain. He hired no labour, he rejected the +proffered assistance of his brother guides. Choosing an +almost inaccessible spot, at the edge of the great glacier, far +from all paths, he built himself a hut, with his own hands; and +there for eighteen years he lived alone.</p> +<p>“In the ‘season’ he earned good fees, being +known far and wide as one of the bravest and hardiest of all the +guides, but few of his clients liked him, for he was a silent, +gloomy man, speaking little, and with never a laugh or jest on +the journey. Each fall, having provisioned himself, he +would retire to his solitary hut, and bar the door, and no human +soul would set eyes on him again until the snows melted.</p> +<p>“One year, however, as the spring days wore on, and he +did not appear among the guides, as was his wont, the elder men, +who remembered his story and pitied him, grew uneasy; and, after +much deliberation, it was determined that a party of them should +force their way up to his eyrie. They cut their path across +the ice where no foot among them had trodden before, and finding +at length the lonely snow-encompassed hut, knocked loudly with +their axe-staves on the door; but only the whirling echoes from +the glacier’s thousand walls replied, so the foremost put +his strong shoulder to the worn timber and the door flew open +with a crash.</p> +<p>“They found him dead, as they had more than half +expected, lying stiff and frozen on the rough couch at the +farther end of the hut; and, beside him, looking down upon him +with a placid face, as a mother might watch beside her sleeping +child, stood Jeanne. She wore the flowers pinned to her +dress that she had gathered when their eyes had last seen +her. The girl’s face that had laughed back to their +good-bye in the village, nineteen years ago.</p> +<p>“A strange steely light clung round her, half +illuminating, half obscuring her, and the men drew back in fear, +thinking they saw a vision, till one, bolder than the rest, +stretched out his hand and touched the ice that formed her +coffin.</p> +<p>“For eighteen years the man had lived there with this +face that he had loved. A faint flush still lingered on the +fair cheeks, the laughing lips were still red. Only at one +spot, above her temple, the wavy hair lay matted underneath a +clot of blood.”</p> +<p>The Minor Poet ceased.</p> +<p>“What a very unpleasant way of preserving one’s +love!” said the Girton Girl.</p> +<p>“When did the story appear?” I asked. +“I don’t remember reading it.”</p> +<p>“I never published it,” explained the Minor +Poet. “Within the same week two friends of mine, one +of whom had just returned from Norway and the other from +Switzerland, confided to me their intention of writing stories +about girls who had fallen into glaciers, and who had been found +by their friends long afterwards, looking as good as new; and a +few days later I chanced upon a book, the heroine of which had +been dug out of a glacier alive three hundred years after she had +fallen in. There seemed to be a run on ice maidens, and I +decided not to add to their number.”</p> +<p>“It is curious,” said the Philosopher, “how +there seems to be a fashion even in thought. An idea has +often occurred to me that has seemed to me quite new, and taking +up a newspaper I have found that some man in Russia or San +Francisco has just been saying the very same thing in almost the +very same words. We say a thing is ‘in the +air’; it is more true than we are aware of. Thought +does not grow in us. It is a thing apart, we simply gather +it. All truths, all discoveries, all inventions, they have +not come to us from any one man. The time grows ripe for +them, and from this corner of the earth and from that, hands, +guided by some instinct, grope for and grasp them. Buddha +and Christ seize hold of the morality needful to civilisation, +and promulgate it, unknown to one another, the one on the shores +of the Ganges, the other by the Jordan. A dozen forgotten +explorers, <i>feeling</i> America, prepared the way for Columbus +to discover it. A deluge of blood is required to sweep away +old follies, and Rousseau and Voltaire, and a myriad others are +set to work to fashion the storm clouds. The steam-engine, +the spinning loom is ‘in the air.’ A thousand +brains are busy with them, a few go further than the rest. +It is idle to talk of human thought; there is no such +thing. Our minds are fed as our bodies with the food God +has provided for us. Thought hangs by the wayside, and we +pick it and cook it, and eat it, and cry out what clever +‘thinkers’ we are!”</p> +<p>“I cannot agree with you,” replied the Minor Poet, +“if we were simply automata, as your argument would +suggest, what was the purpose of creating us?”</p> +<p>“The intelligent portion of mankind has been asking +itself that question for many ages,” returned the +Philosopher.</p> +<p>“I hate people who always think as I do,” said the +Girton Girl; “there was a girl in our corridor who never +would disagree with me. Every opinion I expressed turned +out to be her opinion also. It always irritated +me.”</p> +<p>“That might have been weak-mindedness,” said the +Old Maid, which sounded ambiguous.</p> +<p>“It is not so unpleasant as having a person always +disagreeing with you,” said the Woman of the World. +“My cousin Susan never would agree with any one. If I +came down in red she would say, ‘Why don’t you try +green, dear? every one says you look so well in green’; and +when I wore green she would say, ‘Why have you given up red +dear? I thought you rather fancied yourself in +red.’ When I told her of my engagement to Tom, she +burst into tears and said she couldn’t help it. She +had always felt that George and I were intended for one another; +and when Tom never wrote for two whole months, and behaved +disgracefully in—in other ways, and I told her I was +engaged to George, she reminded me of every word I had ever said +about my affection for Tom, and of how I had ridiculed poor +George. Papa used to say, ‘If any man ever tells +Susan that he loves her, she will argue him out of it, and will +never accept him until he has jilted her, and will refuse to +marry him every time he asks her to fix the +day.”’</p> +<p>“Is she married?” asked the Philosopher.</p> +<p>“Oh, yes,” answered the Woman of the World, +“and is devoted to her children. She lets them do +everything they don’t want to.”</p> +<h2>THE DEGENERATION OF THOMAS HENRY</h2> +<p>The most respectable cat I have ever known was Thomas +Henry. His original name was Thomas, but it seemed absurd +to call him that. The family at Hawarden would as soon +think of addressing Mr. Gladstone as “Bill.” He +came to us from the Reform Club, <i>viâ</i> the butcher, +and the moment I saw him I felt that of all the clubs in London +that was the club he must have come from. Its atmosphere of +solid dignity and petrified conservatism seemed to cling to +him. Why he left the club I am unable, at this distance of +time, to remember positively, but I am inclined to think that it +came about owing to a difference with the new <i>chef</i>, an +overbearing personage who wanted all the fire to himself. +The butcher, hearing of the quarrel, and knowing us as a catless +family, suggested a way out of the <i>impasse</i> that was +welcomed both by cat and cook. The parting between them, I +believe, was purely formal, and Thomas arrived prejudiced in our +favour.</p> +<p>My wife, the moment she saw him, suggested Henry as a more +suitable name. It struck me that the combination of the two +would be still more appropriate, and accordingly, in the privacy +of the domestic circle, Thomas Henry he was called. When +speaking of him to friends, we generally alluded to him as Thomas +Henry, Esquire.</p> +<p>He approved of us in his quiet, undemonstrative way. He +chose my own particular easy chair for himself, and stuck to +it. An ordinary cat I should have shot out, but Thomas +Henry was not the cat one chivvies. Had I made it clear to +him that I objected to his presence in my chair, I feel convinced +he would have regarded me much as I should expect to be regarded +by Queen Victoria, were that gracious Lady to call upon me in a +friendly way, and were I to inform her that I was busy, and +request her to look in again some other afternoon. He would +have risen, and have walked away, but he never would have spoken +to me again so long as we lived under the same roof.</p> +<p>We had a lady staying with us at the time—she still +resides with us, but she is now older, and possessed of more +judgment—who was no respecter of cats. Her argument +was that seeing the tail stuck up, and came conveniently to +one’s hand, that was the natural appendage by which to +raise a cat. She also laboured under the error that the way +to feed a cat was to ram things into its head, and that its +pleasure was to be taken out for a ride in a doll’s +perambulator. I dreaded the first meeting of Thomas Henry +with this lady. I feared lest she should give him a false +impression of us as a family, and that we should suffer in his +eyes.</p> +<p>But I might have saved myself all anxiety. There was a +something about Thomas Henry that checked forwardness and damped +familiarity. His attitude towards her was friendly but +firm. Hesitatingly, and with a new-born respect for cats, +she put out her hand timidly towards its tail. He gently +put it on the other side, and looked at her. It was not an +angry look nor an offended look. It was the expression with +which Solomon might have received the advances of the Queen of +Sheba. It expressed condescension, combined with +distance.</p> +<p>He was really a most gentlemanly cat. A friend of mine, +who believes in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, was +convinced that he was Lord Chesterfield. He never clamoured +for food, as other cats do. He would sit beside me at +meals, and wait till he was served. He would eat only the +knuckle-end of a leg of mutton, and would never look at over-done +beef. A visitor of ours once offered him a piece of +gristle; he said nothing, but quietly left the room, and we did +not see him again until our friend had departed.</p> +<p>But every one has his price, and Thomas Henry’s price +was roast duck. Thomas Henry’s attitude in the +presence of roast duck came to me as a psychological +revelation. It showed me at once the lower and more animal +side of his nature. In the presence of roast duck Thomas +Henry became simply and merely a cat, swayed by all the savage +instincts of his race. His dignity fell from him as a +cloak. He clawed for roast duck, he grovelled for it. +I believe he would have sold himself to the devil for roast +duck.</p> +<p>We accordingly avoided that particular dish: it was painful to +see a cat’s character so completely demoralised. +Besides, his manners, when roast duck was on the table, afforded +a bad example to the children.</p> +<p>He was a shining light among all the eats of our +neighbourhood. One might have set one’s watch by his +movements. After dinner he invariably took half an +hour’s constitutional in the square; at ten o’clock +each night, precisely, he returned to the area door, and at +eleven o’clock he was asleep in my easy chair. He +made no friends among the other cats. He took no pleasure +in fighting, and I doubt his ever having loved, even in youth; +his was too cold and self-contained a nature, female society he +regarded with utter indifference.</p> +<p>So he lived with us a blameless existence during the whole +winter. In the summer we took him down with us into the +country. We thought the change of air would do him good; he +was getting decidedly stout. Alas, poor Thomas Henry! the +country was his ruin. What brought about the change I +cannot say: maybe the air was too bracing. He slid down the +moral incline with frightful rapidity. The first night he +stopped out till eleven, the second night he never came home at +all, the third night he came home at six o’clock in the +morning, minus half the fur on the top of his head. Of +course, there was a lady in the case, indeed, judging by the riot +that went on all night, I am inclined to think there must have +been a dozen. He was certainly a fine cat, and they took to +calling for him in the day time. Then gentleman cats who +had been wronged took to calling also, and demanding +explanations, which Thomas Henry, to do him justice, was always +ready to accord.</p> +<p>The village boys used to loiter round all day to watch the +fights, and angry housewives would be constantly charging into +our kitchen to fling dead cats upon the table, and appeal to +Heaven and myself for justice. Our kitchen became a +veritable cat’s morgue, and I had to purchase a new kitchen +table. The cook said it would make her work simpler if she +could keep a table entirely to herself. She said it quite +confused her, having so many dead cats lying round among her +joints and vegetables: she was afraid of making a mistake. +Accordingly, the old table was placed under the window, and +devoted to the cats; and, after that, she would never allow +anyone to bring a cat, however dead, to her table.</p> +<p>“What do you want me to do with it,” I heard her +asking an excited lady on one occasion; “cook +it?”</p> +<p>“It’s my cat,” said the lady; +“that’s what that is.”</p> +<p>“Well, I’m not making cat pie to-day,” +answered our cook. “You take it to its proper +table. This is my table.”</p> +<p>At first, “Justice” was generally satisfied with +half a crown, but as time went on cats rose. I had hitherto +regarded cats as a cheap commodity, and I became surprised at the +value attached to them. I began to think seriously of +breeding cats as an industry. At the prices current in that +village, I could have made an income of thousands.</p> +<p>“Look what your beast has done,” said one irate +female, to whom I had been called out in the middle of +dinner.</p> +<p>I looked. Thomas Henry appeared to have +“done” a mangy, emaciated animal, that must have been +far happier dead than alive. Had the poor creature been +mine I should have thanked him; but some people never know when +they are well off.</p> +<p>“I wouldn’t ha’ taken a five-pun’ note +for that cat,” said the lady.</p> +<p>“It’s a matter of opinion,” I replied, +“but personally I think you would have been unwise to +refuse it. Taking the animal as it stands, I don’t +feel inclined to give you more than a shilling for it. If +you think you can do better by taking it elsewhere, you do +so.”</p> +<p>“He was more like a Christian than a cat,” said +the lady.</p> +<p>“I’m not taking dead Christians,” I answered +firmly, “and even if I were I wouldn’t give more than +a shilling for a specimen like that. You can consider him +as a Christian, or you can consider him as a cat; but he’s +not worth more than a shilling in either case.”</p> +<p>We settled eventually for eighteenpence.</p> +<p>The number of cats that Thomas Henry contrived to dispose of +also surprised me. Quite a massacre of cats seemed to be in +progress.</p> +<p>One evening, going into the kitchen, for I made it a practice +now to visit the kitchen each evening, to inspect the daily +consignment of dead cats, I found, among others, a curiously +marked tortoiseshell cat, lying on the table.</p> +<p>“That cat’s worth half a sovereign,” said +the owner, who was standing by, drinking beer.</p> +<p>I took up the animal, and examined it.</p> +<p>“Your cat killed him yesterday,” continued the +man. “It’s a burning shame.”</p> +<p>“My cat has killed him three times,” I +replied. “He was killed on Saturday as Mrs. +Hedger’s cat; on Monday he was killed for Mrs. Myers. +I was not quite positive on Monday; but I had my suspicions, and +I made notes. Now I recognise him. You take my +advice, and bury him before he breeds a fever. I +don’t care how many lives a cat has got; I only pay for +one.”</p> +<p>We gave Thomas Henry every chance to reform; but he only went +from bad to worse, and added poaching and chicken-stalking to his +other crimes, and I grew tired of paying for his vices.</p> +<p>I consulted the gardener, and the gardener said he had known +cats taken that way before.</p> +<p>“Do you know of any cure for it?” I asked.</p> +<p>“Well, sir,” replied the gardener, “I have +heard as how a dose of brickbat and pond is a good thing in a +general way.”</p> +<p>“We’ll try him with a dose just before bed +time,” I answered. The gardener administered it, and +we had no further trouble with him.</p> +<p>Poor Thomas Henry! It shows to one how a reputation for +respectability may lie in the mere absence of temptation. +Born and bred in the atmosphere of the Reform Club, what +gentleman could go wrong? I was sorry for Thomas Henry, and +I have never believed in the moral influence of the country +since.</p> +<h2>THE CITY OF THE SEA</h2> +<p>They say, the chroniclers who have written the history of that +low-lying, wind-swept coast, that years ago the foam fringe of +the ocean lay further to the east; so that where now the North +Sea creeps among the treacherous sand-reefs, it was once dry +land. In those days, between the Abbey and the sea, there +stood a town of seven towers and four rich churches, surrounded +by a wall of twelve stones’ thickness, making it, as men +reckoned then, a place of strength and much import; and the +monks, glancing their eyes downward from the Abbey garden on the +hill, saw beneath their feet its narrow streets, gay with the +ever passing of rich merchandise, saw its many wharves and +water-ways, ever noisy with the babel of strange tongues, saw its +many painted masts, wagging their grave heads above the dormer +roofs and quaintly-carved oak gables.</p> +<p>Thus the town prospered till there came a night when it did +evil in the sight of God and man. Those were troublous +times to Saxon dwellers by the sea, for the Danish water-rats +swarmed round each river mouth, scenting treasure from afar; and +by none was the white flash of their sharp, strong teeth more +often seen than by the men of Eastern Anglia, and by none in +Eastern Anglia more often than by the watchers on the walls of +the town of seven towers that once stood upon the dry land, but +which now lies twenty fathom deep below the waters. Many a +bloody fight raged now without and now within its wall of twelve +stones’ thickness. Many a groan of dying man, many a +shriek of murdered woman, many a wail of mangled child, knocked +at the Abbey door upon its way to Heaven, calling the +trembling-monks from their beds, to pray for the souls that were +passing by.</p> +<p>But at length peace came to the long-troubled land: Dane and +Saxon agreeing to dwell in friendship side by side, East Anglia +being wide, and there being room for both. And all men +rejoiced greatly, for all were weary of a strife in which little +had been gained on either side beyond hard blows, and their +thoughts were of the ingle-nook. So the long-bearded Danes, +their thirsty axes harmless on their backs, passed to and fro in +straggling bands, seeking where undisturbed and undisturbing they +might build their homes; and thus it came about that Haafager and +his company, as the sun was going down, drew near to the town of +seven towers, that in those days stood on dry land between the +Abbey and the sea.</p> +<p>And the men of the town, seeing the Danes, opened wide their +gates saying:—</p> +<p>“We have fought, but now there is peace. Enter, +and make merry with us, and to-morrow go your way.”</p> +<p>But Haafager made answer:—</p> +<p>“I am an old man, I pray you do not take my words +amiss. There is peace between us, as you say, and we thank +you for your courtesy, but the stains are still fresh upon our +swords. Let us camp here without your walls, and a little +later, when the grass has grown upon the fields where we have +striven, and our young men have had time to forget, we will make +merry together, as men should who dwell side by side in the same +land.”</p> +<p>But the men of the town still urged Haafager, calling his +people neighbours; and the Abbot, who had hastened down, fearing +there might be strife, added his words to theirs, +saying:—</p> +<p>“Pass in, my children. Let there indeed be peace +between you, that the blessing of God may be upon the land, and +upon both Dane and Saxon”; for the Abbot saw that the +townsmen were well disposed towards the Danes, and knew that men, +when they have feasted and drunk together, think kinder of one +another.</p> +<p>Then answered Haafager, who knew the Abbot for a holy +man:—</p> +<p>“Hold up your staff, my father, that the shadow of the +cross your people worship may fall upon our path, so we will pass +into the town and there shall be peace between us, for though +your gods are not our gods, faith between man and man is of all +altars.”</p> +<p>And the Abbot held his staff aloft between Haafager’s +people and the sun, it being fashioned in the form of a cross, +and under its shadow the Danes passed by into the town of seven +towers, there being of them, with the women and the children, +nearly two thousand souls, and the gates were made fast behind +them.</p> +<p>So they who had fought face to face, feasted side by side, +pledging one another in the wine cup, as was the custom; and +Haafager’s men, knowing themselves amongst friends, cast +aside their arms, and when the feast was done, being weary, they +lay down to sleep.</p> +<p>Then an evil voice arose in the town, and said: “Who are +these that have come among us to share our land? Are not +the stones of our streets red with the blood of wife and child +that they have slain? Do men let the wolf go free when they +have trapped him with meat? Let us fall upon them now that +they are heavy with food and wine, so that not one of them shall +escape. Thus no further harm shall come to us from them nor +from their children.”</p> +<p>And the voice of evil prevailed, and the men of the town of +seven towers fell upon the Danes with whom they had broken meat, +even to the women and the little children; and the blood of the +people of Haafager cried with a loud voice at the Abbey door, +through the long night it cried, saying:—</p> +<p>“I trusted in your spoken word. I broke meat with +you. I put my faith in you and in your God. I passed +beneath the shadow of your cross to enter your doors. Let +your God make answer!”</p> +<p>Nor was there silence till the dawn.</p> +<p>Then the Abbot rose from where he knelt and called to God, +saying:—</p> +<p>“Thou hast heard, O God. Make answer.”</p> +<p>And there came a great sound from the sea as though a tongue +had been given to the deep, so that the monks fell upon their +knees in fear; but the Abbot answered:—</p> +<p>“It is the voice of God speaking through the +waters. He hath made answer.”</p> +<p>And that winter a mighty storm arose, the like of which no man +had known before; for the sea was piled upon the dry land until +the highest tower of the town of seven towers was not more high; +and the waters moved forward over the dry land. And the men +of the town of seven towers fled from the oncoming of the waters, +but the waters overtook them so that not one of them +escaped. And the town of the seven towers and of the four +churches, and of the many streets and quays, was buried +underneath the waters, and the feet of the waters still moved +till they came to the hill whereon the Abbey stood. Then +the Abbot prayed to God that the waters might be stayed, and God +heard, and the sea came no farther.</p> +<p>And that this tale is true, and not a fable made by the +weavers of words, he who doubts may know from the fisher-folk, +who to-day ply their calling amongst the reefs and sandbanks of +that lonely coast. For there are those among them who, +peering from the bows of their small craft, have seen far down +beneath their keels a city of strange streets and many +quays. But as to this, I, who repeat these things to you, +cannot speak of my own knowledge, for this city of the sea is +only visible when a rare wind, blowing from the north, sweeps the +shadows from the waves; and though on many a sunny day I have +drifted where its seven towers should once have stood, yet for me +that wind has never blown, pushing back the curtains of the sea, +and, therefore, I have strained my eyes in vain.</p> +<p>But this I do know, that the rumbling stones of that ancient +Abbey, between which and the foam fringe of the ocean the town of +seven towers once lay, now stand upon a wave-washed cliff, and +that he who looks forth from its shattered mullions to-day sees +only the marshland and the wrinkled waters, hears only the plaint +of the circling gulls and the weary crying of the sea.</p> +<p>And that God’s anger is not everlasting, and that the +evil that there is in men shall be blotted out, he who doubts may +also learn from the wisdom of the simple fisher-folk, who dwell +about the borders of the marsh-land; for they will tell him that +on stormy nights there speaks a deep voice from the sea, calling +the dead monks to rise from their forgotten graves, and chant a +mass for the souls of the men of the town of seven towers. +Clothed in long glittering white, they move with slowly pacing +feet around the Abbey’s grass-grown aisles, and the music +of their prayers is heard above the screaming of the storm. +And to this I also can bear witness, for I have seen the passing +of their shrouded forms behind the blackness of the shattered +shafts; I have heard their sweet, sad singing above the wailing +of the wind.</p> +<p>Thus for many ages have the dead monks prayed that the men of +the town of seven towers may be forgiven. Thus, for many +ages yet shall they so pray, till the day come when of their once +fair Abbey not a single stone shall stand upon its fellow; and in +that day it shall be known that the anger of God against the men +of the town of seven towers has passed away; and in that day the +feet of the waters shall move back, and the town of seven towers +shall stand again upon the dry land.</p> +<p>There be some, I know, who say that this is but a legend; who +will tell you that the shadowy shapes that you may see with your +own eyes on stormy nights, waving their gleaming arms behind the +ruined buttresses are but of phosphorescent foam, tossed by the +raging waves above the cliffs; and that the sweet, sad harmony +cleaving the trouble of the night is but the æolian music +of the wind.</p> +<p>But such are of the blind, who see only with their eyes. +For myself I see the white-robed monks, and hear the chanting of +their mass for the souls of the sinful men of the town of seven +towers. For it has been said that when an evil deed is +done, a prayer is born to follow it through time into eternity, +and plead for it. Thus is the whole world clasped around +with folded hands both of the dead and of the living, as with a +shield, lest the shafts of God’s anger should consume +it.</p> +<p>Therefore, I know that the good monks of this nameless Abbey +are still praying that the sin of those they love may be +forgiven.</p> +<p>God grant good men may say a mass for us.</p> +<h2>DRIFTWOOD</h2> +<h3>CHARACTERS</h3> +<p>MR. TRAVERS.</p> +<p>MRS. TRAVERS.</p> +<p>MARION [their daughter].</p> +<p>DAN [a gentleman of no position].</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>SCENE: A room opening upon a garden. The shadows creep +from their corners, driving before them the fading twilight.</p> +<p>MRS. TRAVERS sits in a wickerwork easy chair. MR. +TRAVERS, smoking a cigar, sits the other side of the room. +MARION stands by the open French window, looking out.</p> +<p>MR. TRAVERS. Nice little place Harry’s got down +here.</p> +<p>MRS. TRAVERS. Yes; I should keep this on if I were you, +Marion. You’ll find it very handy. One can +entertain so cheaply up the river; one is not expected to make +much of a show. [She turns to her husband.] Your poor +cousin Emily used to work off quite half her list that +way—relations and Americans, and those sort of people, you +know—at that little place of theirs at Goring. You +remember it—a poky hole I always thought it, but it had a +lot of green stuff over the door—looked very pretty from +the other side of the river. She always used to have cold +meat and pickles for lunch—called it a picnic. People +said it was so homely and simple.</p> +<p>MR. TRAVERS. They didn’t stop long, I +remember.</p> +<p>MRS. TRAVERS. And there was a special champagne she +always kept for the river—only twenty-five shillings a +dozen, I think she told me she paid for it, and very good it was +too, for the price. That old Indian major—what was +his name?—said it suited him better than anything else he +had ever tried. He always used to drink a tumblerful before +breakfast; such a funny thing to do. I’ve often +wondered where she got it.</p> +<p>MR. TRAVERS. So did most people who tasted it. +Marion wants to forget those lessons, not learn them. She +is going to marry a rich man who will be able to entertain his +guests decently.</p> +<p>MRS. TRAVERS. Oh, well, James, I don’t know. +None of us can afford to live up to the income we want people to +think we’ve got. One must economise somewhere. +A pretty figure we should cut in the county if I didn’t +know how to make fivepence look like a shilling. And, +besides, there are certain people that one has to be civil to, +that, at the same time, one doesn’t want to introduce into +one’s regular circle. If you take my advice, Marion, +you won’t encourage those sisters of Harry’s more +than you can help. They’re dear sweet girls, and you +can be very nice to them; but don’t have them too much +about. Their manners are terribly old-fashioned, and +they’ve no notion how to dress, and those sort of people +let down the tone of a house.</p> +<p>MARION. I’m not likely to have many “dear +sweet girls” on my visiting list. [With a +laugh.] There will hardly be enough in common to make the +company desired, on either side.</p> +<p>MRS. TRAVERS. Well, I only want you to be careful, my +dear. So much depends on how you begin, and with prudence +there’s really no reason why you shouldn’t do very +well. I suppose there’s no doubt about Harry’s +income. He won’t object to a few inquiries?</p> +<p>MARION. I think you may trust me to see to that, +mamma. It would be a bad bargain for me, if even the cash +were not certain.</p> +<p>MR. TRAVERS [jumping up]. Oh, I do wish you women +wouldn’t discuss the matter in that horribly business-like +way. One would think the girl was selling herself.</p> +<p>MRS. TRAVERS. Oh, don’t be foolish, James. +One must look at the practical side of these things. +Marriage is a matter of sentiment to a man—very proper that +it should be. A woman has to remember that she’s +fixing her position for life.</p> +<p>MARION. You see, papa dear, it’s her one +venture. If she doesn’t sell herself to advantage +then, she doesn’t get another opportunity—very +easily.</p> +<p>MR. TRAVERS. Umph! When I was a young man, girls +talked more about love and less about income.</p> +<p>MARION. Perhaps they had not our educational +advantages.</p> +<p>[DAN enters from the garden. He is a man of a little +over forty, his linen somewhat frayed about the edges.]</p> +<p>MRS. TRAVERS. Ah! We were just wondering where all +you people had got to.</p> +<p>DAN. We’ve been out sailing. I’ve been +sent up to fetch you. It’s delightful on the +river. The moon is just rising.</p> +<p>MRS. TRAVERS. But it’s so cold.</p> +<p>MR. TRAVERS. Oh, never mind the cold. It’s +many a long year since you and I looked at the moon +together. It will do us good.</p> +<p>MRS. TRAVERS. Ah, dear. Boys will be boys. +Give me my wrap then.</p> +<p>[DAN places it about her. They move towards the window, +where they stand talking. MARION has slipped out and +returns with her father’s cap. He takes her face +between his hands and looks at her.]</p> +<p>MR. TRAVERS. Do you really care for Harry, Marion?</p> +<p>MARION. As much as one can care for a man with five +thousand a year. Perhaps he will make it ten one +day—then I shall care for him twice as much. +[Laughs.]</p> +<p>MR. TRAVERS. And are you content with this marriage?</p> +<p>MARION. Quite.</p> +<p>[He shakes his head gravely at her.]</p> +<p>MRS. TRAVERS. Aren’t you coming, Marion?</p> +<p>MARION. No. I’m feeling tired.</p> +<p>[MR. and MRS. TRAVERS go out.]</p> +<p>DAN. Are you going to leave Harry alone with two pairs +of lovers?</p> +<p>MARION [with a laugh]. Yes—let him see how +ridiculous they look. I hate the night—it follows you +and asks questions. Shut it out. Come and talk to +me. Amuse me.</p> +<p>DAN. What shall I talk to you about?</p> +<p>MARION. Oh, tell me all the news. What is the +world doing? Who has run away with whose wife? Who +has been swindling whom? Which philanthropist has been +robbing the poor? What saint has been discovered +sinning? What is the latest scandal? Who has been +found out? and what is it they have been doing? and what is +everybody saying about it?</p> +<p>DAN. Would it amuse you?</p> +<p>MARION [she sits by the piano, softly touching the keys, idly +recalling many memories]. What should it do? Make me +weep? Should not one be glad to know one’s friends +better?</p> +<p>DAN. I wish you wouldn’t be clever. Everyone +one meets is clever nowadays. It came in when the +sun-flower went out. I preferred the sun-flower; it was +more amusing.</p> +<p>MARION. And stupid people, I suppose, will come in when +the clever people go out. I prefer the clever. They +have better manners. You’re exceedingly +disagreeable. [She leaves the piano, and, throwing herself +upon the couch, takes up a book.]</p> +<p>DAN. I know I am. The night has been with me +also. It follows one and asks questions.</p> +<p>MARION. What questions has it been asking you?</p> +<p>DAN. Many—and so many of them have no +answer. Why am I a useless, drifting log upon the +world’s tide? Why have all the young men passed +me? Why am I, at thirty-nine, let us say, with brain, with +power, with strength—nobody thinks I am worth anything, but +I am—I know it. I might have been an able editor, +devoting every morning from ten till three to arranging the +affairs of the Universe, or a popular politician, trying to +understand what I was talking about, and to believe it. And +what am I? A newspaper reporter, at three-ha’pence a +line—I beg their pardon, its occasionally twopence.</p> +<p>MARION. Does it matter?</p> +<p>DAN. Does it matter! Does it matter whether a +Union Jack or a Tricolor floats over the turrets of Badajoz? yet +we pour our blood into its ditches to decide the argument. +Does it matter whether one star more or less is marked upon our +charts? yet we grow blind peering into their depths. Does +it matter that one keel should slip through the grip of the Polar +ice? yet nearer, nearer to it, we pile our whitening bones. +And it’s worth playing, the game of life. And +there’s a meaning in it. It’s worth playing, if +only that it strengthens the muscles of our souls. +I’d like to have taken a hand in it.</p> +<p>MARION. Why didn’t you?</p> +<p>DAN. No partner. Dull playing by oneself. No +object.</p> +<p>MARION [after a silence]. What was she like?</p> +<p>DAN. So like you that there are times when I almost wish +I had never met you. You set me thinking about myself, and +that is a subject I find it pleasanter to forget.</p> +<p>MARION. And this woman that was like me—she could +have made a man’s life?</p> +<p>DAN. Ay!</p> +<p>MARION. Won’t you tell me about her? Had she +many faults?</p> +<p>DAN. Enough to love her by.</p> +<p>MARION. But she must have been good.</p> +<p>DAN. Good enough to be a woman.</p> +<p>MARION. That might mean so much or so little.</p> +<p>DAN. It should mean much to my thinking. There are +few women.</p> +<p>MARION. Few! I thought the economists held that +there were too many of us.</p> +<p>DAN. Not enough—not enough to go round. That +is why a true woman has many lovers.</p> +<p>[There is a silence between them. Then MARION rises, but +their eyes do not meet.]</p> +<p>MARION. How serious we have grown!</p> +<p>DAN. They say a dialogue between a man and woman always +does.</p> +<p>MARION [she moves away, then, hesitating, half returns]. +May I ask you a question?</p> +<p>DAN. That is an easy favour to grant.</p> +<p>MARION. If—if at any time you felt regard again +for a woman, would you, for her sake, if she wished it, seek to +gain, even now, that position in the world which is your +right—which would make her proud of your +friendship—would make her feel that even her life had not +been altogether without purpose?</p> +<p>DAN. Too late! The old hack can only look over the +hedge, and watch the field race by. The old ambition stirs +within me at times—especially after a glass of good +wine—and Harry’s wine—God bless him—is +excellent—but to-morrow morning—[with a shrug of his +shoulders he finishes his meaning].</p> +<p>MARION. Then she could do nothing?</p> +<p>DAN. Nothing for his fortunes—much for +himself. My dear young lady, never waste pity on a man in +love—nor upon a child crying for the moon. The moon +is a good thing to cry for.</p> +<p>MARION. I am glad I am like her. I am glad that I +have met you.</p> +<p>[She gives him her hand, and for a moment he holds it. +Then she goes out.]</p> +<p>[A flower has fallen from her breast, whether by chance or +meaning, he knows not. He picks it up and kisses it; stands +twirling it, undecided for a second, then lets it fall again upon +the floor.]</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES IN LAVENDER, BLUE AND +GREEN***</p> +<pre> + +***** This file should be named 2234-h.htm or 2234-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/3/2234 + + + +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. 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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: Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green + + +Author: Jerome K. Jerome + + + +Release Date: May 7, 2007 [eBook #2234] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES IN LAVENDER, BLUE AND +GREEN*** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1920 J. W. Arrowsmith edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +Sketches in Lavender +Blue and Green + + +BY +JEROME K. JEROME +AUTHOR OF "THREE MEN IN A BOAT" +"THREE MEN ON THE BUMMEL," "NOVEL NOTES" +"THE IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW," ETC. + +BRISTOL +J. W. ARROWSMITH LTD., QUAY STREET +LONDON +SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO. LIMITED +1920 + +Contents: + +Reginald Blake, Financier and Cad +An item of Fashionable Intelligence +Blase Billy +The Choice of Cyril Harjohn +The Materialisation of Charles and Mivanway +Portrait of a Lady +The Man Who Would Manage +The Man Who Lived For Others +A Man of Habit +The Absent-minded Man +A Charming Woman +Whibley's Spirit +The Man Who Went Wrong +The Hobby Rider +The Man Who Did Not Believe In Luck +Dick Dunkerman's Cat +The Minor Poet's Story +The Degeneration of Thomas Henry +The City of The Sea +Driftwood + + La-ven-der's blue, did-dle, did-dle! + La-ven-der's green; + When I am king, did-dle, did-dle! + You shall be queen. + + Call up your men, did-dle, did-dle! + Set them to work; + Some to the plough, did-dle, did-dle! + Some to the cart. + + Some to make hay, did-dle, did-dle! + Some to cut corn; + While you and I, did-dle, did-dle! + Keep ourselves warm. + + + + +REGINALD BLAKE, FINANCIER AND CAD + + +The advantage of literature over life is that its characters are clearly +defined, and act consistently. Nature, always inartistic, takes pleasure +in creating the impossible. Reginald Blake was as typical a specimen of +the well-bred cad as one could hope to find between Piccadilly Circus and +Hyde Park Corner. Vicious without passion, and possessing brain without +mind, existence presented to him no difficulties, while his pleasures +brought him no pains. His morality was bounded by the doctor on the one +side, and the magistrate on the other. Careful never to outrage the +decrees of either, he was at forty-five still healthy, though stout; and +had achieved the not too easy task of amassing a fortune while avoiding +all risk of Holloway. He and his wife, Edith (_nee_ Eppington), were as +ill-matched a couple as could be conceived by any dramatist seeking +material for a problem play. As they stood before the altar on their +wedding morn, they might have been taken as symbolising satyr and saint. +More than twenty years his junior, beautiful with the beauty of a +Raphael's Madonna, his every touch of her seemed a sacrilege. Yet once +in his life Mr. Blake played the part of a great gentleman; Mrs. Blake, +on the same occasion, contenting herself with a singularly mean +_role_--mean even for a woman in love. + +The affair, of course, had been a marriage of convenience. Blake, to do +him justice, had made no pretence to anything beyond admiration and +regard. Few things grow monotonous sooner than irregularity. He would +tickle his jaded palate with respectability, and try for a change the +companionship of a good woman. The girl's face drew him, as the +moonlight holds a man who, bored by the noise, turns from a heated room +to press his forehead to the window-pane. Accustomed to bid for what he +wanted, he offered his price. The Eppington family was poor and +numerous. The girl, bred up to the false notions of duty inculcated by a +narrow conventionality, and, feminine like, half in love with martyrdom +for its own sake, let her father bargain for a higher price, and then +sold herself. + +To a drama of this description, a lover is necessary, if the +complications are to be of interest to the outside world. Harry Sennett, +a pleasant-looking enough young fellow, in spite of his receding chin, +was possessed, perhaps, of more good intention than sense. Under the +influence of Edith's stronger character he was soon persuaded to +acquiesce meekly in the proposed arrangement. Both succeeded in +convincing themselves that they were acting nobly. The tone of the +farewell interview, arranged for the eve of the wedding, would have been +fit and proper to the occasion had Edith been a modern Joan of Arc about +to sacrifice her own happiness on the altar of a great cause; as the girl +was merely selling herself into ease and luxury, for no higher motive +than the desire to enable a certain number of more or less worthy +relatives to continue living beyond their legitimate means, the sentiment +was perhaps exaggerated. Many tears were shed, and many everlasting good- +byes spoken, though, seeing that Edith's new home would be only a few +streets off, and that of necessity their social set would continue to be +the same, more experienced persons might have counselled hope. Three +months after the marriage they found themselves side by side at the same +dinner-table; and after a little melodramatic fencing with what they were +pleased to regard as fate, they accommodated themselves to the customary +positions. + +Blake was quite aware that Sennett had been Edith's lover. So had half a +dozen other men, some younger, some older than himself. He felt no more +embarrassment at meeting them than, standing on the pavement outside the +Stock Exchange, he would have experienced greeting his brother jobbers +after a settling day that had transferred a fortune from their hands into +his. Sennett, in particular, he liked and encouraged. Our whole social +system, always a mystery to the philosopher, owes its existence to the +fact that few men and women possess sufficient intelligence to be +interesting to themselves. Blake liked company, but not much company +liked Blake. Young Sennett, however, could always be relied upon to +break the tediousness of the domestic dialogue. A common love of sport +drew the two men together. Most of us improve upon closer knowledge, and +so they came to find good in one another. + +"That is the man you ought to have married," said Blake one night to his +wife, half laughingly, half seriously, as they sat alone, listening to +Sennett's departing footsteps echoing upon the deserted pavement. "He's +a good fellow--not a mere money-grubbing machine like me." + +And a week later Sennett, sitting alone with Edith, suddenly broke out +with: + +"He's a better man than I am, with all my high-falutin' talk, and, upon +my soul, he loves you. Shall I go abroad?" + +"If you like," was the answer. + +"What would you do?" + +"Kill myself," replied the other, with a laugh, "or run away with the +first man that asked me." + +So Sennett stayed on. + +Blake himself had made the path easy to them. There was little need for +either fear or caution. Indeed, their safest course lay in recklessness, +and they took it. To Sennett the house was always open. It was Blake +himself who, when unable to accompany his wife, would suggest Sennett as +a substitute. Club friends shrugged their shoulders. Was the man +completely under his wife's thumb; or, tired of her, was he playing some +devil's game of his own? To most of his acquaintances the latter +explanation seemed the more plausible. + +The gossip, in due course, reached the parental home. Mrs. Eppington +shook the vials of her wrath over the head of her son-in-law. The +father, always a cautious man, felt inclined to blame his child for her +want of prudence. + +"She'll ruin everything," he said. "Why the devil can't she be careful?" + +"I believe the man is deliberately plotting to get rid of her," said Mrs. +Eppington. "I shall tell him plainly what I think." + +"You're a fool, Hannah," replied her husband, allowing himself the +licence of the domestic hearth. "If you are right, you will only +precipitate matters; if you are wrong, you will tell him what there is no +need for him to know. Leave the matter to me. I can sound him without +giving anything away, and meanwhile you talk to Edith." + +So matters were arranged, but the interview between mother and daughter +hardly improved the position. Mrs. Eppington was conventionally moral; +Edith had been thinking for herself, and thinking in a bad atmosphere. +Mrs. Eppington, grew angry at the girl's callousness. + +"Have you no sense of shame?" she cried. + +"I had once," was Edith's reply, "before I came to live here. Do you +know what this house is for me, with its gilded mirrors, its couches, its +soft carpets? Do you know what I am, and have been for two years?" + +The elder woman rose, with a frightened pleading look upon her face, and +the other stopped and turned away towards the window. + +"We all thought it for the best," continued Mrs. Eppington meekly. + +The girl spoke wearily without looking round. + +"Oh! every silly thing that was ever done, was done for the best. _I_ +thought it would be for the best, myself. Everything would be so simple +if only we were not alive. Don't let's talk any more. All you can say +is quite right." + +The silence continued for a while, the Dresden-china clock on the +mantelpiece ticking louder and louder as if to say, "I, Time, am here. Do +not make your plans forgetting me, little mortals; I change your thoughts +and wills. You are but my puppets." + +"Then what do you intend to do?" demanded Mrs. Eppington at length. + +"Intend! Oh, the right thing of course. We all intend that. I shall +send Harry away with a few well-chosen words of farewell, learn to love +my husband and settle down to a life of quiet domestic bliss. Oh, it's +easy enough to intend!" + +The girl's face wrinkled with a laugh that aged her. In that moment it +was a hard, evil face, and with a pang the elder woman thought of that +other face, so like, yet so unlike--the sweet pure face of a girl that +had given to a sordid home its one touch of nobility. As under the +lightning's flash we see the whole arc of the horizon, so Mrs. Eppington +looked and saw her child's life. The gilded, over-furnished room +vanished. She and a big-eyed, fair-haired child, the only one of her +children she had ever understood, were playing wonderful games in the +twilight among the shadows of a tiny attic. Now she was the wolf, +devouring Edith, who was Red Riding Hood, with kisses. Now Cinderella's +prince, now both her wicked sisters. But in the favourite game of all, +Mrs. Eppington was a beautiful princess, bewitched by a wicked dragon, so +that she seemed to be an old, worn woman. But curly-headed Edith fought +the dragon, represented by the three-legged rocking-horse, and slew him +with much shouting and the toasting-fork. Then Mrs. Eppington became +again a beautiful princess, and went away with Edith back to her own +people. + +In this twilight hour the misbehaviour of the "General," the importunity +of the family butcher, and the airs assumed by cousin Jane, who kept two +servants, were forgotten. + +The games ended. The little curly head would be laid against her breast +"for five minutes' love," while the restless little brain framed the +endless question that children are for ever asking in all its thousand +forms, "What is life, mother? I am very little, and I think, and think, +until I grow frightened. Oh, mother, tell me, what is life?" + +Had she dealt with these questions wisely? Might it not have been better +to have treated them more seriously? Could life after all be ruled by +maxims learned from copy-books? She had answered as she had been +answered in her own far-back days of questioning. Might it not have been +better had she thought for herself? + +Suddenly Edith was kneeling on the floor beside her. + +"I will try to be good, mother." + +It was the old baby cry, the cry of us all, children that we are, till +mother Nature kisses us and bids us go to sleep. + +Their arms were round each other now, and so they sat, mother and child +once more. And the twilight of the old attic, creeping westward from the +east, found them again. + +The masculine duet had more result, but was not conducted with the +_finesse_ that Mr. Eppington, who prided himself on his diplomacy, had +intended. Indeed, so evidently ill at ease was that gentleman, when the +moment came for talk, and so palpably were his pointless remarks mere +efforts to delay an unpleasant subject, that Blake, always direct bluntly +though not ill-naturedly asked him, "How much?" + +Mr. Eppington was disconcerted. + +"It's not that--at least that's not what I have come about," he answered +confusedly. + +"What have you come about?" + +Inwardly Mr. Eppington cursed himself for a fool, for the which he was +perhaps not altogether without excuse. He had meant to act the part of a +clever counsel, acquiring information while giving none; by a blunder, he +found himself in the witness-box. + +"Oh, nothing, nothing," was the feeble response, "merely looked in to see +how Edith was." + +"Much the same as at dinner last night, when you were here," answered +Blake. "Come, out with it." + +It seemed the best course now, and Mr. Eppington took the plunge. + +"Don't you think," he said, unconsciously glancing round the room to be +sure they were alone, "that young Sennett is a little too much about the +house?" + +Blake stared at him. + +"Of course, we know it is all right--as nice a young fellow as ever +lived--and Edith--and all that. Of course, it's absurd, but--" + +"But what?" + +"Well, people will talk." + +"What do they say?" + +The other shrugged his shoulders. + +Blake rose. He had an ugly look when angry, and his language was apt to +be coarse. + +"Tell them to mind their own business, and leave me and my wife alone." +That was the sense of what he said; he expressed himself at greater +length, and in stronger language. + +"But, my dear Blake," urged Mr. Eppington, "for your own sake, is it +wise? There was a sort of boy and girl attachment between them--nothing +of any moment, but all that gives colour to gossip. Forgive me, but I am +her father; I do not like to hear my child talked about." + +"Then don't open your ears to the chatter of a pack of fools," replied +his son-in-law roughly. But the next instant a softer expression passed +over his face, and he laid his hand on the older man's arm. + +"Perhaps there are many more, but there's one good woman in the world," +he said, "and that's your daughter. Come and tell me that the Bank of +England is getting shaky on its legs, and I'll listen to you." + +But the stronger the faith, the deeper strike the roots of suspicion. +Blake said no further word on the subject, and Sennett was as welcome as +before. But Edith, looking up suddenly, would sometimes find her +husband's eyes fixed on her with a troubled look as of some dumb creature +trying to understand; and often he would slip out of the house of an +evening by himself, returning home hours afterwards, tired and +mud-stained. + +He made attempts to show his affection. This was the most fatal thing he +could have done. Ill-temper, ill-treatment even, she might have borne. +His clumsy caresses, his foolish, halting words of tenderness became a +horror to her. She wondered whether to laugh or to strike at his +upturned face. His tactless devotion filled her life as with some sickly +perfume, stifling her. If only she could be by herself for a little +while to think! But he was with her night and day. There were times +when, as he would cross the room towards her, he grew monstrous until he +towered above her, a formless thing such as children dream of. And she +would sit with her lips tight pressed, clutching the chair lest she +should start up screaming. + +Her only thought was to escape from him. One day she hastily packed a +few necessaries in a small hand-bag and crept unperceived from the house. +She drove to Charing Cross, but the Continental Express did not leave for +an hour, and she had time to think. + +Of what use was it? Her slender stock of money would soon be gone; how +could she live? He would find her and follow her. It was all so +hopeless! + +Suddenly a fierce desire of life seized hold of her, the angry answer of +her young blood to despair. Why should she die, never having known what +it was to live? Why should she prostrate herself before this juggernaut +of other people's respectability? Joy called to her; only her own +cowardice stayed her from stretching forth her hand and gathering it. She +returned home a different woman, for hope had come to her. + +A week later the butler entered the dining room, and handed Blake a +letter addressed to him in his wife's handwriting. He took it without a +word, as though he had been expecting it. It simply told him that she +had left him for ever. + +* * * * * + +The world is small, and money commands many services. Sennett had gone +out for a stroll; Edith was left in the tiny _salon_ of their +_appartement_ at Fecamp. It was the third day of their arrival in the +town. The door was opened and closed, and Blake stood before her. + +She rose frightened, but by a motion he reassured her. There was a quiet +dignity about the man that was strange to her. + +"Why have you followed me?" she asked. + +"I want you to return home." + +"Home!" she cried. "You must be mad. Do you not know--" + +He interrupted her vehemently. "I know nothing. I wish to know nothing. +Go back to London at once. I have made everything right; no one +suspects. I shall not be there; you will never see me again, and you +will have an opportunity of undoing your mistake--our mistake." + +She listened. Hers was not a great nature, and the desire to obtain +happiness without paying the price was strong upon her. As for his good +name, what could that matter? he urged. People would only say that he +had gone back to the evil from which he had emerged, and few would be +surprised. His life would go on much as it had done, and she would only +be pitied. + +She quite understood his plan; it seemed mean of her to accept his +proposal, and she argued feebly against it. But he overcame all her +objections. For his own sake, he told her, he would prefer the scandal +to be connected with his name rather than with that of his wife. As he +unfolded his scheme, she began to feel that in acquiescing she was +conferring a favour. It was not the first deception he had arranged for +the public, and he appeared to be half in love with his own cleverness. +She even found herself laughing at his mimicry of what this acquaintance +and that would say. Her spirits rose; the play that might have been a +painful drama seemed turning out an amusing farce. + +The thing settled, he rose to go, and held out his hand. As she looked +up into his face, something about the line of his lips smote upon her. + +"You will be well rid of me," she said. "I have brought you nothing but +trouble." + +"Oh, trouble," he answered. "If that were all! A man can bear trouble." + +"What else?" she asked. + +His eyes travelled aimlessly about the room. "They taught me a lot of +things when I was a boy," he said, "my mother and others--they meant +well--which as I grew older I discovered to be lies; and so I came to +think that nothing good was true, and that everything and everybody was +evil. And then--" + +His wandering eyes came round to her and he broke off abruptly. "Good- +bye," he said, and the next moment he was gone. + +She sat wondering for a while what he had meant. Then Sennett returned, +and the words went out of her head. + +* * * * * + +A good deal of sympathy was felt for Mrs. Blake. The man had a charming +wife; he might have kept straight; but as his friends added, "Blake +always was a cad." + + + + +AN ITEM OF FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE + + +Speaking personally, I do not like the Countess of ---. She is not the +type of woman I could love. I hesitate the less giving expression to +this sentiment by reason of the conviction that the Countess of --- would +not be unduly depressed even were the fact to reach her ears. I cannot +conceive the Countess of ---'s being troubled by the opinion concerning +her of any being, human or divine, other than the Countess of ---. + +But to be honest, I must admit that for the Earl of --- she makes an +ideal wife. She rules him as she rules all others, relations and +retainers, from the curate to the dowager, but the rod, though firmly +held, is wielded with justice and kindly intent. Nor is it possible to +imagine the Earl of ---'s living as contentedly as he does with any +partner of a less dominating turn of mind. He is one of those +weak-headed, strong-limbed, good-natured, childish men, born to be guided +in all matters, from the tying of a neck-cloth to the choice of a +political party, by their women folk. Such men are in clover when their +proprietor happens to be a good and sensible woman, but are to be pitied +when they get into the hands of the selfish or the foolish. As very +young men, they too often fall victims to bad-tempered chorus girls or to +middle-aged matrons of the class from which Pope judged all womankind. +They make capital husbands when well managed; treated badly, they say +little, but set to work, after the manner of a dissatisfied cat, to find +a kinder mistress, generally succeeding. The Earl of --- adored his +wife, deeming himself the most fortunate of husbands, and better +testimonial than such no wife should hope for. Till the day she snatched +him away from all other competitors, and claimed him for her own, he had +obeyed his mother with a dutifulness bordering on folly. Were the +countess to die to-morrow, he would be unable to tell you his mind on any +single subject until his eldest daughter and his still unmarried sister, +ladies both of strong character, attracted towards one another by a +mutual antagonism, had settled between themselves which was to be +mistress of him and of his house. + +However, there is little fear (bar accidents) but that my friend the +countess will continue to direct the hereditary vote of the Earl of --- +towards the goal of common sense and public good, guide his social policy +with judgment and kindness, and manage his estates with prudence and +economy for many years to come. She is a hearty, vigorous lady, of +generous proportions, with the blood of sturdy forebears in her veins, +and one who takes the same excellent good care of herself that she +bestows on all others dependent upon her guidance. + +"I remember," said the doctor--we were dining with the doctor in homely +fashion, and our wives had adjourned to the drawing-room to discuss +servants and husbands and other domestic matters with greater freedom, +leaving us to the claret and the twilight--"I remember when we had the +cholera in the village--it must be twenty years ago now--that woman gave +up the London season to stay down here and take the whole burden of the +trouble upon her own shoulders. I do not feel any call to praise her; +she liked the work, and she was in her element, but it was good work for +all that. She had no fear. She would carry the children in her arms if +time pressed and the little ambulance was not at hand. I have known her +sit all night in a room not twelve feet square, between a dying man and +his dying wife. But the thing never touched her. Six years ago we had +the small-pox, and she went all through that in just the same way. I +don't believe she has ever had a day's illness in her life. She will be +physicking this parish when my bones are rattling in my coffin, and she +will be laying down the laws of literature long after your statue has +become a familiar ornament of Westminster Abbey. She's a wonderful +woman, but a trifle masterful." + +He laughed, but I detected a touch of irritation in his voice. My host +looked a man wishful to be masterful himself. I do not think he quite +relished the calm way in which this grand dame took possession of all +things around her, himself and his work included. + +"Did you ever hear the story of the marriage?" he asked. + +"No," I replied, "whose marriage? The earl's?" + +"I should call it the countess's," he answered. "It was the gossip of +the county when I first came here, but other curious things have happened +among us to push it gradually out of memory. Most people, I really +believe, have quite forgotten that the Countess of --- once served behind +a baker's counter." + +"You don't say so," I exclaimed. The remark, I admit, sounds weak when +written down; the most natural remarks always do. + +"It's a fact," said the doctor, "though she does not suggest the shop- +girl, does she? But then I have known countesses, descended in a direct +line from William the Conqueror, who did, so things balance one another. +Mary, Countess of ---, was, thirty years ago, Mary Sewell, daughter of a +Taunton linen-draper. The business, profitable enough as country +businesses go, was inadequate for the needs of the Sewell family, +consisting, as I believe it did, of seven boys and eight girls. Mary, +the youngest, as soon as her brief schooling was over, had to shift for +herself. She seems to have tried her hand at one or two things, finally +taking service with a cousin, a baker and confectioner, who was doing +well in Oxford Street. She must have been a remarkably attractive girl; +she's a handsome woman now. I can picture that soft creamy skin when it +was fresh and smooth, and the West of England girls run naturally to +dimples and eyes that glisten as though they had been just washed in +morning dew. The shop did a good trade in ladies' lunches--it was the +glass of sherry and sweet biscuit period. I expect they dressed her in +some neat-fitting grey or black dress, with short sleeves, showing her +plump arms, and that she flitted around the marble-topped tables, +smiling, and looking cool and sweet. There the present Earl of ---, then +young Lord C---, fresh from Oxford, and new to the dangers of London +bachelordom, first saw her. He had accompanied some female relatives to +the photographer's, and, hotels and restaurants being deemed impossible +in those days for ladies, had taken them to Sewell's to lunch. Mary +Sewell waited upon the party; and now as many of that party as are above +ground wait upon Mary Sewell." + +"He showed good sense in marrying her," I said, "I admire him for it." +The doctor's sixty-four Lafitte was excellent. I felt charitably +inclined towards all men and women, even towards earls and countesses. + +"I don't think he had much to do with it," laughed the doctor, "beyond +being, like Barkis, 'willing.' It's a queer story; some people profess +not to believe it, but those who know her ladyship best think it is just +the story that must be true, because it is so characteristic of her. And +besides, I happen to know that it is true." + +"I should like to hear it," I said. + +"I am going to tell it you," said the doctor, lighting a fresh cigar, and +pushing the box towards me. + +* * * * * + +I will leave you to imagine the lad's suddenly developed appetite for +decantered sherry at sixpence a glass, and the familiar currant bun of +our youth. He lunched at Sewell's shop, he tea'd at Sewell's, +occasionally he dined at Sewell's, off cutlets, followed by assorted +pastry. Possibly, merely from fear lest the affair should reach his +mother's ears, for he was neither worldly-wise nor vicious, he made love +to Mary under an assumed name; and to do the girl justice, it must be +remembered that she fell in love with and agreed to marry plain Mr. John +Robinson, son of a colonial merchant, a gentleman, as she must have seen, +and a young man of easy means, but of a position not so very much +superior to her own. The first intimation she received that her lover +was none other than Lord C---, the future Earl of ---, was vouchsafed her +during a painful interview with his lordship's mother. + +"I never knew it, madam," asserted Mary, standing by the window of the +drawing-room above the shop, "upon my word of honour, I never knew it." + +"Perhaps not," answered her ladyship coldly. "Would you have refused him +if you had?" + +"I cannot tell," was the girl's answer; "it would have been different +from the beginning. He courted me and asked me to be his wife." + +"We won't go into all that," interrupted the other; "I am not here to +defend him. I do not say he acted well. The question is, how much will +compensate you for your natural disappointment?" + +Her ladyship prided herself upon her bluntness and practicability. As +she spoke she took her cheque-book out of her reticule, and, opening it, +dipped her pen into the ink. I am inclined to think that the flutter of +that cheque-book was her ladyship's mistake. The girl had common sense, +and must have seen the difficulties in the way of a marriage between the +heir to an earldom and a linen-draper's daughter; and had the old lady +been a person of discernment, the interview might have ended more to her +satisfaction. She made the error of judging the world by one standard, +forgetting there are individualities. Mary Sewell came from a West of +England stock that, in the days of Drake and Frobisher, had given more +than one able-bodied pirate to the service of the country, and that +insult of the cheque-book put the fight into her. Her lips closed with a +little snap, and the fear fell from her. + +"I am sorry I don't see my way to obliging your ladyship," she said. + +"What do you mean, girl?" asked the elder woman. + +"I don't mean to be disappointed," answered the girl, but she spoke +quietly and respectfully. "We have pledged our word to one another. If +he is a gentleman, as I know he is, he will keep his, and I shall keep +mine." + +Then her ladyship began to talk reason, as people do when it is too late. +She pointed out to the girl the difference of social position, and +explained to her the miseries that come from marrying out of one's +station. But the girl by this time had got over her surprise, and +perhaps had begun to reflect that, in any case, a countess-ship was worth +fighting for. The best of women are influenced by such considerations. + +* * * * * + +"I am not a lady, I know," she replied quietly, "but my people have +always been honest folk, well known, and I shall try to learn. I am not +wishing to speak disrespectfully of my betters, but I was in service +before I came here, ma'am, as lady's maid, in a place where I saw much of +what is called Society. I think I can be as good a lady as some I know, +if not better." + +The countess began to grow angry again. "And who do you think will +receive you?" she cried, "a girl who has served in a pastry-cook's shop!" + +"Lady L--- came from behind the bar," Mary answered, "and that's not much +better. And the Duchess of C---, I have heard, was a ballet girl, but +nobody seems to remember it. I don't think the people whose opinion is +worth having will object to me for very long." The girl was beginning +rather to enjoy the contest. + +"You profess to love my son," cried the countess fiercely, "and you are +going to ruin his life. You will drag him down to your own level." + +The girl must have looked rather fine at that moment, I should dearly +love to have been present. + +"There will be no dragging down, my lady," she replied, "on either side. +I do love your son very dearly. He is one of the kindest and best of +gentlemen. But I am not blind, and whatever amount of cleverness there +may be between us belongs chiefly to me. I shall make it my duty to fit +myself for the position of his wife, and to help him in his work. You +need not fear, my lady, I shall be a good wife to him, and he shall never +regret it. You might find him a richer wife, a better educated wife, but +you will never find him a wife who will be more devoted to him and to his +interests." + +That practically brought the scene to a close. The countess had sense +enough to see that she was only losing ground by argument. She rose and +replaced her cheque-book in her bag. + +"I think, my good girl, you must be mad," she said; "if you will not +allow me to do anything for you, there's an end to the matter. I did not +come here to quarrel with you. My son knows his duty to me and to his +family. You must take your own course, and I must take mine." + +"Very well, my lady," said Mary Sewell, holding the door open for her +ladyship to pass out, "we shall see who wins." + +But however brave a front Mary Sewell may have maintained before the +enemy, I expect she felt pretty limp when thinking matters calmly over +after her ladyship's departure. She knew her lover well enough to guess +that he would be as wax in the firm hands of his mother, while she +herself would not have a chance of opposing her influence against those +seeking to draw him away from her. Once again she read through the few +schoolboy letters he had written her, and then looked up at the framed +photograph that hung above the mantelpiece of her little bedroom. The +face was that of a frank, pleasant-looking young fellow, lightened by +eyes somewhat large for a man, but spoiled by a painfully weak mouth. The +more Mary Sewell thought, the more sure she felt in her own mind that he +loved her, and had meant honestly by her. Did the matter rest with him, +she might reckon on being the future Countess of ---, but, unfortunately +for her, the person to be considered was not Lord C---, but the present +Countess of ---. From childhood, through boyhood, into manhood it had +never once occurred to Lord C--- to dispute a single command of his +mother's, and his was not the type of brain to readily receive new ideas. +If she was to win in the unequal contest it would have to be by art, not +by strength. She sat down and wrote a letter which under all the +circumstances was a model of diplomacy. She knew that it would be read +by the countess, and, writing it, she kept both mother and son in mind. +She made no reproaches, and indulged in but little sentiment. It was the +letter of a woman who could claim rights, but who asked only for +courtesy. It stated her wish to see him alone and obtain from his own +lips the assurance that he wished their engagement to cease. "Do not +fear," Mary Sewell wrote, "that I shall be any annoyance to you. My own +pride would not let me urge you to marry me against your desire, and I +care for you too much to cause you any pain. Assure me with your own +lips that you wish our engagement to be at an end, and I shall release +you without another word." + +The family were in town, and Mary sent her letter by a trusty hand. The +countess read it with huge satisfaction, and, re-sealing it, gave it +herself into her son's hands. It promised a happy solution of the +problem. In imagination, she had all the night been listening to a +vulgar breach of promise case. She herself had been submitted to a most +annoying cross-examination by a pert barrister. Her son's assumption of +the name of Robinson had been misunderstood and severely commented upon +by the judge. A sympathetic jury had awarded thumping damages, and for +the next six months the family title would be a peg on which music-hall +singers and comic journalists would hang their ribald jokes. Lord C--- +read the letter, flushed, and dutifully handed it back to his mother. She +made pretence to read it as for the first time, and counselled him to +accord the interview. + +"I am so glad," she said, "that the girl is taking the matter sensibly. +We must really do something for her in the future, when everything is +settled. Let her ask for me, and then the servants will fancy she's a +lady's maid or something of that sort, come after a place, and won't +talk." + +So that evening Mary Sewell, addressed by the butler as "young woman," +was ushered into the small drawing-room that connects the library of No. +--- Grosvenor Square with the other reception rooms. The countess, now +all amiability, rose to meet her. + +"My son will be here in a moment," she explained, "he has informed me of +the purport of your letter. Believe me, my dear Miss Sewell, no one can +regret his thoughtless conduct more than I do. But young men will be +young men, and they do not stop to reflect that what may be a joke to +them may be taken quite seriously by others." + +"I don't regard the matter as a joke, my lady," replied Mary somewhat +curtly. + +"Of course not, my dear," added the countess, "that's what I'm saying. It +was very wrong of him altogether. But with your pretty face, you will +not, I am sure, have long to wait for a husband; we must see what we can +do for you." + +The countess certainly lacked tact; it must have handicapped her +exceedingly. + +"Thank you," answered the girl, "but I prefer to choose my own." + +Fortunately--or the interview might have ended in another quarrel--the +cause of all the trouble at this moment entered the room, and the +countess, whispering a few final words of instruction to him as she +passed out, left them together. + +Mary took a chair in the centre of the room, at equal distance from both +doors. Lord C---, finding any sort of a seat uncomfortable under the +circumstances, preferred to stand with his back to the mantelpiece. Dead +silence was maintained for a few seconds, and then Mary, drawing the +daintiest of handkerchiefs from her pocket, began to cry. The countess +must have been a poor diplomatist, or she might have thought of this; or +she may have remembered her own appearance on the rare occasions when she +herself, a big, raw-boned girl, had attempted the softening influence of +tears, and have attached little importance to the possibility. But when +these soft, dimpled women cry, and cry quietly, it is another matter. +Their eyes grow brighter, and the tears, few and far between, lie like +dewdrops on a rose leaf. + +Lord C--- was as tender-hearted a lout as ever lived. In a moment he was +on his knees with his arm round the girl's waist, pouring out such +halting words of love and devotion as came to his unready brain, cursing +his fate, his earldom, and his mother, and assuring Mary that his only +chance of happiness lay in his making her his countess. Had Mary liked +to say the word at that moment, he would have caught her to his arms, and +defied the whole world--for the time being. But Mary was a very +practical young woman, and there are difficulties in the way of handling +a lover, who, however ready he may be to do your bidding so long as your +eyes are upon him, is liable to be turned from his purpose so soon as +another influence is substituted for your own. His lordship suggested an +immediate secret marriage. But you cannot run out into the street, knock +up a clergyman, and get married on the spot, and Mary knew that the +moment she was gone his lordship's will would revert to his mother's +keeping. Then his lordship suggested flight, but flight requires money, +and the countess knew enough to keep his lordship's purse in her own +hands. Despair seized upon his lordship. + +"It's no use," he cried, "it will end in my marrying her." + +"Who's she?" exclaimed Mary somewhat quickly. + +His lordship explained the position. The family estates were heavily +encumbered. It was deemed advisable that his lordship should marry +Money, and Money, in the person of the only daughter of rich and +ambitious parvenus, had offered itself--or, to speak more correctly, had +been offered. + +"What's she like?" asked Mary. + +"Oh, she's nice enough," was the reply, "only I don't care for her and +she doesn't care for me. It won't be much fun for either of us," and his +lordship laughed dismally. + +"How do you know she doesn't care for you?" asked Mary. A woman may be +critical of her lover's shortcomings, but at the very least he is good +enough for every other woman. + +"Well, she happens to care for somebody else," answered his lordship, +"she told me so herself." + +That would account for it. + +"And is she willing to marry you?" inquired Mary. + +His lordship shrugged his shoulders. + +"Oh, well, you know, her people want it," he replied. + +In spite of her trouble, the girl could not help a laugh. These young +swells seemed to have but small wills of their own. Her ladyship, on the +other side of the door, grew nervous. It was the only sound she had been +able to hear. + +"It's deuced awkward," explained his lordship, "when you're--well, when +you are anybody, you know. You can't do as you like. Things are +expected of you, and there's such a lot to be considered." + +Mary rose and clasped her pretty dimpled hands, from which she had drawn +her gloves, behind his neck. + +"You do love me, Jack?" she said, looking up into his face. + +For answer the lad hugged her to him very tightly, and there were tears +in his eyes. + +"Look here, Mary," he cried, "if I could only get rid of my position, and +settle down with you as a country gentleman, I'd do it to-morrow. Damn +the title, it's going to be the curse of my life." + +Perhaps in that moment Mary also wished that the title were at the bottom +of the sea, and that her lover were only the plain Mr. John Robinson she +had thought him. These big, stupid men are often very loveable in spite +of, or because of their weakness. They appeal to the mother side of a +woman's heart, and that is the biggest side in all good women. + +Suddenly however, the door opened. The countess appeared, and sentiment +flew out. Lord C---, releasing Mary, sprang back, looking like a guilty +school-boy. + +"I thought I heard Miss Sewell go out," said her ladyship in the icy +tones that had never lost their power of making her son's heart freeze +within him. "I want to see you when you are free." + +"I shan't be long," stammered his lordship. "Mary--Miss Sewell is just +going." + +Mary waited without moving until the countess had left and closed the +door behind her. Then she turned to her lover and spoke in quick, low +tones. + +"Give me her address--the girl they want you to marry!" + +"What are you going to do?" asked his lordship. + +"I don't know," answered the girl, "but I'm going to see her." + +She scribbled the name down, and then said, looking the boy squarely in +the face: + +"Tell me frankly, Jack, do you want to marry me, or do you not?" + +"You know I do, Mary," he answered, and his eyes spoke stronger than his +words. "If I weren't a silly ass, there would be none of this trouble. +But I don't know how it is; I say to myself I'll do, a thing, but the +mater talks and talks and--" + +"I know," interrupted Mary with a smile. "Don't argue with her, fall in +with all her views, and pretend to agree with her." + +"If you could only think of some plan," said his lordship, catching at +the hope of her words, "you are so clever." + +"I am going to try," answered Mary, "and if I fail, you must run off with +me, even if you have to do it right before your mother's eyes." + +What she meant was, "I shall have to run off with you," but she thought +it better to put it the other way about. + +Mary found her involuntary rival a meek, gentle little lady, as much +under the influence of her blustering father as was Lord C--- under that +of his mother. What took place at the interview one can only surmise; +but certain it is that the two girls, each for her own ends, undertook to +aid and abet one another. + +Much to the surprised delight of their respective parents, there came +about a change in the attitude hitherto assumed towards one another by +Miss Clementina Hodskiss and Lord C---. All objections to his lordship's +unwilling attentions were suddenly withdrawn by the lady. Indeed, so +swift to come and go are the whims of women, his calls were actually +encouraged, especially when, as generally happened, they coincided with +the absence from home of Mr. and Mrs. Hodskiss. Quite as remarkable was +the new-born desire of Lord C--- towards Miss Clementina Hodskiss. Mary's +name was never mentioned, and the suggestion of immediate marriage was +listened to without remonstrance. Wiser folk would have puzzled their +brains, but both her ladyship and ex-Contractor Hodskiss were accustomed +to find all things yield to their wishes. The countess saw visions of a +rehabilitated estate, and Clementina's father dreamed of a peerage, +secured by the influence of aristocratic connections. All that the young +folks stipulated for (and on that point their firmness was supernatural) +was that the marriage should be quiet, almost to the verge of secrecy. + +"No beastly fuss," his lordship demanded. "Let it be somewhere in the +country, and no mob!" and his mother, thinking she understood his reason, +patted his cheek affectionately. + +"I should like to go down to Aunt Jane's and be married quietly from +there," explained Miss Hodskiss to her father. + +Aunt Jane resided on the outskirts of a small Hampshire village, and "sat +under" a clergyman famous throughout the neighbourhood for having lost +the roof to his mouth. + +"You can't be married by that old fool," thundered her father--Mr. +Hodskiss always thundered; he thundered even his prayers. + +"He christened me," urged Miss Clementina. + +"And Lord knows what he called you. Nobody can understand a word he +says." + +"I'd like him to marry me," reiterated Miss Clementina. + +Neither her ladyship nor the contractor liked the idea. The latter in +particular had looked forward to a big function, chronicled at length in +all the newspapers. But after all, the marriage was the essential thing, +and perhaps, having regard to some foolish love passages that had +happened between Clementina and a certain penniless naval lieutenant, +ostentation might be out of place. + +So in due course Clementina departed for Aunt Jane's, accompanied only by +her maid. + +Quite a treasure was Miss Hodskiss's new maid. + +"A clean, wholesome girl," said of her Contractor Hodskiss, who +cultivated affability towards the lower orders; "knows her place, and +talks sense. You keep that girl, Clemmy." + +"Do you think she knows enough?" hazarded the maternal Hodskiss. + +"Quite sufficient for any decent woman," retorted the contractor. "When +Clemmy wants painting and stuffing, it will be time enough for her to +think about getting one of your '_Ach Himmels_' or '_Mon Dieus_'." + +"I like the girl myself immensely," agreed Clementina's mother. "You can +trust her, and she doesn't give herself airs." + +Her praises reached even the countess, suffering severely at the moment +from the tyranny of an elderly Fraulein. + +"I must see this treasure," thought the countess to herself. "I am tired +of these foreign minxes." + +But no matter at what cunning hour her ladyship might call, the +"treasure" always happened for some reason or other to be abroad. + +"Your girl is always out when I come," laughed the countess. "One would +fancy there was some reason for it." + +"It does seem odd," agreed Clementina, with a slight flush. + +Miss Hodskiss herself showed rather than spoke her appreciation of the +girl. She seemed unable to move or think without her. Not even from the +interviews with Lord C--- was the maid always absent. + +The marriage, it was settled, should be by licence. Mrs. Hodskiss made +up her mind at first to run down and see to the preliminaries, but really +when the time arrived it hardly seemed necessary to take that trouble. +The ordering of the whole affair was so very simple, and the "treasure" +appeared to understand the business most thoroughly, and to be willing to +take the whole burden upon her own shoulders. It was not, therefore, +until the evening before the wedding that the Hodskiss family arrived in +force, filling Aunt Jane's small dwelling to its utmost capacity. The +swelling figure of the contractor, standing beside the tiny porch, +compelled the passer-by to think of the doll's house in which the dwarf +resides during fair-time, ringing his own bell out of his own first-floor +window. The countess and Lord C--- were staying with her ladyship's +sister, the Hon. Mrs. J---, at G--- Hall, some ten miles distant, and +were to drive over in the morning. The then Earl of --- was in Norway, +salmon fishing. Domestic events did not interest him. + +Clementina complained of a headache after dinner, and went to bed early. +The "treasure" also was indisposed. She seemed worried and excited. + +"That girl is as eager about the thing," remarked Mrs. Hodskiss, "as +though it was her own marriage." + +In the morning Clementina was still suffering from her headache, but +asserted her ability to go through the ceremony, provided everybody would +keep away, and not worry her. The "treasure" was the only person she +felt she could bear to have about her. Half an hour before it was time +to start for church her mother looked her up again. She had grown still +paler, if possible, during the interval, and also more nervous and +irritable. She threatened to go to bed and stop there if she was not +left quite alone. She almost turned her mother out of the room, locking +the door behind her. Mrs. Hodskiss had never known her daughter to be +like this before. + +The others went on, leaving her to follow in the last carriage with her +father. The contractor, forewarned, spoke little to her. Only once he +had occasion to ask her a question, and then she answered in a strained, +unnatural voice. She appeared, so far as could be seen under her heavy +veil, to be crying. + +"Well, this is going to be a damned cheerful wedding," said Mr. Hodskiss, +and lapsed into sulkiness. + +The wedding was not so quiet as had been anticipated. The village had +got scent of it, and had spread itself upon the event, while half the +house party from G--- Hall had insisted on driving over to take part in +the proceedings. The little church was better filled than it had been +for many a long year past. + +The presence of the stylish crowd unnerved the ancient clergyman, long +unaccustomed to the sight of a strange face, and the first sound of the +ancient clergyman's voice unnerved the stylish crowd. What little +articulation he possessed entirely disappeared, no one could understand a +word he said. He appeared to be uttering sounds of distress. The +ancient gentleman's infliction had to be explained in low asides, and it +also had to be explained why such an one had been chosen to perform the +ceremony. + +"It was a whim of Clementina's," whispered her mother. "Her father and +myself were married from here, and he christened her. The dear child's +full of sentiment. I think it so nice of her." + +Everybody agreed it was charming, but wished it were over. The general +effect was weird in the extreme. + +Lord C--- spoke up fairly well, but the bride's responses were singularly +indistinct, the usual order of things being thus reversed. The story of +the naval lieutenant was remembered, and added to, and some of the more +sentimental of the women began to cry in sympathy. + +In the vestry things assumed a brighter tone. There was no lack of +witnesses to sign the register. The verger pointed out to them the +place, and they wrote their names, as people in such cases do, without +stopping to read. Then it occurred to some one that the bride had not +yet signed. She stood apart, with her veil still down, and appeared to +have been forgotten. Encouraged, she came forward meekly, and took the +pen from the hand of the verger. The countess came and stood behind her. + +"Mary," wrote the bride, in a hand that looked as though it ought to have +been firm, but which was not. + +"Dear me," said the countess, "I never knew there was a Mary in your +name. How differently you write when you write slowly." + +The bride did not answer, but followed with "Susannah." + +"Why, what a lot of names you must have, my dear!" exclaimed the +countess. "When are you going to get to the ones we all know?" + +"Ruth," continued the bride without answering. + +Breeding is not always proof against strong emotion. The countess +snatched the bride's veil from her face, and Mary Susannah Ruth Sewell +stood before her, flushed and trembling, but looking none the less pretty +because of that. At this point the crowd came in useful. + +"I am sure your ladyship does not wish a scene," said Mary, speaking low. +"The thing is done." + +"The thing can be undone, and will be," retorted the countess in the same +tone. "You, you--" + +"My wife, don't forget that, mother," said Lord C--- coming between them, +and slipping Mary's hand on to his arm. "We are both sorry to have had +to go about the thing in this roundabout way, but we wanted to avoid a +fuss. I think we had better be getting away. I'm afraid Mr. Hodskiss is +going to be noisy." + +* * * * * + +The doctor poured himself out a glass of claret, and drank it off. His +throat must have been dry. + +"And what became of Clementina?" I asked. "Did the naval lieutenant, +while the others were at church, dash up in a post-chaise and carry her +off?" + +"That's what ought to have happened, for the whole thing to be in +keeping," agreed the doctor. "I believe as a matter of fact she did +marry him eventually, but not till some years later, after the contractor +had died." + +"And did Mr. Hodskiss make a noise in the vestry?" I persisted. The +doctor never will finish a story. + +"I can't say for certain," answered my host, "I only saw the gentleman +once. That was at a shareholders' meeting. I should incline to the +opinion that he did." + +"I suppose the bride and bridegroom slipped out as quietly as possible +and drove straight off," I suggested. + +"That would have been the sensible thing for them to do," agreed the +doctor. + +"But how did she manage about her travelling frock?" I continued. "She +could hardly have gone back to her Aunt Jane's and changed her things." +The doctor has no mind for minutiae. + +"I cannot tell you about all that," he replied. "I think I mentioned +that Mary was a practical girl. Possibly she had thought of these +details." + +"And did the countess take the matter quietly?" I asked. + +I like a tidy story, where everybody is put into his or her proper place +at the end. Your modern romance leaves half his characters lying about +just anyhow. + +"That also I cannot tell you for certain," answered the doctor, "but I +give her credit for so much sense. Lord C--- was of age, and with Mary +at his elbow, quite knew his own mind. I believe they travelled for two +or three years. The first time I myself set eyes on the countess (_nee_ +Mary Sewell) was just after the late earl's death. I thought she looked +a countess, every inch of her, but then I had not heard the story. I +mistook the dowager for the housekeeper." + + + + +BLASE BILLY + + +It was towards the end of August. He and I appeared to be the only two +men left to the Club. He was sitting by an open window, the _Times_ +lying on the floor beside him. I drew my chair a little closer and +remarked:--"Good morning." + +He suppressed a yawn, and replied "Mornin'"--dropping the "g." The +custom was just coming into fashion; he was always correct. + +"Going to be a very hot day, I am afraid," I continued. + +"'Fraid so," was the response, after which he turned his head away and +gently closed his eyes. + +I opined that conversation was not to his wish, but this only made me +more determined to talk, and to talk to him above all others in London. +The desire took hold of me to irritate him--to break down the +imperturbable calm within which he moved and had his being; and I +gathered myself together, and settled down to the task. + +"Interesting paper the _Times_," I observed. + +"Very," he replied, taking it from the floor and handing it to me. "Won't +you read it?" + +I had been careful to throw into my voice an aggressive cheeriness which +I had calculated would vex him, but his manner remained that of a man who +is simply bored. I argued with him politely concerning the paper; but he +insisted, still with the same weary air, that he had done with it. I +thanked him effusively. I judged that he hated effusiveness. + +"They say that to read a _Times_ leader," I persisted, "is a lesson in +English composition." + +"So I've been told," he answered tranquilly. "Personally I don't take +them." + +The _Times_, I could see, was not going to be of much assistance to me. I +lit a cigarette, and remarked that he was not shooting. He admitted the +fact. Under the circumstances, it would have taxed him to deny it, but +the necessity for confession aroused him. + +"To myself," he said, "a tramp through miles of mud, in company with four +gloomy men in black velveteen, a couple of depressed-looking dogs, and a +heavy gun, the entire cavalcade being organised for the purpose of +killing some twelve-and-sixpence worth of poultry, suggests the +disproportionate." + +I laughed boisterously, and cried, "Good, good--very good!" + +He was the type of man that shudders inwardly at the sound of laughter. I +had the will to slap him on the back, but I thought maybe that would send +him away altogether. + +I asked him if he hunted. He replied that fourteen hours' talk a day +about horses, and only about horses tired him, and that in consequence he +had abandoned hunting. + +"You fish?" I said. + +"I was never sufficiently imaginative," he answered. + +"You travel a good deal," I suggested. + +He had apparently made up his mind to abandon himself to his fate, for he +turned towards me with a resigned air. An ancient nurse of mine had +always described me as the most "wearing" child she had ever come across. +I prefer to speak of myself as persevering. + +"I should go about more," he said, "were I able to see any difference +between one place and another." + +"Tried Central Africa?" I inquired. + +"Once or twice," he answered. "It always reminds me of Kew Gardens." + +"China?" I hazarded. + +"Cross between a willow-pattern plate and a New York slum," was his +comment. + +"The North Pole?" I tried, thinking the third time might be lucky. + +"Never got quite up to it," he returned. "Reached Cape Hakluyt once." + +"How did that impress you?" I asked. + +"It didn't impress me," he replied. + +The talk drifted to women and bogus companies, dogs, literature, and such- +like matters. I found him well informed upon and bored by all. + +"They used to be amusing," he said, speaking of the first named, "until +they began to take themselves seriously. Now they are merely silly." + +I was forced into closer companionship with "Blase Billy" that autumn, +for by chance a month later he and I found ourselves the guests of the +same delightful hostess, and I came to liking him better. He was a +useful man to have about one. In matters of fashion one could always +feel safe following his lead. One knew that his necktie, his collar, his +socks, if not the very newest departure, were always correct; and upon +social paths, as guide, philosopher, and friend, he was invaluable. He +knew every one, together with his or her previous convictions. He was +acquainted with every woman's past, and shrewdly surmised every man's +future. He could point you out the coal-shed where the Countess of +Glenleman had gambolled in her days of innocence, and would take you to +breakfast at the coffee-shop off the Mile End Road where "Sam. Smith, +Estd. 1820," own brother to the world-famed society novelist, +Smith-Stratford, lived an uncriticised, unparagraphed, unphotographed +existence upon the profits of "rashers" at three-ha'pence and +"door-steps" at two a penny. He knew at what houses it was inadvisable +to introduce soap, and at what tables it would be bad form to denounce +political jobbery. He could tell you offhand what trade-mark went with +what crest, and remembered the price paid for every baronetcy created +during the last twenty-five years. + +Regarding himself, he might have made claim with King Charles never to +have said a foolish thing, and never to have done a wise one. He +despised, or affected to despise, most of his fellow-men, and those of +his fellow-men whose opinion was most worth having unaffectedly despised +him. + +Shortly described, one might have likened him to a Gaiety Johnny with +brains. He was capital company after dinner, but in the early morning +one avoided him. + +So I thought of him until one day he fell in love; or to put it in the +words of Teddy Tidmarsh, who brought the news to us, "got mashed on Gerty +Lovell." + +"The red-haired one," Teddy explained, to distinguish her from her +sister, who had lately adopted the newer golden shade. + +"Gerty Lovell!" exclaimed the captain, "why, I've always been told the +Lovell girls hadn't a penny among them." + +"The old man's stone broke, I know for a certainty," volunteered Teddy, +who picked up a mysterious but, in other respects, satisfactory income in +an office near Hatton Garden, and who was candour itself concerning the +private affairs of everybody but himself. + +"Oh, some rich pork-packing or diamond-sweating uncle has cropped up in +Australia, or America, or one of those places," suggested the captain, +"and Billy's got wind of it in good time. Billy knows his way about." + +We agreed that some such explanation was needed, though in all other +respects Gerty Lovell was just the girl that Reason (not always consulted +on these occasions) might herself have chosen for "Blase Billy's" mate. + +The sunlight was not too kind to her, but at evening parties, where the +lighting has been well considered, I have seen her look quite girlish. At +her best she was not beautiful, but at her worst there was about her an +air of breeding and distinction that always saved her from being passed +over, and she dressed to perfection. In character she was the typical +society woman: always charming, generally insincere. She went to +Kensington for her religion and to Mayfair for her morals; accepted her +literature from Mudie's and her art from the Grosvenor Gallery; and could +and would gabble philanthropy, philosophy, and politics with equal +fluency at every five-o'clock tea-table she visited. Her ideas could +always be guaranteed as the very latest, and her opinion as that of the +person to whom she was talking. Asked by a famous novelist one +afternoon, at the Pioneer Club, to give him some idea of her, little Mrs. +Bund, the painter's wife, had remained for a few moments with her pretty +lips pursed, and had then said: + +"She is a woman to whom life could bring nothing more fully satisfying +than a dinner invitation from a duchess, and whose nature would be +incapable of sustaining deeper suffering than that caused by an +ill-fitting costume." + +At the time I should have said the epigram was as true as it was cruel, +but I suppose we none of us quite know each other. + +I congratulated "Blase Billy," or to drop his Club nickname and give him +the full benefit of his social label, "The Hon. William Cecil Wychwood +Stanley Drayton," on the occasion of our next meeting, which happened +upon the steps of the Savoy Restaurant, and I thought--unless a quiver of +the electric light deceived me--that he blushed. + +"Charming girl," I said. "You're a lucky dog, Billy." + +It was the phrase that custom demands upon such occasions, and it came of +its own accord to my tongue without costing me the trouble of +composition, but he seized upon it as though it had been a gem of +friendly sincerity. + +"You will like her even more when you know her better," he said. "She is +so different from the usual woman that one meets. Come and see her to- +morrow afternoon, she will be so pleased. Go about four, I will tell her +to expect you." + +I rang the bell at ten minutes past five. Billy was there. She greeted +me with a little tremor of embarrassment, which sat oddly upon her, but +which was not altogether unpleasing. She said it was kind of me to come +so early. I stayed for about half an hour, but conversation flagged, and +some of my cleverest remarks attracted no attention whatever. + +When I rose to take my leave, Billy said that he must be off too, and +that he would accompany me. Had they been ordinary lovers, I should have +been careful to give them an opportunity of making their adieus in +secret; but in the case of the Honourable William Drayton and the eldest +Miss Lovell I concluded that such tactics were needless, so I waited till +he had shaken hands, and went downstairs with him. + +But in the hall Billy suddenly ejaculated, "By Jove! Half a minute," and +ran back up the stairs three at a time. Apparently he found what he had +gone for on the landing, for I did not hear the opening of the drawing- +room door. Then the Honourable Billy redescended with a sober, +nonchalent air. + +"Left my gloves behind me," he explained, as he took my arm. "I am +always leaving my gloves about." + +I did not mention that I had seen him take them from his hat and slip +them into his coat-tail pocket. + +We at the Club did not see very much of Billy during the next three +months, but the captain, who prided himself upon his playing of the +_role_ of smoking-room cynic--though he would have been better in the +part had he occasionally displayed a little originality--was of opinion +that our loss would be more than made up to us after the marriage. Once +in the twilight I caught sight of a figure that reminded me of Billy's, +accompanied by a figure that might have been that of the eldest Miss +Lovell; but as the spot was Battersea Park, which is not a fashionable +evening promenade, and the two figures were holding each other's hands, +the whole picture being suggestive of the closing chapter of a _London +Journal_ romance, I concluded I had made an error. + +But I did see them in the Adelphi stalls one evening, rapt in a +sentimental melodrama. I joined them between the acts, and poked fun at +the play, as one does at the Adelphi, but Miss Lovell begged me quite +earnestly not to spoil her interest, and Billy wanted to enter upon a +serious argument as to whether a man was justified in behaving as Will +Terriss had just behaved towards the woman he loved. I left them and +returned to my own party, to the satisfaction, I am inclined to think, of +all concerned. + +They married in due course. We were mistaken on one point. She brought +Billy nothing. But they both seemed quite content on his not too +extravagant fortune. They took a tiny house not far from Victoria +Station, and hired a brougham for the season. They did not entertain +very much, but they contrived to be seen everywhere it was right and +fashionable they should be seen. The Honourable Mrs. Drayton was a much +younger and brighter person than had been the eldest Miss Lovell, and as +she continued to dress charmingly, her social position rose rapidly. +Billy went everywhere with her, and evidently took a keen pride in her +success. It was even said that he designed her dresses for her, and I +have myself seen him earnestly studying the costumes in Russell and +Allen's windows. + +The captain's prophecy remained unfulfilled. "Blase Billy"--if the name +could still be applied to him--hardly ever visited the Club after his +marriage. But I had grown to like him, and, as he had foretold, to like +his wife. I found their calm indifference to the burning questions of +the day a positive relief from the strenuous atmosphere of literary and +artistic circles. In the drawing-room of their little house in Eaton +Row, the comparative merits of George Meredith and George R. Sims were +not considered worth discussion. Both were regarded as persons who +afforded a certain amount of amusement in return for a certain amount of +cash. And on any Wednesday afternoon, Henrick Ibsen and Arthur Roberts +would have been equally welcome, as adding piquancy to the small +gathering. Had I been compelled to pass my life in such a house, this +Philistine attitude might have palled upon me; but, under the +circumstances, it refreshed me, and I made use of my welcome, which I +believe was genuine, to its full extent. + +As months went by, they seemed to me to draw closer to one another, +though I am given to understand that such is not the rule in fashionable +circles. One evening I arrived a little before my time, and was shown up +into the drawing-room by the soft-footed butler. They were sitting in +the dusk with their arms round one another. It was impossible to +withdraw, so I faced the situation and coughed. A pair of middle-class +lovers could not have appeared more awkward or surprised. + +But the incident established an understanding between us, and I came to +be regarded as a friend before whom there was less necessity to act. + +Studying them, I came to the conclusion that the ways and manners of love +are very same-like throughout the world, as though the foolish boy, +unheedful of human advance, kept but one school for minor poet and East +End shop-boy, for Girton girl and little milliner; taught but the one +lesson to the end-of-the-nineteenth-century Johnny that he taught to +bearded Pict and Hun four thousand years ago. + +Thus the summer and the winter passed pleasantly for the Honourable +Billy, and then, as luck would have it, he fell ill just in the very +middle of the London season, when invitations to balls and dinner +parties, luncheons and "At Homes," were pouring in from every quarter; +when the lawns at Hurlingham were at their smoothest, and the paddocks at +their smartest. + +It was unfortunate, too, that the fashions that season suited the +Honourable Mrs. Billy as they had not suited her for years. In the early +spring, she and Billy had been hard at work planning costumes calculated +to cause a flutter through Mayfair, and the dresses and the bonnets--each +one a work of art--were waiting on their stands to do their killing work. +But the Honourable Mrs. Billy, for the first time in her life, had lost +interest in such things. + +Their friends were genuinely sorry, for society was Billy's element, and +in it he was interesting and amusing. But, as Lady Gower said, there was +no earthly need for his wife to constitute herself a prisoner. Her +shutting herself off from the world could do him no good and it would +look odd. + +Accordingly the Honourable Mrs. Drayton, to whom oddness was a crime, and +the voice of Lady Gower as the voice of duty, sacrificed her inclinations +on the social shrine, laced the new costumes tight across her aching +heart, and went down into society. + +But the Honourable Mrs. Drayton achieved not the success of former +seasons. Her small talk grew so very small, that even Park Lane found it +unsatisfying. Her famous laugh rang mechanically. She smiled at the +wisdom of dukes, and became sad at the funny stories of millionaires. +Society voted her a good wife but bad company, and confined its +attentions to cards of inquiry. And for this relief the Honourable Mrs. +Drayton was grateful, for Billy waned weaker and weaker. In the world of +shadows in which she moved, he was the one real thing. She was of very +little practical use, but it comforted her to think that she was helping +to nurse him. + +But Billy himself it troubled. + +"I do wish you would go out more," he would say. "It makes me feel that +I'm such a selfish brute, keeping you tied up here in this dismal little +house. Besides," he would add, "people miss you; they will hate me for +keeping you away." For, where his wife was concerned, Billy's knowledge +of the world availed him little. He really thought society craved for +the Honourable Mrs. Drayton, and would not be comforted where she was +not. + +"I would rather stop with you, dear," would be the answer; "I don't care +to go about by myself. You must get well quickly and take me." + +And so the argument continued, until one evening, as she sat by herself, +the nurse entered softly, closed the door behind her, and came over to +her. + +"I wish you would go out to-night, ma'am," said the nurse, "just for an +hour or two. I think it would please the master; he is worrying himself +because he thinks it is his fault that you do not; and just now"--the +woman hesitated for a moment--"just now I want to keep him very quiet." + +"Is he weaker, nurse?" + +"Well, he is not stronger, ma'am, and I think--I think we must humour +him." + +The Honourable Mrs. Drayton rose, and, crossing to the window, stood for +a while looking out. + +"But where am I to go, nurse?" she said at length, turning with a smile. +"I've no invitations anywhere." + +"Can't you make believe to have one?" said the nurse. "It is only seven +o'clock. Say you are going to a dinner-party; you can come home early +then. Go and dress yourself, and come down and say good-bye to him, and +then come in again about eleven, as though you had just returned." + +"You think I must, nurse?" + +"I think it would be better, ma'am. I wish you would try it." + +The Honourable Mrs. Drayton went to the door, then paused. + +"He has such sharp ears, nurse; he will listen for the opening of the +door and the sound of the carriage." + +"I will see to that," said the nurse. "I will tell them to have the +carriage here at ten minutes to eight. Then you can drive to the end of +the street, slip out, and walk back. I will let you in myself." + +"And about coming home?" asked the other woman. + +"You must slip out for a few minutes before eleven, and the carriage must +be waiting for you at the corner again. Leave all that to me." + +In half an hour the Honourable Mrs. Drayton entered the sick-room, +radiant in evening dress and jewels. Fortunately the lights were low, or +"Blase-Billy" might have been doubtful as to the effect his wife was +likely to produce. For her face was not the face that one takes to +dinner-parties. + +"Nurse tells me you are going to the Grevilles this evening. I am so +glad. I've been worrying myself about you, moped up here right through +the season." + +He took her hands in his and held her out at arm's length from him. + +"How handsome you look, dear!" he said. "How they must have all been +cursing me for keeping you shut up here, like a princess in an ogre's +castle! I shall never dare to face them again." + +She laughed, well pleased at his words. + +"I shall not be late," she said. "I shall be so anxious to get back and +see how my boy has behaved. If you have not been good I shan't go +again." + +They kissed and parted, and at eleven she returned to the room. She told +him what a delightful evening it had been, and bragged a little of her +own success. + +The nurse told her that he had been more cheerful that evening than for +many nights. + +So every day the farce was played for him. One day it was to a luncheon +that she went, in a costume by Redfern; the next night to a ball, in a +frock direct from Paris; again to an "At Home," or concert, or dinner- +party. Loafers and passers-by would stop to stare at a haggard, red-eyed +woman, dressed as for a drawing-room, slipping thief-like in and out of +her own door. + +I heard them talking of her one afternoon, at a house where I called, and +I joined the group to listen. + +"I always thought her heartless, but I gave her credit for sense," a +woman was saying. "One doesn't expect a woman to be fond of her husband, +but she needn't make a parade of ignoring him when he is dying." + +I pleaded absence from town to inquire what was meant, and from all lips +I heard the same account. One had noticed her carriage at the door two +or three evenings in succession. Another had seen her returning home. A +third had seen her coming out, and so on. + +I could not fit the fact in with my knowledge of her, so the next evening +I called. The door was opened instantly by herself. + +"I saw you from the window," she said. "Come in here; don't speak." + +I followed her, and she closed the door behind her. She was dressed in a +magnificent costume, her hair sparkling with diamonds, and I looked my +questions. + +She laughed bitterly. + +"I am supposed to be at the opera to-night," she explained. "Sit down, +if you have a few minutes to spare." + +I said it was for a talk that I had come; and there, in the dark room, +lighted only by the street lamp without, she told me all. And at the end +she dropped her head on her bare arms; and I turned away and looked out +of the window for a while. + +"I feel so ridiculous," she said, rising and coming towards me. "I sit +here all the evening dressed like this. I'm afraid I don't act my part +very well; but, fortunately, dear Billy never was much of a judge of art, +and it is good enough for him. I tell him the most awful lies about what +everybody has said to me, and what I've said to everybody, and how my +gowns were admired. What do you think of this one?" + +For answer I took the privilege of a friend. + +"I'm glad you think well of me," she said. "Billy has such a high +opinion of you. You will hear some funny tales. I'm glad you know." + +I had to leave London again, and Billy died before I returned. I heard +that she had to be fetched from a ball, and was only just in time to +touch his lips before they were cold. But her friends excused her by +saying that the end had come very suddenly. + +I called on her a little later, and before I left I hinted to her what +people were saying, and asked her if I had not better tell them the +truth. + +"I would rather you didn't," she answered. "It seems like making public +the secret side of one's life." + +"But," I urged, "they will think--" + +She interrupted me. + +"Does it matter very much what they think?" + +Which struck me as a very remarkable sentiment, coming from the Hon. Mrs. +Drayton, _nee_ the elder Miss Lovell. + + + + +THE CHOICE OF CYRIL HARJOHN + + +Between a junior resident master of twenty-one, and a backward lad of +fifteen, there yawns an impassable gulf. Between a struggling journalist +of one-and-thirty, and an M.D. of twenty-five, with a brilliant record +behind him, and a career of exceptional promise before him, a close +friendship is however permissible. + +My introduction to Cyril Harjohn was through the Rev. Charles Fauerberg. + +"Our young friend," said the Rev. Mr. Fauerberg, standing in the most +approved tutorial attitude, with his hand upon his pupil's shoulder, "our +young friend has been somewhat neglected, but I see in him possibilities +warranting hope--warranting, I may say, very great hope. For the present +he will be under my especial care, and you will not therefore concern +yourself with his studies. He will sleep with Milling and the others in +dormitory number two." + +The lad formed a liking for me, and I think, and hope, I rendered his +sojourn at "Alpha House" less irksome than otherwise it might have been. +The Reverend Charles' method with the backward was on all fours with that +adopted for the bringing on of geese; he cooped them up and crammed them. +The process is profitable to the trainer, but painful to the goose. + +Young Harjohn and myself left "Alpha House" at the end of the same term; +he bound for Brasenose, I for Bloomsbury. He made a point of never +coming up to London without calling on me, when we would dine together in +one of Soho's many dingy, garlic-scented restaurants, and afterwards, +over our bottle of cheap Beaune, discuss the coming of our lives; and +when he entered Guy's I left John Street, and took chambers close to his +in Staple Inn. Those were pleasant days. Childhood is an over-rated +period, fuller of sorrow than of joy. I would not take my childhood +back, were it a gift, but I would give the rest of my life to live the +twenties over again. + +To Cyril I was the man of the world, and he looked to me for wisdom, not +seeing always, I fear, that he got it; while from him I gathered +enthusiasm, and learnt the profit that comes to a man from the keeping of +ideals. + +Often as we have talked, I have felt as though a visible light came from +him, framing his face as with the halo of some pictured saint. Nature +had wasted him, putting him into this nineteenth century of ours. Her +victories are accomplished. Her army of heroes, the few sung, the many +forgotten, is disbanded. The long peace won by their blood and pain is +settled on the land. She had fashioned Cyril Harjohn for one of her +soldiers. He would have been a martyr, in the days when thought led to +the stake, a fighter for the truth, when to speak one's mind meant death. +To lead some forlorn hope for Civilisation would have been his true work; +Fate had condemned him to sentry duty in a well-ordered barrack. + +But there is work to be done in the world, though the labour lies now in +the vineyard, not on the battlefield. A small but sufficient fortune +purchased for him freedom. To most men an assured income is the grave of +ambition; to Cyril it was the foundation of desire. Relieved from the +necessity of working to live, he could afford the luxury of living to +work. His profession was to him a passion; he regarded it, not with the +cold curiosity of the scholar, but with the imaginative devotion of the +disciple. To help to push its frontiers forward, to carry its flag +farther into the untravelled desert that ever lies beyond the moving +boundary of human knowledge, was his dream. + +One summer evening, I remember, we were sitting in his rooms, and during +a silence there came to us through the open window the moaning of the +city, as of a tired child. He rose and stretched his arms out towards +the darkening streets, as if he would gather to him all the toiling men +and women and comfort them. + +"Oh, that I could help you!" he cried, "my brothers and my sisters. Take +my life, oh God, and spend it for me among your people." + +The speech sounds theatrical, as I read it, written down, but to the +young such words are not ridiculous, as to us older men. + +In the natural order of events, he fell in love, and with just the woman +one would expect him to be attracted by. Elspeth Grant was of the type +from which the world, by instinct rather than by convention, has drawn +its Madonnas and its saints. To describe a woman in words is impossible. +Her beauty was not a possession to be catalogued, but herself. One felt +it as one feels the beauty of a summer's dawn breaking the shadows of a +sleeping city, but one cannot set it down. I often met her, and, when +talking to her, I knew myself--I, hack-journalist, frequenter of Fleet +Street bars, retailer of smoke-room stories--a great gentleman, incapable +of meanness, fit for all noble deeds. + +In her presence life became a thing beautiful and gracious; a school for +courtesy, and tenderness, and simplicity. + +I have wondered since, coming to see a little more clearly into the ways +of men, whether it would not have been better had she been less +spiritual, had her nature possessed a greater alloy of earth, making it +more fit for the uses of this work-a-day world. But at the time, these +two friends of mine seemed to me to have been created for one another. + +She appealed to all that was highest in Cyril's character, and he +worshipped her with an unconcealed adoration that, from any man less high- +minded, would have appeared affectation, and which she accepted with the +sweet content that Artemis might have accorded to the homage of Endymion. + +There was no formal engagement between them. Cyril seemed to shrink from +the materialising of his love by any thought of marriage. To him she was +an ideal of womanhood rather than a flesh-and-blood woman. His love for +her was a religion; it had no taint of earthly passion in its +composition. + +Had I known the world better I might have anticipated the result; for the +red blood ran in my friend's veins; and, alas, we dream our poems, not +live them. But at the time, the idea of any other woman coming between +them would have appeared to me folly. The suggestion that that other +woman might be Geraldine Fawley I should have resented as an insult to my +intelligence: that is the point of the story I do not understand to this +day. + +That he should be attracted by her, that he should love to linger near +her, watching the dark flush come and go across her face, seeking to call +the fire into her dark eyes was another matter, and quite comprehensible; +for the girl was wonderfully handsome, with a bold, voluptuous beauty +which invited while it dared. But considered in any other light than +that of an animal, she repelled. At times when, for her ends, it seemed +worth the exertion, she would assume a certain wayward sweetness, but her +acting was always clumsy and exaggerated, capable of deceiving no one but +a fool. + +Cyril, at all events, was not taken in by it. One evening, at a Bohemian +gathering, the _entree_ to which was notoriety rather than character, +they had been talking together for some considerable time when, wishing +to speak to Cyril, I strolled up to join them. As I came towards them +she moved away, her dislike for me being equal to mine for her; a thing +which was, perhaps, well for me. + +"Miss Fawley prefers two as company to three," I observed, looking after +her retreating figure. + +"I am afraid she finds you what we should call an anti-sympathetic +element," he replied, laughing. + +"Do you like her?" I asked him, somewhat bluntly. + +His eyes rested upon her as she stood in the doorway, talking to a small, +black-bearded man who had just been introduced to her. After a few +moments she went out upon his arm, and then Cyril turned to me. + +"I think her," he replied, speaking, as was necessary, very low, "the +embodiment of all that is evil in womanhood. In old days she would have +been a Cleopatra, a Theodora, a Delilah. To-day, lacking opportunity, +she is the 'smart woman' grubbing for an opening into society--and old +Fawley's daughter. I'm tired; let us go home." + +His allusion to her parentage was significant. Few people thought of +connecting clever, handsome Geraldine Fawley with "Rogue Fawley," Jew +renegade, ex-gaol bird, and outside broker; who, having expectations from +his daughter, took care not to hamper her by ever being seen in her +company. But no one who had once met the father could ever forget the +relationship while talking to the daughter. The older face, with its +cruelty, its cunning, and its greed stood reproduced, feature for +feature, line for line. It was as though Nature, for an artistic freak, +had set herself the task of fashioning hideousness and beauty from +precisely the same materials. Between the leer of the man and the smile +of the girl, where lay the difference? It would have puzzled any student +of anatomy to point it out. Yet the one sickened, while to gain the +other most men would have given much. + +Cyril's answer to my question satisfied me for the time. He met the girl +often, as was natural. She was a singer of some repute, and our social +circle was what is commonly called "literary and artistic." To do her +justice, however, she made no attempt to fascinate him, nor even to be +particularly agreeable to him. Indeed, she seemed to be at pains to show +him her natural--in other words, her most objectionable side. + +Coming out of the theatre one first night, we met her in the lobby. I +was following Cyril at some little distance, but as he stopped to speak +to her the movement of the crowd placed me just behind them. + +"Will you be at Leightons' to-morrow?" I heard him ask her in a low tone. + +"Yes," she answered, "and I wish you wouldn't come." + +"Why not?" + +"Because you're a fool, and you bore me." + +Under ordinary circumstances I should have taken the speech for +badinage--it was the kind of wit the woman would have indulged in. But +Cyril's face clouded with anger and vexation. I said nothing. I did not +wish him to know that I had overheard. I tried to believe that he was +amusing himself, but my own explanation did not satisfy me. + +Next evening I went to Leightons' by myself. The Grants were in town, +and Cyril was dining with them. I found I did not know many people, and +cared little for those I did. I was about to escape when Miss Fawley's +name was announced. I was close to the door, and she had to stop and +speak to me. We exchanged a few commonplaces. She either made love to a +man or was rude to him. She generally talked to me without looking at +me, nodding and smiling meanwhile to people around. I have met many +women equally ill-mannered, and without her excuse. For a moment, +however, she turned her eyes to mine. + +"Where's your friend, Mr. Harjohn?" she asked. "I thought you were +inseparables." + +I looked at her in astonishment. + +"He is dining out to-night," I replied. "I do not think he will come." + +She laughed. I think it was the worst part about the woman, her laugh; +it suggested so much cruelty. + +"I think he will," she said. + +It angered me into an indiscretion. She was moving away. I stepped in +front of her and stopped her. + +"What makes you think so?" I asked, and my voice, I know, betrayed the +anxiety I felt as to her reply. She looked me straight in the face. +There was one virtue she possessed--the virtue that animals hold above +mankind--truthfulness. She knew I disliked her--hate would be, perhaps, +a more exact expression, did not the word sound out of date, and she made +no pretence of not knowing it and returning the compliment. + +"Because I am here," she answered. "Why don't you save him? Have you no +influence over him? Tell the Saint to keep him; I don't want him. You +heard what I said to him last night. I shall only marry him for the sake +of his position, and the money he can earn if he likes to work and not +play the fool. Tell him what I have said; I shan't deny it." + +She passed on to greet a decrepit old lord with a languishing smile, and +I stood staring after her with, I fear, a somewhat stupid expression, +until some young fool came up grinning, to ask me whether I had seen a +ghost or backed a "wrong 'un." + +There was no need to wait; I felt no curiosity. Something told me the +woman had spoken the truth. It was mere want of motive that made me +linger. I saw him come in, and watched him hanging round her, like a +dog, waiting for a kind word, or failing that, a look. I knew she saw +me, and I knew it added to her zest that I was there. Not till we were +in the street did I speak to him. He started as I touched him. We were +neither of us good actors. He must have read much in my face, and I saw +that he had read it; and we walked side by side in silence, I thinking +what to say, wondering whether I should do good or harm, wishing that we +were anywhere but in these silent, life-packed streets, so filled with +the unseen. It was not until we had nearly reached the Albert Hall that +we broke the silence. Then it was he who spoke: + +"Do you think I haven't told myself all that?" he said. "Do you think I +don't know I'm a damned fool, a cad, a liar! What the devil's the good +of talking about it?" + +"But I can't understand it," I said. + +"No," he replied, "because you're a fool, because you have only seen one +side of me. You think me a grand gentleman, because I talk big, and am +full of noble sentiment. Why, you idiot, the Devil himself could take +you in. _He_ has his fine moods, I suppose, talks like a saint, and says +his prayers with the rest of us. Do you remember the first night at old +Fauerberg's? You poked your silly head into the dormitory, and saw me +kneeling by the bedside, while the other fellows stood by grinning. You +closed the door softly--you thought I never saw you. I was not praying, +I was trying to pray." + +"It showed that you had pluck, if it showed nothing else," I answered. +"Most boys would not have tried, and you kept it up." + +"Ah, yes," he answered, "I promised the Mater I would, and I did. Poor +old soul, she was as big a fool as you are. She believed in me. Don't +you remember, finding me one Saturday afternoon all alone, stuffing +myself with cake and jam?" + +I laughed at the recollection, though Heaven knows I was in no laughing +mood. I had found him with an array of pastry spread out before him, +sufficient to make him ill for a week, and I had boxed his ears, and had +thrown the whole collection into the road. + +"The Mater gave me half-a-crown a week for pocket-money," he continued, +"and I told the fellows I had only a shilling, so that I could gorge +myself with the other eighteenpence undisturbed. Pah! I was a little +beast even in those days!" + +"It was only a schoolboy trick," I argued, "it was natural enough." + +"Yes," he answered, "and this is only a man's trick, and is natural +enough; but it is going to ruin my life, to turn me into a beast instead +of a man. Good God! do you think I don't know what that woman will do +for me? She will drag me down, down, down, to her own level. All my +ideas, all my ambition, all my life's work will be bartered for a smug +practice, among paying patients. I shall scheme and plot to make a big +income that we may live like a couple of plump animals, that we may dress +ourselves gaudily and parade our wealth. Nothing will satisfy her. Such +women are leeches; their only cry is 'give, give, give.' So long as I +can supply her with money she will tolerate me, and to get it for her I +shall sell my heart, and my brain, and my soul. She will load herself +with jewels, and go about from house to house, half naked, to leer at +every man she comes across: that is 'life' to such women. And I shall +trot behind her, the laughing stock of every fool, the contempt of every +man." + +His vehemence made any words I could say sound weak before they were +uttered. What argument could I show stronger than that he had already +put before himself? I knew his answer to everything I could urge. + +My mistake had been in imagining him different from other men. I began +to see that he was like the rest of us: part angel, part devil. But the +new point he revealed to me was that the higher the one, the lower the +other. It seems as if nature must balance her work; the nearer the +leaves to heaven, the deeper the roots striking down into the darkness. I +knew that his passion for this woman made no change in his truer love. +The one was a spiritual, the other a mere animal passion. The memory of +incidents that had puzzled me came back to enlighten me. I remembered +how often on nights when I had sat up late, working, I had heard his +steps pass my door, heavy and uncertain; how once in a dingy quarter of +London, I had met one who had strangely resembled him. I had followed +him to speak, but the man's bleared eyes had stared angrily at me, and I +had turned away, calling myself a fool for my mistake. But as I looked +at the face beside me now, I understood. + +And then there rose up before my eyes the face I knew better, the eager +noble face that to merely look upon had been good. We had reached a +small, evil-smelling street, leading from Leicester Square towards +Holborn. I caught him by the shoulders and turned him round with his +back against some church railings. I forget what I said. We are strange +mixtures. I thought of the shy, backward boy I had coached and bullied +at old Fauerberg's, of the laughing handsome lad I had watched grow into +manhood. The very restaurant we had most frequented in his old Oxford +days--where we had poured out our souls to one another, was in this very +street where we were standing. For the moment I felt towards him as +perhaps his mother might have felt; I wanted to scold him and to cry with +him; to shake him and to put my arms about him. I pleaded with him, and +urged him, and called him every name I could put my tongue to. It must +have seemed an odd conversation. A passing policeman, making a not +unnatural mistake, turned his bull's-eye upon us, and advised us sternly +to go home. We laughed, and with that laugh Cyril came back to his own +self, and we walked on to Staple Inn more soberly. He promised me to go +away by the very first train the next morning, and to travel for some +four or five months, and I undertook to make all the necessary +explanations for him. + +We both felt better for our talk, and when I wished him good-night at his +door, it was the real Cyril Harjohn whose hand I gripped--the real Cyril, +because the best that is in a man is his real self. If there be any +future for man beyond this world, it is the good that is in him that will +live. The other side of him is of the earth; it is that he will leave +behind him. + +He kept his word. In the morning he was gone, and I never saw him again. +I had many letters from him, hopeful at first, full of strong resolves. +He told me he had written to Elspeth, not telling her everything, for +that she would not understand, but so much as would explain; and from her +he had had sweet womanly letters in reply. I feared she might have been +cold and unsympathetic, for often good women, untouched by temptation +themselves, have small tenderness for those who struggle. But her +goodness was something more than a mere passive quantity; she loved him +the better because he had need of her. I believe she would have saved +him from himself, had not fate interfered and taken the matter out of her +hands. Women are capable of big sacrifices; I think this woman would +have been content to lower herself, if by so doing she could have raised +him. + +But it was not to be. From India he wrote to me that he was coming home. +I had not met the Fawley woman for some time, and she had gone out of my +mind until one day, chancing upon a theatrical paper, some weeks old, I +read that "Miss Fawley had sailed for Calcutta to fulfil an engagement of +long standing." + +I had his last letter in my pocket. I sat down and worked out the +question of date. She would arrive in Calcutta the day before he left. +Whether it was chance or intention on her part I never knew; as likely as +not the former, for there is a fatalism in this world shaping our ends. + +I heard no more from him, I hardly expected to do so, but three months +later a mutual acquaintance stopped me on the Club steps. + +"Have you heard the news," he said, "about young Harjohn?" + +"No," I replied. "Is he married?" + +"Married," he answered, "No, poor devil, he's dead!" + +"Thank God," was on my lips, but fortunately I checked myself. "How did +it happen?" I asked. + +"At a shooting party, up at some Rajah's place. Must have caught his gun +in some brambles, I suppose. The bullet went clean through his head." + +"Dear me," I said, "how very sad!" I could think of nothing else to say +at the moment. + + + + +THE MATERIALISATION OF CHARLES AND MIVANWAY + + +The fault that most people will find with this story is that it is +unconvincing. Its scheme is improbable, its atmosphere artificial. To +confess that the thing really happened--not as I am about to set it down, +for the pen of the professional writer cannot but adorn and embroider, +even to the detriment of his material--is, I am well aware, only an +aggravation of my offence, for the facts of life are the impossibilities +of fiction. A truer artist would have left this story alone, or at most +have kept it for the irritation of his private circle. My lower instinct +is to make use of it. A very old man told me the tale. He was landlord +of the Cromlech Arms, the only inn of a small, rock-sheltered village on +the north-east coast of Cornwall, and had been so for nine and forty +years. It is called the Cromlech Hotel now, and is under new management, +and during the season some four coach-loads of tourists sit down each day +to _table d'hote_ lunch in the low-ceilinged parlour. But I am speaking +of years ago, when the place was a mere fishing harbour, undiscovered by +the guide books. + +The old landlord talked, and I hearkened the while we both sat drinking +thin ale from earthenware mugs, late one summer's evening, on the bench +that runs along the wall just beneath the latticed windows. And during +the many pauses, when the old landlord stopped to puff his pipe in +silence, and lay in a new stock of breath, there came to us the murmuring +voices of the Atlantic; and often, mingled with the pompous roar of the +big breakers farther out, we would hear the rippling laugh of some small +wave that, maybe, had crept in to listen to the tale the landlord told. + +The mistake that Charles Seabohn, junior partner of the firm of Seabohn & +Son, civil engineers of London and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and Mivanway +Evans, youngest daughter of the Rev. Thomas Evans, Pastor of the +Presbyterian Church at Bristol, made originally, was marrying too young. +Charles Seabohn could hardly have been twenty years of age, and Mivanway +could have been little more than seventeen, when they first met upon the +cliffs, two miles beyond the Cromlech Arms. Young Charles Seabohn, +coming across the village in the course of a walking tour, had decided to +spend a day or two exploring the picturesque coast, and Mivanway's father +had hired that year a neighbouring farmhouse wherein to spend his summer +vacation. + +Early one morning--for at twenty one is virtuous, and takes exercise +before breakfast--as young Charles Seabohn lay upon the cliffs, watching +the white waters coming and going upon the black rocks below, he became +aware of a form rising from the waves. The figure was too far off for +him to see it clearly, but judging from the costume, it was a female +figure, and promptly the mind of Charles, poetically inclined, turned to +thoughts of Venus--or Aphrodite, as he, being a gentleman of delicate +taste would have preferred to term her. He saw the figure disappear +behind a head-land, but still waited. In about ten minutes or a quarter +of an hour it reappeared, clothed in the garments of the +eighteen-sixties, and came towards him. Hidden from sight himself behind +a group of rocks, he could watch it at his leisure, ascending the steep +path from the beach, and an exceedingly sweet and dainty figure it would +have appeared, even to eyes less susceptible than those of twenty. Sea- +water--I stand open to correction--is not, I believe, considered anything +of a substitute for curling tongs, but to the hair of the youngest Miss +Evans it had given an additional and most fascinating wave. Nature's red +and white had been most cunningly laid on, and the large childish eyes +seemed to be searching the world for laughter, with which to feed a pair +of delicious, pouting lips. Charles's upturned face, petrified into +admiration, was just the sort of thing for which they were on the look- +out. A startled "Oh!" came from the slightly parted lips, followed by +the merriest of laughs, which in its turn was suddenly stopped by a deep +blush. Then the youngest Miss Evans looked offended, as though the whole +affair had been Charles's fault, which is the way of women. And Charles, +feeling himself guilty under that stern gaze of indignation, rose +awkwardly and apologised meekly, whether for being on the cliffs at all +or for having got up too early, he would have been unable to explain. + +The youngest Miss Evans graciously accepted the apology thus tendered +with a bow, and passed on, and Charles stood staring after her till the +valley gathered her into its spreading arms and hid her from his view. + +That was the beginning of all things. I am speaking of the Universe as +viewed from the standpoint of Charles and Mivanway. + +Six months later they were man and wife, or perhaps it would be more +correct to say boy and wifelet. Seabohn senior counselled delay, but was +overruled by the impatience of his junior partner. The Reverend Mr. +Evans, in common with most theologians, possessed a goodly supply of +unmarried daughters, and a limited income. Personally he saw no +necessity for postponement of the marriage. + +The month's honeymoon was spent in the New Forest. That was a mistake to +begin with. The New Forest in February is depressing, and they had +chosen the loneliest spot they could find. A fortnight in Paris or Rome +would have been more helpful. As yet they had nothing to talk about +except love, and that they had been talking and writing about steadily +all through the winter. On the tenth morning Charles yawned, and +Mivanway had a quiet half-hour's cry about it in her own room. On the +sixteenth evening, Mivanway, feeling irritable, and wondering why (as +though fifteen damp, chilly days in the New Forest were not sufficient to +make any woman irritable), requested Charles not to disarrange her hair; +and Charles, speechless with astonishment, went out into the garden, and +swore before all the stars that he would never caress Mivanway's hair +again as long as he lived. + +One supreme folly they had conspired to commit, even before the +commencement of the honeymoon. Charles, after the manner of very young +lovers, had earnestly requested Mivanway to impose upon him some task. He +desired to do something great and noble to show his devotion. Dragons +was the thing he had in mind, though he may not have been aware of it. +Dragons also, no doubt, flitted through Mivanway's brain, but +unfortunately for lovers the supply of dragons has lapsed. Mivanway, +liking the conceit, however, thought over it, and then decided that +Charles must give up smoking. She had discussed the matter with her +favourite sister, and that was the only thing the girls could think of. +Charles's face fell. He suggested some more Herculean labour, some +sacrifice more worthy to lay at Mivanway's feet. But Mivanway had +spoken. She might think of some other task, but the smoking prohibition +would, in any case, remain. She dismissed the subject with a pretty +_hauteur_ that would have graced Marie Antoinette. + +Thus tobacco, the good angel of all men, no longer came each day to teach +Charles patience and amiability, and he fell into the ways of short +temper and selfishness. + +They took up their residence in a suburb of Newcastle, and this was also +unfortunate for them, because there the society was scanty and middle- +aged; and, in consequence, they had still to depend much upon their own +resources. They knew little of life, less of each other, and nothing at +all of themselves. Of course they quarrelled, and each quarrel left the +wound a little more raw. No kindly, experienced friend was at hand to +laugh at them. Mivanway would write down all her sorrows in a bulky +diary, which made her feel worse; so that before she had written for ten +minutes her pretty, unwise head would drop upon her dimpled arm, and the +book--the proper place for which was behind the fire--would become damp +with her tears; and Charles, his day's work done and the clerks gone, +would linger in his dingy office and hatch trifles into troubles. + +The end came one evening after dinner, when, in the heat of a silly +squabble, Charles boxed Mivanway's ears. That was very ungentlemanly +conduct, and he was heartily ashamed of himself the moment he had done +it, which was right and proper for him to be. The only excuse to be +urged on his behalf is that girls sufficiently pretty to have been spoilt +from childhood by everyone about them can at times be intensely +irritating. Mivanway rushed up to her room, and locked herself in. +Charles flew after her to apologise, but only arrived in time to have the +door slammed in his face. + +It had only been the merest touch. A boy's muscles move quicker than his +thoughts. But to Mivanway it was a blow. This was what it had come to! +This was the end of a man's love! + +She spent half the night writing in the precious diary, with the result +that in the morning she came down feeling more bitter than she had gone +up. Charles had walked the streets of Newcastle all night, and that had +not done him any good. He met her with an apology combined with an +excuse, which was bad tactics. Mivanway, of course, fastened upon the +excuse, and the quarrel recommenced. She mentioned that she hated him; +he hinted that she had never loved him, and she retorted that he had +never loved her. Had there been anybody by to knock their heads together +and suggest breakfast, the thing might have blown over, but the combined +effect of a sleepless night and an empty stomach upon each proved +disastrous. Their words came poisoned from their brains, and each +believed they meant what they said. That afternoon Charles sailed from +Hull, on a ship bound for the Cape, and that evening Mivanway arrived at +the paternal home in Bristol with two trunks and the curt information +that she and Charles had separated for ever. The next morning both +thought of a soft speech to say to the other, but the next morning was +just twenty-four hours too late. + +Eight days afterwards Charles's ship was run down in a fog, near the +coast of Portugal, and every soul on board was supposed to have perished. +Mivanway read his name among the list of lost; the child died within her, +and she knew herself for a woman who had loved deeply, and will not love +again. + +Good luck intervening, however, Charles and one other man were rescued by +a small trading vessel, and landed in Algiers. There Charles learnt of +his supposed death, and the idea occurred to him to leave the report +uncontradicted. For one thing, it solved a problem that had been +troubling him. He could trust his father to see to it that his own small +fortune, with possibly something added, was handed over to Mivanway, and +she would be free if she wished to marry again. He was convinced that +she did not care for him, and that she had read of his death with a sense +of relief. He would make a new life for himself, and forget her. + +He continued his journey to the Cape, and once there he soon gained for +himself an excellent position. The colony was young, engineers were +welcome, and Charles knew his business. He found the life interesting +and exciting. The rough, dangerous up-country work suited him, and the +time passed swiftly. + +But in thinking he would forget Mivanway, he had not taken into +consideration his own character, which at bottom was a very gentlemanly +character. Out on the lonely veldt he found himself dreaming of her. The +memory of her pretty face and merry laugh came back to him at all hours. +Occasionally he would curse her roundly, but that only meant that he was +sore because of the thought of her; what he was really cursing was +himself and his own folly. Softened by the distance, her quick temper, +her very petulance became mere added graces; and if we consider women as +human beings and not as angels, it was certainly a fact that he had lost +a very sweet and lovable woman. Ah! if she only were by his side now--now +that he was a man capable of appreciating her, and not a foolish, selfish +boy. This thought would come to him as he sat smoking at the door of his +tent, and then he would regret that the stars looking down upon him were +not the same stars that were watching her, it would have made him feel +nearer to her. For, though young people may not credit it, one grows +more sentimental as one grows older; at least, some of us do, and they +perhaps not the least wise. + +One night he had a vivid dream of her. She came to him and held out her +hand, and he took it, and they said good-bye to one another. They were +standing on the cliff where he had first met her, and one of them was +going upon a long journey, though he was not sure which. + +In the towns men laugh at dreams, but away from civilisation we listen +more readily to the strange tales that Nature whispers to us. Charles +Seabohn recollected this dream when he awoke in the morning. + +"She is dying," he said, "and she has come to wish me good-bye." + +He made up his mind to return to England at once; perhaps if he made +haste he would be in time to kiss her. But he could not start that day, +for work was to be done; and Charles Seabohn, lover though he still was, +had grown to be a man, and knew that work must not be neglected even +though the heart may be calling. So for a day or two he stayed, and on +the third night he dreamed of Mivanway again, and this time she lay +within the little chapel at Bristol where, on Sunday mornings, he had +often sat with her. He heard her father's voice reading the burial +service over her, and the sister she had loved best was sitting beside +him, crying softly. Then Charles knew that there was no need for him to +hasten. So he remained to finish his work. That done, he would return +to England. He would like again to stand upon the cliffs, above the +little Cornish village, where they had first met. + +Thus a few months later Charles Seabohn, or Charles Denning, as he called +himself, aged and bronzed, not easily recognisable by those who had not +known him well, walked into the Cromlech Arms, as six years before he had +walked in with his knapsack on his back, and asked for a room, saying he +would be stopping in the village for a short while. + +In the evening he strolled out and made his way to the cliffs. It was +twilight when he reached the place of rocks to which the fancy-loving +Cornish folk had given the name of the Witches' Cauldron. It was from +this spot that he had first watched Mivanway coming to him from the sea. + +He took the pipe from his mouth, and leaning against a rock, whose rugged +outline seemed fashioned into the face of an old friend, gazed down the +narrow pathway now growing indistinct in the dim light. And as he gazed +the figure of Mivanway came slowly up the pathway from the sea, and +paused before him. + +He felt no fear. He had half expected it. Her coming was the complement +of his dreams. She looked older and graver than he remembered her, but +for that the face was the sweeter. + +He wondered if she would speak to him, but she only looked at him with +sad eyes; and he stood there in the shadow of the rocks without moving, +and she passed on into the twilight. + +Had he on his return cared to discuss the subject with his landlord, had +he even shown himself a ready listener--for the old man loved to +gossip--he might have learnt that a young widow lady named Mrs. Charles +Seabohn, accompanied by an unmarried sister, had lately come to reside in +the neighbourhood, having, upon the death of a former tenant, taken the +lease of a small farmhouse sheltered in the valley a mile beyond the +village, and that her favourite evening's walk was to the sea and back by +the steep footway leading past the Witches' Cauldron. + +Had he followed the figure of Mivanway into the valley, he would have +known that out of sight of the Witches' Cauldron it took to running fast +till it reached a welcome door, and fell panting into the arms of another +figure that had hastened out to meet it. + +"My dear," said the elder woman, "you are trembling like a leaf. What +has happened?" + +"I have seen him," answered Mivanway. + +"Seen whom?" + +"Charles." + +"Charles!" repeated the other, looking at Mivanway as though she thought +her mad. + +"His spirit, I mean," explained Mivanway, in an awed voice. "It was +standing in the shadow of the rocks, in the exact spot where we first +met. It looked older and more careworn; but, oh! Margaret, so sad and +reproachful." + +"My dear," said her sister, leading her in, "you are overwrought. I wish +we had never come back to this house." + +"Oh! I was not frightened," answered Mivanway, "I have been expecting it +every evening. I am so glad it came. Perhaps it will come again, and I +can ask it to forgive me." + +So next night Mivanway, though much against her sister's wishes and +advice, persisted in her usual walk, and Charles at the same twilight +hour started from the inn. + +Again Mivanway saw him standing in the shadow of the rocks. Charles had +made up his mind that if the thing happened again he would speak, but +when the silent figure of Mivanway, clothed in the fading light, stopped +and gazed at him, his will failed him. + +That it was the spirit of Mivanway standing before him he had not the +faintest doubt. One may dismiss other people's ghosts as the phantasies +of a weak brain, but one knows one's own to be realities, and Charles for +the last five years had mingled with a people whose dead dwell about +them. Once, drawing his courage around him, he made to speak, but as he +did so the figure of Mivanway shrank from him, and only a sigh escaped +his lips, and hearing that the figure of Mivanway turned and again passed +down the path into the valley, leaving Charles gazing after it. + +But the third night both arrived at the trysting spot with determination +screwed up to the sticking point. + +Charles was the first to speak. As the figure of Mivanway came towards +him, with its eyes fixed sadly on him, he moved from the shadow of the +rocks, and stood before it. + +"Mivanway!" he said. + +"Charles!" replied the figure of Mivanway. Both spoke in an awed whisper +suitable to the circumstances, and each stood gazing sorrowfully upon the +other. + +"Are you happy?" asked Mivanway. + +The question strikes one as somewhat farcical, but it must be remembered +that Mivanway was the daughter of a Gospeller of the old school, and had +been brought up to beliefs that were not then out of date. + +"As happy as I deserve to be," was the sad reply, and the answer--the +inference was not complimentary to Charles's deserts--struck a chill to +Mivanway's heart. + +"How could I be happy having lost you?" went on the voice of Charles. + +Now this speech fell very pleasantly upon Mivanway's ears. In the first +place it relieved her of her despair regarding Charles's future. No +doubt his present suffering was keen, but there was hope for him. +Secondly, it was a decidedly "pretty" speech for a ghost, and I am not at +all sure that Mivanway was the kind of woman to be averse to a little +mild flirtation with the spirit of Charles. + +"Can you forgive me?" asked Mivanway. + +"Forgive _you_!" replied Charles, in a tone of awed astonishment. "Can +you forgive me? I was a brute--a fool--I was not worthy to love you." + +A most gentlemanly spirit it seemed to be. Mivanway forgot to be afraid +of it. + +"We were both to blame," answered Mivanway. But this time there was less +submission in her tones. "But I was the most at fault. I was a petulant +child. I did not know how deeply I loved you." + +"You loved me!" repeated the voice of Charles, and the voice lingered +over the words as though it found them sweet. + +"Surely you never doubted it," answered the voice of Mivanway. "I never +ceased to love you. I shall love you always and ever." + +The figure of Charles sprang forward as though it would clasp the ghost +of Mivanway in its arms, but halted a step or two off. + +"Bless me before you go," he said, and with uncovered head the figure of +Charles knelt to the figure of Mivanway. + +Really, ghosts could be exceedingly nice when they liked. Mivanway bent +graciously towards her shadowy suppliant, and, as she did so, her eye +caught sight of something on the grass beside it, and that something was +a well-coloured meerschaum pipe. There was no mistaking it for anything +else, even in that treacherous light; it lay glistening where Charles, in +falling upon his knees had jerked it from his breast-pocket. + +Charles, following Mivanway's eyes, saw it also, and the memory of the +prohibition against smoking came back to him. + +Without stopping to consider the futility of the action--nay, the direct +confession implied thereby--he instinctively grabbed at the pipe, and +rammed it back into his pocket; and then an avalanche of mingled +understanding and bewilderment, fear and joy, swept Mivanway's brain +before it. She felt she must do one of two things, laugh or scream and +go on screaming, and she laughed. Peal after peal of laughter she sent +echoing among the rocks, and Charles springing to his feet was just in +time to catch her as she fell forward a dead weight into his arms. + +Ten minutes later the eldest Miss Evans, hearing heavy footsteps, went to +the door. She saw what she took to be the spirit of Charles Seabohn, +staggering under the weight of the lifeless body of Mivanway, and the +sight not unnaturally alarmed her. Charles's suggestion of brandy, +however, sounded human, and the urgent need of attending to Mivanway kept +her mind from dwelling upon problems tending towards insanity. + +Charles carried Mivanway to her room, and laid her upon the bed. + +"I'll leave her with you," he whispered to the eldest Miss Evans. "It +will be better for her not to see me until she is quite recovered. She +has had a shock." + +Charles waited in the dark parlour for what seemed to him an exceedingly +long time. But at last the eldest Miss Evans returned. + +"She's all right now," were the welcome words he heard. + +"I'll go and see her," he said. + +"But she's in bed," exclaimed the scandalised Miss Evans. + +And then as Charles only laughed, "Oh, ah--yes, I suppose--of course," +she added. + +And the eldest Miss Evans, left alone, sat down and wrestled with the +conviction that she was dreaming. + + + + +PORTRAIT OF A LADY + + +My work pressed upon me, but the louder it challenged me--such is the +heart of the timid fighter--the less stomach I felt for the contest. I +wrestled with it in my study, only to be driven to my books. I walked +out to meet it in the streets, only to seek shelter from it in music-hall +or theatre. Thereupon it waxed importunate and over-bearing, till the +shadow of it darkened all my doings. The thought of it sat beside me at +the table, and spoilt my appetite. The memory of it followed me abroad, +and stood between me and my friends, so that all talk died upon my lips, +and I moved among men as one ghost-ridden. + +Then the throbbing town, with its thousand distracting voices, grew +maddening to me. I felt the need of converse with solitude, that master +and teacher of all the arts, and I bethought me of the Yorkshire Wolds, +where a man may walk all day, meeting no human creature, hearing no voice +but the curlew's cry; where, lying prone upon the sweet grass, he may +feel the pulsation of the earth, travelling at its eleven hundred miles a +minute through the ether. So one morning I bundled many things, some +needful, more needless, into a bag, hurrying lest somebody or something +should happen to stay me, and that night I lay in a small northern town +that stands upon the borders of smokedom at the gate of the great moors; +and at seven the next morning I took my seat beside a one-eyed carrier +behind an ancient piebald mare. The one-eyed carrier cracked his whip, +the piebald horse jogged forward. The nineteenth century, with its +turmoil, fell away behind us; the distant hills, creeping nearer, +swallowed us up, and we became but a moving speck upon the face of the +quiet earth. + +Late in the afternoon we arrived at a village, the memory of which had +been growing in my mind. It lies in the triangle formed by the sloping +walls of three great fells, and not even the telegraph wire has reached +it yet, to murmur to it whispers of the restless world--or had not at the +time of which I write. Nought disturbs it save, once a day, the one-eyed +carrier--if he and his piebald mare have not yet laid their ancient bones +to rest--who, passing through, leaves a few letters and parcels to be +called for by the people of the scattered hill-farms round about. It is +the meeting-place of two noisy brooks. Through the sleepy days and the +hushed nights, one hears them ever chattering to themselves as children +playing alone some game of make-believe. Coming from their far-off homes +among the hills, they mingle their waters here, and journey on in +company, and then their converse is more serious, as becomes those who +have joined hands and are moving onward towards life together. Later +they reach sad, weary towns, black beneath a never-lifted pall of smoke, +where day and night the clang of iron drowns all human voices, where the +children play with ashes, where the men and women have dull, patient +faces; and so on, muddy and stained, to the deep sea that ceaselessly +calls to them. Here, however, their waters are fresh and clear, and +their passing makes the only stir that the valley has ever known. Surely, +of all peaceful places, this was the one where a tired worker might find +strength. + +My one-eyed friend had suggested I should seek lodgings at the house of +one Mistress Cholmondley, a widow lady, who resided with her only +daughter in the white-washed cottage that is the last house in the +village, if you take the road that leads over Coll Fell. + +"Tha' can see th' house from here, by reason o' its standing so high +above t'others," said the carrier, pointing with his whip. "It's theer +or nowhere, aw'm thinking, for folks don't often coom seeking lodgings in +these parts." + +The tiny dwelling, half smothered in June roses, looked idyllic, and +after a lunch of bread and cheese at the little inn I made my way to it +by the path that passes through the churchyard. I had conjured up the +vision of a stout, pleasant, comfort-radiating woman, assisted by some +bright, fresh girl, whose rosy cheeks and sunburnt hands would help me +banish from my mind all clogging recollections of the town; and hopeful, +I pushed back the half-opened door and entered. + +The cottage was furnished with a taste that surprised me, but in +themselves my hosts disappointed me. My bustling, comely housewife +turned out a wizened, blear-eyed dame. All day long she dozed in her big +chair, or crouched with shrivelled hands spread out before the fire. My +dream of winsome maidenhood vanished before the reality of a +weary-looking, sharp-featured woman of between forty and fifty. Perhaps +there had been a time when the listless eyes had sparkled with roguish +merriment, when the shrivelled, tight-drawn lips had pouted temptingly; +but spinsterhood does not sweeten the juices of a woman, and strong +country air, though, like old ale, it is good when taken occasionally, +dulls the brain if lived upon. A narrow, uninteresting woman I found +her, troubled with a shyness that sat ludicrously upon her age, and that +yet failed to save her from the landlady's customary failing of loquacity +concerning "better days," together with an irritating, if harmless, +affectation of youthfulness. + +All other details were, however, most satisfactory; and at the window +commanding the road that leads through the valley towards the distant +world I settled down to face my work. + +But the spirit of industry, once driven forth, returns with coy steps. I +wrote for perhaps an hour, and then throwing down my halting pen I looked +about the room, seeking distraction. A Chippendale book-case stood +against the wall and I strolled over to it. The key was in the lock, and +opening its glass doors, I examined the well-filled shelves. They held a +curious collection: miscellanies with quaint, glazed bindings; novels and +poems; whose authors I had never heard of; old magazines long dead, their +very names forgotten; "keepsakes" and annuals, redolent of an age of +vastly pretty sentiments and lavender-coloured silks. On the top shelf, +however, was a volume of Keats wedged between a number of the +_Evangelical Rambler_ and Young's _Night Thoughts_, and standing on tip- +toe, I sought to draw it from its place. + +The book was jambed so tightly that my efforts brought two or three +others tumbling about me, covering me with a cloud of fine dust, and to +my feet there fell, with a rattle of glass and metal, a small miniature +painting, framed in black wood. + +I picked it up, and, taking it to the window, examined it. It was the +picture of a young girl, dressed in the fashion of thirty years ago--I +mean thirty years ago then. I fear it must be nearer fifty, speaking as +from now--when our grandmothers wore corkscrew curls, and low-cut bodices +that one wonders how they kept from slipping down. The face was +beautiful, not merely with the conventional beauty of tiresome regularity +and impossible colouring such as one finds in all miniatures, but with +soul behind the soft deep eyes. As I gazed, the sweet lips seemed to +laugh at me, and yet there lurked a sadness in the smile, as though the +artist, in some rare moment, had seen the coming shadow of life across +the sunshine of the face. Even my small knowledge of Art told me that +the work was clever, and I wondered why it should have lain so long +neglected, when as a mere ornament it was valuable. It must have been +placed in the book-case years ago by someone, and forgotten. + +I replaced it among its dusty companions, and sat down once more to my +work. But between me and the fading light came the face of the +miniature, and would not be banished. Wherever I turned it looked out at +me from the shadows. I am not naturally fanciful, and the work I was +engaged upon--the writing of a farcical comedy--was not of the kind to +excite the dreamy side of a man's nature. I grew angry with myself, and +made a further effort to fix my mind upon the paper in front of me. But +my thoughts refused to return from their wanderings. Once, glancing back +over my shoulder, I could have sworn I saw the original of the picture +sitting in the big chintz-covered chair in the far corner. It was +dressed in a faded lilac frock, trimmed with some old lace, and I could +not help noticing the beauty of the folded hands, though in the portrait +only the head and shoulders had been drawn. + +Next morning I had forgotten the incident, but with the lighting of the +lamp the memory of it awoke within me, and my interest grew so strong +that again I took the miniature from its hiding-place and looked at it. + +And then the knowledge suddenly came to me that I knew the face. Where +had I seen her, and when? I had met her and spoken to her. The picture +smiled at me, as if rallying me on my forgetfulness. I put it back upon +its shelf, and sat racking my brains trying to recollect. We had met +somewhere--in the country--a long time ago, and had talked of +common-place things. To the vision of her clung the scent of roses and +the murmuring voices of haymakers. Why had I never seen her again? Why +had she passed so completely out of my mind? + +My landlady entered to lay my supper, and I questioned her assuming a +careless tone. Reason with or laugh at myself as I would, this shadowy +memory was becoming a romance to me. It was as though I were talking of +some loved, dead friend, even to speak of whom to commonplace people was +a sacrilege. I did not want the woman to question me in return. + +"Oh, yes," answered my landlady. Ladies had often lodged with her. +Sometimes people stayed the whole summer, wandering about the woods and +fells, but to her thinking the great hills were lonesome. Some of her +lodgers had been young ladies, but she could not remember any of them +having impressed her with their beauty. But then it was said women were +never a judge of other women. They had come and gone. Few had ever +returned, and fresh faces drove out the old. + +"You have been letting lodgings for a long time?" I asked. "I suppose it +could be fifteen--twenty years ago that strangers to you lived in this +room?" + +"Longer than that," she said quietly, dropping for the moment all +affectation. "We came here from the farm when my father died. He had +had losses, and there was but little left. That is twenty-seven years +ago now." + +I hastened to close the conversation, fearing long-winded recollections +of "better days." I have heard such so often from one landlady and +another. I had not learnt much. Who was the original of the miniature, +how it came to be lying forgotten in the dusty book-case were still +mysteries; and with a strange perversity I could not have explained to +myself I shrank from putting a direct question. + +So two days more passed by. My work took gradually a firmer grip upon my +mind, and the face of the miniature visited me less often. But in the +evening of the third day, which was a Sunday, a curious thing happened. + +I was returning from a stroll, and dusk was falling as I reached the +cottage. I had been thinking of my farce, and I was laughing to myself +at a situation that seemed to me comical, when, passing the window of my +room, I saw looking out the sweet fair face that had become so familiar +to me. It stood close to the latticed panes, a slim, girlish figure, +clad in the old-fashioned lilac-coloured frock in which I had imagined it +on the first night of my arrival, the beautiful hands clasped across the +breast, as then they had been folded on the lap. Her eyes were gazing +down the road that passes through the village and goes south, but they +seemed to be dreaming, not seeing, and the sadness in them struck upon +one almost as a cry. I was close to the window, but the hedge screened +me, and I remained watching, until, after a minute I suppose, though it +appeared longer, the figure drew back into the darkness of the room and +disappeared. + +I entered, but the room was empty. I called, but no one answered. The +uncomfortable suggestion took hold of me that I must be growing a little +crazy. All that had gone before I could explain to myself as a mere +train of thought, but this time it had come to me suddenly, uninvited, +while my thoughts had been busy elsewhere. This thing had appeared not +to my brain but to my senses. I am not a believer in ghosts, but I am in +the hallucinations of a weak mind, and my own explanation was in +consequence not very satisfactory to myself. + +I tried to dismiss the incident, but it would not leave me, and later +that same evening something else occurred that fixed it still clearer in +my thoughts. I had taken out two or three books at random with which to +amuse myself, and turning over the leaves of one of them, a volume of +verses by some obscure poet, I found its sentimental passages much scored +and commented upon in pencil as was common fifty years ago--as may be +common now, for your Fleet Street cynic has not altered the world and its +ways to quite the extent that he imagines. + +One poem in particular had evidently appealed greatly to the reader's +sympathies. It was the old, old story of the gallant who woos and rides +away, leaving the maiden to weep. The poetry was poor, and at another +time its conventionality would have excited only my ridicule. But, +reading it in conjunction with the quaint, naive notes scattered about +its margins, I felt no inclination to jeer. These hackneyed stories that +we laugh at are deep profundities to the many who find in them some +shadow of their own sorrows, and she--for it was a woman's handwriting--to +whom this book belonged had loved its trite verses, because in them she +had read her own heart. This, I told myself, was her story also. A +common enough story in life as in literature, but novel to those who live +it. + +There was no reason for my connecting her with the original of the +miniature, except perhaps a subtle relationship between the thin nervous +handwriting and the mobile features; yet I felt instinctively they were +one and the same, and that I was tracing, link by link, the history of my +forgotten friend. + +I felt urged to probe further, and next morning while my landlady was +clearing away my breakfast things, I fenced round the subject once again. + +"By the way," I said, "while I think of it, if I leave any books or +papers here behind me, send them on at once. I have a knack of doing +that sort of thing. I suppose," I added, "your lodgers often do leave +some of their belongings behind them." + +It sounded to myself a clumsy ruse. I wondered if she would suspect what +was behind it. + +"Not often," she answered. "Never that I can remember, except in the +case of one poor lady who died here." + +I glanced up quickly. + +"In this room?" I asked. + +My landlady seemed troubled at my tone. + +"Well, not exactly in this very room. We carried her upstairs, but she +died immediately. She was dying when she came here. I should not have +taken her in had I known. So many people are prejudiced against a house +where death has occurred, as if there were anywhere it had not. It was +not quite fair to us." + +I did not speak for a while, and the rattle of the plates and knives +continued undisturbed. + +"What did she leave here?" I asked at length. + +"Oh, just a few books and photographs, and such-like small things that +people bring with them to lodgings," was the reply. "Her people promised +to send for them, but they never did, and I suppose I forgot them. They +were not of any value." + +The woman turned as she was leaving the room. + +"It won't drive you away, sir, I hope, what I have told you," she said. +"It all happened a long while ago. + +"Of course not," I answered. "It interested me, that was all." And the +woman went out, closing the door behind her. + +So here was the explanation, if I chose to accept it. I sat long that +morning, wondering to myself whether things I had learnt to laugh at +could be after all realities. And a day or two afterwards I made a +discovery that confirmed all my vague surmises. + +Rummaging through this same dusty book-case, I found in one of the ill- +fitting drawers, beneath a heap of torn and tumbled books, a diary +belonging to the fifties, stuffed with many letters and shapeless +flowers, pressed between stained pages; and there--for the writer of +stories, tempted by human documents, is weak--in faded ink, brown and +withered like the flowers, I read the story I already knew. + +Such a very old story it was, and so conventional. He was an artist--was +ever story of this type written where the hero was not an artist? They +had been children together, loving each other without knowing it till one +day it was revealed to them. Here is the entry:-- + + "May 18th.--I do not know what to say, or how to begin. Chris loves + me. I have been praying to God to make me worthy of him, and dancing + round the room in my bare feet for fear of waking them below. He + kissed my hands and clasped them round his neck, saying they were + beautiful as the hands of a goddess, and he knelt and kissed them + again. I am holding them before me and kissing them myself. I am + glad they are so beautiful. O God, why are you so good to me? Help + me to be a true wife to him. Help me that I may never give him an + instant's pain! Oh, that I had more power of loving, that I might + love him better,"--and thus foolish thoughts for many pages, but + foolish thoughts of the kind that has kept this worn old world, + hanging for so many ages in space, from turning sour. + +Later, in February, there is another entry that carries on the story:-- + + "Chris left this morning. He put a little packet into my hands at the + last moment, saying it was the most precious thing he possessed, and + that when I looked at it I was to think of him who loved it. Of + course I guessed what it was, but I did not open it till I was alone + in my room. It is the picture of myself that he has been so secret + about, but oh, so beautiful. I wonder if I am really as beautiful as + this. But I wish he had not made me look so sad. I am kissing the + little lips. I love them, because he loved to kiss them. Oh, + sweetheart! it will be long before you kiss them again. Of course it + was right for him to go, and I am glad he has been able to manage it. + He could not study properly in this quiet country place, and now he + will be able to go to Paris and Rome and he will be great. Even the + stupid people here see how clever he is. But, oh, it will be so long + before I see him again, my love! my king!" + +With each letter that comes from him, similar foolish rhapsodies are +written down, but these letters of his, I gather, as I turn the pages, +grow after a while colder and fewer, and a chill fear that dare not be +penned creeps in among the words. + + "March 12th. Six weeks and no letter from Chris, and, oh dear! I am + so hungry for one, for the last I have almost kissed to pieces. I + suppose he will write more often when he gets to London. He is + working hard, I know, and it is selfish of me to expect him to write + more often, but I would sit up all night for a week rather than miss + writing to him. I suppose men are not like that. O God, help me, + help me, whatever happens! How foolish I am to-night! He was always + careless. I will punish him for it when he comes back, but not very + much." + +Truly enough a conventional story. + +Letters do come from him after that, but apparently they are less and +less satisfactory, for the diary grows angry and bitter, and the faded +writing is blotted at times with tears. Then towards the end of another +year there comes this entry, written in a hand of strange neatness and +precision:-- + + "It is all over now. I am glad it is finished. I have written to + him, giving him up. I have told him I have ceased to care for him, + and that it is better we should both be free. It is best that way. He + would have had to ask me to release him, and that would have given him + pain. He was always gentle. Now he will be able to marry her with an + easy conscience, and he need never know what I have suffered. She is + more fitted for him than I am. I hope he will be happy. I think I + have done the right thing." + +A few lines follow, left blank, and then the writing is resumed, but in a +stronger, more vehement hand. + + "Why do I lie to myself? I hate her! I would kill her if I could. I + hope she will make him wretched, and that he will come to hate her as + I do, and that she will die! Why did I let them persuade me to send + that lying letter? He will show it to her, and she will see through + it and laugh at me. I could have held him to his promise; he could + not have got out of it. + + "What do I care about dignity, and womanliness, and right, and all the + rest of the canting words! I want him. I want his kisses and his + arms about me. He is mine! He loved me once! I have only given him + up because I thought it a fine thing to play the saint. It is only an + acted lie. I would rather be evil, and he loved me. Why do I deceive + myself? I want him. I care for nothing else at the bottom of my + heart--his love, his kisses!" + +And towards the end. "My God, what am I saying? Have I no shame, no +strength? O God, help me!" + +* * * * * + +And there the diary closes. + +I looked among the letters lying between the pages of the book. Most of +them were signed simply "Chris." or "Christopher." But one gave his name +in full, and it was a name I know well as that of a famous man, whose +hand I have often shaken. I thought of his hard-featured, handsome wife, +and of his great chill place, half house, half exhibition, in Kensington, +filled constantly with its smart, chattering set, among whom he seemed +always to be the uninvited guest; of his weary face and bitter tongue. +And thinking thus there rose up before me the sweet, sad face of the +woman of the miniature, and, meeting her eyes as she smiled at me from +out of the shadows, I looked at her my wonder. + +I took the miniature from its shelf. There would be no harm now in +learning her name. So I stood with it in my hand till a little later my +landlady entered to lay the cloth. + +"I tumbled this out of your book-case," I said, "in reaching down some +books. It is someone I know, someone I have met, but I cannot think +where. Do you know who it is?" + +The woman took it from my hand, and a faint flush crossed her withered +face. "I had lost it," she answered. "I never thought of looking there. +It's a portrait of myself, painted years ago, by a friend." + +I looked from her to the miniature, as she stood among the shadows, with +the lamplight falling on her face, and saw her perhaps for the first +time. + +"How stupid of me," I answered. "Yes, I see the likeness now." + + + + +THE MAN WHO WOULD MANAGE + + +It has been told me by those in a position to know--and I can believe +it--that at nineteen months of age he wept because his grandmother would +not allow him to feed her with a spoon, and that at three and a half he +was fished, in an exhausted condition, out of the water-butt, whither he +had climbed for the purpose of teaching a frog to swim. + +Two years later he permanently injured his left eye, showing the cat how +to carry kittens without hurting them, and about the same period was +dangerously stung by a bee while conveying it from a flower where, as it +seemed to him, it was only wasting its time, to one more rich in honey- +making properties. + +His desire was always to help others. He would spend whole mornings +explaining to elderly hens how to hatch eggs, and would give up an +afternoon's black-berrying to sit at home and crack nuts for his pet +squirrel. Before he was seven he would argue with his mother upon the +management of children, and reprove his father for the way he was +bringing him up. + +As a child nothing could afford him greater delight than "minding" other +children, or them less. He would take upon himself this harassing duty +entirely of his own accord, without hope of reward or gratitude. It was +immaterial to him whether the other children were older than himself or +younger, stronger or weaker, whenever and wherever he found them he set +to work to "mind" them. Once, during a school treat, piteous cries were +heard coming from a distant part of the wood, and upon search being made, +he was discovered prone upon the ground, with a cousin of his, a boy +twice his own weight, sitting upon him and steadily whacking him. Having +rescued him, the teacher said: + +"Why don't you keep with the little boys? What are you doing along with +him?" + +"Please, sir," was the answer, "I was minding him." + +He would have "minded" Noah if he had got hold of him. + +He was a good-natured lad, and at school he was always willing for the +whole class to copy from his slate--indeed he would urge them to do so. +He meant it kindly, but inasmuch as his answers were invariably quite +wrong--with a distinctive and inimitable wrongness peculiar to +himself--the result to his followers was eminently unsatisfactory; and +with the shallowness of youth that, ignoring motives, judges solely from +results, they would wait for him outside and punch him. + +All his energies went to the instruction of others, leaving none for his +own purposes. He would take callow youths to his chambers and teach them +to box. + +"Now, try and hit me on the nose," he would say, standing before them in +an attitude of defence. "Don't be afraid. Hit as hard as ever you can." + +And they would do it. And so soon as he had recovered from his surprise, +and a little lessened the bleeding, he would explain to them how they had +done it all wrong, and how easily he could have stopped the blow if they +had only hit him properly. + +Twice at golf he lamed himself for over a week, showing a novice how to +"drive"; and at cricket on one occasion I remember seeing his middle +stump go down like a ninepin just as he was explaining to the bowler how +to get the balls in straight. After which he had a long argument with +the umpire as to whether he was in or out. + +He has been known, during a stormy Channel passage, to rush excitedly +upon the bridge in order to inform the captain that he had "just seen a +light about two miles away to the left"; and if he is on the top of an +omnibus he generally sits beside the driver, and points out to him the +various obstacles likely to impede their progress. + +It was upon an omnibus that my own personal acquaintanceship with him +began. I was sitting behind two ladies when the conductor came up to +collect fares. One of them handed him a sixpence telling him to take to +Piccadilly Circus, which was twopence. + +"No," said the other lady to her friend, handing the man a shilling, "I +owe you sixpence, you give me fourpence and I'll pay for the two." + +The conductor took the shilling, punched two twopenny tickets, and then +stood trying to think it out. + +"That's right," said the lady who had spoken last, "give my friend +fourpence." + +The conductor did so. + +"Now you give that fourpence to me." + +The friend handed it to her. + +"And you," she concluded to the conductor, "give me eightpence, then we +shall be all right." + +The conductor doled out to her the eightpence--the sixpence he had taken +from the first lady, with a penny and two halfpennies out of his own +bag--distrustfully, and retired, muttering something about his duties not +including those of a lightning calculator. + +"Now," said the elder lady to the younger, "I owe you a shilling." + +I deemed the incident closed, when suddenly a florid gentleman on the +opposite seat called out in stentorian tones:-- + +"Hi, conductor! you've cheated these ladies out of fourpence." + +"'Oo's cheated 'oo out 'o fourpence?" replied the indignant conductor +from the top of the steps, "it was a twopenny fare." + +"Two twopences don't make eightpence," retorted the florid gentleman +hotly. "How much did you give the fellow, my dear?" he asked, addressing +the first of the young ladies. + +"I gave him sixpence," replied the lady, examining her purse. "And then +I gave you fourpence, you know," she added, addressing her companion. + +"That's a dear two pen'oth," chimed in a common-looking man on the seat +behind. + +"Oh, that's impossible, dear," returned the other, "because I owed you +sixpence to begin with." + +"But I did," persisted the first lady. + +"You gave me a shilling," said the conductor, who had returned, pointing +an accusing forefinger at the elder of the ladies. + +The elder lady nodded. + +"And I gave you sixpence and two pennies, didn't I?" + +The lady admitted it. + +"An' I give 'er"--he pointed towards the younger lady--"fourpence, didn't +I?" + +"Which I gave you, you know, dear," remarked the younger lady. + +"Blow me if it ain't _me_ as 'as been cheated out of the fourpence," +cried the conductor. + +"But," said the florid gentleman, "the other lady gave you sixpence." + +"Which I give to 'er," replied the conductor, again pointing the finger +of accusation at the elder lady. "You can search my bag if yer like. I +ain't got a bloomin' sixpence on me." + +By this time everybody had forgotten what they had done, and contradicted +themselves and one another. The florid man took it upon himself to put +everybody right, with the result that before Piccadilly Circus was +reached three passengers had threatened to report the conductor for +unbecoming language. The conductor had called a policeman and had taken +the names and addresses of the two ladies, intending to sue them for the +fourpence (which they wanted to pay, but which the florid man would not +allow them to do); the younger lady had become convinced that the elder +lady had meant to cheat her, and the elder lady was in tears. + +The florid gentleman and myself continued to Charing Cross Station. At +the booking office window it transpired that we were bound for the same +suburb, and we journeyed down together. He talked about the fourpence +all the way. + +At my gate we shook hands, and he was good enough to express delight at +the discovery that we were near neighbours. What attracted him to myself +I failed to understand, for he had bored me considerably, and I had, to +the best of my ability, snubbed him. Subsequently I learned that it was +a peculiarity of his to be charmed with anyone who did not openly insult +him. + +Three days afterwards he burst into my study unannounced--he appeared to +regard himself as my bosom friend--and asked me to forgive him for not +having called sooner, which I did. + +"I met the postman as I was coming along," he said, handing me a blue +envelope, "and he gave me this, for you." + +I saw it was an application for the water-rate. + +"We must make a stand against this," he continued. "That's for water to +the 29th September. You've no right to pay it in June." + +I replied to the effect that water-rates had to be paid, and that it +seemed to me immaterial whether they were paid in June or September. + +"That's not it," he answered, "it's the principle of the thing. Why +should you pay for water you have never had? What right have they to +bully you into paying what you don't owe?" + +He was a fluent talker, and I was ass enough to listen to him. By the +end of half an hour he had persuaded me that the question was bound up +with the inalienable rights of man, and that if I paid that fourteen and +tenpence in June instead of in September, I should be unworthy of the +privileges my forefathers had fought and died to bestow upon me. + +He told me the company had not a leg to stand upon, and at his +instigation I sat down and wrote an insulting letter to the chairman. + +The secretary replied that, having regard to the attitude I had taken up, +it would be incumbent upon themselves to treat it as a test case, and +presumed that my solicitors would accept service on my behalf. + +When I showed him this letter he was delighted. + +"You leave it to me," he said, pocketing the correspondence, "and we'll +teach them a lesson." + +I left it to him. My only excuse is that at the time I was immersed in +the writing of what in those days was termed a comedy-drama. The little +sense I possessed must, I suppose, have been absorbed by the play. + +The magistrate's decision somewhat damped my ardour, but only inflamed +his zeal. Magistrates, he said, were muddle-headed old fogies. This was +a matter for a judge. + +The judge was a kindly old gentleman, and said that bearing in mind the +unsatisfactory wording of the sub-clause, he did not think he could allow +the company their costs, so that, all told, I got off for something under +fifty pounds, inclusive of the original fourteen and tenpence. + +Afterwards our friendship waned, but living as we did in the same +outlying suburb, I was bound to see a good deal of him; and to hear more. + +At parties of all kinds he was particularly prominent, and on such +occasions, being in his most good-natured mood, was most to be dreaded. +No human being worked harder for the enjoyment of others, or produced +more universal wretchedness. + +One Christmas afternoon, calling upon a friend, I found some fourteen or +fifteen elderly ladies and gentlemen trotting solemnly round a row of +chairs in the centre of the drawing-room while Poppleton played the +piano. Every now and then Poppleton would suddenly cease, and everyone +would drop wearily into the nearest chair, evidently glad of a rest; all +but one, who would thereupon creep quietly away, followed by the envying +looks of those left behind. I stood by the door watching the weird +scene. Presently an escaped player came towards me, and I enquired of +him what the ceremony was supposed to signify. + +"Don't ask me," he answered grumpily. "Some of Poppleton's damned +tomfoolery." Then he added savagely, "We've got to play forfeits after +this." + +The servant was still waiting a favourable opportunity to announce me. I +gave her a shilling not to, and got away unperceived. + +After a satisfactory dinner, he would suggest an impromptu dance, and +want you to roll up mats, or help him move the piano to the other end of +the room. + +He knew enough round games to have started a small purgatory of his own. +Just as you were in the middle of an interesting discussion, or a +delightful _tete-a-tete_ with a pretty woman, he would swoop down upon +you with: "Come along, we're going to play literary consequences," and +dragging you to the table, and putting a piece of paper and a pencil +before you, would tell you to write a description of your favourite +heroine in fiction, and would see that you did it. + +He never spared himself. It was always he who would volunteer to escort +the old ladies to the station, and who would never leave them until he +had seen them safely into the wrong train. He it was who would play +"wild beasts" with the children, and frighten them into fits that would +last all night. + +So far as intention went, he was the kindest man alive. He never visited +poor sick persons without taking with him in his pocket some little +delicacy calculated to disagree with them and make them worse. He +arranged yachting excursions for bad sailors, entirely at his own +expense, and seemed to regard their subsequent agonies as ingratitude. + +He loved to manage a wedding. Once he planned matters so that the bride +arrived at the altar three-quarters of an hour before the groom, which +led to unpleasantness upon a day that should have been filled only with +joy, and once he forgot the clergyman. But he was always ready to admit +when he made a mistake. + +At funerals, also, he was to the fore, pointing out to the grief-stricken +relatives how much better it was for all concerned that the corpse was +dead, and expressing a pious hope that they would soon join it. + +The chiefest delight of his life, however, was to be mixed up in other +people's domestic quarrels. No domestic quarrel for miles round was +complete without him. He generally came in as mediator, and finished as +leading witness for the appellant. + +As a journalist or politician his wonderful grasp of other people's +business would have won for him esteem. The error he made was working it +out in practice. + + + + +THE MAN WHO LIVED FOR OTHERS + + +The first time we met, to speak, he was sitting with his back against a +pollard willow, smoking a clay pipe. He smoked it very slowly, but very +conscientiously. After each whiff he removed the pipe from his mouth and +fanned away the smoke with his cap. + +"Feeling bad?" I asked from behind a tree, at the same time making ready +for a run, big boys' answers to small boys' impertinences being usually +of the nature of things best avoided. + +To my surprise and relief--for at second glance I perceived I had under- +estimated the length of his legs--he appeared to regard the question as a +natural and proper one, replying with unaffected candour, "Not yet." + +My desire became to comfort him--a sentiment I think he understood and +was grateful for. Advancing into the open, I sat down over against him, +and watched him for a while in silence. Presently he said:-- + +"Have you ever tried drinking beer?" + +I admitted I had not. + +"Oh, it is beastly stuff," he rejoined with an involuntary shudder. + +Rendered forgetful of present trouble by bitter recollection of the past, +he puffed away at his pipe carelessly and without judgment. + +"Do you often drink it?" I inquired. + +"Yes," he replied gloomily; "all we fellows in the fifth form drink beer +and smoke pipes." + +A deeper tinge of green spread itself over his face. + +He rose suddenly and made towards the hedge. Before he reached it, +however, he stopped and addressed me, but without turning round. + +"If you follow me, young 'un, or look, I'll punch your head," he said +swiftly, and disappeared with a gurgle. + +He left at the end of the term and I did not see him again until we were +both young men. Then one day I ran against him in Oxford Street, and he +asked me to come and spend a few days with his people in Surrey. + +I found him wan-looking and depressed, and every now and then he sighed. +During a walk across the common he cheered up considerably, but the +moment we got back to the house door he seemed to recollect himself, and +began to sigh again. He ate no dinner whatever, merely sipping a glass +of wine and crumbling a piece of bread. I was troubled at noticing this, +but his relatives--a maiden aunt, who kept house, two elder sisters, and +a weak-eyed female cousin who had left her husband behind her in +India--were evidently charmed. They glanced at each other, and nodded +and smiled. Once in a fit of abstraction he swallowed a bit of crust, +and immediately they all looked pained and surprised. + +In the drawing-room, under cover of a sentimental song, sung by the +female cousin, I questioned his aunt on the subject. + +"What's the matter with him?" I said. "Is he ill?" + +The old lady chuckled. + +"You'll be like that one day," she whispered gleefully. + +"When," I asked, not unnaturally alarmed. + +"When you're in love," she answered. + +"Is _he_ in love?" I inquired after a pause. + +"Can't you see he is?" she replied somewhat scornfully. + +I was a young man, and interested in the question. + +"Won't he ever eat any dinner till he's got over it?" I asked. + +She looked round sharply at me, but apparently decided that I was only +foolish. + +"You wait till your time comes," she answered, shaking her curls at me. +"You won't care much about your dinner--not if you are _really_ in love." + +In the night, about half-past eleven, I heard, as I thought, footsteps in +the passage, and creeping to the door and opening it I saw the figure of +my friend in dressing-gown and slippers, vanishing down the stairs. My +idea was that, his brain weakened by trouble, he had developed +sleep-walking tendencies. Partly out of curiosity, partly to watch over +him, I slipped on a pair of trousers and followed him. + +He placed his candle on the kitchen table and made a bee-line for the +pantry door, from where he subsequently emerged with two pounds of cold +beef on a plate and about a quart of beer in a jug; and I came away, +leaving him fumbling for pickles. + +I assisted at his wedding, where it seemed to me he endeavoured to +display more ecstasy than it was possible for any human being to feel; +and fifteen months later, happening to catch sight of an advertisement in +the births column of _The Times_, I called on my way home from the City +to congratulate him. He was pacing up and down the passage with his hat +on, pausing at intervals to partake of an uninviting-looking meal, +consisting of a cold mutton chop and a glass of lemonade, spread out upon +a chair. Seeing that the cook and the housemaid were wandering about the +house evidently bored for want of something to do, and that the dining- +room, where he would have been much more out of the way, was empty and +quite in order, I failed at first to understand the reason for his +deliberate choice of discomfort. I, however, kept my reflections to +myself, and inquired after the mother and child. + +"Couldn't be better," he replied with a groan. "The doctor said he'd +never had a more satisfactory case in all his experience." + +"Oh, I'm glad to hear that," I answered; "I was afraid you'd been +worrying yourself." + +"Worried!" he exclaimed. "My dear boy, I don't know whether I'm standing +on my head or my heels" (he gave one that idea). "This is the first +morsel of food that's passed my lips for twenty-four hours." + +At this moment the nurse appeared at the top of the stairs. He flew +towards her, upsetting the lemonade in his excitement. + +"What is it?" he asked hoarsely. "Is it all right?" + +The old lady glanced from him to his cold chop, and smiled approvingly. + +"They're doing splendidly," she answered, patting him on the shoulder in +a motherly fashion. "Don't you worry." + +"I can't help it, Mrs. Jobson," he replied, sitting down upon the bottom +stair, and leaning his head against the banisters. + +"Of course you can't," said Mrs. Jobson admiringly; "and you wouldn't be +much of a man if you could." Then it was borne in upon me why he wore +his hat, and dined off cold chops in the passage. + +The following summer they rented a picturesque old house in Berkshire, +and invited me down from a Saturday to Monday. Their place was near the +river, so I slipped a suit of flannels in my bag, and on the Sunday +morning I came down in them. He met me in the garden. He was dressed in +a frock coat and a white waistcoat; and I noticed that he kept looking at +me out of the corner of his eye, and that he seemed to have a trouble on +his mind. The first breakfast bell rang, and then he said, "You haven't +got any proper clothes with you, have you?" + +"Proper clothes!" I exclaimed, stopping in some alarm. "Why, has +anything given way?" + +"No, not that," he explained. "I mean clothes to go to church in." + +"Church," I said. "You're surely not going to church a fine day like +this? I made sure you'd be playing tennis, or going on the river. You +always used to." + +"Yes," he replied, nervously flicking a rose-bush with a twig he had +picked up. "You see, it isn't ourselves exactly. Maud and I would +rather like to, but our cook, she's Scotch, and a little strict in her +notions." + +"And does she insist on your going to church every Sunday morning?" I +inquired. + +"Well," he answered, "she thinks it strange if we don't, and so we +generally do, just in the morning--and evening. And then in the +afternoon a few of the village girls drop in, and we have a little +singing and that sort of thing. I never like hurting anyone's feelings +if I can help it." + +I did not say what I thought. Instead I said, "I've got that tweed suit +I wore yesterday. I can put that on if you like." + +He ceased flicking the rose-bush, and knitted his brows. He seemed to be +recalling it to his imagination. + +"No," he said, shaking his head, "I'm afraid it would shock her. It's my +fault, I know," he added, remorsefully. "I ought to have told you." + +Then an idea came to him. + +"I suppose," he said, "you wouldn't care to pretend you were ill, and +stop in bed just for the day?" + +I explained that my conscience would not permit my being a party to such +deception + +"No, I thought you wouldn't," he replied. "I must explain it to her. I +think I'll say you've lost your bag. I shouldn't like her to think bad +of us." + +Later on a fourteenth cousin died, leaving him a large fortune. He +purchased an estate in Yorkshire, and became a "county family," and then +his real troubles began. + +From May to the middle of August, save for a little fly fishing, which +generally resulted in his getting his feet wet and catching a cold, life +was fairly peaceful; but from early autumn to late spring he found the +work decidedly trying. He was a stout man, constitutionally nervous of +fire-arms, and a six-hours' tramp with a heavy gun across ploughed +fields, in company with a crowd of careless persons who kept blazing away +within an inch of other people's noses, harassed and exhausted him. He +had to get out of bed at four on chilly October mornings to go +cub-hunting, and twice a week throughout the winter--except when a +blessed frost brought him a brief respite--he had to ride to hounds. That +he usually got off with nothing more serious than mere bruises and slight +concussions of the spine, he probably owed to the fortunate circumstances +of his being little and fat. At stiff timber he shut his eyes and rode +hard; and ten yards from a river he would begin to think about bridges. + +Yet he never complained. + +"If you are a country gentleman," he would say, "you must behave as a +country gentleman, and take the rough with the smooth." + +As ill fate would have it a chance speculation doubled his fortune, and +it became necessary that he should go into Parliament and start a yacht. +Parliament made his head ache, and the yacht made him sick. +Notwithstanding, every summer he would fill it with a lot of expensive +people who bored him, and sail away for a month's misery in the +Mediterranean. + +During one cruise his guests built up a highly-interesting gambling +scandal. He himself was confined to his cabin at the time, and knew +nothing about it; but the Opposition papers, getting hold of the story, +referred casually to the yacht as a "floating hell," and _The Police +News_ awarded his portrait the place of honour as the chief criminal of +the week. + +Later on he got into a cultured set, ruled by a thick-lipped +undergraduate. His favourite literature had hitherto been of the Corelli +and _Tit-Bits_ order, but now he read Meredith and the yellow book, and +tried to understand them; and instead of the Gaiety, he subscribed to the +Independent Theatre, and fed "his soul," on Dutch Shakespeares. What he +liked in art was a pretty girl by a cottage-door with an eligible young +man in the background, or a child and a dog doing something funny. They +told him these things were wrong and made him buy "Impressions" that +stirred his liver to its deepest depths every time he looked at +them--green cows on red hills by pink moonlight, or scarlet-haired +corpses with three feet of neck. + +He said meekly that such seemed to him unnatural, but they answered that +nature had nothing to do with the question; that the artist saw things +like that, and that whatever an artist saw--no matter in what condition +he may have been when he saw it--that was art. + +They took him to Wagner festivals and Burne-Jones's private views. They +read him all the minor poets. They booked seats for him at all Ibsen's +plays. They introduced him into all the most soulful circles of artistic +society. His days were one long feast of other people's enjoyments. + +One morning I met him coming down the steps of the Arts Club. He looked +weary. He was just off to a private view at the New Gallery. In the +afternoon he had to attend an amateur performance of "The Cenci," given +by the Shelley Society. Then followed three literary and artistic At +Homes, a dinner with an Indian nabob who couldn't speak a word of +English, "Tristam and Isolde" at Covent Garden Theatre, and a ball at +Lord Salisbury's to wind up the day. + +I laid my hand upon his shoulder. + +"Come with me to Epping Forest," I said. "There's a four-horse brake +starts from Charing Cross at eleven. It's Saturday, and there's bound to +be a crowd down there. I'll play you a game of skittles, and we will +have a shy at the cocoa-nuts. You used to be rather smart at cocoa-nuts. +We can have lunch there and be back at seven, dine at the Troc., spend +the evening at the Empire, and sup at the Savoy. What do you say?" + +He stood hesitating on the steps, a wistful look in his eyes. + +His brougham drew up against the curb, and he started as if from a dream. + +"My dear fellow," he replied, "what would people say?" And shaking me by +the hand, he took his seat, and the footman slammed the door upon him. + + + + +A MAN OF HABIT + + +There were three of us in the smoke-room of the _Alexandra_--a very good +friend of mine, myself, and, in the opposite corner, a shy-looking, +unobtrusive man, the editor, as we subsequently learned, of a New York +Sunday paper. + +My friend and I were discussing habits, good and bad. + +"After the first few months," said my friend, "it is no more effort for a +man to be a saint than to be a sinner; it becomes a mere matter of +habit." + +"I know," I interrupted, "it is every whit as easy to spring out of bed +the instant you are called as to say 'All Right,' and turn over for just +another five minutes' snooze, when you have got into the way of it. It +is no more trouble not to swear than to swear, if you make a custom of +it. Toast and water is as delicious as champagne, when you have acquired +the taste for it. Things are also just as easy the other way about. It +is a mere question of making your choice and sticking to it." + +He agreed with me. + +"Now take these cigars of mine," he said, pushing his open case towards +me. + +"Thank you," I replied hurriedly, "I'm not smoking this passage." + +"Don't be alarmed," he answered, "I meant merely as an argument. Now one +of these would make you wretched for a week." + +I admitted his premise. + +"Very well," he continued. "Now I, as you know, smoke them all day long, +and enjoy them. Why? Because I have got into the habit. Years ago, +when I was a young man, I smoked expensive Havanas. I found that I was +ruining myself. It was absolutely necessary that I should take a cheaper +weed. I was living in Belgium at the time, and a friend showed me these. +I don't know what they are--probably cabbage leaves soaked in guano; they +tasted to me like that at first--but they were cheap. Buying them by the +five hundred, they cost me three a penny. I determined to like them, and +started with one a day. It was terrible work, I admit, but as I said to +myself, nothing could be worse than the Havanas themselves had been in +the beginning. Smoking is an acquired taste, and it must be as easy to +learn to like one flavour as another. I persevered and I conquered. +Before the year was over I could think of them without loathing, at the +end of two I could smoke them without positive discomfort. Now I prefer +them to any other brand on the market. Indeed, a good cigar disagrees +with me." + +I suggested it might have been less painful to have given up smoking +altogether. + +"I did think of it," he replied, "but a man who doesn't smoke always +seems to me bad company. There is something very sociable about smoke." + +He leant back and puffed great clouds into the air, filling the small den +with an odour suggestive of bilge water and cemeteries. + +"Then again," he resumed after a pause, "take my claret. No, you don't +like it." (I had not spoken, but my face had evidently betrayed me.) +"Nobody does, at least no one I have ever met. Three years ago, when I +was living in Hammersmith, we caught two burglars with it. They broke +open the sideboard, and swallowed five bottlefuls between them. A +policeman found them afterwards, sitting on a doorstep a hundred yards +off, the 'swag' beside them in a carpet bag. They were too ill to offer +any resistance, and went to the station like lambs, he promising to send +the doctor to them the moment they were safe in the cells. Ever since +then I have left out a decanterful upon the table every night. + +"Well, I like that claret, and it does me good. I come in sometimes dead +beat. I drink a couple of glasses, and I'm a new man. I took to it in +the first instance for the same reason that I took to the cigars--it was +cheap. I have it sent over direct from Geneva, and it costs me six +shillings a dozen. How they do it I don't know. I don't want to know. +As you may remember, it's fairly heady and there's body in it. + +"I knew one man," he continued, "who had a regular Mrs. Caudle of a wife. +All day long she talked to him, or at him, or of him, and at night he +fell asleep to the rising and falling rhythm of what she thought about +him. At last she died, and his friends congratulated him, telling him +that now he would enjoy peace. But it was the peace of the desert, and +the man did not enjoy it. For two-and-twenty years her voice had filled +the house, penetrated through the conservatory, and floated in faint +shrilly waves of sound round the garden, and out into the road beyond. +The silence now pervading everywhere frightened and disturbed him. The +place was no longer home to him. He missed the breezy morning insult, +the long winter evening's reproaches beside the flickering fire. At +night he could not sleep. For hours he would lie tossing restlessly, his +ears aching for the accustomed soothing flow of invective. + +"'Ah!' he would cry bitterly to himself, 'it is the old story, we never +know the value of a thing until we have lost it.' + +"He grew ill. The doctors dosed him with sleeping draughts in vain. At +last they told him bluntly that his life depended upon his finding +another wife, able and willing to nag him to sleep. + +"There were plenty of wives of the type he wanted in the neighbourhood, +but the unmarried women were, of necessity, inexperienced, and his health +was such that he could not afford the time to train them. + +"Fortunately, just as despair was about to take possession of him, a man +died in the next parish, literally talked to death, the gossip said, by +his wife. He obtained an introduction, and called upon her the day after +the funeral. She was a cantankerous old woman, and the wooing was a +harassing affair, but his heart was in his work, and before six months +were gone he had won her for his own. + +"She proved, however, but a poor substitute. The spirit was willing but +the flesh was weak. She had neither that command of language nor of wind +that had distinguished her rival. From his favourite seat at the bottom +of the garden he could not hear her at all, so he had his chair brought +up into the conservatory. It was all right for him there so long as she +continued to abuse him; but every now and again, just as he was getting +comfortably settled down with his pipe and his newspaper, she would +suddenly stop. + +"He would drop his paper and sit listening, with a troubled, anxious +expression. + +"'Are you there, dear?' he would call out after a while. + +"'Yes, I'm here. Where do you think I am you old fool?' she would gasp +back in an exhausted voice. + +"His face would brighten at the sound of her words. 'Go on, dear,' he +would answer. 'I'm listening. I like to hear you talk.' + +"But the poor woman was utterly pumped out, and had not so much as a +snort left. + +"Then he would shake his head sadly. 'No, she hasn't poor dear Susan's +flow,' he would say. 'Ah! what a woman that was!' + +"At night she would do her best, but it was a lame and halting +performance by comparison. After rating him for little over +three-quarters of an hour, she would sink back on the pillow, and want to +go to sleep. But he would shake her gently by the shoulder. + +"'Yes, dear,' he would say, 'you were speaking about Jane, and the way I +kept looking at her during lunch.' + +"It's extraordinary," concluded my friend, lighting a fresh cigar, "what +creatures of habit we are." + +"Very," I replied. "I knew a man who told tall stories till when he told +a true one nobody believed it." + +"Ah, that was a very sad case," said my friend. + +"Speaking of habit," said the unobtrusive man in the corner, "I can tell +you a true story that I'll bet my bottom dollar you won't believe." + +"Haven't got a bottom dollar, but I'll bet you half a sovereign I do," +replied my friend, who was of a sporting turn. "Who shall be judge?" + +"I'll take your word for it," said the unobtrusive man, and started +straight away. + +* * * * * + +"He was a Jefferson man, this man I'm going to tell you of," he begun. +"He was born in the town, and for forty-seven years he never slept a +night outside it. He was a most respectable man--a drysalter from nine +to four, and a Presbyterian in his leisure moments. He said that a good +life merely meant good habits. He rose at seven, had family prayer at +seven-thirty, breakfasted at eight, got to his business at nine, had his +horse brought round to the office at four, and rode for an hour, reached +home at five, had a bath and a cup of tea, played with and read to the +children (he was a domesticated man) till half-past six, dressed and +dined at seven, went round to the club and played whist till quarter +after ten, home again to evening prayer at ten-thirty, and bed at eleven. +For five-and-twenty years he lived that life with never a variation. It +worked into his system and became mechanical. The church clocks were set +by him. He was used by the local astronomers to check the sun. + +"One day a distant connection of his in London, an East Indian Merchant +and an ex-Lord Mayor died, leaving him sole legatee and executor. The +business was a complicated one and needed management. He determined to +leave his son by his first wife, now a young man of twenty-four, in +charge at Jefferson, and to establish himself with his second family in +England, and look after the East Indian business. + +"He set out from Jefferson City on October the fourth, and arrived in +London on the seventeenth. He had been ill during the whole of the +voyage, and he reached the furnished house he had hired in Bayswater +somewhat of a wreck. A couple of days in bed, however, pulled him round, +and on the Wednesday evening he announced his intention of going into the +City the next day to see to his affairs. + +"On the Thursday morning he awoke at one o'clock. His wife told him she +had not disturbed him, thinking the sleep would do him good. He admitted +that perhaps it had. Anyhow, he felt very well, and he got up and +dressed himself. He said he did not like the idea of beginning his first +day by neglecting a religious duty, and his wife agreeing with him, they +assembled the servants and the children in the dining-room, and had +family prayer at half-past one. After which he breakfasted and set off, +reaching the City about three. + +"His reputation for punctuality had preceded him, and surprise was +everywhere expressed at his late arrival. He explained the +circumstances, however, and made his appointments for the following day +to commence from nine-thirty. + +"He remained at the office until late, and then went home. For dinner, +usually the chief meal of the day, he could manage to eat only a biscuit +and some fruit. He attributed his loss of appetite to want of his +customary ride. He was strangely unsettled all the evening. He said he +supposed he missed his game of whist, and determined to look about him +without loss of time for some quiet, respectable club. At eleven he +retired with his wife to bed, but could not sleep. He tossed and turned, +and turned and tossed, but grew only more and more wakeful and energetic. +A little after midnight an overpowering desire seized him to go and wish +the children good-night. He slipped on a dressing-gown and stole into +the nursery. He did not intend it, but the opening of the door awoke +them, and he was glad. He wrapped them up in the quilt, and, sitting on +the edge of the bed, told them moral stories till one o'clock. + +"Then he kissed them, bidding them be good and go to sleep; and finding +himself painfully hungry, crept downstairs, where in the back kitchen he +made a hearty meal off cold game pie and cucumber. + +"He retired to bed feeling more peaceful, yet still could not sleep, so +lay thinking about his business affairs till five, when he dropped off. + +"At one o'clock to the minute he awoke. His wife told him she had made +every endeavour to rouse him, but in vain. The man was vexed and +irritated. If he had not been a very good man indeed, I believe he would +have sworn. The same programme was repeated as on the Thursday, and +again he reached the City at three. + +"This state of things went on for a month. The man fought against +himself, but was unable to alter himself. Every morning, or rather every +afternoon at one he awoke. Every night at one he crept down into the +kitchen and foraged for food. Every morning at five he fell asleep. + +"He could not understand it, nobody could understand it. The doctor +treated him for water on the brain, hypnotic irresponsibility and +hereditary lunacy. Meanwhile his business suffered, and his health grew +worse. He seemed to be living upside down. His days seemed to have +neither beginning nor end, but to be all middle. There was no time for +exercise or recreation. When he began to feel cheerful and sociable +everybody else was asleep. + +"One day by chance the explanation came. His eldest daughter was +preparing her home studies after dinner. + +"'What time is it now in New York?' she asked, looking up from her +geography book. + +"'New York,' said her father, glancing at his watch, 'let me see. It's +just ten now, and there's a little over four and a half hours' +difference. Oh, about half-past five in the afternoon.' + +"'Then in Jefferson,' said the mother, 'it would be still earlier, +wouldn't it?' + +"'Yes,' replied the girl, examining the map, 'Jefferson is nearly two +degrees further west.' + +"'Two degrees,' mused the father, 'and there's forty minutes to a degree. +That would make it now, at the present moment in Jefferson--' + +"He leaped to his feet with a cry: + +"'I've got it!' he shouted, 'I see it.' + +"'See what?' asked his wife, alarmed. + +"'Why, it's four o'clock in Jefferson, and just time for my ride. That's +what I'm wanting.' + +"There could be no doubt about it. For five-and-twenty years he had +lived by clockwork. But it was by Jefferson clockwork, not London +clockwork. He had changed his longitude, but not himself. The habits of +a quarter of a century were not to be shifted at the bidding of the sun. + +"He examined the problem in all its bearings, and decided that the only +solution was for him to return to the order of his old life. He saw the +difficulties in his way, but they were less than those he was at present +encountering. He was too formed by habit to adapt himself to +circumstances. Circumstances must adapt themselves to him. + +"He fixed his office hours from three till ten, leaving himself at half- +past nine. At ten he mounted his horse and went for a canter in the Row, +and on very dark nights he carried a lantern. News of it got abroad, and +crowds would assemble to see him ride past. + +"He dined at one o'clock in the morning, and afterwards strolled down to +his club. He had tried to discover a quiet, respectable club where the +members were willing to play whist till four in the morning, but failing, +had been compelled to join a small Soho gambling-hell, where they taught +him poker. The place was occasionally raided by the police, but thanks +to his respectable appearance, he generally managed to escape. + +"At half-past four he returned home, and woke up the family for evening +prayers. At five he went to bed and slept like a top. + +"The City chaffed him, and Bayswater shook its head over him, but that he +did not mind. The only thing that really troubled him was loss of +spiritual communion. At five o'clock on Sunday afternoons he felt he +wanted chapel, but had to do without it. At seven he ate his simple mid- +day meal. At eleven he had tea and muffins, and at midnight he began to +crave again for hymns and sermons. At three he had a bread-and-cheese +supper, and retired early at four a.m., feeling sad and unsatisfied. + +"He was essentially a man of habit." + +* * * * * + +The unobtrusive stranger ceased, and we sat gazing in silence at the +ceiling. + +At length my friend rose, and taking half-a-sovereign from his pocket, +laid it upon the table, and linking his arm in mine went out with me upon +the deck. + + + + +THE ABSENT-MINDED MAN + + +You ask him to dine with you on Thursday to meet a few people who are +anxious to know him. + +"Now don't make a muddle of it," you say, recollectful of former mishaps, +"and come on the Wednesday." + +He laughs good-naturedly as he hunts through the room for his diary. + +"Shan't be able to come Wednesday," he says, "shall be at the Mansion +House, sketching dresses, and on Friday I start for Scotland, so as to be +at the opening of the Exhibition on Saturday. It's bound to be all right +this time. Where the deuce is that diary! Never mind, I'll make a note +of it on this--you can see me do it." + +You stand over him while he writes the appointment down on a sheet of +foolscap, and watch him pin it up over his desk. Then you come away +contented. + +"I do hope he'll turn up," you say to your wife on the Thursday evening, +while dressing. + +"Are you sure you made it clear to him?" she replies, suspiciously, and +you instinctively feel that whatever happens she is going to blame you +for it. + +Eight o'clock arrives, and with it the other guests. At half-past eight +your wife is beckoned mysteriously out of the room, where the parlour- +maid informs her that the cook has expressed a determination, in case of +further delay, to wash her hands, figuratively speaking, of the whole +affair. + +Your wife, returning, suggests that if the dinner is to be eaten at all +it had better be begun. She evidently considers that in pretending to +expect him you have been merely playing a part, and that it would have +been manlier and more straightforward for you to have admitted at the +beginning that you had forgotten to invite him. + +During the soup and the fish you recount anecdotes of his unpunctuality. +By the time the _entree_ arrives the empty chair has begun to cast a +gloom over the dinner, and with the joint the conversation drifts into +talk about dead relatives. + +On Friday, at a quarter past eight, he dashes to the door and rings +violently. Hearing his voice in the hall, you go to meet him. + +"Sorry I'm late," he sings out cheerily. "Fool of a cabman took me to +Alfred Place instead of--" + +"Well, what do you want now you are come?" you interrupt, feeling +anything but genially inclined towards him. He is an old friend, so you +can be rude to him. + +He laughs, and slaps you on the shoulder. + +"Why, my dinner, my dear boy, I'm starving." + +"Oh," you grunt in reply. "Well, you go and get it somewhere else, then. +You're not going to have it here." + +"What the devil do you mean?" he says. "You asked me to dinner." + +"I did nothing of the kind," you tell him. "I asked you to dinner on +Thursday, not on Friday." + +He stares at you incredulously. + +"How did I get Friday fixed in my mind?" inquiringly. + +"Because yours is the sort of mind that would get Friday firmly fixed +into it, when Thursday was the day," you explain. "I thought you had to +be off to Edinburgh to-night," you add. + +"Great Scott!" he cries, "so I have." + +And without another word he dashes out, and you hear him rushing down the +road, shouting for the cab he has just dismissed. + +As you return to your study you reflect that he will have to travel all +the way to Scotland in evening dress, and will have to send out the hotel +porter in the morning to buy him a suit of ready-made clothes, and are +glad. + +Matters work out still more awkwardly when it is he who is the host. I +remember being with him on his house-boat one day. It was a little after +twelve, and we were sitting on the edge of the boat, dangling our feet in +the river--the spot was a lonely one, half-way between Wallingford and +Day's Lock. Suddenly round the bend appeared two skiffs, each one +containing six elaborately-dressed persons. As soon as they caught sight +of us they began waving handkerchiefs and parasols. + +"Hullo!" I said, "here's some people hailing you." + +"Oh, they all do that about here," he answered, without looking up. "Some +beanfeast from Abingdon, I expect." + +The boats draw nearer. When about two hundred yards off an elderly +gentleman raised himself up in the prow of the leading one and shouted to +us. + +McQuae heard his voice, and gave a start that all but pitched him into +the water. + +"Good God!" he cried, "I'd forgotten all about it." + +"About what?" I asked. + +"Why, it's the Palmers and the Grahams and the Hendersons. I've asked +them all over to lunch, and there's not a blessed thing on board but two +mutton chops and a pound of potatoes, and I've given the boy a holiday." + +Another day I was lunching with him at the Junior Hogarth, when a man +named Hallyard, a mutual friend, strolled across to us. + +"What are you fellows going to do this afternoon?" he asked, seating +himself the opposite side of the table. + +"I'm going to stop here and write letters," I answered. + +"Come with me if you want something to do," said McQuae. "I'm going to +drive Leena down to Richmond." ("Leena" was the young lady he +recollected being engaged to. It transpired afterwards that he was +engaged to three girls at the time. The other two he had forgotten all +about.) "It's a roomy seat at the back." + +"Oh, all right," said Hallyard, and they went away together in a hansom. + +An hour and a half later Hallyard walked into the smoking-room looking +depressed and worn, and flung himself into a chair. + +"I thought you were going to Richmond with McQuae," I said. + +"So did I," he answered. + +"Had an accident?" I asked. + +"Yes." + +He was decidedly curt in his replies. + +"Cart upset?" I continued. + +"No, only me." + +His grammar and his nerves seemed thoroughly shaken. + +I waited for an explanation, and after a while he gave it. + +"We got to Putney," he said, "with just an occasional run into a tram- +car, and were going up the hill, when suddenly he turned a corner. You +know his style at a corner--over the curb, across the road, and into the +opposite lamp-post. Of course, as a rule one is prepared for it, but I +never reckoned on his turning up there, and the first thing I recollect +is finding myself sitting in the middle of the street with a dozen fools +grinning at me. + +"It takes a man a few minutes in such a case to think where he is and +what has happened, and when I got up they were some distance away. I ran +after them for a quarter of a mile, shouting at the top of my voice, and +accompanied by a mob of boys, all yelling like hell on a Bank Holiday. +But one might as well have tried to hail the dead, so I took the 'bus +back. + +"They might have guessed what had happened," he added, "by the shifting +of the cart, if they'd had any sense. I'm not a light-weight." + +He complained of soreness, and said he would go home. I suggested a cab, +but he replied that he would rather walk. + +I met McQuae in the evening at the St. James's Theatre. It was a first +night, and he was taking sketches for _The Graphic_. The moment he saw +me he made his way across to me. + +"The very man I wanted to see," he said. "Did I take Hallyard with me in +the cart to Richmond this afternoon?" + +"You did," I replied. + +"So Leena says," he answered, greatly bewildered, "but I'll swear he +wasn't there when we got to the Queen's Hotel." + +"It's all right," I said, "you dropped him at Putney." + +"Dropped him at Putney!" he repeated. "I've no recollection of doing +so." + +"He has," I answered. "You ask him about it. He's full of it." + +Everybody said he never would get married; that it was absurd to suppose +he ever would remember the day, the church, and the girl, all in one +morning; that if he did get as far as the altar he would forget what he +had come for, and would give the bride away to his own best man. Hallyard +had an idea that he was already married, but that the fact had slipped +his memory. I myself felt sure that if he did marry he would forget all +about it the next day. + +But everybody was wrong. By some miraculous means the ceremony got +itself accomplished, so that if Hallyard's idea be correct (as to which +there is every possibility), there will be trouble. As for my own fears, +I dismissed them the moment I saw the lady. She was a charming, cheerful +little woman, but did not look the type that would let him forget all +about it. + +I had not seen him since his marriage, which had happened in the spring. +Working my way back from Scotland by easy stages, I stopped for a few +days at Scarboro'. After _table d'hote_ I put on my mackintosh, and went +out for a walk. It was raining hard, but after a month in Scotland one +does not notice English weather, and I wanted some air. Struggling along +the dark beach with my head against the wind, I stumbled over a crouching +figure, seeking to shelter itself a little from the storm under the lee +of the Spa wall. + +I expected it to swear at me, but it seemed too broken-spirited to mind +anything. + +"I beg your pardon," I said. "I did not see you." + +At the sound of my voice it started to its feet. + +"Is that you, old man?" it cried. + +"McQuae!" I exclaimed. + +"By Jove!" he said, "I was never so glad to see a man in all my life +before." + +And he nearly shook my hand off. + +"But what in thunder!" I said, "are you doing here? Why, you're drenched +to the skin." + +He was dressed in flannels and a tennis-coat. + +"Yes," he answered. "I never thought it would rain. It was a lovely +morning." + +I began to fear he had overworked himself into a brain fever. + +"Why don't you go home?" I asked. + +"I can't," he replied. "I don't know where I live. I've forgotten the +address." + +"For heaven's sake," he said, "take me somewhere, and give me something +to eat. I'm literally starving." + +"Haven't you any money?" I asked him, as we turned towards the hotel. + +"Not a sou," he answered. "We got in here from York, the wife and I, +about eleven. We left our things at the station, and started to hunt for +apartments. As soon as we were fixed, I changed my clothes and came out +for a walk, telling Maud I should be back at one to lunch. Like a fool, +I never took the address, and never noticed the way I was going. + +"It's an awful business," he continued. "I don't see how I'm ever going +to find her. I hoped she might stroll down to the Spa in the evening, +and I've been hanging about the gates ever since six. I hadn't the +threepence to go in." + +"But have you no notion of the sort of street or the kind of house it +was?" I enquired. + +"Not a ghost," he replied. "I left it all to Maud, and didn't trouble." + +"Have you tried any of the lodging-houses?" I asked. + +"Tried!" he exclaimed bitterly. "I've been knocking at doors, and asking +if Mrs. McQuae lives there steadily all the afternoon, and they slam the +door in my face, mostly without answering. I told a policeman--I thought +perhaps he might suggest something--but the idiot only burst out +laughing, and that made me so mad that I gave him a black eye, and had to +cut. I expect they're on the lookout for me now." + +"I went into a restaurant," he continued gloomily, "and tried to get them +to trust me for a steak. But the proprietress said she'd heard that tale +before, and ordered me out before all the other customers. I think I'd +have drowned myself if you hadn't turned up." + +After a change of clothes and some supper, he discussed the case more +calmly, but it was really a serious affair. They had shut up their flat, +and his wife's relatives were travelling abroad. There was no one to +whom he could send a letter to be forwarded; there was no one with whom +she would be likely to communicate. Their chance of meeting again in +this world appeared remote. + +Nor did it seem to me--fond as he was of his wife, and anxious as he +undoubtedly was to recover her--that he looked forward to the actual +meeting, should it ever arrive, with any too pleasurable anticipation. + +"She will think it strange," he murmured reflectively, sitting on the +edge of the bed, and thoughtfully pulling off his socks. "She is sure to +think it strange." + +The following day, which was Wednesday, we went to a solicitor, and laid +the case before him, and he instituted inquiries among all the lodging- +house keepers in Scarborough, with the result that on Thursday afternoon +McQuae was restored (after the manner of an Adelphi hero in the last act) +to his home and wife. + +I asked him next time I met him what she had said. + +"Oh, much what I expected," he replied. + +But he never told me what he had expected. + + + + +A CHARMING WOMAN + + +"Not _the Mr. ---_, _really_?" + +In her deep brown eyes there lurked pleased surprise, struggling with +wonder. She looked from myself to the friend who introduced us with a +bewitching smile of incredulity, tempered by hope. + +He assured her, adding laughingly, "The only genuine and original," and +left us. + +"I've always thought of you as a staid, middle-aged man," she said, with +a delicious little laugh, then added in low soft tones, "I'm so very +pleased to meet you, really." + +The words were conventional, but her voice crept round one like a warm +caress. + +"Come and talk to me," she said, seating herself upon a small settee, and +making room for me. + +I sat down awkwardly beside her, my head buzzing just a little, as with +one glass too many of champagne. I was in my literary childhood. One +small book and a few essays and criticisms, scattered through various +obscure periodicals had been as yet my only contributions to current +literature. The sudden discovery that I was the Mr. Anybody, and that +charming women thought of me, and were delighted to meet me, was a brain- +disturbing thought. + +"And it was really you who wrote that clever book?" she continued, "and +all those brilliant things, in the magazines and journals. Oh, it must +be delightful to be clever." + +She gave breath to a little sigh of vain regret that went to my heart. To +console her I commenced a laboured compliment, but she stopped me with +her fan. On after reflection I was glad she had--it would have been one +of those things better expressed otherwise. + +"I know what you are going to say," she laughed, "but don't. Besides, +from you I should not know quite how to take it. You can be so +satirical." + +I tried to look as though I could be, but in her case would not. + +She let her ungloved hand rest for an instant upon mine. Had she left it +there for two, I should have gone down on my knees before her, or have +stood on my head at her feet--have made a fool of myself in some way or +another before the whole room full. She timed it to a nicety. + +"I don't want _you_ to pay me compliments," she said, "I want us to be +friends. Of course, in years, I'm old enough to be your mother." (By +the register I should say she might have been thirty-two, but looked +twenty-six. I was twenty-three, and I fear foolish for my age.) "But +you know the world, and you're so different to the other people one +meets. Society is so hollow and artificial; don't you find it so? You +don't know how I long sometimes to get away from it, to know someone to +whom I could show my real self, who would understand me. You'll come and +see me sometimes--I'm always at home on Wednesdays--and let me talk to +you, won't you, and you must tell me all your clever thoughts." + +It occurred to me that, maybe, she would like to hear a few of them there +and then, but before I had got well started a hollow Society man came up +and suggested supper, and she was compelled to leave me. As she +disappeared, however, in the throng, she looked back over her shoulder +with a glance half pathetic, half comic, that I understood. It said, +"Pity me, I've got to be bored by this vapid, shallow creature," and I +did. + +I sought her through all the rooms before I went. I wished to assure her +of my sympathy and support. I learned, however, from the butler that she +had left early, in company with the hollow Society man. + +A fortnight later I ran against a young literary friend in Regent Street, +and we lunched together at the Monico. + +"I met such a charming woman last night," he said, "a Mrs. Clifton +Courtenay, a delightful woman." + +"Oh, do _you_ know her?" I exclaimed. "Oh, we're very old friends. She's +always wanting me to go and see her. I really must." + +"Oh, I didn't know _you_ knew her," he answered. Somehow, the fact of my +knowing her seemed to lessen her importance in his eyes. But soon he +recovered his enthusiasm for her. + +"A wonderfully clever woman," he continued. "I'm afraid I disappointed +her a little though." He said this, however, with a laugh that +contradicted his words. "She would not believe I was _the_ Mr. Smith. +She imagined from my book that I was quite an old man." + +I could see nothing in my friend's book myself to suggest that the author +was, of necessity, anything over eighteen. The mistake appeared to me to +display want of acumen, but it had evidently pleased him greatly. + +"I felt quite sorry for her," he went on, "chained to that bloodless, +artificial society in which she lives. 'You can't tell,' she said to me, +'how I long to meet someone to whom I could show my real self--who would +understand me.' I'm going to see her on Wednesday." + +I went with him. My conversation with her was not as confidential as I +had anticipated, owing to there being some eighty other people present in +a room intended for the accommodation of eight; but after surging round +for an hour in hot and aimless misery--as very young men at such +gatherings do, knowing as a rule only the man who has brought them, and +being unable to find him--I contrived to get a few words with her. + +She greeted me with a smile, in the light of which I at once forgot my +past discomfort, and let her fingers rest, with delicious pressure, for a +moment upon mine. + +"How good of you to keep your promise," she said. "These people have +been tiring me so. Sit here, and tell me all you have been doing." + +She listened for about ten seconds, and then interrupted me with-- + +"And that clever friend of yours that you came with. I met him at dear +Lady Lennon's last week. Has _he_ written anything?" + +I explained to her that he had. + +"Tell me about it?" she said. "I get so little time for reading, and +then I only care to read the books that help me," and she gave me a +grateful look more eloquent than words. + +I described the work to her, and wishing to do my friend justice I even +recited a few of the passages upon which, as I knew, he especially prided +himself. + +One sentence in particular seemed to lay hold of her. "A good woman's +arms round a man's neck is a lifebelt thrown out to him from heaven." + +"How beautiful!" she murmured. "Say it again." + +I said it again, and she repeated it after me. + +Then a noisy old lady swooped down upon her, and I drifted away into a +corner, where I tried to look as if I were enjoying myself, and failed. + +Later on, feeling it time to go, I sought my friend, and found him +talking to her in a corner. I approached and waited. They were +discussing the latest east-end murder. A drunken woman had been killed +by her husband, a hard-working artizan, who had been maddened by the ruin +of his home. + +"Ah," she was saying, "what power a woman has to drag a man down or lift +him up. I never read a case in which a woman is concerned without +thinking of those beautiful lines of yours: 'A good woman's arms round a +man's neck is a lifebelt thrown out to him from heaven.'" + +* * * * * + +Opinions differed concerning her religion and politics. Said the Low +Church parson: "An earnest Christian woman, sir, of that unostentatious +type that has always been the bulwark of our Church. I am proud to know +that woman, and I am proud to think that poor words of mine have been the +humble instrument to wean that true woman's heart from the frivolities of +fashion, and to fix her thoughts upon higher things. A good Churchwoman, +sir, a good Churchwoman, in the best sense of the word." + +Said the pale aristocratic-looking young Abbe to the Comtesse, the light +of old-world enthusiasm shining from his deep-set eyes: "I have great +hopes for our dear friend. She finds it hard to sever the ties of time +and love. We are all weak, but her heart turns towards our mother Church +as a child, though suckled among strangers, yearns after many years for +the bosom that has borne it. We have spoken, and I, even I, may be the +voice in the wilderness leading the lost sheep back to the fold." + +Said Sir Harry Bennett, the great Theosophist lecturer, writing to a +friend: "A singularly gifted woman, and a woman evidently thirsting for +the truth. A woman capable of willing her own life. A woman not afraid +of thought and reason, a lover of wisdom. I have talked much with her at +one time or another, and I have found her grasp my meaning with a +quickness of perception quite unusual in my experience; and the arguments +I have let fall, I am convinced, have borne excellent fruit. I look +forward to her becoming, at no very distant date, a valued member of our +little band. Indeed, without betraying confidence, I may almost say I +regard her conversion as an accomplished fact." + +Colonel Maxim always spoke of her as "a fair pillar of the State." + +"With the enemy in our midst," said the florid old soldier, "it behoves +every true man--aye, and every true woman--to rally to the defence of the +country; and all honour, say I, to noble ladies such as Mrs. Clifton +Courtenay, who, laying aside their natural shrinking from publicity, come +forward in such a crisis as the present to combat the forces of disorder +and disloyalty now rampant in the land." + +"But," some listener would suggest, "I gathered from young Jocelyn that +Mrs. Clifton Courtenay held somewhat advanced views on social and +political questions." + +"Jocelyn," the Colonel would reply with scorn; "pah! There may have been +a short space of time during which the fellow's long hair and windy +rhetoric impressed her. But I flatter myself I've put _my_ spoke in Mr. +Jocelyn's wheel. Why, damme, sir, she's consented to stand for Grand +Dame of the Bermondsey Branch of the Primrose League next year. What's +Jocelyn to say to that, the scoundrel!" + +What Jocelyn said was:-- + +"I know the woman is weak. But I do not blame her; I pity her. When the +time comes, as soon it will, when woman is no longer a puppet, dancing to +the threads held by some brainless man--when a woman is not threatened +with social ostracism for daring to follow her own conscience instead of +that of her nearest male relative--then will be the time to judge her. It +is not for me to betray the confidence reposed in me by a suffering +woman, but you can tell that interesting old fossil, Colonel Maxim, that +he and the other old women of the Bermondsey Branch of the Primrose +League may elect Mrs. Clifton Courtenay for their President, and make the +most of it; they have only got the outside of the woman. Her heart is +beating time to the tramp of an onward-marching people; her soul's eyes +are straining for the glory of a coming dawn." + +But they all agreed she was a charming woman. + + + + +WHIBLEY'S SPIRIT + + +I never met it myself, but I knew Whibley very well indeed, so that I +came to hear a goodish deal about it. + +It appeared to be devoted to Whibley, and Whibley was extremely fond of +it. Personally I am not interested in spirits, and no spirit has ever +interested itself in me. But I have friends whom they patronise, and my +mind is quite open on the subject. Of Whibley's Spirit I wish to speak +with every possible respect. It was, I am willing to admit, as +hard-working and conscientious a spirit as any one could wish to live +with. The only thing I have to say against it is that it had no sense. + +It came with a carved cabinet that Whibley had purchased in Wardour +Street for old oak, but which, as a matter of fact, was chestnut wood, +manufactured in Germany, and at first was harmless enough, saying nothing +but "Yes!" or "No!" and that only when spoken to. + +Whibley would amuse himself of an evening asking it questions, being +careful to choose tolerably simple themes, such as, "Are you there?" (to +which the Spirit would sometimes answer "Yes!" and sometimes "No!") "Can +you hear me?" "Are you happy?"--and so on. The Spirit made the cabinet +crack--three times for "Yes" and twice for "No." Now and then it would +reply both "Yes!" and "No!" to the same question, which Whibley +attributed to over-scrupulousness. When nobody asked it anything it +would talk to itself, repeating "Yes!" "No!" "No!" "Yes!" over and +over again in an aimless, lonesome sort of a way that made you feel sorry +for it. + +After a while Whibley bought a table, and encouraged it to launch out +into more active conversation. To please Whibley, I assisted at some of +the earlier seances, but during my presence it invariably maintained a +reticence bordering on positive dulness. I gathered from Whibley that it +disliked me, thinking that I was unsympathetic. The complaint was +unjust; I was not unsympathetic, at least not at the commencement. I +came to hear it talk, and I wanted to hear it talk; I would have listened +to it by the hour. What tired me was its slowness in starting, and its +foolishness when it had started, in using long words that it did not know +how to spell. I remember on one occasion, Whibley, Jobstock (Whibley's +partner), and myself, sitting for two hours, trying to understand what +the thing meant by "H-e-s-t-u-r-n-e-m-y-s-f-e-a-r." It used no stops +whatever. It never so much as hinted where one sentence ended and +another began. It never even told us when it came to a proper name. Its +idea of an evening's conversation was to plump down a hundred or so +vowels and consonants in front of you and leave you to make whatever +sense out of them you could. + +We fancied at first it was talking about somebody named Hester (it had +spelt Hester with a "u" before we allowed a margin for spelling), and we +tried to work the sentence out on that basis, "Hester enemies fear," we +thought it might be. Whibley had a niece named Hester, and we decided +the warning had reference to her. But whether she was our enemy, and we +were to fear her, or whether we had to fear her enemies (and, if so, who +were they?), or whether it was our enemies who were to be frightened by +Hester, or her enemies, or enemies generally, still remained doubtful. We +asked the table if it meant the first suggestion, and it said "No." We +asked what it did mean, and it said "Yes." + +This answer annoyed me, but Whibley explained that the Spirit was angry +with us for our stupidity (which seemed quaint). He informed us that it +always said first "No," and then "Yes," when it was angry, and as it was +his Spirit, and we were in his house, we kept our feelings to ourselves +and started afresh. + +This time we abandoned the "Hestur" theory altogether. Jobstock +suggested "Haste" for the first word, and, thought the Spirit might have +gone on phonetically. + +"Haste! you are here, Miss Sfear!" was what he made of it. + +Whibley asked him sarcastically if he'd kindly explain what that meant. + +I think Jobstock was getting irritable. We had been sitting cramped up +round a wretched little one-legged table all the evening, and this was +almost the first bit of gossip we had got out of it. To further excuse +him, it should also be explained that the gas had been put out by +Whibley, and that the fire had gone out of its own accord. He replied +that it was hard labour enough to find out what the thing said without +having to make sense of it. + +"It can't spell," he added, "and it's got a nasty, sulky temper. If it +was my spirit I'd hire another spirit to kick it." + +Whibley was one of the mildest little men I ever knew, but chaff or abuse +of his Spirit roused the devil in him, and I feared we were going to have +a scene. Fortunately, I was able to get his mind back to the +consideration of "Hesturnemysfear" before anything worse happened than a +few muttered remarks about the laughter of fools, and want of reverence +for sacred subjects being the sign of a shallow mind. + +We tried "He's stern," and "His turn," and the "fear of Hesturnemy," and +tried to think who "Hesturnemy" might be. Three times we went over the +whole thing again from the beginning, which meant six hundred and six +tiltings of the table, and then suddenly the explanation struck +me--"Eastern Hemisphere." + +Whibley had asked it for any information it might possess concerning his +wife's uncle, from whom he had not heard for months, and that apparently +was its idea of an address. + +The fame of Whibley's Spirit became noised abroad, with the result that +Whibley was able to command the willing service of more congenial +assistants, and Jobstock and myself were dismissed. But we bore no +malice. + +Under these more favourable conditions the Spirit plucked up wonderfully, +and talked everybody's head off. It could never have been a cheerful +companion, however, for its conversation was chiefly confined to warnings +and prognostications of evil. About once a fortnight Whibley would drop +round on me, in a friendly way, to tell me that I was to beware of a man +who lived in a street beginning with a "C," or to inform me that if I +would go to a town on the coast where there were three churches I should +meet someone who would do me an irreparable injury, and, that I did not +rush off then and there in search of that town he regarded as flying in +the face of Providence. + +In its passion for poking its ghostly nose into other people's affairs it +reminded me of my earthly friend Poppleton. Nothing pleased it better +than being appealed to for aid and advice, and Whibley, who was a perfect +slave to it, would hunt half over the parish for people in trouble and +bring them to it. + +It would direct ladies, eager for divorce court evidence, to go to the +third house from the corner of the fifth street, past such and such a +church or public-house (it never would give a plain, straightforward +address), and ring the bottom bell but one twice. They would thank it +effusively, and next morning would start to find the fifth street past +the church, and would ring the bottom bell but one of the third house +from the corner twice, and a man in his shirt sleeves would come to the +door and ask them what they wanted. + +They could not tell what they wanted, they did not know themselves, and +the man would use bad language, and slam the door in their faces. + +Then they would think that perhaps the Spirit meant the fifth street the +other way, or the third house from the opposite corner, and would try +again, with still more unpleasant results. + +One July I met Whibley, mooning disconsolately along Princes Street, +Edinburgh. + +"Hullo!" I exclaimed, "what are you doing here? I thought you were busy +over that School Board case." + +"Yes," he answered, "I ought really to be in London, but the truth is I'm +rather expecting something to happen down here." + +"Oh!" I said, "and what's that?" + +"Well," he replied hesitatingly, as though he would rather not talk about +it, "I don't exactly know yet." + +"You've come from London to Edinburgh, and don't know what you've come +for!" I cried. + +"Well, you see," he said, still more reluctantly, as it seemed to me, "it +was Maria's idea; she wished--" + +"Maria!" I interrupted, looking perhaps a little sternly at him, "who's +Maria?" (His wife's name I knew was Emily Georgina Anne.) + +"Oh! I forgot," he explained; "she never would tell her name before you, +would she? It's the Spirit, you know." + +"Oh! that," I said, "it's she that has sent you here. Didn't she tell +you what for?" + +"No," he answered, "that's what worries me. All she would say was, 'Go +to Edinburgh--something will happen.'" + +"And how long are you going to remain here?" I inquired. + +"I don't know," he replied. "I've been here a week already, and Jobstock +writes quite angrily. I wouldn't have come if Maria hadn't been so +urgent. She repeated it three evenings running." + +I hardly knew what to do. The little man was so dreadfully in earnest +about the business that one could not argue much with him. + +"You are sure," I said, after thinking a while, "that this Maria is a +good Spirit? There are all sorts going about, I'm told. You're sure +this isn't the spirit of some deceased lunatic, playing the fool with +you?" + +"I've thought of that," he admitted. "Of course that might be so. If +nothing happens soon I shall almost begin to suspect it." + +"Well, I should certainly make some inquiries into its character before I +trusted it any further," I answered, and left him. + +About a month later I ran against him outside the Law Courts. + +"It was all right about Maria; something did happen in Edinburgh while I +was there. That very morning I met you one of my oldest clients died +quite suddenly at his house at Queensferry, only a few miles outside the +city." + +"I'm glad of that," I answered, "I mean, of course, for Maria's sake. It +was lucky you went then." + +"Well, not altogether," he replied, "at least, not in a worldly sense. He +left his affairs in a very complicated state, and his eldest son went +straight up to London to consult me about them, and, not finding me +there, and time being important, went to Kebble. I was rather +disappointed when I got back and heard about it." + +"Umph!" I said; "she's not a smart spirit, anyway." + +"No," he answered, "perhaps not. But, you see, something did really +happen." + +After that his affection for "Maria" increased tenfold, while her +attachment to himself became a burden to his friends. She grew too big +for her table, and, dispensing with all mechanical intermediaries, talked +to him direct. She followed him everywhere. Mary's lamb couldn't have +been a bigger nuisance. She would even go with him into the bedroom, and +carry on long conversations with him in the middle of the night. His +wife objected; she said it seemed hardly decent, but there was no keeping +her out. + +She turned up with him at picnics and Christmas parties. Nobody heard +her speak to him, but it seemed necessary for him to reply to her aloud, +and to see him suddenly get up from his chair and slip away to talk +earnestly to nothing in a corner disturbed the festivities. + +"I should really be glad," he once confessed to me, "to get a little time +to myself. She means kindly, but it _is_ a strain. And then the others +don't like it. It makes them nervous. I can see it does." + +One evening she caused quite a scene at the club. Whibley had been +playing whist, with the Major for a partner. At the end of the game the +Major, leaning across the table toward him, asked, in a tone of deadly +calm, "May I inquire, sir, whether there was any earthly reason" (he +emphasised "earthly") "for your following my lead of spades with your +only trump?" + +"I--I--am very sorry, Major," replied Whibley apologetically. +"I--I--somehow felt I--I ought to play that queen." + +"Entirely your own inspiration, or suggested?" persisted the Major, who +had, of course, heard of "Maria." + +Whibley admitted the play had been suggested to him. The Major rose from +the table. + +"Then, sir," said he, with concentrated indignation, "I decline to +continue this game. A human fool I can tolerate for a partner, but if I +am to be hampered by a damned spirit--" + +"You've no right to say that," cried Whibley hotly. + +"I apologise," returned the Major coldly; "we will say a blessed spirit. +I decline to play whist with spirits of any kind; and I advise you, sir, +if you intend giving many exhibitions with the lady, first to teach her +the rudiments of the game." + +Saying which the Major put on his hat and left the club, and I made +Whibley drink a stiff glass of brandy and water, and sent him and "Maria" +home in a cab. + +Whibley got rid of "Maria" at last. It cost him in round figures about +eight thousand pounds, but his family said it was worth it. + +A Spanish Count hired a furnished house a few doors from Whibley's, and +one evening he was introduced to Whibley, and came home and had a chat +with him. Whibley told him about "Maria," and the Count quite fell in +love with her. He said that if only he had had such a spirit to help and +advise him, it might have altered his whole life. + +He was the first man who had ever said a kind word about the spirit, and +Whibley loved him for it. The Count seemed as though he could never see +enough of Whibley after that evening, and the three of them--Whibley, the +Count, and "Maria"--would sit up half the night talking together. + +The precise particulars I never heard. Whibley was always very reticent +on the matter. Whether "Maria" really did exist, and the Count +deliberately set to work to bamboozle her (she was fool enough for +anything), or whether she was a mere hallucination of Whibley's, and the +man tricked Whibley by "hypnotic suggestions" (as I believe it is +called), I am not prepared to say. The only thing certain is that +"Maria" convinced Whibley that the Count had discovered a secret gold +mine in Peru. She said she knew all about it, and counselled Whibley to +beg the Count to let him put a few thousands into the working of it. +"Maria," it appeared, had known the Count from his boyhood, and could +answer for it that he was the most honourable man in all South America. +Possibly enough he was. + +The Count was astonished to find that Whibley knew all about his mine. +Eight thousand pounds was needed to start the workings, but he had not +mentioned it to any one, as he wanted to keep the whole thing to himself, +and thought he could save the money on his estates in Portugal. However, +to oblige "Maria," he would let Whibley supply the money. Whibley +supplied it--in cash, and no one has ever seen the Count since. + +That broke up Whibley's faith in "Maria," and a sensible doctor, getting +hold of him threatened to prescribe a lunatic asylum for him if ever he +found him carrying on with any spirits again. That completed the cure. + + + + +THE MAN WHO WENT WRONG + + +I first met Jack Burridge nearly ten years ago on a certain North-country +race-course. + +The saddling bell had just rung for the chief event of the day. I was +sauntering along with my hands in my pockets, more interested in the +crowd than in the race, when a sporting friend, crossing on his way to +the paddock, seized me by the arm and whispered hoarsely in my ear:-- + +"Put your shirt on Mrs. Waller." + +"Put my--?" I began. + +"Put your shirt on Mrs. Waller," he repeated still more impressively, and +disappeared in the throng. + +I stared after him in blank amazement. Why should I put my shirt on Mrs. +Waller? Even if it would fit a lady. And how about myself? + +I was passing the grand stand, and, glancing up, I saw "Mrs. Waller, +twelve to one," chalked on a bookmaker's board. Then it dawned upon me +that "Mrs. Waller" was a horse, and, thinking further upon the matter, I +evolved the idea that my friend's advice, expressed in more becoming +language, was "Back 'Mrs. Waller' for as much as you can possibly +afford." + +"Thank you," I said to myself, "I have backed cast-iron certainties +before. Next time I bet upon a horse I shall make the selection by +shutting my eyes and putting a pin through the card." + +But the seed had taken root. My friend's words surged in my brain. The +birds passing overhead twittered, "Put your shirt on 'Mrs. Waller.'" + +I reasoned with myself. I reminded myself of my few former ventures. But +the craving to put, if not my shirt, at all events half a sovereign on +"Mrs. Waller" only grew the stronger the more strongly I battled against +it. I felt that if "Mrs. Waller" won and I had nothing on her, I should +reproach myself to my dying day. + +I was on the other side of the course. There was no time to get back to +the enclosure. The horses were already forming for the start. A few +yards off, under a white umbrella, an outside bookmaker was shouting his +final prices in stentorian tones. He was a big, genial-looking man, with +an honest red face. + +"What price 'Mrs. Waller'?" I asked him. + +"Fourteen to one," he answered, "and good luck to you." + +I handed him half a sovereign, and he wrote me out a ticket. I crammed +it into my waistcoat pocket, and hurried off to see the race. To my +intense astonishment "Mrs. Waller" won. The novel sensation of having +backed the winner so excited me that I forgot all about my money, and it +was not until a good hour afterwards that I recollected my bet. + +Then I started off to search for the man under the white umbrella. I +went to where I thought I had left him, but no white umbrella could I +find. + +Consoling myself with the reflection that my loss served me right for +having been fool enough to trust an outside "bookie," I turned on my heel +and began to make my way back to my seat. Suddenly a voice hailed me:-- + +"Here you are, sir. It's Jack Burridge you want. Over here, sir." + +I looked round, and there was Jack Burridge at my elbow. + +"I saw you looking about, sir," he said, "but I could not make you hear. +You was looking the wrong side of the tent." + +It was pleasant to find that his honest face had not belied him. + +"It is very good of you," I said; "I had given up all hopes of seeing +you. Or," I added with a smile, "my seven pounds." + +"Seven pun' ten," he corrected me; "you're forgetting your own thin 'un." + +He handed me the money and went back to his stand. + +On my way into the town I came across him again. A small crowd was +collected, thoughtfully watching a tramp knocking about a +miserable-looking woman. + +Jack, pushing to the front, took in the scene and took off his coat in +the same instant. + +"Now then, my fine old English gentleman," he sang out, "come and have a +try at me for a change." + +The tramp was a burly ruffian, and I have seen better boxers than Jack. +He got himself a black eye, and a nasty cut over the lip, before he +hardly knew where he was. But in spite of that--and a good deal more--he +stuck to his man and finished him. + +At the end, as he helped his adversary up, I heard him say to the fellow +in a kindly whisper:-- + +"You're too good a sort, you know, to whollop a woman. Why, you very +near give me a licking. You must have forgot yourself, matey." + +The fellow interested me. I waited and walked on with him. He told me +about his home in London, at Mile End--about his old father and mother, +his little brothers and sisters--and what he was saving up to do for +them. Kindliness oozed from every pore in his skin. + +Many that we met knew him, and all, when they saw his round, red face, +smiled unconsciously. At the corner of the High Street a pale-faced +little drudge of a girl passed us, saying as she slipped by +"Good-evening, Mr. Burridge." + +He made a dart and caught her by the shoulder. + +"And how is father?" he asked. + +"Oh, if you please, Mr. Burridge, he is out again. All the mills is +closed," answered the child. + +"And mother?" + +"She don't get no better, sir." + +"And who's keeping you all?" + +"Oh, if you please, sir, Jimmy's earning something now," replied the +mite. + +He took a couple of sovereigns from his waistcoat pocket, and closed the +child's hand upon them. + +"That's all right, my lass, that's all right," he said, stopping her +stammering thanks. "You write to me if things don't get better. You +know where to find Jack Burridge." + +Strolling about the streets in the evening, I happened to pass the inn +where he was staying. The parlour window was open, and out into the +misty night his deep, cheery voice, trolling forth an old-fashioned +drinking song, came rolling like a wind, cleansing the corners of one's +heart with its breezy humanness. He was sitting at the head of the table +surrounded by a crowd of jovial cronies. I lingered for a while watching +the scene. It made the world appear a less sombre dwelling-place than I +had sometimes pictured it. + +I determined, on my return to London, to look him up, and accordingly one +evening started to find the little by-street off the Mile End Road in +which he lived. As I turned the corner he drove up in his dog-cart; it +was a smart turn-out. On the seat beside him sat a neat, withered little +old woman, whom he introduced to me as his mother. + +"I tell 'im it's a fine gell as 'e oughter 'ave up 'ere aside 'im," said +the old lady, preparing to dismount, "an old woman like me takes all the +paint off the show." + +"Get along with yer," he replied laughingly, jumping down and handing the +reins to the lad who had been waiting, "you could give some of the young +uns points yet, mother. I allus promised the old lady as she should ride +behind her own 'oss one day," he continued, turning to me, "didn't I, +mother?" + +"Ay, ay," replied the old soul, as she hobbled nimbly up the steps, +"ye're a good son, Jack, ye're a good son." + +He led the way into the parlour. As he entered every face lightened up +with pleasure, a harmony of joyous welcome greeted him. The old hard +world had been shut out with the slam of the front door. I seemed to +have wandered into Dickensland. The red-faced man with the small +twinkling eyes and the lungs of leather loomed before me, a large, fat +household fairy. From his capacious pockets came forth tobacco for the +old father; a huge bunch of hot-house grapes for a neighbour's sickly +child, who was stopping with them; a book of Henty's--beloved of boys--for +a noisy youngster who called him "uncle"; a bottle of port wine for a +wan, elderly woman with a swollen face--his widowed sister-in-law, as I +subsequently learned; sweets enough for the baby (whose baby I don't +know) to make it sick for a week; and a roll of music for his youngest +sister. + +"We're a-going to make a lady of her," he said, drawing the child's shy +face against his gaudy waistcoat, and running his coarse hand through her +pretty curls; "and she shall marry a jockey when she grows up." + +After supper he brewed some excellent whisky punch, and insisted upon the +old lady joining us, which she eventually did with much coughing and +protestation; but I noticed that she finished the tumblerful. For the +children he concocted a marvellous mixture, which he called an +"eye-composer," the chief ingredients being hot lemonade, ginger wine, +sugar, oranges, and raspberry vinegar. It had the desired effect. + +I stayed till late, listening to his inexhaustible fund of stories. Over +most of them he laughed with us himself--a great gusty laugh that made +the cheap glass ornaments upon the mantelpiece to tremble; but now and +then a recollection came to him that spread a sudden gravity across his +jovial face, bringing a curious quaver into his deep voice. + +Their tongues a little loosened by the punch, the old folks would have +sung his praises to the verge of tediousness had he not almost sternly +interrupted them. + +"Shut up, mother," he cried at last, quite gruffly, "what I does I does +to please myself. I likes to see people comfortable about me. If they +wasn't, it's me as would be more upset than them." + +I did not see him again for nearly two years. Then one October evening, +strolling about the East End, I met him coming out of a little Chapel in +the Burdett Road. He was so changed that I should not have known him had +not I overheard a woman as she passed him say, "Good-evening, Mr. +Burridge." + +A pair of bushy side-whiskers had given to his red face an aggressively +respectable appearance. He was dressed in an ill-fitting suit of black, +and carried an umbrella in one hand and a book in the other. + +In some mysterious way he managed to look both thinner and shorter than +my recollection of him. Altogether, he suggested to me the idea that he +himself--the real man--had by some means or other been extracted, leaving +only his shrunken husk behind. The genial juices of humanity had been +squeezed out of him. + +"Not Jack Burridge!" I exclaimed, confronting him in astonishment. + +His little eyes wandered shiftily up and down the street. "No, sir," he +replied (his tones had lost their windy boisterousness--a hard, metallic +voice spoke to me), "not the one as you used to know, praise be the +Lord." + +"And have you given up the old business?" I asked. + +"Yes, sir," he replied, "that's all over; I've been a vile sinner in my +time, God forgive me for it. But, thank Heaven, I have repented in +time." + +"Come and have a drink," I said, slipping my arm through his, "and tell +me all about it." + +He disengaged himself from me, firmly but gently. "You mean well, sir," +he said, "but I have given up the drink." + +Evidently he would have been rid of me, but a literary man, scenting +material for his stockpot, is not easily shaken off. I asked after the +old folks, and if they were still stopping with him. + +"Yes," he said, "for the present. Of course, a man can't be expected to +keep people for ever; so many mouths to fill is hard work these times, +and everybody sponges on a man just because he's good-natured." + +"And how are you getting on?" I asked. + +"Tolerably well, thank you, sir. The Lord provides for His servants," he +replied with a smug smile. "I have got a little shop now in the +Commercial Road." + +"Whereabouts?" I persisted. "I would like to call and see you." + +He gave me the address reluctantly, and said he would esteem it a great +pleasure if I would honour him by a visit, which was a palpable lie. + +The following afternoon I went. I found the place to be a pawnbroker's +shop, and from all appearances he must have been doing a very brisk +business. He was out himself attending a temperance committee, but his +old father was behind the counter, and asked me inside. Though it was a +chilly day there was no fire in the parlour, and the two old folks sat +one each side of the empty hearth, silent and sad. They seemed little +more pleased to see me than their son, but after a while Mrs. Burridge's +natural garrulity asserted itself, and we fell into chat. + +I asked what had become of his sister-in-law, the lady with the swollen +face. + +"I couldn't rightly tell you, sir," answered the old lady, "she ain't +livin' with us now. You see, sir," she continued, "John's got different +notions to what 'e used to 'ave. 'E don't cotten much to them as ain't +found grace, and poor Jane never did 'ave much religion!" + +"And the little one?" I inquired. "The one with the curls?" + +"What, Bessie, sir?" said the old lady. "Oh, she's out at service, sir; +John don't think it good for young folks to be idle." + +"Your son seems to have changed a good deal, Mrs. Burridge," I remarked. + +"Ay, sir," she assented, "you may well say that. It nearly broke my 'art +at fust; everythin' so different to what it 'ad been. Not as I'd stand +in the boy's light. If our being a bit uncomfortable like in this world +is a-going to do 'im any good in the next me and father ain't the ones to +begrudge it, are we, old man?" + +The "old man" concurred grumpily. + +"Was it a sudden conversion?" I asked. "How did it come about?" + +"It was a young woman as started 'im off," explained the old lady. "She +come round to our place one day a-collectin' for somethin' or other, and +Jack, in 'is free-'anded way, 'e give 'er a five-pun' note. Next week +she come agen for somethin' else, and stopped and talked to 'im about 'is +soul in the passage. She told 'im as 'e was a-goin' straight to 'ell, +and that 'e oughter give up the bookmakin' and settle down to a +respec'ble, God-fearin' business. At fust 'e only laughed, but she +lammed in tracts at 'im full of the most awful language; and one day she +fetched 'im round to one of them revivalist chaps, as fair settled 'im. + +"'E ain't never been his old self since then. 'E give up the bettin' and +bought this 'ere, though what's the difference blessed if I can see. It +makes my 'eart ache, it do, to 'ear my Jack a-beatin' down the poor +people--and it ain't like 'im. It went agen 'is grain at fust, I could +see; but they told him as 'ow it was folks's own fault that they was +poor, and as 'ow it was the will of God, because they was a drinkin', +improvident lot. + +"Then they made 'im sign the pledge. 'E'd allus been used to 'is glass, +Jack 'ad, and I think as knockin' it off 'ave soured 'im a bit--seems as +if all the sperit 'ad gone out of 'im--and of course me and father 'ave +'ad to give up our little drop too. Then they told 'im as 'e must give +up smokin'- that was another way of goin' straight to 'ell--and that +ain't made 'im any the more cheerful like, and father misses 'is little +bit--don't ye, father?" + +"Ay," answered the old fellow savagely; "can't say I thinks much of these +'ere folks as is going to heaven; blowed if I don't think they'll be a +chirpier lot in t'other place." + +An angry discussion in the shop interrupted us. Jack had returned, and +was threatening an excited woman with the police. It seemed she had +miscalculated the date, and had come a day too late with her interest. + +Having got rid of her, he came into the parlour with the watch in his +hand. + +"It's providential she was late," he said, looking at it; "it's worth ten +times what I lent on it." + +He packed his father back into the shop, and his mother down into the +kitchen to get his tea, and for a while we sat together talking. + +I found his conversation a strange mixture of self-laudation, showing +through a flimsy veil of self-disparagement, and of satisfaction at the +conviction that he was "saved," combined with equally evident +satisfaction that most other people weren't--somewhat trying, however; +and, remembering an appointment, rose to go. + +He made no effort to stay me, but I could see that he was bursting to +tell me something. At last, taking a religious paper from his pocket, +and pointing to a column, he blurted out: + +"You don't take any interest in the Lord's vineyard, I suppose, sir?" + +I glanced at the part of the paper indicated. It announced a new mission +to the Chinese, and heading the subscription list stood the name, "Mr. +John Burridge, one hundred guineas." + +"You subscribe largely, Mr. Burridge," I said, handing him back the +paper. + +He rubbed his big hands together. "The Lord will repay a hundredfold," +he answered. + +"In which case it's just as well to have a note of the advance down in +black and white, eh?" I added. + +His little eyes looked sharply at me; but he made no reply, and, shaking +hands, I left him. + + + + +THE HOBBY RIDER + + +Bump. Bump. Bump-bump. Bump. + +I sat up in bed and listened intently. It seemed to me as if someone +with a muffled hammer were trying to knock bricks out of the wall. + +"Burglars," I said to myself (one assumes, as a matter of course, that +everything happening in this world after 1 a.m. is due to burglars), and +I reflected what a curiously literal, but at the same time slow and +cumbersome, method of housebreaking they had adopted. + +The bumping continued irregularly, yet uninterruptedly. + +My bed was by the window. I reached out my hand and drew aside a corner +of the curtain. The sunlight streamed into the room. I looked at my +watch: it was ten minutes past five. + +A most unbusinesslike hour for burglars, I thought. Why, it will be +breakfast-time before they get in. + +Suddenly there came a crash, and some substance striking against the +blind fell upon the floor. I sprang out of bed and threw open the +window. + +A red-haired young gentleman, scantily clad in a sweater and a pair of +flannel trousers, stood on the lawn below me. + +"Good morning," he said cheerily. "Do you mind throwing me back my +ball?" + +"What ball?" I said. + +"My tennis ball," he answered. "It must be somewhere in the room; it +went clean through the window." + +I found the ball and threw it back to him. + +"What are you doing?" I asked. "Playing tennis?" + +"No," he said. "I am just practising against the side of the house. It +improves your game wonderfully." + +"It don't improve my night's rest," I answered somewhat surlily I fear. +"I came down here for peace and quiet. Can't you do it in the daytime?" + +"Daytime!" he laughed. "Why it has been daytime for the last two hours. +Never mind, I'll go round the other side." + +He disappeared round the corner, and set to work at the back, where he +woke up the dog. I heard another window smash, followed by a sound as of +somebody getting up violently in a distant part of the house, and shortly +afterwards I must have fallen asleep again. + +I had come to spend a few weeks at a boarding establishment in Deal. He +was the only other young man in the house, and I was naturally thrown a +good deal upon his society. He was a pleasant, genial young fellow, but +he would have been better company had he been a little less enthusiastic +as regards tennis. + +He played tennis ten hours a day on the average. He got up romantic +parties to play it by moonlight (when half his time was generally taken +up in separating his opponents), and godless parties to play it on +Sundays. On wet days I have seen him practising services by himself in a +mackintosh and goloshes. + +He had been spending the winter with his people at Tangiers, and I asked +him how he liked the place. + +"Oh, a beast of a hole!" he replied. "There is not a court anywhere in +the town. We tried playing on the roof, but the _mater_ thought it +dangerous." + +Switzerland he had been delighted with. He counselled me next time I +went to stay at Zermatt. + +"There is a capital court at Zermatt," he said. "You might almost fancy +yourself at Wimbledon." + +A mutual acquaintance whom I subsequently met told me that at the top of +the Jungfrau he had said to him, his eyes fixed the while upon a small +snow plateau enclosed by precipices a few hundred feet below them-- + +"By Jove! That wouldn't make half a bad little tennis court--that flat +bit down there. Have to be careful you didn't run back too far." + +When he was not playing tennis, or practising tennis, or reading about +tennis, he was talking about tennis. Renshaw was the prominent figure in +the tennis world at that time, and he mentioned Renshaw until there grew +up within my soul a dark desire to kill Renshaw in a quiet, +unostentatious way, and bury him. + +One drenching afternoon he talked tennis to me for three hours on end, +referring to Renshaw, so far as I kept count, four thousand nine hundred +and thirteen times. After tea he drew his chair to the window beside me, +and commenced-- + +"Have you ever noticed how Renshaw--" + +I said-- + +"Suppose someone took a gun--someone who could aim very straight--and +went out and shot Renshaw till he was quite dead, would you tennis +players drop him and talk about somebody else?" + +"Oh, but who would shoot Renshaw?" he said indignantly. + +"Never mind," I said, "supposing someone did?" + +"Well, then, there would be his brother," he replied. + +I had forgotten that. + +"Well, we won't argue about how many of them there are," I said. "Suppose +someone killed the lot, should we hear less of Renshaw?" + +"Never," he replied emphatically. "Renshaw will always be a name +wherever tennis is spoken of." + +I dread to think what the result might have been had his answer been +other than it was. + +The next year he dropped tennis completely and became an ardent amateur +photographer, whereupon all his friends implored him to return to tennis, +and sought to interest him in talk about services and returns and +volleys, and in anecdotes concerning Renshaw. But he would not heed +them. + +Whatever he saw, wherever he went, he took. He took his friends, and +made them his enemies. He took babies, and brought despair to fond +mothers' hearts. He took young wives, and cast a shadow on the home. +Once there was a young man who loved not wisely, so his friends thought, +but the more they talked against her the more he clung to her. Then a +happy idea occurred to the father. He got Begglely to photograph her in +seven different positions. + +When her lover saw the first, he said-- + +"What an awful looking thing! Who did it?" + +When Begglely showed him the second, he said-- + +"But, my dear fellow, it's not a bit like her. You've made her look an +ugly old woman." + +At the third he said-- + +"Whatever have you done to her feet? They can't be that size, you know. +It isn't in nature!" + +At the fourth he exclaimed-- + +"But, heavens, man! Look at the shape you've made her. Where on earth +did you get the idea from?" + +At the first glimpse of the fifth he staggered. + +"Great Scott!" he cried with a shudder, "what a ghastly expression you've +got into it! It isn't human!" + +Begglely was growing offended, but the father, who was standing by, came +to his defence. + +"It's nothing to do with Begglely," exclaimed the old gentleman suavely. +"It can't be _his_ fault. What is a photographer? Simply an instrument +in the hands of science. He arranges his apparatus, and whatever is in +front of it comes into it." + +"No," continued the old gentleman, laying a constrained hand upon +Begglely, who was about to resume the exhibition, "don't--don't show him +the other two." + +I was sorry for the poor girl, for I believe she really cared for the +youngster; and as for her looks, they were quite up to the average. But +some evil sprite seemed to have got into Begglely's camera. It seized +upon defects with the unerring instinct of a born critic, and dilated +upon them to the obscuration of all virtues. A man with a pimple became +a pimple with a man as background. People with strongly marked features +became merely adjuncts to their own noses. One man in the neighbourhood +had, undetected, worn a wig for fourteen years. Begglely's camera +discovered the fraud in an instant, and so completely exposed it that the +man's friends wondered afterwards how the fact ever could have escaped +them. The thing seemed to take a pleasure in showing humanity at its +very worst. Babies usually came out with an expression of low cunning. +Most young girls had to take their choice of appearing either as +simpering idiots or embryo vixens. To mild old ladies it generally gave +a look of aggressive cynicism. Our vicar, as excellent an old gentleman +as ever breathed, Begglely presented to us as a beetle-browed savage of a +peculiarly low type of intellect; while upon the leading solicitor of the +town he bestowed an expression of such thinly-veiled hypocrisy that few +who saw the photograph cared ever again to trust him with their affairs. + +As regards myself I should, perhaps, make no comment, I am possibly a +prejudiced party. All I will say, therefore, is that if I in any way +resemble Begglely's photograph of me, then the critics are fully +justified in everything they have at any time, anywhere, said of me--and +more. Nor, I maintain--though I make no pretence of possessing the +figure of Apollo--is one of my legs twice the length of the other, and +neither does it curve upwards. This I can prove. Begglely allowed that +an accident had occurred to the negative during the process of +development, but this explanation does not appear on the picture, and I +cannot help feeling that an injustice has been done me. + +His perspective seemed to be governed by no law either human or divine. I +have seen a photograph of his uncle and a windmill, judging from which I +defy any unprejudiced person to say which is the bigger, the uncle or the +mill. + +On one occasion he created quite a scandal in the parish by exhibiting a +well-known and eminently respectable maiden lady nursing a young man on +her knee. The gentleman's face was indistinct, and he was dressed in a +costume which, upon a man of his size--one would have estimated him as +rising 6 ft. 4 in.--appeared absurdly juvenile. He had one arm round her +neck, and she was holding his other hand and smirking. + +I, knowing something of Begglely's machine, willingly accepted the lady's +explanation, which was to the effect that the male in question was her +nephew, aged eleven; but the uncharitable ridiculed this statement, and +appearances were certainly against her. + +It was in the early days of the photographic craze, and an inexperienced +world was rather pleased with the idea of being taken on the cheap. The +consequence was that nearly everyone for three miles round sat or stood +or leant or laid to Begglely at one time or another, with the result that +a less conceited parish than ours it would have been difficult to +discover. No one who had once looked upon a photograph of himself taken +by Begglely ever again felt any pride in his personal appearance. The +picture was invariably a revelation to him. + +Later, some evil-disposed person invented Kodaks, and Begglely went +everywhere slung on to a thing that looked like an overgrown missionary +box, and that bore a legend to the effect that if Begglely would pull the +button, a shameless Company would do the rest. Life became a misery to +Begglely's friends. Nobody dared to do anything for fear of being taken +in the act. He took an instantaneous photograph of his own father +swearing at the gardener, and snapped his youngest sister and her lover +at the exact moment of farewell at the garden gate. Nothing was sacred +to him. He Kodaked his aunt's funeral from behind, and showed the chief +mourner but one whispering a funny story into the ear of the third cousin +as they stood behind their hats beside the grave. + +Public indignation was at its highest when a new comer to the +neighbourhood, a young fellow named Haynoth, suggested the getting +together of a party for a summer's tour in Turkey. Everybody took up the +idea with enthusiasm, and recommended Begglely as the "party." We had +great hopes from that tour. Our idea was that Begglely would pull his +button outside a harem or behind a sultana, and that a Bashi Bazouk or a +Janissary would do the rest for us. + +We were, however, partly doomed to disappointment--I say, "partly," +because, although Begglely returned alive, he came back entirely cured of +his photographic craze. He said that every English-speaking man, woman, +or child whom he met abroad had its camera with it, and that after a time +the sight of a black cloth or the click of a button began to madden him. + +He told us that on the summit of Mount Tutra, in the Carpathians, the +English and American amateur photographers waiting to take "the grand +panorama" were formed by the Hungarian police in queue, two abreast, each +with his or her camera under his or her arm, and that a man had to stand +sometimes as long as three and a half hours before his turn came round. +He also told us that the beggars in Constantinople went about with +placards hung round their necks, stating their charges for being +photographed. One of these price lists he brought back with him as a +sample. + +It ran:-- + +One snap shot, back or front .. ... ... 2 frcs. + ,, with expression ... ... 3 ,, + ,, surprised in quaint attitude . 4 ,, + ,, while saying prayers ... ... 5 ,, + ,, while fighting ... ... 10 ,, + + +He said that in some instances where a man had an exceptionally +villainous cast of countenance, or was exceptionally deformed, as much as +twenty francs were demanded and readily obtained. + +He abandoned photography and took to golf. He showed people how, by +digging a hole here and putting a brickbat or two there, they could +convert a tennis-lawn into a miniature golf link,--and did it for them. +He persuaded elderly ladies and gentlemen that it was the mildest +exercise going, and would drag them for miles over wet gorse and heather, +and bring them home dead beat, coughing, and full of evil thoughts. + +The last time I saw him was in Switzerland, a few months ago. He +appeared indifferent to the subject of golf, but talked much about whist. +We met by chance at Grindelwald, and agreed to climb the Faulhorn +together next morning. Half-way up we rested, and I strolled on a little +way by myself to gain a view. Returning, I found him with a "Cavendish" +in his hand and a pack of cards spread out before him on the grass, +solving a problem. + + + + +THE MAN WHO DID NOT BELIEVE IN LUCK + + +He got in at Ipswich with seven different weekly papers under his arm. I +noticed that each one insured its reader against death or injury by +railway accident. He arranged his luggage upon the rack above him, took +off his hat and laid it on the seat beside him, mopped his bald head with +a red silk handkerchief, and then set to work steadily to write his name +and address upon each of the seven papers. I sat opposite to him and +read _Punch_. I always take the old humour when travelling; I find it +soothing to the nerves. + +Passing over the points at Manningtree the train gave a lurch, and a +horse-shoe he had carefully placed in the rack above him slipped through +the netting, falling with a musical ring upon his head. + +He appeared neither surprised nor angry. Having staunched the wound with +his handkerchief, he stooped and picked the horse-shoe up, glanced at it +with, as I thought, an expression of reproach, and dropped it gently out +of the window. + +"Did it hurt you?" I asked. + +It was a foolish question. I told myself so the moment I had uttered it. +The thing must have weighed three pounds at the least; it was an +exceptionally large and heavy shoe. The bump on his head was swelling +visibly before my eyes. Anyone but an idiot must have seen that he was +hurt. I expected an irritable reply. I should have given one myself had +I been in his place. Instead, however, he seemed to regard the inquiry +as a natural and kindly expression of sympathy. + +"It did, a little," he replied. + +"What were you doing with it?" I asked. It was an odd sort of thing for +a man to be travelling with. + +"It was lying in the roadway just outside the station," he explained; "I +picked it up for luck." + +He refolded his handkerchief so as to bring a cooler surface in contact +with the swelling, while I murmured something genial about the +inscrutability of Providence. + +"Yes," he said, "I've had a deal of luck in my time, but it's never +turned out well." + +"I was born on a Wednesday," he continued, "which, as I daresay you know, +is the luckiest day a man can be born on. My mother was a widow, and +none of my relatives would do anything for me. They said it would be +like taking coals to Newcastle, helping a boy born on a Wednesday; and my +uncle, when he died, left every penny of his money to my brother Sam, as +a slight compensation to him for having been born on a Friday. All I +ever got was advice upon the duties and responsibilities of wealth, when +it arrived, and entreaties that I would not neglect those with claims +upon me when I came to be a rich man." + +He paused while folding up his various insurance papers and placing them +in the inside breast-pocket of his coat. + +"Then there are black cats," he went on; "they're said to be lucky. Why, +there never was a blacker cat than the one that followed me into my rooms +in Bolsover Street the very first night I took them." + +"Didn't it bring you luck?" I enquired, finding that he had stopped. + +A far-away look came into his eyes. + +"Well, of course it all depends," he answered dreamily. "Maybe we'd +never have suited one another; you can always look at it that way. Still, +I'd like to have tried." + +He sat staring out of the window, and for a while I did not care to +intrude upon his evidently painful memories. + +"What happened then?" I asked, however, at last. + +He roused himself from his reverie. + +"Oh," he said. "Nothing extraordinary. She had to leave London for a +time, and gave me her pet canary to take charge of while she was away." + +"But it wasn't your fault," I urged. + +"No, perhaps not," he agreed; "but it created a coldness which others +were not slow to take advantage of." + +"I offered her the cat, too," he added, but more to himself than to me. + +We sat and smoked in silence. I felt that the consolations of a stranger +would sound weak. + +"Piebald horses are lucky, too," he observed, knocking the ashes from his +pipe against the window sash. "I had one of them once." + +"What did it do to you?" I enquired. + +"Lost me the best crib I ever had in my life," was the simple rejoinder. +"The governor stood it a good deal longer than I had any right to expect; +but you can't keep a man who is _always_ drunk. It gives a firm a bad +name." + +"It would," I agreed. + +"You see," he went on, "I never had the head for it. To some men it +would not have so much mattered, but the very first glass was enough to +upset me. I'd never been used to it." + +"But why did you take it?" I persisted. "The horse didn't make you +drink, did he?" + +"Well, it was this way," he explained, continuing to rub gently the lump +which was now about the size of an egg. "The animal had belonged to a +gentleman who travelled in the wine and spirit line, and who had been +accustomed to visit in the way of business almost every public-house he +came to. The result was you couldn't get that little horse past a public- +house--at least I couldn't. He sighted them a quarter of a mile off, and +made straight for the door. I struggled with him at first, but it was +five to ten minutes' work getting him away, and folks used to gather +round and bet on us. I think, maybe, I'd have stuck to it, however, if +it hadn't been for a temperance chap who stopped one day and lectured the +crowd about it from the opposite side of the street. He called me +Pilgrim, and said the little horse was 'Pollion,' or some such name, and +kept on shouting out that I was to fight him for a heavenly crown. After +that they called us "Polly and the Pilgrim, fighting for the crown." It +riled me, that did, and at the very next house at which he pulled up I +got down and said I'd come for two of Scotch. That was the beginning. It +took me years to break myself of the habit. + +"But there," he continued, "it has always been the same. I hadn't been a +fortnight in my first situation before my employer gave me a goose +weighing eighteen pounds as a Christmas present." + +"Well, that couldn't have done you any harm," I remarked. "That was +lucky enough." + +"So the other clerks said at the time," he replied. "The old gentleman +had never been known to give anything away before in his life. 'He's +taken a fancy to you,' they said; 'you are a lucky beggar!'" + +He sighed heavily. I felt there was a story attached. + +"What did you do with it?" I asked. + +"That was the trouble," he returned. "I didn't know what to do with it. +It was ten o'clock on Christmas Eve, just as I was leaving, that he gave +it to me. 'Tiddling Brothers have sent me a goose, Biggles,' he said to +me as I helped him on with his great-coat. 'Very kind of 'em, but I +don't want it myself; you can have it!' + +"Of course I thanked him, and was very grateful. He wished me a merry +Christmas and went out. I tied the thing up in brown paper, and took it +under my arm. It was a fine bird, but heavy. + +"Under all the circumstances, and it being Christmas time, I thought I +would treat myself to a glass of beer. I went into a quiet little house +at the corner of the Lane and laid the goose on the counter. + +"'That's a big 'un,' said the landlord; 'you'll get a good cut off him to- +morrow.' + +"His words set me thinking, and for the first time it struck me that I +didn't want the bird--that it was of no use to me at all. I was going +down to spend the holidays with my young lady's people in Kent." + +"Was this the canary young lady?" I interrupted. + +"No," he replied. "This was before that one. It was this goose I'm +telling you of that upset this one. Well, her folks were big farmers; it +would have been absurd taking a goose down to them, and I knew no one in +London to give it to, so when the landlord came round again I asked him +if he would care to buy it. I told him he could have it cheap. + +"'I don't want it myself,' he answered. 'I've got three in the house +already. Perhaps one of these gentlemen would like to make an offer.' + +"He turned to a couple of chaps who were sitting drinking gin. They +didn't look to me worth the price of a chicken between them. The +seediest said he'd like to look at it, however, and I undid the parcel. +He mauled the thing pretty considerably, and cross-examined me as to how +I come by it, ending by upsetting half a tumbler of gin and water over +it. Then he offered me half a crown for it. It made me so angry that I +took the brown paper and the string in one hand and the goose in the +other, and walked straight out without saying a word. + +"I carried it in this way for some distance, because I was excited and +didn't care how I carried it; but as I cooled, I began to reflect how +ridiculous I must look. One or two small boys evidently noticed the same +thing. I stopped under a lamp-post and tried to tie it up again. I had +a bag and an umbrella with me at the same time, and the first thing I did +was to drop the goose into the gutter, which is just what I might have +expected to do, attempting to handle four separate articles and three +yards of string with one pair of hands. I picked up about a quart of mud +with that goose, and got the greater part of it over my hands and clothes +and a fair quantity over the brown paper; and then it began to rain. + +"I bundled everything up into my arm and made for the nearest pub, where +I thought I would ask for a piece more string and make a neat job of it. + +"The bar was crowded. I pushed my way to the counter and flung the goose +down in front of me. The men nearest stopped talking to look at it; and +a young fellow standing next to me said-- + +"'Well, you've killed it.' I daresay I did seem a bit excited. + +"I had intended making another effort to sell it here, but they were +clearly not the right sort. I had a pint of ale--for I was feeling +somewhat tired and hot--scraped as much of the mud off the bird as I +could, made a fresh parcel of it, and came out. + +"Crossing the road a happy idea occurred to me. I thought I would raffle +it. At once I set to work to find a house where there might seem to be a +likely lot. It cost me three or four whiskies--for I felt I didn't want +any more beer, which is a thing that easily upsets me--but at length I +found just the crowd I wanted--a quiet domestic-looking set in a homely +little place off the Goswell Road. + +"I explained my views to the landlord. He said he had no objection; he +supposed I would stand drinks round afterwards. I said I should be +delighted to do so, and showed him the bird. + +"'It looks a bit poorly,' he said. He was a Devonshire man. + +"'Oh, that's nothing,' I explained. 'I happened to drop it. That will +all wash off.' + +"'It smells a bit queer, too,' he said. + +"'That's mud,' I answered; 'you know what London mud is. And a gentleman +spilled some gin over it. Nobody will notice that when it's cooked.' + +"'Well,' he replied. 'I don't think I'll take a hand myself, but if any +other gent likes to, that's his affair.' + +"Nobody seemed enthusiastic. I started it at sixpence, and took a ticket +myself. The potman had a free chance for superintending the +arrangements, and he succeeded in inducing five other men, much against +their will, to join us. I won it myself, and paid out three and twopence +for drinks. A solemn-looking individual who had been snoring in a corner +suddenly woke up as I was going out, and offered me sevenpence ha'penny +for it--why sevenpence ha'penny I have never been able to understand. He +would have taken it away, I should never have seen it again, and my whole +life might have been different. But Fate has always been against me. I +replied, with perhaps unnecessary hauteur, that I wasn't a Christmas +dinner fund for the destitute, and walked out. + +"It was getting late, and I had a long walk home to my lodgings. I was +beginning to wish I had never seen the bird. I estimated its weight by +this time to be thirty-six pounds. + +"The idea occurred to me to sell it to a poulterer. I looked for a shop, +I found one in Myddleton Street. There wasn't a customer near it, but by +the way the man was shouting you might have thought that he was doing all +the trade of Clerkenwell. I took the goose out of the parcel and laid it +on the shelf before him. + +"'What's this?' he asked. + +"'It's a goose,' I said. 'You can have it cheap.' + +"He just seized the thing by the neck and flung it at me. I dodged, and +it caught the side of my head. You can have no idea, if you've never +been hit on the head with a goose, how if hurts. I picked it up and hit +him back with it, and a policeman came up with the usual, 'Now then, +what's all this about?' + +"I explained the facts. The poulterer stepped to the edge of the curb +and apostrophised the universe generally. + +"'Look at that shop,' he said. 'It's twenty minutes to twelve, and +there's seven dozen geese hanging there that I'm willing to give away, +and this fool asks me if I want to buy another.' + +"I perceived then that my notion had been a foolish one, and I followed +the policeman's advice, and went away quietly, taking the bird with me. + +"Then said I to myself, 'I will give it away. I will select some poor +deserving person, and make him a present of the damned thing.' I passed +a good many people, but no one looked deserving enough. It may have been +the time or it may have been the neighbourhood, but those I met seemed to +me to be unworthy of the bird. I offered it to a man in Judd Street, who +I thought appeared hungry. He turned out to be a drunken ruffian. I +could not make him understand what I meant, and he followed me down the +road abusing me at the top of his voice, until, turning a corner without +knowing it, he plunged down Tavistock Place, shouting after the wrong +man. In the Euston Road I stopped a half-starved child and pressed it +upon her. She answered 'Not me!' and ran away. I heard her calling +shrilly after me, 'Who stole the goose?' + +"I dropped it in a dark part of Seymour Street. A man picked it up and +brought it after me. I was unequal to any more explanations or +arguments. I gave him twopence and plodded on with it once more. The +pubs were just closing, and I went into one for a final drink. As a +matter of fact I had had enough already, being, as I am, unaccustomed to +anything more than an occasional class of beer. But I felt depressed, +and I thought it might cheer me. I think I had gin, which is a thing I +loathe. + +"I meant to fling it over into Oakley Square, but a policeman had his eye +on me, and followed me twice round the railings. In Golding Road I +sought to throw it down an area, but was frustrated in like manner. The +whole night police of London seemed to have nothing else to do but +prevent my getting rid of that goose. + +"They appeared so anxious about it that I fancied they might like to have +it. I went up to one in Camden Street. I called him 'Bobby,' and asked +him if he wanted a goose. + +"'I'll tell you what I don't want,' he replied severely, 'and that is +none of your sauce.' + +"He was very insulting, and I naturally answered him back. What actually +passed I forget, but it ended in his announcing his intention of taking +me in charge. + +"I slipped out of his hands and bolted down King Street. He blew his +whistle and started after me. A man sprang out from a doorway in College +Street and tried to stop me. I tied him up with a butt in the stomach, +and cut through the Crescent, doubling back into the Camden Road by Batt +Street. + +"At the Canal Bridge I looked behind me, and could see no one. I dropped +the goose over the parapet, and it fell with a splash into the water. + +"Heaving a sigh of relief, I turned and crossed into Randolph Street, and +there a constable collared me. I was arguing with him when the first +fool came up breathless. They told me I had better explain the matter to +the Inspector, and I thought so too. + +"The Inspector asked me why I had run away when the other constable +wanted to take me in charge. I replied that it was because I did not +desire to spend my Christmas holidays in the lock-up, which he evidently +regarded as a singularly weak argument. He asked me what I had thrown +into the canal. I told him a goose. He asked me why I had thrown a +goose into the canal. I told him because I was sick and tired of the +animal. + +"At this stage a sergeant came in to say that they had succeeded in +recovering the parcel. They opened it on the Inspector's table. It +contained a dead baby. + +"I pointed out to them that it wasn't my parcel, and that it wasn't my +baby, but they hardly took the trouble to disguise the fact that they did +not believe me. + +"The Inspector said it was too grave a case for bail, which, seeing that +I did not know a soul in London, was somewhat immaterial. I got them to +send a telegram to my young lady to say that I was unavoidably detained +in town, and passed as quiet and uneventful a Christmas Day and Boxing +Day as I ever wish to spend. + +"In the end the evidence against me was held to be insufficient to +justify a conviction, and I got off on the minor charge of drunk and +disorderly. But I lost my situation and I lost my young lady, and I +don't care if I never see a goose again." + +We were nearing Liverpool Street. He collected his luggage, and taking +up his hat made an attempt to put it on his head. But in consequence of +the swelling caused by the horseshoe it would not go anywhere near him, +and he laid it sadly back upon the seat. + +"No," he said quietly, "I can't say that I believe very much in luck." + + + + +DICK DUNKERMAN'S CAT + + +Richard Dunkerman and I had been old school-fellows, if a gentleman +belonging to the Upper Sixth, and arriving each morning in a "topper" and +a pair of gloves, and "a discredit to the Lower Fourth," in a Scotch cap, +can by any manner of means be classed together. And though in those +early days a certain amount of coldness existed between us, originating +in a poem, composed and sung on occasions by myself in commemoration of +an alleged painful incident connected with a certain breaking-up day, and +which, if I remember rightly ran:-- + + Dicky, Dicky, Dunk, + Always in a funk, + Drank a glass of sherry wine, + And went home roaring drunk, + +and kept alive by his brutal criticism of the same, expressed with the +bony part of the knee, yet in after life we came to know and like each +other better. I drifted into journalism, while he for years had been an +unsuccessful barrister and dramatist; but one spring, to the astonishment +of us all, he brought out the play of the season, a somewhat impossible +little comedy, but full of homely sentiment and belief in human nature. +It was about a couple of months after its production that he first +introduced me to "Pyramids, Esquire." + +I was in love at the time. Her name was, I think, Naomi, and I wanted to +talk to somebody about her. Dick had a reputation for taking an +intelligent interest in other men's love affairs. He would let a lover +rave by the hour to him, taking brief notes the while in a bulky +red-covered volume labelled "Commonplace Book." Of course everybody knew +that he was using them merely as raw material for his dramas, but we did +not mind that so long as he would only listen. I put on my hat and went +round to his chambers. + +We talked about indifferent matters for a quarter of an hour or so, and +then I launched forth upon my theme. I had exhausted her beauty and +goodness, and was well into my own feelings--the madness of my ever +imagining I had loved before, the utter impossibility of my ever caring +for any other woman, and my desire to die breathing her name--before he +made a move. I thought he had risen to reach down, as usual, the +"Commonplace Book," and so waited, but instead he went to the door and +opened it, and in glided one of the largest and most beautiful black tom- +cats I have ever seen. It sprang on Dick's knee with a soft "cur-roo," +and sat there upright, watching me, and I went on with my tale. + +After a few minutes Dick interrupted me with:-- + +"I thought you said her name was Naomi?" + +"So it is," I replied. "Why?" + +"Oh, nothing," he answered, "only just now you referred to her as Enid." + +This was remarkable, as I had not seen Enid for years, and had quite +forgotten her. Somehow it took the glitter out of the conversation. A +dozen sentences later Dick stopped me again with:-- + +"Who's Julia?" + +I began to get irritated. Julia, I remembered, had been cashier in a +city restaurant, and had, when I was little more than a boy, almost +inveigled me into an engagement. I found myself getting hot at the +recollection of the spooney rhapsodies I had hoarsely poured into her +powder-streaked ear while holding her flabby hand across the counter. + +"Did I really say 'Julia'?" I answered somewhat sharply, "or are you +joking?" + +"You certainly alluded to her as Julia," he replied mildly. "But never +mind, you go on as you like, I shall know whom you mean." + +But the flame was dead within me. I tried to rekindle it, but every time +I glanced up and met the green eyes of the black Tom it flickered out +again. I recalled the thrill that had penetrated my whole being when +Naomi's hand had accidently touched mine in the conservatory, and +wondered whether she had done it on purpose. I thought how good and +sweet she was to that irritatingly silly old frump her mother, and +wondered if it really were her mother, or only hired. I pictured her +crown of gold-brown hair as I had last seen it with the sunlight kissing +its wanton waves, and felt I would like to be quite sure that it were all +her own. + +Once I clutched the flying skirts of my enthusiasm with sufficient +firmness to remark that in my own private opinion a good woman was more +precious than rubies; adding immediately afterwards--the words escaping +me unconsciously before I was aware even of the thought--"pity it's so +difficult to tell 'em." + +Then I gave it up, and sat trying to remember what I had said to her the +evening before, and hoping I had not committed myself. + +Dick's voice roused me from my unpleasant reverie. + +"No," he said, "I thought you would not be able to. None of them can." + +"None of them can what?" I asked. Somehow I was feeling angry with Dick +and with Dick's cat, and with myself and most other things. + +"Why talk love or any other kind of sentiment before old Pyramids here?" +he replied, stroking the cat's soft head as it rose and arched its back. + +"What's the confounded cat got to do with it?" I snapped. + +"That's just what I can't tell you," he answered, "but it's very +remarkable. Old Leman dropped in here the other evening and began in his +usual style about Ibsen and the destiny of the human race, and the +Socialistic idea and all the rest of it--you know his way. Pyramids sat +on the edge of the table there and looked at him, just as he sat looking +at you a few minutes ago, and in less than a quarter of an hour Leman had +come to the conclusion that society would do better without ideals and +that the destiny of the human race was in all probability the dust heap. +He pushed his long hair back from his eyes and looked, for the first time +in his life, quite sane. 'We talk about ourselves,' he said, 'as though +we were the end of creation. I get tired listening to myself sometimes. +Pah!' he continued, 'for all we know the human race may die out utterly +and another insect take our place, as possibly we pushed out and took the +place of a former race of beings. I wonder if the ant tribe may not be +the future inheritors of the earth. They understand combination, and +already have an extra sense that we lack. If in the courses of evolution +they grow bigger in brain and body, they may become powerful rivals, who +knows?' Curious to hear old Leman talking like that, wasn't it?" + +"What made you call him 'Pyramids'?" I asked of Dick. + +"I don't know," he answered, "I suppose because he looked so old. The +name came to me." + +I leaned across and looked into the great green eyes, and the creature, +never winking, never blinking, looked back into mine, until the feeling +came to me that I was being drawn down into the very wells of time. It +seemed as though the panorama of the ages must have passed in review +before those expressionless orbs--all the loves and hopes and desires of +mankind; all the everlasting truths that have been found false; all the +eternal faiths discovered to save, until it was discovered they damned. +The strange black creature grew and grew till it seemed to fill the room, +and Dick and I to be but shadows floating in the air. + +I forced from myself a laugh, that only in part, however, broke the +spell, and inquired of Dick how he had acquired possession of it. + +"It came to me," he answered, "one night six months ago. I was down on +my luck at the time. Two of my plays, on which I had built great hopes, +had failed, one on top of the other--you remember them--and it appeared +absurd to think that any manager would ever look at anything of mine +again. Old Walcott had just told me that he did not consider it right of +me under all the circumstances to hold Lizzie any longer to her +engagement, and that I ought to go away and give her a chance of +forgetting me, and I had agreed with him. I was alone in the world, and +heavily in debt. Altogether things seemed about as hopeless as they +could be, and I don't mind confessing to you now that I had made up my +mind to blow out my brains that very evening. I had loaded my revolver, +and it lay before me on the desk. My hand was toying with it when I +heard a faint scratching at the door. I paid no attention at first, but +it grew more persistent, and at length, to stop the faint noise which +excited me more than I could account for, I rose and opened the door and +_it_ walked in. + +"It perched itself upon the corner of my desk beside the loaded pistol, +and sat there bolt upright looking at me; and I, pushing back my chair, +sat looking at it. And there came a letter telling me that a man of +whose name I had never heard had been killed by a cow in Melbourne, and +that under his will a legacy of three thousand pounds fell into the +estate of a distant relative of my own who had died peacefully and +utterly insolvent eighteen months previously, leaving me his sole heir +and representative, and I put the revolver back into the drawer." + +"Do you think Pyramids would come and stop with me for a week?" I asked, +reaching over to stroke the cat as it lay softly purring on Dick's knee. + +"Maybe he will some day," replied Dick in a low voice, but before the +answer came--I know not why--I had regretted the jesting words. + +"I came to talk to him as though he were a human creature," continued +Dick, "and to discuss things with him. My last play I regard as a +collaboration; indeed, it is far more his than mine." + +I should have thought Dick mad had not the cat been sitting there before +me with its eyes looking into mine. As it was, I only grew more +interested in his tale. + +"It was rather a cynical play as I first wrote it," he went on, "a +truthful picture of a certain corner of society as I saw and knew it. +From an artistic point of view I felt it was good; from the box-office +standard it was doubtful. I drew it from my desk on the third evening +after Pyramids' advent, and read it through. He sat on the arm of the +chair and looked over the pages as I turned them. + +"It was the best thing I had ever written. Insight into life ran through +every line, I found myself reading it again with delight. Suddenly a +voice beside me said:-- + +"'Very clever, my boy, very clever indeed. If you would just turn it +topsy-turvy, change all those bitter, truthful speeches into noble +sentiments; make your Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs (who never has +been a popular character) die in the last act instead of the +Yorkshireman, and let your bad woman be reformed by her love for the hero +and go off somewhere by herself and be good to the poor in a black frock, +the piece might be worth putting on the stage.' + +"I turned indignantly to see who was speaking. The opinions sounded like +those of a theatrical manager. No one was in the room but I and the cat. +No doubt I had been talking to myself, but the voice was strange to me. + +"'Be reformed by her love for the hero!' I retorted, contemptuously, for +I was unable to grasp the idea that I was arguing only with myself, 'why +it's his mad passion for her that ruins his life.' + +"'And will ruin the play with the great B.P.,' returned the other voice. +'The British dramatic hero has no passion, but a pure and respectful +admiration for an honest, hearty English girl--pronounced "gey-url." You +don't know the canons of your art.' + +"'And besides,' I persisted, unheeding the interruption, 'women born and +bred and soaked for thirty years in an atmosphere of sin don't reform.' + +"'Well, this one's got to, that's all,' was the sneering reply, 'let her +hear an organ.' + +"'But as an artist--,' I protested. + +"'You will be always unsuccessful,' was the rejoinder. 'My dear fellow, +you and your plays, artistic or in artistic, will be forgotten in a very +few years hence. You give the world what it wants, and the world will +give you what you want. Please, if you wish to live.' + +"So, with Pyramids beside me day by day, I re-wrote the play, and +whenever I felt a thing to be utterly impossible and false I put it down +with a grin. And every character I made to talk clap-trap sentiment +while Pyramids purred, and I took care that everyone of my puppets did +that which was right in the eyes of the lady with the lorgnettes in the +second row of the dress circle; and old Hewson says the play will run +five hundred nights. + +"But what is worst," concluded Dick, "is that I am not ashamed of myself, +and that I seem content." + +"What do you think the animal is?" I asked with a laugh, "an evil +spirit"? For it had passed into the next room and so out through the +open window, and its strangely still green eyes no longer drawing mine +towards them, I felt my common sense returning to me. + +"You have not lived with it for six months," answered Dick quietly, "and +felt its eyes for ever on you as I have. And I am not the only one. You +know Canon Whycherly, the great preacher?" + +"My knowledge of modern church history is not extensive," I replied. "I +know him by name, of course. What about him?" + +"He was a curate in the East End," continued Dick, "and for ten years he +laboured, poor and unknown, leading one of those noble, heroic lives that +here and there men do yet live, even in this age. Now he is the prophet +of the fashionable up-to-date Christianity of South Kensington, drives to +his pulpit behind a pair of thorough-bred Arabs, and his waistcoat is +taking to itself the curved line of prosperity. He was in here the other +morning on behalf of Princess ---. They are giving a performance of one +of my plays in aid of the Destitute Vicars' Fund." + +"And did Pyramids discourage him?" I asked, with perhaps the suggestion +of a sneer. + +"No," answered Dick, "so far as I could judge, it approved the scheme. +The point of the matter is that the moment Whycherly came into the room +the cat walked over to him and rubbed itself affectionately against his +legs. He stood and stroked it." + +"'Oh, so it's come to you, has it?' he said, with a curious smile. + +"There was no need for any further explanation between us. I understood +what lay behind those few words." + +I lost sight of Dick for some time, though I heard a good deal of him, +for he was rapidly climbing into the position of the most successful +dramatist of the day, and Pyramids I had forgotten all about, until one +afternoon calling on an artist friend who had lately emerged from the +shadows of starving struggle into the sunshine of popularity, I saw a +pair of green eyes that seemed familiar to me gleaming at me from a dark +corner of the studio. + +"Why, surely," I exclaimed, crossing over to examine the animal more +closely, "why, yes, you've got Dick Dunkerman's cat." + +He raised his face from the easel and glanced across at me. + +"Yes," he said, "we can't live on ideals," and I, remembering, hastened +to change the conversation. + +Since then I have met Pyramids in the rooms of many friends of mine. They +give him different names, but I am sure it is the same cat, I know those +green eyes. He always brings them luck, but they are never quite the +same men again afterwards. + +Sometimes I sit wondering if I hear his scratching at the door. + + + + +THE MINOR POET'S STORY + + +"It doesn't suit you at all," I answered. + +"You're very disagreeable," said she, "I shan't ever ask your advice +again." + +"Nobody," I hastened to add, "would look well in it. You, of course, +look less awful in it than any other woman would, but it's not your +style." + +"He means," exclaimed the Minor Poet, "that the thing itself not being +pre-eminently beautiful, it does not suit, is not in agreement with you. +The contrast between you and anything approaching the ugly or the +commonplace, is too glaring to be aught else than displeasing." + +"He didn't say it," replied the Woman of the World; "and besides it isn't +ugly. It's the very latest fashion." + +"Why is it," asked the Philosopher, "that women are such slaves to +fashion? They think clothes, they talk clothes, they read clothes, yet +they have never understood clothes. The purpose of dress, after the +primary object of warmth has been secured, is to adorn, to beautify the +particular wearer. Yet not one woman in a thousand stops to consider +what colours will go best with her complexion, what cut will best hide +the defects or display the advantages of her figure. If it be the +fashion, she must wear it. And so we have pale-faced girls looking +ghastly in shades suitable to dairy-maids, and dots waddling about in +costumes fit and proper to six-footers. It is as if crows insisted on +wearing cockatoo's feathers on their heads, and rabbits ran about with +peacocks' tails fastened behind them." + +"And are not you men every bit as foolish?" retorted the Girton Girl. +"Sack coats come into fashion, and dumpy little men trot up and down in +them, looking like butter-tubs on legs. You go about in July melting +under frock-coats and chimney-pot hats, and because it is the stylish +thing to do, you all play tennis in still shirts and stand-up collars, +which is idiotic. If fashion decreed that you should play cricket in a +pair of top-boots and a diver's helmet, you would play cricket in a pair +of top-boots and a diver's helmet, and dub every sensible fellow who +didn't a cad. It's worse in you than in us; men are supposed to think +for themselves, and to be capable of it, the womanly woman isn't." + +"Big women and little men look well in nothing," said the Woman of the +World. "Poor Emily was five foot ten and a half, and never looked an +inch under seven foot, whatever she wore. Empires came into fashion, and +the poor child looked like the giant's baby in a pantomime. We thought +the Greek might help her, but it only suggested a Crystal Palace statue +tied up in a sheet, and tied up badly; and when puff-sleeves and shoulder- +capes were in and Teddy stood up behind her at a water-party and sang +'Under the spreading chestnut-tree,' she took it as a personal insult and +boxed his ears. Few men liked to be seen with her, and I'm sure George +proposed to her partly with the idea of saving himself the expense of a +step-ladder, she reaches down his boots for him from the top shelf." + +"I," said the Minor Poet, "take up the position of not wanting to waste +my brain upon the subject. Tell me what to wear, and I will wear it, and +there is an end of the matter. If Society says, 'Wear blue shirts and +white collars,' I wear blue shirts and white collars. If she says, 'The +time has now come when hats should be broad-brimmed,' I take unto myself +a broad-brimmed hat. The question does not interest me sufficiently for +me to argue it. It is your fop who refuses to follow fashion. He wishes +to attract attention to himself by being peculiar. A novelist whose +books pass unnoticed, gains distinction by designing his own necktie; and +many an artist, following the line of least resistance, learns to let his +hair grow instead of learning to paint." + +"The fact is," remarked the Philosopher, "we are the mere creatures of +fashion. Fashion dictates to us our religion, our morality, our +affections, our thoughts. In one age successful cattle-lifting is a +virtue, a few hundred years later company-promoting takes its place as a +respectable and legitimate business. In England and America Christianity +is fashionable, in Turkey, Mohammedanism, and 'the crimes of Clapham are +chaste in Martaban.' In Japan a woman dresses down to the knees, but +would be considered immodest if she displayed bare arms. In Europe it is +legs that no pure-minded woman is supposed to possess. In China we +worship our mother-in-law and despise our wife; in England we treat our +wife with respect, and regard our mother-in-law as the bulwark of comic +journalism. The stone age, the iron age, the age of faith, the age of +infidelism, the philosophic age, what are they but the passing fashions +of the world? It is fashion, fashion, fashion wherever we turn. Fashion +waits beside our cradle to lead us by the hand through life. Now +literature is sentimental, now hopefully humorous, now psychological, now +new-womanly. Yesterday's pictures are the laughing-stock of the up-to- +date artist of to-day, and to-day's art will be sneered at to-morrow. Now +it is fashionable to be democratic, to pretend that no virtue or wisdom +can exist outside corduroy, and to abuse the middle classes. One season +we go slumming, and the next we are all socialists. We think we are +thinking; we are simply dressing ourselves up in words we do not +understand for the gods to laugh at us." + +"Don't be pessimistic," retorted the Minor Poet, "pessimism is going out. +You call such changes fashions, I call them the footprints of progress. +Each phase of thought is an advance upon the former, bringing the +footsteps of the many nearer to the landmarks left by the mighty climbers +of the past upon the mountain paths of truth. The crowd that was +satisfied with _The Derby Day_ now appreciates Millet. The public that +were content to wag their heads to _The Bohemian Girl_ have made Wagner +popular." + +"And the play lovers, who stood for hours to listen to Shakespeare," +interrupted the Philosopher, "now crowd to music-halls." + +"The track sometimes descends for a little way, but it will wind upwards +again," returned the Poet. "The music-hall itself is improving; I +consider it the duty of every intellectual man to visit such places. The +mere influence of his presence helps to elevate the tone of the +performance. I often go myself!" + +"I was looking," said the Woman of the World, "at some old illustrated +papers of thirty years ago, showing the men dressed in those very absurd +trousers, so extremely roomy about the waist, and so extremely tight +about the ankles. I recollect poor papa in them; I always used to long +to fill them out by pouring in sawdust at the top." + +"You mean the peg-top period," I said. "I remember them distinctly +myself, but it cannot be more than three-and-twenty years ago at the +outside." + +"That is very nice of you," replied the Woman of the World, "and shows +more tact than I should have given you credit for. It could, as you say, +have been only twenty-three years ago. I know I was a very little girl +at the time. I think there must be some subtle connection between +clothes and thought. I cannot imagine men in those trousers and +Dundreary whiskers talking as you fellows are talking now, any more than +I could conceive of a woman in a crinoline and a poke bonnet smoking a +cigarette. I think it must be so, because dear mother used to be the +most easy-going woman in the world in her ordinary clothes, and would let +papa smoke all over the house. But about once every three weeks she +would put on a hideous old-fashioned black silk dress, that looked as if +Queen Elizabeth must have slept in it during one of those seasons when +she used to go about sleeping anywhere, and then we all had to sit up. +'Look out, ma's got her black silk dress on,' came to be a regular +formula. We could always make papa take us out for a walk or a drive by +whispering it to him." + +"I can never bear to look at those pictures of by-gone fashions," said +the Old Maid, "I see the by-gone people in them, and it makes me feel as +though the faces that we love are only passing fashions with the rest. We +wear them for a little while upon our hearts, and think so much of them, +and then there comes a time when we lay them by, and forget them, and +newer faces take their place, and we are satisfied. It seems so sad." + +"I wrote a story some years ago," remarked the Minor Poet, "about a young +Swiss guide, who was betrothed to a laughing little French peasant girl." + +"Named Suzette," interrupted the Girton Girl. "I know her. Go on." + +"Named Jeanne," corrected the Poet, "the majority of laughing French +girls, in fiction, are named Suzette, I am well aware. But this girl's +mother's family was English. She was christened Jeanne after an aunt +Jane, who lived in Birmingham, and from whom she had expectations." + +"I beg your pardon," apologised the Girton Girl, "I was not aware of that +fact. What happened to her?" + +"One morning, a few days before the date fixed for the wedding," said the +Minor Poet, "she started off to pay a visit to a relative living in the +village, the other side of the mountain. It was a dangerous track, +climbing half-way up the mountain before it descended again, and skirting +more than one treacherous slope, but the girl was mountain born and bred, +sure-footed as a goat, and no one dreamed of harm." + +"She went over, of course," said the Philosopher, "those sure-footed +girls always do." + +"What happened," replied the Minor Poet, "was never known. The girl was +never seen again." + +"And what became of her lover?" asked the Girton Girl. "Was he, when +next year's snow melted, and the young men of the village went forth to +gather Edelweiss, wherewith to deck their sweethearts, found by them +dead, beside her, at the bottom of the crevasse?" + +"No," said the Poet; "you do not know this story, you had better let me +tell it. Her lover returned the morning before the wedding day, to be +met with the news. He gave way to no sign of grief, he repelled all +consolation. Taking his rope and axe he went up into the mountain by +himself. All through the winter he haunted the track by which she must +have travelled, indifferent to the danger that he ran, impervious +apparently to cold, or hunger, or fatigue, undeterred by storm, or mist, +or avalanche. At the beginning of the spring he returned to the village, +purchased building utensils, and day after day carried them back with him +up into the mountain. He hired no labour, he rejected the proffered +assistance of his brother guides. Choosing an almost inaccessible spot, +at the edge of the great glacier, far from all paths, he built himself a +hut, with his own hands; and there for eighteen years he lived alone. + +"In the 'season' he earned good fees, being known far and wide as one of +the bravest and hardiest of all the guides, but few of his clients liked +him, for he was a silent, gloomy man, speaking little, and with never a +laugh or jest on the journey. Each fall, having provisioned himself, he +would retire to his solitary hut, and bar the door, and no human soul +would set eyes on him again until the snows melted. + +"One year, however, as the spring days wore on, and he did not appear +among the guides, as was his wont, the elder men, who remembered his +story and pitied him, grew uneasy; and, after much deliberation, it was +determined that a party of them should force their way up to his eyrie. +They cut their path across the ice where no foot among them had trodden +before, and finding at length the lonely snow-encompassed hut, knocked +loudly with their axe-staves on the door; but only the whirling echoes +from the glacier's thousand walls replied, so the foremost put his strong +shoulder to the worn timber and the door flew open with a crash. + +"They found him dead, as they had more than half expected, lying stiff +and frozen on the rough couch at the farther end of the hut; and, beside +him, looking down upon him with a placid face, as a mother might watch +beside her sleeping child, stood Jeanne. She wore the flowers pinned to +her dress that she had gathered when their eyes had last seen her. The +girl's face that had laughed back to their good-bye in the village, +nineteen years ago. + +"A strange steely light clung round her, half illuminating, half +obscuring her, and the men drew back in fear, thinking they saw a vision, +till one, bolder than the rest, stretched out his hand and touched the +ice that formed her coffin. + +"For eighteen years the man had lived there with this face that he had +loved. A faint flush still lingered on the fair cheeks, the laughing +lips were still red. Only at one spot, above her temple, the wavy hair +lay matted underneath a clot of blood." + +The Minor Poet ceased. + +"What a very unpleasant way of preserving one's love!" said the Girton +Girl. + +"When did the story appear?" I asked. "I don't remember reading it." + +"I never published it," explained the Minor Poet. "Within the same week +two friends of mine, one of whom had just returned from Norway and the +other from Switzerland, confided to me their intention of writing stories +about girls who had fallen into glaciers, and who had been found by their +friends long afterwards, looking as good as new; and a few days later I +chanced upon a book, the heroine of which had been dug out of a glacier +alive three hundred years after she had fallen in. There seemed to be a +run on ice maidens, and I decided not to add to their number." + +"It is curious," said the Philosopher, "how there seems to be a fashion +even in thought. An idea has often occurred to me that has seemed to me +quite new, and taking up a newspaper I have found that some man in Russia +or San Francisco has just been saying the very same thing in almost the +very same words. We say a thing is 'in the air'; it is more true than we +are aware of. Thought does not grow in us. It is a thing apart, we +simply gather it. All truths, all discoveries, all inventions, they have +not come to us from any one man. The time grows ripe for them, and from +this corner of the earth and from that, hands, guided by some instinct, +grope for and grasp them. Buddha and Christ seize hold of the morality +needful to civilisation, and promulgate it, unknown to one another, the +one on the shores of the Ganges, the other by the Jordan. A dozen +forgotten explorers, _feeling_ America, prepared the way for Columbus to +discover it. A deluge of blood is required to sweep away old follies, +and Rousseau and Voltaire, and a myriad others are set to work to fashion +the storm clouds. The steam-engine, the spinning loom is 'in the air.' A +thousand brains are busy with them, a few go further than the rest. It +is idle to talk of human thought; there is no such thing. Our minds are +fed as our bodies with the food God has provided for us. Thought hangs +by the wayside, and we pick it and cook it, and eat it, and cry out what +clever 'thinkers' we are!" + +"I cannot agree with you," replied the Minor Poet, "if we were simply +automata, as your argument would suggest, what was the purpose of +creating us?" + +"The intelligent portion of mankind has been asking itself that question +for many ages," returned the Philosopher. + +"I hate people who always think as I do," said the Girton Girl; "there +was a girl in our corridor who never would disagree with me. Every +opinion I expressed turned out to be her opinion also. It always +irritated me." + +"That might have been weak-mindedness," said the Old Maid, which sounded +ambiguous. + +"It is not so unpleasant as having a person always disagreeing with you," +said the Woman of the World. "My cousin Susan never would agree with any +one. If I came down in red she would say, 'Why don't you try green, +dear? every one says you look so well in green'; and when I wore green +she would say, 'Why have you given up red dear? I thought you rather +fancied yourself in red.' When I told her of my engagement to Tom, she +burst into tears and said she couldn't help it. She had always felt that +George and I were intended for one another; and when Tom never wrote for +two whole months, and behaved disgracefully in--in other ways, and I told +her I was engaged to George, she reminded me of every word I had ever +said about my affection for Tom, and of how I had ridiculed poor George. +Papa used to say, 'If any man ever tells Susan that he loves her, she +will argue him out of it, and will never accept him until he has jilted +her, and will refuse to marry him every time he asks her to fix the +day."' + +"Is she married?" asked the Philosopher. + +"Oh, yes," answered the Woman of the World, "and is devoted to her +children. She lets them do everything they don't want to." + + + + +THE DEGENERATION OF THOMAS HENRY + + +The most respectable cat I have ever known was Thomas Henry. His +original name was Thomas, but it seemed absurd to call him that. The +family at Hawarden would as soon think of addressing Mr. Gladstone as +"Bill." He came to us from the Reform Club, _via_ the butcher, and the +moment I saw him I felt that of all the clubs in London that was the club +he must have come from. Its atmosphere of solid dignity and petrified +conservatism seemed to cling to him. Why he left the club I am unable, +at this distance of time, to remember positively, but I am inclined to +think that it came about owing to a difference with the new _chef_, an +overbearing personage who wanted all the fire to himself. The butcher, +hearing of the quarrel, and knowing us as a catless family, suggested a +way out of the _impasse_ that was welcomed both by cat and cook. The +parting between them, I believe, was purely formal, and Thomas arrived +prejudiced in our favour. + +My wife, the moment she saw him, suggested Henry as a more suitable name. +It struck me that the combination of the two would be still more +appropriate, and accordingly, in the privacy of the domestic circle, +Thomas Henry he was called. When speaking of him to friends, we +generally alluded to him as Thomas Henry, Esquire. + +He approved of us in his quiet, undemonstrative way. He chose my own +particular easy chair for himself, and stuck to it. An ordinary cat I +should have shot out, but Thomas Henry was not the cat one chivvies. Had +I made it clear to him that I objected to his presence in my chair, I +feel convinced he would have regarded me much as I should expect to be +regarded by Queen Victoria, were that gracious Lady to call upon me in a +friendly way, and were I to inform her that I was busy, and request her +to look in again some other afternoon. He would have risen, and have +walked away, but he never would have spoken to me again so long as we +lived under the same roof. + +We had a lady staying with us at the time--she still resides with us, but +she is now older, and possessed of more judgment--who was no respecter of +cats. Her argument was that seeing the tail stuck up, and came +conveniently to one's hand, that was the natural appendage by which to +raise a cat. She also laboured under the error that the way to feed a +cat was to ram things into its head, and that its pleasure was to be +taken out for a ride in a doll's perambulator. I dreaded the first +meeting of Thomas Henry with this lady. I feared lest she should give +him a false impression of us as a family, and that we should suffer in +his eyes. + +But I might have saved myself all anxiety. There was a something about +Thomas Henry that checked forwardness and damped familiarity. His +attitude towards her was friendly but firm. Hesitatingly, and with a new- +born respect for cats, she put out her hand timidly towards its tail. He +gently put it on the other side, and looked at her. It was not an angry +look nor an offended look. It was the expression with which Solomon +might have received the advances of the Queen of Sheba. It expressed +condescension, combined with distance. + +He was really a most gentlemanly cat. A friend of mine, who believes in +the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, was convinced that he was +Lord Chesterfield. He never clamoured for food, as other cats do. He +would sit beside me at meals, and wait till he was served. He would eat +only the knuckle-end of a leg of mutton, and would never look at over- +done beef. A visitor of ours once offered him a piece of gristle; he +said nothing, but quietly left the room, and we did not see him again +until our friend had departed. + +But every one has his price, and Thomas Henry's price was roast duck. +Thomas Henry's attitude in the presence of roast duck came to me as a +psychological revelation. It showed me at once the lower and more animal +side of his nature. In the presence of roast duck Thomas Henry became +simply and merely a cat, swayed by all the savage instincts of his race. +His dignity fell from him as a cloak. He clawed for roast duck, he +grovelled for it. I believe he would have sold himself to the devil for +roast duck. + +We accordingly avoided that particular dish: it was painful to see a +cat's character so completely demoralised. Besides, his manners, when +roast duck was on the table, afforded a bad example to the children. + +He was a shining light among all the eats of our neighbourhood. One +might have set one's watch by his movements. After dinner he invariably +took half an hour's constitutional in the square; at ten o'clock each +night, precisely, he returned to the area door, and at eleven o'clock he +was asleep in my easy chair. He made no friends among the other cats. He +took no pleasure in fighting, and I doubt his ever having loved, even in +youth; his was too cold and self-contained a nature, female society he +regarded with utter indifference. + +So he lived with us a blameless existence during the whole winter. In +the summer we took him down with us into the country. We thought the +change of air would do him good; he was getting decidedly stout. Alas, +poor Thomas Henry! the country was his ruin. What brought about the +change I cannot say: maybe the air was too bracing. He slid down the +moral incline with frightful rapidity. The first night he stopped out +till eleven, the second night he never came home at all, the third night +he came home at six o'clock in the morning, minus half the fur on the top +of his head. Of course, there was a lady in the case, indeed, judging by +the riot that went on all night, I am inclined to think there must have +been a dozen. He was certainly a fine cat, and they took to calling for +him in the day time. Then gentleman cats who had been wronged took to +calling also, and demanding explanations, which Thomas Henry, to do him +justice, was always ready to accord. + +The village boys used to loiter round all day to watch the fights, and +angry housewives would be constantly charging into our kitchen to fling +dead cats upon the table, and appeal to Heaven and myself for justice. +Our kitchen became a veritable cat's morgue, and I had to purchase a new +kitchen table. The cook said it would make her work simpler if she could +keep a table entirely to herself. She said it quite confused her, having +so many dead cats lying round among her joints and vegetables: she was +afraid of making a mistake. Accordingly, the old table was placed under +the window, and devoted to the cats; and, after that, she would never +allow anyone to bring a cat, however dead, to her table. + +"What do you want me to do with it," I heard her asking an excited lady +on one occasion; "cook it?" + +"It's my cat," said the lady; "that's what that is." + +"Well, I'm not making cat pie to-day," answered our cook. "You take it +to its proper table. This is my table." + +At first, "Justice" was generally satisfied with half a crown, but as +time went on cats rose. I had hitherto regarded cats as a cheap +commodity, and I became surprised at the value attached to them. I began +to think seriously of breeding cats as an industry. At the prices +current in that village, I could have made an income of thousands. + +"Look what your beast has done," said one irate female, to whom I had +been called out in the middle of dinner. + +I looked. Thomas Henry appeared to have "done" a mangy, emaciated +animal, that must have been far happier dead than alive. Had the poor +creature been mine I should have thanked him; but some people never know +when they are well off. + +"I wouldn't ha' taken a five-pun' note for that cat," said the lady. + +"It's a matter of opinion," I replied, "but personally I think you would +have been unwise to refuse it. Taking the animal as it stands, I don't +feel inclined to give you more than a shilling for it. If you think you +can do better by taking it elsewhere, you do so." + +"He was more like a Christian than a cat," said the lady. + +"I'm not taking dead Christians," I answered firmly, "and even if I were +I wouldn't give more than a shilling for a specimen like that. You can +consider him as a Christian, or you can consider him as a cat; but he's +not worth more than a shilling in either case." + +We settled eventually for eighteenpence. + +The number of cats that Thomas Henry contrived to dispose of also +surprised me. Quite a massacre of cats seemed to be in progress. + +One evening, going into the kitchen, for I made it a practice now to +visit the kitchen each evening, to inspect the daily consignment of dead +cats, I found, among others, a curiously marked tortoiseshell cat, lying +on the table. + +"That cat's worth half a sovereign," said the owner, who was standing by, +drinking beer. + +I took up the animal, and examined it. + +"Your cat killed him yesterday," continued the man. "It's a burning +shame." + +"My cat has killed him three times," I replied. "He was killed on +Saturday as Mrs. Hedger's cat; on Monday he was killed for Mrs. Myers. I +was not quite positive on Monday; but I had my suspicions, and I made +notes. Now I recognise him. You take my advice, and bury him before he +breeds a fever. I don't care how many lives a cat has got; I only pay +for one." + +We gave Thomas Henry every chance to reform; but he only went from bad to +worse, and added poaching and chicken-stalking to his other crimes, and I +grew tired of paying for his vices. + +I consulted the gardener, and the gardener said he had known cats taken +that way before. + +"Do you know of any cure for it?" I asked. + +"Well, sir," replied the gardener, "I have heard as how a dose of +brickbat and pond is a good thing in a general way." + +"We'll try him with a dose just before bed time," I answered. The +gardener administered it, and we had no further trouble with him. + +Poor Thomas Henry! It shows to one how a reputation for respectability +may lie in the mere absence of temptation. Born and bred in the +atmosphere of the Reform Club, what gentleman could go wrong? I was +sorry for Thomas Henry, and I have never believed in the moral influence +of the country since. + + + + +THE CITY OF THE SEA + + +They say, the chroniclers who have written the history of that low-lying, +wind-swept coast, that years ago the foam fringe of the ocean lay further +to the east; so that where now the North Sea creeps among the treacherous +sand-reefs, it was once dry land. In those days, between the Abbey and +the sea, there stood a town of seven towers and four rich churches, +surrounded by a wall of twelve stones' thickness, making it, as men +reckoned then, a place of strength and much import; and the monks, +glancing their eyes downward from the Abbey garden on the hill, saw +beneath their feet its narrow streets, gay with the ever passing of rich +merchandise, saw its many wharves and water-ways, ever noisy with the +babel of strange tongues, saw its many painted masts, wagging their grave +heads above the dormer roofs and quaintly-carved oak gables. + +Thus the town prospered till there came a night when it did evil in the +sight of God and man. Those were troublous times to Saxon dwellers by +the sea, for the Danish water-rats swarmed round each river mouth, +scenting treasure from afar; and by none was the white flash of their +sharp, strong teeth more often seen than by the men of Eastern Anglia, +and by none in Eastern Anglia more often than by the watchers on the +walls of the town of seven towers that once stood upon the dry land, but +which now lies twenty fathom deep below the waters. Many a bloody fight +raged now without and now within its wall of twelve stones' thickness. +Many a groan of dying man, many a shriek of murdered woman, many a wail +of mangled child, knocked at the Abbey door upon its way to Heaven, +calling the trembling-monks from their beds, to pray for the souls that +were passing by. + +But at length peace came to the long-troubled land: Dane and Saxon +agreeing to dwell in friendship side by side, East Anglia being wide, and +there being room for both. And all men rejoiced greatly, for all were +weary of a strife in which little had been gained on either side beyond +hard blows, and their thoughts were of the ingle-nook. So the +long-bearded Danes, their thirsty axes harmless on their backs, passed to +and fro in straggling bands, seeking where undisturbed and undisturbing +they might build their homes; and thus it came about that Haafager and +his company, as the sun was going down, drew near to the town of seven +towers, that in those days stood on dry land between the Abbey and the +sea. + +And the men of the town, seeing the Danes, opened wide their gates +saying:-- + +"We have fought, but now there is peace. Enter, and make merry with us, +and to-morrow go your way." + +But Haafager made answer:-- + +"I am an old man, I pray you do not take my words amiss. There is peace +between us, as you say, and we thank you for your courtesy, but the +stains are still fresh upon our swords. Let us camp here without your +walls, and a little later, when the grass has grown upon the fields where +we have striven, and our young men have had time to forget, we will make +merry together, as men should who dwell side by side in the same land." + +But the men of the town still urged Haafager, calling his people +neighbours; and the Abbot, who had hastened down, fearing there might be +strife, added his words to theirs, saying:-- + +"Pass in, my children. Let there indeed be peace between you, that the +blessing of God may be upon the land, and upon both Dane and Saxon"; for +the Abbot saw that the townsmen were well disposed towards the Danes, and +knew that men, when they have feasted and drunk together, think kinder of +one another. + +Then answered Haafager, who knew the Abbot for a holy man:-- + +"Hold up your staff, my father, that the shadow of the cross your people +worship may fall upon our path, so we will pass into the town and there +shall be peace between us, for though your gods are not our gods, faith +between man and man is of all altars." + +And the Abbot held his staff aloft between Haafager's people and the sun, +it being fashioned in the form of a cross, and under its shadow the Danes +passed by into the town of seven towers, there being of them, with the +women and the children, nearly two thousand souls, and the gates were +made fast behind them. + +So they who had fought face to face, feasted side by side, pledging one +another in the wine cup, as was the custom; and Haafager's men, knowing +themselves amongst friends, cast aside their arms, and when the feast was +done, being weary, they lay down to sleep. + +Then an evil voice arose in the town, and said: "Who are these that have +come among us to share our land? Are not the stones of our streets red +with the blood of wife and child that they have slain? Do men let the +wolf go free when they have trapped him with meat? Let us fall upon them +now that they are heavy with food and wine, so that not one of them shall +escape. Thus no further harm shall come to us from them nor from their +children." + +And the voice of evil prevailed, and the men of the town of seven towers +fell upon the Danes with whom they had broken meat, even to the women and +the little children; and the blood of the people of Haafager cried with a +loud voice at the Abbey door, through the long night it cried, saying:-- + +"I trusted in your spoken word. I broke meat with you. I put my faith +in you and in your God. I passed beneath the shadow of your cross to +enter your doors. Let your God make answer!" + +Nor was there silence till the dawn. + +Then the Abbot rose from where he knelt and called to God, saying:-- + +"Thou hast heard, O God. Make answer." + +And there came a great sound from the sea as though a tongue had been +given to the deep, so that the monks fell upon their knees in fear; but +the Abbot answered:-- + +"It is the voice of God speaking through the waters. He hath made +answer." + +And that winter a mighty storm arose, the like of which no man had known +before; for the sea was piled upon the dry land until the highest tower +of the town of seven towers was not more high; and the waters moved +forward over the dry land. And the men of the town of seven towers fled +from the oncoming of the waters, but the waters overtook them so that not +one of them escaped. And the town of the seven towers and of the four +churches, and of the many streets and quays, was buried underneath the +waters, and the feet of the waters still moved till they came to the hill +whereon the Abbey stood. Then the Abbot prayed to God that the waters +might be stayed, and God heard, and the sea came no farther. + +And that this tale is true, and not a fable made by the weavers of words, +he who doubts may know from the fisher-folk, who to-day ply their calling +amongst the reefs and sandbanks of that lonely coast. For there are +those among them who, peering from the bows of their small craft, have +seen far down beneath their keels a city of strange streets and many +quays. But as to this, I, who repeat these things to you, cannot speak +of my own knowledge, for this city of the sea is only visible when a rare +wind, blowing from the north, sweeps the shadows from the waves; and +though on many a sunny day I have drifted where its seven towers should +once have stood, yet for me that wind has never blown, pushing back the +curtains of the sea, and, therefore, I have strained my eyes in vain. + +But this I do know, that the rumbling stones of that ancient Abbey, +between which and the foam fringe of the ocean the town of seven towers +once lay, now stand upon a wave-washed cliff, and that he who looks forth +from its shattered mullions to-day sees only the marshland and the +wrinkled waters, hears only the plaint of the circling gulls and the +weary crying of the sea. + +And that God's anger is not everlasting, and that the evil that there is +in men shall be blotted out, he who doubts may also learn from the wisdom +of the simple fisher-folk, who dwell about the borders of the marsh-land; +for they will tell him that on stormy nights there speaks a deep voice +from the sea, calling the dead monks to rise from their forgotten graves, +and chant a mass for the souls of the men of the town of seven towers. +Clothed in long glittering white, they move with slowly pacing feet +around the Abbey's grass-grown aisles, and the music of their prayers is +heard above the screaming of the storm. And to this I also can bear +witness, for I have seen the passing of their shrouded forms behind the +blackness of the shattered shafts; I have heard their sweet, sad singing +above the wailing of the wind. + +Thus for many ages have the dead monks prayed that the men of the town of +seven towers may be forgiven. Thus, for many ages yet shall they so +pray, till the day come when of their once fair Abbey not a single stone +shall stand upon its fellow; and in that day it shall be known that the +anger of God against the men of the town of seven towers has passed away; +and in that day the feet of the waters shall move back, and the town of +seven towers shall stand again upon the dry land. + +There be some, I know, who say that this is but a legend; who will tell +you that the shadowy shapes that you may see with your own eyes on stormy +nights, waving their gleaming arms behind the ruined buttresses are but +of phosphorescent foam, tossed by the raging waves above the cliffs; and +that the sweet, sad harmony cleaving the trouble of the night is but the +aeolian music of the wind. + +But such are of the blind, who see only with their eyes. For myself I +see the white-robed monks, and hear the chanting of their mass for the +souls of the sinful men of the town of seven towers. For it has been +said that when an evil deed is done, a prayer is born to follow it +through time into eternity, and plead for it. Thus is the whole world +clasped around with folded hands both of the dead and of the living, as +with a shield, lest the shafts of God's anger should consume it. + +Therefore, I know that the good monks of this nameless Abbey are still +praying that the sin of those they love may be forgiven. + +God grant good men may say a mass for us. + + + + +DRIFTWOOD + + +CHARACTERS + + +MR. TRAVERS. + +MRS. TRAVERS. + +MARION [their daughter]. + +DAN [a gentleman of no position]. + +* * * * * + +SCENE: A room opening upon a garden. The shadows creep from their +corners, driving before them the fading twilight. + +MRS. TRAVERS sits in a wickerwork easy chair. MR. TRAVERS, smoking a +cigar, sits the other side of the room. MARION stands by the open French +window, looking out. + +MR. TRAVERS. Nice little place Harry's got down here. + +MRS. TRAVERS. Yes; I should keep this on if I were you, Marion. You'll +find it very handy. One can entertain so cheaply up the river; one is +not expected to make much of a show. [She turns to her husband.] Your +poor cousin Emily used to work off quite half her list that way--relations +and Americans, and those sort of people, you know--at that little place +of theirs at Goring. You remember it--a poky hole I always thought it, +but it had a lot of green stuff over the door--looked very pretty from +the other side of the river. She always used to have cold meat and +pickles for lunch--called it a picnic. People said it was so homely and +simple. + +MR. TRAVERS. They didn't stop long, I remember. + +MRS. TRAVERS. And there was a special champagne she always kept for the +river--only twenty-five shillings a dozen, I think she told me she paid +for it, and very good it was too, for the price. That old Indian +major--what was his name?--said it suited him better than anything else +he had ever tried. He always used to drink a tumblerful before +breakfast; such a funny thing to do. I've often wondered where she got +it. + +MR. TRAVERS. So did most people who tasted it. Marion wants to forget +those lessons, not learn them. She is going to marry a rich man who will +be able to entertain his guests decently. + +MRS. TRAVERS. Oh, well, James, I don't know. None of us can afford to +live up to the income we want people to think we've got. One must +economise somewhere. A pretty figure we should cut in the county if I +didn't know how to make fivepence look like a shilling. And, besides, +there are certain people that one has to be civil to, that, at the same +time, one doesn't want to introduce into one's regular circle. If you +take my advice, Marion, you won't encourage those sisters of Harry's more +than you can help. They're dear sweet girls, and you can be very nice to +them; but don't have them too much about. Their manners are terribly old- +fashioned, and they've no notion how to dress, and those sort of people +let down the tone of a house. + +MARION. I'm not likely to have many "dear sweet girls" on my visiting +list. [With a laugh.] There will hardly be enough in common to make the +company desired, on either side. + +MRS. TRAVERS. Well, I only want you to be careful, my dear. So much +depends on how you begin, and with prudence there's really no reason why +you shouldn't do very well. I suppose there's no doubt about Harry's +income. He won't object to a few inquiries? + +MARION. I think you may trust me to see to that, mamma. It would be a +bad bargain for me, if even the cash were not certain. + +MR. TRAVERS [jumping up]. Oh, I do wish you women wouldn't discuss the +matter in that horribly business-like way. One would think the girl was +selling herself. + +MRS. TRAVERS. Oh, don't be foolish, James. One must look at the +practical side of these things. Marriage is a matter of sentiment to a +man--very proper that it should be. A woman has to remember that she's +fixing her position for life. + +MARION. You see, papa dear, it's her one venture. If she doesn't sell +herself to advantage then, she doesn't get another opportunity--very +easily. + +MR. TRAVERS. Umph! When I was a young man, girls talked more about love +and less about income. + +MARION. Perhaps they had not our educational advantages. + +[DAN enters from the garden. He is a man of a little over forty, his +linen somewhat frayed about the edges.] + +MRS. TRAVERS. Ah! We were just wondering where all you people had got +to. + +DAN. We've been out sailing. I've been sent up to fetch you. It's +delightful on the river. The moon is just rising. + +MRS. TRAVERS. But it's so cold. + +MR. TRAVERS. Oh, never mind the cold. It's many a long year since you +and I looked at the moon together. It will do us good. + +MRS. TRAVERS. Ah, dear. Boys will be boys. Give me my wrap then. + +[DAN places it about her. They move towards the window, where they stand +talking. MARION has slipped out and returns with her father's cap. He +takes her face between his hands and looks at her.] + +MR. TRAVERS. Do you really care for Harry, Marion? + +MARION. As much as one can care for a man with five thousand a year. +Perhaps he will make it ten one day--then I shall care for him twice as +much. [Laughs.] + +MR. TRAVERS. And are you content with this marriage? + +MARION. Quite. + +[He shakes his head gravely at her.] + +MRS. TRAVERS. Aren't you coming, Marion? + +MARION. No. I'm feeling tired. + +[MR. and MRS. TRAVERS go out.] + +DAN. Are you going to leave Harry alone with two pairs of lovers? + +MARION [with a laugh]. Yes--let him see how ridiculous they look. I +hate the night--it follows you and asks questions. Shut it out. Come +and talk to me. Amuse me. + +DAN. What shall I talk to you about? + +MARION. Oh, tell me all the news. What is the world doing? Who has run +away with whose wife? Who has been swindling whom? Which philanthropist +has been robbing the poor? What saint has been discovered sinning? What +is the latest scandal? Who has been found out? and what is it they have +been doing? and what is everybody saying about it? + +DAN. Would it amuse you? + +MARION [she sits by the piano, softly touching the keys, idly recalling +many memories]. What should it do? Make me weep? Should not one be +glad to know one's friends better? + +DAN. I wish you wouldn't be clever. Everyone one meets is clever +nowadays. It came in when the sun-flower went out. I preferred the sun- +flower; it was more amusing. + +MARION. And stupid people, I suppose, will come in when the clever +people go out. I prefer the clever. They have better manners. You're +exceedingly disagreeable. [She leaves the piano, and, throwing herself +upon the couch, takes up a book.] + +DAN. I know I am. The night has been with me also. It follows one and +asks questions. + +MARION. What questions has it been asking you? + +DAN. Many--and so many of them have no answer. Why am I a useless, +drifting log upon the world's tide? Why have all the young men passed +me? Why am I, at thirty-nine, let us say, with brain, with power, with +strength--nobody thinks I am worth anything, but I am--I know it. I +might have been an able editor, devoting every morning from ten till +three to arranging the affairs of the Universe, or a popular politician, +trying to understand what I was talking about, and to believe it. And +what am I? A newspaper reporter, at three-ha'pence a line--I beg their +pardon, its occasionally twopence. + +MARION. Does it matter? + +DAN. Does it matter! Does it matter whether a Union Jack or a Tricolor +floats over the turrets of Badajoz? yet we pour our blood into its +ditches to decide the argument. Does it matter whether one star more or +less is marked upon our charts? yet we grow blind peering into their +depths. Does it matter that one keel should slip through the grip of the +Polar ice? yet nearer, nearer to it, we pile our whitening bones. And +it's worth playing, the game of life. And there's a meaning in it. It's +worth playing, if only that it strengthens the muscles of our souls. I'd +like to have taken a hand in it. + +MARION. Why didn't you? + +DAN. No partner. Dull playing by oneself. No object. + +MARION [after a silence]. What was she like? + +DAN. So like you that there are times when I almost wish I had never met +you. You set me thinking about myself, and that is a subject I find it +pleasanter to forget. + +MARION. And this woman that was like me--she could have made a man's +life? + +DAN. Ay! + +MARION. Won't you tell me about her? Had she many faults? + +DAN. Enough to love her by. + +MARION. But she must have been good. + +DAN. Good enough to be a woman. + +MARION. That might mean so much or so little. + +DAN. It should mean much to my thinking. There are few women. + +MARION. Few! I thought the economists held that there were too many of +us. + +DAN. Not enough--not enough to go round. That is why a true woman has +many lovers. + +[There is a silence between them. Then MARION rises, but their eyes do +not meet.] + +MARION. How serious we have grown! + +DAN. They say a dialogue between a man and woman always does. + +MARION [she moves away, then, hesitating, half returns]. May I ask you a +question? + +DAN. That is an easy favour to grant. + +MARION. If--if at any time you felt regard again for a woman, would you, +for her sake, if she wished it, seek to gain, even now, that position in +the world which is your right--which would make her proud of your +friendship--would make her feel that even her life had not been +altogether without purpose? + +DAN. Too late! The old hack can only look over the hedge, and watch the +field race by. The old ambition stirs within me at times--especially +after a glass of good wine--and Harry's wine--God bless him--is +excellent--but to-morrow morning--[with a shrug of his shoulders he +finishes his meaning]. + +MARION. Then she could do nothing? + +DAN. Nothing for his fortunes--much for himself. My dear young lady, +never waste pity on a man in love--nor upon a child crying for the moon. +The moon is a good thing to cry for. + +MARION. I am glad I am like her. I am glad that I have met you. + +[She gives him her hand, and for a moment he holds it. Then she goes +out.] + +[A flower has fallen from her breast, whether by chance or meaning, he +knows not. He picks it up and kisses it; stands twirling it, undecided +for a second, then lets it fall again upon the floor.] + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES IN LAVENDER, BLUE AND +GREEN*** + + +******* This file should be named 2234.txt or 2234.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/3/2234 + + + +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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Jerome + + + + +Contents: + +Reginald Blake, Financier and Cad +An item of Fashionable Intelligence +Blase Billy +The Choice of Cyril Harjohn +The Materialisation of Charles and Mivanway +Portrait of a Lady +The Man Who Would Manage +The Man Who Lived For Others +A Man of Habit +The Absent-minded Man +A Charming Woman +Whibley's Spirit +The Man Who Went Wrong +The Hobby Rider +The Man Who Did Not Believe In Luck +Dick Dunkerman's Cat +The Minor Poet's Story +The Degeneration of Thomas Henry +The City of The Sea +Driftwood + + + +La-ven-der's blue, did-dle, did-dle! +La-ven-der's green; +When I am king, did-dle, did-dle! +You shall be queen. + +Call up your men, did-dle, did-dle! +Set them to work; +Some to the plough, did-dle, did-dle! +Some to the cart. + +Some to make hay, did-dle, did-dle! +Some to cut corn; +While you and I, did-dle, did-dle! +Keep ourselves warm. + + + + +REGINALD BLAKE, FINANCIER AND CAD + + + +The advantage of literature over life is that its characters are +clearly defined, and act consistently. Nature, always inartistic, +takes pleasure in creating the impossible. Reginald Blake was as +typical a specimen of the well-bred cad as one could hope to find +between Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park Corner. Vicious without +passion, and possessing brain without mind, existence presented to +him no difficulties, while his pleasures brought him no pains. His +morality was bounded by the doctor on the one side, and the +magistrate on the other. Careful never to outrage the decrees of +either, he was at forty-five still healthy, though stout; and had +achieved the not too easy task of amassing a fortune while avoiding +all risk of Holloway. He and his wife, Edith (nee Eppington), were +as ill-matched a couple as could be conceived by any dramatist +seeking material for a problem play. As they stood before the +altar on their wedding morn, they might have been taken as +symbolising satyr and saint. More than twenty years his junior, +beautiful with the beauty of a Raphael's Madonna, his every touch +of her seemed a sacrilege. Yet once in his life Mr. Blake played +the part of a great gentleman; Mrs. Blake, on the same occasion, +contenting herself with a singularly mean role--mean even for a +woman in love. + +The affair, of course, had been a marriage of convenience. Blake, +to do him justice, had made no pretence to anything beyond +admiration and regard. Few things grow monotonous sooner than +irregularity. He would tickle his jaded palate with +respectability, and try for a change the companionship of a good +woman. The girl's face drew him, as the moonlight holds a man who, +bored by the noise, turns from a heated room to press his forehead +to the window-pane. Accustomed to bid for what he wanted, he +offered his price. The Eppington family was poor and numerous. +The girl, bred up to the false notions of duty inculcated by a +narrow conventionality, and, feminine like, half in love with +martyrdom for its own sake, let her father bargain for a higher +price, and then sold herself. + +To a drama of this description, a lover is necessary, if the +complications are to be of interest to the outside world. Harry +Sennett, a pleasant-looking enough young fellow, in spite of his +receding chin, was possessed, perhaps, of more good intention than +sense. Under the influence of Edith's stronger character he was +soon persuaded to acquiesce meekly in the proposed arrangement. +Both succeeded in convincing themselves that they were acting +nobly. The tone of the farewell interview, arranged for the eve of +the wedding, would have been fit and proper to the occasion had +Edith been a modern Joan of Arc about to sacrifice her own +happiness on the altar of a great cause; as the girl was merely +selling herself into ease and luxury, for no higher motive than the +desire to enable a certain number of more or less worthy relatives +to continue living beyond their legitimate means, the sentiment was +perhaps exaggerated. Many tears were shed, and many everlasting +good-byes spoken, though, seeing that Edith's new home would be +only a few streets off, and that of necessity their social set +would continue to be the same, more experienced persons might have +counselled hope. Three months after the marriage they found +themselves side by side at the same dinner-table; and after a +little melodramatic fencing with what they were pleased to regard +as fate, they accommodated themselves to the customary positions. + +Blake was quite aware that Sennett had been Edith's lover. So had +half a dozen other men, some younger, some older than himself. He +felt no more embarrassment at meeting them than, standing on the +pavement outside the Stock Exchange, he would have experienced +greeting his brother jobbers after a settling day that had +transferred a fortune from their hands into his. Sennett, in +particular, he liked and encouraged. Our whole social system, +always a mystery to the philosopher, owes its existence to the fact +that few men and women possess sufficient intelligence to be +interesting to themselves. Blake liked company, but not much +company liked Blake. Young Sennett, however, could always be +relied upon to break the tediousness of the domestic dialogue. A +common love of sport drew the two men together. Most of us improve +upon closer knowledge, and so they came to find good in one +another. + +"That is the man you ought to have married," said Blake one night +to his wife, half laughingly, half seriously, as they sat alone, +listening to Sennett's departing footsteps echoing upon the +deserted pavement. "He's a good fellow--not a mere money-grubbing +machine like me." + +And a week later Sennett, sitting alone with Edith, suddenly broke +out with: + +"He's a better man than I am, with all my high-falutin' talk, and, +upon my soul, he loves you. Shall I go abroad?" + +"If you like," was the answer. + +"What would you do?" + +"Kill myself," replied the other, with a laugh, "or run away with +the first man that asked me." + +So Sennett stayed on. + +Blake himself had made the path easy to them. There was little +need for either fear or caution. Indeed, their safest course lay +in recklessness, and they took it. To Sennett the house was always +open. It was Blake himself who, when unable to accompany his wife, +would suggest Sennett as a substitute. Club friends shrugged their +shoulders. Was the man completely under his wife's thumb; or, +tired of her, was he playing some devil's game of his own? To most +of his acquaintances the latter explanation seemed the more +plausible. + +The gossip, in due course, reached the parental home. Mrs. +Eppington shook the vials of her wrath over the head of her son-in- +law. The father, always a cautious man, felt inclined to blame his +child for her want of prudence. + +"She'll ruin everything," he said. "Why the devil can't she be +careful?" + +"I believe the man is deliberately plotting to get rid of her," +said Mrs. Eppington. "I shall tell him plainly what I think." + +"You're a fool, Hannah," replied her husband, allowing himself the +licence of the domestic hearth. "If you are right, you will only +precipitate matters; if you are wrong, you will tell him what there +is no need for him to know. Leave the matter to me. I can sound +him without giving anything away, and meanwhile you talk to Edith." + +So matters were arranged, but the interview between mother and +daughter hardly improved the position. Mrs. Eppington was +conventionally moral; Edith had been thinking for herself, and +thinking in a bad atmosphere. Mrs. Eppington, grew angry at the +girl's callousness. + +"Have you no sense of shame?" she cried. + +"I had once," was Edith's reply, "before I came to live here. Do +you know what this house is for me, with its gilded mirrors, its +couches, its soft carpets? Do you know what I am, and have been +for two years?" + +The elder woman rose, with a frightened pleading look upon her +face, and the other stopped and turned away towards the window. + +"We all thought it for the best," continued Mrs. Eppington meekly. + +The girl spoke wearily without looking round. + +"Oh! every silly thing that was ever done, was done for the best. +_I_ thought it would be for the best, myself. Everything would be +so simple if only we were not alive. Don't let's talk any more. +All you can say is quite right." + +The silence continued for a while, the Dresden-china clock on the +mantelpiece ticking louder and louder as if to say, "I, Time, am +here. Do not make your plans forgetting me, little mortals; I +change your thoughts and wills. You are but my puppets." + +"Then what do you intend to do?" demanded Mrs. Eppington at length. + +"Intend! Oh, the right thing of course. We all intend that. I +shall send Harry away with a few well-chosen words of farewell, +learn to love my husband and settle down to a life of quiet +domestic bliss. Oh, it's easy enough to intend!" + +The girl's face wrinkled with a laugh that aged her. In that +moment it was a hard, evil face, and with a pang the elder woman +thought of that other face, so like, yet so unlike--the sweet pure +face of a girl that had given to a sordid home its one touch of +nobility. As under the lightning's flash we see the whole arc of +the horizon, so Mrs. Eppington looked and saw her child's life. +The gilded, over-furnished room vanished. She and a big-eyed, +fair-haired child, the only one of her children she had ever +understood, were playing wonderful games in the twilight among the +shadows of a tiny attic. Now she was the wolf, devouring Edith, +who was Red Riding Hood, with kisses. Now Cinderella's prince, now +both her wicked sisters. But in the favourite game of all, Mrs. +Eppington was a beautiful princess, bewitched by a wicked dragon, +so that she seemed to be an old, worn woman. But curly-headed +Edith fought the dragon, represented by the three-legged rocking- +horse, and slew him with much shouting and the toasting-fork. Then +Mrs. Eppington became again a beautiful princess, and went away +with Edith back to her own people. + +In this twilight hour the misbehaviour of the "General," the +importunity of the family butcher, and the airs assumed by cousin +Jane, who kept two servants, were forgotten. + +The games ended. The little curly head would be laid against her +breast "for five minutes' love," while the restless little brain +framed the endless question that children are for ever asking in +all its thousand forms, "What is life, mother? I am very little, +and I think, and think, until I grow frightened. Oh, mother, tell +me, what is life?" + +Had she dealt with these questions wisely? Might it not have been +better to have treated them more seriously? Could life after all +be ruled by maxims learned from copy-books? She had answered as +she had been answered in her own far-back days of questioning. +Might it not have been better had she thought for herself? + +Suddenly Edith was kneeling on the floor beside her. + +"I will try to be good, mother." + +It was the old baby cry, the cry of us all, children that we are, +till mother Nature kisses us and bids us go to sleep. + +Their arms were round each other now, and so they sat, mother and +child once more. And the twilight of the old attic, creeping +westward from the east, found them again. + +The masculine duet had more result, but was not conducted with the +finesse that Mr. Eppington, who prided himself on his diplomacy, +had intended. Indeed, so evidently ill at ease was that gentleman, +when the moment came for talk, and so palpably were his pointless +remarks mere efforts to delay an unpleasant subject, that Blake, +always direct bluntly though not ill-naturedly asked him, "How +much?" + +Mr. Eppington was disconcerted. + +"It's not that--at least that's not what I have come about," he +answered confusedly. + +"What have you come about?" + +Inwardly Mr. Eppington cursed himself for a fool, for the which he +was perhaps not altogether without excuse. He had meant to act the +part of a clever counsel, acquiring information while giving none; +by a blunder, he found himself in the witness-box. + +"Oh, nothing, nothing," was the feeble response, "merely looked in +to see how Edith was." + +"Much the same as at dinner last night, when you were here," +answered Blake. "Come, out with it." + +It seemed the best course now, and Mr. Eppington took the plunge. + +"Don't you think," he said, unconsciously glancing round the room +to be sure they were alone, "that young Sennett is a little too +much about the house?" + +Blake stared at him. + +"Of course, we know it is all right--as nice a young fellow as ever +lived--and Edith--and all that. Of course, it's absurd, but--" + +"But what?" + +"Well, people will talk." + +"What do they say?" + +The other shrugged his shoulders. + +Blake rose. He had an ugly look when angry, and his language was +apt to be coarse. + +"Tell them to mind their own business, and leave me and my wife +alone." That was the sense of what he said; he expressed himself +at greater length, and in stronger language. + +"But, my dear Blake," urged Mr. Eppington, "for your own sake, is +it wise? There was a sort of boy and girl attachment between them- +-nothing of any moment, but all that gives colour to gossip. +Forgive me, but I am her father; I do not like to hear my child +talked about." + +"Then don't open your ears to the chatter of a pack of fools," +replied his son-in-law roughly. But the next instant a softer +expression passed over his face, and he laid his hand on the older +man's arm. + +"Perhaps there are many more, but there's one good woman in the +world," he said, "and that's your daughter. Come and tell me that +the Bank of England is getting shaky on its legs, and I'll listen +to you." + +But the stronger the faith, the deeper strike the roots of +suspicion. Blake said no further word on the subject, and Sennett +was as welcome as before. But Edith, looking up suddenly, would +sometimes find her husband's eyes fixed on her with a troubled look +as of some dumb creature trying to understand; and often he would +slip out of the house of an evening by himself, returning home +hours afterwards, tired and mud-stained. + +He made attempts to show his affection. This was the most fatal +thing he could have done. Ill-temper, ill-treatment even, she +might have borne. His clumsy caresses, his foolish, halting words +of tenderness became a horror to her. She wondered whether to +laugh or to strike at his upturned face. His tactless devotion +filled her life as with some sickly perfume, stifling her. If only +she could be by herself for a little while to think! But he was +with her night and day. There were times when, as he would cross +the room towards her, he grew monstrous until he towered above her, +a formless thing such as children dream of. And she would sit with +her lips tight pressed, clutching the chair lest she should start +up screaming. + +Her only thought was to escape from him. One day she hastily +packed a few necessaries in a small hand-bag and crept unperceived +from the house. She drove to Charing Cross, but the Continental +Express did not leave for an hour, and she had time to think. + +Of what use was it? Her slender stock of money would soon be gone; +how could she live? He would find her and follow her. It was all +so hopeless! + +Suddenly a fierce desire of life seized hold of her, the angry +answer of her young blood to despair. Why should she die, never +having known what it was to live? Why should she prostrate herself +before this juggernaut of other people's respectability? Joy +called to her; only her own cowardice stayed her from stretching +forth her hand and gathering it. She returned home a different +woman, for hope had come to her. + +A week later the butler entered the dining room, and handed Blake a +letter addressed to him in his wife's handwriting. He took it +without a word, as though he had been expecting it. It simply told +him that she had left him for ever. + + +The world is small, and money commands many services. Sennett had +gone out for a stroll; Edith was left in the tiny salon of their +appartement at Fecamp. It was the third day of their arrival in +the town. The door was opened and closed, and Blake stood before +her. + +She rose frightened, but by a motion he reassured her. There was a +quiet dignity about the man that was strange to her. + +"Why have you followed me?" she asked. + +"I want you to return home." + +"Home!" she cried. "You must be mad. Do you not know--" + +He interrupted her vehemently. "I know nothing. I wish to know +nothing. Go back to London at once. I have made everything right; +no one suspects. I shall not be there; you will never see me +again, and you will have an opportunity of undoing your mistake-- +our mistake." + +She listened. Hers was not a great nature, and the desire to +obtain happiness without paying the price was strong upon her. As +for his good name, what could that matter? he urged. People would +only say that he had gone back to the evil from which he had +emerged, and few would be surprised. His life would go on much as +it had done, and she would only be pitied. + +She quite understood his plan; it seemed mean of her to accept his +proposal, and she argued feebly against it. But he overcame all +her objections. For his own sake, he told her, he would prefer the +scandal to be connected with his name rather than with that of his +wife. As he unfolded his scheme, she began to feel that in +acquiescing she was conferring a favour. It was not the first +deception he had arranged for the public, and he appeared to be +half in love with his own cleverness. She even found herself +laughing at his mimicry of what this acquaintance and that would +say. Her spirits rose; the play that might have been a painful +drama seemed turning out an amusing farce. + +The thing settled, he rose to go, and held out his hand. As she +looked up into his face, something about the line of his lips smote +upon her. + +"You will be well rid of me," she said. "I have brought you +nothing but trouble." + +"Oh, trouble," he answered. "If that were all! A man can bear +trouble." + +"What else?" she asked. + +His eyes travelled aimlessly about the room. "They taught me a lot +of things when I was a boy," he said, "my mother and others--they +meant well--which as I grew older I discovered to be lies; and so I +came to think that nothing good was true, and that everything and +everybody was evil. And then--" + +His wandering eyes came round to her and he broke off abruptly. +"Good-bye," he said, and the next moment he was gone. + +She sat wondering for a while what he had meant. Then Sennett +returned, and the words went out of her head. + + +A good deal of sympathy was felt for Mrs. Blake. The man had a +charming wife; he might have kept straight; but as his friends +added, "Blake always was a cad." + + + +AN ITEM OF FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE + + + +Speaking personally, I do not like the Countess of --. She is not +the type of woman I could love. I hesitate the less giving +expression to this sentiment by reason of the conviction that the +Countess of -- would not be unduly depressed even were the fact to +reach her ears. I cannot conceive the Countess of --'s being +troubled by the opinion concerning her of any being, human or +divine, other than the Countess of --. + +But to be honest, I must admit that for the Earl of -- she makes an +ideal wife. She rules him as she rules all others, relations and +retainers, from the curate to the dowager, but the rod, though +firmly held, is wielded with justice and kindly intent. Nor is it +possible to imagine the Earl of --'s living as contentedly as he +does with any partner of a less dominating turn of mind. He is one +of those weak-headed, strong-limbed, good-natured, childish men, +born to be guided in all matters, from the tying of a neck-cloth to +the choice of a political party, by their women folk. Such men are +in clover when their proprietor happens to be a good and sensible +woman, but are to be pitied when they get into the hands of the +selfish or the foolish. As very young men, they too often fall +victims to bad-tempered chorus girls or to middle-aged matrons of +the class from which Pope judged all womankind. They make capital +husbands when well managed; treated badly, they say little, but set +to work, after the manner of a dissatisfied cat, to find a kinder +mistress, generally succeeding. The Earl of -- adored his wife, +deeming himself the most fortunate of husbands, and better +testimonial than such no wife should hope for. Till the day she +snatched him away from all other competitors, and claimed him for +her own, he had obeyed his mother with a dutifulness bordering on +folly. Were the countess to die to-morrow, he would be unable to +tell you his mind on any single subject until his eldest daughter +and his still unmarried sister, ladies both of strong character, +attracted towards one another by a mutual antagonism, had settled +between themselves which was to be mistress of him and of his +house. + +However, there is little fear (bar accidents) but that my friend +the countess will continue to direct the hereditary vote of the +Earl of -- towards the goal of common sense and public good, guide +his social policy with judgment and kindness, and manage his +estates with prudence and economy for many years to come. She is a +hearty, vigorous lady, of generous proportions, with the blood of +sturdy forebears in her veins, and one who takes the same excellent +good care of herself that she bestows on all others dependent upon +her guidance. + +"I remember," said the doctor--we were dining with the doctor in +homely fashion, and our wives had adjourned to the drawing-room to +discuss servants and husbands and other domestic matters with +greater freedom, leaving us to the claret and the twilight--"I +remember when we had the cholera in the village--it must be twenty +years ago now--that woman gave up the London season to stay down +here and take the whole burden of the trouble upon her own +shoulders. I do not feel any call to praise her; she liked the +work, and she was in her element, but it was good work for all +that. She had no fear. She would carry the children in her arms +if time pressed and the little ambulance was not at hand. I have +known her sit all night in a room not twelve feet square, between a +dying man and his dying wife. But the thing never touched her. +Six years ago we had the small-pox, and she went all through that +in just the same way. I don't believe she has ever had a day's +illness in her life. She will be physicking this parish when my +bones are rattling in my coffin, and she will be laying down the +laws of literature long after your statue has become a familiar +ornament of Westminster Abbey. She's a wonderful woman, but a +trifle masterful." + +He laughed, but I detected a touch of irritation in his voice. My +host looked a man wishful to be masterful himself. I do not think +he quite relished the calm way in which this grand dame took +possession of all things around her, himself and his work included. + +"Did you ever hear the story of the marriage?" he asked. + +"No," I replied, "whose marriage? The earl's?" + +"I should call it the countess's," he answered. "It was the gossip +of the county when I first came here, but other curious things have +happened among us to push it gradually out of memory. Most people, +I really believe, have quite forgotten that the Countess of -- once +served behind a baker's counter." + +"You don't say so," I exclaimed. The remark, I admit, sounds weak +when written down; the most natural remarks always do. + +"It's a fact," said the doctor, "though she does not suggest the +shop-girl, does she? But then I have known countesses, descended +in a direct line from William the Conqueror, who did, so things +balance one another. Mary, Countess of --, was, thirty years ago, +Mary Sewell, daughter of a Taunton linen-draper. The business, +profitable enough as country businesses go, was inadequate for the +needs of the Sewell family, consisting, as I believe it did, of +seven boys and eight girls. Mary, the youngest, as soon as her +brief schooling was over, had to shift for herself. She seems to +have tried her hand at one or two things, finally taking service +with a cousin, a baker and confectioner, who was doing well in +Oxford Street. She must have been a remarkably attractive girl; +she's a handsome woman now. I can picture that soft creamy skin +when it was fresh and smooth, and the West of England girls run +naturally to dimples and eyes that glisten as though they had been +just washed in morning dew. The shop did a good trade in ladies' +lunches--it was the glass of sherry and sweet biscuit period. I +expect they dressed her in some neat-fitting grey or black dress, +with short sleeves, showing her plump arms, and that she flitted +around the marble-topped tables, smiling, and looking cool and +sweet. There the present Earl of --, then young Lord C-, fresh +from Oxford, and new to the dangers of London bachelordom, first +saw her. He had accompanied some female relatives to the +photographer's, and, hotels and restaurants being deemed impossible +in those days for ladies, had taken them to Sewell's to lunch. +Mary Sewell waited upon the party; and now as many of that party as +are above ground wait upon Mary Sewell." + +"He showed good sense in marrying her," I said, "I admire him for +it." The doctor's sixty-four Lafitte was excellent. I felt +charitably inclined towards all men and women, even towards earls +and countesses. + +"I don't think he had much to do with it," laughed the doctor, +"beyond being, like Barkis, 'willing.' It's a queer story; some +people profess not to believe it, but those who know her ladyship +best think it is just the story that must be true, because it is so +characteristic of her. And besides, I happen to know that it is +true." + +"I should like to hear it," I said. + +"I am going to tell it you," said the doctor, lighting a fresh +cigar, and pushing the box towards me. + + +I will leave you to imagine the lad's suddenly developed appetite +for decantered sherry at sixpence a glass, and the familiar currant +bun of our youth. He lunched at Sewell's shop, he tea'd at +Sewell's, occasionally he dined at Sewell's, off cutlets, followed +by assorted pastry. Possibly, merely from fear lest the affair +should reach his mother's ears, for he was neither worldly-wise nor +vicious, he made love to Mary under an assumed name; and to do the +girl justice, it must be remembered that she fell in love with and +agreed to marry plain Mr. John Robinson, son of a colonial +merchant, a gentleman, as she must have seen, and a young man of +easy means, but of a position not so very much superior to her own. +The first intimation she received that her lover was none other +than Lord C-, the future Earl of --, was vouchsafed her during a +painful interview with his lordship's mother. + +"I never knew it, madam," asserted Mary, standing by the window of +the drawing-room above the shop, "upon my word of honour, I never +knew it" + +"Perhaps not," answered her ladyship coldly. "Would you have +refused him if you had?" + +"I cannot tell," was the girl's answer; "it would have been +different from the beginning. He courted me and asked me to be his +wife." + +"We won't go into all that," interrupted the other; "I am not here +to defend him. I do not say he acted well. The question is, how +much will compensate you for your natural disappointment?" + +Her ladyship prided herself upon her bluntness and practicability. +As she spoke she took her cheque-book out of her reticule, and, +opening it, dipped her pen into the ink. I am inclined to think +that the flutter of that cheque-book was her ladyship's mistake. +The girl had common sense, and must have seen the difficulties in +the way of a marriage between the heir to an earldom and a linen- +draper's daughter; and had the old lady been a person of +discernment, the interview might have ended more to her +satisfaction. She made the error of judging the world by one +standard, forgetting there are individualities. Mary Sewell came +from a West of England stock that, in the days of Drake and +Frobisher, had given more than one able-bodied pirate to the +service of the country, and that insult of the cheque-book put the +fight into her. Her lips closed with a little snap, and the fear +fell from her. + +"I am sorry I don't see my way to obliging your ladyship," she +said. + +"What do you mean, girl?" asked the elder woman. + +"I don't mean to be disappointed," answered the girl, but she spoke +quietly and respectfully. "We have pledged our word to one +another. If he is a gentleman, as I know he is, he will keep his, +and I shall keep mine." + +Then her ladyship began to talk reason, as people do when it is too +late. She pointed out to the girl the difference of social +position, and explained to her the miseries that come from marrying +out of one's station. But the girl by this time had got over her +surprise, and perhaps had begun to reflect that, in any case, a +countess-ship was worth fighting for. The best of women are +influenced by such considerations. + + +"I am not a lady, I know," she replied quietly, "but my people have +always been honest folk, well known, and I shall try to learn. I +am not wishing to speak disrespectfully of my betters, but I was in +service before I came here, ma'am, as lady's maid, in a place where +I saw much of what is called Society. I think I can be as good a +lady as some I know, if not better." + +The countess began to grow angry again. "And who do you think will +receive you?" she cried, "a girl who has served in a pastry-cook's +shop!" + +"Lady L- came from behind the bar," Mary answered, "and that's not +much better. And the Duchess of C-, I have heard, was a ballet +girl, but nobody seems to remember it. I don't think the people +whose opinion is worth having will object to me for very long." +The girl was beginning rather to enjoy the contest. + +"You profess to love my son," cried the countess fiercely, "and you +are going to ruin his life. You will drag him down to your own +level." + +The girl must have looked rather fine at that moment, I should +dearly love to have been present. + +"There will be no dragging down, my lady," she replied, "on either +side. I do love your son very dearly. He is one of the kindest +and best of gentlemen. But I am not blind, and whatever amount of +cleverness there may be between us belongs chiefly to me. I shall +make it my duty to fit myself for the position of his wife, and to +help him in his work. You need not fear, my lady, I shall be a +good wife to him, and he shall never regret it. You might find him +a richer wife, a better educated wife, but you will never find him +a wife who will be more devoted to him and to his interests." + +That practically brought the scene to a close. The countess had +sense enough to see that she was only losing ground by argument. +She rose and replaced her cheque-book in her bag. + +"I think, my good girl, you must be mad," she said; "if you will +not allow me to do anything for you, there's an end to the matter. +I did not come here to quarrel with you. My son knows his duty to +me and to his family. You must take your own course, and I must +take mine." + +"Very well, my lady," said Mary Sewell, holding the door open for +her ladyship to pass out, "we shall see who wins." + +But however brave a front Mary Sewell may have maintained before +the enemy, I expect she felt pretty limp when thinking matters +calmly over after her ladyship's departure. She knew her lover +well enough to guess that he would be as wax in the firm hands of +his mother, while she herself would not have a chance of opposing +her influence against those seeking to draw him away from her. +Once again she read through the few schoolboy letters he had +written her, and then looked up at the framed photograph that hung +above the mantelpiece of her little bedroom. The face was that of +a frank, pleasant-looking young fellow, lightened by eyes somewhat +large for a man, but spoiled by a painfully weak mouth. The more +Mary Sewell thought, the more sure she felt in her own mind that he +loved her, and had meant honestly by her. Did the matter rest with +him, she might reckon on being the future Countess of --, but, +unfortunately for her, the person to be considered was not Lord C-, +but the present Countess of --. From childhood, through boyhood, +into manhood it had never once occurred to Lord C- to dispute a +single command of his mother's, and his was not the type of brain +to readily receive new ideas. If she was to win in the unequal +contest it would have to be by art, not by strength. She sat down +and wrote a letter which under all the circumstances was a model of +diplomacy. She knew that it would be read by the countess, and, +writing it, she kept both mother and son in mind. She made no +reproaches, and indulged in but little sentiment. It was the +letter of a woman who could claim rights, but who asked only for +courtesy. It stated her wish to see him alone and obtain from his +own lips the assurance that he wished their engagement to cease. +"Do not fear," Mary Sewell wrote, "that I shall be any annoyance to +you. My own pride would not let me urge you to marry me against +your desire, and I care for you too much to cause you any pain. +Assure me with your own lips that you wish our engagement to be at +an end, and I shall release you without another word." + +The family were in town, and Mary sent her letter by a trusty hand. +The countess read it with huge satisfaction, and, re-sealing it, +gave it herself into her son's hands. It promised a happy solution +of the problem. In imagination, she had all the night been +listening to a vulgar breach of promise case. She herself had been +submitted to a most annoying cross-examination by a pert barrister. +Her son's assumption of the name of Robinson had been misunderstood +and severely commented upon by the judge. A sympathetic jury had +awarded thumping damages, and for the next six months the family +title would be a peg on which music-hall singers and comic +journalists would hang their ribald jokes. Lord C- read the +letter, flushed, and dutifully handed it back to his mother. She +made pretence to read it as for the first time, and counselled him +to accord the interview. + +"I am so glad," she said, "that the girl is taking the matter +sensibly. We must really do something for her in the future, when +everything is settled. Let her ask for me, and then the servants +will fancy she's a lady's maid or something of that sort, come +after a place, and won't talk." + +So that evening Mary Sewell, addressed by the butler as "young +woman," was ushered into the small drawing-room that connects the +library of No. -- Grosvenor Square with the other reception rooms. +The countess, now all amiability, rose to meet her. + +"My son will be here in a moment," she explained, "he has informed +me of the purport of your letter. Believe me, my dear Miss Sewell, +no one can regret his thoughtless conduct more than I do. But +young men will be young men, and they do not stop to reflect that +what may be a joke to them may be taken quite seriously by others." + +"I don't regard the matter as a joke, my lady," replied Mary +somewhat curtly. + +"Of course not, my dear," added the countess, "that's what I'm +saying. It was very wrong of him altogether. But with your pretty +face, you will not, I am sure, have long to wait for a husband; we +must see what we can do for you." + +The countess certainly lacked tact; it must have handicapped her +exceedingly. + +"Thank you," answered the girl, "but I prefer to choose my own." + +Fortunately--or the interview might have ended in another quarrel-- +the cause of all the trouble at this moment entered the room, and +the countess, whispering a few final words of instruction to him as +she passed out, left them together. + +Mary took a chair in the centre of the room, at equal distance from +both doors. Lord C-, finding any sort of a seat uncomfortable +under the circumstances, preferred to stand with his back to the +mantelpiece. Dead silence was maintained for a few seconds, and +then Mary, drawing the daintiest of handkerchiefs from her pocket, +began to cry. The countess must have been a poor diplomatist, or +she might have thought of this; or she may have remembered her own +appearance on the rare occasions when she herself, a big, raw-boned +girl, had attempted the softening influence of tears, and have +attached little importance to the possibility. But when these +soft, dimpled women cry, and cry quietly, it is another matter. +Their eyes grow brighter, and the tears, few and far between, lie +like dewdrops on a rose leaf. + +Lord C- was as tender-hearted a lout as ever lived. In a moment he +was on his knees with his arm round the girl's waist, pouring out +such halting words of love and devotion as came to his unready +brain, cursing his fate, his earldom, and his mother, and assuring +Mary that his only chance of happiness lay in his making her his +countess. Had Mary liked to say the word at that moment, he would +have caught her to his arms, and defied the whole world--for the +time being. But Mary was a very practical young woman, and there +are difficulties in the way of handling a lover, who, however ready +he may be to do your bidding so long as your eyes are upon him, is +liable to be turned from his purpose so soon as another influence +is substituted for your own. His lordship suggested an immediate +secret marriage. But you cannot run out into the street, knock up +a clergyman, and get married on the spot, and Mary knew that the +moment she was gone his lordship's will would revert to his +mother's keeping. Then his lordship suggested flight, but flight +requires money, and the countess knew enough to keep his lordship's +purse in her own hands. Despair seized upon his lordship. + +"It's no use," he cried, "it will end in my marrying her." + +"Who's she?" exclaimed Mary somewhat quickly. + +His lordship explained the position. The family estates were +heavily encumbered. It was deemed advisable that his lordship +should marry Money, and Money, in the person of the only daughter +of rich and ambitious parvenus, had offered itself--or, to speak +more correctly, had been offered. + +"What's she like?" asked Mary. + +"Oh, she's nice enough," was the reply, "only I don't care for her +and she doesn't care for me. It won't be much fun for either of +us," and his lordship laughed dismally. + +"How do you know she doesn't care for you?" asked Mary. A woman +may be critical of her lover's shortcomings, but at the very least +he is good enough for every other woman. + +"Well, she happens to care for somebody else," answered his +lordship, "she told me so herself." + +That would account for it. + +"And is she willing to marry you?" inquired Mary. + +His lordship shrugged his shoulders. + +"Oh, well, you know, her people want it," he replied. + +In spite of her trouble, the girl could not help a laugh. These +young swells seemed to have but small wills of their own. Her +ladyship, on the other side of the door, grew nervous. It was the +only sound she had been able to hear. + +"It's deuced awkward," explained his lordship, "when you're--well, +when you are anybody, you know. You can't do as you like. Things +are expected of you, and there's such a lot to be considered." + +Mary rose and clasped her pretty dimpled hands, from which she had +drawn her gloves, behind his neck. + +"You do love me, Jack?" she said, looking up into his face. + +For answer the lad hugged her to him very tightly, and there were +tears in his eyes. + +"Look here, Mary," he cried, "if I could only get rid of my +position, and settle down with you as a country gentleman, I'd do +it to-morrow. Damn the title, it's going to be the curse of my +life." + +Perhaps in that moment Mary also wished that the title were at the +bottom of the sea, and that her lover were only the plain Mr. John +Robinson she had thought him. These big, stupid men are often very +loveable in spite of, or because of their weakness. They appeal to +the mother side of a woman's heart, and that is the biggest side in +all good women. + +Suddenly however, the door opened. The countess appeared, and +sentiment flew out. Lord C-, releasing Mary, sprang back, looking +like a guilty school-boy. + +"I thought I heard Miss Sewell go out," said her ladyship in the +icy tones that had never lost their power of making her son's heart +freeze within him. "I want to see you when you are free." + +"I shan't be long," stammered his lordship. "Mary--Miss Sewell is +just going." + +Mary waited without moving until the countess had left and closed +the door behind her. Then she turned to her lover and spoke in +quick, low tones. + +"Give me her address--the girl they want you to marry!" + +"What are you going to do?" asked his lordship. + +"I don't know," answered the girl, "but I'm going to see her." + +She scribbled the name down, and then said, looking the boy +squarely in the face: + +"Tell me frankly, Jack, do you want to marry me, or do you not?" + +"You know I do, Mary," he answered, and his eyes spoke stronger +than his words. "If I weren't a silly ass, there would be none of +this trouble. But I don't know how it is; I say to myself I'll do, +a thing, but the mater talks and talks and--" + +"I know," interrupted Mary with a smile. "Don't argue with her, +fall in with all her views, and pretend to agree with her." + +"If you could only think of some plan," said his lordship, catching +at the hope of her words, "you are so clever." + +"I am going to try," answered Mary, "and if I fail, you must run +off with me, even if you have to do it right before your mother's +eyes." + +What she meant was, "I shall have to run off with you," but she +thought it better to put it the other way about. + +Mary found her involuntary rival a meek, gentle little lady, as +much under the influence of her blustering father as was Lord C- +under that of his mother. What took place at the interview one can +only surmise; but certain it is that the two girls, each for her +own ends, undertook to aid and abet one another. + +Much to the surprised delight of their respective parents, there +came about a change in the attitude hitherto assumed towards one +another by Miss Clementina Hodskiss and Lord C-. All objections to +his lordship's unwilling attentions were suddenly withdrawn by the +lady. Indeed, so swift to come and go are the whims of women, his +calls were actually encouraged, especially when, as generally +happened, they coincided with the absence from home of Mr. and Mrs. +Hodskiss. Quite as remarkable was the new-born desire of Lord C- +towards Miss Clementina Hodskiss. Mary's name was never mentioned, +and the suggestion of immediate marriage was listened to without +remonstrance. Wiser folk would have puzzled their brains, but both +her ladyship and ex-Contractor Hodskiss were accustomed to find all +things yield to their wishes. The countess saw visions of a +rehabilitated estate, and Clementina's father dreamed of a peerage, +secured by the influence of aristocratic connections. All that the +young folks stipulated for (and on that point their firmness was +supernatural) was that the marriage should be quiet, almost to the +verge of secrecy. + +"No beastly fuss," his lordship demanded. "Let it be somewhere in +the country, and no mob!" and his mother, thinking she understood +his reason, patted his cheek affectionately. + +"I should like to go down to Aunt Jane's and be married quietly +from there," explained Miss Hodskiss to her father. + +Aunt Jane resided on the outskirts of a small Hampshire village, +and "sat under" a clergyman famous throughout the neighbourhood for +having lost the roof to his mouth. + +"You can't be married by that old fool," thundered her father--Mr. +Hodskiss always thundered; he thundered even his prayers. + +"He christened me," urged Miss Clementina. + +"And Lord knows what he called you. Nobody can understand a word +he says." + +"I'd like him to marry me," reiterated Miss Clementina. + +Neither her ladyship nor the contractor liked the idea. The latter +in particular had looked forward to a big function, chronicled at +length in all the newspapers. But after all, the marriage was the +essential thing, and perhaps, having regard to some foolish love +passages that had happened between Clementina and a certain +penniless naval lieutenant, ostentation might be out of place. + +So in due course Clementina departed for Aunt Jane's, accompanied +only by her maid. + +Quite a treasure was Miss Hodskiss's new maid. + +"A clean, wholesome girl," said of her Contractor Hodskiss, who +cultivated affability towards the lower orders; "knows her place, +and talks sense. You keep that girl, Clemmy." + +"Do you think she knows enough?" hazarded the maternal Hodskiss. + +"Quite sufficient for any decent woman," retorted the contractor. +"When Clemmy wants painting and stuffing, it will be time enough +for her to think about getting one of your 'Ach Himmels' or 'Mon +Dieus'." + +"I like the girl myself immensely," agreed Clementina's mother. +"You can trust her, and she doesn't give herself airs." + +Her praises reached even the countess, suffering severely at the +moment from the tyranny of an elderly Fraulein. + +"I must see this treasure," thought the countess to herself. "I am +tired of these foreign minxes." + +But no matter at what cunning hour her ladyship might call, the +"treasure" always happened for some reason or other to be abroad. + +"Your girl is always out when I come," laughed the countess. "One +would fancy there was some reason for it." + +"It does seem odd," agreed Clementina, with a slight flush. + +Miss Hodskiss herself showed rather than spoke her appreciation of +the girl. She seemed unable to move or think without her. Not +even from the interviews with Lord C- was the maid always absent. + +The marriage, it was settled, should be by licence. Mrs. Hodskiss +made up her mind at first to run down and see to the preliminaries, +but really when the time arrived it hardly seemed necessary to take +that trouble. The ordering of the whole affair was so very simple, +and the "treasure" appeared to understand the business most +thoroughly, and to be willing to take the whole burden upon her own +shoulders. It was not, therefore, until the evening before the +wedding that the Hodskiss family arrived in force, filling Aunt +Jane's small dwelling to its utmost capacity. The swelling figure +of the contractor, standing beside the tiny porch, compelled the +passer-by to think of the doll's house in which the dwarf resides +during fair-time, ringing his own bell out of his own first-floor +window. The countess and Lord C- were staying with her ladyship's +sister, the Hon. Mrs. J-, at G- Hall, some ten miles distant, and +were to drive over in the morning. The then Earl of -- was in +Norway, salmon fishing. Domestic events did not interest him. + +Clementina complained of a headache after dinner, and went to bed +early. The "treasure" also was indisposed. She seemed worried and +excited. + +"That girl is as eager about the thing," remarked Mrs. Hodskiss, +"as though it was her own marriage." + +In the morning Clementina was still suffering from her headache, +but asserted her ability to go through the ceremony, provided +everybody would keep away, and not worry her. The "treasure" was +the only person she felt she could bear to have about her. Half an +hour before it was time to start for church her mother looked her +up again. She had grown still paler, if possible, during the +interval, and also more nervous and irritable. She threatened to +go to bed and stop there if she was not left quite alone. She +almost turned her mother out of the room, locking the door behind +her. Mrs. Hodskiss had never known her daughter to be like this +before. + +The others went on, leaving her to follow in the last carriage with +her father. The contractor, forewarned, spoke little to her. Only +once he had occasion to ask her a question, and then she answered +in a strained, unnatural voice. She appeared, so far as could be +seen under her heavy veil, to be crying. + +"Well, this is going to be a damned cheerful wedding," said Mr. +Hodskiss, and lapsed into sulkiness. + +The wedding was not so quiet as had been anticipated. The village +had got scent of it, and had spread itself upon the event, while +half the house party from G- Hall had insisted on driving over to +take part in the proceedings. The little church was better filled +than it had been for many a long year past. + +The presence of the stylish crowd unnerved the ancient clergyman, +long unaccustomed to the sight of a strange face, and the first +sound of the ancient clergyman's voice unnerved the stylish crowd. +What little articulation he possessed entirely disappeared, no one +could understand a word he said. He appeared to be uttering sounds +of distress. The ancient gentleman's infliction had to be +explained in low asides, and it also had to be explained why such +an one had been chosen to perform the ceremony. + +"It was a whim of Clementina's," whispered her mother. "Her father +and myself were married from here, and he christened her. The dear +child's full of sentiment. I think it so nice of her." + +Everybody agreed it was charming, but wished it were over. The +general effect was weird in the extreme. + +Lord C- spoke up fairly well, but the bride's responses were +singularly indistinct, the usual order of things being thus +reversed. The story of the naval lieutenant was remembered, and +added to, and some of the more sentimental of the women began to +cry in sympathy. + +In the vestry things assumed a brighter tone. There was no lack of +witnesses to sign the register. The verger pointed out to them the +place, and they wrote their names, as people in such cases do, +without stopping to read. Then it occurred to some one that the +bride had not yet signed. She stood apart, with her veil still +down, and appeared to have been forgotten. Encouraged, she came +forward meekly, and took the pen from the hand of the verger. The +countess came and stood behind her. + +"Mary," wrote the bride, in a hand that looked as though it ought +to have been firm, but which was not. + +"Dear me," said the countess, "I never knew there was a Mary in +your name. How differently you write when you write slowly." + +The bride did not answer, but followed with "Susannah." + +"Why, what a lot of names you must have, my dear!" exclaimed the +countess. "When are you going to get to the ones we all know?" + +"Ruth," continued the bride without answering. + +Breeding is not always proof against strong emotion. The countess +snatched the bride's veil from her face, and Mary Susannah Ruth +Sewell stood before her, flushed and trembling, but looking none +the less pretty because of that. At this point the crowd came in +useful. + +"I am sure your ladyship does not wish a scene," said Mary, +speaking low. "The thing is done." + +"The thing can be undone, and will be," retorted the countess in +the same tone. "You, you--" + +"My wife, don't forget that, mother," said Lord C- coming between +them, and slipping Mary's hand on to his arm. "We are both sorry +to have had to go about the thing in this roundabout way, but we +wanted to avoid a fuss. I think we had better be getting away. +I'm afraid Mr. Hodskiss is going to be noisy." + + +The doctor poured himself out a glass of claret, and drank it off. +His throat must have been dry. + +"And what became of Clementina?" I asked. "Did the naval +lieutenant, while the others were at church, dash up in a post- +chaise and carry her off?" + +"That's what ought to have happened, for the whole thing to be in +keeping," agreed the doctor. "I believe as a matter of fact she +did marry him eventually, but not till some years later, after the +contractor had died." + +"And did Mr. Hodskiss make a noise in the vestry?" I persisted. +The doctor never will finish a story. + +"I can't say for certain," answered my host, "I only saw the +gentleman once. That was at a shareholders' meeting. I should +incline to the opinion that he did." + +"I suppose the bride and bridegroom slipped out as quietly as +possible and drove straight off," I suggested. + +"That would have been the sensible thing for them to do," agreed +the doctor. + +"But how did she manage about her travelling frock?" I continued. +"She could hardly have gone back to her Aunt Jane's and changed her +things." The doctor has no mind for minutiae. + +"I cannot tell you about all that," he replied. "I think I +mentioned that Mary was a practical girl. Possibly she had thought +of these details." + +"And did the countess take the matter quietly?" I asked. + +I like a tidy story, where everybody is put into his or her proper +place at the end. Your modern romance leaves half his characters +lying about just anyhow. + +"That also I cannot tell you for certain," answered the doctor, +"but I give her credit for so much sense. Lord C- was of age, and +with Mary at his elbow, quite knew his own mind. I believe they +travelled for two or three years. The first time I myself set eyes +on the countess (nee Mary Sewell) was just after the late earl's +death. I thought she looked a countess, every inch of her, but +then I had not heard the story. I mistook the dowager for the +housekeeper." + + + +BLASE BILLY + + + +It was towards the end of August. He and I appeared to be the only +two men left to the Club. He was sitting by an open window, the +Times lying on the floor beside him. I drew my chair a little +closer and remarked:- "Good morning." + +He suppressed a yawn, and replied "Mornin'"--dropping the "g." The +custom was just coming into fashion; he was always correct. + +"Going to be a very hot day, I am afraid," I continued. + +"'Fraid so," was the response, after which he turned his head away +and gently closed his eyes. + +I opined that conversation was not to his wish, but this only made +me more determined to talk, and to talk to him above all others in +London. The desire took hold of me to irritate him--to break down +the imperturbable calm within which he moved and had his being; and +I gathered myself together, and settled down to the task. + +"Interesting paper the Times," I observed. + +"Very," he replied, taking it from the floor and handing it to me. +"Won't you read it?" + +I had been careful to throw into my voice an aggressive cheeriness +which I had calculated would vex him, but his manner remained that +of a man who is simply bored. I argued with him politely +concerning the paper; but he insisted, still with the same weary +air, that he had done with it. I thanked him effusively. I judged +that he hated effusiveness. + +"They say that to read a Times leader," I persisted, "is a lesson +in English composition." + +"So I've been told," he answered tranquilly. "Personally I don't +take them." + +The Times, I could see, was not going to be of much assistance to +me. I lit a cigarette, and remarked that he was not shooting. He +admitted the fact. Under the circumstances, it would have taxed +him to deny it, but the necessity for confession aroused him. + +"To myself," he said, "a tramp through miles of mud, in company +with four gloomy men in black velveteen, a couple of depressed- +looking dogs, and a heavy gun, the entire cavalcade being organised +for the purpose of killing some twelve-and-sixpence worth of +poultry, suggests the disproportionate." + +I laughed boisterously, and cried, "Good, good--very good!" + +He was the type of man that shudders inwardly at the sound of +laughter. I had the will to slap him on the back, but I thought +maybe that would send him away altogether. + +I asked him if he hunted. He replied that fourteen hours' talk a +day about horses, and only about horses tired him, and that in +consequence he had abandoned hunting. + +"You fish?" I said. + +"I was never sufficiently imaginative," he answered. + +"You travel a good deal," I suggested. + +He had apparently made up his mind to abandon himself to his fate, +for he turned towards me with a resigned air. An ancient nurse of +mine had always described me as the most "wearing" child she had +ever come across. I prefer to speak of myself as persevering. + +"I should go about more," he said, "were I able to see any +difference between one place and another." + +"Tried Central Africa?" I inquired. + +"Once or twice," he answered. "It always reminds me of Kew +Gardens." + +"China?" I hazarded. + +"Cross between a willow-pattern plate and a New York slum," was his +comment. + +"The North Pole?" I tried, thinking the third time might be lucky. + +"Never got quite up to it," he returned. "Reached Cape Hakluyt +once." + +"How did that impress you?" I asked. + +"It didn't impress me," he replied. + +The talk drifted to women and bogus companies, dogs, literature, +and such-like matters. I found him well informed upon and bored by +all. + +"They used to be amusing," he said, speaking of the first named, +"until they began to take themselves seriously. Now they are +merely silly." + +I was forced into closer companionship with "Blase Billy" that +autumn, for by chance a month later he and I found ourselves the +guests of the same delightful hostess, and I came to liking him +better. He was a useful man to have about one. In matters of +fashion one could always feel safe following his lead. One knew +that his necktie, his collar, his socks, if not the very newest +departure, were always correct; and upon social paths, as guide, +philosopher, and friend, he was invaluable. He knew every one, +together with his or her previous convictions. He was acquainted +with every woman's past, and shrewdly surmised every man's future. +He could point you out the coal-shed where the Countess of +Glenleman had gambolled in her days of innocence, and would take +you to breakfast at the coffee-shop off the Mile End Road where +"Sam. Smith, Estd. 1820," own brother to the world-famed society +novelist, Smith-Stratford, lived an uncriticised, unparagraphed, +unphotographed existence upon the profits of "rashers" at three- +ha'pence and "door-steps" at two a penny. He knew at what houses +it was inadvisable to introduce soap, and at what tables it would +be bad form to denounce political jobbery. He could tell you +offhand what trade-mark went with what crest, and remembered the +price paid for every baronetcy created during the last twenty-five +years. + +Regarding himself, he might have made claim with King Charles never +to have said a foolish thing, and never to have done a wise one. +He despised, or affected to despise, most of his fellow-men, and +those of his fellow-men whose opinion was most worth having +unaffectedly despised him. + +Shortly described, one might have likened him to a Gaiety Johnny +with brains. He was capital company after dinner, but in the early +morning one avoided him. + +So I thought of him until one day he fell in love; or to put it in +the words of Teddy Tidmarsh, who brought the news to us, "got +mashed on Gerty Lovell." + +"The red-haired one," Teddy explained, to distinguish her from her +sister, who had lately adopted the newer golden shade. + +"Gerty Lovell!" exclaimed the captain, "why, I've always been told +the Lovell girls hadn't a penny among them." + +"The old man's stone broke, I know for a certainty," volunteered +Teddy, who picked up a mysterious but, in other respects, +satisfactory income in an office near Hatton Garden, and who was +candour itself concerning the private affairs of everybody but +himself. + +"Oh, some rich pork-packing or diamond-sweating uncle has cropped +up in Australia, or America, or one of those places," suggested the +captain, "and Billy's got wind of it in good time. Billy knows his +way about." + +We agreed that some such explanation was needed, though in all +other respects Gerty Lovell was just the girl that Reason (not +always consulted on these occasions) might herself have chosen for +"Blase Billy's" mate. + +The sunlight was not too kind to her, but at evening parties, where +the lighting has been well considered, I have seen her look quite +girlish. At her best she was not beautiful, but at her worst there +was about her an air of breeding and distinction that always saved +her from being passed over, and she dressed to perfection. In +character she was the typical society woman: always charming, +generally insincere. She went to Kensington for her religion and +to Mayfair for her morals; accepted her literature from Mudie's and +her art from the Grosvenor Gallery; and could and would gabble +philanthropy, philosophy, and politics with equal fluency at every +five-o'clock tea-table she visited. Her ideas could always be +guaranteed as the very latest, and her opinion as that of the +person to whom she was talking. Asked by a famous novelist one +afternoon, at the Pioneer Club, to give him some idea of her, +little Mrs. Bund, the painter's wife, had remained for a few +moments with her pretty lips pursed, and had then said: + +"She is a woman to whom life could bring nothing more fully +satisfying than a dinner invitation from a duchess, and whose +nature would be incapable of sustaining deeper suffering than that +caused by an ill-fitting costume." + +At the time I should have said the epigram was as true as it was +cruel, but I suppose we none of us quite know each other. + +I congratulated "Blase Billy," or to drop his Club nickname and +give him the full benefit of his social label, "The Hon. William +Cecil Wychwood Stanley Drayton," on the occasion of our next +meeting, which happened upon the steps of the Savoy Restaurant, and +I thought--unless a quiver of the electric light deceived me--that +he blushed. + +"Charming girl," I said. "You're a lucky dog, Billy." + +It was the phrase that custom demands upon such occasions, and it +came of its own accord to my tongue without costing me the trouble +of composition, but he seized upon it as though it had been a gem +of friendly sincerity. + +"You will like her even more when you know her better," he said. +"She is so different from the usual woman that one meets. Come and +see her to-morrow afternoon, she will be so pleased. Go about +four, I will tell her to expect you." + +I rang the bell at ten minutes past five. Billy was there. She +greeted me with a little tremor of embarrassment, which sat oddly +upon her, but which was not altogether unpleasing. She said it was +kind of me to come so early. I stayed for about half an hour, but +conversation flagged, and some of my cleverest remarks attracted no +attention whatever. + +When I rose to take my leave, Billy said that he must be off too, +and that he would accompany me. Had they been ordinary lovers, I +should have been careful to give them an opportunity of making +their adieus in secret; but in the case of the Honourable William +Drayton and the eldest Miss Lovell I concluded that such tactics +were needless, so I waited till he had shaken hands, and went +downstairs with him. + +But in the hall Billy suddenly ejaculated, "By Jove! Half a +minute," and ran back up the stairs three at a time. Apparently he +found what he had gone for on the landing, for I did not hear the +opening of the drawing-room door. Then the Honourable Billy +redescended with a sober, nonchalent air. + +"Left my gloves behind me," he explained, as he took my arm. "I am +always leaving my gloves about." + +I did not mention that I had seen him take them from his hat and +slip them into his coat-tail pocket. + +We at the Club did not see very much of Billy during the next three +months, but the captain, who prided himself upon his playing of the +role of smoking-room cynic--though he would have been better in the +part had he occasionally displayed a little originality--was of +opinion that our loss would be more than made up to us after the +marriage. Once in the twilight I caught sight of a figure that +reminded me of Billy's, accompanied by a figure that might have +been that of the eldest Miss Lovell; but as the spot was Battersea +Park, which is not a fashionable evening promenade, and the two +figures were holding each other's hands, the whole picture being +suggestive of the closing chapter of a London Journal romance, I +concluded I had made an error. + +But I did see them in the Adelphi stalls one evening, rapt in a +sentimental melodrama. I joined them between the acts, and poked +fun at the play, as one does at the Adelphi, but Miss Lovell begged +me quite earnestly not to spoil her interest, and Billy wanted to +enter upon a serious argument as to whether a man was justified in +behaving as Will Terriss had just behaved towards the woman he +loved. I left them and returned to my own party, to the +satisfaction, I am inclined to think, of all concerned. + +They married in due course. We were mistaken on one point. She +brought Billy nothing. But they both seemed quite content on his +not too extravagant fortune. They took a tiny house not far from +Victoria Station, and hired a brougham for the season. They did +not entertain very much, but they contrived to be seen everywhere +it was right and fashionable they should be seen. The Honourable +Mrs. Drayton was a much younger and brighter person than had been +the eldest Miss Lovell, and as she continued to dress charmingly, +her social position rose rapidly. Billy went everywhere with her, +and evidently took a keen pride in her success. It was even said +that he designed her dresses for her, and I have myself seen him +earnestly studying the costumes in Russell and Allen's windows. + +The captain's prophecy remained unfulfilled. "Blase Billy"--if the +name could still be applied to him--hardly ever visited the Club +after his marriage. But I had grown to like him, and, as he had +foretold, to like his wife. I found their calm indifference to the +burning questions of the day a positive relief from the strenuous +atmosphere of literary and artistic circles. In the drawing-room +of their little house in Eaton Row, the comparative merits of +George Meredith and George R. Sims were not considered worth +discussion. Both were regarded as persons who afforded a certain +amount of amusement in return for a certain amount of cash. And on +any Wednesday afternoon, Henrick Ibsen and Arthur Roberts would +have been equally welcome, as adding piquancy to the small +gathering. Had I been compelled to pass my life in such a house, +this Philistine attitude might have palled upon me; but, under the +circumstances, it refreshed me, and I made use of my welcome, which +I believe was genuine, to its full extent. + +As months went by, they seemed to me to draw closer to one another, +though I am given to understand that such is not the rule in +fashionable circles. One evening I arrived a little before my +time, and was shown up into the drawing-room by the soft-footed +butler. They were sitting in the dusk with their arms round one +another. It was impossible to withdraw, so I faced the situation +and coughed. A pair of middle-class lovers could not have appeared +more awkward or surprised. + +But the incident established an understanding between us, and I +came to be regarded as a friend before whom there was less +necessity to act. + +Studying them, I came to the conclusion that the ways and manners +of love are very same-like throughout the world, as though the +foolish boy, unheedful of human advance, kept but one school for +minor poet and East End shop-boy, for Girton girl and little +milliner; taught but the one lesson to the end-of-the-nineteenth- +century Johnny that he taught to bearded Pict and Hun four thousand +years ago. + +Thus the summer and the winter passed pleasantly for the Honourable +Billy, and then, as luck would have it, he fell ill just in the +very middle of the London season, when invitations to balls and +dinner parties, luncheons and "At Homes," were pouring in from +every quarter; when the lawns at Hurlingham were at their +smoothest, and the paddocks at their smartest. + +It was unfortunate, too, that the fashions that season suited the +Honourable Mrs. Billy as they had not suited her for years. In the +early spring, she and Billy had been hard at work planning costumes +calculated to cause a flutter through Mayfair, and the dresses and +the bonnets--each one a work of art--were waiting on their stands +to do their killing work. But the Honourable Mrs. Billy, for the +first time in her life, had lost interest in such things. + +Their friends were genuinely sorry, for society was Billy's +element, and in it he was interesting and amusing. But, as Lady +Gower said, there was no earthly need for his wife to constitute +herself a prisoner. Her shutting herself off from the world could +do him no good and it would look odd. + +Accordingly the Honourable Mrs. Drayton, to whom oddness was a +crime, and the voice of Lady Gower as the voice of duty, sacrificed +her inclinations on the social shrine, laced the new costumes tight +across her aching heart, and went down into society. + +But the Honourable Mrs. Drayton achieved not the success of former +seasons. Her small talk grew so very small, that even Park Lane +found it unsatisfying. Her famous laugh rang mechanically. She +smiled at the wisdom of dukes, and became sad at the funny stories +of millionaires. Society voted her a good wife but bad company, +and confined its attentions to cards of inquiry. And for this +relief the Honourable Mrs. Drayton was grateful, for Billy waned +weaker and weaker. In the world of shadows in which she moved, he +was the one real thing. She was of very little practical use, but +it comforted her to think that she was helping to nurse him. + +But Billy himself it troubled. + +"I do wish you would go out more," he would say. "It makes me feel +that I'm such a selfish brute, keeping you tied up here in this +dismal little house. Besides," he would add, "people miss you; +they will hate me for keeping you away." For, where his wife was +concerned, Billy's knowledge of the world availed him little. He +really thought society craved for the Honourable Mrs. Drayton, and +would not be comforted where she was not. + +"I would rather stop with you, dear," would be the answer; "I don't +care to go about by myself. You must get well quickly and take +me." + +And so the argument continued, until one evening, as she sat by +herself, the nurse entered softly, closed the door behind her, and +came over to her. + +"I wish you would go out to-night, ma'am," said the nurse, "just +for an hour or two. I think it would please the master; he is +worrying himself because he thinks it is his fault that you do not; +and just now"--the woman hesitated for a moment--"just now I want +to keep him very quiet." + +"Is he weaker, nurse?" + +"Well, he is not stronger, ma'am, and I think--I think we must +humour him." + +The Honourable Mrs. Drayton rose, and, crossing to the window, +stood for a while looking out. + +"But where am I to go, nurse?" she said at length, turning with a +smile. "I've no invitations anywhere." + +"Can't you make believe to have one?" said the nurse. "It is only +seven o'clock. Say you are going to a dinner-party; you can come +home early then. Go and dress yourself, and come down and say +good-bye to him, and then come in again about eleven, as though you +had just returned." + +"You think I must, nurse?" + +"I think it would be better, ma'am. I wish you would try it." + +The Honourable Mrs. Drayton went to the door, then paused. + +"He has such sharp ears, nurse; he will listen for the opening of +the door and the sound of the carriage." + +"I will see to that," said the nurse. "I will tell them to have +the carriage here at ten minutes to eight. Then you can drive to +the end of the street, slip out, and walk back. I will let you in +myself." + +"And about coming home?" asked the other woman. + +"You must slip out for a few minutes before eleven, and the +carriage must be waiting for you at the corner again. Leave all +that to me." + +In half an hour the Honourable Mrs. Drayton entered the sick-room, +radiant in evening dress and jewels. Fortunately the lights were +low, or "Blase-Billy" might have been doubtful as to the effect his +wife was likely to produce. For her face was not the face that one +takes to dinner-parties. + +"Nurse tells me you are going to the Grevilles this evening. I am +so glad. I've been worrying myself about you, moped up here right +through the season." + +He took her hands in his and held her out at arm's length from him. + +"How handsome you look, dear!" he said. "How they must have all +been cursing me for keeping you shut up here, like a princess in an +ogre's castle! I shall never dare to face them again." + +She laughed, well pleased at his words. + +"I shall not be late," she said. "I shall be so anxious to get +back and see how my boy has behaved. If you have not been good I +shan't go again." + +They kissed and parted, and at eleven she returned to the room. +She told him what a delightful evening it had been, and bragged a +little of her own success. + +The nurse told her that he had been more cheerful that evening than +for many nights. + +So every day the farce was played for him. One day it was to a +luncheon that she went, in a costume by Redfern; the next night to +a ball, in a frock direct from Paris; again to an "At Home," or +concert, or dinner-party. Loafers and passers-by would stop to +stare at a haggard, red-eyed woman, dressed as for a drawing-room, +slipping thief-like in and out of her own door. + +I heard them talking of her one afternoon, at a house where I +called, and I joined the group to listen. + +"I always thought her heartless, but I gave her credit for sense," +a woman was saying. "One doesn't expect a woman to be fond of her +husband, but she needn't make a parade of ignoring him when he is +dying." + +I pleaded absence from town to inquire what was meant, and from all +lips I heard the same account. One had noticed her carriage at the +door two or three evenings in succession. Another had seen her +returning home. A third had seen her coming out, and so on. + +I could not fit the fact in with my knowledge of her, so the next +evening I called. The door was opened instantly by herself. + +"I saw you from the window," she said. "Come in here; don't +speak." + +I followed her, and she closed the door behind her. She was +dressed in a magnificent costume, her hair sparkling with diamonds, +and I looked my questions. + +She laughed bitterly. + +"I am supposed to be at the opera to-night," she explained. "Sit +down, if you have a few minutes to spare." + +I said it was for a talk that I had come; and there, in the dark +room, lighted only by the street lamp without, she told me all. +And at the end she dropped her head on her bare arms; and I turned +away and looked out of the window for a while. + +"I feel so ridiculous," she said, rising and coming towards me. "I +sit here all the evening dressed like this. I'm afraid I don't act +my part very well; but, fortunately, dear Billy never was much of a +judge of art, and it is good enough for him. I tell him the most +awful lies about what everybody has said to me, and what I've said +to everybody, and how my gowns were admired. What do you think of +this one?" + +For answer I took the privilege of a friend. + +"I'm glad you think well of me," she said. "Billy has such a high +opinion of you. You will hear some funny tales. I'm glad you +know." + +I had to leave London again, and Billy died before I returned. I +heard that she had to be fetched from a ball, and was only just in +time to touch his lips before they were cold. But her friends +excused her by saying that the end had come very suddenly. + +I called on her a little later, and before I left I hinted to her +what people were saying, and asked her if I had not better tell +them the truth. + +"I would rather you didn't," she answered. "It seems like making +public the secret side of one's life." + +"But," I urged, "they will think--" + +She interrupted me. + +"Does it matter very much what they think?" + +Which struck me as a very remarkable sentiment, coming from the +Hon. Mrs. Drayton, nee the elder Miss Lovell. + + + +THE CHOICE OF CYRIL HARJOHN + + + +Between a junior resident master of twenty-one, and a backward lad +of fifteen, there yawns an impassable gulf. Between a struggling +journalist of one-and-thirty, and an M.D. of twenty-five, with a +brilliant record behind him, and a career of exceptional promise +before him, a close friendship is however permissible. + +My introduction to Cyril Harjohn was through the Rev. Charles +Fauerberg. + +"Our young friend," said the Rev. Mr. Fauerberg, standing in the +most approved tutorial attitude, with his hand upon his pupil's +shoulder, "our young friend has been somewhat neglected, but I see +in him possibilities warranting hope--warranting, I may say, very +great hope. For the present he will be under my especial care, and +you will not therefore concern yourself with his studies. He will +sleep with Milling and the others in dormitory number two." + +The lad formed a liking for me, and I think, and hope, I rendered +his sojourn at "Alpha House" less irksome than otherwise it might +have been. The Reverend Charles' method with the backward was on +all fours with that adopted for the bringing on of geese; he cooped +them up and crammed them. The process is profitable to the +trainer, but painful to the goose. + +Young Harjohn and myself left "Alpha House" at the end of the same +term; he bound for Brasenose, I for Bloomsbury. He made a point of +never coming up to London without calling on me, when we would dine +together in one of Soho's many dingy, garlic-scented restaurants, +and afterwards, over our bottle of cheap Beaune, discuss the coming +of our lives; and when he entered Guy's I left John Street, and +took chambers close to his in Staple Inn. Those were pleasant +days. Childhood is an over-rated period, fuller of sorrow than of +joy. I would not take my childhood back, were it a gift, but I +would give the rest of my life to live the twenties over again. + +To Cyril I was the man of the world, and he looked to me for +wisdom, not seeing always, I fear, that he got it; while from him I +gathered enthusiasm, and learnt the profit that comes to a man from +the keeping of ideals. + +Often as we have talked, I have felt as though a visible light came +from him, framing his face as with the halo of some pictured saint. +Nature had wasted him, putting him into this nineteenth century of +ours. Her victories are accomplished. Her army of heroes, the few +sung, the many forgotten, is disbanded. The long peace won by +their blood and pain is settled on the land. She had fashioned +Cyril Harjohn for one of her soldiers. He would have been a +martyr, in the days when thought led to the stake, a fighter for +the truth, when to speak one's mind meant death. To lead some +forlorn hope for Civilisation would have been his true work; Fate +had condemned him to sentry duty in a well-ordered barrack. + +But there is work to be done in the world, though the labour lies +now in the vineyard, not on the battlefield. A small but +sufficient fortune purchased for him freedom. To most men an +assured income is the grave of ambition; to Cyril it was the +foundation of desire. Relieved from the necessity of working to +live, he could afford the luxury of living to work. His profession +was to him a passion; he regarded it, not with the cold curiosity +of the scholar, but with the imaginative devotion of the disciple. +To help to push its frontiers forward, to carry its flag farther +into the untravelled desert that ever lies beyond the moving +boundary of human knowledge, was his dream. + +One summer evening, I remember, we were sitting in his rooms, and +during a silence there came to us through the open window the +moaning of the city, as of a tired child. He rose and stretched +his arms out towards the darkening streets, as if he would gather +to him all the toiling men and women and comfort them. + +"Oh, that I could help you!" he cried, "my brothers and my sisters. +Take my life, oh God, and spend it for me among your people." + +The speech sounds theatrical, as I read it, written down, but to +the young such words are not ridiculous, as to us older men. + +In the natural order of events, he fell in love, and with just the +woman one would expect him to be attracted by. Elspeth Grant was +of the type from which the world, by instinct rather than by +convention, has drawn its Madonnas and its saints. To describe a +woman in words is impossible. Her beauty was not a possession to +be catalogued, but herself. One felt it as one feels the beauty of +a summer's dawn breaking the shadows of a sleeping city, but one +cannot set it down. I often met her, and, when talking to her, I +knew myself--I, hack-journalist, frequenter of Fleet Street bars, +retailer of smoke-room stories--a great gentleman, incapable of +meanness, fit for all noble deeds. + +In her presence life became a thing beautiful and gracious; a +school for courtesy, and tenderness, and simplicity. + +I have wondered since, coming to see a little more clearly into the +ways of men, whether it would not have been better had she been +less spiritual, had her nature possessed a greater alloy of earth, +making it more fit for the uses of this work-a-day world. But at +the time, these two friends of mine seemed to me to have been +created for one another. + +She appealed to all that was highest in Cyril's character, and he +worshipped her with an unconcealed adoration that, from any man +less high-minded, would have appeared affectation, and which she +accepted with the sweet content that Artemis might have accorded to +the homage of Endymion. + +There was no formal engagement between them. Cyril seemed to +shrink from the materialising of his love by any thought of +marriage. To him she was an ideal of womanhood rather than a +flesh-and-blood woman. His love for her was a religion; it had no +taint of earthly passion in its composition. + +Had I known the world better I might have anticipated the result; +for the red blood ran in my friend's veins; and, alas, we dream our +poems, not live them. But at the time, the idea of any other woman +coming between them would have appeared to me folly. The +suggestion that that other woman might be Geraldine Fawley I should +have resented as an insult to my intelligence: that is the point +of the story I do not understand to this day. + +That he should be attracted by her, that he should love to linger +near her, watching the dark flush come and go across her face, +seeking to call the fire into her dark eyes was another matter, and +quite comprehensible; for the girl was wonderfully handsome, with a +bold, voluptuous beauty which invited while it dared. But +considered in any other light than that of an animal, she repelled. +At times when, for her ends, it seemed worth the exertion, she +would assume a certain wayward sweetness, but her acting was always +clumsy and exaggerated, capable of deceiving no one but a fool. + +Cyril, at all events, was not taken in by it. One evening, at a +Bohemian gathering, the entree to which was notoriety rather than +character, they had been talking together for some considerable +time when, wishing to speak to Cyril, I strolled up to join them. +As I came towards them she moved away, her dislike for me being +equal to mine for her; a thing which was, perhaps, well for me. + +"Miss Fawley prefers two as company to three," I observed, looking +after her retreating figure. + +"I am afraid she finds you what we should call an anti-sympathetic +element," he replied, laughing. + +"Do you like her?" I asked him, somewhat bluntly. + +His eyes rested upon her as she stood in the doorway, talking to a +small, black-bearded man who had just been introduced to her. +After a few moments she went out upon his arm, and then Cyril +turned to me. + +"I think her," he replied, speaking, as was necessary, very low, +"the embodiment of all that is evil in womanhood. In old days she +would have been a Cleopatra, a Theodora, a Delilah. To-day, +lacking opportunity, she is the 'smart woman' grubbing for an +opening into society--and old Fawley's daughter. I'm tired; let us +go home." + +His allusion to her parentage was significant. Few people thought +of connecting clever, handsome Geraldine Fawley with "Rogue +Fawley," Jew renegade, ex-gaol bird, and outside broker; who, +having expectations from his daughter, took care not to hamper her +by ever being seen in her company. But no one who had once met the +father could ever forget the relationship while talking to the +daughter. The older face, with its cruelty, its cunning, and its +greed stood reproduced, feature for feature, line for line. It was +as though Nature, for an artistic freak, had set herself the task +of fashioning hideousness and beauty from precisely the same +materials. Between the leer of the man and the smile of the girl, +where lay the difference? It would have puzzled any student of +anatomy to point it out. Yet the one sickened, while to gain the +other most men would have given much. + +Cyril's answer to my question satisfied me for the time. He met +the girl often, as was natural. She was a singer of some repute, +and our social circle was what is commonly called "literary and +artistic." To do her justice, however, she made no attempt to +fascinate him, nor even to be particularly agreeable to him. +Indeed, she seemed to be at pains to show him her natural--in other +words, her most objectionable side. + +Coming out of the theatre one first night, we met her in the lobby. +I was following Cyril at some little distance, but as he stopped to +speak to her the movement of the crowd placed me just behind them. + +"Will you be at Leightons' to-morrow?" I heard him ask her in a low +tone. + +"Yes," she answered, "and I wish you wouldn't come." + +"Why not?" + +"Because you're a fool, and you bore me." + +Under ordinary circumstances I should have taken the speech for +badinage--it was the kind of wit the woman would have indulged in. +But Cyril's face clouded with anger and vexation. I said nothing. +I did not wish him to know that I had overheard. I tried to +believe that he was amusing himself, but my own explanation did not +satisfy me. + +Next evening I went to Leightons' by myself. The Grants were in +town, and Cyril was dining with them. I found I did not know many +people, and cared little for those I did. I was about to escape +when Miss Fawley's name was announced. I was close to the door, +and she had to stop and speak to me. We exchanged a few +commonplaces. She either made love to a man or was rude to him. +She generally talked to me without looking at me, nodding and +smiling meanwhile to people around. I have met many women equally +ill-mannered, and without her excuse. For a moment, however, she +turned her eyes to mine. + +"Where's your friend, Mr. Harjohn?" she asked. "I thought you were +inseparables." + +I looked at her in astonishment. + +"He is dining out to-night," I replied. "I do not think he will +come." + +She laughed. I think it was the worst part about the woman, her +laugh; it suggested so much cruelty. + +"I think he will," she said. + +It angered me into an indiscretion. She was moving away. I +stepped in front of her and stopped her. + +"What makes you think so?" I asked, and my voice, I know, betrayed +the anxiety I felt as to her reply. She looked me straight in the +face. There was one virtue she possessed--the virtue that animals +hold above mankind--truthfulness. She knew I disliked her--hate +would be, perhaps, a more exact expression, did not the word sound +out of date, and she made no pretence of not knowing it and +returning the compliment. + +"Because I am here," she answered. "Why don't you save him? Have +you no influence over him? Tell the Saint to keep him; I don't +want him. You heard what I said to him last night. I shall only +marry him for the sake of his position, and the money he can earn +if he likes to work and not play the fool. Tell him what I have +said; I shan't deny it." + +She passed on to greet a decrepit old lord with a languishing +smile, and I stood staring after her with, I fear, a somewhat +stupid expression, until some young fool came up grinning, to ask +me whether I had seen a ghost or backed a "wrong 'un." + +There was no need to wait; I felt no curiosity. Something told me +the woman had spoken the truth. It was mere want of motive that +made me linger. I saw him come in, and watched him hanging round +her, like a dog, waiting for a kind word, or failing that, a look. +I knew she saw me, and I knew it added to her zest that I was +there. Not till we were in the street did I speak to him. He +started as I touched him. We were neither of us good actors. He +must have read much in my face, and I saw that he had read it; and +we walked side by side in silence, I thinking what to say, +wondering whether I should do good or harm, wishing that we were +anywhere but in these silent, life-packed streets, so filled with +the unseen. It was not until we had nearly reached the Albert Hall +that we broke the silence. Then it was he who spoke: + +"Do you think I haven't told myself all that?" he said. "Do you +think I don't know I'm a damned fool, a cad, a liar! What the +devil's the good of talking about it?" + +"But I can't understand it," I said. + +"No," he replied, "because you're a fool, because you have only +seen one side of me. You think me a grand gentleman, because I +talk big, and am full of noble sentiment. Why, you idiot, the +Devil himself could take you in. HE has his fine moods, I suppose, +talks like a saint, and says his prayers with the rest of us. Do +you remember the first night at old Fauerberg's? You poked your +silly head into the dormitory, and saw me kneeling by the bedside, +while the other fellows stood by grinning. You closed the door +softly--you thought I never saw you. I was not praying, I was +trying to pray." + +"It showed that you had pluck, if it showed nothing else," I +answered. "Most boys would not have tried, and you kept it up." + +"Ah, yes," he answered, "I promised the Mater I would, and I did. +Poor old soul, she was as big a fool as you are. She believed in +me. Don't you remember, finding me one Saturday afternoon all +alone, stuffing myself with cake and jam?" + +I laughed at the recollection, though Heaven knows I was in no +laughing mood. I had found him with an array of pastry spread out +before him, sufficient to make him ill for a week, and I had boxed +his ears, and had thrown the whole collection into the road. + +"The Mater gave me half-a-crown a week for pocket-money," he +continued, "and I told the fellows I had only a shilling, so that I +could gorge myself with the other eighteenpence undisturbed. Pah! +I was a little beast even in those days!" + +"It was only a schoolboy trick," I argued, "it was natural enough." + +"Yes," he answered, "and this is only a man's trick, and is natural +enough; but it is going to ruin my life, to turn me into a beast +instead of a man. Good God! do you think I don't know what that +woman will do for me? She will drag me down, down, down, to her +own level. All my ideas, all my ambition, all my life's work will +be bartered for a smug practice, among paying patients. I shall +scheme and plot to make a big income that we may live like a couple +of plump animals, that we may dress ourselves gaudily and parade +our wealth. Nothing will satisfy her. Such women are leeches; +their only cry is 'give, give, give.' So long as I can supply her +with money she will tolerate me, and to get it for her I shall sell +my heart, and my brain, and my soul. She will load herself with +jewels, and go about from house to house, half naked, to leer at +every man she comes across: that is 'life' to such women. And I +shall trot behind her, the laughing stock of every fool, the +contempt of every man." + +His vehemence made any words I could say sound weak before they +were uttered. What argument could I show stronger than that he had +already put before himself? I knew his answer to everything I +could urge. + +My mistake had been in imagining him different from other men. I +began to see that he was like the rest of us: part angel, part +devil. But the new point he revealed to me was that the higher the +one, the lower the other. It seems as if nature must balance her +work; the nearer the leaves to heaven, the deeper the roots +striking down into the darkness. I knew that his passion for this +woman made no change in his truer love. The one was a spiritual, +the other a mere animal passion. The memory of incidents that had +puzzled me came back to enlighten me. I remembered how often on +nights when I had sat up late, working, I had heard his steps pass +my door, heavy and uncertain; how once in a dingy quarter of +London, I had met one who had strangely resembled him. I had +followed him to speak, but the man's bleared eyes had stared +angrily at me, and I had turned away, calling myself a fool for my +mistake. But as I looked at the face beside me now, I understood. + +And then there rose up before my eyes the face I knew better, the +eager noble face that to merely look upon had been good. We had +reached a small, evil-smelling street, leading from Leicester +Square towards Holborn. I caught him by the shoulders and turned +him round with his back against some church railings. I forget +what I said. We are strange mixtures. I thought of the shy, +backward boy I had coached and bullied at old Fauerberg's, of the +laughing handsome lad I had watched grow into manhood. The very +restaurant we had most frequented in his old Oxford days--where we +had poured out our souls to one another, was in this very street +where we were standing. For the moment I felt towards him as +perhaps his mother might have felt; I wanted to scold him and to +cry with him; to shake him and to put my arms about him. I pleaded +with him, and urged him, and called him every name I could put my +tongue to. It must have seemed an odd conversation. A passing +policeman, making a not unnatural mistake, turned his bull's-eye +upon us, and advised us sternly to go home. We laughed, and with +that laugh Cyril came back to his own self, and we walked on to +Staple Inn more soberly. He promised me to go away by the very +first train the next morning, and to travel for some four or five +months, and I undertook to make all the necessary explanations for +him. + +We both felt better for our talk, and when I wished him good-night +at his door, it was the real Cyril Harjohn whose hand I gripped-- +the real Cyril, because the best that is in a man is his real self. +If there be any future for man beyond this world, it is the good +that is in him that will live. The other side of him is of the +earth; it is that he will leave behind him. + +He kept his word. In the morning he was gone, and I never saw him +again. I had many letters from him, hopeful at first, full of +strong resolves. He told me he had written to Elspeth, not telling +her everything, for that she would not understand, but so much as +would explain; and from her he had had sweet womanly letters in +reply. I feared she might have been cold and unsympathetic, for +often good women, untouched by temptation themselves, have small +tenderness for those who struggle. But her goodness was something +more than a mere passive quantity; she loved him the better because +he had need of her. I believe she would have saved him from +himself, had not fate interfered and taken the matter out of her +hands. Women are capable of big sacrifices; I think this woman +would have been content to lower herself, if by so doing she could +have raised him. + +But it was not to be. From India he wrote to me that he was coming +home. I had not met the Fawley woman for some time, and she had +gone out of my mind until one day, chancing upon a theatrical +paper, some weeks old, I read that "Miss Fawley had sailed for +Calcutta to fulfil an engagement of long standing." + +I had his last letter in my pocket. I sat down and worked out the +question of date. She would arrive in Calcutta the day before he +left. Whether it was chance or intention on her part I never knew; +as likely as not the former, for there is a fatalism in this world +shaping our ends. + +I heard no more from him, I hardly expected to do so, but three +months later a mutual acquaintance stopped me on the Club steps. + +"Have you heard the news," he said, "about young Harjohn?" + +"No," I replied. "Is he married?" + +"Married," he answered, "No, poor devil, he's dead!" + +"Thank God," was on my lips, but fortunately I checked myself. +"How did it happen?" I asked. + +"At a shooting party, up at some Rajah's place. Must have caught +his gun in some brambles, I suppose. The bullet went clean through +his head." + +"Dear me," I said, "how very sad!" I could think of nothing else +to say at the moment. + + + +THE MATERIALISATION OF CHARLES AND MIVANWAY + + + +The fault that most people will find with this story is that it is +unconvincing. Its scheme is improbable, its atmosphere artificial. +To confess that the thing really happened--not as I am about to set +it down, for the pen of the professional writer cannot but adorn +and embroider, even to the detriment of his material--is, I am well +aware, only an aggravation of my offence, for the facts of life are +the impossibilities of fiction. A truer artist would have left +this story alone, or at most have kept it for the irritation of his +private circle. My lower instinct is to make use of it. A very +old man told me the tale. He was landlord of the Cromlech Arms, +the only inn of a small, rock-sheltered village on the north-east +coast of Cornwall, and had been so for nine and forty years. It is +called the Cromlech Hotel now, and is under new management, and +during the season some four coach-loads of tourists sit down each +day to table d'hote lunch in the low-ceilinged parlour. But I am +speaking of years ago, when the place was a mere fishing harbour, +undiscovered by the guide books. + +The old landlord talked, and I hearkened the while we both sat +drinking thin ale from earthenware mugs, late one summer's evening, +on the bench that runs along the wall just beneath the latticed +windows. And during the many pauses, when the old landlord stopped +to puff his pipe in silence, and lay in a new stock of breath, +there came to us the murmuring voices of the Atlantic; and often, +mingled with the pompous roar of the big breakers farther out, we +would hear the rippling laugh of some small wave that, maybe, had +crept in to listen to the tale the landlord told. + +The mistake that Charles Seabohn, Junior partner of the firm of +Seabohn & Son, civil engineers of London and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, +and Mivanway Evans, youngest daughter of the Rev. Thomas Evans, +Pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Bristol, made originally, was +marrying too young. Charles Seabohn could hardly have been twenty +years of age, and Mivanway could have been little more than +seventeen, when they first met upon the cliffs, two miles beyond +the Cromlech Arms. Young Charles Seabohn, coming across the +village in the course of a walking tour, had decided to spend a day +or two exploring the picturesque coast, and Mivanway's father had +hired that year a neighbouring farmhouse wherein to spend his +summer vacation. + +Early one morning--for at twenty one is virtuous, and takes +exercise before breakfast--as young Charles Seabohn lay upon the +cliffs, watching the white waters coming and going upon the black +rocks below, he became aware of a form rising from the waves. The +figure was too far off for him to see it clearly, but judging from +the costume, it was a female figure, and promptly the mind of +Charles, poetically inclined, turned to thoughts of Venus--or +Aphrodite, as he, being a gentleman of delicate taste would have +preferred to term her. He saw the figure disappear behind a head- +land, but still waited. In about ten minutes or a quarter of an +hour it reappeared, clothed in the garments of the eighteen- +sixties, and came towards him. Hidden from sight himself behind a +group of rocks, he could watch it at his leisure, ascending the +steep path from the beach, and an exceedingly sweet and dainty +figure it would have appeared, even to eyes less susceptible than +those of twenty. Sea-water--I stand open to correction--is not, I +believe, considered anything of a substitute for curling tongs, but +to the hair of the youngest Miss Evans it had given an additional +and most fascinating wave. Nature's red and white had been most +cunningly laid on, and the large childish eyes seemed to be +searching the world for laughter, with which to feed a pair of +delicious, pouting lips. Charles's upturned face, petrified into +admiration, was just the sort of thing for which they were on the +look-out. A startled "Oh!" came from the slightly parted lips, +followed by the merriest of laughs, which in its turn was suddenly +stopped by a deep blush. Then the youngest Miss Evans looked +offended, as though the whole affair had been Charles's fault, +which is the way of women. And Charles, feeling himself guilty +under that stern gaze of indignation, rose awkwardly and apologised +meekly, whether for being on the cliffs at all or for having got up +too early, he would have been unable to explain. + +The youngest Miss Evans graciously accepted the apology thus +tendered with a bow, and passed on, and Charles stood staring after +her till the valley gathered her into its spreading arms and hid +her from his view. + +That was the beginning of all things. I am speaking of the +Universe as viewed from the standpoint of Charles and Mivanway. + +Six months later they were man and wife, or perhaps it would be +more correct to say boy and wifelet. Seabohn senior counselled +delay, but was overruled by the impatience of his junior partner. +The Reverend Mr. Evans, in common with most theologians, possessed +a goodly supply of unmarried daughters, and a limited income. +Personally he saw no necessity for postponement of the marriage. + +The month's honeymoon was spent in the New Forest. That was a +mistake to begin with. The New Forest in February is depressing, +and they had chosen the loneliest spot they could find. A +fortnight in Paris or Rome would have been more helpful. As yet +they had nothing to talk about except love, and that they had been +talking and writing about steadily all through the winter. On the +tenth morning Charles yawned, and Mivanway had a quiet half-hour's +cry about it in her own room. On the sixteenth evening, Mivanway, +feeling irritable, and wondering why (as though fifteen damp, +chilly days in the New Forest were not sufficient to make any woman +irritable), requested Charles not to disarrange her hair; and +Charles, speechless with astonishment, went out into the garden, +and swore before all the stars that he would never caress +Mivanway's hair again as long as he lived. + +One supreme folly they had conspired to commit, even before the +commencement of the honeymoon. Charles, after the manner of very +young lovers, had earnestly requested Mivanway to impose upon him +some task. He desired to do something great and noble to show his +devotion. Dragons was the thing he had in mind, though he may not +have been aware of it. Dragons also, no doubt, flitted through +Mivanway's brain, but unfortunately for lovers the supply of +dragons has lapsed. Mivanway, liking the conceit, however, thought +over it, and then decided that Charles must give up smoking. She +had discussed the matter with her favourite sister, and that was +the only thing the girls could think of. Charles's face fell. He +suggested some more Herculean labour, some sacrifice more worthy to +lay at Mivanway's feet. But Mivanway had spoken. She might think +of some other task, but the smoking prohibition would, in any case, +remain. She dismissed the subject with a pretty hauteur that would +have graced Marie Antoinette. + +Thus tobacco, the good angel of all men, no longer came each day to +teach Charles patience and amiability, and he fell into the ways of +short temper and selfishness. + +They took up their residence in a suburb of Newcastle, and this was +also unfortunate for them, because there the society was scanty and +middle-aged; and, in consequence, they had still to depend much +upon their own resources. They knew little of life, less of each +other, and nothing at all of themselves. Of course they +quarrelled, and each quarrel left the wound a little more raw. No +kindly, experienced friend was at hand to laugh at them. Mivanway +would write down all her sorrows in a bulky diary, which made her +feel worse; so that before she had written for ten minutes her +pretty, unwise head would drop upon her dimpled arm, and the book-- +the proper place for which was behind the fire--would become damp +with her tears; and Charles, his day's work done and the clerks +gone, would linger in his dingy office and hatch trifles into +troubles. + +The end came one evening after dinner, when, in the heat of a silly +squabble, Charles boxed Mivanway's ears. That was very +ungentlemanly conduct, and he was heartily ashamed of himself the +moment he had done it, which was right and proper for him to be. +The only excuse to be urged on his behalf is that girls +sufficiently pretty to have been spoilt from childhood by everyone +about them can at times be intensely irritating. Mivanway rushed +up to her room, and locked herself in. Charles flew after her to +apologise, but only arrived in time to have the door slammed in his +face. + +It had only been the merest touch. A boy's muscles move quicker +than his thoughts. But to Mivanway it was a blow. This was what +it had come to! This was the end of a man's love! + +She spent half the night writing in the precious diary, with the +result that in the morning she came down feeling more bitter than +she had gone up. Charles had walked the streets of Newcastle all +night, and that had not done him any good. He met her with an +apology combined with an excuse, which was bad tactics. Mivanway, +of course, fastened upon the excuse, and the quarrel recommenced. +She mentioned that she hated him; he hinted that she had never +loved him, and she retorted that he had never loved her. Had there +been anybody by to knock their heads together and suggest +breakfast, the thing might have blown over, but the combined effect +of a sleepless night and an empty stomach upon each proved +disastrous. Their words came poisoned from their brains, and each +believed they meant what they said. That afternoon Charles sailed +from Hull, on a ship bound for the Cape, and that evening Mivanway +arrived at the paternal home in Bristol with two trunks and the +curt information that she and Charles had separated for ever. The +next morning both thought of a soft speech to say to the other, but +the next morning was just twenty-four hours too late. + +Eight days afterwards Charles's ship was run down in a fog, near +the coast of Portugal, and every soul on board was supposed to have +perished. Mivanway read his name among the list of lost; the child +died within her, and she knew herself for a woman who had loved +deeply, and will not love again. + +Good luck intervening, however, Charles and one other man were +rescued by a small trading vessel, and landed in Algiers. There +Charles learnt of his supposed death, and the idea occurred to him +to leave the report uncontradicted. For one thing, it solved a +problem that had been troubling him. He could trust his father to +see to it that his own small fortune, with possibly something +added, was handed over to Mivanway, and she would be free if she +wished to marry again. He was convinced that she did not care for +him, and that she had read of his death with a sense of relief. He +would make a new life for himself, and forget her. + +He continued his journey to the Cape, and once there he soon gained +for himself an excellent position. The colony was young, engineers +were welcome, and Charles knew his business. He found the life +interesting and exciting. The rough, dangerous up-country work +suited him, and the time passed swiftly. + +But in thinking he would forget Mivanway, he had not taken into +consideration his own character, which at bottom was a very +gentlemanly character. Out on the lonely veldt he found himself +dreaming of her. The memory of her pretty face and merry laugh +came back to him at all hours. Occasionally he would curse her +roundly, but that only meant that he was sore because of the +thought of her; what he was really cursing was himself and his own +folly. Softened by the distance, her quick temper, her very +petulance became mere added graces; and if we consider women as +human beings and not as angels, it was certainly a fact that he had +lost a very sweet and lovable woman. Ah! if she only were by his +side now--now that he was a man capable of appreciating her, and +not a foolish, selfish boy. This thought would come to him as he +sat smoking at the door of his tent, and then he would regret that +the stars looking down upon him were not the same stars that were +watching her, it would have made him feel nearer to her. For, +though young people may not credit it, one grows more sentimental +as one grows older; at least, some of us do, and they perhaps not +the least wise. + +One night he had a vivid dream of her. She came to him and held +out her hand, and he took it, and they said good-bye to one +another. They were standing on the cliff where he had first met +her, and one of them was going upon a long journey, though he was +not sure which. + +In the towns men laugh at dreams, but away from civilisation we +listen more readily to the strange tales that Nature whispers to +us. Charles Seabohn recollected this dream when he awoke in the +morning. + +"She is dying," he said, "and she has come to wish me good-bye." + +He made up his mind to return to England at once; perhaps if he +made haste he would be in time to kiss her. But he could not start +that day, for work was to be done; and Charles Seabohn, lover +though he still was, had grown to be a man, and knew that work must +not be neglected even though the heart may be calling. So for a +day or two he stayed, and on the third night he dreamed of Mivanway +again, and this time she lay within the little chapel at Bristol +where, on Sunday mornings, he had often sat with her. He heard her +father's voice reading the burial service over her, and the sister +she had loved best was sitting beside him, crying softly. Then +Charles knew that there was no need for him to hasten. So he +remained to finish his work. That done, he would return to +England. He would like again to stand upon the cliffs, above the +little Cornish village, where they had first met. + +Thus a few months later Charles Seabohn, or Charles Denning, as he +called himself, aged and bronzed, not easily recognisable by those +who had not known him well, walked into the Cromlech Arms, as six +years before he had walked in with his knapsack on his back, and +asked for a room, saying he would be stopping in the village for a +short while. + +In the evening he strolled out and made his way to the cliffs. It +was twilight when he reached the place of rocks to which the fancy- +loving Cornish folk had given the name of the Witches' Cauldron. +It was from this spot that he had first watched Mivanway coming to +him from the sea. + +He took the pipe from his mouth, and leaning against a rock, whose +rugged outline seemed fashioned into the face of an old friend, +gazed down the narrow pathway now growing indistinct in the dim +light. And as he gazed the figure of Mivanway came slowly up the +pathway from the sea, and paused before him. + +He felt no fear. He had half expected it. Her coming was the +complement of his dreams. She looked older and graver than he +remembered her, but for that the face was the sweeter. + +He wondered if she would speak to him, but she only looked at him +with sad eyes; and he stood there in the shadow of the rocks +without moving, and she passed on into the twilight. + +Had he on his return cared to discuss the subject with his +landlord, had he even shown himself a ready listener--for the old +man loved to gossip--he might have learnt that a young widow lady +named Mrs. Charles Seabohn, accompanied by an unmarried sister, had +lately come to reside in the neighbourhood, having, upon the death +of a former tenant, taken the lease of a small farmhouse sheltered +in the valley a mile beyond the village, and that her favourite +evening's walk was to the sea and back by the steep footway leading +past the Witches' Cauldron. + +Had he followed the figure of Mivanway into the valley, he would +have known that out of sight of the Witches' Cauldron it took to +running fast till it reached a welcome door, and fell panting into +the arms of another figure that had hastened out to meet it. + +"My dear," said the elder woman, "you are trembling like a leaf. +What has happened?" + +"I have seen him," answered Mivanway. + +"Seen whom?" + +"Charles." + +"Charles!" repeated the other, looking at Mivanway as though she +thought her mad. + +"His spirit, I mean," explained Mivanway, in an awed voice. "It +was standing in the shadow of the rocks, in the exact spot where we +first met. It looked older and more careworn; but, oh! Margaret, +so sad and reproachful." + +"My dear," said her sister, leading her in, "you are overwrought. +I wish we had never come back to this house." + +"Oh! I was not frightened," answered Mivanway, "I have been +expecting it every evening. I am so glad it came. Perhaps it will +come again, and I can ask it to forgive me." + +So next night Mivanway, though much against her sister's wishes and +advice, persisted in her usual walk, and Charles at the same +twilight hour started from the inn. + +Again Mivanway saw him standing in the shadow of the rocks. +Charles had made up his mind that if the thing happened again he +would speak, but when the silent figure of Mivanway, clothed in the +fading light, stopped and gazed at him, his will failed him. + +That it was the spirit of Mivanway standing before him he had not +the faintest doubt. One may dismiss other people's ghosts as the +phantasies of a weak brain, but one knows one's own to be +realities, and Charles for the last five years had mingled with a +people whose dead dwell about them. Once, drawing his courage +around him, he made to speak, but as he did so the figure of +Mivanway shrank from him, and only a sigh escaped his lips, and +hearing that the figure of Mivanway turned and again passed down +the path into the valley, leaving Charles gazing after it. + +But the third night both arrived at the trysting spot with +determination screwed up to the sticking point. + +Charles was the first to speak. As the figure of Mivanway came +towards him, with its eyes fixed sadly on him, he moved from the +shadow of the rocks, and stood before it. + +"Mivanway!" he said. + +"Charles!" replied the figure of Mivanway. Both spoke in an awed +whisper suitable to the circumstances, and each stood gazing +sorrowfully upon the other. + +"Are you happy?" asked Mivanway. + +The question strikes one as somewhat farcical, but it must be +remembered that Mivanway was the daughter of a Gospeller of the old +school, and had been brought up to beliefs that were not then out +of date. + +"As happy as I deserve to be," was the sad reply, and the answer-- +the inference was not complimentary to Charles's deserts--struck a +chill to Mivanway's heart. + +"How could I be happy having lost you?" went on the voice of +Charles. + +Now this speech fell very pleasantly upon Mivanway's ears. In the +first place it relieved her of her despair regarding Charles's +future. No doubt his present suffering was keen, but there was +hope for him. Secondly, it was a decidedly "pretty" speech for a +ghost, and I am not at all sure that Mivanway was the kind of woman +to be averse to a little mild flirtation with the spirit of +Charles. + +"Can you forgive me?" asked Mivanway. + +"Forgive YOU!" replied Charles, in a tone of awed astonishment. +"Can you forgive me? I was a brute--a fool--I was not worthy to +love you." + +A most gentlemanly spirit it seemed to be. Mivanway forgot to be +afraid of it. + +"We were both to blame," answered Mivanway. But this time there +was less submission in her tones. "But I was the most at fault. I +was a petulant child. I did not know how deeply I loved you." + +"You loved me!" repeated the voice of Charles, and the voice +lingered over the words as though it found them sweet. + +"Surely you never doubted it," answered the voice of Mivanway. "I +never ceased to love you. I shall love you always and ever." + +The figure of Charles sprang forward as though it would clasp the +ghost of Mivanway in its arms, but halted a step or two off. + +"Bless me before you go," he said, and with uncovered head the +figure of Charles knelt to the figure of Mivanway. + +Really, ghosts could be exceedingly nice when they liked. Mivanway +bent graciously towards her shadowy suppliant, and, as she did so, +her eye caught sight of something on the grass beside it, and that +something was a well-coloured meerschaum pipe. There was no +mistaking it for anything else, even in that treacherous light; it +lay glistening where Charles, in falling upon his knees had jerked +it from his breast-pocket. + +Charles, following Mivanway's eyes, saw it also, and the memory of +the prohibition against smoking came back to him. + +Without stopping to consider the futility of the action--nay, the +direct confession implied thereby--he instinctively grabbed at the +pipe, and rammed it back into his pocket; and then an avalanche of +mingled understanding and bewilderment, fear and joy, swept +Mivanway's brain before it. She felt she must do one of two +things, laugh or scream and go on screaming, and she laughed. Peal +after peal of laughter she sent echoing among the rocks, and +Charles springing to his feet was just in time to catch her as she +fell forward a dead weight into his arms. + +Ten minutes later the eldest Miss Evans, hearing heavy footsteps, +went to the door. She saw what she took to be the spirit of +Charles Seabohn, staggering under the weight of the lifeless body +of Mivanway, and the sight not unnaturally alarmed her. Charles's +suggestion of brandy, however, sounded human, and the urgent need +of attending to Mivanway kept her mind from dwelling upon problems +tending towards insanity. + +Charles carried Mivanway to her room, and laid her upon the bed. + +"I'll leave her with you," he whispered to the eldest Miss Evans. +"It will be better for her not to see me until she is quite +recovered. She has had a shock." + +Charles waited in the dark parlour for what seemed to him an +exceedingly long time. But at last the eldest Miss Evans returned. + +"She's all right now," were the welcome words he heard. + +"I'll go and see her," he said. + +"But she's in bed," exclaimed the scandalised Miss Evans. + +And then as Charles only laughed, "Oh, ah--yes, I suppose--of +course," she added. + +And the eldest Miss Evans, left alone, sat down and wrestled with +the conviction that she was dreaming. + + + +PORTRAIT OF A LADY + + + +My work pressed upon me, but the louder it challenged me--such is +the heart of the timid fighter--the less stomach I felt for the +contest. I wrestled with it in my study, only to be driven to my +books. I walked out to meet it in the streets, only to seek +shelter from it in music-hall or theatre. Thereupon it waxed +importunate and over-bearing, till the shadow of it darkened all my +doings. The thought of it sat beside me at the table, and spoilt +my appetite. The memory of it followed me abroad, and stood +between me and my friends, so that all talk died upon my lips, and +I moved among men as one ghost-ridden. + +Then the throbbing town, with its thousand distracting voices, grew +maddening to me. I felt the need of converse with solitude, that +master and teacher of all the arts, and I bethought me of the +Yorkshire Wolds, where a man may walk all day, meeting no human +creature, hearing no voice but the curlew's cry; where, lying prone +upon the sweet grass, he may feel the pulsation of the earth, +travelling at its eleven hundred miles a minute through the ether. +So one morning I bundled many things, some needful, more needless, +into a bag, hurrying lest somebody or something should happen to +stay me, and that night I lay in a small northern town that stands +upon the borders of smokedom at the gate of the great moors; and at +seven the next morning I took my seat beside a one-eyed carrier +behind an ancient piebald mare. The one-eyed carrier cracked his +whip, the piebald horse jogged forward. The nineteenth century, +with its turmoil, fell away behind us; the distant hills, creeping +nearer, swallowed us up, and we became but a moving speck upon the +face of the quiet earth. + +Late in the afternoon we arrived at a village, the memory of which +had been growing in my mind. It lies in the triangle formed by the +sloping walls of three great fells, and not even the telegraph wire +has reached it yet, to murmur to it whispers of the restless world- +-or had not at the time of which I write. Nought disturbs it save, +once a day, the one-eyed carrier--if he and his piebald mare have +not yet laid their ancient bones to rest--who, passing through, +leaves a few letters and parcels to be called for by the people of +the scattered hill-farms round about. It is the meeting-place of +two noisy brooks. Through the sleepy days and the hushed nights, +one hears them ever chattering to themselves as children playing +alone some game of make-believe. Coming from their far-off homes +among the hills, they mingle their waters here, and journey on in +company, and then their converse is more serious, as becomes those +who have joined hands and are moving onward towards life together. +Later they reach sad, weary towns, black beneath a never-lifted +pall of smoke, where day and night the clang of iron drowns all +human voices, where the children play with ashes, where the men and +women have dull, patient faces; and so on, muddy and stained, to +the deep sea that ceaselessly calls to them. Here, however, their +waters are fresh and clear, and their passing makes the only stir +that the valley has ever known. Surely, of all peaceful places, +this was the one where a tired worker might find strength. + +My one-eyed friend had suggested I should seek lodgings at the +house of one Mistress Cholmondley, a widow lady, who resided with +her only daughter in the white-washed cottage that is the last +house in the village, if you take the road that leads over Coll +Fell. + +"Tha' can see th' house from here, by reason o' its standing so +high above t'others," said the carrier, pointing with his whip. +"It's theer or nowhere, aw'm thinking, for folks don't often coom +seeking lodgings in these parts." + +The tiny dwelling, half smothered in June roses, looked idyllic, +and after a lunch of bread and cheese at the little inn I made my +way to it by the path that passes through the churchyard. I had +conjured up the vision of a stout, pleasant, comfort-radiating +woman, assisted by some bright, fresh girl, whose rosy cheeks and +sunburnt hands would help me banish from my mind all clogging +recollections of the town; and hopeful, I pushed back the half- +opened door and entered. + +The cottage was furnished with a taste that surprised me, but in +themselves my hosts disappointed me. My bustling, comely housewife +turned out a wizened, blear-eyed dame. All day long she dozed in +her big chair, or crouched with shrivelled hands spread out before +the fire. My dream of winsome maidenhood vanished before the +reality of a weary-looking, sharp-featured woman of between forty +and fifty. Perhaps there had been a time when the listless eyes +had sparkled with roguish merriment, when the shrivelled, tight- +drawn lips had pouted temptingly; but spinsterhood does not sweeten +the juices of a woman, and strong country air, though, like old +ale, it is good when taken occasionally, dulls the brain if lived +upon. A narrow, uninteresting woman I found her, troubled with a +shyness that sat ludicrously upon her age, and that yet failed to +save her from the landlady's customary failing of loquacity +concerning "better days," together with an irritating, if harmless, +affectation of youthfulness. + +All other details were, however, most satisfactory; and at the +window commanding the road that leads through the valley towards +the distant world I settled down to face my work. + +But the spirit of industry, once driven forth, returns with coy +steps. I wrote for perhaps an hour, and then throwing down my +halting pen I looked about the room, seeking distraction. A +Chippendale book-case stood against the wall and I strolled over to +it. The key was in the lock, and opening its glass doors, I +examined the well-filled shelves. They held a curious collection: +miscellanies with quaint, glazed bindings; novels and poems; whose +authors I had never heard of; old magazines long dead, their very +names forgotten; "keepsakes" and annuals, redolent of an age of +vastly pretty sentiments and lavender-coloured silks. On the top +shelf, however, was a volume of Keats wedged between a number of +the Evangelical Rambler and Young's Night Thoughts, and standing on +tip-toe, I sought to draw it from its place. + +The book was jambed so tightly that my efforts brought two or three +others tumbling about me, covering me with a cloud of fine dust, +and to my feet there fell, with a rattle of glass and metal, a +small miniature painting, framed in black wood. + +I picked it up, and, taking it to the window, examined it. It was +the picture of a young girl, dressed in the fashion of thirty years +ago--I mean thirty years ago then. I fear it must be nearer fifty, +speaking as from now--when our grandmothers wore corkscrew curls, +and low-cut bodices that one wonders how they kept from slipping +down. The face was beautiful, not merely with the conventional +beauty of tiresome regularity and impossible colouring such as one +finds in all miniatures, but with soul behind the soft deep eyes. +As I gazed, the sweet lips seemed to laugh at me, and yet there +lurked a sadness in the smile, as though the artist, in some rare +moment, had seen the coming shadow of life across the sunshine of +the face. Even my small knowledge of Art told me that the work was +clever, and I wondered why it should have lain so long neglected, +when as a mere ornament it was valuable. It must have been placed +in the book-case years ago by someone, and forgotten. + +I replaced it among its dusty companions, and sat down once more to +my work. But between me and the fading light came the face of the +miniature, and would not be banished. Wherever I turned it looked +out at me from the shadows. I am not naturally fanciful, and the +work I was engaged upon--the writing of a farcical comedy--was not +of the kind to excite the dreamy side of a man's nature. I grew +angry with myself, and made a further effort to fix my mind upon +the paper in front of me. But my thoughts refused to return from +their wanderings. Once, glancing back over my shoulder, I could +have sworn I saw the original of the picture sitting in the big +chintz-covered chair in the far corner. It was dressed in a faded +lilac frock, trimmed with some old lace, and I could not help +noticing the beauty of the folded hands, though in the portrait +only the head and shoulders had been drawn. + +Next morning I had forgotten the incident, but with the lighting of +the lamp the memory of it awoke within me, and my interest grew so +strong that again I took the miniature from its hiding-place and +looked at it. + +And then the knowledge suddenly came to me that I knew the face. +Where had I seen her, and when? I had met her and spoken to her. +The picture smiled at me, as if rallying me on my forgetfulness. I +put it back upon its shelf, and sat racking my brains trying to +recollect. We had met somewhere--in the country--a long time ago, +and had talked of common-place things. To the vision of her clung +the scent of roses and the murmuring voices of haymakers. Why had +I never seen her again? Why had she passed so completely out of my +mind? + +My landlady entered to lay my supper, and I questioned her assuming +a careless tone. Reason with or laugh at myself as I would, this +shadowy memory was becoming a romance to me. It was as though I +were talking of some loved, dead friend, even to speak of whom to +commonplace people was a sacrilege. I did not want the woman to +question me in return. + +"Oh, yes," answered my landlady. Ladies had often lodged with her. +Sometimes people stayed the whole summer, wandering about the woods +and fells, but to her thinking the great hills were lonesome. Some +of her lodgers had been young ladies, but she could not remember +any of them having impressed her with their beauty. But then it +was said women were never a judge of other women. They had come +and gone. Few had ever returned, and fresh faces drove out the +old. + +"You have been letting lodgings for a long time?" I asked. "I +suppose it could be fifteen--twenty years ago that strangers to you +lived in this room?" + +"Longer than that," she said quietly, dropping for the moment all +affectation. "We came here from the farm when my father died. He +had had losses, and there was but little left. That is twenty- +seven years ago now." + +I hastened to close the conversation, fearing long-winded +recollections of "better days." I have heard such so often from +one landlady and another. I had not learnt much. Who was the +original of the miniature, how it came to be lying forgotten in the +dusty book-case were still mysteries; and with a strange perversity +I could not have explained to myself I shrank from putting a direct +question. + +So two days more passed by. My work took gradually a firmer grip +upon my mind, and the face of the miniature visited me less often. +But in the evening of the third day, which was a Sunday, a curious +thing happened. + +I was returning from a stroll, and dusk was falling as I reached +the cottage. I had been thinking of my farce, and I was laughing +to myself at a situation that seemed to me comical, when, passing +the window of my room, I saw looking out the sweet fair face that +had become so familiar to me. It stood close to the latticed +panes, a slim, girlish figure, clad in the old-fashioned lilac- +coloured frock in which I had imagined it on the first night of my +arrival, the beautiful hands clasped across the breast, as then +they had been folded on the lap. Her eyes were gazing down the +road that passes through the village and goes south, but they +seemed to be dreaming, not seeing, and the sadness in them struck +upon one almost as a cry. I was close to the window, but the hedge +screened me, and I remained watching, until, after a minute I +suppose, though it appeared longer, the figure drew back into the +darkness of the room and disappeared. + +I entered, but the room was empty. I called, but no one answered. +The uncomfortable suggestion took hold of me that I must be growing +a little crazy. All that had gone before I could explain to myself +as a mere train of thought, but this time it had come to me +suddenly, uninvited, while my thoughts had been busy elsewhere. +This thing had appeared not to my brain but to my senses. I am not +a believer in ghosts, but I am in the hallucinations of a weak +mind, and my own explanation was in consequence not very +satisfactory to myself. + +I tried to dismiss the incident, but it would not leave me, and +later that same evening something else occurred that fixed it still +clearer in my thoughts. I had taken out two or three books at +random with which to amuse myself, and turning over the leaves of +one of them, a volume of verses by some obscure poet, I found its +sentimental passages much scored and commented upon in pencil as +was common fifty years ago--as may be common now, for your Fleet +Street cynic has not altered the world and its ways to quite the +extent that he imagines. + +One poem in particular had evidently appealed greatly to the +reader's sympathies. It was the old, old story of the gallant who +woos and rides away, leaving the maiden to weep. The poetry was +poor, and at another time its conventionality would have excited +only my ridicule. But, reading it in conjunction with the quaint, +naive notes scattered about its margins, I felt no inclination to +jeer. These hackneyed stories that we laugh at are deep +profundities to the many who find in them some shadow of their own +sorrows, and she--for it was a woman's handwriting--to whom this +book belonged had loved its trite verses, because in them she had +read her own heart. This, I told myself, was her story also. A +common enough story in life as in literature, but novel to those +who live it. + +There was no reason for my connecting her with the original of the +miniature, except perhaps a subtle relationship between the thin +nervous handwriting and the mobile features; yet I felt +instinctively they were one and the same, and that I was tracing, +link by link, the history of my forgotten friend. + +I felt urged to probe further, and next morning while my landlady +was clearing away my breakfast things, I fenced round the subject +once again. + +"By the way," I said, "while I think of it, if I leave any books or +papers here behind me, send them on at once. I have a knack of +doing that sort of thing. I suppose," I added, "your lodgers often +do leave some of their belongings behind them." + +It sounded to myself a clumsy ruse. I wondered if she would +suspect what was behind it. + +"Not often," she answered. "Never that I can remember, except in +the case of one poor lady who died here." + +I glanced up quickly. + +"In this room?" I asked. + +My landlady seemed troubled at my tone. + +"Well, not exactly in this very room. We carried her upstairs, but +she died immediately. She was dying when she came here. I should +not have taken her in had I known. So many people are prejudiced +against a house where death has occurred, as if there were anywhere +it had not. It was not quite fair to us." + +I did not speak for a while, and the rattle of the plates and +knives continued undisturbed. + +"What did she leave here?" I asked at length. + +"Oh, just a few books and photographs, and such-like small things +that people bring with them to lodgings," was the reply. "Her +people promised to send for them, but they never did, and I suppose +I forgot them. They were not of any value." + +The woman turned as she was leaving the room. + +"It won't drive you away, sir, I hope, what I have told you," she +said. "It all happened a long while ago. + +"Of course not," I answered. "It interested me, that was all." +And the woman went out, closing the door behind her. + +So here was the explanation, if I chose to accept it. I sat long +that morning, wondering to myself whether things I had learnt to +laugh at could be after all realities. And a day or two afterwards +I made a discovery that confirmed all my vague surmises. + +Rummaging through this same dusty book-case, I found in one of the +ill-fitting drawers, beneath a heap of torn and tumbled books, a +diary belonging to the fifties, stuffed with many letters and +shapeless flowers, pressed between stained pages; and there--for +the writer of stories, tempted by human documents, is weak--in +faded ink, brown and withered like the flowers, I read the story I +already knew. + +Such a very old story it was, and so conventional. He was an +artist--was ever story of this type written where the hero was not +an artist? They had been children together, loving each other +without knowing it till one day it was revealed to them. Here is +the entry:- + + +"May 18th.--I do not know what to say, or how to begin. Chris +loves me. I have been praying to God to make me worthy of him, and +dancing round the room in my bare feet for fear of waking them +below. He kissed my hands and clasped them round his neck, saying +they were beautiful as the hands of a goddess, and he knelt and +kissed them again. I am holding them before me and kissing them +myself. I am glad they are so beautiful. O God, why are you so +good to me? Help me to be a true wife to him. Help me that I may +never give him an instant's pain! Oh, that I had more power of +loving, that I might love him better,"--and thus foolish thoughts +for many pages, but foolish thoughts of the kind that has kept this +worn old world, hanging for so many ages in space, from turning +sour. + + +Later, in February, there is another entry that carries on the +story:- + + +"Chris left this morning. He put a little packet into my hands at +the last moment, saying it was the most precious thing he +possessed, and that when I looked at it I was to think of him who +loved it. Of course I guessed what it was, but I did not open it +till I was alone in my room. It is the picture of myself that he +has been so secret about, but oh, so beautiful. I wonder if I am +really as beautiful as this. But I wish he had not made me look so +sad. I am kissing the little lips. I love them, because he loved +to kiss them. Oh, sweetheart! it will be long before you kiss them +again. Of course it was right for him to go, and I am glad he has +been able to manage it. He could not study properly in this quiet +country place, and now he will be able to go to Paris and Rome and +he will be great. Even the stupid people here see how clever he +is. But, oh, it will be so long before I see him again, my love! +my king!" + + +With each letter that comes from him, similar foolish rhapsodies +are written down, but these letters of his, I gather, as I turn the +pages, grow after a while colder and fewer, and a chill fear that +dare not be penned creeps in among the words. + + +"March 12th. Six weeks and no letter from Chris, and, oh dear! I +am so hungry for one, for the last I have almost kissed to pieces. +I suppose he will write more often when he gets to London. He is +working hard, I know, and it is selfish of me to expect him to +write more often, but I would sit up all night for a week rather +than miss writing to him. I suppose men are not like that. O God, +help me, help me, whatever happens! How foolish I am to-night! He +was always careless. I will punish him for it when he comes back, +but not very much." + + +Truly enough a conventional story. + +Letters do come from him after that, but apparently they are less +and less satisfactory, for the diary grows angry and bitter, and +the faded writing is blotted at times with tears. Then towards the +end of another year there comes this entry, written in a hand of +strange neatness and precision:- + + +"It is all over now. I am glad it is finished. I have written to +him, giving him up. I have told him I have ceased to care for him, +and that it is better we should both be free. It is best that way. +He would have had to ask me to release him, and that would have +given him pain. He was always gentle. Now he will be able to +marry her with an easy conscience, and he need never know what I +have suffered. She is more fitted for him than I am. I hope he +will be happy. I think I have done the right thing." + + +A few lines follow, left blank, and then the writing is resumed, +but in a stronger, more vehement hand. + + +"Why do I lie to myself? I hate her! I would kill her if I could. +I hope she will make him wretched, and that he will come to hate +her as I do, and that she will die! Why did I let them persuade me +to send that lying letter? He will show it to her, and she will +see through it and laugh at me. I could have held him to his +promise; he could not have got out of it. + +"What do I care about dignity, and womanliness, and right, and all +the rest of the canting words! I want him. I want his kisses and +his arms about me. He is mine! He loved me once! I have only +given him up because I thought it a fine thing to play the saint. +It is only an acted lie. I would rather be evil, and he loved me. +Why do I deceive myself? I want him. I care for nothing else at +the bottom of my heart--his love, his kisses!" + +And towards the end. "My God, what am I saying? Have I no shame, +no strength? O God, help me!" + + +And there the diary closes. + +I looked among the letters lying between the pages of the book. +Most of them were signed simply "Chris." or "Christopher." But one +gave his name in full, and it was a name I know well as that of a +famous man, whose hand I have often shaken. I thought of his hard- +featured, handsome wife, and of his great chill place, half house, +half exhibition, in Kensington, filled constantly with its smart, +chattering set, among whom he seemed always to be the uninvited +guest; of his weary face and bitter tongue. And thinking thus +there rose up before me the sweet, sad face of the woman of the +miniature, and, meeting her eyes as she smiled at me from out of +the shadows, I looked at her my wonder. + +I took the miniature from its shelf. There would be no harm now in +learning her name. So I stood with it in my hand till a little +later my landlady entered to lay the cloth. + +"I tumbled this out of your book-case," I said, "in reaching down +some books. It is someone I know, someone I have met, but I cannot +think where. Do you know who it is?" + +The woman took it from my hand, and a faint flush crossed her +withered face. "I had lost it," she answered. "I never thought of +looking there. It's a portrait of myself, painted years ago, by a +friend." + +I looked from her to the miniature, as she stood among the shadows, +with the lamplight falling on her face, and saw her perhaps for the +first time. + +"How stupid of me," I answered. "Yes, I see the likeness now." + + + +THE MAN WHO WOULD MANAGE + + + +It has been told me by those in a position to know--and I can +believe it--that at nineteen months of age he wept because his +grandmother would not allow him to feed her with a spoon, and that +at three and a half he was fished, in an exhausted condition, out +of the water-butt, whither he had climbed for the purpose of +teaching a frog to swim. + +Two years later he permanently injured his left eye, showing the +cat how to carry kittens without hurting them, and about the same +period was dangerously stung by a bee while conveying it from a +flower where, as it seemed to him, it was only wasting its time, to +one more rich in honey-making properties. + +His desire was always to help others. He would spend whole +mornings explaining to elderly hens how to hatch eggs, and would +give up an afternoon's black-berrying to sit at home and crack nuts +for his pet squirrel. Before he was seven he would argue with his +mother upon the management of children, and reprove his father for +the way he was bringing him up. + +As a child nothing could afford him greater delight than "minding" +other children, or them less. He would take upon himself this +harassing duty entirely of his own accord, without hope of reward +or gratitude. It was immaterial to him whether the other children +were older than himself or younger, stronger or weaker, whenever +and wherever he found them he set to work to "mind" them. Once, +during a school treat, piteous cries were heard coming from a +distant part of the wood, and upon search being made, he was +discovered prone upon the ground, with a cousin of his, a boy twice +his own weight, sitting upon him and steadily whacking him. Having +rescued him, the teacher said: + +"Why don't you keep with the little boys? What are you doing along +with him?" + +"Please, sir," was the answer, "I was minding him." + +He would have "minded" Noah if he had got hold of him. + +He was a good-natured lad, and at school he was always willing for +the whole class to copy from his slate--indeed he would urge them +to do so. He meant it kindly, but inasmuch as his answers were +invariably quite wrong--with a distinctive and inimitable wrongness +peculiar to himself--the result to his followers was eminently +unsatisfactory; and with the shallowness of youth that, ignoring +motives, judges solely from results, they would wait for him +outside and punch him. + +All his energies went to the instruction of others, leaving none +for his own purposes. He would take callow youths to his chambers +and teach them to box. + +"Now, try and hit me on the nose," he would say, standing before +them in an attitude of defence. "Don't be afraid. Hit as hard as +ever you can." + +And they would do it. And so soon as he had recovered from his +surprise, and a little lessened the bleeding, he would explain to +them how they had done it all wrong, and how easily he could have +stopped the blow if they had only hit him properly. + +Twice at golf he lamed himself for over a week, showing a novice +how to "drive"; and at cricket on one occasion I remember seeing +his middle stump go down like a ninepin just as he was explaining +to the bowler how to get the balls in straight. After which he had +a long argument with the umpire as to whether he was in or out. + +He has been known, during a stormy Channel passage, to rush +excitedly upon the bridge in order to inform the captain that he +had "just seen a light about two miles away to the left"; and if he +is on the top of an omnibus he generally sits beside the driver, +and points out to him the various obstacles likely to impede their +progress. + +It was upon an omnibus that my own personal acquaintanceship with +him began. I was sitting behind two ladies when the conductor came +up to collect fares. One of them handed him a sixpence telling him +to take to Piccadilly Circus, which was twopence. + +"No," said the other lady to her friend, handing the man a +shilling, "I owe you sixpence, you give me fourpence and I'll pay +for the two." + +The conductor took the shilling, punched two twopenny tickets, and +then stood trying to think it out. + +"That's right," said the lady who had spoken last, "give my friend +fourpence." + +The conductor did so. + +"Now you give that fourpence to me." + +The friend handed it to her. + +"And you," she concluded to the conductor, "give me eightpence, +then we shall be all right." + +The conductor doled out to her the eightpence--the sixpence he had +taken from the first lady, with a penny and two halfpennies out of +his own bag--distrustfully, and retired, muttering something about +his duties not including those of a lightning calculator. + +"Now," said the elder lady to the younger, "I owe you a shilling." + +I deemed the incident closed, when suddenly a florid gentleman on +the opposite seat called out in stentorian tones:- + +"Hi, conductor! you've cheated these ladies out of fourpence." + +"'Oo's cheated 'oo out 'o fourpence?" replied the indignant +conductor from the top of the steps, "it was a twopenny fare." + +"Two twopences don't make eightpence," retorted the florid +gentleman hotly. "How much did you give the fellow, my dear?" he +asked, addressing the first of the young ladies. + +"I gave him sixpence," replied the lady, examining her purse. "And +then I gave you fourpence, you know," she added, addressing her +companion. + +"That's a dear two pen'oth," chimed in a common-looking man on the +seat behind. + +"Oh, that's impossible, dear," returned the other, "because I owed +you sixpence to begin with." + +"But I did," persisted the first lady. + +"You gave me a shilling," said the conductor, who had returned, +pointing an accusing forefinger at the elder of the ladies. + +The elder lady nodded. + +"And I gave you sixpence and two pennies, didn't I?" + +The lady admitted it. + +"An' I give 'er"--he pointed towards the younger lady--"fourpence, +didn't I?" + +"Which I gave you, you know, dear," remarked the younger lady. + +"Blow me if it ain't ME as 'as been cheated out of the fourpence," +cried the conductor. + +"But," said the florid gentleman, "the other lady gave you +sixpence." + +"Which I give to 'er," replied the conductor, again pointing the +finger of accusation at the elder lady. "You can search my bag if +yer like. I ain't got a bloomin' sixpence on me." + +By this time everybody had forgotten what they had done, and +contradicted themselves and one another. The florid man took it +upon himself to put everybody right, with the result that before +Piccadilly Circus was reached three passengers had threatened to +report the conductor for unbecoming language. The conductor had +called a policeman and had taken the names and addresses of the two +ladies, intending to sue them for the fourpence (which they wanted +to pay, but which the florid man would not allow them to do); the +younger lady had become convinced that the elder lady had meant to +cheat her, and the elder lady was in tears. + +The florid gentleman and myself continued to Charing Cross Station. +At the booking office window it transpired that we were bound for +the same suburb, and we journeyed down together. He talked about +the fourpence all the way. + +At my gate we shook hands, and he was good enough to express +delight at the discovery that we were near neighbours. What +attracted him to myself I failed to understand, for he had bored me +considerably, and I had, to the best of my ability, snubbed him. +Subsequently I learned that it was a peculiarity of his to be +charmed with anyone who did not openly insult him. + +Three days afterwards he burst into my study unannounced--he +appeared to regard himself as my bosom friend--and asked me to +forgive him for not having called sooner, which I did. + +"I met the postman as I was coming along," he said, handing me a +blue envelope, "and he gave me this, for you." + +I saw it was an application for the water-rate. + +"We must make a stand against this," he continued. "That's for +water to the 29th September. You've no right to pay it in June." + +I replied to the effect that water-rates had to be paid, and that +it seemed to me immaterial whether they were paid in June or +September. + +"That's not it," he answered, "it's the principle of the thing. +Why should you pay for water you have never had? What right have +they to bully you into paying what you don't owe?" + +He was a fluent talker, and I was ass enough to listen to him. By +the end of half an hour he had persuaded me that the question was +bound up with the inalienable rights of man, and that if I paid +that fourteen and tenpence in June instead of in September, I +should be unworthy of the privileges my forefathers had fought and +died to bestow upon me. + +He told me the company had not a leg to stand upon, and at his +instigation I sat down and wrote an insulting letter to the +chairman. + +The secretary replied that, having regard to the attitude I had +taken up, it would be incumbent upon themselves to treat it as a +test case, and presumed that my solicitors would accept service on +my behalf. + +When I showed him this letter he was delighted. + +"You leave it to me," he said, pocketing the correspondence, "and +we'll teach them a lesson." + +I left it to him. My only excuse is that at the time I was +immersed in the writing of what in those days was termed a comedy- +drama. The little sense I possessed must, I suppose, have been +absorbed by the play. + +The magistrate's decision somewhat damped my ardour, but only +inflamed his zeal. Magistrates, he said, were muddle-headed old +fogies. This was a matter for a judge. + +The judge was a kindly old gentleman, and said that bearing in mind +the unsatisfactory wording of the sub-clause, he did not think he +could allow the company their costs, so that, all told, I got off +for something under fifty pounds, inclusive of the original +fourteen and tenpence. + +Afterwards our friendship waned, but living as we did in the same +outlying suburb, I was bound to see a good deal of him; and to hear +more. + +At parties of all kinds he was particularly prominent, and on such +occasions, being in his most good-natured mood, was most to be +dreaded. No human being worked harder for the enjoyment of others, +or produced more universal wretchedness. + +One Christmas afternoon, calling upon a friend, I found some +fourteen or fifteen elderly ladies and gentlemen trotting solemnly +round a row of chairs in the centre of the drawing-room while +Poppleton played the piano. Every now and then Poppleton would +suddenly cease, and everyone would drop wearily into the nearest +chair, evidently glad of a rest; all but one, who would thereupon +creep quietly away, followed by the envying looks of those left +behind. I stood by the door watching the weird scene. Presently +an escaped player came towards me, and I enquired of him what the +ceremony was supposed to signify. + +"Don't ask me," he answered grumpily. "Some of Poppleton's damned +tomfoolery." Then he added savagely, "We've got to play forfeits +after this." + +The servant was still waiting a favourable opportunity to announce +me. I gave her a shilling not to, and got away unperceived. + +After a satisfactory dinner, he would suggest an impromptu dance, +and want you to roll up mats, or help him move the piano to the +other end of the room. + +He knew enough round games to have started a small purgatory of his +own. Just as you were in the middle of an interesting discussion, +or a delightful tete-a-tete with a pretty woman, he would swoop +down upon you with: "Come along, we're going to play literary +consequences," and dragging you to the table, and putting a piece +of paper and a pencil before you, would tell you to write a +description of your favourite heroine in fiction, and would see +that you did it. + +He never spared himself. It was always he who would volunteer to +escort the old ladies to the station, and who would never leave +them until he had seen them safely into the wrong train. He it was +who would play "wild beasts" with the children, and frighten them +into fits that would last all night. + +So far as intention went, he was the kindest man alive. He never +visited poor sick persons without taking with him in his pocket +some little delicacy calculated to disagree with them and make them +worse. He arranged yachting excursions for bad sailors, entirely +at his own expense, and seemed to regard their subsequent agonies +as ingratitude. + +He loved to manage a wedding. Once he planned matters so that the +bride arrived at the altar three-quarters of an hour before the +groom, which led to unpleasantness upon a day that should have been +filled only with joy, and once he forgot the clergyman. But he was +always ready to admit when he made a mistake. + +At funerals, also, he was to the fore, pointing out to the grief- +stricken relatives how much better it was for all concerned that +the corpse was dead, and expressing a pious hope that they would +soon join it. + +The chiefest delight of his life, however, was to be mixed up in +other people's domestic quarrels. No domestic quarrel for miles +round was complete without him. He generally came in as mediator, +and finished as leading witness for the appellant. + +As a journalist or politician his wonderful grasp of other people's +business would have won for him esteem. The error he made was +working it out in practice. + + + +THE MAN WHO LIVED FOR OTHERS + + + +The first time we met, to speak, he was sitting with his back +against a pollard willow, smoking a clay pipe. He smoked it very +slowly, but very conscientiously. After each whiff he removed the +pipe from his mouth and fanned away the smoke with his cap. + +"Feeling bad?" I asked from behind a tree, at the same time making +ready for a run, big boys' answers to small boys' impertinences +being usually of the nature of things best avoided. + +To my surprise and relief--for at second glance I perceived I had +under-estimated the length of his legs--he appeared to regard the +question as a natural and proper one, replying with unaffected +candour, "Not yet." + +My desire became to comfort him--a sentiment I think he understood +and was grateful for. Advancing into the open, I sat down over +against him, and watched him for a while in silence. Presently he +said:- + +"Have you ever tried drinking beer?" + +I admitted I had not. + +"Oh, it is beastly stuff," he rejoined with an involuntary shudder. + +Rendered forgetful of present trouble by bitter recollection of the +past, he puffed away at his pipe carelessly and without judgment. + +"Do you often drink it?" I inquired. + +"Yes," he replied gloomily; "all we fellows in the fifth form drink +beer and smoke pipes." + +A deeper tinge of green spread itself over his face. + +He rose suddenly and made towards the hedge. Before he reached it, +however, he stopped and addressed me, but without turning round. + +"If you follow me, young 'un, or look, I'll punch your head," he +said swiftly, and disappeared with a gurgle. + +He left at the end of the terms and I did not see him again until +we were both young men. Then one day I ran against him in Oxford +Street, and he asked me to come and spend a few days with his +people in Surrey. + +I found him wan-looking and depressed, and every now and then he +sighed. During a walk across the common he cheered up +considerably, but the moment we got back to the house door he +seemed to recollect himself, and began to sigh again. He ate no +dinner whatever, merely sipping a glass of wine and crumbling a +piece of bread. I was troubled at noticing this, but his +relatives--a maiden aunt, who kept house, two elder sisters, and a +weak-eyed female cousin who had left her husband behind her in +India--were evidently charmed. They glanced at each other, and +nodded and smiled. Once in a fit of abstraction he swallowed a bit +of crust, and immediately they all looked pained and surprised. + +In the drawing-room, under cover of a sentimental song, sung by the +female cousin, I questioned his aunt on the subject. + +"What's the matter with him?" I said. "Is he ill?" + +The old lady chuckled. + +"You'll be like that one day," she whispered gleefully. + +"When," I asked, not unnaturally alarmed. + +"When you're in love," she answered. + +"Is HE in love?" I inquired after a pause. + +"Can't you see he is?" she replied somewhat scornfully. + +I was a young man, and interested in the question. + +"Won't he ever eat any dinner till he's got over it?" I asked. + +She looked round sharply at me, but apparently decided that I was +only foolish. + +"You wait till your time comes," she answered, shaking her curls at +me. "You won't care much about your dinner--not if you are REALLY +in love." + +In the night, about half-past eleven, I heard, as I thought, +footsteps in the passage, and creeping to the door and opening it I +saw the figure of my friend in dressing-gown and slippers, +vanishing down the stairs. My idea was that, his brain weakened by +trouble, he had developed sleep-walking tendencies. Partly out of +curiosity, partly to watch over him, I slipped on a pair of +trousers and followed him. + +He placed his candle on the kitchen table and made a bee-line for +the pantry door, from where he subsequently emerged with two pounds +of cold beef on a plate and about a quart of beer in a jug; and I +came away, leaving him fumbling for pickles. + +I assisted at his wedding, where it seemed to me he endeavoured to +display more ecstasy than it was possible for any human being to +feel; and fifteen months later, happening to catch sight of an +advertisement in the births column of The Times, I called on my way +home from the City to congratulate him. He was pacing up and down +the passage with his hat on, pausing at intervals to partake of an +uninviting-looking meal, consisting of a cold mutton chop and a +glass of lemonade, spread out upon a chair. Seeing that the cook +and the housemaid were wandering about the house evidently bored +for want of something to do, and that the dining-room, where he +would have been much more out of the way, was empty and quite in +order, I failed at first to understand the reason for his +deliberate choice of discomfort. I, however, kept my reflections +to myself, and inquired after the mother and child. + +"Couldn't be better," he replied with a groan. "The doctor said +he'd never had a more satisfactory case in all his experience." + +"Oh, I'm glad to hear that," I answered; "I was afraid you'd been +worrying yourself." + +"Worried!" he exclaimed. "My dear boy, I don't know whether I'm +standing on my head or my heels" (he gave one that idea). "This is +the first morsel of food that's passed my lips for twenty-four +hours." + +At this moment the nurse appeared at the top of the stairs. He +flew towards her, upsetting the lemonade in his excitement. + +"What is it?" he asked hoarsely. "Is it all right?" + +The old lady glanced from him to his cold chop, and smiled +approvingly. + +"They're doing splendidly," she answered, patting him on the +shoulder in a motherly fashion. "Don't you worry." + +"I can't help it, Mrs. Jobson," he replied, sitting down upon the +bottom stair, and leaning his head against the banisters. + +"Of course you can't," said Mrs. Jobson admiringly; "and you +wouldn't be much of a man if you could." Then it was borne in upon +me why he wore his hat, and dined off cold chops in the passage. + +The following summer they rented a picturesque old house in +Berkshire, and invited me down from a Saturday to Monday. Their +place was near the river, so I slipped a suit of flannels in my +bag, and on the Sunday morning I came down in them. He met me in +the garden. He was dressed in a frock coat and a white waistcoat; +and I noticed that he kept looking at me out of the corner of his +eye, and that he seemed to have a trouble on his mind. The first +breakfast bell rang, and then he said, "You haven't got any proper +clothes with you, have you?" + +"Proper clothes!" I exclaimed, stopping in some alarm. "Why, has +anything given way?" + +"No, not that," he explained. "I mean clothes to go to church in." + +"Church," I said. "You're surely not going to church a fine day +like this? I made sure you'd be playing tennis, or going on the +river. You always used to." + +"Yes," he replied, nervously flicking a rose-bush with a twig he +had picked up. "You see, it isn't ourselves exactly. Maud and I +would rather like to, but our cook, she's Scotch, and a little +strict in her notions." + +"And does she insist on your going to church every Sunday morning?" +I inquired. + +"Well," he answered, "she thinks it strange if we don't, and so we +generally do, just in the morning--and evening. And then in the +afternoon a few of the village girls drop in, and we have a little +singing and that sort of thing. I never like hurting anyone's +feelings if I can help it." + +I did not say what I thought. Instead I said, "I've got that tweed +suit I wore yesterday. I can put that on if you like." + +He ceased flicking the rose-bush, and knitted his brows. He seemed +to be recalling it to his imagination. + +"No," he said, shaking his head, "I'm afraid it would shock her. +It's my fault, I know," he added, remorsefully. "I ought to have +told you." + +Then an idea came to him. + +"I suppose," he said, "you wouldn't care to pretend you were ill, +and stop in bed just for the day?" + +I explained that my conscience would not permit my being a party to +such deception + +"No, I thought you wouldn't," he replied. "I must explain it to +her. I think I'll say you've lost your bag. I shouldn't like her +to think bad of us." + +Later on a fourteenth cousin died, leaving him a large fortune. He +purchased an estate in Yorkshire, and became a "county family," and +then his real troubles began. + +From May to the middle of August, save for a little fly fishing, +which generally resulted in his getting his feet wet and catching a +cold, life was fairly peaceful; but from early autumn to late +spring he found the work decidedly trying. He was a stout man, +constitutionally nervous of fire-arms, and a six-hours' tramp with +a heavy gun across ploughed fields, in company with a crowd of +careless persons who kept blazing away within an inch of other +people's noses, harassed and exhausted him. He had to get out of +bed at four on chilly October mornings to go cub-hunting, and twice +a week throughout the winter--except when a blessed frost brought +him a brief respite--he had to ride to hounds. That he usually got +off with nothing more serious than mere bruises and slight +concussions of the spine, he probably owed to the fortunate +circumstances of his being little and fat. At stiff timber he shut +his eyes and rode hard; and ten yards from a river he would begin +to think about bridges. + +Yet he never complained. + +"If you are a country gentleman," he would say, "you must behave as +a country gentleman, and take the rough with the smooth." + +As ill fate would have it a chance speculation doubled his fortune, +and it became necessary that he should go into Parliament and start +a yacht. Parliament made his head ache, and the yacht made him +sick. Notwithstanding, every summer he would fill it with a lot of +expensive people who bored him, and sail away for a month's misery +in the Mediterranean. + +During one cruise his guests built up a highly-interesting gambling +scandal. He himself was confined to his cabin at the time, and +knew nothing about it; but the Opposition papers, getting hold of +the story, referred casually to the yacht as a "floating hell," and +The Police News awarded his portrait the place of honour as the +chief criminal of the week. + +Later on he got into a cultured set, ruled by a thick-lipped +undergraduate. His favourite literature had hitherto been of the +Corelli and Tit-Bits order, but now he read Meredith and the yellow +book, and tried to understand them; and instead of the Gaiety, he +subscribed to the Independent Theatre, and fed "his soul," on Dutch +Shakespeares. What he liked in art was a pretty girl by a cottage- +door with an eligible young man in the background, or a child and a +dog doing something funny. They told him these things were wrong +and made him buy "Impressions" that stirred his liver to its +deepest depths every time he looked at them--green cows on red +hills by pink moonlight, or scarlet-haired corpses with three feet +of neck. + +He said meekly that such seemed to him unnatural, but they answered +that nature had nothing to do with the question; that the artist +saw things like that, and that whatever an artist saw--no matter in +what condition he may have been when he saw it--that was art. + +They took him to Wagner festivals and Burne-Jones's private views. +They read him all the minor poets. They booked seats for him at +all Ibsen's plays. They introduced him into all the most soulful +circles of artistic society. His days were one long feast of other +people's enjoyments. + +One morning I met him coming down the steps of the Arts Club. He +looked weary. He was just off to a private view at the New +Gallery. In the afternoon he had to attend an amateur performance +of "The Cenci," given by the Shelley Society. Then followed three +literary and artistic At Homes, a dinner with an Indian nabob who +couldn't speak a word of English, "Tristam and Isolde" at Covent +Garden Theatre, and a ball at Lord Salisbury's to wind up the day. + +I laid my hand upon his shoulder. + +"Come with me to Epping Forest," I said. "There's a four-horse +brake starts from Charing Cross at eleven. It's Saturday, and +there's bound to be a crowd down there. I'll play you a game of +skittles, and we will have a shy at the cocoa-nuts. You used to be +rather smart at cocoa-nuts. We can have lunch there and be back at +seven, dine at the Troc., spend the evening at the Empire, and sup +at the Savoy. What do you say?" + +He stood hesitating on the steps, a wistful look in his eyes. + +His brougham drew up against the curb, and he started as if from a +dream. + +"My dear fellow," he replied, "what would people say?" And shaking +me by the hand, he took his seat, and the footman slammed the door +upon him. + + + +A MAN OF HABIT + + + +There were three of us in the smoke-room of the Alexandra--a very +good friend of mine, myself, and, in the opposite corner, a shy- +looking, unobtrusive man, the editor, as we subsequently learned, +of a New York Sunday paper. + +My friend and I were discussing habits, good and bad. + +"After the first few months," said my friend, "it is no more effort +for a man to be a saint than to be a sinner; it becomes a mere +matter of habit." + +"I know," I interrupted, "it is every whit as easy to spring out of +bed the instant you are called as to say 'All Right,' and turn over +for just another five minutes' snooze, when you have got into the +way of it. It is no more trouble not to swear than to swear, if +you make a custom of it. Toast and water is as delicious as +champagne, when you have acquired the taste for it. Things are +also just as easy the other way about. It is a mere question of +making your choice and sticking to it." + +He agreed with me. + +"Now take these cigars of mine," he said, pushing his open case +towards me. + +"Thank you," I replied hurriedly, "I'm not smoking this passage." + +"Don't be alarmed," he answered, "I meant merely as an argument. +Now one of these would make you wretched for a week." + +I admitted his premise. + +"Very well," he continued. "Now I, as you know, smoke them all day +long, and enjoy them. Why? Because I have got into the habit. +Years ago, when I was a young man, I smoked expensive Havanas. I +found that I was ruining myself. It was absolutely necessary that +I should take a cheaper weed. I was living in Belgium at the time, +and a friend showed me these. I don't know what they are--probably +cabbage leaves soaked in guano; they tasted to me like that at +first--but they were cheap. Buying them by the five hundred, they +cost me three a penny. I determined to like them, and started with +one a day. It was terrible work, I admit, but as I said to myself, +nothing could be worse than the Havanas themselves had been in the +beginning. Smoking is an acquired taste, and it must be as easy to +learn to like one flavour as another. I persevered and I +conquered. Before the year was over I could think of them without +loathing, at the end of two I could smoke them without positive +discomfort. Now I prefer them to any other brand on the market. +Indeed, a good cigar disagrees with me." + +I suggested it might have been less painful to have given up +smoking altogether. + +"I did think of it," he replied, "but a man who doesn't smoke +always seems to me bad company. There is something very sociable +about smoke." + +He leant back and puffed great clouds into the air, filling the +small den with an odour suggestive of bilge water and cemeteries. + +"Then again," he resumed after a pause, "take my claret. No, you +don't like it." (I had not spoken, but my face had evidently +betrayed me.) "Nobody does, at least no one I have ever met. +Three years ago, when I was living in Hammersmith, we caught two +burglars with it. They broke open the sideboard, and swallowed +five bottlefuls between them. A policeman found them afterwards, +sitting on a doorstep a hundred yards off, the 'swag' beside them +in a carpet bag. They were too ill to offer any resistance, and +went to the station like lambs, he promising to send the doctor to +them the moment they were safe in the cells. Ever since then I +have left out a decanterful upon the table every night. + +"Well, I like that claret, and it does me good. I come in +sometimes dead beat. I drink a couple of glasses, and I'm a new +man. I took to it in the first instance for the same reason that I +took to the cigars--it was cheap. I have it sent over direct from +Geneva, and it costs me six shillings a dozen. How they do it I +don't know. I don't want to know. As you may remember, it's +fairly heady and there's body in it. + +"I knew one man," he continued, "who had a regular Mrs. Caudle of a +wife. All day long she talked to him, or at him, or of him, and at +night he fell asleep to the rising and falling rhythm of what she +thought about him. At last she died, and his friends congratulated +him, telling him that now he would enjoy peace. But it was the +peace of the desert, and the man did not enjoy it. For two-and- +twenty years her voice had filled the house, penetrated through the +conservatory, and floated in faint shrilly waves of sound round the +garden, and out into the road beyond. The silence now pervading +everywhere frightened and disturbed him. The place was no longer +home to him. He missed the breezy morning insult, the long winter +evening's reproaches beside the flickering fire. At night he could +not sleep. For hours he would lie tossing restlessly, his ears +aching for the accustomed soothing flow of invective. + +"'Ah!' he would cry bitterly to himself, 'it is the old story, we +never know the value of a thing until we have lost it.' + +"He grew ill. The doctors dosed him with sleeping draughts in +vain. At last they told him bluntly that his life depended upon +his finding another wife, able and willing to nag him to sleep. + +"There were plenty of wives of the type he wanted in the +neighbourhood, but the unmarried women were, of necessity, +inexperienced, and his health was such that he could not afford the +time to train them. + +"Fortunately, just as despair was about to take possession of him, +a man died in the next parish, literally talked to death, the +gossip said, by his wife. He obtained an introduction, and called +upon her the day after the funeral. She was a cantankerous old +woman, and the wooing was a harassing affair, but his heart was in +his work, and before six months were gone he had won her for his +own. + +"She proved, however, but a poor substitute. The spirit was +willing but the flesh was weak. She had neither that command of +language nor of wind that had distinguished her rival. From his +favourite seat at the bottom of the garden he could not hear her at +all, so he had his chair brought up into the conservatory. It was +all right for him there so long as she continued to abuse him; but +every now and again, just as he was getting comfortably settled +down with his pipe and his newspaper, she would suddenly stop. + +"He would drop his paper and sit listening, with a troubled, +anxious expression. + +"'Are you there, dear?' he would call out after a while. + +"'Yes, I'm here. Where do you think I am you old fool?' she would +gasp back in an exhausted voice. + +"His face would brighten at the sound of her words. 'Go on, dear,' +he would answer. 'I'm listening. I like to hear you talk.' + +"But the poor woman was utterly pumped out, and had not so much as +a snort left. + +"Then he would shake his head sadly. 'No, she hasn't poor dear +Susan's flow,' he would say. 'Ah! what a woman that was!' + +"At night she would do her best, but it was a lame and halting +performance by comparison. After rating him for little over three- +quarters of an hour, she would sink back on the pillow, and want to +go to sleep. But he would shake her gently by the shoulder. + +"'Yes, dear,' he would say, 'you were speaking about Jane, and the +way I kept looking at her during lunch.' + +"It's extraordinary," concluded my friend, lighting a fresh cigar, +"what creatures of habit we are." + +"Very," I replied. "I knew a man who told tall stories till when +he told a true one nobody believed it." + +"Ah, that was a very sad case," said my friend. + +"Speaking of habit," said the unobtrusive man in the corner, "I can +tell you a true story that I'll bet my bottom dollar you won't +believe." + +"Haven't got a bottom dollar, but I'll bet you half a sovereign I +do," replied my friend, who was of a sporting turn. "Who shall be +judge?" + +"I'll take your word for it," said the unobtrusive man, and started +straight away. + + +"He was a Jefferson man, this man I'm going to tell you of," he +begun. "He was born in the town, and for forty-seven years he +never slept a night outside it. He was a most respectable man--a +drysalter from nine to four, and a Presbyterian in his leisure +moments. He said that a good life merely meant good habits. He +rose at seven, had family prayer at seven-thirty, breakfasted at +eight, got to his business at nine, had his horse brought round to +the office at four, and rode for an hour, reached home at five, had +a bath and a cup of tea, played with and read to the children (he +was a domesticated man) till half-past six, dressed and dined at +seven, went round to the club and played whist till quarter after +ten, home again to evening prayer at ten-thirty, and bed at eleven. +For five-and-twenty years he lived that life with never a +variation. It worked into his system and became mechanical. The +church clocks were set by him. He was used by the local +astronomers to check the sun. + +"One day a distant connection of his in London, an East Indian +Merchant and an ex-Lord Mayor died, leaving him sole legatee and +executor. The business was a complicated one and needed +management. He determined to leave his son by his first wife, now +a young man of twenty-four, in charge at Jefferson, and to +establish himself with his second family in England, and look after +the East Indian business. + +"He set out from Jefferson City on October the fourth, and arrived +in London on the seventeenth. He had been ill during the whole of +the voyage, and he reached the furnished house he had hired in +Bayswater somewhat of a wreck. A couple of days in bed, however, +pulled him round, and on the Wednesday evening he announced his +intention of going into the City the next day to see to his +affairs. + +"On the Thursday morning he awoke at one o'clock. His wife told +him she had not disturbed him, thinking the sleep would do him +good. He admitted that perhaps it had. Anyhow, he felt very well, +and he got up and dressed himself. He said he did not like the +idea of beginning his first day by neglecting a religious duty, and +his wife agreeing with him, they assembled the servants and the +children in the dining-room, and had family prayer at half-past +one. After which he breakfasted and set off, reaching the City +about three. + +"His reputation for punctuality had preceded him, and surprise was +everywhere expressed at his late arrival. He explained the +circumstances, however, and made his appointments for the following +day to commence from nine-thirty. + +"He remained at the office until late, and then went home. For +dinner, usually the chief meal of the day, he could manage to eat +only a biscuit and some fruit. He attributed his loss of appetite +to want of his customary ride. He was strangely unsettled all the +evening. He said he supposed he missed his game of whist, and +determined to look about him without loss of time for some quiet, +respectable club. At eleven he retired with his wife to bed, but +could not sleep. He tossed and turned, and turned and tossed, but +grew only more and more wakeful and energetic. A little after +midnight an overpowering desire seized him to go and wish the +children good-night. He slipped on a dressing-gown and stole into +the nursery. He did not intend it, but the opening of the door +awoke them, and he was glad. He wrapped them up in the quilt, and, +sitting on the edge of the bed, told them moral stories till one +o'clock. + +"Then he kissed them, bidding them be good and go to sleep; and +finding himself painfully hungry, crept downstairs, where in the +back kitchen he made a hearty meal off cold game pie and cucumber. + +"He retired to bed feeling more peaceful, yet still could not +sleep, so lay thinking about his business affairs till five, when +he dropped off. + +"At one o'clock to the minute he awoke. His wife told him she had +made every endeavour to rouse him, but in vain. The man was vexed +and irritated. If he had not been a very good man indeed, I +believe he would have sworn. The same programme was repeated as on +the Thursday, and again he reached the City at three. + +"This state of things went on for a month. The man fought against +himself, but was unable to alter himself. Every morning, or rather +every afternoon at one he awoke. Every night at one he crept down +into the kitchen and foraged for food. Every morning at five he +fell asleep. + +"He could not understand it, nobody could understand it. The +doctor treated him for water on the brain, hypnotic +irresponsibility and hereditary lunacy. Meanwhile his business +suffered, and his health grew worse. He seemed to be living upside +down. His days seemed to have neither beginning nor end, but to be +all middle. There was no time for exercise or recreation. When he +began to feel cheerful and sociable everybody else was asleep. + +"One day by chance the explanation came. His eldest daughter was +preparing her home studies after dinner. + +"'What time is it now in New York?' she asked, looking up from her +geography book. + +"'New York,' said her father, glancing at his watch, 'let me see. +It's just ten now, and there's a little over four and a half hours' +difference. Oh, about half-past five in the afternoon.' + +"'Then in Jefferson,' said the mother, 'it would be still earlier, +wouldn't it?' + +"'Yes,' replied the girl, examining the map, 'Jefferson is nearly +two degrees further west.' + +"'Two degrees,' mused the father, 'and there's forty minutes to a +degree. That would make it now, at the present moment in +Jefferson--' + +He leaped to his feet with a cry: + +"'I've got it!' he shouted, 'I see it.' + +"'See what?' asked his wife, alarmed. + +"'Why, it's four o'clock in Jefferson, and just time for my ride. +That's what I'm wanting.' + +"There could be no doubt about it. For five-and-twenty years he +had lived by clockwork. But it was by Jefferson clockwork, not +London clockwork. He had changed his longitude, but not himself. +The habits of a quarter of a century were not to be shifted at the +bidding of the sun. + +"He examined the problem in all its bearings, and decided that the +only solution was for him to return to the order of his old life. +He saw the difficulties in his way, but they were less than those +he was at present encountering. He was too formed by habit to +adapt himself to circumstances. Circumstances must adapt +themselves to him. + +"He fixed his office hours from three till ten, leaving himself at +half-past nine. At ten he mounted his horse and went for a canter +in the Row, and on very dark nights he carried a lantern. News of +it got abroad, and crowds would assemble to see him ride past. + +"He dined at one o'clock in the morning, and afterwards strolled +down to his club. He had tried to discover a quiet, respectable +club where the members were willing to play whist till four in the +morning, but failing, had been compelled to join a small Soho +gambling-hell, where they taught him poker. The place was +occasionally raided by the police, but thanks to his respectable +appearance, he generally managed to escape. + +"At half-past four he returned home, and woke up the family for +evening prayers. At five he went to bed and slept like a top. + +"The City chaffed him, and Bayswater shook its head over him, but +that he did not mind. The only thing that really troubled him was +loss of spiritual communion. At five o'clock on Sunday afternoons +he felt he wanted chapel, but had to do without it. At seven he +ate his simple mid-day meal. At eleven he had tea and muffins, and +at midnight he began to crave again for hymns and sermons. At +three he had a bread-and-cheese supper, and retired early at four +a.m., feeling sad and unsatisfied. + +"He was essentially a man of habit." + + +The unobtrusive stranger ceased, and we sat gazing in silence at +the ceiling. + +At length my friend rose, and taking half-a-sovereign from his +pocket, laid it upon the table, and linking his arm in mine went +out with me upon the deck. + + + +THE ABSENT-MINDED MAN + + + +You ask him to dine with you on Thursday to meet a few people who +are anxious to know him. + +"Now don't make a muddle of it," you say, recollectful of former +mishaps, "and come on the Wednesday." + +He laughs good-naturedly as he hunts through the room for his +diary. + +"Shan't be able to come Wednesday," he says, "shall be at the +Mansion House, sketching dresses, and on Friday I start for +Scotland, so as to be at the opening of the Exhibition on Saturday. +It's bound to be all right this time. Where the deuce is that +diary! Never mind, I'll make a note of it on this--you can see me +do it." + +You stand over him while he writes the appointment down on a sheet +of foolscap, and watch him pin it up over his desk. Then you come +away contented. + +"I do hope he'll turn up," you say to your wife on the Thursday +evening, while dressing. + +"Are you sure you made it clear to him?" she replies, suspiciously, +and you instinctively feel that whatever happens she is going to +blame you for it. + +Eight o'clock arrives, and with it the other guests. At half-past +eight your wife is beckoned mysteriously out of the room, where the +parlour-maid informs her that the cook has expressed a +determination, in case of further delay, to wash her hands, +figuratively speaking, of the whole affair. + +Your wife, returning, suggests that if the dinner is to be eaten at +all it had better be begun. She evidently considers that in +pretending to expect him you have been merely playing a part, and +that it would have been manlier and more straightforward for you to +have admitted at the beginning that you had forgotten to invite +him. + +During the soup and the fish you recount anecdotes of his +unpunctuality. By the time the entree arrives the empty chair has +begun to cast a gloom over the dinner, and with the joint the +conversation drifts into talk about dead relatives. + +On Friday, at a quarter past eight, he dashes to the door and rings +violently. Hearing his voice in the hall, you go to meet him. + +"Sorry I'm late," he sings out cheerily. "Fool of a cabman took me +to Alfred Place instead of--" + +"Well, what do you want now you are come?" you interrupt, feeling +anything but genially inclined towards him. He is an old friend, +so you can be rude to him. + +He laughs, and slaps you on the shoulder. + +"Why, my dinner, my dear boy, I'm starving." + +"Oh," you grunt in reply. "Well, you go and get it somewhere else, +then. You're not going to have it here." + +"What the devil do you mean?" he says. "You asked me to dinner." + +"I did nothing of the kind," you tell him. "I asked you to dinner +on Thursday, not on Friday." + +He stares at you incredulously. + +"How did I get Friday fixed in my mind?" inquiringly. + +"Because yours is the sort of mind that would get Friday firmly +fixed into it, when Thursday was the day," you explain. "I thought +you had to be off to Edinburgh to-night," you add. + +"Great Scott!" he cries, "so I have." + +And without another word he dashes out, and you hear him rushing +down the road, shouting for the cab he has just dismissed. + +As you return to your study you reflect that he will have to travel +all the way to Scotland in evening dress, and will have to send out +the hotel porter in the morning to buy him a suit of ready-made +clothes, and are glad. + +Matters work out still more awkwardly when it is he who is the +host. I remember being with him on his house-boat one day. It was +a little after twelve, and we were sitting on the edge of the boat, +dangling our feet in the river--the spot was a lonely one, half-way +between Wallingford and Day's Lock. Suddenly round the bend +appeared two skiffs, each one containing six elaborately-dressed +persons. As soon as they caught sight of us they began waving +handkerchiefs and parasols. + +"Hullo!" I said, "here's some people hailing you." + +"Oh, they all do that about here," he answered, without looking up. +"Some beanfeast from Abingdon, I expect." + +The boats draw nearer. When about two hundred yards off an elderly +gentleman raised himself up in the prow of the leading one and +shouted to us. + +McQuae heard his voice, and gave a start that all but pitched him +into the water. + +"Good God!" he cried, "I'd forgotten all about it." + +"About what?" I asked. + +"Why, it's the Palmers and the Grahams and the Hendersons. I've +asked them all over to lunch, and there's not a blessed thing on +board but two mutton chops and a pound of potatoes, and I've given +the boy a holiday." + +Another day I was lunching with him at the Junior Hogarth, when a +man named Hallyard, a mutual friend, strolled across to us. + +"What are you fellows going to do this afternoon?" he asked, +seating himself the opposite side of the table. + +"I'm going to stop here and write letters," I answered. + +"Come with me if you want something to do," said McQuae. "I'm +going to drive Leena down to Richmond." ("Leena" was the young +lady he recollected being engaged to. It transpired afterwards +that he was engaged to three girls at the time. The other two he +had forgotten all about.) "It's a roomy seat at the back." + +"Oh, all right," said Hallyard, and they went away together in a +hansom. + +An hour and a half later Hallyard walked into the smoking-room +looking depressed and worn, and flung himself into a chair. + +"I thought you were going to Richmond with McQuae," I said. + +"So did I," he answered. + +"Had an accident?" I asked. + +"Yes." + +He was decidedly curt in his replies. + +"Cart upset?" I continued. + +"No, only me." + +His grammar and his nerves seemed thoroughly shaken. + +I waited for an explanation, and after a while he gave it. + +"We got to Putney," he said, "with just an occasional run into a +tram-car, and were going up the hill, when suddenly he turned a +corner. You know his style at a corner--over the curb, across the +road, and into the opposite lamp-post. Of course, as a rule one is +prepared for it, but I never reckoned on his turning up there, and +the first thing I recollect is finding myself sitting in the middle +of the street with a dozen fools grinning at me. + +"It takes a man a few minutes in such a case to think where he is +and what has happened, and when I got up they were some distance +away. I ran after them for a quarter of a mile, shouting at the +top of my voice, and accompanied by a mob of boys, all yelling like +hell on a Bank Holiday. But one might as well have tried to hail +the dead, so I took the 'bus back. + +"They might have guessed what had happened," he added, "by the +shifting of the cart, if they'd had any sense. I'm not a light- +weight." + +He complained of soreness, and said he would go home. I suggested +a cab, but he replied that he would rather walk. + +I met McQuae in the evening at the St. James's Theatre. It was a +first night, and he was taking sketches for The Graphic. The +moment he saw me he made his way across to me. + +"The very man I wanted to see," he said. "Did I take Hallyard with +me in the cart to Richmond this afternoon?" + +"You did," I replied. + +"So Leena says," he answered, greatly bewildered, "but I'll swear +he wasn't there when we got to the Queen's Hotel." + +"It's all right," I said, "you dropped him at Putney." + +"Dropped him at Putney!" he repeated. "I've no recollection of +doing so." + +"He has," I answered. "You ask him about it. He's full of it." + +Everybody said he never would get married; that it was absurd to +suppose he ever would remember the day, the church, and the girl, +all in one morning; that if he did get as far as the altar he would +forget what he had come for, and would give the bride away to his +own best man. Hallyard had an idea that he was already married, +but that the fact had slipped his memory. I myself felt sure that +if he did marry he would forget all about it the next day. + +But everybody was wrong. By some miraculous means the ceremony got +itself accomplished, so that if Hallyard's idea be correct (as to +which there is every possibility), there will be trouble. As for +my own fears, I dismissed them the moment I saw the lady. She was +a charming, cheerful little woman, but did not look the type that +would let him forget all about it. + +I had not seen him since his marriage, which had happened in the +spring. Working my way back from Scotland by easy stages, I +stopped for a few days at Scarboro'. After table d'hote I put on +my mackintosh, and went out for a walk. It was raining hard, but +after a month in Scotland one does not notice English weather, and +I wanted some air. Struggling along the dark beach with my head +against the wind, I stumbled over a crouching figure, seeking to +shelter itself a little from the storm under the lee of the Spa +wall. + +I expected it to swear at me, but it seemed too broken-spirited to +mind anything. + +"I beg your pardon," I said. "I did not see you." + +At the sound of my voice it started to its feet. + +"Is that you, old man?" it cried. + +"McQuae!" I exclaimed. + +"By Jove!" he said, "I was never so glad to see a man in all my +life before." + +And he nearly shook my hand off. + +"But what in thunder!" I said, "are you doing here? Why, you're +drenched to the skin." + +He was dressed in flannels and a tennis-coat. + +"Yes," he answered. "I never thought it would rain. It was a +lovely morning." + +I began to fear he had overworked himself into a brain fever. + +"Why don't you go home?" I asked. + +"I can't," he replied. "I don't know where I live. I've forgotten +the address." + +"For heaven's sake," he said, "take me somewhere, and give me +something to eat. I'm literally starving." + +"Haven't you any money?" I asked him, as we turned towards the +hotel. + +"Not a sou," he answered. "We got in here from York, the wife and +I, about eleven. We left our things at the station, and started to +hunt for apartments. As soon as we were fixed, I changed my +clothes and came out for a walk, telling Maud I should be back at +one to lunch. Like a fool, I never took the address, and never +noticed the way I was going. + +"It's an awful business," he continued. "I don't see how I'm ever +going to find her. I hoped she might stroll down to the Spa in the +evening, and I've been hanging about the gates ever since six. I +hadn't the threepence to go in." + +"But have you no notion of the sort of street or the kind of house +it was?" I enquired. + +"Not a ghost," he replied. "I left it all to Maud, and didn't +trouble." + +"Have you tried any of the lodging-houses?" I asked. + +"Tried!" he exclaimed bitterly. "I've been knocking at doors, and +asking if Mrs. McQuae lives there steadily all the afternoon, and +they slam the door in my face, mostly without answering. I told a +policeman--I thought perhaps he might suggest something--but the +idiot only burst out laughing, and that made me so mad that I gave +him a black eye, and had to cut. I expect they're on the lookout +for me now." + +"I went into a restaurant," he continued gloomily, "and tried to +get them to trust me for a steak. But the proprietress said she'd +heard that tale before, and ordered me out before all the other +customers. I think I'd have drowned myself if you hadn't turned +up." + +After a change of clothes and some supper, he discussed the case +more calmly, but it was really a serious affair. They had shut up +their flat, and his wife's relatives were travelling abroad. There +was no one to whom he could send a letter to be forwarded; there +was no one with whom she would be likely to communicate. Their +chance of meeting again in this world appeared remote. + +Nor did it seem to me--fond as he was of his wife, and anxious as +he undoubtedly was to recover her--that he looked forward to the +actual meeting, should it ever arrive, with any too pleasurable +anticipation. + +"She will think it strange," he murmured reflectively, sitting on +the edge of the bed, and thoughtfully pulling off his socks. "She +is sure to think it strange." + +The following day, which was Wednesday, we went to a solicitor, and +laid the case before him, and he instituted inquiries among all the +lodging-house keepers in Scarborough, with the result that on +Thursday afternoon McQuae was restored (after the manner of an +Adelphi hero in the last act) to his home and wife. + +I asked him next time I met him what she had said. + +"Oh, much what I expected," he replied. + +But he never told me what he had expected. + + + +A CHARMING WOMAN + + + +"Not THE MR. --, REALLY?" + +In her deep brown eyes there lurked pleased surprise, struggling +with wonder. She looked from myself to the friend who introduced +us with a bewitching smile of incredulity, tempered by hope. + +He assured her, adding laughingly, "The only genuine and original," +and left us. + +"I've always thought of you as a staid, middle-aged man," she said, +with a delicious little laugh, then added in low soft tones, "I'm +so very pleased to meet you, really." + +The words were conventional, but her voice crept round one like a +warm caress. + +"Come and talk to me," she said, seating herself upon a small +settee, and making room for me. + +I sat down awkwardly beside her, my head buzzing just a little, as +with one glass too many of champagne. I was in my literary +childhood. One small book and a few essays and criticisms, +scattered through various obscure periodicals had been as yet my +only contributions to current literature. The sudden discovery +that I was the Mr. Anybody, and that charming women thought of me, +and were delighted to meet me, was a brain-disturbing thought. + +"And it was really you who wrote that clever book?" she continued, +"and all those brilliant things, in the magazines and journals. +Oh, it must be delightful to be clever." + +She gave breath to a little sigh of vain regret that went to my +heart. To console her I commenced a laboured compliment, but she +stopped me with her fan. On after reflection I was glad she had-- +it would have been one of those things better expressed otherwise. + +"I know what you are going to say," she laughed, "but don't. +Besides, from you I should not know quite how to take it. You can +be so satirical." + +I tried to look as though I could be, but in her case would not. + +She let her ungloved hand rest for an instant upon mine. Had she +left it there for two, I should have gone down on my knees before +her, or have stood on my head at her feet--have made a fool of +myself in some way or another before the whole room full. She +timed it to a nicety. + +"I don't want YOU to pay me compliments," she said, "I want us to +be friends. Of course, in years, I'm old enough to be your +mother." (By the register I should say she might have been thirty- +two, but looked twenty-six. I was twenty-three, and I fear foolish +for my age.) "But you know the world, and you're so different to +the other people one meets. Society is so hollow and artificial; +don't you find it so? You don't know how I long sometimes to get +away from it, to know someone to whom I could show my real self, +who would understand me. You'll come and see me sometimes--I'm +always at home on Wednesdays--and let me talk to you, won't you, +and you must tell me all your clever thoughts." + +It occurred to me that, maybe, she would like to hear a few of them +there and then, but before I had got well started a hollow Society +man came up and suggested supper, and she was compelled to leave +me. As she disappeared, however, in the throng, she looked back +over her shoulder with a glance half pathetic, half comic, that I +understood. It said, "Pity me, I've got to be bored by this vapid, +shallow creature," and I did. + +I sought her through all the rooms before I went. I wished to +assure her of my sympathy and support. I learned, however, from +the butler that she had left early, in company with the hollow +Society man. + +A fortnight later I ran against a young literary friend in Regent +Street, and we lunched together at the Monico. + +"I met such a charming woman last night," he said, "a Mrs. Clifton +Courtenay, a delightful woman." + +"Oh, do YOU know her?" I exclaimed. "Oh, we're very old friends. +She's always wanting me to go and see her. I really must." + +"Oh, I didn't know YOU knew her," he answered. Somehow, the fact +of my knowing her seemed to lessen her importance in his eyes. But +soon he recovered his enthusiasm for her. + +"A wonderfully clever woman," he continued. "I'm afraid I +disappointed her a little though." He said this, however, with a +laugh that contradicted his words. "She would not believe I was +THE Mr. Smith. She imagined from my book that I was quite an old +man." + +I could see nothing in my friend's book myself to suggest that the +author was, of necessity, anything over eighteen. The mistake +appeared to me to display want of acumen, but it had evidently +pleased him greatly. + +"I felt quite sorry for her," he went on, "chained to that +bloodless, artificial society in which she lives. 'You can't +tell,' she said to me, 'how I long to meet someone to whom I could +show my real self--who would understand me.' I'm going to see her +on Wednesday." + +I went with him. My conversation with her was not as confidential +as I had anticipated, owing to there being some eighty other people +present in a room intended for the accommodation of eight; but +after surging round for an hour in hot and aimless misery--as very +young men at such gatherings do, knowing as a rule only the man who +has brought them, and being unable to find him--I contrived to get +a few words with her. + +She greeted me with a smile, in the light of which I at once forgot +my past discomfort, and let her fingers rest, with delicious +pressure, for a moment upon mine. + +"How good of you to keep your promise," she said. "These people +have been tiring me so. Sit here, and tell me all you have been +doing." + +She listened for about ten seconds, and then interrupted me with - + +"And that clever friend of yours that you came with. I met him at +dear Lady Lennon's last week. Has HE written anything?" + +I explained to her that he had. + +"Tell me about it?" she said. "I get so little time for reading, +and then I only care to read the books that help me," and she gave +me a grateful look more eloquent than words. + +I described the work to her, and wishing to do my friend justice I +even recited a few of the passages upon which, as I knew, he +especially prided himself. + +One sentence in particular seemed to lay hold of her. "A good +woman's arms round a man's neck is a lifebelt thrown out to him +from heaven." + +"How beautiful!" she murmured. "Say it again." + +I said it again, and she repeated it after me. + +Then a noisy old lady swooped down upon her, and I drifted away +into a corner, where I tried to look as if I were enjoying myself, +and failed. + +Later on, feeling it time to go, I sought my friend, and found him +talking to her in a corner. I approached and waited. They were +discussing the latest east-end murder. A drunken woman had been +killed by her husband, a hard-working artizan, who had been +maddened by the ruin of his home. + +"Ah," she was saying, "what power a woman has to drag a man down or +lift him up. I never read a case in which a woman is concerned +without thinking of those beautiful lines of yours: 'A good +woman's arms round a man's neck is a lifebelt thrown out to him +from heaven.'" + + +Opinions differed concerning her religion and politics. Said the +Low Church parson: "An earnest Christian woman, sir, of that +unostentatious type that has always been the bulwark of our Church. +I am proud to know that woman, and I am proud to think that poor +words of mine have been the humble instrument to wean that true +woman's heart from the frivolities of fashion, and to fix her +thoughts upon higher things. A good Churchwoman, sir, a good +Churchwoman, in the best sense of the word." + +Said the pale aristocratic-looking young Abbe to the Comtesse, the +light of old-world enthusiasm shining from his deep-set eyes: "I +have great hopes for our dear friend. She finds it hard to sever +the ties of time and love. We are all weak, but her heart turns +towards our mother Church as a child, though suckled among +strangers, yearns after many years for the bosom that has borne it. +We have spoken, and I, even I, may be the voice in the wilderness +leading the lost sheep back to the fold." + +Said Sir Harry Bennett, the great Theosophist lecturer, writing to +a friend: "A singularly gifted woman, and a woman evidently +thirsting for the truth. A woman capable of willing her own life. +A woman not afraid of thought and reason, a lover of wisdom. I +have talked much with her at one time or another, and I have found +her grasp my meaning with a quickness of perception quite unusual +in my experience; and the arguments I have let fall, I am +convinced, have borne excellent fruit. I look forward to her +becoming, at no very distant date, a valued member of our little +band. Indeed, without betraying confidence, I may almost say I +regard her conversion as an accomplished fact." + +Colonel Maxim always spoke of her as "a fair pillar of the State." + +"With the enemy in our midst," said the florid old soldier, "it +behoves every true man--aye, and every true woman--to rally to the +defence of the country; and all honour, say I, to noble ladies such +as Mrs. Clifton Courtenay, who, laying aside their natural +shrinking from publicity, come forward in such a crisis as the +present to combat the forces of disorder and disloyalty now rampant +in the land." + +"But," some listener would suggest, "I gathered from young Jocelyn +that Mrs. Clifton Courtenay held somewhat advanced views on social +and political questions." + +"Jocelyn," the Colonel would reply with scorn; "pah! There may +have been a short space of time during which the fellow's long hair +and windy rhetoric impressed her. But I flatter myself I've put MY +spoke in Mr. Jocelyn's wheel. Why, damme, sir, she's consented to +stand for Grand Dame of the Bermondsey Branch of the Primrose +League next year. What's Jocelyn to say to that, the scoundrel!" + +What Jocelyn said was:- + +"I know the woman is weak. But I do not blame her; I pity her. +When the time comes, as soon it will, when woman is no longer a +puppet, dancing to the threads held by some brainless man--when a +woman is not threatened with social ostracism for daring to follow +her own conscience instead of that of her nearest male relative-- +then will be the time to judge her. It is not for me to betray the +confidence reposed in me by a suffering woman, but you can tell +that interesting old fossil, Colonel Maxim, that he and the other +old women of the Bermondsey Branch of the Primrose League may elect +Mrs. Clifton Courtenay for their President, and make the most of +it; they have only got the outside of the woman. Her heart is +beating time to the tramp of an onward-marching people; her soul's +eyes are straining for the glory of a coming dawn." + +But they all agreed she was a charming woman. + + + +WHIBLEY'S SPIRIT + + + +I never met it myself, but I knew Whibley very well indeed, so that +I came to hear a goodish deal about it. + +It appeared to be devoted to Whibley, and Whibley was extremely +fond of it. Personally I am not interested in spirits, and no +spirit has ever interested itself in me. But I have friends whom +they patronise, and my mind is quite open on the subject. Of +Whibley's Spirit I wish to speak with every possible respect. It +was, I am willing to admit, as hard-working and conscientious a +spirit as any one could wish to live with. The only thing I have +to say against it is that it had no sense. + +It came with a carved cabinet that Whibley had purchased in Wardour +Street for old oak, but which, as a matter of fact, was chestnut +wood, manufactured in Germany, and at first was harmless enough, +saying nothing but "Yes!" or "No!" and that only when spoken to. + +Whibley would amuse himself of an evening asking it questions, +being careful to choose tolerably simple themes, such as, "Are you +there?" (to which the Spirit would sometimes answer "Yes!" and +sometimes "No!") "Can you hear me?" "Are you happy?"--and so on. +The Spirit made the cabinet crack--three times for "Yes" and twice +for "No." Now and then it would reply both "Yes!" and "No!" to the +same question, which Whibley attributed to over-scrupulousness. +When nobody asked it anything it would talk to itself, repeating +"Yes!" "No!" "No!" "Yes!" over and over again in an aimless, +lonesome sort of a way that made you feel sorry for it. + +After a while Whibley bought a table, and encouraged it to launch +out into more active conversation. To please Whibley, I assisted +at some of the earlier seances, but during my presence it +invariably maintained a reticence bordering on positive dulness. I +gathered from Whibley that it disliked me, thinking that I was +unsympathetic. The complaint was unjust; I was not unsympathetic, +at least not at the commencement. I came to hear it talk, and I +wanted to hear it talk; I would have listened to it by the hour. +What tired me was its slowness in starting, and its foolishness +when it had started, in using long words that it did not know how +to spell. I remember on one occasion, Whibley, Jobstock (Whibley's +partner), and myself, sitting for two hours, trying to understand +what the thing meant by "H-e-s-t-u-r-n-e-m-y-s-f-e-a-r." It used +no stops whatever. It never so much as hinted where one sentence +ended and another began. It never even told us when it came to a +proper name. Its idea of an evening's conversation was to plump +down a hundred or so vowels and consonants in front of you and +leave you to make whatever sense out of them you could. + +We fancied at first it was talking about somebody named Hester (it +had spelt Hester with a "u" before we allowed a margin for +spelling), and we tried to work the sentence out on that basis, +"Hester enemies fear," we thought it might be. Whibley had a niece +named Hester, and we decided the warning had reference to her. But +whether she was our enemy, and we were to fear her, or whether we +had to fear her enemies (and, if so, who were they?), or whether it +was our enemies who were to be frightened by Hester, or her +enemies, or enemies generally, still remained doubtful. We asked +the table if it meant the first suggestion, and it said "No." We +asked what it did mean, and it said "Yes." + +This answer annoyed me, but Whibley explained that the Spirit was +angry with us for our stupidity (which seemed quaint). He informed +us that it always said first "No," and then "Yes," when it was +angry, and as it was his Spirit, and we were in his house, we kept +our feelings to ourselves and started afresh. + +This time we abandoned the "Hestur" theory altogether. Jobstock +suggested "Haste" for the first word, and, thought the Spirit might +have gone on phonetically. + +"Haste! you are here, Miss Sfear!" was what he made of it. + +Whibley asked him sarcastically if he'd kindly explain what that +meant. + +I think Jobstock was getting irritable. We had been sitting +cramped up round a wretched little one-legged table all the +evening, and this was almost the first bit of gossip we had got out +of it. To further excuse him, it should also be explained that the +gas had been put out by Whibley, and that the fire had gone out of +its own accord. He replied that it was hard labour enough to find +out what the thing said without having to make sense of it. + +"It can't spell," he added, "and it's got a nasty, sulky temper. +If it was my spirit I'd hire another spirit to kick it." + +Whibley was one of the mildest little men I ever knew, but chaff or +abuse of his Spirit roused the devil in him, and I feared we were +going to have a scene. Fortunately, I was able to get his mind +back to the consideration of "Hesturnemysfear" before anything +worse happened than a few muttered remarks about the laughter of +fools, and want of reverence for sacred subjects being the sign of +a shallow mind. + +We tried "He's stern," and "His turn," and the "fear of +Hesturnemy," and tried to think who "Hesturnemy" might be. Three +times we went over the whole thing again from the beginning, which +meant six hundred and six tiltings of the table, and then suddenly +the explanation struck me--"Eastern Hemisphere." + +Whibley had asked it for any information it might possess +concerning his wife's uncle, from whom he had not heard for months, +and that apparently was its idea of an address. + +The fame of Whibley's Spirit became noised abroad, with the result +that Whibley was able to command the willing service of more +congenial assistants, and Jobstock and myself were dismissed. But +we bore no malice. + +Under these more favourable conditions the Spirit plucked up +wonderfully, and talked everybody's head off. It could never have +been a cheerful companion, however, for its conversation was +chiefly confined to warnings and prognostications of evil. About +once a fortnight Whibley would drop round on me, in a friendly way, +to tell me that I was to beware of a man who lived in a street +beginning with a "C," or to inform me that if I would go to a town +on the coast where there were three churches I should meet someone +who would do me an irreparable injury, and, that I did not rush off +then and there in search of that town he regarded as flying in the +face of Providence. + +In its passion for poking its ghostly nose into other people's +affairs it reminded me of my earthly friend Poppleton. Nothing +pleased it better than being appealed to for aid and advice, and +Whibley, who was a perfect slave to it, would hunt half over the +parish for people in trouble and bring them to it. + +It would direct ladies, eager for divorce court evidence, to go to +the third house from the corner of the fifth street, past such and +such a church or public-house (it never would give a plain, +straightforward address), and ring the bottom bell but one twice. +They would thank it effusively, and next morning would start to +find the fifth street past the church, and would ring the bottom +bell but one of the third house from the corner twice, and a man in +his shirt sleeves would come to the door and ask them what they +wanted. + +They could not tell what they wanted, they did not know themselves, +and the man would use bad language, and slam the door in their +faces. + +Then they would think that perhaps the Spirit meant the fifth +street the other way, or the third house from the opposite corner, +and would try again, with still more unpleasant results. + +One July I met Whibley, mooning disconsolately along Princes +Street, Edinburgh. + +"Hullo!" I exclaimed, "what are you doing here? I thought you were +busy over that School Board case." + +"Yes," he answered, "I ought really to be in London, but the truth +is I'm rather expecting something to happen down here." + +"Oh!" I said, "and what's that?" + +"Well," he replied hesitatingly, as though he would rather not talk +about it, "I don't exactly know yet." + +"You've come from London to Edinburgh, and don't know what you've +come for!" I cried. + +"Well, you see," he said, still more reluctantly, as it seemed to +me, "it was Maria's idea; she wished--" + +"Maria!" I interrupted, looking perhaps a little sternly at him, +"who's Maria?" (His wife's name I knew was Emily Georgina Anne.) + +"Oh! I forgot," he explained; "she never would tell her name +before you, would she? It's the Spirit, you know." + +"Oh! that," I said, "it's she that has sent you here. Didn't she +tell you what for?" + +"No," he answered, "that's what worries me. All she would say was, +'Go to Edinburgh--something will happen.'" + +"And how long are you going to remain here?" I inquired. + +"I don't know," he replied. "I've been here a week already, and +Jobstock writes quite angrily. I wouldn't have come if Maria +hadn't been so urgent. She repeated it three evenings running." + +I hardly knew what to do. The little man was so dreadfully in +earnest about the business that one could not argue much with him. + +"You are sure," I said, after thinking a while, "that this Maria is +a good Spirit? There are all sorts going about, I'm told. You're +sure this isn't the spirit of some deceased lunatic, playing the +fool with you?" + +"I've thought of that," he admitted. "Of course that might be so. +If nothing happens soon I shall almost begin to suspect it." + +"Well, I should certainly make some inquiries into its character +before I trusted it any further," I answered, and left him. + +About a month later I ran against him outside the Law Courts. + +"It was all right about Maria; something did happen in Edinburgh +while I was there. That very morning I met you one of my oldest +clients died quite suddenly at his house at Queensferry, only a few +miles outside the city." + +"I'm glad of that," I answered, "I mean, of course, for Maria's +sake. It was lucky you went then." + +"Well, not altogether," he replied, "at least, not in a worldly +sense. He left his affairs in a very complicated state, and his +eldest son went straight up to London to consult me about them, +and, not finding me there, and time being important, went to +Kebble. I was rather disappointed when I got back and heard about +it." + +"Umph!" I said; "she's not a smart spirit, anyway." + +"No," he answered, "perhaps not. But, you see, something did +really happen." + +After that his affection for "Maria" increased tenfold, while her +attachment to himself became a burden to his friends. She grew too +big for her table, and, dispensing with all mechanical +intermediaries, talked to him direct. She followed him everywhere. +Mary's lamb couldn't have been a bigger nuisance. She would even +go with him into the bedroom, and carry on long conversations with +him in the middle of the night. His wife objected; she said it +seemed hardly decent, but there was no keeping her out. + +She turned up with him at picnics and Christmas parties. Nobody +heard her speak to him, but it seemed necessary for him to reply to +her aloud, and to see him suddenly get up from his chair and slip +away to talk earnestly to nothing in a corner disturbed the +festivities. + +"I should really be glad," he once confessed to me, "to get a +little time to myself. She means kindly, but it IS a strain. And +then the others don't like it. It makes them nervous. I can see +it does." + +One evening she caused quite a scene at the club. Whibley had been +playing whist, with the Major for a partner. At the end of the +game the Major, leaning across the table toward him, asked, in a +tone of deadly calm, "May I inquire, sir, whether there was any +earthly reason" (he emphasised "earthly") "for your following my +lead of spades with your only trump?" + +"I--I--am very sorry, Major," replied Whibley apologetically. "I-- +I--somehow felt I--I ought to play that queen." + +"Entirely your own inspiration, or suggested?" persisted the Major, +who had, of course, heard of "Maria." + +Whibley admitted the play had been suggested to him. The Major +rose from the table. + +"Then, sir," said he, with concentrated indignation, "I decline to +continue this game. A human fool I can tolerate for a partner, but +if I am to be hampered by a damned spirit--" + +"You've no right to say that," cried Whibley hotly. + +"I apologise," returned the Major coldly; "we will say a blessed +spirit. I decline to play whist with spirits of any kind; and I +advise you, sir, if you intend giving many exhibitions with the +lady, first to teach her the rudiments of the game." + +Saying which the Major put on his hat and left the club, and I made +Whibley drink a stiff glass of brandy and water, and sent him and +"Maria" home in a cab. + +Whibley got rid of "Maria" at last. It cost him in round figures +about eight thousand pounds, but his family said it was worth it. + +A Spanish Count hired a furnished house a few doors from Whibley's, +and one evening he was introduced to Whibley, and came home and had +a chat with him. Whibley told him about "Maria," and the Count +quite fell in love with her. He said that if only he had had such +a spirit to help and advise him, it might have altered his whole +life. + +He was the first man who had ever said a kind word about the +spirit, and Whibley loved him for it. The Count seemed as though +he could never see enough of Whibley after that evening, and the +three of them--Whibley, the Count, and "Maria"--would sit up half +the night talking together. + +The precise particulars I never heard. Whibley was always very +reticent on the matter. Whether "Maria" really did exist, and the +Count deliberately set to work to bamboozle her (she was fool +enough for anything), or whether she was a mere hallucination of +Whibley's, and the man tricked Whibley by "hypnotic suggestions" +(as I believe it is called), I am not prepared to say. The only +thing certain is that "Maria" convinced Whibley that the Count had +discovered a secret gold mine in Peru. She said she knew all about +it, and counselled Whibley to beg the Count to let him put a few +thousands into the working of it. "Maria," it appeared, had known +the Count from his boyhood, and could answer for it that he was the +most honourable man in all South America. Possibly enough he was. + +The Count was astonished to find that Whibley knew all about his +mine. Eight thousand pounds was needed to start the workings, but +he had not mentioned it to any one, as he wanted to keep the whole +thing to himself, and thought he could save the money on his +estates in Portugal. However, to oblige "Maria," he would let +Whibley supply the money. Whibley supplied it--in cash, and no one +has ever seen the Count since. + +That broke up Whibley's faith in "Maria," and a sensible doctor, +getting hold of him threatened to prescribe a lunatic asylum for +him if ever he found him carrying on with any spirits again. That +completed the cure. + + + +THE MAN WHO WENT WRONG + + + +I first met Jack Burridge nearly ten years ago on a certain North- +country race-course. + +The saddling bell had just rung for the chief event of the day. I +was sauntering along with my hands in my pockets, more interested +in the crowd than in the race, when a sporting friend, crossing on +his way to the paddock, seized me by the arm and whispered hoarsely +in my ear:- + +"Put your shirt on Mrs. Waller." + +"Put my -?" I began. + +"Put your shirt on Mrs. Waller," he repeated still more +impressively, and disappeared in the throng. + +I stared after him in blank amazement. Why should I put my shirt +on Mrs. Waller? Even if it would fit a lady. And how about +myself? + +I was passing the grand stand, and, glancing up, I saw "Mrs. +Waller, twelve to one," chalked on a bookmaker's board. Then it +dawned upon me that "Mrs. Waller" was a horse, and, thinking +further upon the matter, I evolved the idea that my friend's +advice, expressed in more becoming language, was "Back 'Mrs. +Waller' for as much as you can possibly afford." + +"Thank you," I said to myself, "I have backed cast-iron certainties +before. Next time I bet upon a horse I shall make the selection by +shutting my eyes and putting a pin through the card." + +But the seed had taken root. My friend's words surged in my brain. +The birds passing overhead twittered, "Put your shirt on 'Mrs. +Waller.'" + +I reasoned with myself. I reminded myself of my few former +ventures. But the craving to put, if not my shirt, at all events +half a sovereign on "Mrs. Waller" only grew the stronger the more +strongly I battled against it. I felt that if "Mrs. Waller" won +and I had nothing on her, I should reproach myself to my dying day. + +I was on the other side of the course. There was no time to get +back to the enclosure. The horses were already forming for the +start. A few yards off, under a white umbrella, an outside +bookmaker was shouting his final prices in stentorian tones. He +was a big, genial-looking man, with an honest red face. + +"What price 'Mrs. Waller'?" I asked him. + +"Fourteen to one," he answered, "and good luck to you." + +I handed him half a sovereign, and he wrote me out a ticket. I +crammed it into my waistcoat pocket, and hurried off to see the +race. To my intense astonishment "Mrs. Waller" won. The novel +sensation of having backed the winner so excited me that I forgot +all about my money, and it was not until a good hour afterwards +that I recollected my bet. + +Then I started off to search for the man under the white umbrella. +I went to where I thought I had left him, but no white umbrella +could I find. + +Consoling myself with the reflection that my loss served me right +for having been fool enough to trust an outside "bookie," I turned +on my heel and began to make my way back to my seat. Suddenly a +voice hailed me:- + +"Here you are, sir. It's Jack Burridge you want. Over here, sir." + +I looked round, and there was Jack Burridge at my elbow. + +"I saw you looking about, sir," he said, "but I could not make you +hear. You was looking the wrong side of the tent." + +It was pleasant to find that his honest face had not belied him. + +"It is very good of you," I said; "I had given up all hopes of +seeing you. Or," I added with a smile, "my seven pounds." + +"Seven pun' ten," he corrected me; "you're forgetting your own thin +'un." + +He handed me the money and went back to his stand. + +On my way into the town I came across him again. A small crowd was +collected, thoughtfully watching a tramp knocking about a +miserable-looking woman. + +Jack, pushing to the front, took in the scene and took off his coat +in the same instant. + +"Now then, my fine old English gentleman," he sang out, "come and +have a try at me for a change." + +The tramp was a burly ruffian, and I have seen better boxers than +Jack. He got himself a black eye, and a nasty cut over the lip, +before he hardly knew where he was. But in spite of that--and a +good deal more--he stuck to his man and finished him. + +At the end, as he helped his adversary up, I heard him say to the +fellow in a kindly whisper:- + +"You're too good a sort, you know, to whollop a woman. Why, you +very near give me a licking. You must have forgot yourself, +matey." + +The fellow interested me. I waited and walked on with him. He +told me about his home in London, at Mile End--about his old father +and mother, his little brothers and sisters--and what he was saving +up to do for them. Kindliness oozed from every pore in his skin. + +Many that we met knew him, and all, when they saw his round, red +face, smiled unconsciously. At the corner of the High Street a +pale-faced little drudge of a girl passed us, saying as she slipped +by "Good-evening, Mr. Burridge." + +He made a dart and caught her by the shoulder. + +"And how is father?" he asked. + +"Oh, if you please, Mr. Burridge, he is out again. All the mills +is closed," answered the child. + +"And mother?" + +"She don't get no better, sir." + +"And who's keeping you all?" + +"Oh, if you please, sir, Jimmy's earning something now," replied +the mite. + +He took a couple of sovereigns from his waistcoat pocket, and +closed the child's hand upon them. + +"That's all right, my lass, that's all right," he said, stopping +her stammering thanks. "You write to me if things don't get +better. You know where to find Jack Burridge." + +Strolling about the streets in the evening, I happened to pass the +inn where he was staying. The parlour window was open, and out +into the misty night his deep, cheery voice, trolling forth an old- +fashioned drinking song, came rolling like a wind, cleansing the +corners of one's heart with its breezy humanness. He was sitting +at the head of the table surrounded by a crowd of jovial cronies. +I lingered for a while watching the scene. It made the world +appear a less sombre dwelling-place than I had sometimes pictured +it. + +I determined, on my return to London, to look him up, and +accordingly one evening started to find the little by-street off +the Mile End Road in which he lived. As I turned the corner he +drove up in his dog-cart; it was a smart turn-out. On the seat +beside him sat a neat, withered little old woman, whom he +introduced to me as his mother. + +"I tell 'im it's a fine gell as 'e oughter 'ave up 'ere aside 'im," +said the old lady, preparing to dismount, "an old woman like me +takes all the paint off the show." + +"Get along with yer," he replied laughingly, jumping down and +handing the reins to the lad who had been waiting, "you could give +some of the young uns points yet, mother. I allus promised the old +lady as she should ride behind her own 'oss one day," he continued, +turning to me, "didn't I, mother?" + +"Ay, ay," replied the old soul, as she hobbled nimbly up the steps, +"ye're a good son, Jack, ye're a good son." + +He led the way into the parlour. As he entered every face +lightened up with pleasure, a harmony of joyous welcome greeted +him. The old hard world had been shut out with the slam of the +front door. I seemed to have wandered into Dickensland. The red- +faced man with the small twinkling eyes and the lungs of leather +loomed before me, a large, fat household fairy. From his capacious +pockets came forth tobacco for the old father; a huge bunch of hot- +house grapes for a neighbour's sickly child, who was stopping with +them; a book of Henty's--beloved of boys--for a noisy youngster who +called him "uncle"; a bottle of port wine for a wan, elderly woman +with a swollen face--his widowed sister-in-law, as I subsequently +learned; sweets enough for the baby (whose baby I don't know) to +make it sick for a week; and a roll of music for his youngest +sister. + +"We're a-going to make a lady of her," he said, drawing the child's +shy face against his gaudy waistcoat, and running his coarse hand +through her pretty curls; "and she shall marry a jockey when she +grows up." + +After supper he brewed some excellent whisky punch, and insisted +upon the old lady joining us, which she eventually did with much +coughing and protestation; but I noticed that she finished the +tumblerful. For the children he concocted a marvellous mixture, +which he called an "eye-composer," the chief ingredients being hot +lemonade, ginger wine, sugar, oranges, and raspberry vinegar. It +had the desired effect. + +I stayed till late, listening to his inexhaustible fund of stories. +Over most of them he laughed with us himself--a great gusty laugh +that made the cheap glass ornaments upon the mantelpiece to +tremble; but now and then a recollection came to him that spread a +sudden gravity across his jovial face, bringing a curious quaver +into his deep voice. + +Their tongues a little loosened by the punch, the old folks would +have sung his praises to the verge of tediousness had he not almost +sternly interrupted them. + +"Shut up, mother," he cried at last, quite gruffly, "what I does I +does to please myself. I likes to see people comfortable about me. +If they wasn't, it's me as would be more upset than them." + +I did not see him again for nearly two years. Then one October +evening, strolling about the East End, I met him coming out of a +little Chapel in the Burdett Road. He was so changed that I should +not have known him had not I overheard a woman as she passed him +say, "Good-evening, Mr. Burridge." + +A pair of bushy side-whiskers had given to his red face an +aggressively respectable appearance. He was dressed in an ill- +fitting suit of black, and carried an umbrella in one hand and a +book in the other. + +In some mysterious way he managed to look both thinner and shorter +than my recollection of him. Altogether, he suggested to me the +idea that he himself--the real man--had by some means or other been +extracted, leaving only his shrunken husk behind. The genial +juices of humanity had been squeezed out of him. + +"Not Jack Burridge!" I exclaimed, confronting him in astonishment. + +His little eyes wandered shiftily up and down the street. "No, +sir," he replied (his tones had lost their windy boisterousness--a +hard, metallic voice spoke to me), "not the one as you used to +know, praise be the Lord." + +"And have you given up the old business?" I asked. + +"Yes, sir," he replied, "that's all over; I've been a vile sinner +in my time, God forgive me for it. But, thank Heaven, I have +repented in time." + +"Come and have a drink," I said, slipping my arm through his, "and +tell me all about it." + +He disengaged himself from me, firmly but gently. "You mean well, +sir," he said, "but I have given up the drink." + +Evidently he would have been rid of me, but a literary man, +scenting material for his stockpot, is not easily shaken off. I +asked after the old folks, and if they were still stopping with +him. + +"Yes," he said, "for the present. Of course, a man can't be +expected to keep people for ever; so many mouths to fill is hard +work these times, and everybody sponges on a man just because he's +good-natured." + +"And how are you getting on?" I asked. + +"Tolerably well, thank you, sir. The Lord provides for His +servants," he replied with a smug smile. "I have got a little shop +now in the Commercial Road." + +"Whereabouts?" I persisted. "I would like to call and see you." + +He gave me the address reluctantly, and said he would esteem it a +great pleasure if I would honour him by a visit, which was a +palpable lie. + +The following afternoon I went. I found the place to be a +pawnbroker's shop, and from all appearances he must have been doing +a very brisk business. He was out himself attending a temperance +committee, but his old father was behind the counter, and asked me +inside. Though it was a chilly day there was no fire in the +parlour, and the two old folks sat one each side of the empty +hearth, silent and sad. They seemed little more pleased to see me +than their son, but after a while Mrs. Burridge's natural garrulity +asserted itself, and we fell into chat. + +I asked what had become of his sister-in-law, the lady with the +swollen face. + +"I couldn't rightly tell you, sir," answered the old lady, "she +ain't livin' with us now. You see, sir," she continued, "John's +got different notions to what 'e used to 'ave. 'E don't cotten +much to them as ain't found grace, and poor Jane never did 'ave +much religion!" + +"And the little one?" I inquired. "The one with the curls?" + +"What, Bessie, sir?" said the old lady. "Oh, she's out at service, +sir; John don't think it good for young folks to be idle." + +"Your son seems to have changed a good deal, Mrs. Burridge," I +remarked. + +"Ay, sir," she assented, "you may well say that. It nearly broke +my 'art at fust; everythin' so different to what it 'ad been. Not +as I'd stand in the boy's light. If our being a bit uncomfortable +like in this world is a-going to do 'im any good in the next me and +father ain't the ones to begrudge it, are we, old man?" + +The "old man" concurred grumpily. + +"Was it a sudden conversion?" I asked. "How did it come about?" + +"It was a young woman as started 'im off," explained the old lady. +"She come round to our place one day a-collectin' for somethin' or +other, and Jack, in 'is free-'anded way, 'e give 'er a five-pun' +note. Next week she come agen for somethin' else, and stopped and +talked to 'im about 'is soul in the passage. She told 'im as 'e +was a-goin' straight to 'ell, and that 'e oughter give up the +bookmakin' and settle down to a respec'ble, God-fearin' business. +At fust 'e only laughed, but she lammed in tracts at 'im full of +the most awful language; and one day she fetched 'im round to one +of them revivalist chaps, as fair settled 'im. + +"'E ain't never been his old self since then. 'E give up the +bettin' and bought this 'ere, though what's the difference blessed +if I can see. It makes my 'eart ache, it do, to 'ear my Jack a- +beatin' down the poor people--and it ain't like 'im. It went agen +'is grain at fust, I could see; but they told him as 'ow it was +folks's own fault that they was poor, and as 'ow it was the will of +God, because they was a drinkin', improvident lot. + +"Then they made 'im sign the pledge. 'E'd allus been used to 'is +glass, Jack 'ad, and I think as knockin' it off 'ave soured 'im a +bit--seems as if all the sperit 'ad gone out of 'im--and of course +me and father 'ave 'ad to give up our little drop too. Then they +told 'im as 'e must give up smokin'- that was another way of goin' +straight to 'ell--and that ain't made 'im any the more cheerful +like, and father misses 'is little bit--don't ye, father?" + +"Ay," answered the old fellow savagely; "can't say I thinks much of +these 'ere folks as is going to heaven; blowed if I don't think +they'll be a chirpier lot in t'other place." + +An angry discussion in the shop interrupted us. Jack had returned, +and was threatening an excited woman with the police. It seemed +she had miscalculated the date, and had come a day too late with +her interest. + +Having got rid of her, he came into the parlour with the watch in +his hand. + +"It's providential she was late," he said, looking at it; "it's +worth ten times what I lent on it." + +He packed his father back into the shop, and his mother down into +the kitchen to get his tea, and for a while we sat together +talking. + +I found his conversation a strange mixture of self-laudation, +showing through a flimsy veil of self-disparagement, and of +satisfaction at the conviction that he was "saved," combined with +equally evident satisfaction that most other people weren't-- +somewhat trying, however; and, remembering an appointment, rose to +go. + +He made no effort to stay me, but I could see that he was bursting +to tell me something. At last, taking a religious paper from his +pocket, and pointing to a column, he blurted out: + +"You don't take any interest in the Lord's vineyard, I suppose, +sir?" + +I glanced at the part of the paper indicated. It announced a new +mission to the Chinese, and heading the subscription list stood the +name, "Mr. John Burridge, one hundred guineas." + +"You subscribe largely, Mr. Burridge," I said, handing him back the +paper. + +He rubbed his big hands together. "The Lord will repay a +hundredfold," he answered. + +"In which case it's just as well to have a note of the advance down +in black and white, eh?" I added. + +His little eyes looked sharply at me; but he made no reply, and, +shaking hands, I left him. + + + +THE HOBBY RIDER + + + +Bump. Bump. Bump-bump. Bump. + +I sat up in bed and listened intently. It seemed to me as if +someone with a muffled hammer were trying to knock bricks out of +the wall. + +"Burglars," I said to myself (one assumes, as a matter of course, +that everything happening in this world after 1 a.m. is due to +burglars), and I reflected what a curiously literal, but at the +same time slow and cumbersome, method of housebreaking they had +adopted. + +The bumping continued irregularly, yet uninterruptedly. + +My bed was by the window. I reached out my hand and drew aside a +corner of the curtain. The sunlight streamed into the room. I +looked at my watch: it was ten minutes past five. + +A most unbusinesslike hour for burglars, I thought. Why, it will +be breakfast-time before they get in. + +Suddenly there came a crash, and some substance striking against +the blind fell upon the floor. I sprang out of bed and threw open +the window. + +A red-haired young gentleman, scantily clad in a sweater and a pair +of flannel trousers, stood on the lawn below me. + +"Good morning," he said cheerily. "Do you mind throwing me back my +ball?" + +"What ball?" I said. + +"My tennis ball," he answered. "It must be somewhere in the room; +it went clean through the window." + +I found the ball and threw it back to him, + +*** Quick tidied and spell-checked to here--page 155 *** +"What are you doing?" I asked. "Playing tennis?" + +"No," he said. "I am just practising against the side of the +house. It improves your game wonderfully." + +"It don't improve my night's rest," I answered somewhat surlily I +fear. "I came down here for peace and quiet. Can't you do it in +the daytime?" + +"Daytime!" he laughed. "Why it has been daytime for the last two +hours. Never mind, I'll go round the other side." + +He disappeared round the corner, and set to work at the back, where +he woke up the dog. I heard another window smash, followed by a +sound as of somebody getting up violently in a distant part of the +house, and shortly afterwards I must have fallen asleep again. + +I had come to spend a few weeks at a boarding establishment in +Deal. He was the only other young man in the house, and I was +naturally thrown a good deal upon his society. He was a pleasant, +genial young fellow, but he would have been better company had he +been a little less enthusiastic as regards tennis. + +He played tennis ten hours a day on the average. He got up +romantic parties to play it by moonlight (when half his time was +generally taken up in separating his opponents), and godless +parties to play it on Sundays. On wet days I have seen him +practising services by himself in a mackintosh and goloshes. + +He had been spending the winter with his people at Tangiers, and I +asked him how he liked the place. + +"Oh, a beast of a hole!" he replied. "There is not a court +anywhere in the town. We tried playing on the roof, but the mater +thought it dangerous." + +Switzerland he had been delighted with. He counselled me next time +I went to stay at Zermatt. + +"There is a capital court at Zermatt," he said. "You might almost +fancy yourself at Wimbledon." + +A mutual acquaintance whom I subsequently met told me that at the +top of the Jungfrau he had said to him, his eyes fixed the while +upon a small snow plateau enclosed by precipices a few hundred feet +below them - + +"By Jove! That wouldn't make half a bad little tennis court--that +flat bit down there. Have to be careful you didn't run back too +far." + +When he was not playing tennis, or practising tennis, or reading +about tennis, he was talking about tennis. Renshaw was the +prominent figure in the tennis world at that time, and he mentioned +Renshaw until there grew up within my soul a dark desire to kill +Renshaw in a quiet, unostentatious way, and bury him. + +One drenching afternoon he talked tennis to me for three hours on +end, referring to Renshaw, so far as I kept count, four thousand +nine hundred and thirteen times. After tea he drew his chair to +the window beside me, and commenced - + +"Have you ever noticed how Renshaw--" + +I said - + +"Suppose someone took a gun--someone who could aim very straight-- +and went out and shot Renshaw till he was quite dead, would you +tennis players drop him and talk about somebody else?" + +"Oh, but who would shoot Renshaw?" he said indignantly. + +"Never mind," I said, "supposing someone did?" + +"Well, then, there would be his brother," he replied. + +I had forgotten that. + +"Well, we won't argue about how many of them there are," I said. +"Suppose someone killed the lot, should we hear less of Renshaw?" + +"Never," he replied emphatically. "Renshaw will always be a name +wherever tennis is spoken of." + +I dread to think what the result might have been had his answer +been other than it was. + +The next year he dropped tennis completely and became an ardent +amateur photographer, whereupon all his friends implored him to +return to tennis, and sought to interest him in talk about services +and returns and volleys, and in anecdotes concerning Renshaw. But +he would not heed them. + +Whatever he saw, wherever he went, he took. He took his friends, +and made them his enemies. He took babies, and brought despair to +fond mothers' hearts. He took young wives, and cast a shadow on +the home. Once there was a young man who loved not wisely, so his +friends thought, but the more they talked against her the more he +clung to her. Then a happy idea occurred to the father. He got +Begglely to photograph her in seven different positions. + +When her lover saw the first, he said - + +"What an awful looking thing! Who did it?" + +When Begglely showed him the second, he said - + +"But, my dear fellow, it's not a bit like her. You've made her +look an ugly old woman." + +At the third he said - + +"Whatever have you done to her feet? They can't be that size, you +know. It isn't in nature!" + +At the fourth he exclaimed - + +"But, heavens, man! Look at the shape you've made her. Where on +earth did you get the idea from?" + +At the first glimpse of the fifth he staggered. + +"Great Scott!" he cried with a shudder, "what a ghastly expression +you've got into it! It isn't human!" + +Begglely was growing offended, but the father, who was standing by, +came to his defence. + +"It's nothing to do with Begglely," exclaimed the old gentleman +suavely. "It can't be HIS fault. What is a photographer? Simply +an instrument in the hands of science. He arranges his apparatus, +and whatever is in front of it comes into it." + +"No," continued the old gentleman, laying a constrained hand upon +Begglely, who was about to resume the exhibition, "don't--don't +show him the other two." + +I was sorry for the poor girl, for I believe she really cared for +the youngster; and as for her looks, they were quite up to the +average. But some evil sprite seemed to have got into Begglely's +camera. It seized upon defects with the unerring instinct of a +born critic, and dilated upon them to the obscuration of all +virtues. A man with a pimple became a pimple with a man as +background. People with strongly marked features became merely +adjuncts to their own noses. One man in the neighbourhood had, +undetected, worn a wig for fourteen years. Begglely's camera +discovered the fraud in an instant, and so completely exposed it +that the man's friends wondered afterwards how the fact ever could +have escaped them. The thing seemed to take a pleasure in showing +humanity at its very worst. Babies usually came out with an +expression of low cunning. Most young girls had to take their +choice of appearing either as simpering idiots or embryo vixens. +To mild old ladies it generally gave a look of aggressive cynicism. +Our vicar, as excellent an old gentleman as ever breathed, Begglely +presented to us as a beetle-browed savage of a peculiarly low type +of intellect; while upon the leading solicitor of the town he +bestowed an expression of such thinly-veiled hypocrisy that few who +saw the photograph cared ever again to trust him with their +affairs. + +As regards myself I should, perhaps, make no comment, I am possibly +a prejudiced party. All I will say, therefore, is that if I in any +way resemble Begglely's photograph of me, then the critics are +fully justified in everything they have at any time, anywhere, said +of me--and more. Nor, I maintain--though I make no pretence of +possessing the figure of Apollo--is one of my legs twice the length +of the other, and neither does it curve upwards. This I can prove. +Begglely allowed that an accident had occurred to the negative +during the process of development, but this explanation does not +appear on the picture, and I cannot help feeling that an injustice +has been done me. + +His perspective seemed to be governed by no law either human or +divine. I have seen a photograph of his uncle and a windmill, +judging from which I defy any unprejudiced person to say which is +the bigger, the uncle or the mill. + +On one occasion he created quite a scandal in the parish by +exhibiting a well-known and eminently respectable maiden lady +nursing a young man on her knee. The gentleman's face was +indistinct, and he was dressed in a costume which, upon a man of +his size--one would have estimated him as rising 6 ft. 4 in.-- +appeared absurdly juvenile. He had one arm round her neck, and she +was holding his other hand and smirking. + +I, knowing something of Begglely's machine, willingly accepted the +lady's explanation, which was to the effect that the male in +question was her nephew, aged eleven; but the uncharitable +ridiculed this statement, and appearances were certainly against +her. + +It was in the early days of the photographic craze, and an +inexperienced world was rather pleased with the idea of being taken +on the cheap. The consequence was that nearly everyone for three +miles round sat or stood or leant or laid to Begglely at one time +or another, with the result that a less conceited parish than ours +it would have been difficult to discover. No one who had once +looked upon a photograph of himself taken by Begglely ever again +felt any pride in his personal appearance. The picture was +invariably a revelation to him. + +Later, some evil-disposed person invented Kodaks, and Begglely went +everywhere slung on to a thing that looked like an overgrown +missionary box, and that bore a legend to the effect that if +Begglely would pull the button, a shameless Company would do the +rest. Life became a misery to Begglely's friends. Nobody dared to +do anything for fear of being taken in the act. He took an +instantaneous photograph of his own father swearing at the +gardener, and snapped his youngest sister and her lover at the +exact moment of farewell at the garden gate. Nothing was sacred to +him. He Kodaked his aunt's funeral from behind, and showed the +chief mourner but one whispering a funny story into the ear of the +third cousin as they stood behind their hats beside the grave. + +Public indignation was at its highest when a new comer to the +neighbourhood, a young fellow named Haynoth, suggested the getting +together of a party for a summer's tour in Turkey. Everybody took +up the idea with enthusiasm, and recommended Begglely as the +"party." We had great hopes from that tour. Our idea was that +Begglely would pull his button outside a harem or behind a sultana, +and that a Bashi Bazouk or a Janissary would do the rest for us. + +We were, however, partly doomed to disappointment--I say, "partly," +because, although Begglely returned alive, he came back entirely +cured of his photographic craze. He said that every English- +speaking man, woman, or child whom he met abroad had its camera +with it, and that after a time the sight of a black cloth or the +click of a button began to madden him. + +He told us that on the summit of Mount Tutra, in the Carpathians, +the English and American amateur photographers waiting to take "the +grand panorama" were formed by the Hungarian police in queue, two +abreast, each with his or her camera under his or her arm, and that +a man had to stand sometimes as long as three and a half hours +before his turn came round. He also told us that the beggars in +Constantinople went about with placards hung round their necks, +stating their charges for being photographed. One of these price +lists he brought back with him as a sample. + +It ran:- + + +One snap shot, back or front .. ... ... 2 frcs. + " with expression ... ... 3 " + " surprised in quaint attitude . 4 " + " while saying prayers ... ... 5 " + " while fighting ... ... 10 " + + +He said that in some instances where a man had an exceptionally +villainous cast of countenance, or was exceptionally deformed, as +much as twenty francs were demanded and readily obtained. + +He abandoned photography and took to golf. He showed people how, +by digging a hole here and putting a brickbat or two there, they +could convert a tennis-lawn into a miniature golf link,--and did it +for them. He persuaded elderly ladies and gentlemen that it was +the mildest exercise going, and would drag them for miles over wet +gorse and heather, and bring them home dead beat, coughing, and +full of evil thoughts. + +The last time I saw him was in Switzerland, a few months ago. He +appeared indifferent to the subject of golf, but talked much about +whist. We met by chance at Grindelwald, and agreed to climb the +Faulhorn together next morning. Half-way up we rested, and I +strolled on a little way by myself to gain a view. Returning, I +found him with a "Cavendish" in his hand and a pack of cards spread +out before him on the grass, solving a problem. + + + +THE MAN WHO DID NOT BELIEVE IN LUCK + + + +He got in at Ipswich with seven different weekly papers under his +arm. I noticed that each one insured its reader against death or +injury by railway accident. He arranged his luggage upon the rack +above him, took off his hat and laid it on the seat beside him, +mopped his bald head with a red silk handkerchief, and then set to +work steadily to write his name and address upon each of the seven +papers. I sat opposite to him and read Punch. I always take the +old humour when travelling; I find it soothing to the nerves. + +Passing over the points at Manningtree the train gave a lurch, and +a horse-shoe he had carefully placed in the rack above him slipped +through the netting, falling with a musical ring upon his head. + +He appeared neither surprised nor angry. Having staunched the +wound with his handkerchief, he stooped and picked the horse-shoe +up, glanced at it with, as I thought, an expression of reproach, +and dropped it gently out of the window. + +"Did it hurt you?" I asked. + +It was a foolish question. I told myself so the moment I had +uttered it. The thing must have weighed three pounds at the least; +it was an exceptionally large and heavy shoe. The bump on his head +was swelling visibly before my eyes. Anyone but an idiot must have +seen that he was hurt. I expected an irritable reply. I should +have given one myself had I been in his place. Instead, however, +he seemed to regard the inquiry as a natural and kindly expression +of sympathy. + +"It did, a little," he replied. + +"What were you doing with it?" I asked. It was an odd sort of +thing for a man to be travelling with. + +"It was lying in the roadway just outside the station," he +explained; "I picked it up for luck." + +He refolded his handkerchief so as to bring a cooler surface in +contact with the swelling, while I murmured something genial about +the inscrutability of Providence. + +"Yes," he said, "I've had a deal of luck in my time, but it's never +turned out well." + +"I was born on a Wednesday," he continued, "which, as I daresay you +know, is the luckiest day a man can be born on. My mother was a +widow, and none of my relatives would do anything for me. They +said it would be like taking coals to Newcastle, helping a boy born +on a Wednesday; and my uncle, when he died, left every penny of his +money to my brother Sam, as a slight compensation to him for having +been born on a Friday. All I ever got was advice upon the duties +and responsibilities of wealth, when it arrived, and entreaties +that I would not neglect those with claims upon me when I came to +be a rich man." + +He paused while folding up his various insurance papers and placing +them in the inside breast-pocket of his coat. + +"Then there are black cats," he went on; "they're said to be lucky. +Why, there never was a blacker cat than the one that followed me +into my rooms in Bolsover Street the very first night I took them." + +"Didn't it bring you luck?" I enquired, finding that he had +stopped. + +A far-away look came into his eyes. + +"Well, of course it all depends," he answered dreamily. "Maybe +we'd never have suited one another; you can always look at it that +way. Still, I'd like to have tried." + +He sat staring out of the window, and for a while I did not care to +intrude upon his evidently painful memories. + +"What happened then?" I asked, however, at last. + +He roused himself from his reverie. + +"Oh," he said. "Nothing extraordinary. She had to leave London +for a time, and gave me her pet canary to take charge of while she +was away." + +"But it wasn't your fault," I urged. + +"No, perhaps not," he agreed; "but it created a coldness which +others were not slow to take advantage of." + +"I offered her the cat, too," he added, but more to himself than to +me. + +We sat and smoked in silence. I felt that the consolations of a +stranger would sound weak. + +"Piebald horses are lucky, too," he observed, knocking the ashes +from his pipe against the window sash. "I had one of them once." + +"What did it do to you?" I enquired. + +"Lost me the best crib I ever had in my life," was the simple +rejoinder. "The governor stood it a good deal longer than I had +any right to expect; but you can't keep a man who is ALWAYS drunk. +It gives a firm a bad name." + +"It would," I agreed. + +"You see," he went on, "I never had the head for it. To some men +it would not have so much mattered, but the very first glass was +enough to upset me. I'd never been used to it." + +"But why did you take it?" I persisted. "The horse didn't make you +drink, did he?" + +"Well, it was this way," he explained, continuing to rub gently the +lump which was now about the size of an egg. "The animal had +belonged to a gentleman who travelled in the wine and spirit line, +and who had been accustomed to visit in the way of business almost +every public-house he came to. The result was you couldn't get +that little horse past a public-house --at least I couldn't. He +sighted them a quarter of a mile off, and made straight for the +door. I struggled with him at first, but it was five to ten +minutes' work getting him away, and folks used to gather round and +bet on us. I think, maybe, I'd have stuck to it, however, if it +hadn't been for a temperance chap who stopped one day and lectured +the crowd about it from the opposite side of the street. He called +me Pilgrim, and said the little horse was 'Pollion,' or some such +name, and kept on shouting out that I was to fight him for a +heavenly crown. After that they called us "Polly and the Pilgrim, +fighting for the crown." It riled me, that did, and at the very +next house at which he pulled up I got down and said I'd come for +two of Scotch. That was the beginning. It took me years to break +myself of the habit. + +"But there," he continued, "it has always been the same. I hadn't +been a fortnight in my first situation before my employer gave me a +goose weighing eighteen pounds as a Christmas present." + +"Well, that couldn't have done you any harm," I remarked. "That +was lucky enough." + +"So the other clerks said at the time," he replied. "The old +gentleman had never been known to give anything away before in his +life. 'He's taken a fancy to you,' they said; 'you are a lucky +beggar!'" + +He sighed heavily. I felt there was a story attached. + +"What did you do with it?" I asked. + +"That was the trouble," he returned. "I didn't know what to do +with it. It was ten o'clock on Christmas Eve, just as I was +leaving, that he gave it to me. 'Tiddling Brothers have sent me a +goose, Biggles,' he said to me as I helped him on with his great- +coat. 'Very kind of 'em, but I don't want it myself; you can have +it!' + +"Of course I thanked him, and was very grateful. He wished me a +merry Christmas and went out. I tied the thing up in brown paper, +and took it under my arm. It was a fine bird, but heavy. + +"Under all the circumstances, and it being Christmas time, I +thought I would treat myself to a glass of beer. I went into a +quiet little house at the corner of the Lane and laid the goose on +the counter. + +"'That's a big 'un,' said the landlord; 'you'll get a good cut off +him to-morrow.' + +"His words set me thinking, and for the first time it struck me +that I didn't want the bird--that it was of no use to me at all. I +was going down to spend the holidays with my young lady's people in +Kent." + +"Was this the canary young lady?" I interrupted. + +"No," he replied. "This was before that one. It was this goose +I'm telling you of that upset this one. Well, her folks were big +farmers; it would have been absurd taking a goose down to them, and +I knew no one in London to give it to, so when the landlord came +round again I asked him if he would care to buy it. I told him he +could have it cheap, + +"'I don't want it myself,' he answered. 'I've got three in the +house already. Perhaps one of these gentlemen would like to make +an offer.' + +"He turned to a couple of chaps who were sitting drinking gin. +They didn't look to me worth the price of a chicken between them. +The seediest said he'd like to look at it, however, and I undid the +parcel. He mauled the thing pretty considerably, and cross- +examined me as to how I come by it, ending by upsetting half a +tumbler of gin and water over it. Then he offered me half a crown +for it. It made me so angry that I took the brown paper and the +string in one hand and the goose in the other, and walked straight +out without saying a word. + +"I carried it in this way for some distance, because I was excited +and didn't care how I carried it; but as I cooled, I began to +reflect how ridiculous I must look. One or two small boys +evidently noticed the same thing. I stopped under a lamp-post and +tried to tie it up again. I had a bag and an umbrella with me at +the same time, and the first thing I did was to drop the goose into +the gutter, which is just what I might have expected to do, +attempting to handle four separate articles and three yards of +string with one pair of hands. I picked up about a quart of mud +with that goose, and got the greater part of it over my hands and +clothes and a fair quantity over the brown paper; and then it began +to rain. + +"I bundled everything up into my arm and made for the nearest pub, +where I thought I would ask for a piece more string and make a neat +job of it. + +"The bar was crowded. I pushed my way to the counter and flung the +goose down in front of me. The men nearest stopped talking to look +at it; and a young fellow standing next to me said - + +"'Well, you've killed it.' I daresay I did seem a bit excited. + +"I had intended making another effort to sell it here, but they +were clearly not the right sort. I had a pint of ale--for I was +feeling somewhat tired and hot--scraped as much of the mud off the +bird as I could, made a fresh parcel of it, and came out. + +"Crossing the road a happy idea occurred to me. I thought I would +raffle it. At once I set to work to find a house where there might +seem to be a likely lot. It cost me three or four whiskies--for I +felt I didn't want any more beer, which is a thing that easily +upsets me--but at length I found just the crowd I wanted--a quiet +domestic-looking set in a homely little place off the Goswell Road. + +"I explained my views to the landlord. He said he had no +objection; he supposed I would stand drinks round afterwards. I +said I should be delighted to do so, and showed him the bird. + +"'It looks a bit poorly,' he said. He was a Devonshire man. + +"'Oh, that's nothing,' I explained. 'I happened to drop it. That +will all wash off.' + +"'It smells a bit queer, too,' he said. + +"'That's mud,' I answered; 'you know what London mud is. And a +gentleman spilled some gin over it. Nobody will notice that when +it's cooked.' + +"'Well,' he replied. 'I don't think I'll take a hand myself, but +if any other gent likes to, that's his affair.' + +"Nobody seemed enthusiastic. I started it at sixpence, and took a +ticket myself. The potman had a free chance for superintending the +arrangements, and he succeeded in inducing five other men, much +against their will, to join us. I won it myself, and paid out +three and twopence for drinks. A solemn-looking individual who had +been snoring in a corner suddenly woke up as I was going out, and +offered me sevenpence ha'penny for it--why sevenpence ha'penny I +have never been able to understand. He would have taken it away, I +should never have seen it again, and my whole life might have been +different. But Fate has always been against me. I replied, with +perhaps unnecessary hauteur, that I wasn't a Christmas dinner fund +for the destitute, and walked out. + +"It was getting late, and I had a long walk home to my lodgings. I +was beginning to wish I had never seen the bird. I estimated its +weight by this time to be thirty-six pounds. + +"The idea occurred to me to sell it to a poulterer. I looked for a +shop, I found one in Myddleton Street. There wasn't a customer +near it, but by the way the man was shouting you might have thought +that he was doing all the trade of Clerkenwell. I took the goose +out of the parcel and laid it on the shelf before him. + +"'What's this?' he asked. + +"'It's a goose,' I said. 'You can have it cheap.' + +"He just seized the thing by the neck and flung it at me. I +dodged, and it caught the side of my head. You can have no idea, +if you've never been hit on the head with a goose, how if hurts. I +picked it up and hit him back with it, and a policeman came up with +the usual, 'Now then, what's all this about?' + +"I explained the facts. The poulterer stepped to the edge of the +curb and apostrophised the universe generally. + +"'Look at that shop,' he said. "It's twenty minutes to twelve, and +there's seven dozen geese hanging there that I'm willing to give +away, and this fool asks me if I want to buy another.' + +"I perceived then that my notion had been a foolish one, and I +followed the policeman's advice, and went away quietly, taking the +bird with me. + +"Then said I to myself, 'I will give it away. I will select some +poor deserving person, and make him a present of the damned thing.' +I passed a good many people, but no one looked deserving enough. +It may have been the time or it may have been the neighbourhood, +but those I met seemed to me to be unworthy of the bird. I offered +it to a man in Judd Street, who I thought appeared hungry. He +turned out to be a drunken ruffian. I could not make him +understand what I meant, and he followed me down the road abusing +me at the top of his voice, until, turning a corner without knowing +it, he plunged down Tavistock Place, shouting after the wrong man. +In the Euston Road I stopped a half-starved child and pressed it +upon her. She answered 'Not me!' and ran away. I heard her +calling shrilly after me, 'Who stole the goose?' + +"I dropped it in a dark part of Seymour Street. A man picked it up +and brought it after me. I was unequal to any more explanations or +arguments. I gave him twopence and plodded on with it once more. +The pubs were just closing, and I went into one for a final drink. +As a matter of fact I had had enough already, being, as I am, +unaccustomed to anything more than an occasional class of beer. +But I felt depressed, and I thought it might cheer me. I think I +had gin, which is a thing I loathe. + +"I meant to fling it over into Oakley Square, but a policeman had +his eye on me, and followed me twice round the railings. In +Golding Road I sought to throw it down an area, but was frustrated +in like manner. The whole night police of London seemed to have +nothing else to do but prevent my getting rid of that goose. + +"They appeared so anxious about it that I fancied they might like +to have it. I went up to one in Camden Street. I called him +'Bobby,' and asked him if he wanted a goose. + +"'I'll tell you what I don't want,' he replied severely, 'and that +is none of your sauce.' + +"He was very insulting, and I naturally answered him back. What +actually passed I forget, but it ended in his announcing his +intention of taking me in charge. + +"I slipped out of his hands and bolted down King Street. He blew +his whistle and started after me. A man sprang out from a doorway +in College Street and tried to stop me. I tied him up with a butt +in the stomach, and cut through the Crescent, doubling back into +the Camden Road by Batt Street. + +"At the Canal Bridge I looked behind me, and could see no one. I +dropped the goose over the parapet, and it fell with a splash into +the water. + +"Heaving a sigh of relief, I turned and crossed into Randolph +Street, and there a constable collared me. I was arguing with him +when the first fool came up breathless. They told me I had better +explain the matter to the Inspector, and I thought so too. + +"The Inspector asked me why I had run away when the other constable +wanted to take me in charge. I replied that it was because I did +not desire to spend my Christmas holidays in the lock-up, which he +evidently regarded as a singularly weak argument. He asked me what +I had thrown into the canal. I told him a goose. He asked me why +I had thrown a goose into the canal. I told him because I was sick +and tired of the animal. + +"At this stage a sergeant came in to say that they had succeeded in +recovering the parcel. They opened it on the Inspector's table. +It contained a dead baby. + +"I pointed out to them that it wasn't my parcel, and that it wasn't +my baby, but they hardly took the trouble to disguise the fact that +they did not believe me. + +"The Inspector said it was too grave a case for bail, which, seeing +that I did not know a soul in London, was somewhat immaterial. I +got them to send a telegram to my young lady to say that I was +unavoidably detained in town, and passed as quiet and uneventful a +Christmas Day and Boxing Day as I ever wish to spend. + +"In the end the evidence against me was held to be insufficient to +justify a conviction, and I got off on the minor charge of drunk +and disorderly. But I lost my situation and I lost my young lady, +and I don't care if I never see a goose again." + +We were nearing Liverpool Street. He collected his luggage, and +taking up his hat made an attempt to put it on his head. But in +consequence of the swelling caused by the horseshoe it would not go +anywhere near him, and he laid it sadly back upon the seat. + +"No," he said quietly, "I can't say that I believe very much in +luck." + + + +DICK DUNKERMAN'S CAT + + + +Richard Dunkerman and I had been old school-fellows, if a gentleman +belonging to the Upper Sixth, and arriving each morning in a +"topper" and a pair of gloves, and "a discredit to the Lower +Fourth," in a Scotch cap, can by any manner of means be classed +together. And though in those early days a certain amount of +coldness existed between us, originating in a poem, composed and +sung on occasions by myself in commemoration of an alleged painful +incident connected with a certain breaking-up day, and which, if I +remember rightly ran:- + + +Dicky, Dicky, Dunk, +Always in a funk, +Drank a glass of sherry wine, +And went home roaring drunk, + + +and kept alive by his brutal criticism of the same, expressed with +the bony part of the knee, yet in after life we came to know and +like each other better. I drifted into journalism, while he for +years had been an unsuccessful barrister and dramatist; but one +spring, to the astonishment of us all, he brought out the play of +the season, a somewhat impossible little comedy, but full of homely +sentiment and belief in human nature. It was about a couple of +months after its production that he first introduced me to +"Pyramids, Esquire." + +I was in love at the time. Her name was, I think, Naomi, and I +wanted to talk to somebody about her. Dick had a reputation for +taking an intelligent interest in other men's love affairs. He +would let a lover rave by the hour to him, taking brief notes the +while in a bulky red-covered volume labelled "Commonplace Book." +Of course everybody knew that he was using them merely as raw +material for his dramas, but we did not mind that so long as he +would only listen. I put on my hat and went round to his chambers. + +We talked about indifferent matters for a quarter of an hour or so, +and then I launched forth upon my theme. I had exhausted her +beauty and goodness, and was well into my own feelings--the madness +of my ever imagining I had loved before, the utter impossibility of +my ever caring for any other woman, and my desire to die breathing +her name--before he made a move. I thought he had risen to reach +down, as usual, the "Commonplace Book," and so waited, but instead +he went to the door and opened it, and in glided one of the largest +and most beautiful black tom-cats I have ever seen. It sprang on +Dick's knee with a soft "cur-roo," and sat there upright, watching +me, and I went on with my tale. + +After a few minutes Dick interrupted me with:- + +"I thought you said her name was Naomi?" + +"So it is," I replied. "Why?" + +"Oh, nothing," he answered, "only just now you referred to her as +Enid." + +This was remarkable, as I had not seen Enid for years, and had +quite forgotten her. Somehow it took the glitter out of the +conversation. A dozen sentences later Dick stopped me again with:- + +"Who's Julia?" + +I began to get irritated. Julia, I remembered, had been cashier in +a city restaurant, and had, when I was little more than a boy, +almost inveigled me into an engagement. I found myself getting hot +at the recollection of the spooney rhapsodies I had hoarsely poured +into her powder-streaked ear while holding her flabby hand across +the counter. + +"Did I really say 'Julia'?" I answered somewhat sharply, "or are +you joking?" + +"You certainly alluded to her as Julia," he replied mildly. "But +never mind, you go on as you like, I shall know whom you mean." + +But the flame was dead within me. I tried to rekindle it, but +every time I glanced up and met the green eyes of the black Tom it +flickered out again. I recalled the thrill that had penetrated my +whole being when Naomi's hand had accidently touched mine in the +conservatory, and wondered whether she had done it on purpose. I +thought how good and sweet she was to that irritatingly silly old +frump her mother, and wondered if it really were her mother, or +only hired. I pictured her crown of gold-brown hair as I had last +seen it with the sunlight kissing its wanton waves, and felt I +would like to be quite sure that it were all her own. + +Once I clutched the flying skirts of my enthusiasm with sufficient +firmness to remark that in my own private opinion a good woman was +more precious than rubies; adding immediately afterwards--the words +escaping me unconsciously before I was aware even of the thought-- +"pity it's so difficult to tell 'em." + +Then I gave it up, and sat trying to remember what I had said to +her the evening before, and hoping I had not committed myself. + +Dick's voice roused me from my unpleasant reverie. + +"No," he said, "I thought you would not be able to. None of them +can." + +"None of them can what?" I asked. Somehow I was feeling angry with +Dick and with Dick's cat, and with myself and most other things. + +"Why talk love or any other kind of sentiment before old Pyramids +here?" he replied, stroking the cat's soft head as it rose and +arched its back. + +"What's the confounded cat got to do with it?" I snapped. + +"That's just what I can't tell you," he answered, "but it's very +remarkable. Old Leman dropped in here the other evening and began +in his usual style about Ibsen and the destiny of the human race, +and the Socialistic idea and all the rest of it--you know his way. +Pyramids sat on the edge of the table there and looked at him, just +as he sat looking at you a few minutes ago, and in less than a +quarter of an hour Leman had come to the conclusion that society +would do better without ideals and that the destiny of the human +race was in all probability the dust heap. He pushed his long hair +back from his eyes and looked, for the first time in his life, +quite sane. 'We talk about ourselves,' he said, 'as though we were +the end of creation. I get tired listening to myself sometimes. +Pah!' he continued, 'for all we know the human race may die out +utterly and another insect take our place, as possibly we pushed +out and took the place of a former race of beings. I wonder if the +ant tribe may not be the future inheritors of the earth. They +understand combination, and already have an extra sense that we +lack. If in the courses of evolution they grow bigger in brain and +body, they may become powerful rivals, who knows?' Curious to hear +old Leman talking like that, wasn't it?" + +"What made you call him 'Pyramids'?" I asked of Dick. + +"I don't know," he answered, "I suppose because he looked so old. +The name came to me." + +I leaned across and looked into the great green eyes, and the +creature, never winking, never blinking, looked back into mine, +until the feeling came to me that I was being drawn down into the +very wells of time. It seemed as though the panorama of the ages +must have passed in review before those expressionless orbs--all +the loves and hopes and desires of mankind; all the everlasting +truths that have been found false; all the eternal faiths +discovered to save, until it was discovered they damned. The +strange black creature grew and grew till it seemed to fill the +room, and Dick and I to be but shadows floating in the air. + +I forced from myself a laugh, that only in part, however, broke the +spell, and inquired of Dick how he had acquired possession of it. + +"It came to me," he answered, "one night six months ago. I was +down on my luck at the time. Two of my plays, on which I had built +great hopes, had failed, one on top of the other--you remember +them--and it appeared absurd to think that any manager would ever +look at anything of mine again. Old Walcott had just told me that +he did not consider it right of me under all the circumstances to +hold Lizzie any longer to her engagement, and that I ought to go +away and give her a chance of forgetting me, and I had agreed with +him. I was alone in the world, and heavily in debt. Altogether +things seemed about as hopeless as they could be, and I don't mind +confessing to you now that I had made up my mind to blow out my +brains that very evening. I had loaded my revolver, and it lay +before me on the desk. My hand was toying with it when I heard a +faint scratching at the door. I paid no attention at first, but it +grew more persistent, and at length, to stop the faint noise which +excited me more than I could account for, I rose and opened the +door and IT walked in. + +"It perched itself upon the corner of my desk beside the loaded +pistol, and sat there bolt upright looking at me; and I, pushing +back my chair, sat looking at it. And there came a letter telling +me that a man of whose name I had never heard had been killed by a +cow in Melbourne, and that under his will a legacy of three +thousand pounds fell into the estate of a distant relative of my +own who had died peacefully and utterly insolvent eighteen months +previously, leaving me his sole heir and representative, and I put +the revolver back into the drawer." + +"Do you think Pyramids would come and stop with me for a week?" I +asked, reaching over to stroke the cat as it lay softly purring on +Dick's knee. + +"Maybe he will some day," replied Dick in a low voice, but before +the answer came--I know not why--I had regretted the jesting words. + +"I came to talk to him as though he were a human creature," +continued Dick, "and to discuss things with him. My last play I +regard as a collaboration; indeed, it is far more his than mine." + +I should have thought Dick mad had not the cat been sitting there +before me with its eyes looking into mine. As it was, I only grew +more interested in his tale. + +"It was rather a cynical play as I first wrote it," he went on, "a +truthful picture of a certain corner of society as I saw and knew +it. From an artistic point of view I felt it was good; from the +box-office standard it was doubtful. I drew it from my desk on the +third evening after Pyramids' advent, and read it through. He sat +on the arm of the chair and looked over the pages as I turned them. + +"It was the best thing I had ever written. Insight into life ran +through every line, I found myself reading it again with delight. +Suddenly a voice beside me said:- + +"'Very clever, my boy, very clever indeed. If you would just turn +it topsy-turvy, change all those bitter, truthful speeches into +noble sentiments; make your Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs +(who never has been a popular character) die in the last act +instead of the Yorkshireman, and let your bad woman be reformed by +her love for the hero and go off somewhere by herself and be good +to the poor in a black frock, the piece might be worth putting on +the stage.' + +"I turned indignantly to see who was speaking. The opinions +sounded like those of a theatrical manager. No one was in the room +but I and the cat. No doubt I had been talking to myself, but the +voice was strange to me. + +"'Be reformed by her love for the hero!' I retorted, +contemptuously, for I was unable to grasp the idea that I was +arguing only with myself, 'why it's his mad passion for her that +ruins his life.' + +"'And will ruin the play with the great B.P.,' returned the other +voice. 'The British dramatic hero has no passion, but a pure and +respectful admiration for an honest, hearty English girl-- +pronounced "gey-url." You don't know the canons of your art.' + +"'And besides,' I persisted, unheeding the interruption, 'women +born and bred and soaked for thirty years in an atmosphere of sin +don't reform.' + +"'Well, this one's got to, that's all,' was the sneering reply, +'let her hear an organ.' + +"'But as an artist -,' I protested. + +"'You will be always unsuccessful,' was the rejoinder. 'My dear +fellow, you and your plays, artistic or in artistic, will be +forgotten in a very few years hence. You give the world what it +wants, and the world will give you what you want. Please, if you +wish to live.' + +"So, with Pyramids beside me day by day, I re-wrote the play, and +whenever I felt a thing to be utterly impossible and false I put it +down with a grin. And every character I made to talk clap-trap +sentiment while Pyramids purred, and I took care that everyone of +my puppets did that which was right in the eyes of the lady with +the lorgnettes in the second row of the dress circle; and old +Hewson says the play will run five hundred nights. + +"But what is worst," concluded Dick, "is that I am not ashamed of +myself, and that I seem content." + +"What do you think the animal is?" I asked with a laugh, "an evil +spirit"? For it had passed into the next room and so out through +the open window, and its strangely still green eyes no longer +drawing mine towards them, I felt my common sense returning to me. + +"You have not lived with it for six months," answered Dick quietly, +"and felt its eyes for ever on you as I have. And I am not the +only one. You know Canon Whycherly, the great preacher?" + +"My knowledge of modern church history is not extensive," I +replied. "I know him by name, of course. What about him?" + +"He was a curate in the East End," continued Dick, and for ten +years he laboured, poor and unknown, leading one of those noble, +heroic lives that here and there men do yet live, even in this age. +Now he is the prophet of the fashionable up-to-date Christianity of +South Kensington, drives to his pulpit behind a pair of thorough- +bred Arabs, and his waistcoat is taking to itself the curved line +of prosperity. He was in here the other morning on behalf of +Princess --. They are giving a performance of one of my plays in +aid of the Destitute Vicars' Fund." + +"And did Pyramids discourage him?" I asked, with perhaps the +suggestion of a sneer. + +"No," answered Dick, "so far as I could judge, it approved the +scheme. The point of the matter is that the moment Whycherly came +into the room the cat walked over to him and rubbed itself +affectionately against his legs. He stood and stroked it." + +"'Oh, so it's come to you, has it?' he said, with a curious smile. + +"There was no need for any further explanation between us. I +understood what lay behind those few words." + +I lost sight of Dick for some time, though I heard a good deal of +him, for he was rapidly climbing into the position of the most +successful dramatist of the day, and Pyramids I had forgotten all +about, until one afternoon calling on an artist friend who had +lately emerged from the shadows of starving struggle into the +sunshine of popularity, I saw a pair of green eyes that seemed +familiar to me gleaming at me from a dark corner of the studio. + +"Why, surely," I exclaimed, crossing over to examine the animal +more closely, "why, yes, you've got Dick Dunkerman's cat." + +He raised his face from the easel and glanced across at me. + +"Yes," he said, "we can't live on ideals," and I, remembering, +hastened to change the conversation. + +Since then I have met Pyramids in the rooms of many friends of +mine. They give him different names, but I am sure it is the same +cat, I know those green eyes. He always brings them luck, but they +are never quite the same men again afterwards. + +Sometimes I sit wondering if I hear his scratching at the door. + + + +THE MINOR POET'S STORY + + + +"It doesn't suit you at all," I answered. + +"You're very disagreeable," said she, "I shan't ever ask your +advice again." + +"Nobody," I hastened to add, "would look well in it. You, of +course, look less awful in it than any other woman would, but it's +not your style." + +"He means," exclaimed the Minor Poet, "that the thing itself not +being pre-eminently beautiful, it does not suit, is not in +agreement with you. The contrast between you and anything +approaching the ugly or the commonplace, is too glaring to be aught +else than displeasing." + +"He didn't say it," replied the Woman of the World; "and besides it +isn't ugly. It's the very latest fashion." + +"Why is it," asked the Philosopher, "that women are such slaves to +fashion? They think clothes, they talk clothes, they read clothes, +yet they have never understood clothes. The purpose of dress, +after the primary object of warmth has been secured, is to adorn, +to beautify the particular wearer. Yet not one woman in a thousand +stops to consider what colours will go best with her complexion, +what cut will best hide the defects or display the advantages of +her figure. If it be the fashion, she must wear it. And so we +have pale-faced girls looking ghastly in shades suitable to dairy- +maids, and dots waddling about in costumes fit and proper to six- +footers. It is as if crows insisted on wearing cockatoo's feathers +on their heads, and rabbits ran about with peacocks' tails fastened +behind them." + +"And are not you men every bit as foolish?" retorted the Girton +Girl. "Sack coats come into fashion, and dumpy little men trot up +and down in them, looking like butter-tubs on legs. You go about +in July melting under frock-coats and chimney-pot hats, and because +it is the stylish thing to do, you all play tennis in still shirts +and stand-up collars, which is idiotic. If fashion decreed that +you should play cricket in a pair of top-boots and a diver's +helmet, you would play cricket in a pair of top-boots and a diver's +helmet, and dub every sensible fellow who didn't a cad. It's worse +in you than in us; men are supposed to think for themselves, and to +be capable of it, the womanly woman isn't." + +"Big women and little men look well in nothing," said the Woman of +the World. "Poor Emily was five foot ten and a half, and never +looked an inch under seven foot, whatever she wore. Empires came +into fashion, and the poor child looked like the giant's baby in a +pantomime. We thought the Greek might help her, but it only +suggested a Crystal Palace statue tied up in a sheet, and tied up +badly; and when puff-sleeves and shoulder-capes were in and Teddy +stood up behind her at a water-party and sang 'Under the spreading +chestnut-tree,' she took it as a personal insult and boxed his +ears. Few men liked to be seen with her, and I'm sure George +proposed to her partly with the idea of saving himself the expense +of a step-ladder, she reaches down his boots for him from the top +shelf." + +"I," said the Minor Poet, "take up the position of not wanting to +waste my brain upon the subject. Tell me what to wear, and I will +wear it, and there is an end of the matter. If Society says, 'Wear +blue shirts and white collars,' I wear blue shirts and white +collars. If she says, 'The time has now come when hats should be +broad-brimmed,' I take unto myself a broad-brimmed hat. The +question does not interest me sufficiently for me to argue it. It +is your fop who refuses to follow fashion. He wishes to attract +attention to himself by being peculiar. A novelist whose books +pass unnoticed, gains distinction by designing his own necktie; and +many an artist, following the line of least resistance, learns to +let his hair grow instead of learning to paint." + +"The fact is," remarked the Philosopher, "we are the mere creatures +of fashion. Fashion dictates to us our religion, our morality, our +affections, our thoughts. In one age successful cattle-lifting is +a virtue, a few hundred years later company-promoting takes its +place as a respectable and legitimate business. In England and +America Christianity is fashionable, in Turkey, Mohammedanism, and +'the crimes of Clapham are chaste in Martaban.' In Japan a woman +dresses down to the knees, but would be considered immodest if she +displayed bare arms. In Europe it is legs that no pure-minded +woman is supposed to possess. In China we worship our mother-in- +law and despise our wife; in England we treat our wife with +respect, and regard our mother-in-law as the bulwark of comic +journalism. The stone age, the iron age, the age of faith, the age +of infidelism, the philosophic age, what are they but the passing +fashions of the world? It is fashion, fashion, fashion wherever we +turn. Fashion waits beside our cradle to lead us by the hand +through life. Now literature is sentimental, now hopefully +humorous, now psychological, now new-womanly. Yesterday's pictures +are the laughing-stock of the up-to-date artist of to-day, and to- +day's art will be sneered at to-morrow. Now it is fashionable to +be democratic, to pretend that no virtue or wisdom can exist +outside corduroy, and to abuse the middle classes. One season we +go slumming, and the next we are all socialists. We think we are +thinking; we are simply dressing ourselves up in words we do not +understand for the gods to laugh at us." + +"Don't be pessimistic," retorted the Minor Poet, "pessimism is +going out. You call such changes fashions, I call them the +footprints of progress. Each phase of thought is an advance upon +the former, bringing the footsteps of the many nearer to the +landmarks left by the mighty climbers of the past upon the mountain +paths of truth. The crowd that was satisfied with The Derby Day +now appreciates Millet. The public that were content to wag their +heads to The Bohemian Girl have made Wagner popular." + +"And the play lovers, who stood for hours to listen to +Shakespeare," interrupted the Philosopher, "now crowd to music- +halls." + +"The track sometimes descends for a little way, but it will wind +upwards again," returned the Poet. "The music-hall itself is +improving; I consider it the duty of every intellectual man to +visit such places. The mere influence of his presence helps to +elevate the tone of the performance. I often go myself!" + +"I was looking," said the Woman of the World, "at some old +illustrated papers of thirty years ago, showing the men dressed in +those very absurd trousers, so extremely roomy about the waist, and +so extremely tight about the ankles. I recollect poor papa in +them; I always used to long to fill them out by pouring in sawdust +at the top." + +"You mean the peg-top period," I said. "I remember them distinctly +myself, but it cannot be more than three-and-twenty years ago at +the outside." + +"That is very nice of you," replied the Woman of the World, "and +shows more tact than I should have given you credit for. It could, +as you say, have been only twenty-three years ago. I know I was a +very little girl at the time. I think there must be some subtle +connection between clothes and thought. I cannot imagine men in +those trousers and Dundreary whiskers talking as you fellows are +talking now, any more than I could conceive of a woman in a +crinoline and a poke bonnet smoking a cigarette. I think it must +be so, because dear mother used to be the most easy-going woman in +the world in her ordinary clothes, and would let papa smoke all +over the house. But about once every three weeks she would put on +a hideous old-fashioned black silk dress, that looked as if Queen +Elizabeth must have slept in it during one of those seasons when +she used to go about sleeping anywhere, and then we all had to sit +up. 'Look out, ma's got her black silk dress on,' came to be a +regular formula. We could always make papa take us out for a walk +or a drive by whispering it to him." + +"I can never bear to look at those pictures of by-gone fashions," +said the Old Maid, "I see the by-gone people in them, and it makes +me feel as though the faces that we love are only passing fashions +with the rest. We wear them for a little while upon our hearts, +and think so much of them, and then there comes a time when we lay +them by, and forget them, and newer faces take their place, and we +are satisfied. It seems so sad." + +"I wrote a story some years ago," remarked the Minor Poet, "about a +young Swiss guide, who was betrothed to a laughing little French +peasant girl." + +"Named Suzette," interrupted the Girton Girl. "I know her. Go +on." + +"Named Jeanne," corrected the Poet, "the majority of laughing +French girls, in fiction, are named Suzette, I am well aware. But +this girl's mother's family was English. She was christened Jeanne +after an aunt Jane, who lived in Birmingham, and from whom she had +expectations." + +"I beg your pardon," apologised the Girton Girl, "I was not aware +of that fact. What happened to her?" + +"One morning, a few days before the date fixed for the wedding," +said the Minor Poet, "she started off to pay a visit to a relative +living in the village, the other side of the mountain. It was a +dangerous track, climbing half-way up the mountain before it +descended again, and skirting more than one treacherous slope, but +the girl was mountain born and bred, sure-footed as a goat, and no +one dreamed of harm." + +"She went over, of course," said the Philosopher, "those sure- +footed girls always do." + +"What happened," replied the Minor Poet, "was never known. The +girl was never seen again." + +"And what became of her lover?" asked the Girton Girl. "Was he, +when next year's snow melted, and the young men of the village went +forth to gather Edelweiss, wherewith to deck their sweethearts, +found by them dead, beside her, at the bottom of the crevasse?" + +"No," said the Poet; "you do not know this story, you had better +let me tell it. Her lover returned the morning before the wedding +day, to be met with the news. He gave way to no sign of grief, he +repelled all consolation. Taking his rope and axe he went up into +the mountain by himself. All through the winter he haunted the +track by which she must have travelled, indifferent to the danger +that he ran, impervious apparently to cold, or hunger, or fatigue, +undeterred by storm, or mist, or avalanche. At the beginning of +the spring he returned to the village, purchased building utensils, +and day after day carried them back with him up into the mountain. +He hired no labour, he rejected the proffered assistance of his +brother guides. Choosing an almost inaccessible spot, at the edge +of the great glacier, far from all paths, he built himself a hut, +with his own hands; and there for eighteen years he lived alone. + +"In the 'season' he earned good fees, being known far and wide as +one of the bravest and hardiest of all the guides, but few of his +clients liked him, for he was a silent, gloomy man, speaking +little, and with never a laugh or jest on the journey. Each fall, +having provisioned himself, he would retire to his solitary hut, +and bar the door, and no human soul would set eyes on him again +until the snows melted. + +"One year, however, as the spring days wore on, and he did not +appear among the guides, as was his wont, the elder men, who +remembered his story and pitied him, grew uneasy; and, after much +deliberation, it was determined that a party of them should force +their way up to his eyrie. They cut their path across the ice +where no foot among them had trodden before, and finding at length +the lonely snow-encompassed hut, knocked loudly with their axe- +staves on the door; but only the whirling echoes from the glacier's +thousand walls replied, so the foremost put his strong shoulder to +the worn timber and the door flew open with a crash. + +"They found him dead, as they had more than half expected, lying +stiff and frozen on the rough couch at the farther end of the hut; +and, beside him, looking down upon him with a placid face, as a +mother might watch beside her sleeping child, stood Jeanne. She +wore the flowers pinned to her dress that she had gathered when +their eyes had last seen her. The girl's face that had laughed +back to their good-bye in the village, nineteen years ago. + +"A strange steely light clung round her, half illuminating, half +obscuring her, and the men drew back in fear, thinking they saw a +vision, till one, bolder than the rest, stretched out his hand and +touched the ice that formed her coffin. + +"For eighteen years the man had lived there with this face that he +had loved. A faint flush still lingered on the fair cheeks, the +laughing lips were still red. Only at one spot, above her temple, +the wavy hair lay matted underneath a clot of blood." + +The Minor Poet ceased. + +"What a very unpleasant way of preserving one's love!" said the +Girton Girl. + +"When did the story appear?" I asked. "I don't remember reading +it." + +"I never published it," explained the Minor Poet. "Within the same +week two friends of mine, one of whom had just returned from Norway +and the other from Switzerland, confided to me their intention of +writing stories about girls who had fallen into glaciers, and who +had been found by their friends long afterwards, looking as good as +new; and a few days later I chanced upon a book, the heroine of +which had been dug out of a glacier alive three hundred years after +she had fallen in. There seemed to be a run on ice maidens, and I +decided not to add to their number." + +"It is curious," said the Philosopher, "how there seems to be a +fashion even in thought. An idea has often occurred to me that has +seemed to me quite new, and taking up a newspaper I have found that +some man in Russia or San Francisco has just been saying the very +same thing in almost the very same words. We say a thing is 'in +the air'; it is more true than we are aware of. Thought does not +grow in us. It is a thing apart, we simply gather it. All truths, +all discoveries, all inventions, they have not come to us from any +one man. The time grows ripe for them, and from this corner of the +earth and from that, hands, guided by some instinct, grope for and +grasp them. Buddha and Christ seize hold of the morality needful +to civilisation, and promulgate it, unknown to one another, the one +on the shores of the Ganges, the other by the Jordan. A dozen +forgotten explorers, FEELING America, prepared the way for Columbus +to discover it. A deluge of blood is required to sweep away old +follies, and Rousseau and Voltaire, and a myriad others are set to +work to fashion the storm clouds. The steam-engine, the spinning +loom is 'in the air.' A thousand brains are busy with them, a few +go further than the rest. It is idle to talk of human thought; +there is no such thing. Our minds are fed as our bodies with the +food God has provided for us. Thought hangs by the wayside, and we +pick it and cook it, and eat it, and cry out what clever 'thinkers' +we are!" + +"I cannot agree with you," replied the Minor Poet, "if we were +simply automata, as your argument would suggest, what was the +purpose of creating us?" + +"The intelligent portion of mankind has been asking itself that +question for many ages," returned the Philosopher. + +"I hate people who always think as I do," said the Girton Girl; +"there was a girl in our corridor who never would disagree with me. +Every opinion I expressed turned out to be her opinion also. It +always irritated me." + +"That might have been weak-mindedness," said the Old Maid, which +sounded ambiguous. + +"It is not so unpleasant as having a person always disagreeing with +you," said the Woman of the World. "My cousin Susan never would +agree with any one. If I came down in red she would say, 'Why +don't you try green, dear? every one says you look so well in +green'; and when I wore green she would say, 'Why have you given up +red dear? I thought you rather fancied yourself in red.' When I +told her of my engagement to Tom, she burst into tears and said she +couldn't help it. She had always felt that George and I were +intended for one another; and when Tom never wrote for two whole +months, and behaved disgracefully in--in other ways, and I told her +I was engaged to George, she reminded me of every word I had ever +said about my affection for Tom, and of how I had ridiculed poor +George. Papa used to say, 'If any man ever tells Susan that he +loves her, she will argue him out of it, and will never accept him +until he has jilted her, and will refuse to marry him every time he +asks her to fix the day."' + +"Is she married?" asked the Philosopher. + +"Oh, yes," answered the Woman of the World, "and is devoted to her +children. She lets them do everything they don't want to." + + + +THE DEGENERATION OF THOMAS HENRY + + + +The most respectable cat I have ever known was Thomas Henry. His +original name was Thomas, but it seemed absurd to call him that. +The family at Hawarden would as soon think of addressing Mr. +Gladstone as "Bill." He came to us from the Reform Club, via the +butcher, and the moment I saw him I felt that of all the clubs in +London that was the club he must have come from. Its atmosphere of +solid dignity and petrified conservatism seemed to cling to him. +Why he left the club I am unable, at this distance of time, to +remember positively, but I am inclined to think that it came about +owing to a difference with the new chef, an overbearing personage +who wanted all the fire to himself. The butcher, hearing of the +quarrel, and knowing us as a catless family, suggested a way out of +the impasse that was welcomed both by cat and cook. The parting +between them, I believe, was purely formal, and Thomas arrived +prejudiced in our favour. + +My wife, the moment she saw him, suggested Henry as a more suitable +name. It struck me that the combination of the two would be still +more appropriate, and accordingly, in the privacy of the domestic +circle, Thomas Henry he was called. When speaking of him to +friends, we generally alluded to him as Thomas Henry, Esquire. + +He approved of us in his quiet, undemonstrative way. He chose my +own particular easy chair for himself, and stuck to it. An +ordinary cat I should have shot out, but Thomas Henry was not the +cat one chivvies. Had I made it clear to him that I objected to +his presence in my chair, I feel convinced he would have regarded +me much as I should expect to be regarded by Queen Victoria, were +that gracious Lady to call upon me in a friendly way, and were I to +inform her that I was busy, and request her to look in again some +other afternoon. He would have risen, and have walked away, but he +never would have spoken to me again so long as we lived under the +same roof. + +We had a lady staying with us at the time--she still resides with +us, but she is now older, and possessed of more judgment--who was +no respecter of cats. Her argument was that seeing the tail stuck +up, and came conveniently to one's hand, that was the natural +appendage by which to raise a cat. She also laboured under the +error that the way to feed a cat was to ram things into its head, +and that its pleasure was to be taken out for a ride in a doll's +perambulator. I dreaded the first meeting of Thomas Henry with +this lady. I feared lest she should give him a false impression of +us as a family, and that we should suffer in his eyes. + +But I might have saved myself all anxiety. There was a something +about Thomas Henry that checked forwardness and damped familiarity. +His attitude towards her was friendly but firm. Hesitatingly, and +with a new-born respect for cats, she put out her hand timidly +towards its tail. He gently put it on the other side, and looked +at her. It was not an angry look nor an offended look. It was the +expression with which Solomon might have received the advances of +the Queen of Sheba. It expressed condescension, combined with +distance. + +He was really a most gentlemanly cat. A friend of mine, who +believes in the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, was +convinced that he was Lord Chesterfield. He never clamoured for +food, as other cats do. He would sit beside me at meals, and wait +till he was served. He would eat only the knuckle-end of a leg of +mutton, and would never look at over-done beef. A visitor of ours +once offered him a piece of gristle; he said nothing, but quietly +left the room, and we did not see him again until our friend had +departed. + +But every one has his price, and Thomas Henry's price was roast +duck. Thomas Henry's attitude in the presence of roast duck came +to me as a psychological revelation. It showed me at once the +lower and more animal side of his nature. In the presence of roast +duck Thomas Henry became simply and merely a cat, swayed by all the +savage instincts of his race. His dignity fell from him as a +cloak. He clawed for roast duck, he grovelled for it. I believe +he would have sold himself to the devil for roast duck. + +We accordingly avoided that particular dish: it was painful to see +a cat's character so completely demoralised. Besides, his manners, +when roast duck was on the table, afforded a bad example to the +children. + +He was a shining light among all the eats of our neighbourhood. +One might have set one's watch by his movements. After dinner he +invariably took half an hour's constitutional in the square; at ten +o'clock each night, precisely, he returned to the area door, and at +eleven o'clock he was asleep in my easy chair. He made no friends +among the other cats. He took no pleasure in fighting, and I doubt +his ever having loved, even in youth; his was too cold and self- +contained a nature, female society he regarded with utter +indifference. + +So he lived with us a blameless existence during the whole winter. +In the summer we took him down with us into the country. We +thought the change of air would do him good; he was getting +decidedly stout. Alas, poor Thomas Henry! the country was his +ruin. What brought about the change I cannot say: maybe the air +was too bracing. He slid down the moral incline with frightful +rapidity. The first night he stopped out till eleven, the second +night he never came home at all, the third night he came home at +six o'clock in the morning, minus half the fur on the top of his +head. Of course, there was a lady in the case, indeed, judging by +the riot that went on all night, I am inclined to think there must +have been a dozen. He was certainly a fine cat, and they took to +calling for him in the day time. Then gentleman cats who had been +wronged took to calling also, and demanding explanations, which +Thomas Henry, to do him justice, was always ready to accord. + +The village boys used to loiter round all day to watch the fights, +and angry housewives would be constantly charging into our kitchen +to fling dead cats upon the table, and appeal to Heaven and myself +for justice. Our kitchen became a veritable cat's morgue, and I +had to purchase a new kitchen table. The cook said it would make +her work simpler if she could keep a table entirely to herself. +She said it quite confused her, having so many dead cats lying +round among her joints and vegetables: she was afraid of making a +mistake. Accordingly, the old table was placed under the window, +and devoted to the cats; and, after that, she would never allow +anyone to bring a cat, however dead, to her table. + +"What do you want me to do with it," I heard her asking an excited +lady on one occasion; "cook it?" + +"It's my cat," said the lady; "that's what that is." + +"Well, I'm not making cat pie to-day," answered our cook. "You +take it to its proper table. This is my table." + +At first, "Justice" was generally satisfied with half a crown, but +as time went on cats rose. I had hitherto regarded cats as a cheap +commodity, and I became surprised at the value attached to them. I +began to think seriously of breeding cats as an industry. At the +prices current in that village, I could have made an income of +thousands. + +"Look what your beast has done," said one irate female, to whom I +had been called out in the middle of dinner. + +I looked. Thomas Henry appeared to have "done" a mangy, emaciated +animal, that must have been far happier dead than alive. Had the +poor creature been mine I should have thanked him; but some people +never know when they are well off. + +"I wouldn't ha' taken a five-pun' note for that cat," said the +lady. + +"It's a matter of opinion," I replied, "but personally I think you +would have been unwise to refuse it. Taking the animal as it +stands, I don't feel inclined to give you more than a shilling for +it. If you think you can do better by taking it elsewhere, you do +so." + +"He was more like a Christian than a cat," said the lady. + +"I'm not taking dead Christians," I answered firmly, "and even if I +were I wouldn't give more than a shilling for a specimen like that. +You can consider him as a Christian, or you can consider him as a +cat; but he's not worth more than a shilling in either case." + +We settled eventually for eighteenpence. + +The number of cats that Thomas Henry contrived to dispose of also +surprised me. Quite a massacre of cats seemed to be in progress. + +One evening, going into the kitchen, for I made it a practice now +to visit the kitchen each evening, to inspect the daily consignment +of dead cats, I found, among others, a curiously marked +tortoiseshell cat, lying on the table. + +"That cat's worth half a sovereign," said the owner, who was +standing by, drinking beer. + +I took up the animal, and examined it. + +"Your cat killed him yesterday," continued the man. "It's a +burning shame." + +"My cat has killed him three times," I replied. "He was killed on +Saturday as Mrs. Hedger's cat; on Monday he was killed for Mrs. +Myers. I was not quite positive on Monday; but I had my +suspicions, and I made notes. Now I recognise him. You take my +advice, and bury him before he breeds a fever. I don't care how +many lives a cat has got; I only pay for one." + +We gave Thomas Henry every chance to reform; but he only went from +bad to worse, and added poaching and chicken-stalking to his other +crimes, and I grew tired of paying for his vices. + +I consulted the gardener, and the gardener said he had known cats +taken that way before. + +"Do you know of any cure for it?" I asked. + +"Well, sir," replied the gardener, "I have heard as how a dose of +brickbat and pond is a good thing in a general way." + +"We'll try him with a dose just before bed time," I answered. The +gardener administered it, and we had no further trouble with him. + +Poor Thomas Henry! It shows to one how a reputation for +respectability may lie in the mere absence of temptation. Born and +bred in the atmosphere of the Reform Club, what gentleman could go +wrong? I was sorry for Thomas Henry, and I have never believed in +the moral influence of the country since. + + + +THE CITY OF THE SEA + + + +They say, the chroniclers who have written the history of that low- +lying, wind-swept coast, that years ago the foam fringe of the +ocean lay further to the east; so that where now the North Sea +creeps among the treacherous sand-reefs, it was once dry land. In +those days, between the Abbey and the sea, there stood a town of +seven towers and four rich churches, surrounded by a wall of twelve +stones' thickness, making it, as men reckoned then, a place of +strength and much import; and the monks, glancing their eyes +downward from the Abbey garden on the hill, saw beneath their feet +its narrow streets, gay with the ever passing of rich merchandise, +saw its many wharves and water-ways, ever noisy with the babel of +strange tongues, saw its many painted masts, wagging their grave +heads above the dormer roofs and quaintly-carved oak gables. + +Thus the town prospered till there came a night when it did evil in +the sight of God and man. Those were troublous times to Saxon +dwellers by the sea, for the Danish water-rats swarmed round each +river mouth, scenting treasure from afar; and by none was the white +flash of their sharp, strong teeth more often seen than by the men +of Eastern Anglia, and by none in Eastern Anglia more often than by +the watchers on the walls of the town of seven towers that once +stood upon the dry land, but which now lies twenty fathom deep +below the waters. Many a bloody fight raged now without and now +within its wall of twelve stones' thickness. Many a groan of dying +man, many a shriek of murdered woman, many a wail of mangled child, +knocked at the Abbey door upon its way to Heaven, calling the +trembling-monks from their beds, to pray for the souls that were +passing by. + +But at length peace came to the long-troubled land: Dane and Saxon +agreeing to dwell in friendship side by side, East Anglia being +wide, and there being room for both. And all men rejoiced greatly, +for all were weary of a strife in which little had been gained on +either side beyond hard blows, and their thoughts were of the +ingle-nook. So the long-bearded Danes, their thirsty axes harmless +on their backs, passed to and fro in straggling bands, seeking +where undisturbed and undisturbing they might build their homes; +and thus it came about that Haafager and his company, as the sun +was going down, drew near to the town of seven towers, that in +those days stood on dry land between the Abbey and the sea. + +And the men of the town, seeing the Danes, opened wide their gates +saying:- + +"We have fought, but now there is peace. Enter, and make merry +with us, and to-morrow go your way." + +But Haafager made answer:- + +"I am an old man, I pray you do not take my words amiss. There is +peace between us, as you say, and we thank you for your courtesy, +but the stains are still fresh upon our swords. Let us camp here +without your walls, and a little later, when the grass has grown +upon the fields where we have striven, and our young men have had +time to forget, we will make merry together, as men should who +dwell side by side in the same land." + +But the men of the town still urged Haafager, calling his people +neighbours; and the Abbot, who had hastened down, fearing there +might be strife, added his words to theirs, saying:- + +"Pass in, my children. Let there indeed be peace between you, that +the blessing of God may be upon the land, and upon both Dane and +Saxon"; for the Abbot saw that the townsmen were well disposed +towards the Danes, and knew that men, when they have feasted and +drunk together, think kinder of one another. + +Then answered Haafager, who knew the Abbot for a holy man:- + +"Hold up your staff, my father, that the shadow of the cross your +people worship may fall upon our path, so we will pass into the +town and there shall be peace between us, for though your gods are +not our gods, faith between man and man is of all altars." + +And the Abbot held his staff aloft between Haafager's people and +the sun, it being fashioned in the form of a cross, and under its +shadow the Danes passed by into the town of seven towers, there +being of them, with the women and the children, nearly two thousand +souls, and the gates were made fast behind them. + +So they who had fought face to face, feasted side by side, pledging +one another in the wine cup, as was the custom; and Haafager's men, +knowing themselves amongst friends, cast aside their arms, and when +the feast was done, being weary, they lay down to sleep. + +Then an evil voice arose in the town, and said: "Who are these +that have come among us to share our land? Are not the stones of +our streets red with the blood of wife and child that they have +slain? Do men let the wolf go free when they have trapped him with +meat? Let us fall upon them now that they are heavy with food and +wine, so that not one of them shall escape. Thus no further harm +shall come to us from them nor from their children." + +And the voice of evil prevailed, and the men of the town of seven +towers fell upon the Danes with whom they had broken meat, even to +the women and the little children; and the blood of the people of +Haafager cried with a loud voice at the Abbey door, through the +long night it cried, saying:- + +"I trusted in your spoken word. I broke meat with you. I put my +faith in you and in your God. I passed beneath the shadow of your +cross to enter your doors. Let your God make answer!" + +Nor was there silence till the dawn. + +Then the Abbot rose from where he knelt and called to God, saying:- + +"Thou hast heard, O God. Make answer." + +And there came a great sound from the sea as though a tongue had +been given to the deep, so that the monks fell upon their knees in +fear; but the Abbot answered:- + +"It is the voice of God speaking through the waters. He hath made +answer." + +And that winter a mighty storm arose, the like of which no man had +known before; for the sea was piled upon the dry land until the +highest tower of the town of seven towers was not more high; and +the waters moved forward over the dry land. And the men of the +town of seven towers fled from the oncoming of the waters, but the +waters overtook them so that not one of them escaped. And the town +of the seven towers and of the four churches, and of the many +streets and quays, was buried underneath the waters, and the feet +of the waters still moved till they came to the hill whereon the +Abbey stood. Then the Abbot prayed to God that the waters might be +stayed, and God heard, and the sea came no farther. + +And that this tale is true, and not a fable made by the weavers of +words, he who doubts may know from the fisher-folk, who to-day ply +their calling amongst the reefs and sandbanks of that lonely coast. +For there are those among them who, peering from the bows of their +small craft, have seen far down beneath their keels a city of +strange streets and many quays. But as to this, I, who repeat +these things to you, cannot speak of my own knowledge, for this +city of the sea is only visible when a rare wind, blowing from the +north, sweeps the shadows from the waves; and though on many a +sunny day I have drifted where its seven towers should once have +stood, yet for me that wind has never blown, pushing back the +curtains of the sea, and, therefore, I have strained my eyes in +vain. + +But this I do know, that the rumbling stones of that ancient Abbey, +between which and the foam fringe of the ocean the town of seven +towers once lay, now stand upon a wave-washed cliff, and that he +who looks forth from its shattered mullions to-day sees only the +marshland and the wrinkled waters, hears only the plaint of the +circling gulls and the weary crying of the sea. + +And that God's anger is not everlasting, and that the evil that +there is in men shall be blotted out, he who doubts may also learn +from the wisdom of the simple fisher-folk, who dwell about the +borders of the marsh-land; for they will tell him that on stormy +nights there speaks a deep voice from the sea, calling the dead +monks to rise from their forgotten graves, and chant a mass for the +souls of the men of the town of seven towers. Clothed in long +glittering white, they move with slowly pacing feet around the +Abbey's grass-grown aisles, and the music of their prayers is heard +above the screaming of the storm. And to this I also can bear +witness, for I have seen the passing of their shrouded forms behind +the blackness of the shattered shafts; I have heard their sweet, +sad singing above the wailing of the wind. + +Thus for many ages have the dead monks prayed that the men of the +town of seven towers may be forgiven. Thus, for many ages yet +shall they so pray, till the day come when of their once fair Abbey +not a single stone shall stand upon its fellow; and in that day it +shall be known that the anger of God against the men of the town of +seven towers has passed away; and in that day the feet of the +waters shall move back, and the town of seven towers shall stand +again upon the dry land. + +There be some, I know, who say that this is but a legend; who will +tell you that the shadowy shapes that you may see with your own +eyes on stormy nights, waving their gleaming arms behind the ruined +buttresses are but of phosphorescent foam, tossed by the raging +waves above the cliffs; and that the sweet, sad harmony cleaving +the trouble of the night is but the aeolian music of the wind. + +But such are of the blind, who see only with their eyes. For +myself I see the white-robed monks, and hear the chanting of their +mass for the souls of the sinful men of the town of seven towers. +For it has been said that when an evil deed is done, a prayer is +born to follow it through time into eternity, and plead for it. +Thus is the whole world clasped around with folded hands both of +the dead and of the living, as with a shield, lest the shafts of +God's anger should consume it. + +Therefore, I know that the good monks of this nameless Abbey are +still praying that the sin of those they love may be forgiven. + +God grant good men may say a mass for us. + + + +DRIFTWOOD + + + +CHARACTERS + +MR. TRAVERS. +MRS. TRAVERS. +MARION [their daughter]. +DAN [a gentleman of no position]. + +SCENE: A room opening upon a garden. The shadows creep from their +corners, driving before them the fading twilight. + +MRS. TRAVERS sits in a wickerwork easy chair. MR. TRAVERS, smoking +a cigar, sits the other side of the room. MARION stands by the +open French window, looking out. + +MR. TRAVERS. Nice little place Harry's got down here. + +MRS. TRAVERS. Yes; I should keep this on if I were you, Marion. +You'll find it very handy. One can entertain so cheaply up the +river; one is not expected to make much of a show. [She turns to +her husband.] Your poor cousin Emily used to work off quite half +her list that way--relations and Americans, and those sort of +people, you know--at that little place of theirs at Goring. You +remember it--a poky hole I always thought it, but it had a lot of +green stuff over the door--looked very pretty from the other side +of the river. She always used to have cold meat and pickles for +lunch--called it a picnic. People said it was so homely and +simple. + +MR. TRAVERS. They didn't stop long, I remember. + +MRS. TRAVERS. And there was a special champagne she always kept +for the river--only twenty-five shillings a dozen, I think she told +me she paid for it, and very good it was too, for the price. That +old Indian major--what was his name?--said it suited him better +than anything else he had ever tried. He always used to drink a +tumblerful before breakfast; such a funny thing to do. I've often +wondered where she got it. + +MR. TRAVERS. So did most people who tasted it. Marion wants to +forget those lessons, not learn them. She is going to marry a rich +man who will be able to entertain his guests decently. + +MRS. TRAVERS. Oh, well, James, I don't know. None of us can +afford to live up to the income we want people to think we've got. +One must economise somewhere. A pretty figure we should cut in the +county if I didn't know how to make fivepence look like a shilling. +And, besides, there are certain people that one has to be civil to, +that, at the same time, one doesn't want to introduce into one's +regular circle. If you take my advice, Marion, you won't encourage +those sisters of Harry's more than you can help. They're dear +sweet girls, and you can be very nice to them; but don't have them +too much about. Their manners are terribly old-fashioned, and +they've no notion how to dress, and those sort of people let down +the tone of a house. + +MARION. I'm not likely to have many "dear sweet girls" on my +visiting list. [With a laugh.] There will hardly be enough in +common to make the company desired, on either side. + +MRS. TRAVERS. Well, I only want you to be careful, my dear. So +much depends on how you begin, and with prudence there's really no +reason why you shouldn't do very well. I suppose there's no doubt +about Harry's income. He won't object to a few inquiries? + +MARION. I think you may trust me to see to that, mamma. It would +be a bad bargain for me, if even the cash were not certain. + +MR. TRAVERS [jumping up]. Oh, I do wish you women wouldn't discuss +the matter in that horribly business-like way. One would think the +girl was selling herself. + +MRS. TRAVERS. Oh, don't be foolish, James. One must look at the +practical side of these things. Marriage is a matter of sentiment +to a man--very proper that it should be. A woman has to remember +that she's fixing her position for life. + +MARION. You see, papa dear, it's her one venture. If she doesn't +sell herself to advantage then, she doesn't get another +opportunity--very easily. + +MR. TRAVERS. Umph! When I was a young man, girls talked more +about love and less about income. + +MARION. Perhaps they had not our educational advantages. + +[DAN enters from the garden. He is a man of a little over forty, +his linen somewhat frayed about the edges.] + +MRS. TRAVERS. Ah! We were just wondering where all you people had +got to. + +DAN. We've been out sailing. I've been sent up to fetch you. +It's delightful on the river. The moon is just rising. + +MRS. TRAVERS. But it's so cold. + +MR. TRAVERS. Oh, never mind the cold. It's many a long year since +you and I looked at the moon together. It will do us good. + +MRS. TRAVERS. Ah, dear. Boys will be boys. Give me my wrap then. + +[DAN places it about her. They move towards the window, where they +stand talking. MARION has slipped out and returns with her +father's cap. He takes her face between his hands and looks at +her.] + +MR. TRAVERS. Do you really care for Harry, Marion? + +MARION. As much as one can care for a man with five thousand a +year. Perhaps he will make it ten one day--then I shall care for +him twice as much. [Laughs.] + +MR. TRAVERS. And are you content with this marriage? + +MARION. Quite. + +[He shakes his head gravely at her.] + +MRS. TRAVERS. Aren't you coming, Marion? + +MARION. No. I'm feeling tired. + +[MR. and MRS. TRAVERS go out.] + +DAN. Are you going to leave Harry alone with two pairs of lovers? + +MARION [with a laugh]. Yes--let him see how ridiculous they look. +I hate the night--it follows you and asks questions. Shut it out. +Come and talk to me. Amuse me. + +DAN. What shall I talk to you about? + +MARION. Oh, tell me all the news. What is the world doing? Who +has run away with whose wife? Who has been swindling whom? Which +philanthropist has been robbing the poor? What saint has been +discovered sinning? What is the latest scandal? Who has been +found out? and what is it they have been doing? and what is +everybody saying about it? + +DAN. Would it amuse you? + +MARION [she sits by the piano, softly touching the keys, idly +recalling many memories]. What should it do? Make me weep? +Should not one be glad to know one's friends better? + +DAN. I wish you wouldn't be clever. Everyone one meets is clever +nowadays. It came in when the sun-flower went out. I preferred +the sun-flower; it was more amusing. + +MARION. And stupid people, I suppose, will come in when the clever +people go out. I prefer the clever. They have better manners. +You're exceedingly disagreeable. [She leaves the piano, and, +throwing herself upon the couch, takes up a book.] + +DAN. I know I am. The night has been with me also. It follows +one and asks questions. + +MARION. What questions has it been asking you? + +DAN. Many--and so many of them have no answer. Why am I a +useless, drifting log upon the world's tide? Why have all the +young men passed me? Why am I, at thirty-nine, let us say, with +brain, with power, with strength--nobody thinks I am worth +anything, but I am--I know it. I might have been an able editor, +devoting every morning from ten till three to arranging the affairs +of the Universe, or a popular politician, trying to understand what +I was talking about, and to believe it. And what am I? A +newspaper reporter, at three-ha'pence a line--I beg their pardon, +its occasionally twopence. + +MARION. Does it matter? + +DAN. Does it matter! Does it matter whether a Union Jack or a +Tricolor floats over the turrets of Badajoz? yet we pour our blood +into its ditches to decide the argument. Does it matter whether +one star more or less is marked upon our charts? yet we grow blind +peering into their depths. Does it matter that one keel should +slip through the grip of the Polar ice? yet nearer, nearer to it, +we pile our whitening bones. And it's worth playing, the game of +life. And there's a meaning in it. It's worth playing, if only +that it strengthens the muscles of our souls. I'd like to have +taken a hand in it. + +MARION. Why didn't you? + +DAN. No partner. Dull playing by oneself. No object. + +MARION [after a silence]. What was she like? + +DAN. So like you that there are times when I almost wish I had +never met you. You set me thinking about myself, and that is a +subject I find it pleasanter to forget. + +MARION. And this woman that was like me--she could have made a +man's life? + +DAN. Ay! + +MARION. Won't you tell me about her? Had she many faults? + +DAN. Enough to love her by. + +MARION. But she must have been good. + +DAN. Good enough to be a woman. + +MARION. That might mean so much or so little. + +DAN. It should mean much to my thinking. There are few women. + +MARION. Few! I thought the economists held that there were too +many of us. + +DAN. Not enough--not enough to go round. That is why a true woman +has many lovers. + +[There is a silence between them. Then MARION rises, but their +eyes do not meet.] + +MARION. How serious we have grown! + +DAN. They say a dialogue between a man and woman always does. + +MARION [she moves away, then, hesitating, half returns]. May I ask +you a question? + +DAN. That is an easy favour to grant. + +MARION. If--if at any time you felt regard again for a woman, +would you, for her sake, if she wished it, seek to gain, even now, +that position in the world which is your right--which would make +her proud of your friendship--would make her feel that even her +life had not been altogether without purpose? + +DAN. Too late! The old hack can only look over the hedge, and +watch the field race by. The old ambition stirs within me at +times--especially after a glass of good wine--and Harry's wine--God +bless him--is excellent--but to-morrow morning--[with a shrug of +his shoulders he finishes his meaning]. + +MARION. Then she could do nothing? + +DAN. Nothing for his fortunes--much for himself. My dear young +lady, never waste pity on a man in love--nor upon a child crying +for the moon. The moon is a good thing to cry for. + +MARION. I am glad I am like her. I am glad that I have met you. + +[She gives him her hand, and for a moment he holds it. Then she +goes out.] + +[A flower has fallen from her breast, whether by chance or meaning, +he knows not. He picks it up and kisses it; stands twirling it, +undecided for a second, then lets it fall again upon the floor.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg eText Sketches in Lavender, Blue and Green + diff --git a/old/sklbg10.zip b/old/sklbg10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ef32920 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sklbg10.zip |