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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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