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diff --git a/old/69410-0.txt b/old/69410-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index e4decf0..0000000 --- a/old/69410-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,14129 +0,0 @@ -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69410 *** - -CHRISTINA ALBERTA’S FATHER - - - - -Mr. Wells has also written the following novels: - - - THE WHEELS OF CHANCE. - LOVE AND MR. LEWISHAM. - KIPPS. - TONO-BUNGAY. - ANN VERONICA. - MR. POLLY. - THE NEW MACHIAVELLI. - MARRIAGE. - THE PASSIONATE FRIENDS. - THE WIFE OF SIR ISAAC HARMAN. - BEALBY. - THE RESEARCH MAGNIFICENT. - MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH. - THE SOUL OF A BISHOP. - JOAN AND PETER. - THE UNDYING FIRE. - THE SECRET PLACES OF THE HEART. - -The following Fantastic and Imaginative Romances: - - THE TIME MACHINE. - THE WONDERFUL VISIT. - THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU. - THE INVISIBLE MAN. - THE WAR OF THE WORLDS. - THE SLEEPER AWAKES. - THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. - THE SEA LADY. - THE FOOD OF THE GODS. - IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET. - THE WAR IN THE AIR. - THE WORLD SET FREE. - MEN LIKE GODS. - THE DREAM. - -Numerous Short Stories collected under the following Titles: - - THE STOLEN BACILLUS. - THE PLATTNER STORY. - TALES OF SPACE AND TIME. - TWELVE STORIES AND A DREAM. - -The same Short Stories will also be found in three volumes: - - TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED. - TALES OF WONDER. - TALES OF LIFE AND ADVENTURE. - -A Series of Books on Social, Religious, and Political Questions: - - ANTICIPATIONS (1900). - A MODERN UTOPIA. - THE FUTURE IN AMERICA. - NEW WORLDS FOR OLD. - FIRST AND LAST THINGS. - GOD THE INVISIBLE KING. - THE OUTLINE OF HISTORY. - RUSSIA IN THE SHADOWS. - THE SALVAGING OF CIVILIZATION. - WASHINGTON AND THE RIDDLE OF PEACE. - A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD. - THE STORY OF A GREAT SCHOOLMASTER. - A YEAR OF PROPHESYING. - -And Two Little Books about Children’s Play, called: - - FLOOR GAMES AND LITTLE WARS. - - -_A uniform Atlantic Edition of Mr. Wells’ works is in course of -publication._ - - - - - CHRISTINA ALBERTA’S - FATHER - - BY - H. G. WELLS - - New York - THE MACMILLAN COMPANY - 1925 - _All rights reserved_ - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1925, - BY H. G. WELLS. - - Set up and electrotyped. - Published September, 1925. - Reprinted September 22, 1925. - Reprinted November, 1925. - - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY - THE CORNWALL PRESS - - - - -_CONTENTS_ - - - BOOK THE FIRST - - _The Coming of Sargon, King of Kings_ - - PAGE - - CHAPTER THE FIRST - - THE EARLY LIFE OF MR. PREEMBY 11 - - - CHAPTER THE SECOND - - CHRISTINA ALBERTA 28 - - - CHAPTER THE THIRD - - IN LONSDALE MEWS 50 - - - CHAPTER THE FOURTH - - THE PETUNIA BOARDING HOUSE 85 - - - CHAPTER THE FIFTH - - THE SCALES FALL FROM MR. PREEMBY’S EYES 114 - - - CHAPTER THE SIXTH - - CHRISTINA ALBERTA CONSULTS A WISE MAN 132 - - - BOOK THE SECOND - - _The World Rejects Sargon, King of Kings_ - - - CHAPTER THE FIRST - - INCOGNITO 163 - - - CHAPTER THE SECOND - - THE CALLING OF THE DISCIPLES 195 - - - CHAPTER THE THIRD - - THE JOURNEY OF SARGON UNDERNEATH THE WORLD 218 - - - BOOK THE THIRD - - _The Resurrection of Sargon, King of Kings_ - - - CHAPTER THE FIRST - - CHRISTINA ALBERTA IN SEARCH OF A FATHER 245 - - - CHAPTER THE SECOND - - HOW BOBBY STOLE A LUNATIC 300 - - - CHAPTER THE THIRD - - THE LAST PHASE 343 - - - CHAPTER THE FOURTH - - MAY AT UDIMORE 369 - - - - - -CHRISTINA ALBERTA’S FATHER - - - - - _BOOK THE FIRST_ - - THE COMING OF SARGON, KING - OF KINGS - - - - -CHAPTER THE FIRST - -_The Early Life of Mr. Preemby_ - - -§ 1 - -This is the story of a certain Mr. Preemby, a retired laundryman -and widower, who abandoned his active interest in the Limpid Stream -Laundry, in the parish of Saint Simon Unawares, near Woodford -Wells, upon the death of his wife in the year of grace 1920. Some -very remarkable experiences came to him. The story is essentially a -contemporary story: it is a story of London in the age of Sir Arthur -Conan Doyle, broadcasting, and the first Labour peers. The historical -element in it is insignificant and partly erroneous, and the future, -though implicitly present, is substantially ignored. - -Since washing in London, like the milk trade and baking and the linen -drapery and various other branches of commerce, is something rather -specialized and hereditary and a little difficult towards outsiders, -it is necessary to explain that Mr. Preemby was not a laundryman born. -He had little of the spirit and go of a true London laundryman. He -married into laundrying. He met a Miss Hossett at Sheringham in 1899, -an heiress and a young lady of great decision of character; he wooed -and won her and married her, as you will be told, almost without -realizing what he was doing. The Hossetts are big people in the laundry -world, and the Limpid Stream concern, which presently fell into the -capable hands of Mrs. Preemby, was only one of a series of related -and sympathetic businesses in the north, north-east and south-west -districts of London. - -Mr. Preemby, as Miss Hossett’s family came to recognize quite frankly -and explicitly at a very early stage, derived from a less practical -strain than his wife. His father had been an artist of considerable -charm and unpunctuality, a photographic artist, who resided at -Sheringham and made what were called in the eighteen-eighties, -“gem” photographs of the summer visitors to that place. In the -eighteen-eighties he was a well-known Sheringham figure, dark and -handsome and sometimes a little unkempt, wearing a brown velvet jacket -and a large grey soft felt hat. He would fall into conversation with -the visitors upon the beach, and a certain air of distinction about -him would bring a sufficient proportion to his studio to maintain him. -His wife, our Mr. Preemby’s mother, was a patient, underdeveloped -personality, the daughter of a farmer near Diss. When presently Mr. -Preemby senior passed out of his son’s life--he became romantically -entangled with a small variety entertainment in the summer of 1887 and -vanished away with it in the autumn with as little fuss as possible, -never to return to Sheringham--Mrs. Preemby senior became the working -partner in a small lodging-house and died in a year or so’s time, -leaving her furniture, her interest in the lodging-house and her only -son to her cousin and partner, Mrs. Witcherly. - -Young Albert Edward Preemby was then a good-looking, slender youth of -sixteen, with his father’s curliness and his mother’s fair hair and -eyes of horizon blue, dreamy and indisposed for regular employment. -Even as a child he had been given to reverie; at school he would -sit with sums or book neglected before him, looking beyond them at -unknown things; his early experiences in business were disappointing -by reason of this abstraction. After a number of unsuccessful attempts -to exploit his gifts at some favourable point in the complex machinery -of our civilization, he came to rest for several years in the office -of a house-agent and coal-merchant in Norwich to whom his mother was -distantly related. - -Some ancient, remembered, sentimental tie helped Albert Edward to this -appointment and shielded any imperfections in his performance from too -urgent a criticism. He did much better at it than anyone could have -expected. The calling of a house-agent differs from most other callings -in the fact that the necessary driving energy is supplied entirely -by the clientele, and there was something about the letting of the -larger houses that touched the dormant imagination of young Preemby. -He revealed a natural gift for attractive description and was duly -entrusted with the work of collecting particulars from prospective -lessors. He had a quite useful hopefulness. And even the coal proved -unexpectedly interesting so soon as he found that none of it had to be -carried about by him. He could never believe that all the golden scales -one finds in it were pyrites. He cherished a secret dream of a great -commercial enterprise to work cinder heaps for residual gold. He told -no one of this project, he took no steps to realize it, but it warmed -his daily routines with its promise of release and wealth. And when -things were slack in the office in the early afternoon and he was left -in charge, he would go and sit on the coal counter and pick out the -coal samples for the little trays and turn them over and over and view -them from various angles and weigh them in his hand and lapse into the -most splendid visions. - -And if inquirers after houses came in, he would receive them with a -manner almost regal. - -In Norwich he became a member of the Y.M.C.A., but he was interested -in its literary rather than its religious side, and he attended any -political debates available. He never spoke in these debates, but he -sat at the back reflecting that politicians are, after all, no more -than puppets in the hands of the silent rich men who sit behind the -scenes. It was in Norwich, too, that he was able to buy his first -tailor-made suit, of a most becoming grey. When he went to stay with -Mrs. Witcherly at Sheringham for his summer holiday of a fortnight, she -was delighted by the improvement in his appearance and much impressed -by the active hopefulness that had replaced his former lethargy. Upon -the sea front in the afternoon in his grey suit, to anyone who did not -know about him, he might have been almost any sort of prosperous summer -visitor. - -It seems a yesterday, and yet it seems ages ago, that our plump and -short Mr. Preemby was that small blonde young man twirling his stick -and glancing furtively but desirously at the lady bathers in their vast -petticoated bathing-dresses and oilskin caps, as he strolled along -the Sheringham front. That was in the days when motor cars were still -rather a joke, a smell, and a noise and wayside repairs, and flying was -understood to be impossible. Queen Victoria had had her Diamond Jubilee -and nobody thought Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, would ever survive -to be King. The War in South Africa was being arranged for that summer, -to last six months and employ forty thousand men. And it was on the -third day of his grey suit holiday at Sheringham that Mr. Preemby was -run into by his future wife, Miss Hossett, riding on a bicycle, and -thrown against and almost run over by her friend Miss Meeta Pinkey. - -Because, incredible as it may seem to the modern reader, people did -succeed in those distant nineties, before the coming of the more -suitable automobile, in knocking down and running over other people -with the sluggish apparatus, bicycles, horse-drawn vehicles and so -forth, then available. - - -§ 2 - -Miss Meeta Pinkey was an emotional blonde girl, and she fell off her -machine gracefully and naturally into Mr. Preemby’s arms as he was -hurled against her. It would seem to have been the original intention -of Destiny to have made this the beginning of a permanent relationship, -but in this matter Destiny had reckoned without Miss Hossett. Miss -Meeta Pinkey was as ripe for love just then as dry gunpowder is for -a bang, and she was already deeply in love with Mr. Preemby before -she had been replaced securely on her feet. She stood flushed and -round-eyed and breathless, and Mr. Preemby looked quite manly and -handsome after picking up her bicycle with an air of rescue. - -Miss Hossett, after butting against Mr. Preemby, had swerved, -dismounted and stood now prepared for a dispute. The collision -had further loosened the already loose handlebar of the entirely -untrustworthy hired machine she had been riding. It was this looseness -had caused the accident. Her attention seemed divided equally between -this and the possible grievance of Mr. Preemby. “I rang my bell,” she -said. - -She was flushed and erect. She was a round-faced girl with a long, thin -neck, a good bright complexion, glasses on her thin nose and a resolute -thin-lipped mouth. - -“I did all I could to avoid you,” she said. - -“Awkward of me,” said Mr. Preemby disarmingly. “I was lost in a -day-dream.” - -“You aren’t hurt--?” asked Meeta. - -“Startled,” said Mr. Preemby, “especially where the wheel got me. This -place is full of corners.” - -“I’d’ve been over,” said Meeta, “if you hadn’t caught me.” - -Miss Hossett was reassured about any possible conflict with Mr. -Preemby. Evidently he was going to be quite nice about the accident. -“This handlebar was as loose as could be,” she said. “Look at it! You -can twist it about like on a swivel. They ought to be punished for -letting out such machines. Some of these days one of ’em’ll get let in -for Damages. Then they’ll be a bit more careful. Scandalous I call it.” - -“You can’t ride it at all now,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“No,” she agreed. “Have to take it back to them.” - -It seemed only right and proper for Mr. Preemby to wheel the machine -for her back through the town to the hiring place, where Miss Hossett -reproved the hirer, refused to pay anything, and secured the return -of her deposit in a few well-chosen words. Miss Pinkey paid the hire -of her bicycle for a First Hour. It seemed natural after that for -the little party of three to keep together. They kept together with -a faint sense of adventure, and Mr. Preemby behaved as nothing less -than a normal lodger at Miss Witcherly’s establishment and summer -visitor to the seaside. His new-found friends were Londoners, and he -referred himself to Norwich and the management of house property. He -was quite amusing about Sheringham. He said it was “a dear little -backward-forward place,” that it was a real treat to come to for a -breath of sea air. - -“I don’t like regular smart places,” said Mr. Preemby. “I’m too -absent-minded.” - - -§ 3 - -In after years Mr. Preemby would often try to recall the various stages -that led to his marrying Miss Hossett, but there was always a vague -sense that he missed out something, though he knew not what it was nor -where it ought to have come in. - -At first things did not look in the least like his marrying Miss -Hossett. Indeed they did not look like his marrying anyone, and if -the word marriage had been whispered in his ears as the possible -consequence of this encounter he would have been terrified. He -perceived that he was acceptable company to these girls, but it seemed -to him that it was Meeta who formed the link between them and himself. -A fourth person presently joined their company who answered to the -name of Wilfred, and it seemed to Mr. Preemby that the air of mutual -proprietorship between Wilfred and Miss Hossett was unchallengeable. - -The young people wandered in a little party along the sea front until -the sea front came to an end, and there they found a sheltered and -comparatively secluded niche in the brow of the low cliffs and gave -themselves up to the delights of Spooning; and it was Meeta who Spooned -with Mr. Preemby that afternoon and Wilfred who Spooned with Miss -Hossett. Across the gulf of a quarter of a century the memory of Mr. -Preemby was still certain that this was so. - -The fashions of life change from age to age. Knowledge has spread -and refinement increased; and a generation of young people, more -restrained, more sophisticated, or more decisive than their -predecessors has taken possession of the world. This Spooning was an -artless, clumsy dalliance in great favour in those vanished days, a -dalliance that was kept within the bounds of strict decorum--if ever -that became necessary--by cries of “Starp it” or “Starpit, I tell you,” -on the part of the lady. They embraced, they kissed, and put their -silly young heads together and so whiled away the long waiting-time -before love had its way with them. The summer resorts of England were -littered with young people indulging in these poor, silly, undignified -anticipations of love. Mr. Preemby, it became manifest, was a natural -born Spooner. - -“It’s lovely,” said Miss Meeta, “the way you squeeze me.” - -Mr. Preemby squeezed some more and ventured to kiss a hot ear. - -“Go On with you!” said Miss Meeta, in a voice thick with delight. “That -little moustache of yours--it _tickles_.” - -Flushed with encouragement and preoccupied with ideas for further -enterprises, Mr. Preemby did not remark that the affairs of Miss -Hossett and her Wilfred followed a more troubled and less satisfactory -course. Wilfred was not a type that appealed to Mr. Preemby. In -spite of the fact that he was much less neat in his dress than Mr. -Preemby--he had grey flannel trousers, an old fancy vest, a tweed -Norfolk jacket, and low brown shoes with light-coloured socks--he -impressed Mr. Preemby as being consciously a social superior. He was -young--the youngest of the party--and yet dominant. He had large red -hands and big feet, much untidy hair, ill-regulated features that -might later be handsome, and a hoarse guffaw. He viewed Mr. Preemby as -though he knew all about him and thought the worse of him for it, but -did not intend to make any positive trouble for the present about his -existence. He was, Meeta whispered, a medical student at Cambridge, and -his father was a Harley Street physician who had been knighted. He did -not Spoon with any abandonment; he seemed weary of Spooning, he had -perhaps been Spooning for some days, and his conversation with Miss -Hossett went on in subdued contentious tones. He sat a little apart -from her amidst the sand and coarse bluish grass, and her face was -flushed. What they said was inaudible to our intertwined couple. - -“Chris and Wilfred don’t get on together as we do,” Meeta said in a low -voice. “They’re sillies.” - -“He’s like all the men,” said Meeta, “’Sept one perhaps. Want -everything they do and give nothing. - -“He won’t even say they’re engaged,” she said. “Dodged seeing her -father.” - -There was a pause for reflection and then a renewal of endearments. - -“I’m gorne on you,” said Meeta. “I _am_ fair gorne on you. You’ve got -the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. China blue they are.” - - -§ 4 - -So detachedly it was that Mr. Preemby and his future wife passed their -first afternoon together. He remembered it, as he remembered most -actual things, indistinctly, in a setting of hot sand and sunshine, -blue-grey grass and a line of poppies nodding against an intense blue -sky. And then across these opening memories Chris Hossett seemed to -leap at him with flushed cheeks and glowing eyes, magnified by her -glasses. - -Two or three days intervened before that passionate pounce. Mr. -Preemby, in his character of an incidental visitor to Sheringham, was -under no obligation to produce a social background, but Miss Pinkey -introduced him to two large, kindly aunts of a sedentary sort, as a -young man related to Miss Hossett who had saved her from a nasty fall -off a bicycle, and he and she both went to tea with Chris Hossett’s -“people.” Old Mr. Hossett was a very ailing man, excessively fat and -irritable; he had never been the same, whatever the same was, after his -only son had died; and Mrs. Hossett, an energetic lean threat of what -her daughter might become, had to wait on Mr. Hossett hand and foot. -She had spectacles instead of Chris’s glasses, her eyes were careworn -and her complexion was leaden and her neck lean. There were also a -married cousin and his wife, a Mr. and Mrs. Widgery, who seemed to be -under the impression that Mr. Preemby was a relation of Miss Pinkey’s. -Mr. Widgery had a long pock-marked face and the dullest brown eyes -Mr. Preemby had ever seen. There was nothing difficult to eat at tea -and Mr. Preemby got on very well listening to an explanation of the -precariousness of Mr. Hossett’s existence, due to heart trouble, from -Mrs. Hossett and of just how unsatisfactory and distressing it was to -come away and leave the laundry in the hands of a manager. Wilfred did -not come to the tea. He had been asked but he did not come. - -The next day Mr. Preemby met Wilfred on the sea front watching the -girls bathing from a bathing machine. Afterwards all four went for a -walk in search of privacy, and it became evident that Miss Hossett -declined to Spoon further with Wilfred. It was evident that there was -profound trouble between Chris and Wilfred. They scarcely spoke as they -returned towards the town; and before the sea front was reached Wilfred -said “So long” quite suddenly, and turned away and vanished up a road -running inland. Thereupon Wilfred passed out of Mr. Preemby’s world; -Mr. Preemby never knew what became of him and never wanted to know; -and the next day he became aware for the first time of Miss Hossett’s -magnified eyes, regarding him with an interest and a challenge that -made him feel almost uncomfortable. - -Miss Hossett became a serious obstacle to the Spooning of Meeta. The -quartette was now reduced to a trio; and Mr. Preemby found himself -the apex, so to speak, of a triangle, the eternal triangle in an -exceptionally acute form. Whenever Meeta was on the one hand, Chris was -on the other. She called him “Our Teddy”; she pressed upon him; she -went so far as to stroke his hair. Meeta’s endearments faded to some -extent in the presence of this competition, but she made no explicit -objection. - -Deep in the nature of the human male is a fount of polygamous pride. -Mr. Preemby in these novel circumstances was proud and disingenuous. -He believed himself “carrying on” with two girls at once, and it -seemed to him to be a very splendid situation. But indeed it was not -so much a case of carrying on as of being carried off. In the American -world of emotional imaginations there is an ideal called the Cave Man, -much cherished by quiet, unaggressive women because its realization -would involve so little trouble on their own part. The Cave Man is -supposed to seize and grip and carry off and adore. In this simple -love story of Mr. Preemby’s Miss Hossett played the Cave Man’s rôle, -up to the carrying-off point at any rate. On the first occasion of -their being alone together she drew him to her and kissed him on the -mouth with a warmth and an intensity and thoroughness that astonished -and overwhelmed Mr. Preemby. It was quite different from Meeta’s coy -achievements, or anything he had ever met around Norwich. He had not -known that there was such kissing. - -And in the warm summer twilight Mr. Preemby found himself being carried -off to a lonely piece of beach to Spoon with Chris Hossett. The light -of a rising full moon mingled with the afterglow; pebbles shone -out like gems and stars. He carried himself bravely but he was all -atremble. He knew that this time the enterprises would not come from -him. And the Spooning of Chris Hossett was no more like the Spooning of -Meeta than a furnace glow is like the light of the moon. - -“I love you,” said Chris as though that justified anything, and as they -stumbled homeward at an hour that Mr. Preemby called “feefully late,” -she said: “You’re going to marry me aren’t you? You’ve _got_ to marry -me now. And then we can _really_ make love. ’Soften as we like.” - -“I can’t rightly say that I’m exactly in a position to keep a wife just -at present,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“I don’t see that there’s any necessity for me to ask a man to keep -me,” said Miss Hossett. “You’re a wonder, Teddy, anyhow, and I’m going -to marry you. It’s got to be, and there you are.” - -“But _’ow_ can I marry you?” asked Mr. Preemby almost peevishly--for he -was really very tired. - -“One would think to hear you that no one had ever married before,” said -Chris Hossett. “And besides--after this--you _must_.” - -“Mind you I’ve got to go back to Norwich next Tuesday,” said Mr. -Preemby. - -“You ought to have thought of that before,” she said. - -“But I’ll lose my situation.” - -“Naturally father will find you something better. We aren’t poor -people, Teddy. There’s no need to be scared about it....” - -In such terms was Chris Hossett wooed and won by Mr. Preemby. He was -scared, dreadfully scared, but also he was tremendously roused. It -impressed him as being a wildly romantic affair and very terrifying and -a little hard on Meeta Pinkey. But he was bustled along too fast to -think very much about Meeta Pinkey. He was introduced over again to the -Hossett parents next day as their daughter’s affianced husband, and in -secret she gave him three golden sovereigns to buy her an engagement -ring as a surprise. Mrs. Hossett behaved at first as though she -approved of Mr. Preemby and disapproved of the marriage, and then after -what was clearly a stormy scene upstairs with her daughter, she behaved -as though she approved highly of the marriage and thought Mr. Preemby a -very objectionable person. Mr. Hossett would not speak to Mr. Preemby -directly, but he spoke of him to his wife and to imaginary auditors in -Mr. Preemby’s presence as a “scoundrel” who had “got hold” of his girl. -Yet he, too, seemed to regard the marriage as desirable, and no one -made any reply to his _obiter dicta_. - -It was all very puzzling and exalting to Mr. Preemby. He did little -except what he was told to do. He was carried over his marriage as -a man might be carried over a weir. He left any explanation to Mrs. -Witcherly of what was happening for some more favourable occasion. He -went off on Tuesday with his little valise as though he was going back -to Norwich. He wrote a simple letter of regret to the house-agent and -coal-merchant. Private affairs, he said, of an urgent nature prevented -his return to his duties. Mrs. and Miss Hossett went up to London with -him. They all took rooms at a temperance hotel in Bloomsbury, and Mr. -Preemby was married by special licence at St. Martin’s by Trafalgar -Square. - -Then he went down to the Limpid Stream Laundry to live with his -parents-in-law and master the duties of assistant manager, canvasser -and publicity agent. Mr. Hossett never spoke to him and sometimes -talked rather unpleasantly about him when he was in the room, making -accusations that were better ignored, but Mrs. Hossett gradually became -cordial again. And presently Mr. Hossett had a heart seizure and died, -and in the course of a few months Mr. Preemby found himself a father. -When he was first confronted with his daughter and, as it proved, his -only child, he thought her an extremely ugly little red object. He had -never seen a baby at so early a stage before. She had a lot of very -fine moist dark hair which subsequently gave place to a later crop; she -had large indeterminate features and remarkably large feet and hands. -Mr. Preemby had an absurd impression that he had seen her somewhere -before and hadn’t liked her. Then in a day or so she became a quite -ordinary pink baby and wonder gave place to affection. - -She was christened Christina Alberta after her mother and Mr. Preemby. - - -§ 5 - -In time all these experiences mellowed in Mr. Preemby’s memory into a -vague, glorious, romantic, adventurous past. He continued to be rather -dreamy and distraught, but on the whole he made a dutiful, faithful -husband, and he got on very well with his masterful and capable wife. - -She was, he had discovered on his marriage, three years his senior, -and she continued to be in every respect his senior to the day of her -death. But she treated him with proprietary affection; she chose all -his clothes for him, she cultivated his manners and bearing and upheld -him against all other people. She dressed him rather more like a golf -champion than he would have done himself if he had had any say in the -matter. She would not let him have a bicycle for many years, she was -a little exacting about his ways of keeping the laundry accounts, she -fixed his pocket-money at ten shillings a week, and she was disposed -to restrict his opportunities for conversation with feminine members -of the laundry staff. But he made no marked protest against these -slight deviations from the customary obedience of a wife. A tendency -to plumpness manifested itself, and he grew considerable quantities of -blonde moustache without apparent effort. - -Their home was an agreeable one, the more so after Mrs. Hossett had -followed her husband to his resting-place, under a marble crucifix -with a dove and olive branch in relievo at the intersection of the -arms, at Woodford Wells. Mr. Preemby became a great reader, reading -not only romantic novels--he had a great distaste for “realism” in any -form--but ancient history, astronomy, astrology and mystical works. -He became deeply interested in the problem of the pyramids and in the -probable history of the lost continent of Atlantis. Mental science -also attracted him, and the possibility of increasing will-power -very greatly. He would sometimes practise will-power before the -looking-glass in his bedroom when Mrs. Preemby was not about. At -nights he would sometimes will himself to sleep instead of going to -sleep in the usual fashion. He gave a considerable amount of attention -to prophecy and eschatology. He developed views of his own about the -Day of Judgment that might have led to a breach with the Established -Church if Mrs. Preemby had not thought that such a breach would react -unfavourably upon the Laundry. As time went on he accumulated a library -of upwards of a thousand volumes and a very considerable vocabulary. - -His wife viewed these intellectual preoccupations with friendly -sympathy, at times even with pride, but she took little part in them -herself. The Laundry was good enough for her. She loved the Laundry -more and more; loved its piled clean and starched shirts and collars -and its folded and stacked sheets, loved the creak of its machinery and -the suddy bustle of the washing room. She loved to have it all going -on, orderly and right; to feel everything going through the tubs and -washers and wringers, sure and safe; nothing astray, nothing missing -at the end. When she walked about the place voices were hushed and -scrubbing became respectfully assiduous. And she liked making things -pay. - -On Sunday afternoons and on days when the laundry had no need of his -services, Mr. Preemby took long walks. In fine weather he would walk -into Epping Forest or to Ongar or even into the rustic peace of the -Roothings, but in dull weather he would go Londonward. After a while -the trams were extended as far as the present terminus at Woodford and -it became possible to ride very pleasantly right into the heart of -London by way of Seven Sisters Road and Camden Town or, with a little -bit of extra walking, by the Lea Bridge Road and the Angel and Holborn. - -The greatness and multitudinous activities of London stirred slumbering -strands of Mr. Preemby’s imagination. He would go in and lunch at an -Aërated Bread Shop on a scone and butter, with a cup of cocoa and -perhaps a jam-puff, and he would spend hours looking into shop windows -and sometimes even making small purchases. He loved Charing Cross Road -with its book-shops, Tottenham Court Road, Holborn, Clerkenwell, and -the Whitechapel Road, but Piccadilly and Bond Street and Regent Street -seemed costly and lacking in true intellectual interest, and he felt -his baggy tweed knickerbockers and cap a little out of tune in these -smart places. Sometimes he would go to the British Museum and look -very hard at objects connected with the pyramids. Great public events -always drew him to London. If there was a great murder or a great fire -or a Royal Wedding or a Royal Funeral, Mr. Preemby would be sure to be -looking at it where the crowd was thickest, often with a neat packet -of provisions, a sandwich, an orange, or so forth, that Mrs. Preemby -had provided. But he never saw illuminations and fireworks because Mrs. -Preemby liked to have him at home when the day’s work was over. He -enjoyed the Great War of 1914-18 gravely and profoundly. Once he passed -a man who he thought afterwards was almost certainly a German spy. The -thought thrilled him for days. He had given him a good look anyhow. He -attended air raids in plenty, and he saw the Potters Bar Zeppelin shot -down. He was a good four years too old for compulsory military service -when the time came, and Mrs. Preemby would not let him be a special -constable because she thought he might catch cold. - -Mr. Preemby’s work in the counting house was not very onerous, but -he also gave thought and attention to the extension of the business -outside. He invented several attractive circulars. His experience -as a house-agent had trained him to note the existence of large -comfortable-looking houses that might otherwise have escaped his -observation and to ascertain whether they were occupied; he would then -find out whether the Limpid Stream Laundry got the washing from such -establishments, and if not he would send a circular and even follow -it up with a personal letter. He was vaguely observant about the -premises. He would go sometimes and look for quite a long time at the -furnaces or the delivery vans or any new piece of machinery like the -new calendering machine until he got used to it. But if he stood about -where there were girls working, Mrs. Preemby would make some excuse to -get him back into the office because, as she explained, she thought -a man standing about affected the girls’ work unfavourably. He took -in and sometimes read the _British Laundryman_ and the _Dyers’ and -Cleaners’ Gazette_. - -Occasionally he had happy ideas. It was his idea to paint the delivery -vans bright blue and decorate them with a swastika, and to paint -exactly the same colour and design on the front of the laundry and -put it on the bills. But when he wanted to put the van drivers into -swastika caps and blue the clothes baskets, Mrs. Preemby said she -thought the thing had gone far enough. It was also Mr. Preemby who -suggested Ford cars instead of horse vans as early as 1913. This change -was made in 1915. - -And at home with her peaceful interested father and her busy, -occasionally, rather astringent, mother, Christina Alberta grew to -girlhood and womanhood. - - - - -CHAPTER THE SECOND - -_Christina Alberta_ - - -§ 1 - -This story, it was clearly explained in the first paragraph of the -first section of the first chapter, is a story about Mr. Preemby in the -later years, the widower years, of his life. That statement has all the -value of an ordinary commercial guarantee, and on no account shall we -ever wander far from Mr. Preemby. But the life of his daughter was so -closely interwoven with his own during that time that it is necessary -to tell many things about her distinctly and explicitly before we get -our real story properly begun. And even after it has begun, and while -it goes on, and right up to the end, Christina Alberta will continue to -intrude. - -Intrusion was in her nature. She was never what is called an engaging -child. But she always had a great liking for her Daddy and he had the -greatest affection and respect for her. - -She had little or no tact, and there was always something remote -and detached, something of the fairy changeling about her. Even her -personal appearance was tactless. She had a prominent nose which tended -to grow larger, whereas Mrs. Preemby’s nose was small and bright and -pinched between her glasses, and her father’s delicately chiselled and -like some brave little boat shooting a great cascade of moustache; she -was dark and both her parents were fair. As she grew up the magic -forces of adolescence assembled her features into a handsome effect, -but she was never really pretty. Her eyes were brown and bright and -hard. She had her mother’s thin-lipped, resolute mouth and modestly -determined chin. And she had her mother’s clear firm skin and bright -colour. She was a humming, shouting, throwing, punching child with a -tendency not to hear admonitions and an almost instinctive dexterity -in avoiding sudden slaps. She flitted about. She might be up the -drying-ground or she might be under your bed. The only thing to do was -to down and look. - -She danced. Neither Mr. Preemby nor Mrs. Preemby danced, and this -continual jiggeting about perplexed and worried them. A piano or a -distant band would set her dancing or she would dance to her own -humming; she danced to hymn-tunes and on a Sunday. There was a standing -offer from Mr. Preemby of sixpence if ever she sat quiet for five -minutes, but it was never taken up. - -At her first school, a mixed day-school in Buckhurst Hill, she was -first of all extremely unpopular and then extremely popular and then -she was expelled. Afterwards she did fairly well at the Taverners’ -Girls’ School at Woodford, where she was recognized from the first as -a humorist. There was always a difficulty in calling her any other -name than Christina Alberta. People tried all sorts of names but none -of them stuck but “Christina Alberta.” “Babs” and “Baby” and “Bertie” -and “Buss” she was called at home and “Ally” and “Tina,” and at school -they tried “Nosey” and “Suds” and “Feet” and “Preemy” and “Prim.” Also -“Golliwog” because of her hair at hockey. These all came off again, and -left the original name exposed. - -She was quick at her lessons and particularly at history, geography and -drawing, but disrespectful to her teachers; at school hockey she played -forward right with marked success. She could run like the wind, and she -never seemed blown. Her pinch was simply frightful. She could make -sudden grimaces with her nose that gave the weaker sort hysterics. She -was particularly disposed to do this at school prayers. - -Between her mother and herself there was a streak of animosity. It -was not a very broad streak, but it was there. Her mother seemed to -cherish some incommunicable grievance against her. It didn’t prevent -Mrs. Preemby from doing her duty by the child, but it restrained any -real warmth of affection between them. From an early age it was Daddy -got the kisses and got climbed over and pulled about. He returned this -affection. He called her “my own little girl” and would even say at -times that she was a Wonder. He took her for walks with him and told -her many secret things that were in his mind, about the Lost Atlantis -and the Lamas of Tibet and the fundamentals of Astrology preserved -indecipherably in the proportions of the pyramids. He’d often wished, -he said, to have a good look at the pyramids. Sometimes one man saw -things that others didn’t. She would listen intently, although not -always in quite the right spirit. - -He would tell her of the virtue and science of Atlantis. “They walked -about in long white robes,” he said. “More like Bible Characters than -human beings.” - -“Good for the laundries, Daddy,” said Christina Alberta. - -“All we know of astrology is just fragments of what they knew. They -knew the past and future.” - -“Pity they were all drowned,” she remarked without apparent irony. - -“Maybe they weren’t all drowned,” he said darkly. - -“You don’t mean there’s Atlantics about nowadays.” - -“Some may have escaped. Descendants may be nearer than you suppose. Why -you and me, Christina, we may have Atlantic blood!” - -His manner conveyed his conviction. - -“It doesn’t seem to help much,” she said. - -“Helps more than you think. Hidden gifts. Insight. Things like that. -_We_ aren’t common persons, Christina Alberta.” - -For some moments the two of them pursued independent reveries. - -“Still we don’t _know_ we’re Atlantics,” said Christina Alberta. - - -§ 2 - -After she had fought her way to the sixth form in the Taverners’ -School the educational outlook of Christina Alberta was troubled by -dissensions both within the school and without. The staff was divided -about her, her discipline was bad, her class-work rank or vile, but -she passed examinations, and particularly external examinations by -independent examiners, with conspicuous success. There was a general -desire to get her out of the school; but whether that was to be done by -a university scholarship or a simple request to her parents to take her -away, was a question under dispute. The games-mistress was inclined to -regard murder as a third possible course because of the girl’s utter -disregard for style in games, her unsportsmanlike trick of winning -them in irregular and unexpected ways, and her tendency to make drill -and gymnastics an occasion for a low facetiousness far more suitable -for the ordinary class-room. The English and Literature mistress -concurred--although Christina Alberta would spend hours over her essays -working in sentences and paragraphs from Pater and Ruskin and Hazlitt -so that they might pass as her own original constructions. It was not -Christina Alberta’s fault if ever and again these threads of literary -gold were marked in red ink, “Clumsy” or “Might be better expressed” -or “Too flowery.” Only the head-mistress had a really good word for -Christina Alberta. But then the head-mistress, as became her position, -made a specialty of understanding difficult cases. - -And Christina Alberta was always quietly respectful to the -head-mistress, and could produce a better side to her nature with the -most disconcerting alacrity whenever the head-mistress was called in. - -Christina Alberta, as soon as the issue became clear to her, decided -for the scholarship. She reformed almost obtrusively, she became -tidy, she ceased to be humorous, she lost sets of tennis to the -games-mistress like a little sports-woman, and she stopped arguing -and became the sedulous ape of Stevenson for the estranged English -mistress. But it was up-hill work even in the school. There was a -little too much elegant surrender in her reformed tennis and a little -too much parody about her English in velveteen. The possibility that -she would ever join that happy class of girls who go in from the -suburbs to classes in London and lead the higher life beyond parental -inspection and sometimes until quite late in the evening in studios, -laboratories and college lecture-rooms, seemed a very insecure one, -even without reckoning with the quiet but determined opposition of her -mother. - -For Mrs. Preemby was not the woman to like a daughter educated above -her parentage and station. She came to lament her weakness in not -bringing Christina Alberta into the laundry as she herself had been -brought in at the age of fourteen. Then she would have learnt the -business from the ground up, and have qualified herself to help and at -last succeed her mother, even as Mrs. Preemby had helped and succeeded -Mrs. Hossett. But the school with its tennis and music and French and -so forth had turned the girl against this clean and cleansing life. She -was rising seventeen now, and the sooner she abandoned these things -which lead straight to school-teaching, spinsterhood, Italian holidays, -“art” clothes and stuck-up incapacity, the better for her and every one. - -She made a campaign against Christina Alberta’s habit of sitting -about in unladylike attitudes and reading; and when Mr. Preemby took -the unusual and daring course of saying that it was a bit hard on -the girl, and that he didn’t see any harm in a book or so now and -then, Mrs. Preemby took him up to Christina Alberta’s own little room -to see what came of it, and more particularly to see the sort of -pictures she’d stuck up there. Even when he was confronted with a large -photographic reproduction of Michael Angelo’s creation of Adam as the -master had painted that event on the roof of the Sistine Chapel in -Rome, he still made a feeble show of resistance, and said that it was -“Art.” - -“You’d stand anything she did, I believe,” said Mrs. Preemby. “Look at -it. Art! Look at these books! Darwin’s _Origin of Species_! That’s a -nice book for a girl to be prying into.” - -“Very likely she doesn’t see the harm of it,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“_Her!_” said Mrs. Preemby compactly. “And look at this!” - -“This” was Howe’s _Atlas of Biology_. She opened it to display its -large pages crowded with pictures of the detailed dissection of a frog. - -“Reely, my dear!” said Mr. Preemby. “It’s one of her schoolbooks. -There reely isn’t nothing what I should call _improper_ in that. It’s -Science. And, after all, it’s only a frog.” - -“Pretty things they teach at school nowadays. What with your Art and -your Science. Doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Why, when I was a -girl if I’d asked Ma what was inside _any_ animal, she’d have slapped -me and slapped me hard. And rightly. There’s things rightly hid from -us--and hid they ought to be. God shows us as much as is good for us. -More. No need to _open_ animals. And here--here’s a book _in French_!” - -“H’m,” said Mr. Preemby, yielding a little. He took up the lemon-yellow -volume and turned it over in his hand. - -“All this reading!” said Mrs. Preemby and indicated three shelves of -books. - -Mr. Preemby assembled his courage. “You mustn’t expect me to go against -reading, Chris,” he said. “It’s a pleasure and a light. There’s things -in books.... Reely, Chris, I believe you’d be happier if you read a -bit. Christina Alberta is a born reader, whether you like it or not. -She gets it from me, I suppose.” - -Mrs. Preemby started and regarded his flushed opposition; the anger -in her eyes was magnified through her glasses. “It’s wonderful,” she -said after a little pause; “it’s truly wonderful how Christina Alberta -manages to get everything she wants.” - - -§ 3 - -Miss Maltby-Neverson, the head-mistress of the Taverners’ School, -called upon Mrs. Preemby and shook her resolution a good deal. She was -obviously a lady, and the school washing ran in term-time to twenty -pounds a week. She was taken to see the scandalous picture and she -said: “Very beautiful, I’m sure. One of the really Great Paintings in -the world. Pro-foundly religious. It’s the very words of the Bible made -into a picture. What do you find in it to object to, Mrs. Preemby?” - -Whereupon, as if by a trick, the picture ceased to be scandalous and -Mrs. Preemby was ashamed of herself. She saw now there never had been -anything wrong about that picture. - -Miss Maltby-Neverson said that Christina Alberta was a difficult type -but a thoroughly interesting personality, a _real_ personality. She had -a great capacity for affection. - -“I haven’t found that,” said Mrs. Preemby. - -“It is a type I have studied,” said Miss Maltby-Neverson, simply but -conclusively. - -She explained that Christina Alberta was an _active_ type. Left to -herself without employment to _stretch_ her faculties she might -easily get into almost any sort of mischief. Almost any sort. Not -that there was anything wrong in her essentially. It was just energy. -Given good hard work and a scope for ambition, she might become a very -satisfactory woman indeed--possibly even a distinguished woman. - -“I’ve no use for distinguished women,” said Mrs. Preemby shortly. - -“The world has,” said Miss Maltby-Neverson gently. - -“I’m afraid I’m one of the old-fashioned sort,” said Mrs. Preemby. - -“Christina Alberta isn’t.” - -“Let the man be distinguished abroad and the woman distinguished -at home,” said Mrs. Preemby. “I’m sorry to differ from you, Miss -Maltby-Neverson, but one cannot help one’s opinions.” - -“It depends upon ourselves,” said Miss Maltby-Neverson. - -“I’m afraid I like men to rule,” said Mrs. Preemby. “Woman has her -place in the world, and it isn’t man’s.” - -“But I thought Mr. Preemby rather favoured the scholarship idea.” - -Mrs. Preemby was baffled. “He _did_,” she said as though she did not -see clearly what that had to do with the matter. “Give the thing a -trial,” said Miss Maltby-Neverson. “After all, she may not win this -scholarship.” - -But Christina Alberta won it with marks to spare. She took no risks. It -was a biennial scholarship which had been established by a benefactor -of advanced views. It was tenable at the London School of Economics. -As soon as Christina Alberta knew she had secured it she went, without -consulting her mother or anyone, to a hairdresser’s and had her -hair bobbed. To Mrs. Preemby this was almost a worse blow than the -scholarship. She surveyed her shock-headed, handsome-nosed daughter in -her short gymnastic skirts with a qualm of sincere hatred. - -She wished she could make her daughter feel about herself as she -felt about her. “I wish you could only see yourself,” she said with -concentrated bitterness. - -“Oh, _I_ know,” said Christina Alberta. - -“I suppose you’re a judgment on me,” said Mrs. Preemby. - - -§ 4 - -But Christina Alberta had only studied in the London School of -Economics for a year, she was beginning her second year when her mother -obliged her to resign her scholarship. Christina Alberta had stayed -late in London one evening without telling her mother she was going to -do so, she had gone to a discussion of the Population Question at the -New Hope Club in Fitzgerald Street, and she had come home smelling so -strongly of tobacco that her mother had repented of and revoked all her -concessions to modernity there and then. - -She had been waiting for that moment for many months. “This ends it,” -she said as she let her daughter in. - -Christina Alberta found there was no immediate way round or through -that decision. She worked her father and Miss Maltby-Neverson in vain. -But instead of resigning her scholarship right out as she had been -told to do, she played for time and explained her absence by a vague -reference to family trouble. - -Mrs. Preemby in those days was already in very bad health, but this -fact was completely overshadowed in the minds of both her daughter and -her husband by the far more urgent fact that she was now constantly in -a very bad temper. Everything was conspiring to worry her--except Mr. -Preemby, who knew better than to do anything of the sort. - -The closing years of the Great War, and still more so the opening year -of the Disappointing Peace, were years of very great difficulty for -the laundry business. The munitions business put laundry girls above -themselves and there was no doing anything with them. Coal, soap, -everything was at unheard-of prices, and it was impossible to get back -on the customers by raising the charges. People, even the best sort -of people, were giving up cleanliness. Gentlemen of position would -wear their dress-shirts three or four times and make their undervests -and under-pants last a fortnight. Household linen was correspondingly -eked out. People moved about; the new army officers’ wives came and -went, here to-day and gone to-morrow, leaving unpaid bills. Never -had Mrs. Preemby known so many bad debts. Van men came back from the -army so shell-shocked and militarized that they embezzled out of pure -nervousness and habit. Income tax became a nightmare. Outside as -within, Mrs. Preemby’s life was a conflict. She kept the Limpid Stream -Laundry paying all through that awful time because she was a wonder at -management, but she did it at a terrible loss of vitality. - -She became bitterly critical of the unhelpfulness of Mr. Preemby and -her daughter. When they tried to be helpful she criticized their -incapacity. They did more harm than good. - -Meal-times were awful. She would sit flushed and glowering through her -glasses, obviously afflicted by a passionate realization of the world’s -injustice and eating very little. Mr. Preemby’s attempts to start a -cheerful conversation were rarely successful. Even Christina Alberta -was overawed. - -“Things going a little better this morning?” Mr. Preemby would try. - -“Can’t I get rest from business even at my meals?” the poor lady would -complain. - -Or, “Looks like pleasant weather for the Derby.” - -“Pity you can’t go there for all the help you are in the place. I -suppose you haven’t heard what’s happened to van number two.” - -“No!” said Mr. Preemby. - -“You wouldn’t. Hind mudguard smashed. Been done for weeks. And nobody -knows who did it. One would think that that was a man’s business -anyhow. But it’s left for me to find out. And pay for. Like everything -else in the place.” - -“I’d better make inquiries.” - -“I know those inquiries of yours. Better leave the whole thing alone -now. Grin and bear it....” - -The silence of the meal would be restored. - -She seemed to set a high value upon these awful silences. She even -complained that he ate his cheese biscuits audibly. But how else can -one eat cheese biscuits? Christina Alberta was made of sterner stuff -and became controversial. Then her mother would flare out at her -insolence and declare that “one or the other of us” leaves the table. -“I’ll read upstairs,” said Christina Albert. “It isn’t _my_ wish to be -lunching here.” - -Before the abrupt ending of Christina Alberta’s university career she -was present only at breakfast and supper; supper wasn’t nearly as -awful in quality as breakfast, and breakfast could easily be bolted -and got away from; but after the New Hope Club catastrophe, she was -present at all the meals, a sort of lightning-conductor for her father -and something of a restraint upon, and an added exasperation to, her -mother. She took the line of agreeing that if her university career -was to end, then she must go into the laundry business; but she argued -very stoutly that to do that with any hope of success under modern -conditions meant a “proper business training.” If she could not go to -the London School of Economics then she ought to go to Tomlinson’s -Commercial Training School in Chancery Lane and learn book-keeping, -shorthand, typing, business correspondence, précis, commercial French, -and so forth. And after three weeks of painful midday meals this -proposal was adopted under stringent conditions and her season-ticket -to London was renewed. She worked her way very passably through -another winter with Tomlinson’s as her school and most of London as -her playground. She learnt all sorts of things. She added a new set of -friends and acquaintances, some with bobbed hair and some without, of -the most various social origins and associations, to the circle she had -already acquired at the London School of Economics. - -When presently Mrs. Preemby began to speak of a gnawing pain that -oppressed her, both her husband and daughter took it at first as a -new development of her general grievance against them and felt no -particular apprehension about it. Mr. Preemby said he thought she ought -to take advice or see some one about it, but for some days she treated -the suggestion with scorn. If once she got in a doctor, she said, -they’d have to find some one else to look after the laundry. Doctors -put you to bed and give you things to keep you there. Otherwise how -could they get a living? - -Then suddenly she changed. One morning she confessed she felt -“dreadful.” She went back to bed and Mr. Preemby, with strange -premonitions that the world was coming to an end, trotted off for a -doctor. The clinical thermometer showed a temperature mounting above -one hundred and one. “It hurts. My side hurts,” said Mrs. Preemby. -“I’ve had it once before, but not like this.” - -Christina Alberta came home that evening to discover herself capable of -fear, remorse, and tenderness. - -She had some strange moments with her mother in between phases of weak -delirium and insensibility. Mrs. Preemby’s face seemed to have become -smaller and prettier; the feverish flush in her cheeks simulated youth. -She was no longer hard or angry, but rather pathetically friendly. And -Christina Alberta hadn’t seen her in bed for years. - -“Take care of your Daddy,” said Mrs. Preemby. “You owe more to him--and -less to him--than you think. I had to do all I’ve done. Take care of -him. He’s gentle and good and easily persuaded and not to be trusted -alone in the world.... - -“I’ve never been quite all a mother should be to you. But you’ve been -_difficult_, Christina.... I’ve had a great respect for you.... - -“I’m glad you haven’t my eyes. Glasses are a Curse....” - -Anxiety about the laundry occupied a large part of her thoughts. - -“That woman Smithers in the washing room is a thief, and I’d get rid -of the new man Baxandale. I don’t know why I’ve kept Mrs. Smithers on -so long.... Weakness.... I’m not sure about _him_, there’s nothing -positive yet, but I feel he’s not straight.... I’m very much afraid -we’ve let Lady Badger’s account run too long. Nowadays titles--want -watching. I’ve been misled by her. She promised a cheque.... But I -doubt about you two in the laundry altogether. He can’t and you won’t. -_You_ might have done it.... Never mind that now. - -“Sell it as a going concern? The Widgerys might come in. He’s hard, but -he’s straight. Straight enough. They might like to come in.... - -“It’s never entered my head I wasn’t good for twenty years yet.... I -wish the doctor wouldn’t think of operating. It won’t do any good.” - -She repeated many of her phrases. - -“I hate the thought of being opened,” she said. “I suppose--. Like -those frogs in your book.... - -“Packed like a bag.... Never get it back again. Loose bits.... - -“Washing-basket or something to keep it together.” - -Then her mind went off at a tangent to things beyond Christina -Alberta’s understanding. - -“Sneaked off and left me to it.... I wonder what he’s doing now.... -Suppose.... Fancy, if it should be him that had to operate.... -Operate.... - -“Children we were.” - -She seemed to recollect herself and regarded her daughter with a -hard inquiring eye. Some instinct in Christina Alberta told her to -assume an incurious expression. But these words struck upon her mind -and stayed there and germinated like a seed. Children they were, and -he had sneaked off? Queer and yet according with all sorts of other -imponderables. - - -§ 5 - -Mr. Preemby looked unusually small but unusually dignified in his -full mourning. Christina Alberta was also extremely black and shiny. -Her skirts reached for the first time in her life to her ankles; a -sacrifice that she felt would be particularly acceptable to the spirit -of the departed. - -A new thing had come into Christina Alberta’s life--responsibility. She -perceived that for unfathomable reasons she was responsible for Mr. -Preemby. - -It was clear that the sudden death of his wife under the surgeon’s -knife had been a very great blow to him. He did not break down or weep -or give way to paroxysms of grief, but he was enormously still and sad. -His round china-blue eyes and his moustache looked at the world with -a mournful solemnity. The undertaker had rarely met so satisfactory -a widower. “Everything of the best,” said Mr. Preemby. “Whatever she -can have, she must have.” Under the circumstances, the undertaker, who -was a friend of the family, having met both Mr. and Mrs. Preemby at -whist-drives quite frequently, showed commendable moderation. - -“You can’t imagine what all this means to me,” said Mr. Preemby to -Christina Alberta, quite a number of times. “It was a pure love match,” -he said; “pure romance. She had nothing to gain by marrying me. But -neither of us thought of sordid things.” He was silent for a little -while, struggling with intractable memories. He subdued them. “We just -met,” he said, smiling faintly; “and it seemed that it _had_ to be.” - -“Sneaked off and left me”; came a faint whisper in Christina Alberta’s -memory. - - -§ 6 - -There was much to see to in those days of mourning. Christina Alberta -did her best to help, watch and guide Mr. Preemby even as her mother -had desired, but she was surprised to find in him certain entirely -unexpected decisions that had apparently leapt into existence within a -few hours of her mother’s death. One was a clear resolve that he and -she must part company with the laundry either by selling it or letting -it, or, if no means of disposing of it offered, by burning it down or -blowing it up as speedily as possible. He did not discuss this; he -treated it as an unavoidable necessity. He expressed no animosity for -the laundry, he made no hostile criticism of the life he had led there, -but every thought betrayed his fundamental aversion. And also they were -to go away--right away--from Woodford Wells and never return thither. -She had come to much the same decisions on her own account, but she had -not expected to find them in such quiet strength in him. - -He became explicit about the future as they sat at supper on the -evening of the funeral. - -“Your mother’s cousin, Sam Widgery,” he said, “was talking to me.” - -He munched for a moment; his moustache went up and down and his eyes -of china-blue stared out of the window at the sunset sky. “He wants to -take it over.” - -“The laundry?” - -“As a going concern. And he being our nearest relation, so to speak, -I’d as soon he had it as anybody else. Other things being equal.... -Wish I knew what to ask him for it. I don’t want to ask him too -little. So I said I didn’t care to discuss things at a funeral. Said -he’d better come along to-morrow. Their place isn’t doing well. It’s -got sort of embedded in Walthamstow. It would pay him to get out and -let the land go for building. He hasn’t got very much money.... But he -wants this place. He reely wants this place.” - -His blue eyes were the eyes of one who sees visions. - -“I don’t know if they taught you about making companies at the -School of Economics. I’m a child at all that sort of thing. He talks -about partnership or a mortgage or something like that, but what we -want--what we want is a limited company. And what we want is something -like debentures only rather more like preference shares. We want it so -that whatever he draws out of the business we’ve got to draw out more. -Otherwise the company can cut away the security for your debentures -by paying too much dividend on the ordinary shares. _He_’ll have the -ordinary shares. Him and his wife. I don’t say he’d do such a thing -deliberately, but he might very easily be led into doing it. He’s got -to be looked after. We want to fix it so that if he pays more on his -shares than we get on our shares we’d get our interest levelled up. -It’s all very difficult and complicated, Christina Alberta.” - -Christina Alberta regarded Mr. Preemby with a new and deepening -respect. She had never heard him make such a speech before at meals, -but then he had never before been free from interruption and correction. - -“We’ll have to have it fixed up properly by our solicitors,” said Mr. -Preemby. - -“We shan’t be badly off,” he continued, helping himself to cheese. - -“There’s a mortgage or so we’ve got and some houses at Buckhurst Hill. -It’s a curious thing, but your poor dear mother had a sort of faith in -my eye for house property. She often let me guide her. And I always -had a feeling for making some sort of reserve _out_ of the business.... -Very likely Sam Widgery will take over most of the furniture of this -house. It’s a bigger house than his....” - -“Where do you think of going to live, Daddy?” asked Christina Alberta. - -“I don’t rightly know,” said Mr. Preemby after a moment or so of -introspection. “I keep thinking of different places.” - -“London,” she said. “If I could go back to study--before it is too -late.” - -“London,” he said, “it might be.” - -He hesitated over his next suggestion with the hesitation that had -become a habit, so accustomed was he to see his suggestions crumpled -up and flung aside. “Have you ever heard of Boarding Houses, Christina -Alberta?” he asked with an unreal carelessness. “Have you ever thought -it might be possible for us to go and live in Boarding Houses?” - -“In London?” - -“All over the world--almost, there are Boarding Houses. You see, -Christina Alberta, we might get rid of our furniture here, except for -my books and a few little things, and we might put most of that away -for a time--Taylor’s Repository would take care of that for us--and we -might go and live sometimes in a Boarding House here, and sometimes in -a Boarding House there. Then you could study and needn’t keep house, -and I could read and look at things and make memorandums about some -Theories I’ve thought of, and talk to people and hear people talking. -All sorts of people go to Boarding Houses--all sorts of interesting -people. These last nights I’ve been thinking no end about living in -Boarding Houses. I keep on thinking of it, turning it over in my mind. -It would be a new life for me--like beginning again. Life’s been so -regular here. All very well while your poor dear mother was alive, but -now I feel I want distraction. I want to move about and see all sorts -of things and different kinds of people. I want to forget. Why, in -some of these Boarding Houses there’s Chinese and Indians and Russian -princesses, and professors and actors and all sorts of people. Just to -hear them!” - -“There’s Boarding Houses full of students in Bloomsbury.” - -“Every sort,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“One place that attracts me,” said Mr. Preemby, pouring out what -remained of the beer, “is Tumbridge Wells.” - -“Isn’t that sometimes called Tunbridge, Daddy?” - -“Formerly. But now it is always spoken of as Tumbridge Wells. At this -Tumbridge Wells, Christina Alberta, there are hills with names that -point directly to some connection with the ancient Israelites, Mount -Ephraim and Mount Gilboa and so on, and there are a number of curiously -shaped rocks, shaped in the likeness of great toads and prehistoric -monsters and mystical forms and nobody knows whether they are the work -of God’s hand or man’s. I am very anxious to see these things for -myself. They may have a deeper and closer significance for us than is -commonly supposed. There are plenty of Boarding Houses at Tumbridge -Wells--I was told only the other day by a man I met in the Assyrian -room in the British Museum--and some of them are said to be very -comfortable and reasonable indeed.” - -“We might go there for the holidays,” said Christina Alberta, “before -the London session begins.” - -Outside was the summer afterglow, and a dusky peace filled the room. -Father and daughter followed divergent trains of thought. Mr. Preemby -was the first to break the silence. - -“Now that I shall be in mourning, or half mourning, for some time I -have decided to give away all those Harris tweed knickerbocker suits -and stockings of mine. Some poor man might feel the comfort of them--in -winter. I have never really liked those _very_ baggy knickerbockers, -but of course while your poor dear mother was alive her taste was Law -to me. And those caps; they get over your eyes when you’re hot. That -tweed stuff.... It is overrated. When you ride a bicycle or anything it -ravels out with the friction of the seat. Makes you look ridiculous.... -And I think that quite soon I shall get myself one of those soft grey -felt hats--with a black band.” - -“I have always wanted to see you wear one, Daddy,” said Christina -Alberta. - -“It would count as mourning?” - -“Oh! yes, Daddy.” - -Mr. Preemby meditated pleasantly. The girl had common sense. Her advice -was worth having. “As for putting the swastika on your poor dear -mother’s tombstone, perhaps you are right in thinking it is not what -she herself would have chosen. It may be better after all to do as you -suggest and erect a simple cross. After all--it is _her_ tombstone.” - -Whereupon Christina Alberta got up from her chair and went round the -table--almost at a prance, until she remembered things--and kissed him. -For some obscure reason she hated the swastika almost as much as she -loved her Daddy. For her it had become the symbol of silliness, and she -did not like to think of him as silly. Particularly now when for some -obscure reason she was beginning to think of him as ill-used. - - -§ 7 - -There was much to see to before the Preembys could go to Tunbridge -Wells. There had to be quite a number of interviews with Mr. Sam -Widgery at Woodford Wells and afterwards in the dingy offices of -Messrs. Payne and Punter in Lincoln’s Inn. It was clear from the first -to these men of affairs that Mr. Preemby was a child at business, but -as they went on with him they realized that he was an extremely greedy -and intractable child. It was six weeks before Mr. and Mrs. Sam Widgery -could move in, sullenly and resentfully, to the Limpid Stream premises, -and Mr. Preemby and his daughter could go on after a day or so in -London to select a Boarding House at Tunbridge Wells. - -Christina Alberta spent her early days as an orphan struggling against -an unreasonable cheerfulness and a profound sense of release. She found -her father ready to accept almost any explanation of her need to run -up to London for a day and even disposed to be tolerant when she came -home late. She had quite a little world of miscellaneous acquaintances -in London; fellow-students and their friends, fellow-students from the -London School of Economics and fellow-students at Tomlinson’s School -and art students they knew and medical students they knew and girls -from the provinces who had chucked their families and got typing jobs, -and so on to models and chorus girls and vaguely employed rather older -young men of the intellectual class. She met them in and about the -class-rooms and in A.B.C.’s and suchlike places and in the New Hope -Club, where there were even Labour politicians and men who claimed to -be Bolsheviks, and she went to parties and duologues in studios in -high, remote, extraordinary flats. It was tremendous fun, although a -lot of it had to be snatched from the insistent claims and inquiries -of Woodford Wells. And people liked her, they liked Christina Alberta, -laughed at her jokes they did and admired her thundering cheek and -never said anything about her nose. It was much more her natural world -than the Taverners’ School people had ever been. Nobody seemed to mind -that she came out of a laundry; for all they seemed to care about -that sort of thing, she might have come out of a gaol. In between the -excitements of student life she even did some reading. - -In her first grief for her mother she tried not to feel a sense of new -unstinted freedom in regard to all these adventures and experiences. -Her Daddy in his grief, bless him! was smoking much more than he -had ever done before; he was even trying cigars; he had no nose for -tobacco reek in his daughter--or for anything of that sort. He asked -few questions and they were easily answered. Long years of exercise -had made him almost constitutionally acquiescent. Christina Alberta -realized that within very wide limits indeed now she might do anything -she pleased whenever she liked. She realized also that there was no -particular hurry to do anything at all. All the others seemed to be -running about in pairs like knives and forks. It suited her humour to -stay detached. - -And the world had altered. This break-up of the old home, the death of -her mother, the disappearance of every control, except her credulous, -inattentive Daddy, had jerked her forward from childhood to maturity. -Hitherto home had seemed an eternal, indestructible thing, from which -you started out for adventures, to which, whatever happened, you -returned like a sea-rover to rest and where you went to bed and slept -as you had been wont to sleep, secure, unthreatened. Now here the two -of them, Daddy and herself, were in the open; no bolting place at all -for them; anything might happen to them and might insist upon going on -happening. She could now do just anything she pleased, it was true, but -also she realized that now she had to take the unlimited consequences. - -So that in spite of her sense of novel, unbounded freedoms, Christina -Alberta found she did not go up to London any more than she would have -done during her mother’s lifetime. Many of her most attractive friends, -it is true, were away upon their holidays. And she found her father’s -company unusually interesting. Every time she came back to him he -seemed to be slightly enlarged and of a firmer colour and consistency. -He reminded her of Practical Biology (Botanical Section) in the -Taverners’ School, when you take a dried-up bean out of its package -and put it in a jar with water and observe it under the influence of -warmth and moisture. It germinates. And he was germinating. - -Mother had kept him dried up for nearly twenty years, but now he was -germinating and nobody could tell what sort of thing he might become. - - - - -CHAPTER THE THIRD - -_In Lonsdale Mews_ - - -§ 1 - -After a month of deep mourning, Christina Alberta put aside her long -skirts and returned to the more kilt-like garments to which she was -accustomed. She had not been inactive while her father had conducted -his business settlement with Mr. Sam Widgery, and she had worked out -a scheme of living that seemed to promise quite a happy life for her -father and herself. She fell in with the Boarding House idea and with -the project of beginning at Tunbridge Wells. She ceased to struggle -with the fact that he continued to call it quietly but insistently -_Tum_bridge Wells; it seemed to her upon reflection that _Tum_bridge -was really the place he, at any rate, was going to live at. That gentle -departure from exactitude was quite of a piece with his general habit -of living a little askew from actual things. - -But she impressed upon him the view that since their lives were to be -migratory henceforth, and since there were a certain number of books, -unsaleable articles of furniture that Mrs. Widgery would not take over -at a valuation, a number of curiosities--for example, a piece of shell -which he believed to be a fragment of a Great Auk’s Egg, a Rosicrucian -regalia, and a mummified hawk from Egypt which had prophetic qualities, -to consider--there must be a sort of permanent headquarters in -London, at which these objects could be stored and to which he and -she could return from the various Boarding Houses round and about -the earth. And, pursuant to this suggestion, she made inquiries -and worked out an admirable project for sharing some accommodation -with two little friends of hers who practised art, literature, and -picturesque economies in a converted mews in Chelsea. In fact, she -made arrangements with them. She told Mr. Preemby she had made these -arrangements according to his instructions, and after a time it did -come to seem to him that he had given her the instructions upon which -she acted. - -Lonsdale Mews opens out of Lonsdale Road, Chelsea; and there is quite -a noble entrance with large stucco pillars on either side and an arch -over, on which is a design in relievo of Neptune and sea-horses and -the words “Lonsdale Mews.” Inside there had once been stables and -coach-houses, and over each a bedroom and a sitting-room, which was -also, in the more prolific past, generally used as a bedroom, and a -cupboard and a landing and so forth, the little home of the coachman -(and his wife and family) attached to the genteel carriage and horses -below. But the advancement of science and the progress of invention -have abolished gentility, and so reduced the number of coachmen and -carriages in the world that Lonsdale Mews has had to accept other -tenants; and being too narrow down the centre for the coming and -going of automobiles without a great deal of bashing of mudguards and -radiators, has had to paint itself up attractively and fall back upon -art and the intelligenzia. - -Christina Alberta’s two young friends were in possession of one of -these perverted coachmen’s homes, and as they were very inadequately -prepared to pay the rent--it was a quite aristocratic rent--they were -extremely glad to welcome Mr. Preemby and particularly Christina -Alberta as co-tenants. Mr. Preemby was to have the big room downstairs -and there he was to arrange his books and his surplus furnishings and -ornaments and curious objects, and have a sofa that could be made into -an apparent bed when he wanted to sleep in London. And Christina -Alberta was to have a little bedroom for herself behind this wherein a -breezy decorative scheme of orange and bright blue more than made up -for a certain absence of daylight and fresh air. But when the two young -friends had a party or when Mr. Preemby was away they were to have the -use of the big downstairs room, and in the case of a party Christina -Alberta’s room was to be a ladies’ cloak-room. - -The lessors were to retain the use of the upstairs rooms and in the -matter of the kitchen all things therein were to be held in common. -None of this agreement was put into writing and many issues were left -over frankly for future controversy. “We are to be the pigs that pay -the rent,” said Christina Alberta; that was the general idea. “Much -we’ll work out,” said Mr. Harold Crumb. “Much will work itself out. -It’s no good being too definite.” What was definite was that Mr. -Preemby was to pay the rent. - -Mr. Harold Crumb was a red-haired young man, a shock-headed young man -with a rampant profile, dressed in a blue overall, frayed grey trousers -and slippers. He had large freckled hands and he did Black and White, -which Mr. Preemby had supposed to be a whisky but discovered was an -art. Harold lived by attempting to sell drawings for advertisements and -pictured jokes for the weekly papers. His expression was lofty and his -voice constrained and it seemed to Mr. Preemby that he was suffered -rather than met by Mr. Crumb. With Christina Alberta Mr. Crumb seemed -to be on terms of tacit friendship and no word passed between them. -He lifted his hand and twiddled his fingers at her--with a kind of -melancholy. - -Mrs. Crumb was more effusive. She embraced Christina Alberta warmly -and answered to the name of “Fay.” Then she turned to Mr. Preemby and -shook hands with him quite normally. She was a slender young lady -with carelessly bobbed corn-coloured hair, pale-grey eyes and an -absent-minded face. She also was dressed in a blue overall, she wore -oyster-coloured stockings and slippers and possibly other things, and -her business in life, Mr. Preemby learnt, was to review books for -various newspapers and write romantic fiction for bookstall magazines. -Her right forefinger had that indelible inkiness which only the -habitual use of an incontinent fountain-pen can give. There was a big -screen in the downstairs room Mr. Preemby was to have that Mr. Crumb -had made and Mrs. Crumb had covered with the bright mendacious wrappers -of the books she had reviewed. This exercised Mr. Preemby the more -because several of the wrappers were manifestly upside down, and he -could not understand whether this was due to art, carelessness or some -serious mental lapse. - -“We’ll have something to eat,” she told Mr. Preemby, and then they -could settle up things. But she had a surprisingly rapid articulation -and it sounded like, “We’ll ’f sum t’eat ’n’ then we’ll set lup -thins.” It took ten or twelve seconds to come through to Mr. Preemby’s -understanding. Meanwhile she had turned to Christina Alberta. “’Dabit -’f work to do,” she explained. “Bres no’ clear’ d’way. Late las’ ni’. -You be’r loo’ roun’ he’ while Nolly gessomeat an’ Ikn do ’p stairs fore -you see’t.” - -“Right-o,” said Christina Alberta, understanding perfectly. Mr. Preemby -was left stunned, with his lips moving slowly. “So long,” said Harold, -and took some money out of a black Wedgwood tea-pot and went and fell -over things in the passage, and presently went out into the wide world -while Fay vanished upstairs. - -“She’s gone upstairs,” said Mr. Preemby, interpreting slowly, “to do -their rooms. And _he’s_ gone to get some meat. It’s a nice large room, -Christina Alberta--and quite well lit. Quite. - -“I don’t think I’ve ever been in a Mew before,” said Mr. Preemby, -approaching a group of attractive drawings on the wall. - -“In a _what_, Daddy?” - -“In a Mew. Or in a _Studjo_.... I suppose these are Originals.” - -Christina Alberta awaited his reaction to the drawings with a slight -anxiety. - -“Looks like a lot of fruit and human legs and things,” said Mr. -Preemby. “Wonder what they mean? _Summer Night_ it says, and that’s -_Passion in Solitude_. Don’t quite see it, but I suppose it’s -symbolical or something.” He turned his round blue eyes to the room -generally. “I could get a mahogany cabinet for my Curiosities and have -it against the wall _there_--I’d like the sort with glass doors so that -people could see the things--and if there was some shelves put across -that place, it would hold most of my books. There’ll have to be a bed -somewhere, Christina Alberta.” - -“They’ve got a sofa upstairs,” said Christina Alberta, “with an end -that pulls down.” - -“Might go there.” - -“Or under the window.” - -“Of course there’s my clothes,” said Mr. Preemby. “I almost wish -I hadn’t practically promised Sam Widgery your mother’s wardrobe. -Rosewood it is. It has a lot of room in it and it might have gone -against that bit of wall there. The trunk will make a sort of seat if -we get the corners mended. Wonder how that screen would look the other -way up. Books might go behind it. These easels and things I suppose -they’ll take upstairs.... We’ll get things settled all right.” - -Christina Alberta turned about with arms akimbo to follow his -proposals. She perceived that they threatened a considerable -disturbance of the æsthetic balance of the studio. She’d just thought -of a little bed-sofa affair with a bright rug over it. Silly of her -to forget the baggage. But in the end perhaps it might be possible to -arrest a lot of his gear in the passage. The passage was so choked -already that a little more in it hardly seemed to matter. He could -go out and get what things he wanted when he wanted them. She had a -momentary anticipation of him in his shirt and braces, routing in -trunks. - -“Of course,” said Mr. Preemby, “when you said you’d got two little -friends in a _Studjo_, I thought they were two girls. I didn’t think -they were a married couple.” - -“They aren’t so _fearfully_ married,” said Christina Alberta. - -“No,” said Mr. Preemby, and was restrained by modesty from further -speech for some seconds. “Of course,” he said, “if presently a Family -came along--well, we’d have to move out, Christina Alberta.” - -“Never meet families half-way,” said Christina Alberta. “It isn’t very -likely anyhow. You trust Fay.” - -“You never know,” said Mr. Preemby rather weakly, and showed a tendency -to drift back to those ambiguous drawings. - -“About time we had a look at the upstairs rooms, Daddy,” said Christina -Alberta, and went out into the passage to call “Fay!” - -The answer came remotely. “Lo?” - -“Read-_dee_?” - -“Not yet.” - -Christina Alberta found her Daddy back in the illustrated corner with -his head on one side like an inquiring sparrow. For some time nothing -was said. “Of course,” he remarked at last; “it’s Art.” He turned away -with his face pursed up beneath the moustache, humming faintly. She -perceived it was just as much Art as he could stand. - -He ran his hand over the wall and turned intelligent eyes to Christina -Alberta. “It’s just canvas,” he said; “what you pack things in. With -sort of dabs of gold paint. I don’t think I’ve ever seen walls that -wasn’t either done with paper or distemper before. I suppose really one -might put all sorts of things on walls, cloth, bed-ticking, tarpaulin. -Odd how one doesn’t think of things.” - - -§ 2 - -Presently “upstairs” was “read-ee;” Mrs. Harold Crumb was free to -answer questions and make explanations and Mr. Preemby could learn -more of Christina Alberta’s plans for his comfort. Upstairs was more -various but less spacious than downstairs, the beds were dressed-up -rather than disguised as divans and there was more vaguely improper but -highly decorative Art. Like Christina Alberta Mrs. Crumb had not fully -considered Mr. Preemby’s possibilities in the way of luggage, but she -rose to the occasion very well. When Mr. Preemby spoke of the mahogany -cabinet and the wardrobe, she said that it would be quite easy for -Harold to “camouflage” them with very, very bright-coloured paint, and -she thought a lot might be done for Mr. Preemby’s trunks and clothes -by making a curtained alcove in a corner. “Trouble with clothes,” said -Mrs. Crumb, “is when somebody starts charades or dressing up. Nothing -is sacred. Last week, somebody tore my only pyjamas limb from limb.” - -“We’d have to arrange,” said Mr. Preemby, a little uneasily. - -“We’ll have to arrange somehow,” said Mrs. Crumb. - -But before anything could be arranged definitely Harold returned from -his shopping with a large piece of purple beefsteak in a mere loin -cloth of newspaper, and a lettuce and a bundle of small onions in his -hand and two large bottles of beer under his arm, and everybody’s -attention was directed to the preparation of the midday meal. - -“Generally,” said Harold, “we go Out for a meal. There’s quite a decent -aufschnittery and a little Italian place and so forth not five minutes -away in the King’s Road. It’s more fun feeding Out. But we thought -you’d like to see the studio put through its paces.” - -Mr. Preemby in the course of his life had rarely seen meals prepared; -somebody else had always laid a table and said “Dinner’s ready, -Daddy,” or “Supper’s ready, Daddy,” as the case might be, and he -had just sat down, and it was with real interest that he obeyed Mr. -Crumb’s invitation to “come and see how we do it,” and assisted under -direction in the operations. Mr. Crumb, in a few well-chosen words, -introduced the cooking apparatus that clustered around the gas-stove; -the gas-stove was lit explosively, Mr. Preemby handed things and held -things under direction and got in the way a good deal. Christina -Alberta, who seemed used to the job, chopped the onions and dressed a -salad at a small kitchen table close at hand, and the steak got itself -grilled fiercely and flaringly. - -Meanwhile Mrs. Crumb laid a blue-painted table in what was to be -Mr. Preemby’s room with an orange-coloured cloth and a selection of -plates and parts of plates, yellow-glazed mugs with rudely painted -inscriptions in some rustic dialect, “Here’s t’ absent frens” and -the like, several knives and forks, a pewter mug full of cigarettes -and a bunch of sunflowers in a brown-glazed bowl. And at this table -Mr. Preemby presently found himself seated very hot in the face and -liberally splashed with fat from the grilled steak. Nobody said grace, -and the meal began. - -There was a general assumption that Mr. Preemby’s tenancy was settled, -though there were many points upon which he would have liked a clearer -definition. He was particularly anxious to exclude as tactfully as -possible his garments and his specimens from promiscuous use as -properties when these charades occurred, but he did not know quite how -to reopen the subject. And he was preoccupied by a doubt whether his -long nightgowns of Saxony flannel, if they were publicly exposed, might -not be considered old-fashioned by these artistic young people. But -their talk jumped about so that it was difficult to lead up to what he -had to say. He was accustomed, especially when company was present, -to clear his throat “h’rrmp” and waggle his moustache up and down a -little before he spoke, and by the time he was ready to deliver what -he had to say one of the others was away with something else. So that -he hardly said anything but an occasional “h’rrmp” all through the meal. - -The two young ladies did most of the talking. Harold seemed moody, -making an occasional correction or comment upon his wife’s remarks and -eating most of the steak with the pained expression of one who has -tender teeth and is used to better food. Once he asked Mr. Preemby -if he really cared for Good Music, and once if he had been to see -the Iberian dancers last year, but neither of these inquiries led to -a sustained conversation. “H’rrmp. No-oh,” said Mr. Preemby. “Not -exactly. Not particularly,” and in the second case, “No-oh, I didn’t.” - -Mrs. Crumb talked brightly of various newspaper jobs she had got and -how she had been asked to do a children’s corner in the _Patriotic -News_ and whether she would accept the offer--Mr. Preemby thought the -editors and newspaper proprietors she mentioned seemed a depraved -lot--but mainly the talk concerned the movements and readjustments of a -large circle of friends. After the meal there was coffee, and Harold, -with an air of resignation, went and washed up. - -There were many little things awaiting attention at the laundry, and -after two or three cigarettes Mr. Preemby decided, “It’s time for us -to be going, Christina Alberta.” “We’ll work it out all right,” said -Harold on their departure. - -There were intervals of meditation as Mr. Preemby and Christina Alberta -returned in the train from Liverpool Street to Woodford Wells. “It’s -not what I’ve been accustomed to,” said Mr. Preemby. “It’s all very -different from the way your mother used to manage things.... Less -orderly.... Of course I could keep my clothes locked up in my trunk.” - -“You’ll do all right. They’re perfect Dears. _She_ loves you -tremendously already,” said Christina Alberta. - - -§ 3 - -But before she went to sleep that night Christina Alberta experienced -compunction. She felt compunction about these arrangements she was -making for her Daddy. She doubted whether he would be truly comfortable -and happy in that studio in Lonsdale Mews, and able to lead the life of -steadfast curiosity he anticipated with so much quiet pleasure--ever -humming to himself about it and working his moustache and saying -“h’rrmp,” when he was not otherwise engaged. - -This story, it cannot be too often reiterated, is the story of Mr. -Preemby who became, as we shall tell in due course, Sargon, King of -Kings. But Christina Alberta has got herself hatched into this story -very much like a young cuckoo in a wagtail’s nest and it is impossible -to ignore her. She was virtually in control of him and she had the -egotism of her sex and age. - -She had also a pitiless conscience. It was almost the only thing -she could not manage in her life. It managed her. It was a large, -crystalline conscience with no foundations and no relationships; it -just flooded by itself in her being; it was her gravitational centre -and the rest of her could not get away from it. - -When Christina Alberta went up for examination and judgment before -Christina Alberta there was no nonsense in the proceedings, a fearful -frankness; it was cards on the table, everything in evidence, no -etiquette, not a stitch on, X-rays if necessary. These examinations -were all the more terrible because they were done in what was -practically an empty room, without screens, curtains, standards or -general beliefs of any sort. It is appalling to think of the drapery -and function that was absent from Christina Alberta’s court of -conscience. In the first place Christina Alberta was completely and -explicitly irreligious. In the next she was theoretically anti-social -and amoral. She did not believe in respectability, Christian morality, -the institution of the family, the capitalist system, or the British -Empire. She would say so with extreme plainness and considerable detail -except when her parent was about. Prevalent winds of sentiment did not -stir her. She did not find the Prince of Wales ravishing nor _Punch_ -funny. She thought modern dancing tiresome, though she did it very -well, and Wimbledon tennis and tennis-talk an intolerable bore. She -favoured Bolshevism because everybody she disliked abused it and she -hoped for a world-wide social revolution of an entirely destructive and -cleansing type. What was to follow this revolution Christina Alberta, -with the happy confidence of youth, did not seem to mind. - -It is not for us to speculate here why a young woman born and bred -between Woodford Wells and central London in the opening years of the -twentieth century should confront the world with a mind so entirely -swept and void of positive and restraining convictions; we put the -fact on record. And if she had been sustained by all the beliefs in -Christendom and a sure and certain respect for every detail of the -social code, whatever that code may be, she could not have confronted -the world with a more cheerful confidence, nor with a stronger -persuasion that Christina Alberta had to behave, in some undefined -fashion, well. Christina Alberta had to be Christina Alberta, clear and -sound, or the court of conscience made things plain and hard for her. - -“Christina Alberta,” the court would say, “you are the dirtiest, -filthiest little thing that ever streaked the dust of life. How do you -propose to get clean again?” - -Or, “Christina Alberta, you have been lying again. You’ll lie to _me_ -next. First it was laziness made you lie and now it is cowardice. What -are you going to make of yourself, Christina Alberta?” - -There came a time when the court had to address Christina Alberta -in this fashion: “Your nose, Christina Alberta, is large beyond -comparison. It will probably go on growing all your life--as noses -often do. Yet you are setting yourself out to charm and fascinate Teddy -Winterton. You go to places where you think you will meet him. You fuss -and preen yourself like any female idiot. You dream all sorts of things -about him, disgraceful things. You are soppy on this young man in spite -of the fact that you know he is--no sort of good. You like him to touch -you. You sit and look at him foolishly and you gloat. Does he gloat -on you? Isn’t it time you considered where you are going, Christina -Alberta?” - - * * * * * - -And now the court was in full session and the charge, the charge for -which there was no defence, was that she was going to take her absurd, -unprotected Daddy and entrust him and his foolishness and his silly -books and his ridiculous treasures and all his dreams and desires to -the insecure and unsympathetic studio of the Crumbs, not because of any -vague and general hunger for London, though that was in the background, -but because that studio was frequented by the all too seductive Teddy, -because there she had met him and danced wildly with him and been -suddenly and astonishingly kissed by him and kissed him. And then he -had beguiled her to learn a dance with him and had got her to come to -tea with him at his studio to meet his sister--who hadn’t turned up. -And there had been other meetings. He was impudent and provocative -and evasive. All her being was in a state of high excitement about -him. Coldly and exactly now the court unfolded the operations of her -mind to her; showed how the thought of Teddy, always present and never -admitted, had guided her decision to harbour with the Crumbs. Only -now did she come to confession and clear vision. “You have lied to -yourself, Christina Alberta,” said the court; “and that is the worst -sort of lie. What are you going to do about it?” - -“I can’t let the Crumbs down now. They count upon us.” - -“You are in a mess, Christina Alberta. You are in a worse mess than -we thought you were. _Soppy_ you are about Teddy Winterton. Why not -call things by their right names? You are in love. Perhaps something -frightful has happened to you. Little rabbits run about the hedges and -every day is like every other day for them; they waggle their little -noses and wiggle their little tails and do what they like with their -paws. Until one day there is a ping and the snare snaps on the little -furry foot and everything you try to do after that is different. The -snare holds your movements and you must just dance round it and squeal -if you like, till the man comes along. Is that what has happened to -you? And for Teddy! Teddy, with that open, lying face!” - -“No,” said Christina Alberta, “I don’t love him. I don’t love him. -I’ve been silly and soppy and adrift. I am no more worthy to be called -Christina Alberta. But it hasn’t got me yet and it shan’t get me. I’ll -pull Daddy out of it and myself out of it; I vow and swear....” - -“H’m,” said the court. - - -§ 4 - -It seemed to Mr. Preemby that the first evening he spent in his new -quarters in Lonsdale Mews was the most eventful evening in his life. -Impressions crowded upon each other. Insomnia was not among his habits, -but when at last he lay upon his shake-up bed he was kept awake for -most of what was left of the night (it was the frayed piece with the -bleak dawn in the middle of it) trying to get these same impressions -sorted out, impressions about his new surroundings, impressions about -Christina Alberta, impressions of new and unprecedented personalities, -a marmalade of impressions. - -Mr. Preemby and Christina Alberta arrived at the studio according to -plan about half-past three, but the Picton van which had started that -morning with Mr. Preemby’s bags and trunks and the crates of books -and curiosities and the late Mrs. Preemby’s roomy wardrobe, which had -after all been rescued from the clutches of Sam Widgery, did not arrive -until it was nearly six. Unfortunately the furniture dealer in Brompton -Road from whom Mr. Preemby had purchased a specimen-cabinet and a long -low walnut bookcase had delivered these articles the day before, and -all the animosity of the modern artist towards self-assertive wood -had been aroused in Harold. He and Fay and a friend or so who had -dropped in, had sat up quite late painting these new pieces a deep -ultramarine blue with stars and splashes of gold like the paper they -put around the necks of Ayala, Tsarist and suchlike champagnes. When -Mr. Preemby saw their handiwork he could scarcely believe it was the -same specimen-cabinet and bookcase. - -“I suppose one could get it off again,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“But see how they are assimilated by the room,” said Harold in high -expostulation. - -“I mean if we moved at any time,” said Mr. Preemby. “I know it’s -art, and it goes with the things here very nicely, but there’s -neighbourhoods I wouldn’t like to move into--not with these things as -they are. You don’t know what people’s imaginations are like.” - -Matters went a little tediously until the arrival of the Picton van. -The sofa-bed was arranged and rearranged. The bed things, blankets, -sheets and pillow-cases, were to be put in a bundle on the top of Mr. -Preemby’s flat trunk behind the book-wrapper screen. “We shall have to -find some other place for the bottled beer,” said Harold. “It’s too -hot in the kitchen and too dangerous in the passage. But I’ve an idea -we might have it in the scullery under the sink, with a cloth over it -and water dripping on the cloth. Evaporation. I’ll see about it.” - -Mr. Preemby was surprised by a yawn. “I suppose you’d like to have some -tea,” said Fay suddenly, and she and Christina Alberta prepared some. - -Harold was obviously in a strained and nervous state. Mr. Preemby’s -patient little figure, sitting about hands on knees, waiting for -Picton’s van, looking at things with innocent eyes and saying “h’rrmp” -had much the same effect of nervous dislocation upon Harold that the -mild and patient camel has on a horse. Harold chafed and pranced. He -walked about and went upstairs and out and returned; he smoked endless -cigarettes and pressed endless cigarettes upon Mr. Preemby; he made -recondite remarks in a strained voice. “All this is like something out -of Dostoievsky,” he said to Mr. Preemby. “In a different scheme of -colouring of course. Different, but the same. Don’t you think so, Mr. -Preemby?” - -Mr. Preemby nodded his head in a sympathetic, humorous, not too -explicit manner. “H’rrmp,” he said. “It _is_ a bit like that.” - -“Things will work themselves out,” said Harold. “Things will work -themselves out. You know that poem of Ruby Parham’s.” He cleared his -throat. “It is called ‘Waiting,’” he said. “It goes like this--” - -His eyes became fixed and glazed; his voice gathered volume, so that -the words seemed more than life-sized. - - “After every minute - “Comes another minute - “And then, rest assured, - “Another. - “Like drops from a ledge in the rain. - “You may not want to go on; - “But _they_ will, - “Oh! endlessly - “Taking your life away, death, not final and complete, - “But death in the midst of life, - “Particles of death, - “Death by attrition. - “Drip on Old Death--in life! - “Slow, dull, implacable, unendurable! - “Drip on.” - -“That ‘Drip on’ is great. But perhaps you don’t like modern poetry?” - -“I don’t _mind_ it,” said Mr. Preemby genially. - -“Of course, nothing of a really destructive nature _can_ have happened -to that van,” said Mr. Crumb in a pessimistic tone. - -When Picton’s van arrived and the roomy wardrobe began its destructive -march through the passage, Mr. Crumb called suddenly upon his maker in -a loud distressful voice and vanished for the better part of an hour. - -Christina Alberta was torn between a sympathetic understanding of -Harold’s state of mind and the fear that her Daddy might perceive the -unfavourable reaction he produced in Harold and be hurt by it. She and -Fay became brightly helpful with the unpacking. “If I might have one of -those blue pinafores of Mr. Crumb’s to put on,” said Mr. Preemby, “I’d -be glad. These black things of mine show every mark.” - -Mr. Crumb’s overall reached far below Mr. Preemby’s knees and somehow -justified his calling it a pinafore. It brought out something -endearingly infantile in his appearance that appealed to the maternal -instinct lurking in Mrs. Crumb. She struggled with a persuasion that he -was really a little boy of nine who had been naughty and grown a big -moustache and that she had to take care of him and restrain him and -generally tell him not to. The books were put in the bookshelves as Mr. -Preemby said, “just anyhow”; they could be sorted up later, but the -curiosities and specimens took longer and had to be “put out” more or -less in the cabinet. There were not only real curiosities and specimens -but many little things that Mr. Preemby had accumulated because they -looked like curiosities and specimens. There was, for instance, a piece -of one of the laundry delivery van mudguards so bent by a collision as -to resemble a human torso in the most striking fashion; there was the -almost complete skull of an unknown mammal, probably a fallow deer, -picked up in Epping Forest, there was a potato, now rather shrivelled, -in which it was possible to detect thirty-seven distinct human faces -and--specimen of an entirely different quality--a large flint in which -there were no less than fifty-five. Ages ago some primordial Preemby -had discovered and loved that very same flint and had brought out the -likenesses by chipping an eye here or a nostril there; but Mr. Preemby -did not suspect the help of that remote and perhaps ancestral hand. -Even in waking life Mr. Preemby saw faces in everything. What he would -have been like with a high temperature it is impossible to imagine. - -Christina Alberta’s anxiety about her father’s reception by the Crumbs -diminished as she saw his virtual conquest of Fay. Fay treated him -firmly but indulgently, and they lost a good deal of time while she -tried to see all the fifty-five faces of the wonderful flint. They had -to start and start again, but always they lost count about “Twen-tee” -or “Twen-tee-one.” The question would arise whether they were counting -one of the faces over again. - -Harold returned in a moody state and could be heard, all too -distinctly, kicking Mr. Preemby’s packing cases in the hall, but Fay -went out to him with a lofty sleep-walking expression in her pale eyes, -and the concussions ceased, and presently Harold came downstairs again -looking almost handsome in nankeen trousers, a blue jacket with big -silver buttons and a voluminous black tie, and was quite nice to Mr. -Preemby. - -“You won’t mind my touching that wardrobe of yours up a bit?” he said. -“It damps us off, as it is. Kind of reproaches us. One of us has to be -altered, you see, it or me, and either I paint it or else I get a silk -hat with a deep mourning band and a gold-handled umbrella--which would -cost no end of money. Whereas I _have_ the paint.” - -“If you can get the paint off again,” said Mr. Preemby. “You see if I -was to move--_back_.... It’s all right to have all this paint in a Mew. -But out of a Mew....” - -“Exactly,” said Harold. “My idea is to make a little pink house of it -with windows and so on. Something very simple. Rather like the scenery -of a Russian Sketch. _Chauve Souris_ sort of stuff. Conventional to the -_n_^{th}. And we might put up placards at the corner of it according to -what is going on. Make a bit of an institution of it.” - -“So long as it makes things agreeable,” said Mr. Preemby. - -He found his hair being ruffled affectionately. “Dear little Daddy!” -said Christina Alberta. - - -§ 5 - -But now appeared a new-comer and life was made uncomfortable and -complicated for Christina Alberta again by the presence of Mr. Teddy -Winterton’s candid insincerity. His graceful body, his movements, his -voice, stirred her senses as she hated them to be stirred; his quiet -impudence invaded her sense of humour; he wounded her pride and she -longed to be even with him. She had no power over him and he behaved -as if he owned her. She was always letting him go just a little too -far. When he was about her nose cast a shadow that reached to her -horizon. He stood now in the doorway--trousers of one pattern of tweed, -waistcoat of another, Norfolk jacket of a third extensively unbuttoned -in the accepted student style, and he watched Mr. Preemby carry his -collection of roc’s bones, found near Staines, across the studio on a -tea-tray. His eyes were round with surprise and amusement; his mouth -said noiselessly, “What is it?” - -Christina Alberta was not going to have her Daddy laughed at by any -Teddy Winterton. “Mr. Winterton,” she said. “This is my father.” - -“I’ll just get rid of my bones,” said Mr. Preemby, “and then I’ll shake -hands.” - -“We’ll just finish up Mr. Preemby’s things and then we’ll all go round -to Poppinetti’s to get some dinner,” said Fay. “There’s hardly anything -left to unpack now.” - -“Just one or two Antediluvium bones,” said Mr. Preemby. - -Teddy seized upon one. “This,” he said, inspecting it, “is a fossil -rhinoceros thigh-bone from the Crag.” - -“It’s an Antediluvium horse,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“Forgive me! It’s a rhinoceros bone!” - -“Horses had rhinoceros bones in those days,” said Mr. Preemby. “And the -rhinoceroses--! They were incredible. If I had one I shouldn’t have -anywhere to put it.” - -Mr. Preemby was extracted from his overall and restored to the black -coat and the grey felt hat with the black band. He became one of a -straggling party that went out of Lonsdale Mews to a little Italian -restaurant in the King’s Road. Three neighbours of the Crumbs mixed -themselves up with the party, a very quiet man with silver hair and a -young man and a dusky girl. - -Mr. Preemby was much impressed by the novelty of thus going out for -dinner, and expatiated on its advantages to the silver-haired man who -seemed to be the quiet sort of listening man that Mr. Preemby liked to -meet. “You see you don’t have to _cook_ the meal and you don’t have to -lay the table and afterwards naturally there isn’t any washing up. But -I expect it comes more expensive.” - -The silver-haired man nodded intelligently. “Exactly,” he said. - -Harold Crumb overheard this. “Expensive,” he said, “it isn’t. No. -Every other crime Poppinetti can commit, but that is barred by the -circumstances of his clientele. He feeds us on stolen pigeons, his -_dinde_ is guinea-pig, his beef, _a l’omnibus_: what he minces God -knows; what he puts into his ravioli makes even the Lord God repent -of his extreme creativeness. But you see, you don’t _think_ about his -ravioli, you eat ’em, and they’re damned good. There are always flowers -on the table and an effect of inexpensive refinement. You will see. You -will see.” - -Mr. Preemby saw. Poppinetti was a small man but carefully modelled -on Caruso, and he received his large party with the deference of a -diplomatist and the effusion of a geyser. He was particularly gracious -to Mr. Preemby, bowing profoundly to him, and saluting him with great -richness subsequently whenever he caught his eye. He seemed to Mr. -Preemby to spend the rest of their time together going to remoter and -remoter parts of the restaurant in order to catch Mr. Preemby’s eye and -bow and smile to him from greater and greater distances. Mr. Preemby -had curious doubts whether he wasn’t being mistaken for somebody else. - -Signor Poppinetti, with an air of peculiar favour, guided the party -to a long, unattractive table near the centre of the restaurant and -took their conflicting orders with the gestures of a conductor guiding -an orchestra through a difficult passage. Mr. Preemby was passive but -observant; he presently found himself eating macaroni and drinking a -rough red wine with a name that sounded to his London tuned ears like a -challenge. Chianti. - -Harold Crumb showed great earnestness in the matter of macaroni. “In -order to taste macaroni,” he assured Mr. Preemby, “it is necessary to -fill the mouth absolutely full, good measure, pressed in and running -over. To cut up macaroni with your fork as you are doing, is as awful -as to cut an oyster. It--it devitalizes it.” - -“I like it cut up,” said Mr. Preemby with unexpected firmness. And he -cut up some more. - -“Otherwise,” he said in a confidential aside to the silver-haired man, -“I can’t help thinking it’s earthworms.” - -“Exactly. Exactly,” said the silver-haired man. - -Harold exemplified generously. His rampant face riding over a -squirming mouthful of macaroni was like St. George and the Dragon on -an English sovereign. He whistled as he ate. Long snakes of macaroni -hung thoughtful for a moment and then, drawn by some incomprehensible -fascination, fled into him. Teddy Winterton and one of the new-comers -from the studio next door emulated him. Christina Alberta and Fay -showed the furtive dexterity of the female. But Mr. Preemby was glad -when macaroni was over, even though it raised the problem of eating an -egg on spinach with a fork. - -But he was not really troubled in his mind as a younger man might have -been. He had the _savoir-faire_ of middle-age. This restaurant dinner -was on the whole a bright and agreeable experience for him. He liked -even the corrosive taste of the Chianti. This Chianti you drank out -of quite largish tumblers because it was almost as cheap and light as -beer. It did not intoxicate, but it warmed the mind, and it cast a -pleasant and convincing indistinctness over the universe so that the -Tunbridges all became Tumbridges without any question, and the secret -dreams and convictions of the heart became certain knowledge. Presently -Mr. Preemby found himself able and willing to tell things and hint much -more important things about his collections to the white-haired man and -also to the dark, untidy girl who was sitting on his other side, and -who came from the other studio and about whose name he had no idea, and -presently to others; and when the bird came--it was a bird new to Mr. -Preemby, and called, he gathered, _rabbkey_ or _turkit_--most of the -party was talking in the loud, confused, explosive way these young -people affected about the lost _Atlantis_. - -He had never spoken so freely before upon this topic. At home he had -always been restrained by the late Mrs. Preemby’s genuine lack of -interest. And even now he was not prepared for positive statements -or for an encounter with sceptical arguments about that great lost -continent of the Golden Age. Atlantis had been the scene and substance -of his secret reveries for many years; he knew his knowledge of it was -of a different order from common knowledge, more intuitive, mystical, -profound. From the outset his manner was defensive, discreet and -obscure, as of one willing but not permitted to speak. - -How did he know that there had been this lost continent? - -“H’rrmp,” he said with the faint smile of peculiar knowledge; “studied -it for years.” - -“What is the evidence?” asked the untidy young lady. - -“So abundant. Impossible to retail it. Convincing. Of various sorts. -Plato has much about it. Unfinished fragment. Many books have been -written. Many inscriptions in Egypt.” - -“What sort of people were they?” asked the untidy girl. - -“Very wonderful people, young lady,” said Mr. Preemby. “H’rrmp. Very -wonderful people.” - -“Philosophy, no end I suppose?” asked the young man from the next -studio with his mouth full. - -“What we know--a mere remnant,” said Mr. Preemby. “Mere remnant.” - -“How did they dress?” - -“H’rrmp. Robes. White robes--extremely dignified. Blue--azure--when -justice was administered. Plato tells us that much.” - -“Could they fly?” - -“They understood it. It was not made a practice of.” - -“Motor cars? All that sort of thing?” - -“If they wanted to. There was less motoring--more meditation. We -live--age of transition. H’rrmp.” - -“And then it all went phut?” said the young man from the next studio. -“Submerged and all that. What a lesson!” - -“That need not have happened,” said Mr. Preemby darkly. - -Mr. Preemby became dimly aware of scepticism. “There’s not an atom of -evidence that there ever was a continent in the Atlantic,” Mr. Teddy -Winterton was saying to Christina Alberta; “within thirty million years -of anything human. The ocean troughs go right back to the Mesozoic age.” - -Mr. Preemby would have noticed this remark but the untidy girl asked -him suddenly if he did not think that the swastika was a symbol derived -from Atlantis. He said he was quite certain it was. She asked what it -meant exactly; she had always been curious about its significance: -and he became guarded and mysterious. She wanted moreover to know -things about the costume of that lost world, about its social customs, -about its religion. Were women citizens? She was certainly the most -intelligent about it of all the company. The silver-haired man seemed -to be faintly amused. - -The rest of the company wandered off into a discussion of the -possibility of going to the Chelsea Arts Ball in the character of -a party from the Lost Atlantis. Many of their ideas Mr. Preemby -thought trivial and undignified. “Leaves us unlimited scope,” said -Harold Crumb. “We could invent weapons--have wings if we liked. Magic -carbuncles on our shields--illuminated. Mysterious books and tablets. -And a sort of peculiar wailing, drumming music; Mya, mya, mya.” - -He pursed up his face and made a curious mooing noise with it to convey -his intention, twiddling his fingers to assist the effect. - -It was no good protesting against such imaginative ignorance. But to -the dark, untidy girl and to the acquiescent man with silvery hair Mr. -Preemby continued to be quietly oracular and communicative from behind -his moustache. - -“But how are these things known?” the dark girl persisted. “There is -nothing in the British Museum.” - -“You forget,” said Mr. Preemby. “H’rrmp, the Freemasons. There are -Inner Groups--traditions. Thank you. Just half a glass more. Oh! you’ve -filled it! Thank you.” - -As he talked he was aware of something going on between Christina -Alberta and Winterton. At first it seemed not to matter in the -slightest degree, but to be just part of the general unusualness of the -gathering, and then it seemed to matter a great deal. He saw Christina -Alberta’s little fist resting on the table, and suddenly Winterton’s -hand enveloped it. She snatched her hand away. Then something was -whispered and her hand came back. In another moment the hands were five -inches apart and it was as if nothing had ever happened between them. - -He would probably have forgotten the momentary invasion of his -attention by Christina Alberta if something else had not occurred -at the phase of dessert. Poppinetti’s idea of dessert was a sort -of lottery of walnuts--if you found a sound one you won--masses of -compressed and damaged dates and a few defiant apples. There was a -great crackling. The company was littering the table with walnut -shells, and the green, black and yellow corruption they had contained, -when this second incident caught Mr. Preemby’s eye. He saw Teddy -Winterton run his hand very softly along Christina Alberta’s forearm. -And her arm was not withdrawn. - -Every one was talking just then and for a moment it seemed -to Mr. Preemby that he alone had seen, and then he caught an -observant expression on the face of the silver-haired man. It was -all very confusing, and this Chianti--though it was really not -intoxicating--made everything swimmy, but Mr. Preemby knew somehow -that the silver-haired man had also seen that furtive familiarity, and -that he too didn’t quite approve of it. - -Ought one to take notice? Ought one to say anything? Perhaps -afterwards. Perhaps when they were alone together, he might ask her -quietly, “Are you and that young man Winterton engaged?” - -“A bit too much,” said Mr. Preemby quietly, meeting the eye of the -silver-haired man. “I don’t like that sort of thing.” - -“Quite,” said the silver-haired man. - -“I shall speak to her.” - -“You’re right there,” said the silver-haired man warmly. A very -sensible fellow. - -A great rustle and a scraping of chairs. Poppinetti, figuring upon an -accounts-pad, came to collect the money. “I’ll pay for us, Daddy,” said -Christina Alberta, “and we’ll settle up afterwards.” - -Poppinetti bowing. Poppinetti on Mr. Preemby’s right and on Mr. -Preemby’s left; several Poppinettis bowing. A great activity of -Poppinettis handing hats and so forth. Poppinettis whichever way -you turned. The restaurant rotating slightly. Was this Chianti -perhaps stronger than Mr. Preemby had been led to believe? A number -of Poppinettis opening a number of doors and saying polite things. -Difficult to choose a door. Right the first time. Out into the street. -People going by. Taxis. No more Poppinettis. But a girl ought not to -let a young man stroke her arm at dinner, when anyone might see it -happen. It wasn’t correct. Something had to be said. Something tactful. - -Mr. Preemby became aware that he was walking next to Mrs. Crumb. “It -was lovely to hear you talking about the New Atlantis,” she said. “I -wish I had been sitting nearer.” - -“H’rrmp,” said Mr. Preemby. - -Something very nice about Mrs. Crumb. What was it? Not so _fearfully_ -married, but married quite enough. - - -§ 6 - -Mr. Preemby thought they were going back for coffee and a little talk -and then bed; he had no idea of the immense amount of evening still -before him. He knew nothing as yet of the capacity for sitting up late -and getting lively in the small hours possessed by this new world of -young people into which Christina Alberta had led him. - -And in a sort of hectic discontinuous way they were lively for hours. -It became vaguely evident to Mr. Preemby that there was a periodic -“day” set apart by Mrs. Crumb for evening gatherings in the studio, -and that this evening he had chosen for his settling down was such -an evening. Fresh people dropped in. One it seemed was a portentous -arrival, he came in quite soon after the return from Poppinetti’s; he -was very fat and broad, a white-faced man of forty or so, rather short -of breath, with exceedingly intelligent eyes under a broad forehead and -a rather loose, peevish mouth. He carried himself with the involuntary -self-consciousness of a man who thinks he is pointed out. His name -it seemed was Paul Lambone, and he had written all sorts of things. -Everybody treated him with a faint deference. He greeted Christina -Alberta with great warmth. - -“How’s the newest Van?” he said, shaking her hand as though he liked -it, and speaking with a singularly small voice for so ample a person. -“How’s the last step in Advance?” - -“You’ve got to meet my father,” said Christina Alberta. - -“Has it got a father? I thought it just growed like Topsy--out of -Nietzsche and Bernard Shaw and all the rest of them.” - -“H’rrmp,” said Mr. Preemby. - -Mr. Lambone turned to him. “What a Handful a daughter is!” he said, and -bowed slightly towards Christina Alberta, “even the best of them.” - -Mr. Preemby replied after the manner of the parents in Woodford Wells. -“She’s a good daughter to me, sir.” - -“Yes, but they aren’t like sons.” - -“You have sons, sir, I presume.” - -“Only dream children. I’ve not had your courage to realize things. I’ve -married a hundred times in theory and here I am just a sort of bachelor -uncle to everybody. Poking in among the younger people and observing -their behaviour with”--his intelligent eyes looked quietly over his -garrulous mouth at Christina Alberta--“terror and admiration.” - -Two other visitors appeared in the doorway and Mr. Lambone turned -from Mr. Preemby to greet them as soon as Fay had done her welcome, -a fierce-looking young man with an immense head of black hair and a -little lady like a china doll dressed to remind one of Watteau. - -Conversation became general and Mr. Preemby receded into the background -of events. - -He found himself side by side with his friend with the silver hair, -against his bookcase. “I didn’t expect a party,” he said. - -“I thought so too.” - -“I only got here this afternoon. The vans came late and lots of my -things are still to be unpacked.” - -The silver-haired man nodded sympathetically. “Often the case,” he -murmured. - -Every one was talking loudly. It was difficult to hear. It was confused -sort of talking, and whenever two or three seemed to be interested in -what they were saying, Fay Crumb went and interrupted them as a good -hostess should. Other people, only vaguely apprehended by Mr. Preemby, -got into the studio somehow. There was a red-haired young lady with a -tremendous decolletage; behind you could see almost to her waist. He -h’rrmp’d at it and thought of saying something about it, something cold -and quiet, to the silver-haired man. But he didn’t. He couldn’t think -of anything sufficiently cold and quiet to say. - -Fay Crumb came and asked whether he would like some whisky or beer. -“Not on the top of that nice Chianti, thank you,” said Mr. Preemby. - -The conversation seemed to get noisier and noisier. In one corner -Harold Crumb could be heard quoting the poems of Vachel Lindsay. Then -Mr. Lambone came up and seemed to want to talk about the Lost Atlantis, -but Mr. Preemby was shy of talking about the Lost Atlantis with Mr. -Lambone. “Getting on all right, Daddy?” said Christina Alberta, -drifting by and not waiting for any answer but an “h’rrmp.” - -There appeared three young people with a gramophone they explained they -had just bought, and Fay discovered that the beer had been forgotten -and sent Harold out to borrow some from a neighbour. These new-comers -made no very profound impression on Mr. Preemby’s now jaded mind, -except that one of them, the owner of the gramophone, a very fair young -man with a long, intelligent nose, was wearing the big horn of the -gramophone as a headdress, and that he meant to have that gramophone -going whatever else might occur. - -The music was dance-music, jazz for the most part and a few waltzes, -and it revived Mr. Preemby considerably. He sat up and beat time with -the leg-bones of a roc, and presently two or three couples were dancing -on the studio floor. Curious dancing, Mr. Preemby thought; almost -like walking--jiggety walking with sudden terrific back-swipes of the -legs. There was an interruption when Harold returned with the borrowed -beer--bringing its lenders with it. Then there was a general clamour -for Christina Alberta and Teddy to “do” their dance. Teddy was quite -willing but Christina Alberta seemed reluctant, and when Mr. Preemby -saw the dance he was not surprised. - -“H’rrmp,” he said, and stroked his moustache and looked at the -silver-haired man. - -It really was too familiar altogether; for some moments the principals -vanished upstairs, and came back altered. For some reason Teddy had -adopted a cloth cap and a red neck-wrap; he was, in fact, being an -Apache, and the bearing of Christina Alberta had become very proud and -spirited with her arms akimbo. - -Every one backed against the walls to clear a dancing floor. At the -beginning it wasn’t so bad. But presently this Mr. Teddy was pitching -Christina Alberta about, throwing her over his shoulder, taking hold -of her, bending her backward, holding her almost upside down, both -legs in the air and her hands dragging on the ground. And she was red -and excited and seemed to like these violent familiarities. There was -a kind of undesirable suitability between them for such purposes. She -and Teddy looked into each other’s eyes with a sort of intimacy and yet -with a sort of fierce defiance. At one point in the extraordinary dance -she had to smack his face, a good hard smack, nicely timed. She did it -with a spirit that made every one applaud. Whereupon he smiled and took -her nice little neck in his hands and strangled her with great realism. - -Then the gramophone had its death rattle and the dance was over. - -Mr. Preemby’s throat had not troubled him much since dinner, but now he -said “h’rrmp” repeatedly. - -They wanted Christina Alberta, bright and panting and shock-headed, to -repeat the performance, but she wouldn’t. She had had a glimpse of the -solemn dismay and perplexity upon her Daddy’s face. - -The people from the studio next door were the next to give a display: -they obliged with an imitation of a Russian imitation of a peasant -dance from Saratoff. There was a gramophone record that was not quite -the proper music, but it would do. That dance really amused Mr. -Preemby. The young man went down quite close to the floor and kicked -out his feet with the greatest agility and the girl was as wooden as -a doll. Every one clapped hands in time to the music, and so did Mr. -Preemby. - -And then came a further irruption. Five people in fancy dress demanding -beer. They impressed Mr. Preemby as strange and bright-coloured, but -totally uninteresting. One wore a red coxcomb and was dressed as a -jester in cap and bells. The others just wore tights and bright things -that signified nothing at all. They had been at some party given by -somebody or other for the “Young people.” They announced with shouts, -“They shut down at midnight. Yes, they shut down at midnight. When the -young people go to bed.” - -It was only too manifest that No. 8 Lonsdale Mews meant to do nothing -of the sort. - -Beer. Mr. Preemby declined. The last of the beer. Cigarettes. Much -smoke. The last of the whisky. More gramophone, more dancing and Harold -Crumb’s voice loose again in recitation. Beer or whisky had thickened -it. But there were countervailing noises. Movement. A circle was -cleared. Not more dancing! No. Feats of strength and dexterity with -chairs, performed chiefly by Teddy Winterton, the gramophone owner, and -Harold. This stunting stopped presently and the company flowed back -towards the middle of the room. Talk Mr. Preemby could not follow; -phrases he could not understand. Nobody taking the slightest notice of -him. - -A sense of weariness and futility and desolation came upon him. How -differently were the evenings of the past spent by the good wise people -of the lost Atlantis! Philosophical discourse they had, the lute, the -lyre. Elevated thoughts. - -He caught sight of Mrs. Crumb yawning furtively. Suddenly, stupendously -he yawned. And yawned again. - -“Yaaw,” he said to Paul Lambone who was at his side. - -“Proyawaw--Prolly thiswe sitting on my beawawd.” - -“You live here?” said Mr. Lambone. - -“Come to-day. Christina Albyawawawter arranged it.” - -“The devil she did!” said Mr. Lambone, and looked across the studio at -her. For some moments he seemed lost in thought. - -“Very remarkable young woman that daughter of yours,” he said. “Makes -me feel old-fashioned.” - -He looked at the wrist-watch he wore, “Half-past one,” he said. “I’ll -start the Go....” - - -§ 7 - -Mr. Preemby heard a few sentences of the parting between Teddy -Winterton and Christina Alberta. “Yes or no?” said Teddy. - -“_No_,” said Christina Alberta with emphasis. - -“Not a bit of it,” said Teddy. - -“I don’t want to,” she said. - -“But you _do_.” - -“Oh, go to the devil!” - -“Not as if there were risks.” - -“I shan’t come. It’s preposterous.” - -“I shall wait all the same.” - -“You may wait.” - -“Little Chrissy Hesitation. Anything to please you.” - - -§ 8 - -It took until past two o’clock for the Go Paul Lambone had started to -remove the last of the company. - -“All hands to the bedmaking,” cried Fay. “It isn’t always like this, -Mr. Preemby.” - -“Confess I feel tired,” said Mr. Preemby. “Had a long day of it.” - -Christina Alberta regarded him with belated compunction. “It just -happened like this,” she said. - -“Not used to such late hours,” said Mr. Preemby, sitting on his bed -when at last it was made, and he did a yawn that almost dislocated his -jaw. - -“Night,” said Fay, yawning also. - -“We’ll turn in,” said Harold. “So long, Mr. Preemby.” The yawning -seized upon Harold also. What a face he had! - -“Goo-i.” - -“Gawooi-i.” - -The door closed upon them. - -There was much to say to Christina Alberta, but it was too late and Mr. -Preemby was too weary to say it now And also he had no idea what it was -he ought to say. - -A casual remark fell out, “I liked that man with the white hair,” he -said. - -“Did you?” said Christina Alberta absently. - -“He was intelligent. He took a great interest in the Lost Atlantis.” - -“He’s stone deaf,” said Christina Alberta, “and he’s ashamed of -it--poor dear.” - -“Oh!” said Mr. Preemby. - -“All this is going to be rather noisy for you, Daddy,” she said, coming -to what she had in mind. - -“It _is_ a bit ramshackle,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“We ought to go to Tunbridge Wells quite soon and look round there.” - -“To-morrow,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“Not to-morrow.” - -“Why not?” - -“The next day,” said Christina Alberta. “I’m not quite sure about -to-morrow. I’d sort of half promised to go somewhere else--. But it -doesn’t matter very much really.” - -“I’d like to go to Tumbridge Wells to-morrow,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“Why not?” said Christina Alberta as if to herself, and hesitated. - -Se walked to the door and came back. “Good night, little Daddy,” she -said. - -“Are we going then? To-morrow?” - -“No.... Yes.... I don’t know. I _had_ planned to do something -to-morrow. Important in a kind of way.... We’ll go to-morrow, Daddy.” - -She walked away from him with her arms akimbo and stared at those queer -pictures. - -She spun round on her feet. “I can’t go to-morrow,” she said. - -“Yes, I will,” she contradicted. - -“Oh, hell!” she cried, in a most unaccountable and unladylike way. “I -don’t know what to _do_!” - -Mr. Preemby looked at her with grave and weary eyes. This was a new -Christina Alberta to him. She ought not to swear. She did _not_ ought -to swear. She’d caught it up from these people. She didn’t know what it -meant. He must talk to her--to-morrow. About that and one or two other -things. But Heavens! how tired he was! - -“You--” He yawned. “You must take care of yourself, Christina Alberta,” -he said. - -“I’ll do that all right, Daddy. Trust me.” - -She came and sat down beside him on his little half-fictitious bed. “We -can’t decide to-night, Daddy. We’re too tired. We’ll settle to-morrow. -Have to see what the weather’s like for one thing. Wouldn’t do to -walk about Tunbridge if it was wet. We’ll decide about everything -to-morrow--when our heads are cool. Why! you dear little Daddy! It’s -just upon half-past two.” - -She put her arm round his shoulders and kissed him on the top of his -head and the lobe of his ear. He loved her to touch him and kiss him. -He did not understand in the least how much he loved her to kiss him. - -“Dear _tired_ little Daddy,” she said in her softest voice: “You are -ever so kind to me. Good night.” - -She had gone. - -For some time Mr. Preemby sat quite motionless in a state of almost -immobile thought. - -The floor of the studio was littered with burnt matches and cigarette -ends and the air smelt of stale smoke and beer. On the blue-painted -table stood an empty beer-bottle and two or three glasses containing -dregs of beer and cigarette ash. - -It was all very different from Woodford Wells,--very different indeed. - -But it was Experience. - -Mr. Preemby bestirred himself to undress. - -That night-shirt of Saxony flannel had still to be unpacked. - - -§ 9 - -In the morning Christina Alberta was still restless and quite undecided -about going to Tunbridge Wells, though the weather was perfectly fine. -About half-past eleven she disappeared, and after a light lunch with -Fay--Harold was out also--it became evident to Mr. Preemby that the -visit to Tunbridge Wells was postponed for the day. So he went to -South Kensington to look at the Museums there. He did not go into them -actually, he just looked at them and at the colleges and buildings -generally. It was a preliminary reconnaissance. - -The Museums were quite good to look at. Larger, more extensive, than -the British Museum. Probably they contained--all sorts of things. - -Christina Alberta reappeared in the studio about half-past six -looking very bright and exalted. There was something about her subtly -triumphant. - -She offered no explanation of her disappearance. She was full of the -visit to Tunbridge on the morrow. They must catch a train soon after -nine and have a good long day. She was unusually affectionate to her -Daddy. - -Harold was out for the evening and Fay had some reviewing to do, so -they had quite a quiet and domestic evening. Mr. Preemby read with a -varying attention a nice deep confusing book he had found in the room -upstairs called _Fantasia of the Unconscious_ about the Lost Atlantis -and similar things. - - - - -CHAPTER THE FOURTH - -_The Petunia Boarding House_ - - -§ 1 - -Most places in the world have sister cities and twins and parallels, -but Tunbridge Wells is Tunbridge Wells, and there is nothing really -like it upon our planet. Not that it is in any way strange or -fantastic, but because of its brightly delicate distinction. It is -clean and open, and just pleasantly absurd. It is not more than -thirty miles from London, as the crow flies, but the North Downs six -miles away dismiss with a serene and gracious gesture all thoughts of -London from the mind. It is away from the main line out of London, -inconvenient for season-ticket holders; there is no direct route for -the hurrying motorist over those saving Downs; to Dover and Kent -generally he goes to the east of it, and to Brighton he goes to the -west--if he survive the hills of Westerham and Sevenoaks. Rich men’s -estates encircle it with accessible parks. Eridge, Bayham, Penshurst -Park, Knole and the like protect it from overmuch breeding of little -villa residences. There it lies, on a rare piece of rocky soil, dry -underfoot, airy and wholesome, with its friendly Common in the midst of -it; its Spa of evil-tasting beneficent waters as the Stuart princesses -drank them, its Pantiles and its Pump Room, much as Dr. Johnson knew -the place. Mount Sion and Mount Ephraim, Beulah Road and something -evangelical in the air, remind the light-minded visitor that London in -the past was a Puritan city. Many a serious liver has been touched -and found grace at Tunbridge Wells. Many a light liver has found fresh -strength there. And thither came Mr. Preemby and Christina Alberta -seeking a boarding house--and they could have sought it in no more -favourable locality. - -They set about the search in a systematic way as became a couple, one -of whom had been partially trained for sociological research at the -London School of Economics and partially trained for business at the -Tomlinson School. Mr. Preemby had been for beginning with a general -look-round, just walking round and looking quietly at things for a bit, -but Christina Alberta consulted all the agents in order, and bought -a map and guide to the town and sat down on a seat on the Common and -planned the operations that led quite readily and easily to the Petunia -Boarding House. - -In the guide Mr. Preemby read with approval some very promising words. -“Listen to this, my dear,” he said. “H’rrmp. ‘General Characteristics. -Emphasis might very well be laid on the character enjoyed by Tunbridge -Wells as a magnet for high-class residents and visitors. The town is -never overrun with trippers, nor are its streets ever defiled by the -vulgar or the inane. Its inhabitants are composed, for the most part, -of well-to-do people who naturally create a social atmosphere tinged by -culture and refinement.’” - -“_Tinged_ is a jolly good word for it, I expect,” said Christina -Alberta. - -“I think my instinct has guided me aright to this place,” said Mr. -Preemby. - -The Petunia Boarding House looks obliquely upon the Common from where -Petunia Road runs into the quaint and pleasant High Street. It has -not the towering magnificence of the Wellington, the Royal Mount -Ephraim, the Marlborough, or their fellows, which face the sun so -bravely from the hill-crest above the Common, but it is a house of -dignified comfort. The steps, the portico, the ample hall, the name in -letters of gold on black, made Mr. Preemby say h’rrmp several times. -An excessively chubby maid in a very, very tight black dress and a cap -and apron, came and looked at Mr. and Miss Preemby with a distraught -evasive expression, answered some preliminary questions incoherently, -and said she would call Miss Emily Rewster--Miss Margaret was out. -Thereupon Miss Emily Rewster, who had been hovering attentively behind -a bead curtain, thrust it aside and came ingratiatingly into the -foreground. She was a little high-coloured old lady, with an air of -genteel _savoir-faire_; she had a lace cap and wore a great deal of -lace and several flounces, and she had the most frankly dyed chestnut -hair that Christina Alberta had ever seen. “Was it just for a week or -so Mr. Preemby wanted to come, or something--perheps--more permanent?” - -Explanations were exchanged. Mr. Preemby was to be “more permanent”; -Christina Alberta intermittent--and rather a difficulty. The existence -of headquarters in Chelsea was revealed discreetly, but not the fact -that they were in a Mews. - -Miss Emily Rewster thought Christina Alberta could be fitted in if she -wasn’t too particular about having the same room, or exactly the same -sort of room every time she came. “We have to menage,” said Miss Emily -Rewster. - -“So long as the window opens,” said Christina Alberta. - -The rooms exhibited were very satisfactory, (h’rrmp) very satisfactory. -A glimpse of a bathroom was given. “You say when you want one,” said -Miss Emily Rewster. There was a dining-room with separate tables, and -there were flowers on every table, very refined and pleasant, and there -was a large drawing-room with a piano and a great number of arm-chairs -and sofas wearing flounces so like the flounces of Miss Emily Rewster, -and antimacassars so like her cap, and with so entirely her air of -accommodating receptiveness that it seemed as though they must be -at least her cousins who had joined her in the enterprise. The piano -wore a sort of lace bed-spread, and there were polished tables bearing -majolica pots of aspidistra on mats and little less serious tables for -use, and there was a low bookcase with books in it and a great heap -of illustrated papers on the top. The hall expanded at the back into -a rather modernish lounge where two ladies were having tea; and there -was also a smoking-room, where, said Miss Emily Rewster to Christina -Alberta rather coyly, “the gentlemen smoke.” - -“We’ve been very full this season,” said Miss Emily Rewster, “very -full. We’ve had nearly thirty sitting at dinner. But of course the -season is drawing in now. Just at present we’re down to nine at -breakfast and seven at dinner; two gentlemen in business here. But -people come and people go. I’ve had two inquiries by post to-day. One -an invalid lady and her sister. They think of drinking the waters. And -there are Birds of Passage as well as Regulars. Just for a night or -so. Motor families. They take us _en route_. That’s where we have an -advantage in being so close to the shops.” - -She beamed intimately at Mr. Preemby. “Often my sister or I pop out at -the last moment and get in things ourselves. When every one else is -busy. We don’t mind any little trouble if it makes people comfortable.” - -“We’ve been on the separate table system ever since the war,” said Miss -Emily Rewster. “So much more pleasant. You can keep yourself Quate to -yourself if you wish, or you can be Friendly. People often Speak in the -Drawing-room or in the Smoking-room. And they bow. Sometimes people get -Quate friendly. Play Games. Get up Excursions together. Quate Pleasant.” - -Christina Alberta asked an obvious question. - -“Very pleasant people indeed,” said Miss Emily. “Very pleasant people. -A retired gentleman and his wife and her stepdaughter and two retired -maiden ladies and a gentleman and his lady who has been in a forest in -Burmah and so on.” - -Christina Alberta restrained a ribald impulse to ask what a “retired -gentleman” or a “retired maiden lady” really meant. - -“I’ve always been attracted to Tumbridge Wells,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“_Royal_ Tunbridge Wells _if_ you please,” said Miss Emily radiantly. -“The ‘Royal’ was added in nineteen nine, you know, by gracious command -of his Majesty.” - -“I didn’t know,” said Mr. Preemby with profound respect, and tried it -over; “_Royal_ Tumbridge Wells.” - -“Makes it rather a mouthful,” said Christina Alberta. - -“A very pleasant mouthful for Us, I can assure you,” said Miss Emily -loyally. - -The Petunia Boarding House seemed so satisfactory to Mr. Preemby that -it was arranged that he should return the next day but one, bringing -with him some clothes and other luggage, and that Christina Alberta -was to come and stay with him for a few days--there was a little room -upstairs she could have--and then she would go back to London and her -studies and take her chance of coming again when there was a room for -her. - - -§ 2 - -In the train back to London Mr. Preemby rehearsed these arrangements -and made his plans. - -“I shall come down here the day after to-morrow, after I have put my -collections in order at the Mew. I shall put the best things so that -they can be seen through the glass of the cabinet, but I think I shall -lock them up, and I shall bring down a few necessary books, and then -when I have quite settled in I shall go and have a good look at these -celebrated Rocks here.” - -“We could come down in the morning,” said Christina Alberta, “and go -and look at them in the afternoon.” - -“Not the same afternoon,” said Mr. Preemby. “No. I want my mind to -be quite fresh and open when I look at the Rocks. I think it will be -best to see them quite early--after a night’s sleep. When there are no -other visitors. I think--I think, Christina Alberta, that for the first -time I’d better go to them quite alone. Without you. Sometimes you say -things, Christina Alberta--you don’t mean to say them of course--but -they put me out....” - -Christina Alberta reflected. “What do you expect to find at these -Rocks, Daddy?” - -Mr. Preemby waved his moustache and the rest of his face slowly from -side to side. “I go with an Open Mind,” he said. “Perhaps all of -Atlantis was not lost. Some of it may be hidden. There are legends -preserved by the philosopher Plato. Partly in cipher. Who knows? It may -be here. It may be in Africa. A plan. A sign. The toad rock must be -most singular. In the British Museum there is a toad rock from Central -America....” - -He mused pleasantly for a time. - -“I shall take a note-book,” he said, “and several coloured pencils.” - -He continued to meditate. His next remark came after an interval of -three or four minutes, and was a surprise for Christina Alberta. - -“I hope, my dear,” said Mr. Preemby, “that among all these artists and -people you are not getting Ram Shackle. - -“I should be sorry to think you were getting Ram Shackle,” said Mr. -Preemby. - -“But Daddy, what makes you think I may be getting--Ram Shackle?” asked -Christina Alberta. - -“One or two little things I saw at the Mew,” said Mr. Preemby. “Just -one or two little things. You’ve got to be careful, Christina Alberta. -A girl has to take care of herself. And your friends--decidedly Ram -Shackle. Don’t mind my making a remark about them, Christina Alberta. -Just a word in season.” - -Christina Alberta’s answer came after a little interval, and without -her usual confident ring. “Don’t you worry about me, Daddy,” she said. -“I’m all right.” - -Mr. Preemby seemed about to change the subject. Then he remarked, “I -don’t like that feller, Teddy Winterton. He’s too familiar.” - -“I don’t like him either,” said Christina Alberta. “He _is_ too -familiar.” - -“That’s all right,” said Mr. Preemby. “I thought you didn’t notice,” -and relapsed into meditation. - -But this sudden and unprecedented intervention in her personal affairs -made Christian Alberta thoughtful for all the rest of the way to -London. Ever and again she glanced furtively at her Daddy. - -He seemed to have forgotten her. - -But it was dreadfully true. Teddy Winterton had become--altogether--too -familiar. - - -§ 3 - -In all ages competent observers have noted the erratic unexpectedness -of destiny, and now Christina Alberta was to add her own small -experience to this ever accumulating testimony. It seemed to her that -in planting him out in the wholesome quiet of Royal Tunbridge Wells -she was securing for her Daddy the very best possible conditions for -a happy and harmless life. There had, indeed, been a notable change -in the little man since her mother’s death, a release of will, a new -freedom of expression, a disposition to comment and even form judgments -upon things about him. She had herself likened it to the germination -of a seed brought out of a suppressing aridity into moisture and the -light, but she had not followed up that comparison so far as to -speculate what efflorescences might arise out of this belated unfolding -of his initiatives. That here, of all places, he would meet just the -stimulus that was needed for the most fantastic expansions of his -imaginative life, that for him Tunbridge Wells should prove the way -out of this everyday world of ours into what was to be for him an -altogether more wonderful and satisfactory existence, never entered her -head. - -For three days, until a fretting urgency for events carried her back -to London, she stayed in the Petunia Boarding House, and for all those -three days there was no intimation of the great change in his mind -that impended. On the whole he seemed unusually dull and quiet during -those three days. He liked Tunbridge Wells very much, he said, but he -was greatly disappointed by the High Rocks and by the Toad Rock when -he came to examine them. He even doubted whether they were not “simply -natural.” This was a terrible concession. He tried hard to believe that -the Toad Rock was like one of the big Maya carvings of a toad from -Yucatan, a cast of which he had seen in the British Museum, but it was -evident that with all the will possible he could not manage so great -an act of faith. All the decoration, he declared, all the inscription -had been obliterated, and then, making the great blonde moustache -bristle like a clothes-brush: “There never were any decorations or -inscriptions. Never.” - -It was clear to Christina Alberta that he must have evolved very -extraordinary expectations, indeed, to be so much cast down. She found -herself very interested in the riddle of what was fermenting in his -mind. It seemed to her as if he had regarded Tunbridge Wells as a -sort of Poste Restante at which some letter of supreme importance had -awaited him. And there was no letter. - -“But what did you expect, little Daddy?” said Christina Alberta, when -on the afternoon of the first day he took her to the Toad Rock to see -for herself how ordinary and insignificant a rock it was. “Did you -expect some wonderful carvings?” - -“I expected--something for me. Something significant.” - -“For you?” - -“Yes, for me. And every one. About Life and the Mysteries. I had grown -a sort of feeling there would be something there. _Now_--I don’t know -where to turn.” - -“But what sort of thing, what significance did you expect?” - -“Isn’t Life a Riddle, Christina Alberta? Haven’t you noticed that? Do -you think it is just nothing but studios and dances and excursions and -char-à-bancs and meal-times and harvest?” he said. “Obviously there is -something more in it than that. Obviously. All that is just a Veil. -Outward Showing. H’rrmp. And I don’t know what is behind it, and I am -just a plain boarder--in a boarding house--and my life is passing away. -Very difficult. H’rrmp. Almost impossible. It worries me exceedingly. -Somewhere there must be a clue.” - -“But that’s how we _all_ feel, Daddy,” cried Christina Alberta. - -“Things can’t be what they seem,” said Mr. Preemby, waving his hand -with a gesture of contemptuous dismissal towards Rusthall Village, -public house, lamp-posts, a policeman, a dog, a grocer’s delivery van -and three passing automobiles. “That at any rate is obvious. It would -be too absurd. Infinite space; stars and so forth. Just for running -about in--between meals....” - -Now who would have thought, Christina Alberta reflected, that this sort -of thing was going on in his head? Who would have thought it? - -“Either I am a Reincarnation,” said Mr. Preemby, “or I am not. And if -I am not, then I want to know what all this business of the world is -about. Symbolical it _must_ be, Christina Alberta. But of what? - -“All those years at the Laundry I knew that that life wasn’t -real. A period of rest and preparation. Your dear mother thought -differently--we never discussed it, h’rrmp, but it was so.” - -Christina Alberta could find no adequate comment and they went on in -silence for some time. When they spoke again it was to discuss how they -could get round to the High Rocks Hotel for tea. - - -§ 4 - -Mr. Preemby was evidently depressed and more than a little aggrieved, -but he had none of the comprehensive despondency of your melancholic -type. Concurrently he was quite actively interested in the boarding -house, and the fellow boarders he encountered there. It was a novel -experience for him to be in a boarding house. During his married -life he had always spent his holidays with Mrs. Preemby in seaside -apartments, so that she could supervise the provisioning properly, and -detect, expose and rectify errors and extortion. They had taken drives -inland during these vacations, or camped on the beach while Mr. Preemby -and Christina Alberta had made sandcastles or pottered among rocks, and -Mrs. Preemby had sat in a folding-chair and pined for the Laundry. If -the weather was bad they kept in their apartments, where Mr. Preemby -and Christina Alberta could read books while Mrs. Preemby could pine -for the Laundry almost as well as she could on the beach. But deep -in Mr. Preemby’s heart there had always been a craving for such a -collective, promiscuous life as a boarding house affords. - -They had made the acquaintance of the second Miss Rewster, Miss -Margaret Rewster, on their arrival with the luggage. She was a taller, -more anxious and less richly belaced variation of her sister. They -both, Mr. Preemby discovered, had a peculiar hovering quality. They -seemed always hovering behind bead curtains or down passages, or -looking over from staircase landings or peeping round doors; poor -dears! they were dreadfully anxious not to interfere with their guests, -but they were equally anxious that everything should be all right. At -meal-times they operated with the joints and dishes behind a screen, -and the chubby maid carried round the plates and vegetables. And -whenever Mr. Preemby looked at the screen he found either Miss Margaret -Rewster peeping over the top of it at him or Miss Emily Rewster peeping -round the end. It made him quite nervous with his forks and spoons. -When he dropped his serviette he hoped that would pass unobserved, but -Miss Emily noted it at once and sent the chubby maid to pick it up for -him. - -Mr. Preemby and Christina Alberta came down to dinner as soon as Miss -Margaret had sounded the second gong, and so they were the first to be -seated and could survey their fellow-guests at an advantage. Christina -Alberta was quietly observant, but Mr. Preemby said “h’rrmp” at each -fresh arrival. The next to appear were two Birds of Passage, a young -man in Hudibrastic golfing knickerbockers, and a lady, presumably his -wife, in a bright yellow sporting jumper, who were motoring about Kent; -they made strenuous attempts to seize a table in the window which was -already reserved for Petunia Regulars and were subdued with difficulty, -but perfect dignity, by Miss Emily. They then consulted loudly about -wine--the young man called the lady “Old Thing,” and “Old Top,” forms -of expression new and interesting to Mr. Preemby, and she called him -“Badger”--and the chubby maid produced a card of wines that could be -sent out for. The young man read out the names and prices of wines and -made his selection almost as though he were a curate officiating in a -very large cathedral. His wife, to follow out that comparison, made the -responses. “Chablis such as we should get here might be too sweet,” he -proclaimed. - -“It might be too sweet?” - -“What of a Pommard, Old Top?” - -“Why _not_ a Pommard, Badger?” - -“The Beaune is a shilling cheaper and just as likely to be good--or -bad.” - -“Just as likely.” - -The chubby maid flew out of the room, list in hand, with her thumb on -the wine he had chosen. - -Meanwhile under cover of this hubbub the two ladies Mr. Preemby -had seen at tea in the lounge on the occasion of his first visit, -percolated unobtrusively to a table near the window. They were -obviously sisters, both rather slender and tall with small, round, -bright-coloured faces on stalk-like necks; they had sharp little noses, -and one of them wore tortoiseshell spectacles. A gentleman with a white -moustache, larger and nobler even than Mr. Preemby’s, accompanied by a -small alert-looking wife, was the next to appear. Possibly this was the -gentleman who had been in a forest in Burmah. The small alert-looking -wife bowed to the slender ladies, who became agitated like reeds in a -wind. The gentleman took no notice of them, grunted as he sat down, -produced glasses and read the menu. - -“Tomato soup _again_!” he said. - -“It’s usually very nice tomato soup,” said his wife. - -“But Three Times Running!” he said. “It favours acidity. I don’t _like_ -tomato soup.” - -The table in the bow window was occupied by three people who drifted -in separately. First came a little, thin, dark lady in grey, carrying -a bead work-bag, then a little dark, bald man with large side-whiskers -whom she addressed as father, and then a plump, healthy-looking wife -with a radiant manner who swept in and distributed greetings. - -“Did you get your walk, Major Bone?” she said to the gentleman from the -Burmese forest. - -“Just to Rusthall Common and back,” said Major Bone, speaking thickly -through his moustache and soup. “Just to Rusthall Common.” - -“And you got a char-à-banc to Crohamhurst, Miss Solbé?” The two sisters -answered in unison. “Oh! we had a _lovely_ ride.” - -“So picturesque,” said the one with spectacles. - -“So open and pleasant,” said the one without spectacles. - -“Did you see the sea?” - -“Oh, plainly!” said the one with spectacles. - -“Ever so far away,” said the one without. - -“Just as if the sky had a steel edge,” said the one with spectacles. - -“Exactly like a leetle silver line,” said the one without. - -“H’rrmp,” said Mr. Preemby. - -Small portions of fish followed the tomato soup, and were consumed -in comparative silence. There was a little burst of scarcely audible -conversation at the window table. - -“Now is _this_ the same fish as we had yesterday?” asked the wife. - -“It is a very similar fish,” said the gentleman with whiskers. - -“The menu simply says, ‘Fish,’” said the stepdaughter. - -“H’rrmp,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“I think our back tyres were too tight to-day, Old Top,” said the -man in plus fours, in a very loud, clear voice. “I felt the road -dreadfully.” - -“I felt the road dreadfully,” said the lady in the yellow jumper. - -“I must let them down a little to-morrow morning.” - -“It would be better.” - -“To-morrow morning will do. I won’t trouble to-night.” - -“Much better to-morrow morning, Badger. You’re tired to-night after all -that bumping. You’d make your hands dirty.” - -Silence and active business with knives and forks. - -“Porruck hasn’t written about that,” said the Major from the forest. - -“Very likely he’s busy,” said his wife. - -Silence. - -“H’rrmp,” said Mr. Preemby. - -Christina Alberta searched her mind for some conversational opening -that would give her father a reasonable opportunity to make an -acceptable reply, but she could think of nothing that was neither -too disconcerting nor too dangerous. She met his eye and he had the -expression of one who holds out against a strain. - -Fish gave place to lamb. - -“I thought that road from Sittingbourne was just awful,” said the -motoring gentleman. - -“It was _just_ awful,” responded his wife. - -Christina Alberta saw her father’s face working. He was going to say -something. “H’rrmp. To-morrow, if it is fine, I think we will go for a -walk in the morning.” - -The knives and forks were hushed. Everybody was listening. - -“I’d love a walk to-morrow, Daddy,” said Christina Alberta. “I should -think there were some jolly walks about this place.” - -“Exactly,” said Mr. Preemby. “Very probably. The Guide Book is very -reassuring. H’rrmp.” - -He had the dignified expression of a man who has carried off a -difficult duty. - -Resumption of activity with knives and forks. - -“Hard to tell this lamb from mutton,” said Major Bone, “if it wasn’t -for the mint sauce.” - -“Peas are never so nice as they are from your own garden,” said the -wife of the whiskered gentleman to her stepdaughter. - -“It’s late for peas,” said the stepdaughter. - -The two Miss Solbés and the motoring gentleman began talking at the -same time. Mrs. Bone expressed the idea that it was hard to get good -lamb nowadays. Taking courage from this sudden swirl of conversation -Mr. Preemby was emboldened to remark to Christina Alberta that he had -always been attracted to Tumbridge Wells. He felt the air was a strong -air. It gave him an appetite. - -“You must be careful not to get fat,” said Christina Alberta. - -The outburst of active human exchanges came to an end. Baked apple and -custard were consumed in comparative silence. The chubby maid came to -ask Mr. Preemby whether he would like his coffee in the lounge or the -smoking-room. “The lounge I think,” said Mr. Preemby. “H’rrmp. The -lounge.” - -The Misses Solbé, bearing glasses containing sugar and lemon juice, -flitted from the room. The people from the window table followed. -The function of dinner was completed. They found themselves alone -in the lounge. Most of the people seemed to have drifted into the -sitting-room. The gentleman from the forests of Burmah went by towards -the smoking-room, carrying a large cigar which had an air of also -coming from the forests of Burmah. It did not look like a cigar that -had been rolled or filled; it looked like a cigar of old gnarled wood -that had been hewn from a branching tree. A straw came out of the end -of it.... - -Christina Alberta stood and contemplated a vast void of time, two hours -it might be, before she could decently go to bed. “Oh! this is the -Life!” she said. - -“Extremely comfortable,” said Mr. Preemby, sitting down with much -creaking in a basket arm-chair. - -Christina Alberta sat on a glass-topped table and lit a cigarette. She -saw those two hours stretching before her, and she wanted to scream. - -The chubby maid brought coffee and seemed gently surprised at Christina -Alberta’s cigarette. Whisperings off stage. Then Miss Emily became -dimly visible through the bead curtain at the end of the passage, -hovering. She vanished again and Christina Alberta finished her -cigarette in peace. Mr. Preemby drank up his coffee. Pause. Christina -Alberta swung her legs rhythmically. Then she slid off the table to her -feet. - -“Daddy,” she said, “let’s go into the sitting-room and see if anything -is happening there.” - - -§ 5 - -In the Boarding Houses of the past the common dining-table was the -social centre where people met and mind clashed upon and polished mind. -But the spirit of aloofness, the separate table system, has changed -all that, and now it is in the smoking-room or the sitting-room that -the vestiges of social intercourse, advances, retreats, coquettings, -exchanges, games and jests are to be found. But the company of the -Petunia Boarding House was not in a state of social fusion. The only -coalescence was a conversation. The wife of the gentleman from the -Burmese forests had secured an arm-chair by the side of the fire-place, -and she was describing in a low whisper the numerous servants she -had had in Burmah, to the cheerful wife and the younger Miss Solbé -who was knitting. The Miss Solbé with the spectacles had fortified -herself behind a table on the other side of the fire and was engaged -meticulously with a very elaborate Patience. The gentleman with the -side-whiskers sat rigidly on one of the sofas, behind a copy of the -_Times_, while his daughter sat at a table close at hand and also -threaded her way through a Patience. The Birds of Passage, after -inquiries about movies and music-halls, had gone out. - -Nobody took the slightest notice of Mr. Preemby and Christina Alberta. -The two stood for some moments in the middle of the room, and then -panic came upon Mr. Preemby. A dishonourable panic so that he threw his -daughter to these silent, motionless wolves. - -“H’rrmp,” he said. “I think my dear, I will go to the smoking-room. -I think I will go and smoke. There are some illustrated papers over -there on the bookcase for you if you care to look at them.” - -Christina Alberta walked over to the low bookcase and Mr. Preemby -departed, h’rrmping. - -She stood pretending an interest in the illustrated jokes and in -the portraits of actresses and society people in the _Sketch_ and -_Tatler_. Out of the tail of her eye she surveyed those fellow-guests -of hers, and with a negligent ear she collected the gist of Mrs. Bone’s -dissertation upon the servant question in Burmah. “They will plant the -whole family upon you if they can--uncles and cousins even. Before you -know where you are.... - -“Of course a white woman is a Little Queen out there.... - -“The chief fault of the cooking from my point of view, was the way it -upset Major Bone. His stomach ... far more delicate than a woman’s.” - -“He looks so stout and strong,” said Miss Solbé. - -“In everything but that. In everything. But the Curries they used to -make----” - -She sank her voice, and the heads of the younger Miss Solbé and the -pleasant mannered lady closed in upon her for the rich particulars. - -What a Lot they were! Christina Alberta reflected. And they were -living beings! The astonishing thing to Christina Alberta was that -they were alive. And being alive and having presumably been a cause -of considerable trouble, distress, emotion and hope to various people -before they were got alive, they were now all in the most resolute way -avoiding anything that with the extremest stretch of civility could -be spoken of as living. Their hours, their days were passing; a few -thousand days more perhaps for each of them, a few score thousand -hours. Then there would be no more chance of living for ever. And -instead of filling up this scanty allowance of hours and days with -every possible sensation and every possible effort and accomplishment, -here they were, gathered into a sort of magic box of atmosphere in -which nothing could possibly be done. By anyone.... - -Christina Alberta felt like a moth caught under a glass. Well, for a -day or so, she had an excuse, little Daddy must be settled. But then? -Nothing could be done here. Neither joy nor sorrow nor sin nor creative -effort--because even Miss Solbé’s knitting was being knitted to a -prescription on a dirty cutting of printed paper. Everything they were -employed upon was an evasion, everything. Even the whispered delicate -hints of the diuretic, dyspeptic, infuriating and wildly aphrodisiac -effects of Burmah Curry upon Major Bone in his younger days that were -being handed out by his good lady to her intent hearers, were just a -substitution of second-hand knowledge for realities. - -And this Patience! Would she, Christina Alberta asked herself, would -she ever come to play Patiences in Boarding Houses? Was it credible -that some day she also would come to sit voluntarily in such an -atmosphere? - -“Rather sell matches in a gutter,” whispered Christina Alberta. - -What a marvellous thing is Man! What ingenuities he has! what powers -and capabilities! He invents paper and perfects printing! He develops -the most beautiful methods of colour printing. He makes cardboard like -silk and ivory out of rags and vegetable pulp. And all it would seem, -that human beings, hanging for a little while in life between the -nothingness before death and the nothingness after death, should fiddle -away long hours in a feeble, fuddled conflict with the permutations -of duplicate sets of four differently coloured thirteens! Cards! -The marvel of cards! All over the world millions of people drawing -nearer to death and nothingness were pursuing the chances of the four -thirteens: bridge, whist, nap, skat, a hundred forms of it. Directly -they could get in out of the wet and dark, they sat down to that -sort of thing, to the cards shining under the still lamps, to being -endlessly surprised, delighted, indignant and despondent by chances -that anyone who chose to sit down to it could work out and tabulate in -a week! - -“Getting it out, dear?” said the younger Miss Solbé. - -“The spades are _Wicked_ to-night,” said the Miss Solbé with the -glasses. - -“Mine is going rather well,” said the daughter of the gentleman with -the whiskers. - -“Does your daughter play _Miss Milligan_?” asked the younger Solbé -sister. - -“_Eight-eights_,” said the comfortable wife. “_Miss Milligan_ is too -much for her.” - -“Well, it _is_ a Beast you know,” said the stepdaughter. “You never -know where you are with it.” - -“Patience is Patience,” said the elder Miss Solbé. “Nowadays I often -get it out. But not when the spades come as they’ve done to-night, both -twos in the top row, and no aces till the last round but one.” - -Christina Alberta thought it was time to change from the _Sketch_ to -the _Tatler_. She tried to do this with careless ease and flopped a -dozen papers on the floor. “Oh, _Damn_!” said Christina Alberta to a -great stillness. She struggled to pick up and replace the disordered -sheets. For a time every one seemed to be regarding her. Then Mrs. Bone -took up her discourse again. - -“And you can’t imagine their obstinacy,” she said. “They are _wilfully_ -ignorant. When you show them, _then_ they won’t do it. I took my -cook-boy in hand for a time--boy I call him, but he was quite a -middle-aged man--and I said to him, ‘just let me show you some plain -English cookery, a boiled fowl with nice white sauce, a few plain -potatoes and vegetables--quite plain with the natural flavour left -in--the sort of food that builds up these brave young Englishmen you -see.’ Of course I’m not a good cook myself, but anyhow I knew more -of English cooking than he did. But we never got further than the -plain boiled fowl. He expressed the most violent disapproval--really -violent I mean--of the whole proceedings. As I took hold of the things -and got to work he began to behave in the most extraordinary way. He -tried _not_ to follow what I was doing. Tried not to. He said that if -he cooked a fowl like that he would lose caste, lose his position in -the local guild of cooks, be perpetually defiled and outcast. _Why_, -he would not say. When I persisted he rushed up and down pulling at -his black hair--a black madman, his eyes rolling frightfully. I could -never make out what there was in a plain boiled fowl to cause such -excitement. ‘This in my kitchen,’ he said. ‘This in _my_ kitchen!’ - -“There I stood quietly boiling my fowl while all this pother went on. -He hovered about me. He talked--fortunately in his own language. I -even caught him pretending to be sick behind my back. Then he came and -implored me to desist--with tears in his great brown eyes. He tried -to say things in English. The Major always says that he was simply -swearing, but I believe the wretched man really did believe that if he -was to boil a fowl in the plain, wholesome, simple way nice people in -England do it daily, he would be hung in the air, and the great jays of -Burmah would come and peck--ahem!” - -She cast a side glance at Christina Alberta, apparently lost in the -_Sketch_, and lowered her voice. - -“Peck at his _entrails_, just his insides you know, for a Thousand, -Thousand Years.” - -Sensation. - -“You never know What Ideas Easterners will get into their Heads,” said -the younger Miss Solbé. “East is East, and West is West.” - -But now Christina Alberta’s attention was distracted by another set -of phenomena. She had discovered that the thin, bald gentleman with -side-whiskers, rigid behind his _Times_, was not really reading that -interesting vestige of the British constitution at all. His gaze was -not directed to the edge of his paper, but beyond it. He was staring -from behind that ambush and round the corner of his glasses in a -strange, hard-eyed way, without passion or admiration, at the upper -part of Christina Alberta’s black-stockinged legs as they delivered -their last challenge to human censure before disappearing beneath her -all too exiguous but extremely comfortable skirt. And also she was -realizing that a furtive but intense scrutiny of her bobbed hair was -disorganizing the Patience of the whiskered gentleman’s daughter very -seriously, and that it was also interfering with the proper laying out -of a second and different sort of Patience by the elder Miss Solbé. And -suddenly, to her extreme annoyance, Christina Alberta found a flush -of indignation mantling her cheek, and a combative tingle passing -down the backbone of her straight little body. “Why the devil,” Miss -Preemby asked herself, “why the devil shouldn’t a girl cut her hair -to save trouble and bother, and wear clothes in which she can walk -about?” Anyhow, a mop of well-washed hair was ten times better than -those feeble, aimless interweavings of pigtails and fringes and scraps -and ends. And as for showing one’s legs and body; why shouldn’t one -show one’s legs and body? It was just a part of the universal evasion -of life by these people that had got most of their bodies hidden -away, tied up in a sort of bundle. Do they ever venture to look at -themselves? Those Solbé girls, once upon a time, they must have been -jolly little girls with an amused interest in their stalky little legs, -before they said Shush! and put them away. - -Christina Alberta’s speculative vein took charge for a time. What -becomes of legs that are put away and never looked at and encouraged? -Do they get etiolated and queer, dead-white and funny-shaped and -afraid of the light? And after you’ve really packed your body away -and forgotten it, nothing is left of you but a head sticking out and -hands that wave about and feet with hidden and distorted toes; and you -go about between meal-times and take trips in chars-à-bancs to see -what every one sees and feel what every one feels, and you play games -by rule and example according to your age and energy, and become more -and more addicted to Patience until you are ready to cover yourself up -in bed for the last time of all and die. Evasion! And the fuss they -had caused getting born! The fuss, the morality and marriages and -everything that was necessary before these vacuous lives were begotten! - -But it was all evasion, and the life shown in these _Tatlers_ -and _Sketches_ was evasion just as much. Just as much. All these -photographs of the pushful pretty, the actresses for sale and the -daughters who had to be sold, looked at you with just your own -question in their eyes: “Is this the Life?” The unending photographs -of Lady Diana This, and Lady Marjorie That, and Mr. So-and-So and a -Friend of the Duke of York or the Duchess of Shonts, at dog-shows, at -horse-shows, at race meetings, at royal inaugurations and the like, -were inevitably suggestive of obstinate doubts that were in need of a -perennial reassurance. The photographs of people playing tennis and -suchlike games were livelier, but there, too, if you care to look at -it, were evasions. Evasions. Evasions. - -Christina Alberta turned over the back numbers of the _Sketch_ without -looking at the pictures before her eyes. - -What was this Life she and these people and every one by games and -jokes and meetings and ceremonies and elaborate disregards and -concealments were all evading? What was this great thing outside, -this something like a huge, terrible, attractive and compelling black -monster, beyond the lights, beyond the movements and appearances, that -called to her and challenged her to come? - -One might evade the call of it by playing Patience and games perhaps. -One might evade it by living by rule or custom. People seemed to do -so. A time might come when that call to Christina Alberta to be -Christina Alberta to the uttermost and fulfil her mysterious mission -to that immense being beyond the lights might no longer distress her -life. She had thought that in a certain recklessness and violence with -herself she might fight her way out to the call. She had made love now. -Anyhow, she hadn’t evaded _that_. But--was it going to matter as much -as she had thought it would matter? She and her little friends were -playing desperate games with the material of love in a world where Dr. -Marie Stopes and Mr. D. H. Lawrence were twin stars, and it was just -something you went through--and came out much as you had been before. -More restless, perhaps, but no further on. It left you just where you -had been, face to face with the unsolved darkness and that mysterious, -distressing, unanswerable call to come out of it all and really live -and die. - -She had made love.... Queer it had been.... - -These furtive people were watching and watching her, reading her -thoughts, perhaps, penetrating her.... - -Christina Alberta shut her copy of the _Sketch_ with something of a -snap, and walked out of the drawing-room with a serene expression. She -shut the door behind her and went downstairs to find what had happened -to her father in the smoking-room. - -“I’m leaving the best part of the talk behind me,” reflected Christina -Alberta. - - -§ 6 - -She found that her father and the gentleman from the forests of Burmah, -after a very prolonged and brilliant “h’rrmping” match, had settled -down to conversation. But unhappily the conversation was unsuitable for -her. - -“Siam, Cambodia, Tonquin, the country is full of such temples. They -take you there and show you them.” - -“Wonderful,” said Mr. Preemby. “Wonderful. And you do not think the -carvings you speak of--? Some high symbolism?” - -Both gentlemen became aware of Christina Alberta, attentive and -hovering. - -“Symbolism,” said the arboreal gentleman, “Symbolism,” and had -complicated pharyngeal difficulties. “Heathenish indecency. Difficult -to discuss.... Presence of young lady.... H’rrmp.” - -“H’rrmp,” said Mr. Preemby. “Had you come down to say good night, my -dear? We are having a rather--rather technical talk.” - -“Sounds like it, Daddy,” said Christina Alberta, and went round and sat -on the arm of his chair for a moment. - -“Good night, little Daddy,” she said. - -Reflective moment. - -“I think this Tumbridge is going to suit me,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“I hope it will, little Daddy. Good night.” - - -§ 7 - -Christina Alberta’s first evening at the Petunia Boarding House has -been described with some particularity because it is a sample of all -the still and uneventful evenings that seemed to lie before Mr. Preemby -there. It impressed her as an unfathomable enormity of uneventfulness -in which nothing harmful or disturbing could conceivably occur to him. -The last remote possibility of imaginative disturbance seemed to remove -itself next day when Mrs. Bone announced to the whiskered gentleman’s -wife that she and her husband were off to Bath on the morrow: they -were in luck it seemed; they had got the exact rooms for the winter in -the exact boarding house they had always had their eyes on. “Tunbridge -seems so bleak,” she said. “After Burmah.” - -The dinner was like the previous dinner; the Birds of Passage had gone -and Mr. Preemby astonished himself, Christina Alberta, the chubby maid -and the assembled company by demanding whether it was possible to send -out (h’rrmp) for a bottle or flask of Chianti. “It’s an Italian wine,” -said Mr. Preemby to inform and help the chubby maid in her inquiries. -But there was no Chianti on the wine-list supplied, and after a -conversation markedly reminiscent of that of the Birds of Passage -overnight, the Preemby table was stocked with a bottle of Australian -Burgundy and, at Christina Alberta’s request, a bottle of mineral water. - -After this display of initiative, self-assertion and social derring-do, -Mr. Preemby did little but h’rrmp throughout the rest of the meal. - -The subsequent life of the drawing-room was also vacantly similar -to the previous evening. Christina Alberta got her possibly illegal -cigarette in the lounge, indeed she smoked two, and Miss Margaret -Rewster looked at her through the bead curtain near the office and -Miss Emily had a sniff from the landing upstairs, though nothing was -said. And then Mr. Preemby followed Major Bone into the smoking-room -to gather whatever further information he could about the temple -decorations and religious customs of the peoples of further India. -He was inclined to think Major Bone rather biased by evangelical -prejudice. But Major Bone was not even indignant about Eastern -religions that night. He wanted to talk about Bath, and he talked about -Bath. He told Mr. Preemby in very great detail about a remarkable -occurrence at Bath. He had met a gentleman named Bone, a gentleman -much of his own age and appearance, a Captain Bone who had also once -been in Burmah. He detailed various extremely dramatic conversations -between himself and the other Bone, occasionally going back and -correcting himself. They had made the most elaborate comparison of -their genealogies, and it did not appear that they were even remotely -related. “Most curious coincidence that has ever occurred to me,” said -Major Bone. “In Bath. In nineteen-eh-nine.” - -In the drawing-room Patience prevailed and Mrs. Bone was talking about -Bath. The cheerful wife of the whiskered gentleman said “Deavning” to -Christina Alberta quite suddenly. - -“Oh! Good evening,” said Christina Alberta. - -“You had a walk to-day?” - -“We’ve been to see the Toad Rock and the High Rock and Eridge Park.” - -“Quite a nice walk,” said the cheerful lady, and restored her attention -to Mrs. Bone. Christina Alberta gathered she was to be noticed, but not -made a pet of. - -There was nothing for it but to go through the _Tatlers_ and _Sketches_ -again. This time the pictures were exhausted, but there were reviews of -books and one or two short stories. Christina Alberta read them all. - -When she went to say good night to her Daddy she had come to a -decision. “Daddy,” she said, “on Thursday, that’s the day after -to-morrow, I must go back to London. There are some lectures beginning.” - -Mr. Preemby made no effective opposition. - -The third evening was in countenance like the second except that the -Bones had gone and that Christina Alberta was sustained by the thought -that next day she would pass from the vacuities of Tunbridge to the -tangled riddles of London. And there was a Bird of Passage present, an -untidy young man of the student type with a lot of hair imperfectly -controlled by unguents whose motor bicycle had broken down just outside -Tunbridge Wells. He lived somewhere away in the north, it seemed, in -Northumberland; he would have to wait in Tunbridge for two or three -days while some broken part of his machine was replaced from Coventry; -he had taken refuge in the Petunia Boarding House and it was jolly hard -luck on him. He couldn’t budget for a trip to London; he would just -have to sit down in Tunbridge. He was a Cambridge undergraduate and a -geologist; he had a bag of specimens on his machine. These facts he -conveyed across the width of the room to Mr. Preemby in the course of a -rather one-sided conversation. - -From the first Christina Alberta did not like this young gentleman from -Cambridge. He was like a younger, cruder Teddy Winterton, with impudent -bad manners instead of impudent good manners, and with neither bodily -grace nor good looks. And while he spoke to Mr. Preemby he glanced at -her. But she had no inkling of the part he might play in the life of -her Daddy and herself. - -When she and her Daddy went into the lounge for coffee and her -cigarette, the young man came and placed himself at an adjacent table -and initiated some more conversation. Was Tunbridge Wells an amusing -place? Was there any chance of his getting any golf or tennis? - -“There are a number of delightful walks,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“Not much fun alone,” said the young man. - -“There are the pleasures of observation,” said Mr. Preemby. - -“All this country has been pretty well worked over,” said the young man -of science. “Is there a Museum here?” - -Mr. Preemby did not know. - -“There ought to be a Museum in every town.” - -Presently the coffee and the cigarettes were finished. This evening Mr. -Preemby was for the drawing-room. Major Bone had gone, the smoking-room -had no attractions, and Mr. Preemby had exchanged a few amiable words -with the gentleman with whiskers and hoped to follow them up. Christina -Alberta went with him. At the sight of the old _Tatlers_ and _Sketches_ -she remembered she had bought a book in the High Street that day, a -second-hand copy of Rousseau’s _Confessions_. She went off to get -it. She found the young gentleman from Cambridge still sitting in the -lounge smoking cigarettes. - -“Pretty gloomy here,” he said. - -“Oh! _I_ don’t know,” said Christina Alberta with an open mind, pausing -before him. - -“Nothing much doing--what?” - -“It’s not a Gala Night.” - -“I’m stranded.” - -“You must bear up.” - -“S’pose you wouldn’t be disposed to come out for a bit and forage -around for some fun?” said the young man from Cambridge, taking his -courage in both hands. - -“Sorry,” said Christina Alberta conclusively, and turned to go on. - -“No offence?” said the young man from Cambridge. - -“Nice of you to think of me,” said Christina Alberta who would rather -have been thought utterly shameless than the least bit prudish. “Good -hunting.” - -And the young man from Cambridge perceived that he was dismissed. - -Christina Alberta went into the drawing-room for another tremendous -bout of nothingness. But anyhow she had got Rousseau to read, and -to-morrow she would be in London. - -About the Rousseau--? She had always wanted to know how she stood -towards Rousseau. - -He carried her on to ten o’clock. But she didn’t think much of -Rousseau. He ought to have known a few of the New Hope Club girls. -They’d have shown him. - - -§ 8 - -For three weeks Christina Alberta did not return to Tunbridge Wells, -and when she returned she had passed through a variety of experiences -that will have their due effect upon the course of this story. This -story is the story of Mr. Preemby, and we have little sympathy with -that modern sort of novel which will not let a girl alone but must -follow her up into the most private and intimate affairs. Christina -Alberta was perplexed and worried and would have hated the pursuit -of such a searchlight. Suffice it that events had crowded so closely -upon her that for whole days together she thought scarcely at all of -her possibly quite lonely little Daddy at Tunbridge Wells. Then came a -letter that brought her bustling down. - -“I think it only right to tell you,” said the letter, “that Very -Important Communications indeed have been made to me _of the Utmost -Importance_, and that I ought to tell you about them. They seem to -alter all our lives. I know you are immearced in your studies, but -these Communications are so Important that I want to talk them over -with you soon. I would come up to the Studio to tell you about it all, -but very likely Mr. Crumb might be in and I would much prefer to tell -you here on the Common amid more congenial surroundings. Some of it you -will find almost unbeleavable.” - -“Communications?” said Christina Alberta, re-reading the letter. -“Communications?” - -She went down to Tunbridge Wells that afternoon. - - - - -CHAPTER THE FIFTH - -_The Scales Fall from Mr. Preemby’s Eyes_ - - -§ 1 - -“The scales,” said Mr. Preemby, “have fallen from my eyes.” - -He had chosen a seat upon the Common which commanded an extensive view -of the town, the town crowned by the green cupolas of the Opera House -and lying as though the houses had been shot out of a cart down the -long incline to the Pantiles. Beyond were the wide distances of the -Kentish hill country, blue and remote. - -Christina Alberta waited for more. - -“This experience,” said Mr. Preemby, speaking with an occasional -h’rrmp; “all these experiences--difficult to relate. Naturally I think -you are of a sceptical disposition--taking after your dear mother. She -was very sceptical. Of psychic phenomena in particular. She said it was -Nonsense. And when your dear mother said a thing was Nonsense, then it -was Nonsense. It only made things disagreeable if you argued it was -anything else. As for myself--always the open mind. No dogma either -way. I just refrained.” - -“But, Daddy, have you been having psychic experiences? How could you -have psychic experiences down here?” - -“Let me tell you the story in due order. I want you to see it as I saw -it--in due order.” - -“How did it begin?” - -Mr. Preemby held up a propitiatory hand. “Please! In my own way,” he -said. - -Christina Alberta bit her lips and scrutinized the tranquil resolution -of his profile. There was no hurrying him; he had to tell his tale as -he had prepared it. - -“I do not think,” said Mr. Preemby, “that mine is a very credulous sort -of mind. It is true I am not given to argument. I do not _say_ very -much. But I think and observe. I think and observe and I have a kind of -gift for judging people. I do not think I am a very easy man to deceive. - -“And it is to be noted that I started the whole affair. It began at my -suggestion. I do not know what put it into my head, but I do know that -it was me started the whole thing going. - -“You know, after your departure our little band at the Petunia Boarding -House was reduced to just six persons, not counting the young gentleman -from Cambridge who was, as Miss Rewster says, a Bird of Passage. -Naturally the six of us felt rather drawn together. There were the two -Miss Solbés, both very intelligent young ladies, and there were Mr. -Hockleby and Mrs. Hockleby, and Miss Hockleby, and there was me. We -were drawn together at lunch after you had gone off--it was a little -showery and we had a fire in the drawing-room and Miss Solbé, the -one with the glasses, tried to show me one of her Patiences. We got -into quite an interesting argument about whether it was possible to -_will_ which card would turn up next. I have always inclined to the -view that for certain people, people with the necessary gift, it was -possible to do so, but Mr. Hockleby showed himself extremely sceptical -in the matter. He said that if there was a card on the top of the -pack ready to turn up, and if one willed that a different card should -turn up, then that meant that one had really by sheer will force to -re-manufacture two of the cards in the pack, make them over again, each -into the other, make them blank, reprint them and everything. But I -tried to explain to him that this is not philosophically sound because -of predestination. If you were predestined to will that such a card -should be on the top of the pack, then that card was also predestined -to be there. He argued----” - -“But is it necessary to tell me all this, Daddy, before we get to your -psychic experience?” - -“It is just to illustrate the fact that Mr. Hockleby was an extremely -sceptical person.” - -“Was that young man from Cambridge present at the discussions?” - -“No-oh. No. He was not. He had probably gone down to the Garage to see -if his Spare Part had come. He was always going down to the Garage to -see about his Spare Part.” - - -§ 2 - -Mr. Preemby h’rrmped and began a new section of his narrative. - -“It was in the evening after dinner,” he said, “that things really -began. I went into the smoking-room--to smoke--and afterwards I went -into the drawing-room, and when I went into the drawing-room I had no -more thought of occult phenomena, Christina Alberta, than I had of -flying over the moon. But as I came into the drawing-room I saw Miss -Solbé looking at her Patience cards which she had just put out, and -the way she was holding her hands on the table reminded me of the way -I had read that people put their hands together on the table when they -were trying experiments in table-turning. And almost without thinking I -said: ‘Why, Miss Solbé, the way you are holding your hands is just the -way they do when they are going to do table-turning!’ I said it just -like that. - -“Mr. Hockleby was reading his paper at the time--the _Times_, I think, -but it may have been the _Morning Post_--but he put it down when he -heard me say that and he looked over his glasses at me and said, ‘You -don’t believe in that sort of thing, Mr. Preemby, surely?’ - -“His wife was sitting with her back to me and from the way she spoke -I think she must have been eating some sort of sweet or lozenge at the -time. ‘_I_ do,’ she said. ‘We did it at home dozens of times before I -was married.’ - -“And I don’t know what put it into my head, Christina Alberta; it -seemed almost as though it was something behind myself that did it, or -it may have been a sort of antagonism I have always felt about that -man Hockleby; but anyhow, I said, ‘I’d really like to try some of this -table-turning.’ - -“The younger Miss Solbé, she’s really quite a charming young lady when -you get to know her, and it seems she has been reading a little occult -literature lately----” - -“How old is she, Daddy?” asked Christina Alberta, regarding him with a -look of novel suspicion. - -“I don’t think she can be very much more than thirty-two or three. -Thirty-four at the outside. And really quite well-read, quite -well-read. Well, anyhow, she said she would like to try it. And Miss -Hockleby, evidently she had been brought up on strictly sceptical lines -by her father, she was curious too. So to cut a long story short, -we tried it. Only Mr. Hockleby objected and Mrs. Hockleby overruled -that. She was the only one among us who had ever seen anything of the -sort before, and so it was she who arranged things and told us what -to do. We chose a very solid table, the one that usually has the big -aspidistra on it, and while we were turning out the light----” - -“But why did you do that, Daddy?” - -“One always does that,” said Mr. Preemby. “It makes the atmosphere more -favourable. We lit a candle which Miss Margaret Rewster got for us and -turned out all the electric lights; and while we were doing this, in -came young Mr. Charles Fenton and said--_what_ did he say? A peculiar -expression. Ah, yes! ‘Gollys,’ he said, ‘what’s up?’” - -“Was that the young man with the motor bicycle?” - -“Yes. The young man from Cambridge. We explained what we were doing -and asked him to join us. He declared he knew nothing of psychic -phenomena, had never experimented with it at all and seemed very -doubtful about taking part in the trial. ‘I don’t think there’s -anything in it,’ he said. ‘We shall just waste our time.’ Indeed I -remember now that he did go out intending to visit a music-hall, and -then he came back and said it was raining. It’s very important to -note that he was not at all eager to join us and that he was quite -uninformed about occult things because, you see, as I will tell you, we -found out presently that he was a person of exceptional psychic gifts, -much greater psychic gifts than anyone else among us. - -“Well, we arranged ourselves about the table in the usual manner, -thumbs and little fingers touching, and for a time nothing seemed to -happen at all. We found Miss Emily Rewster was peeping in through the -slightly open door, and perhaps that may have had an unfavourable -influence. I suppose she wondered what we were doing and why we had -asked her sister for a candle. Then Mr. Fenton got very restive and -grumbled to himself and said it was the silliest way of passing an -evening he had ever tried. It was a little difficult to persuade him -to keep silence and persevere. ‘_All_ right,’ said he, with a kind of -resentment. ‘Have it your own way.’ And then suddenly came two violent -raps, raps like little pistol shots, not immediately under the table it -was, but as if it was in the air a foot or so under the table. And then -the table began to move. Slowly at first, shifting along the floor, and -then quite strongly twisting and pushing up against our hands. It was -very weird and impressive, Christina Alberta, very weird and impressive -indeed. It rose nearly two feet I should think and then Mr. Hockleby -broke the circle and it fell rather heavily, I fancy, and the leg hit -his shin. He uttered an exclamation and stooped to rub his leg, and -in the indistinct light he hit his head on the edge of the table. It -seemed almost a judgment on his scepticism I thought. We turned up one -or two of the lights to attend to him. ‘I don’t like this,’ said Mr. -Fenton. ‘This is a bit too rum for me.’ - -“I asked him to try just once more. - -“‘I don’t like this table riding up like this,’ he said. ‘It’s such a -bad example for the chairs. Suppose some of them start playing cup and -ball with us! You might get a nasty toss from a buck-jumping chair. And -besides, it’s a lot too like a Channel crossing for my taste.’ - -“I think we were all a good deal excited by what had happened, and all -the others, even Mr. Hockleby, were eager to continue. - -“‘Next time I shall _press_ down,’ he said. I think he was a little -suspicious that either his wife or me had something to do with the -phenomena. Evidently spiritualism was a long-standing dispute between -him and his wife. His wife said she had seen tables move before, but -none so actively as this one had done. - -“Down we sat again. We had hardly waited a minute before the table -began rocking about in the most extraordinary fashion, and then -absolutely flew up so violently that the elder Miss Solbé was thrown -back over that Ottoman there is there, and I was bumped under my chin. -At the same time there was a perfect volley of cracks, like somebody -cracking his fingers, but ever so much louder. It was quite a comfort -to have the lights up again and see Mr. Hockleby holding the table down -firmly in its proper place. ‘Damn you,’ he said--quite loudly. ‘Damn -you. Keep down.’ Miss Hockleby and her father picked up Miss Solbé, who -was on the floor in a sort of hysterical fit of laughter, with her feet -waving about. - -“‘I don’t like this,’ said Mr. Fenton. ‘It goes through one like an -electric shock.’ - -“He spoke quite simply. - -“The only one of us who had had any experience with occult phenomena -was Mrs. Hockleby, and she had not done anything of the sort since -her marriage to Mr. Hockleby five or six years before, because of -his scepticism. She said now that it was very evident that some very -strong and resolute spirit was present and was trying to communicate -with us, and she explained a simple and safe method of getting into -communication. We were to reform the circle round the table and we -were to call over the alphabet, and when we came to the letter the -spirit wanted there would be a rap and so we should be able to arrive -at something definite. There is a sort of code quite well understood -it seems in the spirit world, in which you convey ‘No’ by one rap and -‘Yes’ by two, and so on. - -“We set to work at this,” said Mr. Preemby. “We asked if the spirit -would like to spell out anything and it answered with two very loud -raps, and then Mr. Hockleby read out the letters: A B C and so on. When -it got to S the spirit gave a rap so loud it made me jump.” - -“And what did you spell out, Daddy?” - -“A name quite unknown to me then--SARGON, and then KING OF KINGS. We -asked: was the spirit that was communicating with us Sargon? The answer -came _No_. Was Sargon present? _Yes._ Then who was our communicant? -OUJAH. Who was Oujah? WISE MAN. It was a very slow process spelling -out the words in this way, and by the time we had got so far we were -all very tired. Mr. Fenton in particular was very tired. He yawned and -seemed greatly exhausted, and said at last he felt so weary and muzzy -that he _must_ go to bed. That was really very natural, because though -none of us realized it at the time he was the actual medium under -Oujah’s control. He went to bed and we tried to go on without him, but -the magic had departed and we could not get so much as a rap. So we -sat for a time talking all this over. Mr. Hockleby in particular was -greatly flabbergasted, and then the rest of us went to bed.” - -“Evidently Mr. Fenton made the raps,” said Christina Alberta. - -“Evidently his presence was necessary for the raps to be made,” -corrected Mr. Preemby. “Quite unconsciously he was a Mejum.” - -There was a pause. - -“Go on with the story,” said Christina Alberta. - - -§ 3 - -“The next evening was wet again, and as his Spare Part hadn’t come Mr. -Fenton was able to join us once more. He made some little objection at -first because he said he and his people were all Particular Baptists, -and he was doubtful whether this sort of thing was not Necromancy and -forbidden in the Bible. But I persuaded him out of that. And this time -we spelt out a quite singular message. It was AWAKE, SARGON! ARISE OR -BE FOREVER FALLEN! - -“Even from the first I had had a feeling that those messages from -Sargon had something to do with me. Now suddenly conviction came upon -me. I asked ‘Is Sargon present?’ ‘_Yes._’ I knew it would be so. ‘Is it -anyone in the circle?’ ‘_Yes._’ ‘Is it this gentleman?’--pointing to -Mr. Hockleby. A very loud _No_. ‘Is it me?’ ‘_Yes._’ - -“Mr. Hockleby I noted at the time looked annoyed--as though he felt it -was he who ought to be Sargon. - -“Then young Mr. Fenton stood up suddenly. ‘Oh! I can’t stand any more -of this,’ he said. ‘My head feels quite muzzy. I’m sure this sort of -thing is harmful.’ He walked across the room and sat down suddenly with -his hands hanging over the arms of the chair--it was one of the big -arm-chairs covered in cretonne. We all felt very much concerned, but -as for myself I was all in a daze at the thought of being this Sargon -and being called upon so openly to rouse myself to action. I did not -understand fully as yet all that it meant to me, but I did realize -that it meant a very great deal.” - -“But what did you think it meant?” said Christina Alberta sharply, and -her perplexed gaze searched his profile. His blue eyes stared at things -far away beyond the distant hills, strange things, fantastic empires, -secret cities, mystical traditions, and his brows were knit in the -effort to keep his story together. - -“All in good time,” said Mr. Preemby. “Let me tell my story in my -own way. I was telling you, I think, that young Mr. Fenton said he -felt heavy and strange. Mrs. Hockleby happily was quite equal to that -situation. She had seen the same thing before. ‘Don’t struggle against -it,’ she said. ‘Let yourself go. Just lean back in your chair. If -you want to lie quiet, do. If you want to say anything, do. Let the -influence work.’ And she turned to me and whispered ‘trance.’ - -“‘What is a trance?’ said Mr. Fenton--just like that. ‘What is a -trance?’ - -“She began moving her hands in front of his face, ‘making passes,’ I -think they call it. He shut his eyes, gave a sort of sigh and his head -lolled back. We all sat round him waiting, and presently he began to -mutter. - -“At first it was just nonsense. ‘Oojah Woojer Boojer,’ words like that. -Then more distinctly, ‘Oujah the Wise Man, Sargon’s servant. Oujah -comes to serve Sargon. To awaken him.’ After that he seemed to wander -off into sheer rubbish. ‘Why is a mouse when it spins?’ he whispered in -his own voice and then, ‘That damned Spare Part.’ - -“Mrs. Hockleby said that was quite characteristic of this sort of -trance, and then Mr. Hockleby got a writing-pad and a pencil to take -down anything more that was said. - -“And presently when Mr. Fenton spoke again, he did not speak in his own -voice but in a kind of hoarse whisper quite different from his usual -voice. It was the voice of this Oujah speaking--Oujah the control. -With a slight accent--Sumerian I suppose. - -“Well, the things he said were very astonishing indeed. I think that -this Oujah was anxious to secure my attention by convincing me that he -knew of things, intimate things that nobody else could know. At the -same time he did not wish the others to know too clearly what he was -aiming at. How did it go? What can I remember? Mr. Hockleby has a lot -of it written down, but so far I have not had time to make a copy. -‘Child of the sea and the desert,’ he said, ‘the blue waters and the -desert sand.’ Is it too fanciful to find an allusion to Sheringham in -that? ‘Cascades and great waters and a thing like a wheel on a blue -shield.’ That is more puzzling. But ‘cascades and great waters’ set -me thinking of our big washers. And you remember the swastika on our -blue delivery vans, Christina Alberta? Is not that oddly suggestive of -a thing like a wheel on a blue shield? The Norse peoples called the -swastika the fire-wheel. ‘Armies with their white garments fluttering, -the long lines drawn out--armies of delivery.’ That again is queer. -One is reminded of armies and also--don’t think me absurd!--of the -drying-ground and the vans. It is like one thing becoming transparent -and your seeing the other behind it.” - -“Are you sure of the exact phrases, Daddy?” - -“Mr. Hockleby has them written down. If I have not got them quite right -you will be able to read his notes.” - -“The swastika may be a coincidence,” said Christina Alberta. “Or -you may have been drawing it on the edges of the newspaper. You do -sometimes. And he may have seen it.” - -“That does not account for the blue ground. He laid great stress on -the blue ground. And there were other things; matters known only to -me and your dear mother. I could not tell you them without telling -you everything. And small things, entirely private to me. The name -of my late grandfather at Diss. Munday his name was. It is sometimes -difficult to argue about things although one may be absolutely -convinced. And all this was mixed up with broken sentences about a -great city and the two daughters of the western King and the Wise Man. -And also he called me Belshazzar. Belshazzar seemed to drift in and out -of his thoughts. ‘Come again to a world that has fallen into disorder.’ -These are remarkable words. And then ‘Beware of women; they take the -sceptre out of the hands of the king. But do they know how to rule? Ask -Tutankhamen. Ask the ruins in the desert.’” - -“Pah,” said Christina Alberta. “As though women have ever had a fair -chance!” - -“Well, anyhow, Mr. Hockleby has that written down.... And it seemed to -me that this too applied to me, for because of my great fondness for -your mother I had let so many years of my life slip away. He said many -other things, Christina Alberta, richly suggestive things. But I have -told you enough for you to understand what has happened. In the end Mr. -Fenton came-to quite suddenly, much more suddenly than is usual in such -cases, Mrs. Hockleby said. He sat up and yawned and rubbed his eyes. -‘Oh, Lord!’ he said, ‘what nonsense all this is! I’m going to bed.’ - -“We asked him if he felt exhausted. He said he was. ‘Absolutely fed -up,’ were his actual words. - -“We asked him if that was the end of his message. - -“‘What message?’ he said. He had absolutely no memory of his -communications at all. ‘Have I been talking?’ he asked. ‘This isn’t the -sort of thing one ought to get up to. What sort of things have I been -saying? Nothing objectionable I hope. If so I apologize. I mustn’t do -any more of this sort of thing.’ - -“Mrs. Hockleby told him she had never met anyone with such a promise -of great psychic power as he had, before. He said he was really very -sorry to hear it. She said he owed it to himself to cultivate so rare -and strange a gift, but he said That wouldn’t do for his people at -all. The rain had stopped and he said he thought he would take a walk -down to the Pantiles and back before turning in. Perfectly simple and -natural he was from first to last, and rather unwilling. And he really -did look tired out.” - -“Didn’t he laugh once?” asked Christina Alberta. - -“Why should he? He seemed a little afraid of what he had transmitted. -The next day his Spare Part came. Mrs. Hockleby did her utmost to try -to get him once more in the afternoon and develop his Communication, -but he would not do so. He was full of questions about the ferry at -Tilbury and the time of high tide. He would not even give us his name -and address. When I spoke of sending Mr. Hockleby’s notes to the -_Occult Review_ he was suddenly quite alarmed. He said that if his name -appeared in connection with them it might mean a very serious row with -his family. He would not even allow us to put a Mr. F. from Cambridge. -‘Put quite another name,’ he said, ‘quite a different name. Put -anything you like that does not point to me, a Mr. Walker, say, from -London. Or something of that sort.’ - -“Of course there was nothing for us to do but agree.” - - -§ 4 - -“And that was the whole of your communication, Daddy?” - -“It was only the beginning. Because after that I began to remember. I -began to remember more and more.” - -“Remember?” - -“Things from my other lives. Memories stored up. This young Mr. -Fenton was, so to speak, no more than the first cut in the curtain of -forgetfulness that hung between this present life and all my previous -existences. Now it was rent and torn open so that I could see things -through it at a dozen points. Now I begin to realize what I really was -and what I can really be.... - -“You know, Christina Alberta, I have never actually believed I was -myself--not even as a schoolboy. And now it is interesting, I know -and understand clearly that I _am_ somebody else. I have always been -somebody else.” - -“But who do you believe you are, Daddy?” - -“So far as I can gather I was first a chief called Porg in a city -called Kleb in the very beginning of the world, æons and æons ago, -and I tamed my people and taught them many things. Then afterwards I -was this Sargon--Sargon the King of Kings. There is very little about -him here in the Public Library, in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_; an -upstart who took his name, _my_ name, three thousand years later, an -Assyrian fellow is the Sargon they tell about--he got mixed up with the -Jews and he besieged Samaria--but I was the original Sargon long before -there were Jews or anything of the sort, long before Abraham and Isaac -and Jacob. And afterwards I was Belshazzar, the last crown prince of -the Babylonians, but that is not very clear. That remains obscure. Only -one part of the record is lit--as yet. And possibly I have been other -people. But the figure that stands out in my memory now is Sargon. It -is his memories have been returning to me. It is he who has returned in -me.” - -“But Daddy, you don’t really believe all this?” - -“Believe!--I _know_. Long before this Communication came to me I had -had those intimations,--that assurance that I was somebody else. _Now_ -I see clearly. I can remember days in Akkadia now just as clearly as -I can remember days in Woodford Wells. I could almost doubt whether -I have ever lived at Woodford Wells; it seems so far away now. It -was when I was in bed the night after Mr. Fenton had gone that these -memories began to come. I was in bed, and then suddenly I was not in -bed--I was reclining on a couch under a canopy, a canopy of pure white -wool very finely woven and embroidered with emblems and symbols and -suchlike things in golden thread, and I was upon my state barge upon -the Euphrates. Two King’s daughters, sisters, with slender necks, not -unlike the two Miss Solbés except that they were fairer--and decidedly -younger--_much_ younger--and clad rather more in accordance with the -requirements of a warm climate, chiefly in woven gold--sat and fanned -me with fans of Eagles’ feathers dyed a royal purple. And at my feet -sat my councillor Prewm, who was oddly enough extremely like Mr. -Hockleby--just the same iron-grey whiskers and with the same little -tufts of hair over his ears. He was wearing an extremely tall cap of -some black woollen substance, and he was making memoranda with a wooden -style on a tablet of wet clay. It was like writing on a mud pie. And -beyond him were the officers of the boat on a kind of bridge--they were -wearing leather helmets studded with brass--and then one saw the rowers -below, chained to their oars, and then on either side spread the broad -brown river just crinkled by the breeze. The little boats fled to make -way for us. They had coarse, square sails, and they lowered them and -turned them about all in precisely the same way at precisely the same -time. It was very pretty to see. Along the banks were little villages -of mud-brick houses and clumps and lines of palm trees; and everywhere -there were primitive contrivances, great bent poles of wood like giant -fishing-rods, for raising water out of the river for the cultivation of -the land. And the people were all crowded along the water’s edge and -bowing with their hands and foreheads in the water and crying, ‘Sargon -the Conqueror, Sargon, King of Kings!’” - -“But Daddy, this was a dream?” - -“How could I dream of things I had never seen nor heard of before?” - -“One does.” - -“One does _not_,” he replied with a quiet, invincible obstinacy. “I -remember I was coming back from the South where I had given peace to -a multitude of warring tribes, Elamites and Perrizites and Jebusites -and people of that sort, and I was returning to my capital. I remember -distinctly many details of the campaign and I know that with an effort -I could recall more in the proper order. In dreams absurd things -happen, dreams when you think them over afterwards are all at sixes and -sevens, but this is all sane and orderly. One might think, Christina -Alberta, that I had never dreamt dreams and that all these memories of -that previous existence which crowd upon me now were a deception of my -imagination! But I can go right back as if it was yesterday, and I am -surer by far that I am Sargon than that I am Albert Edward Preemby your -father. The former is my true self, the latter is just a very simple, -unpretending wrapping that for some purpose, at present inexplicable to -me, has hidden me from the world.” - -He waved his hand with a bolder gesture than was habitual to him. He -sat with his eyes wide open, looking at unseen things. - -The girl regarded him for some seconds in silence. She was trying to -grasp the full import of this amazing speech. - -“And _this_ was your Communication?” she said at last. - -“You have to know,” he said. “You have to serve and help me.” - -(Help him! How could she help him or herself? How far was this thing -going? What was she to do?) - -“Have you told anyone else of this, Daddy?” she asked abruptly. “Have -you told anyone else?” - -He turned his solemn little face towards her. - -“Ah, _there_,” he said, “we have to be very discreet and careful--very -careful indeed. Here and now is not the time to proclaim that Sargon, -King of Kings, has come back to the civilization he did so much to -found. One has to be careful, Christina Alberta. There is a spirit of -opposition. - -“For instance, I have told something of my first vision--dream you -may call it if you like--to Mr. Hockleby. I described the resemblance -between himself and Prewm. He was by no means pleased. His is a -seditious, insubordinate nature. And besides--since then--I have -recalled what happened--on the advice of Oujah--to Prewm.... - -“And I have realized since then that, though one may be convinced -oneself, it does not follow that one will convince other people. It is -true that Miss Hockleby and the two Miss Solbés have asked me to tell -them more of my dreams--they too call them dreams. But their manner was -curious rather than respectful and I have been extremely reserved with -them.” - -“That’s my wise Daddy,” said Christina Alberta, “You have to think of -your dignity.” - -“I have to think of my dignity, certainly. Nevertheless--” His hands -went out in a new amplitude of gesture. “Here I am and this is my -world. My world! I nursed it in its infancy. I taught it law and -obedience. Here I am, the most ancient of monarchs. Rameses and -Nebuchadnezzar, Greece and Rome, the Kingdoms and Empires, things of -yesterday--interludes while I have been sleeping. And clearly I have -been sleeping. And clearly I have not been sent back to the world -without a mission. This is a great and crowded world now, Christina -Alberta, but it is in a sad state of disorder. Even the newspapers -remark upon it. People are not happy now. They are not happy as they -were under my rule in Sumeria thousands of years ago. In the sunshine -and abundance of Sumeria.” - -“But what can you _do_, Daddy?” - -“Dear Princess, my child, that I have to think out. Nothing hastily; -nothing rashly.” - -“No,” said Christina Alberta. - -There came a pause. “One person only seems to have any belief in me. -The younger Miss Solbé---- Did you say anything, dear?” - -“No. Go on.” - -“I have asked her if she too has had any dreams, any vague memories of -a previous existence. She seems to have had something confirmatory in -a shadowy sort of way. Very vague intimations. She tells them timidly, -when her sister is not about. But she is under a misapprehension that -her relationship to me was a particularly close and special one. She -was not my Queen. There she is wrong. It is perhaps natural for her to -think so, but I remember quite distinctly how it was. She was one of -the Twenty Principal Concubines who carried the Eagle fans.” - -“Have you told her that?” - -“Not yet,” said Mr. Preemby. “Not yet. One has to go discreetly in all -these things.” - -Another pause followed. Christina Alberta looked at her wrist-watch. -“My word!” she cried. “We shall be late for lunch!” - -She noted as they walked back towards the Petunia Boarding House that -his bearing and manner had undergone a subtle change. He seemed larger -and taller and his face was serener and he held his head higher. He -did not h’rrmp once. He seemed to expect people and things to get out -of his way, and it was as if the path was a carpet that was being -unrolled before his advance. Had she been able to see herself she -would have remarked an equal change in her own carriage. The dance had -gone out of her paces. She walked like one upon whose shoulders the -responsibilities of life might easily become overwhelming. - -They were late for lunch and all the other boarders were in their -places, beginning. Every one turned to look at Mr. Preemby’s face as -they came in, and then they glanced at one another. “So you’ve come -back to us,” said Mrs. Hockleby to Christina Alberta, meeting her eye. - -“It’s jolly to be back,” said Christina Alberta. - - - - -CHAPTER THE SIXTH - -_Christina Alberta Consults a Wise Man_ - - -§ 1 - -Christina Alberta and Paul Lambone had been great friends for nearly a -year. He liked her and admired her, and as became his literary line of -work, he studied her. And she liked him and trusted him, and showed off -a good lot when she was with him. - -Paul Lambone wrote novels and short stories and books of good advice, -and he was particularly celebrated for the pervading wisdom of his -novels and the excellence of his advice. It was his pervading wisdom -that had picked him up out of the general poverty of writers and placed -him in a position of comparative prosperity. Not that his conduct of -his affairs was wise, but that the quality of his wisdom was extremely -saleable. Some writers prosper by reason of their distinctive passion, -some by reason of their austerity and truth, some by their excellent -invention, and some even by simple good writing, but Paul Lambone -prospered because of his kindness and wisdom. When you read the stories -you always felt that he was really sorry for the misfortunes and -misbehaviour of his characters and anxious to help them as much as he -could. And when they blundered or sinned he would as often as not tell -you what was the better course they might have chosen. His book of -advice, and particularly his _Book of Everyday Wisdom_ and his _What to -Do on a Hundred and One Occasions_ sold largely and continually. - -But like that James, King of England, to whom the Bible was dedicated, -Paul Lambone was far wiser in his thoughts and counsels than in his -acts. In small matters and most of the time his proceedings were -foolish or selfish or indecisive or all of those things. His wisdom -did not reach below the level of his eyes, and his face and body and -arms and legs were given over to the unhappiest tendencies which -were restrained by his general indolence rather than by any real -self-control. He was very well off chiefly because he was lazy; he -asked the highest possible prices for everything he wrote because -that was just as easy as asking the lowest, and there was always a -chance that the bargain would not come off and then he would be saved -the trouble of correcting his proofs. He accumulated money because he -was too unenterprising to buy things or incur the responsibility of -possessions, and so he just let a trust invest it for him. His literary -reputation was high because a literary reputation in England and -America depends almost entirely upon apparent reluctance of output. The -terse beauty of his style was mainly due to his sedulous indisposition -to write two words where one would suffice. And in the comfort and -leisure his indolence accumulated for him, he sat about and talked -and was genially wise and got fatter than was becoming. He tried to -eat less as a preferable alternative to taking exercise, but in the -presence of drink and nourishment his indolence flagged and failed -him. He went about a good deal, and was always eager for new things -because they saved him from boredom, the malign parent of much needless -activity. He had an expensive little cottage near Rye in Kent to which -he could motor without needless trouble whenever London bored him, and -directly his cottage bored him he would come back to London. And he -visited people’s houses a lot because it was too troublesome to resist -invitations. - -There were, it must be admitted, limits to the wisdom of Paul Lambone. -It is often more difficult to see what is near us than what is far -away; many a stout fellow who looks with a clear, discerning eye upon -the universe sees little of his toes, and ignores the intervening -difficulty; and something sub-conscious in Paul Lambone’s mind -obstinately refused to recognize the defective nature of many of his -private acts. He knew he was indolent, but he would not allow himself -to admit that his indolence was fundamental and vicious. He thought -there was a Paul Lambone in reserve of very great energy. He liked to -think of himself as a man of swift and accurate decisions who, once -aroused, was capable of demoniac energy. He had spent many an hour -in arm-chairs, on garden seats, and on Downland turf, thinking out -his course of action on various possible occasions of war, business, -criminal attempt or domestic crisis. His favourite heroes in real life -were Napoleon, Julius Cæsar, Lord Kitchener, Lord Northcliffe, Mr. -Ford, and suchlike heroic ants. - -He liked Christina Alberta because of her tremendous go. She was always -up to something; she preferred standing to sitting, and she kicked her -legs about while she talked to you. He idealized her go; he attributed -to her much more go than she really had. He was secretly persuaded that -her blood must be like a bird’s, a degree or so above normal. He felt -that in imagination she had much in common with him. He called her the -Last Thing, the Van, the Ultimate Modern Girl, and the Life Force. He -openly professed pity for the unaided single-handed man who would in -accordance with our social laws presently have to marry her and go her -pace and try to keep her in order. - -She had been to tea with him once or twice. She perceived his -admiration and suspected a certain affection, and she basked in -admiration and affection. She liked his books and thought he was very -like what he thought he was himself. She told him all sorts of things -about herself just to lift his eyebrows. - -And he was wise all over her and round and about her, tremendously wise. - - -§ 2 - -It was quite interesting to be rung up by Christina Alberta and asked -if she might come for tea and advice. “Come along now,” he said. “I’m -probably all alone for tea.” - -And as he replaced the instrument he said: “Now I wonder what the young -woman has been up to! And what she wants me to do for her.” - -He went back to his sitting-room and spread himself on his very nice -Persian hearthrug, and regarded the pretty silver kettle that swung -over his spirit lamp. “It won’t be money,” he considered. “She isn’t -the sort that tries to get money.... - -“She’s barked her shins on something.... - -“Girls nowadays are a lot too plucky--they’re a lot too plucky -altogether.... I hope it’s nothing serious.... She’s just a kid.” - -Christina Alberta appeared in due course. Erect as ever, but -nevertheless looking a little dashed and subdued. - -“Uncle,” she said--for that was her theory of their relationship--“I’m -in trouble. You’ve got to give me all sorts of advice.” - -“Take off that brigand’s cloak,” he said, “and sit down there and make -me some tea. I’ve been watching your love affair out of the corner of -my eye for some time. I’m not surprised.” - -Christina Alberta paused with her cloak in her hand and stared at him. -“That’s nothing,” she said. “I can manage that little affair all right. -Such as it is. Don’t you worry about _me_, in that respect. Don’t -imagine things. But there is something--something different.” She threw -the cloak over a chair back and came and stood by the silver tea-tray. - -“You know my Daddy,” she said, arms akimbo. - -“I never saw a more dissimilar parent.” - -“Well--” She considered how she should put it. “He’s behaving queerly. -So that people may think--people who don’t know him--that he’s going -out of his mind.” - -Mr. Lambone reflected. “Was it ever such a very serious mind to go out -of?” - -“Oh! don’t make jokes. His mind was good enough to keep him out of -trouble, and now something’s happened and it isn’t. People will -think--some of them think already--he is mad. They may take him away. -And there’s just him and me. It’s serious, Uncle. And I don’t know what -I ought to do. I don’t know enough to know. I’m scared. I’ve got no -friends that I can talk to about it. None. You’d think I’d have women -friends. I haven’t. I don’t get on with older women. They want to boss -me. Or I think they do. And I irritate them. They know, they feel--the -proper ones--that I don’t--oh! respect their standards. And the other -sort just hate me. Because I’m young. The girls I know--no good for -what I want just now.” - -“But isn’t there a man,” said Lambone, “on whom you have a sort of -claim?” - -“You know who it is, I suppose?” - -He was frank. “Things rather show.” - -“If you know him--” She left the sentence unfinished. - -“I know the young man only very incidentally,” he said. - -“I go to Teddy,” said Christina Alberta without any further -reservations. “I went to him as a matter of fact before I telephoned to -you. He hardly listened to what I had to say. He didn’t bother.” She -winced. Suddenly tears stood in her eyes. “He was just loafing about in -his studio. He kissed me and tried to excite me. He would hardly listen -to what I had to tell him.... That I suppose is what one gets from a -lover.” - -“So it’s got to that,” Paul Lambone reflected with hidden dismay, and -then remarked a little belatedly: “Not every lover.” - -“Mine--anyhow.” - -“And you came away?” - -“_Well!_ What do _you_ think?” - -“H’m,” said Lambone. “You _have_ barked your shins, Christina Alberta! -More than I thought.” - -“Oh, Hell take Teddy!” said Christina Alberta, putting it on a bit and -helping herself by being noisy. “What does that matter now? I’ve done -with Teddy. I was a fool. Never mind that. The thing is my Daddy. What -am I to do about my Daddy?” - -“Well, first you’ve got to tell me all about it,” said Lambone. -“Because at present, you know, I’ve hardly got the hang of the trouble. -And before you do that you sit down in that easy chair and I make the -tea. No, not you. Your nerves are on edge and you’ll upset something. -You’ve been having your first dose of adult worry. Sit down there and -don’t say anything for a minute. I’m glad you came along to me. Very -glad.... I liked that Daddy of yours really. Little innocent-eyed man -he was. Blue eyes. And he was talking--what nonsense _was_ he talking? -About the Lost Atlantis. But it was quite nice nonsense.... No, don’t -interrupt. Just let me recall my own impression of him until you’ve had -your tea.” - - -§ 3 - -When the tea was made and Christina Alberta had sipped a cup and looked -more comfortable, Lambone, who felt he was managing things beautifully, -told her she might begin. - -“He’s getting queer in his mind, but you know that he isn’t really -going out of his mind,” said Lambone. “That’s it, isn’t it?” - -“That _is_ it,” said Christina Alberta. “You see--” She paused. - -Lambone sat down in a second arm-chair and sipped his tea in a -leisurely manner. “It’s a little difficult,” he said. - -“You see,” said Christina Alberta, knitting her brows at the fire, -“he’s a person of peculiar imaginativeness. He always has been. Always. -He’s always lived half in a dream. We’ve been very much together ever -since I was born almost, and from the earliest times I remember his -talks, rambling talks, about the Lost Atlantis, and about the secrets -of the pyramids and Yogis and the Lamas of Tibet. And astrology. -All such wonderful, impossible, far-off things. The further off the -better. Why!--he almost got me into a dream too. I was a Princess of -Far Atlantis lost in the world. I used to play at that, and sometimes -my play came very near to believing. I could Princess it for a whole -afternoon. Lots of children day-dream like that.” - -“I did,” said Lambone. “For days together I would be a great Indian -chief, sentenced to death again and again--disguised as a small -preparatory schoolboy. The incongruity didn’t matter a rap. Everybody -does it more or less for a time.” - -“But he’s gone on doing it all his life. And he’s doing it now more -than ever. He’s lost the last trace of any sense that it is a dream. -And some one played a trick upon him at Tunbridge Wells. Not realizing -what it might mean for him. They seem to have muddled about with -spiritualism in the evenings while I was in London, table-rapping and -so forth, and a man who had nothing better to do pretended to have a -trance. He told Daddy he was Sargon the First, Sargon King of Kings he -called him, who was Lord of Akkadia and Sumeria--you know--ages ago, -before Babylon was born or thought of. The man who did it couldn’t have -hit on anything more mischievous so far as Daddy was concerned. You see -he was exactly ready for it; leaving Woodford Wells where he had spent -half his life in one routine had cut him off, even more than he was -usually cut off, from reality. He was uprooted already before this idea -came to him. And now it’s just swamping him. It suited him exactly. -It--fixed him. Always before one could get him back--by talking about -my mother or the laundry vans, or something familiar like that. But -now I can’t get him back. I can’t. He’s Sargon, incognito, come back -as Lord of the World, and he believes that just as firmly as I believe -that I am his daughter Christina Alberta Preemby talking to you now. -It’s a reverie no longer. He’s got his evidence and he believes.” - -“And what does he want to do about it?” - -“All sorts of things. He wants to declare himself Lord of the World. He -says things are in a bad way and he wants to save them.” - -“They _are_ in a bad way,” said Lambone. “People don’t begin to know -half how bad they are. Still--I suppose having a delusion about who one -is, isn’t Insanity. Does he want to make some sort of fuss?” - -“I’m afraid, yes.” - -“Soon?” - -“That’s what worries me. - -“You see,” she went on, “I’m afraid he’s going to strike most people -as queer. He’s back at Lonsdale Mews. We had to come up from Tunbridge -Wells yesterday. On a few hours’ notice. It’s that has upset me. For a -couple of days things went on all right. Practically we were turned out -of the boarding house. There was a frightfully disagreeable man there, -a Mr. Hockleby, and he seemed to take a violent dislike to Daddy. You -know those unreasonable dislikes people take at times?” - -“A very disagreeable side of human nature. _I_ know. Why, people have -taken dislikes to _me_!... But go on.” - -“He and his daughter got upset about Daddy’s queerness. They frightened -the Miss Rewsters, the sisters who run the place. They said he might -break out at any moment, and either he would have to leave or they -would. There they were all whispering on the stairs and talking of -sending for a policeman and having him taken away. What could I do? We -had to clear out. You see Daddy had a sort of idea that when he was -Sargon Mr. Hockleby had been alive too and had had to be impaled for -seditious behaviour; and instead of letting bygones be bygones as one -ought to do in such cases, he said something about it to him, and Mr. -Hockleby construed it as a threat. It’s all so difficult, you see.” - -“He didn’t try to impale him over again, or anything?” - -“No. He doesn’t do things like that. It’s only his imagination that is -doing tremendous things. He isn’t.” - -“And now he’s in London?” - -“He has a sort of idea he’s overlord of the King, and he wants to go to -the King at Buckingham Palace and tell him about it. He says the King -is a thoroughly good man, thoroughly good; and directly he hears how -things are, he will acknowledge Daddy as his feudal superior and place -him on the throne. Of course if he tries to do anything of that sort -he will be locked up for a certainty. And he’s written letters to the -Prime Minister and the Lord Chancellor and the President of the United -States and Lenin, and so forth, directing them to wait upon him for his -instructions. But I’ve persuaded him not to post them till he can have -a proper seal made.” - -“Rather like Muhammad’s letters to the potentates,” said Lambone. - -“He’s thinking, too, of a banner or something of that sort, but all -that’s quite vague. He’s just got the phrase ‘raise my banner.’ I don’t -think that matters much yet. But the Buckingham Palace idea,--something -may come of that.” - -“This is no end interesting,” said Lambone, and walked across his room -and back, and then half sat on the arm of his easy chair with his -hands deep in his pockets. “Tell me; is he distraught to look at?” - -“Not a bit of it.” - -“Untidy in his dress?” - -“Neat as ever.” - -“I remember when I saw him how neat he was. Is he--at all--incoherent? -Or does it all hold together?” - -“Absolutely. He’s perfectly logical and coherent. He talks I think -rather better and more clearly than usual.” - -“It’s just one simple delusion? He has no delusions about having great -physical strength or beauty or anything of that sort?” - -“None. He’s not a bit crazy. He’s just possessed by this one grand -impossible idea.” - -“He’s not throwing away money or anything of that sort?” - -“Not a bit of it. He’s always been--careful with money.” - -“And he is now?” - -“Yes.” - -“Let’s hope that lasts. I don’t see that a man is insane because he -believes he is a King or an Emperor--if some one tells him he is. After -all, George V has no other grounds for imagining he is a King. The -only difference is that rather more people have told him so. Fancying -yourself a King isn’t lunacy, and behaving in accordance with that idea -isn’t lunacy either. It may be some day, but it isn’t so yet. No.” - -“But I’m afraid that people will think that it is.... You see it’s -only in the last few days I’ve realized how fond I am of my father and -how horrible it would be for me if anyone attempted to take him away. -I’m afraid of asylums. Restraint for those who can least understand -restraint. He particularly would go mad in a week, really mad, if he -got into one. That Mr. Hockleby has frightened me--he’s frightened me. -He was so intent and cruel. He was _evil_ about Daddy--malignant. A -nasty man.” - -“Yes, I know,” said Lambone. “Hate.” - -“Yes,” she said. “Hate.” - -She jumped to her feet and took possession of the hearthrug, looking -with her bobbed hair and short skirts and manly pose and serious face -the most ridiculous and attractive mixture of fresh youth and mature -responsibility conceivable. - -“You see, I don’t know what they can do with him--whether they can take -him away from me. I’ve never been much afraid of what might happen -before, but I am now. I don’t know how to take hold of all this. I -thought life was just a lark and people were fools to be afraid of -doing anything. But now I see _life’s dangerous_. I’ve never been much -afraid of what happened to myself. But this is different. He’s walking -about in a dream of glory--with absolute wretchedness hanging over -him. Think of it! People getting hold of him! Perhaps hitting him! An -asylum!” - -“About the law on these matters I know very little,” Lambone reflected. -“I doubt if they can do very much to him without your consent. But -I agree about asylums. From their very nature they must be horrible -places, haunted places. Most of the attendants--hardened. Even if they -start well. Every day at it ... too much for anyone.... I don’t know -how a lunatic is made, a legal lunatic I mean, or who has a right -to take him. Somebody--I think two doctors--have to certify him or -something of that sort. But, anyhow, I don’t think your father is a -lunatic.” - -“Nor I. But that may not save him.” - -“Something else may. He’s as you say an imaginative--a -super-imaginative man, possessed by a fantastic idea. Well, isn’t that -a case perhaps for a psycho-analyst?” - -“Possibly. Who’d talk him back--to something like he used to be.” - -“Yes. If such a man as Wilfred Devizes, for example, could talk to -him----” - -“I don’t know much about these people. I’ve read some Freud of -course--and a little Jung.” - -“I know Devizes slightly. We talked at lunch. And I liked his wife. And -if perhaps you could get your father away into a country cottage. By -the by--have you got any money?” - -“He’s got the cheque-book, but he makes me an allowance. So far there’s -been no money trouble. He signs his cheques all right.” - -“But he may not presently.” - -“Oh! Of course at any time he may begin putting a swastika or a royal -cipher in the place of his signature, and then the fat _would_ be in -the fire. I shouldn’t know where to turn. I hadn’t thought of that.” - -“No,” said Lambone. - -For some seconds--it seemed quite a long time to Christina Alberta--he -said nothing more. He sat half leaning upon the arm of his chair and -looked past her at the fire. She had said what she wanted to say, and -now stood waiting for him to speak. His wisdom told him that things -had to be done in this matter very soon; his temperament inclined him -just to stay in that pleasant room and say things. Meanwhile she looked -about the room and realized how comfortable a wise man could be. It was -the best furnished room she had ever been in. The chairs were jolly; -there were bound books in the bookcase, a delightful old Chinese horse -on the top of it; all his tea-things were silver or fine china; there -was a great writing-desk with silver candlesticks; the windows that -gave on Half Moon Street were curtained with a rich, subtly folding -material very pleasing to the eye. Her eyes came back to his big fat -face and his peevish mouth and fine, meditative eyes. - -“Something,” he said and sighed, “ought to be done at once. It isn’t a -matter to leave about. He might commit some indiscretion. And get into -trouble.” - -“I’m afraid of that.” - -“Exactly. He’s safe--where you left him?” - -“There’s somebody with him.” - -“Who won’t let anything happen?” - -“Yes.” - -“So far, good.” - -“But what am I to do?” - -“What are you to do?” he echoed, and said no more for some seconds. - -“Well?” she said. - -“What in fact are _we_ to do? I ought to see him. Decidedly. Yes, I -ought to see him.” - -“Then come and see him.” - -“I ought to come and see him. Now.” - -“Then let’s.” - -He nodded. He seemed to be making an intense internal effort. “Why -not?” he asked. - -“Well?” - -“And then--then we can broach a visit to Wilfred Devizes. Generally fix -that up. Then our subsequent action will be determined by what Wilfred -Devizes says. The sooner he sees Devizes the better. It’s a question -whether it wouldn’t be better for you or both of us to see Devizes -first. No. Father first. Then when I’m properly instructed--as a lawyer -would say--Devizes.” - -A great tranquillity descended upon him. - -She could not restrain a faint exclamation of impatience. - -He looked up as if he awakened from profound meditation. “I’ll come -along now,” he said, “to Lonsdale Mews. I’ll have a talk to your father -and then I’ll try to get at Devizes and fix up some sort of a meeting -between them. That’s what I ought to do. I’ll go along with you now--at -once.” - -“Right-o,” said Christina Alberta, “_come_ along.” She threw on her -cloak and clapped her hat upon her head in a dozen seconds and stood -waiting. - -“I’m ready,” she said. - -“I’ll just change this jacket,” said Lambone; and kept her waiting a -full ten minutes. - - -§ 4 - -The taxi dropped them at the entrance of the Mews. - -“I suppose it won’t matter our arriving together?” said Lambone. “He -won’t think it’s something preconcerted?” - -“He doesn’t have suspicions of that sort.” - -But when they reached the studio a little surprise awaited them. Fay -Crumb opened the door to them and her eyes looked paler and her neck -longer and her face more absent-minded than ever. - -“I’m so glad you’ve come at last,” she said in a flat, distraught -voice. “You see--he’s gone!” - -“Gone!” - -“Completely. He’s been away since three. He went out alone.” - -“But, Fay, you promised!” - -“I know. I could see he was restless and I kept telling him you’d be -back soon. It wasn’t so easy keeping him. He walked up and down and -talked. ‘I must go out to my people,’ he said. ‘I feel they need me. -I must be about my proper business.’ I didn’t know what to do. I just -hid his hat. I never dreamt he’d go out without his hat--prim as he -is. I just went upstairs for a moment to get something--I forget what -now--but, anyhow, it wasn’t there, and I may have spent five minutes -looking for it--and meanwhile he slipped out. He left the door open and -I never heard him go. As soon as I knew he’d gone I ran up the Mews -right up into Lonsdale Road and stood about there.... He’d vanished. -I’ve been hoping he’d come back every moment since. Before you -returned. But! He hasn’t come back.” - -Her conviction was all too manifest that he would never come back. - -“I’d have done anything--” she said. - -Christina Alberta and Paul Lambone looked at one another. “This rather -puts the lid on,” said Christina Alberta. “What are we going to do now?” - - -§ 5 - -Lambone followed Christina Alberta into the studio and sat down at once -on the simple couch that became Mr. Preemby’s bed at night. The couch -squeaked and submitted. He stared at the floor and reflected. “I’ve got -no engagements this evening,” he said. “None.” - -“It won’t be much good waiting here for him,” said Christina Alberta. - -“I feel in my bones he won’t head back here for hours and hours,” he -said. - -“And meanwhile he may be up to anything!” said Christina Alberta. - -“Any old lark,” said Lambone. - -“Anything,” said Christina Alberta. - -“Three,” said Lambone and consulted his watch: “it’s now nearly five. -Do you think there is any particular place, Christina Alberta, more -than any other place, where we might go and look for him? Where, in -fact, we ought to look for him?” - -“But will you come and look for him?” - -“I’m at your service.” - -“It wasn’t in the bond.” - -“I want to. If you won’t walk too fast. I feel I ought to.” - -Christina Alberta stood before him with her arms akimbo. “I would bet -five to one,” she said slowly, “that he heads for Buckingham Palace and -demands an audience--No, that isn’t how he puts it--offers to give an -audience to his Vassal, the King. He was full of that this morning. And -then--Then I suppose they will lock him up and have an inquiry into his -mental condition.” - -“H’m,” said Lambone, and then, rising to the occasion: “Let’s go to -Buckingham Palace. - -“We’ll go there at once,” he said, and moved slowly doorward. “We’ll -get a taxi.” - -They found a taxi in the King’s Road. Christina Alberta did not -belong to the taxi-ing class, and she was impressed by a sudden -realization that Lambone had all these thousands of taxi-cabs upon the -streets alert to do his bidding. The taxi dropped them according to -instructions at the foot of the Victoria Memorial which gesticulates in -front of Buckingham Palace, and they stood side by side surveying that -building. “It looks much as usual,” said Lambone. - -“You didn’t expect him to bend it?” said Christina Alberta. - -“If he made a disturbance they’ve cleared him up very completely. That -flag I suppose means G. R. is at home.... I wonder--what do we do next?” - -He was rather at a loss. The emotional atmosphere of this wide-open -place was quite different from the emotional atmosphere of his flat or -the Lonsdale Mews. In the flat and in the Mews the appeal had been for -him to act; the appeal here was not to make himself conspicuous. He was -a man of decorous instincts. A car passed, a beautiful, big, shining -Napier, and he thought the occupants looked at him as though they -recognized him. Lots of people knew him nowadays and might recognize -him. In his flat, in the studio at Lonsdale Mews, he could foregather -with Christina Alberta without compunction; but now, in this very -conspicuous place, this most conspicuous place, he had a momentary -realization that he and she didn’t exactly match, he with his finished -effect of being a man about town, a large, distinguished, mature man -about town, and she with her air of excessive youthfulness, her very -short skirts and her hat, like the calyptra of a black mushroom, pulled -over her bobbed hair. People might think them an incongruous couple. -People might wonder what had brought them together and what he was up -to with her. - -“I suppose we ought to ask some one,” she said. - -“Who?” - -“Oh!--one of those sentinels.” - -“May one speak to the sentinels at the gate? Frankly, I’m afraid of -those tremendous chaps in the busbies. I’d as soon speak to the Horse -Guard in Whitehall. He’d probably look right over our heads and say -nothing. And we should just dither away from beneath him. I couldn’t -stand that....” - -“But what are we to do?” - -“Nothing rash.” - -“We _must_ ask some one.” - -“Away there on the left towards Victoria there’s what looks like -the real business way in. There’s two policemen. I’m not afraid of -policemen. No. And of course that man at the corner is a plain-clothes -man.” - -“Then let’s ask _him_!” - -Lambone made no move. “Suppose he hasn’t come here at all!” - -“I know he meant to do so.” - -“I suppose if he hasn’t come,” said Lambone, “we ought to wait about -here on the chance of his coming.” He felt extremely like flight at -that instant. “There ought to be seats here. - -“Come along,” he said, with a sudden return to manly decision, “let’s -ask one of those bobbies at the far gate.” - - -§ 6 - -The policeman at the gate to whom they addressed themselves listened -gravely to their inquiries, making no instant reply. He belonged to -that great majority of English speakers who are engaged upon the -improvement of the word “yes.” His particular idea was to make it long -and purry. - -“Yurrss,” he said breaking presently into speech: “Yurrss. There was -a small gentleman without a ’at on. Yurrss. He _’ad_ blue eyes. And -a moustache? Yurrss, come to think of it there _was_ a moustache. A -rather considerable moustache. Well, ’e said he wanted to speak to King -George on a rather urgent matter. It always is a rather urgent matter. -Never ‘quite.’ Always ‘rather.’ We replied, according to formula, ’e’d -’ave to write for’n ’pointment. ‘Perhaps,’ ’e says, ‘You don’t know who -I am?’ They all say that. ‘I guess it’s something important,’ I says. -‘Not the Ormighty, by any chance,’ I says. But ’e was ’ere last week -and ’e wouldn’ go away and they ’ad to take ’im off in a taxi-cab. You -know there _was_ a chap ’ere, sir--Thursday last or Friday, I forget -which--with a long white beard and ’air all down ’is back. Very like -’im I should think. Well any’ow this sort of dashed your gentleman. He -kind of mumbled a name.” - -“Not Sargon?” asked Christina Alberta. - -“It might ’ave been. Any’ow, ‘There is no exceptions,’ I says. ‘Not -even if you was a close relation. We got no option here. We’re just -machines.’ He stood sort of looking baffled for a time. ‘All this must -be altered,’ he said in a sort of low, earnest voice. ‘It’s the duty -of every king to give audience to every one, every day.’ I says, ‘Very -likely it is, sir. But we policemen aren’t in any position to ’elp it,’ -I says, ‘much less alter it.’ So off ’e goes. I kind of tipped the -wink to the detective at the corner and ’e watched ’im go along the -front and then cross over to the monument and stand looking up at the -windows. And then ’e shrugged ’is shoulders and took ’imself off. And -that’s the last I see of ’im.” - -Lambone asked a superfluous question. - -“It might be Piccadilly way,” said the policeman, “it might be down -towards Trafalgar Square. Fact is, sir, I didn’t notice.” - -It was clear that the conversation was drawing to an end. - - -§ 7 - -“So that’s that,” said Lambone. “So far, good. He’s still at large.” - -He expressed his thanks to the policeman. - -“And now,” he said with an air of bringing out the solution of a -difficult problem very successfully, “all we have to do is to find him.” - -“But where?” - -“That’s the essence of the problem.” - -He led the way back to the Victoria Memorial and stood side by side -with Christina Alberta beneath that perfect symbol of the British -Empire, the statue of Queen Victoria. They stared down the Mall to the -distant Admiralty Arch, and for a moment neither of them said a word. -It was a warm and serene October afternoon; the cupolas of Whitehall -and Westminster’s two towers and a brown pile of mansions were just -visible over the trees on the right, transfigured to beauty by the -afternoon glow; the two tall columns of the Duke of York and Nelson -rose over the trees and buildings to the left; it was in the pause -before the dinner and theatre traffic begins, and only a few taxi-cabs -and a car or so emphasized the breadth of the processional roadway. -Half a dozen windows in the Admiralty had taken fire already from the -sinking sun. - -“I suppose,” said Lambone, “he’s gone down there.” - -Christina Alberta stood with her arms akimbo and her feet a little -apart. “I suppose he has.” - -The wide road ran straight to the distant Admiralty Arch. And through -that remote little opening was Trafalgar Square and Charing Cross and -a radiating tangle of roads and streets spreading out and beyond and -further into the twilight blue. - -“What will he make for now?” - -“Heaven knows. I’m bankrupt. I haven’t an idea.” - -Neither spoke for a little while. - -“He’s gone,” she said, “just gone,” and that simple and desolating -thought filled her mind. - -But the thoughts of Paul Lambone were more complex and intricate. - -He perceived that a serious adventure was happening to him and that -he was called upon to exert himself. He had suddenly been called -away from his tea and hot tea-cake to hunt a slightly demented -comparative stranger about London. He wanted to do it, and he wanted -to do it properly and in a way to impress Christina Alberta. And his -intelligence told him that the best thing he could do would be to -follow upon the probable track of his quarry and come up with him -before he got into mischief. Or while he was getting into mischief--and -interfere and carry him off. And meanwhile his more exercised lower -nature was exhorting him to leave Christina Alberta to do the pursuing -alone, and go back as straightly as possible to his ample arm-chair and -sit down and think things out. And then go to his best club to dinner. -And in fact quietly and neatly get out of this unexpected and tiresome -business altogether. - -And then he looked at Christina Alberta and realized that he could do -nothing of the sort. He couldn’t leave her. He looked at her profile, -the profile of a grave child, and an almost maternal emotion was -aroused in him. She looked with anxious and perplexed eyes at the blue -and limitless city that had swallowed up her Daddy. The scene was still -warm with the evening sun-glow, but the blue twilight gathered in the -lower eastern sky. Here and there a yellow pin-point showed that London -was beginning to light itself up. She couldn’t go down that road alone. -Absurdly, preposterously they were linked. The impulse to disentangle -himself was the impulse of a selfish discretion that was rapidly taking -all the happiness out of his life and leaving security and luxuries in -its place. This was a call to that latent Paul Lambone to _act_. Even -supposing she was a common, queer little flapper that his imagination -had made into a friend and heroine, was that any reason whatever why he -shouldn’t see her through this trouble that had come upon her? - -He made his decision. - -“He won’t go back for ages,” he said following up the problem. “Nobody -would on an evening like this.” - -“No,” she said. “But I don’t see that that gives me any hint of what I -ought to do next.” - -“We can keep together and go down towards Trafalgar Square. We might -look along the Embankment. When we are tired we can get some dinner -somewhere. You can get a sort of dinner almost anywhere I suppose. We -shall want our dinner.... Perhaps it’s not so hopeless a job as it -seems at first. A big job but not a hopeless one. There are limitations -to what he may do. Limitations in himself I mean. I don’t think he’ll -go into uninteresting streets. His feeling is--spectacular. He’s much -more likely to keep to open spaces and near conspicuous buildings. That -cuts out a lot of streets. And he won’t go far east. In another hour -the city will be shutting up and going home and putting out its lights. -He’ll turn back out of that--westward.” - -“You can spare the time?” - -“I’ve no engagements at all to-night. It was to have been an ‘off’ -night. And this business attracts me. It is interesting to see just -how far we can infer and guess his proceedings. It’s a curious mental -exercise.... Do you know I think we shall find him!” - -She stood quite still for some moments. - -“It’s awfully good of you to come with me,” she said. - -“I come on one condition.... That you don’t walk too fast. We’ve never -walked much together, Christina Alberta, but I’ve seen enough of you to -know that you walk abominably fast.” - - -§ 8 - -Every one knows the Café Neptune near Piccadilly Circus and the various -crowd that assembles there. There you see artists and painters that -are scarcely artists, poets and mere writers, artists’ models and -drug-fiends, undergraduates in arts and medicine who are no better -than they should be, publishers and gay lawyers, Bolsheviks and White -Refugees, American visitors who come to scoff and remain a prey, stray -students from the Far East and Jews and Jews and Jews--and Jewesses. -And hither at about half-past nine that night came a stout, large, and -wearily-distinguished-looking man accompanied by an attractive young -lady in short skirts and bobbed hair who carried a large and shapely -nose high and sternly, and they threaded their way among the tables -through the smoky atmosphere, seeking a congenial place. Out of the -garrulous confusing mirk arose a young man with a mop of red hair and -protruded a rampant face and asked in a large whisper: “_Have you found -him?_” - -“Not a trace,” said Paul Lambone. - -Fay Crumb’s face looked up from the table through a haze of cigarette -smoke. - -“Nor we. _We’ve_ been looking too.” - -“As well here as anywhere,” said the stout man. “Where have you -looked?” - -“Here,” said Harold, “and hereabouts. It seemed a suitable rendezvous.” - -“We’ve ranged far and wide,” said Lambone. “We’ve done miles--oh! -endless miles. And Christina Alberta has refused all nourishment--for -me as well as for herself. At last I said, either I sit down and eat -or I drop down and die. May we take these chairs? You have that one, -Christina Alberta. Waiter! It is a case of extreme fatigue. No--neither -Munchner nor Pilsener. I must have champagne. Bollinger 1914 will do -and it must be iced--rather over-iced, and with it, sandwiches--a very -considerable number of sandwiches of smoked salmon. Yes--a dozen. Ah!” - -He dropped his wrists on the table. “When I have had some drink I will -talk,” he wheezed and became silent. - -“When did you leave the Mews?” Christina Alberta asked Fay. - -“Half-past eight.... Not a sign of him.” - -“Have you been far?” Harold asked Lambone. - -“_Far!_” said Lambone and for a time was incapable of more. - -His voice seemed to recede in perspective. “Asking policemen for a -small, hatless man. Over great areas of London. On and on--from one -policeman to another.... She’s a most determined young woman. God help -the man who wins her love! Not a soul had seen him. But I can’t talk -_yet_....” - -Harold clawed his chin softly with long artistic fingers. “It is just -possible,” he said slowly, “that he went in somewhere and bought a hat.” - -“Of course he must have got a hat,” said Fay. - -“It never occurred to either of us that he would do anything so sane.” - -“We never thought of asking in the hatters’ shops,” said Christina -Alberta. - -“Happily,” said Lambone, and turned to welcome his refreshment. “That -would have been the last straw.” - -“For a long time we were on the trail of another hatless man,” said -Christina Alberta. “We ran him down in the Essex Road after tracking -him all up Pentonville. But he was just a vegetarian in sandals and -a beard. And there was a report of a hatless man near the Britannia, -but that came to nothing. He seemed just to have come out of his house -somewhere to buy fried fish off a barrow in the Camden Town High -Street.” - -“Extraordinary how a crowd collects when you ask the simplest -questions,” said Lambone with his mouth full of sandwich. “And how -urgently helpful it can be. They almost forced us up a staircase -after that fried-fish man, who struck me as an extremely pugnacious, -suspicious-looking fellow. The crowd would have it we wanted him, and -he didn’t seem to want in the very least to be wanted. If I hadn’t had -an inspiration something very disagreeable might have happened. I just -said ‘No, it’s not this gentleman, it’s another of the same name.’” - -“But what did he say?” - -“‘You _better_,’ he said. But anyhow it satisfied the crowd, and -afterwards we got away quite easily on an omnibus that took us down to -Portland Road Station.” - -The champagne arrived in its ice pail. “Hardly cold, sir, yet,” said -the waiter, feeling the bottle. - -“It’s not a time for fastidiousness,” said Lambone and took a third -sandwich. “You’re not eating, Christina Alberta. And I insist upon your -having at least one glass of this.” - -Christina Alberta drank a little and ate mechanically. - -“I wonder if we shall ever see him again,” said Harold. “London is -so vast. So _vast_! But I always feel that, when I see anyone go -out anywhere. There is a tremendous courage in going out. London -must be full of lost people. I used to be afraid of London until I -discovered the Tubes and the Underground. I felt I might be sucked -up side-streets to God knows where. And keep on going round corners -into longer and longer streets for ever. I used to dream of the last -street of all--_endless_. But whenever I get nervous I just ask for the -nearest tube station and there I am.” - -“He _may_ be back at the studio now,” said Fay. - -Paul Lambone reached his fourth sandwich and his third glass of -champagne with great rapidity. He became more leisurely in his -refreshment. - -“I am disappointed,” he said, “that I didn’t think of the possibility -of his buying a hat. It has disorganized all my inductions. You see I -was so concentrated on what was going on inside his head that I never -troubled about what might be going on outside it. But a man of his neat -and proper habits--acquired through a lifetime of orderly living--would -get himself a hat almost mechanically.... We may have passed quite -close to him in that.” - -“I should have known him,” said Christina Alberta. - -“But, until that Pentonville man drew a red herring across the trail, I -am convinced we were close on his footsteps. You see Christina Alberta -insisted upon my asking every policeman we saw--even men, overworked, -irritable, snappy, _rude_ men controlling the traffic--but at any rate -I chose the route--I inferred the route. You see, my dear Watson”--he -smiled faintly in weary self-approval at Crumb--“the essential thing -in a case like this is to put yourself in your man’s place, to think -his thoughts instead of your own. That is what I tried--so far as being -out of breath would allow it--to impress on Christina Alberta. It’s -fairly straightforward. Here you have a man convinced, beautifully and -enviably convinced, that he is the supreme lord of the world, unknown, -unrecognized as yet, but on the eve of his proclamation. Will such a -man go along any street just as easily as any other? Not at all! He -will be elated, expansive, ascendant. Very well; he will go up hill -and not down. He will choose wide highways and not narrow ones and tend -towards the middle of the street----” - -“He hasn’t been run over!” cried Christina Alberta sharply. - -“No. No. He would avoid traffic because that would hustle him and -impair his dignity. Open spaces would attract him. High buildings, -bright lights, the intimations of any assembly would draw him -powerfully. So he certainly crossed Trafalgar Square from the Admiralty -Arch in a diagonal direction, towards the conspicuous invitation of the -Coliseum.... You see my method?” - -He did not wait for Crumb to answer. “But the more I think over our -missing friend,” he went on, “the more I admire and envy him. What -crawling things we are!--content to be subjects, units, items, pawns, -drops of water and grains of sand, in the multitudinous, unmeaning -muddle of human affairs. He soars above it. He soars above it now. He -rejects his commonness and inferiority in one magnificent gesture. -_His_ world. The grandeur of it! Wherever he is to-night and whatever -fate overtake him, he is a happy man. And we sit here, we sit here -and drink--I am ordering another bottle of that wine, Harold, and I -expect you and Mrs. Crumb to abandon that warm and sticky beer and -join me--Waiter! Yes--another, please--we sit here in this crowded, -smoky gathering (_look_ at ’em!) while he plans the salvation of the -world that we let slide, and lifts his kingly will to God. Glorious -exaltation! Suppose that all of us could be touched----” - -Christina Alberta interrupted. “I think we ought to telephone to the -hospitals. I didn’t think before of the possibility of his being run -over. Always he has been a little careless at crossings.” - -Paul Lambone lifted a deprecating hand and searched in his mind for -some excuse for rest. - -“A little later,” he said after a slight pause, “the hospital staffs -will be more at leisure. It is their rush hour now--ten to eleven. Yes, -the Rush Hour....” - - -§ 9 - -Teddy Winterton appeared wading through obstructive seated people. His -eye was fixed on Christina Alberta. “Hullo!” said Lambone in not too -cordial greeting, and glanced at Christina Alberta and back at the -new-comer. - -Teddy struggled for an unoccupied chair over which some lady had thrown -a sealskin coat, and captured it with profuse apologies to the owner of -the cloak and squeezed it in at the end of the table between Harold and -Fay, who barred his way to Christina Alberta. “Have pity on a lonely -man,” he said genially and tried to catch the eye of Christina Alberta. - -“You shall have one glass of champagne,” said Lambone with a slightly -forced welcome in his tone. - -“How do, Christina Alberta!” said Teddy forcing her attention. - -Christina Alberta turned to Fay. “Will you come back with me now,” -she said to her, “back to the flat? I must do that telephoning to the -hospitals now or it won’t be done.” - -Fay looked at her curiously. “It’s serious,” said Christina Alberta’s -eyes, and Fay stood up and struggled with her coat. Teddy leaped to his -feet to assist her. Christina Alberta had not removed her cloak, and -was ready. “I say, Christina Alberta,” said Teddy. “I want a word with -you.” - -“Go on, Fay,” said Christina Alberta, giving her friend a little dig in -the back and pretending not to hear him. - -Teddy followed them out to the Piccadilly pavement. “Just a word,” he -said. Fay was for standing a little way off, but Christina Alberta -would not let that happen. - -“I don’t want a word,” she said. - -“But I might help you.” - -“You might have done. But it’s too late. I never want to see you again.” - -“Give a fellow a chance.” - -“You’ve had your chance. And tried to take it.” - -“You might at least keep up appearances,” said Teddy. - -“Damn appearances!” said Christina Alberta. “Oh! _Come_ on, Fay.” - -She gripped her friend’s arm. - -Teddy was left hovering. He hesitated and then went back into the café -to rejoin Crumb and Lambone. - -The two young women went on in silence for a little while. - -“Anything up?” Fay ventured. - -“Everything’s up,” said Christina Alberta. “I wonder if there’s a ghost -of a chance of finding Daddy at the studio.” - -They made their way to Chelsea without much further conversation. Fay -had never before seen Christina Alberta looking tired. - -When Fay opened the door Christina Alberta pushed in past her. “Daddy!” -she cried in the dark passage. “Daddy!” - -Fay clicked on the light. “No,” said Christina Alberta. “Of course he’s -not here. He’s gone. Fay! What am I to _do_?” - -Fay’s pale blue eyes became rounder. Christina Alberta, the valiant, -the modern, was in tears. - -“There’s the hospitals,” said Fay, doing her best to be brisk and -cheerful. - - - - -_BOOK THE SECOND_ - -THE WORLD REJECTS SARGON, KING OF KINGS - - - - -CHAPTER THE FIRST - -_Incognito_ - - -§ 1 - -Mr. Preemby had disappeared from Christina Alberta’s world. For a time -he must disappear almost as completely from this story. Mr. Preemby -fades out. Taking over his outward likeness we have now to tell of -another and greater person, Sargon the First, the Magnificent One, King -of all Kings, the Inheritor of the Earth. - -It is no doubt a very wonderful and glorious thing to discover that -instead of being the rather obscure widower of a laundry proprietor -with no particular purpose in the world one is Lord of the Whole -World, but it is also, to a conscientious man anxious to do right, -an extremely disturbing and oppressive discovery. And at first it is -natural that there should be something a little confusing to the mind -in this vast and glittering idea. It was an idea that carried with it -an effect of release and enlargement. For purposes as yet obscure, he -had been caught like a caged creature in that limited and uninteresting -Preemby life. His imagination had rebelled against its finality; some -deep instinct had warned him that his life was an illusion; in moments -of reverie, and sometimes between sleeping and waking, there had been -intimations of a light and purpose beyond the apparent reality. Now -abruptly, as though a portal swung open, as though a curtain was drawn, -that light poured upon him dazzlingly. His was no single life that -begins and ends and is done with like an empty song. His existence -was like a thread that shone and vanished and returned in the unending -fabric of being; that was woven into a purpose. In the past he had -been Porg in the city of Kleb, and he had been Sargon and Belshazzar. -Many others had he been, but those memories still slumbered under the -dark waters of forgetfulness. But the memory of Sargon shone bright. -It was his Sargon self that had returned and no other of his selves. -For some reason that was still obscure the Power that ruled his life -needed him to be Sargon once again, in this great distressful world of -to-day. Sargon had begun life humbly as an outcast babe and had risen -to restore and rule and extend a mightier Empire than the old world -had ever seen before. Certain qualities (h’rrmp) had been displayed by -Sargon, and because of these qualities the Power had called upon him -again. - -A whole series of memories was unfolding in his mind. With an -extraordinary convincingness he recalled his youth, memories of those -distant days in Sumeria where the Power had set him on high. They -were so bright and so pleasing that already they were thrusting his -recollections of Sheringham and Woodford Wells into the background, -making a fading phantom of his Preemby existence. He had never -cherished these latter experiences, never turned them over in his -mind with any pleasure. But his newly-restored memories were memories -to dwell upon. There were pictures of his early life when he was a -foundling, a mysterious foundling at the court of his predecessor. -(That predecessor’s name still escaped him.) Young Sargon was a fair -and blue-eyed youth, a thing rare in brown Sumeria, and he had been -found floating down the great river in a little cradle boat of rushes -and bitumen, and he had been taken and adopted by the ruler of the -land. And already as a lad he was pointed out as having an exceptional -wisdom, as being able to do what other men could not do, he had the -genius of the ruler. It was not that he had great cleverness nor great -skill nor strength. Many of those about him excelled him in these minor -things--in cleverness and memory work in particular, Prewm, the son of -the Grand Vizier, excelled him--but he had the true, the kingly wisdom -beyond them all. - -“The true, the kingly wisdom,” said Mr. Preemby-Sargon aloud and -came into sharp collision with a tall, dark gentleman hurrying from -St. James’s Park towards St. James’s Palace. “Sorry!” cried Mr. -Preemby-Sargon. - -“My fault,” said the tall, dark gentleman. “Late for an appointment.” -And swept on. - -Odd! Where had Mr. Preemby--or Sargon--seen that face before? Could it -be--Something connected it vaguely with Sheringham and sunlit sand. And -then Sumeria came uppermost and the tall, dark gentleman became the -chieftain of a desert tribe, a desert tribe amidst the sands. - -The ruffled surface became calm again, and that boyhood in Sumeria -resumed possession of the mirror. Where were we? Even in those early -days men had marked a gravity in the lad beyond his years. He had -avoided puerile games. In all his lives he had avoided puerile games. -No cricketer even at Sheringham. Modestly but firmly this youth had -raised his voice in the council chamber and his words were seen to be -wisdom. The old men had sat around marvelling. “He sayeth Sooth,” they -said in their antique Sumerian way. A soothsayer. He was also called -the Young Pathfinder. - -Before Sargon was fifteen the old childless ruler, beset by enemies, -threatened with plots, had marked him. “This boy might save the state.” -Then, while yet only a few days over eighteen he was given charge of an -expedition to pacify the mountain folk of the north and persuade them -not to ally themselves with the Enemy of the North. He did more than -he was told to do. He went through the mountain land into the plains -beyond, and gave battle to the Enemy of the North and defeated him and -smote him severely. After that all men perceived that he must be the -new Lord and Master of Sumeria, the successor of his aged Patron. All -applauded with sincerity except Prewm the Clever (already adorned with -precocious sprouting whiskers) and he applauded with envy in his eyes. -And then came the days of the Succession, and the Inauguration of the -Harem, beautiful days. And after that the birth of the Princess Royal, -his only child, and that great expedition into the deserts of the -south. And more expeditions and great law-makings, wise laws and wiser, -and crowds of applauding, grateful people and happy villages. Life -became happy universally. Prewm plotted and rebelled and was dealt with -after the simple custom of the time. That was a regrettable necessity, -a thing not to be dwelt upon. The frontiers spread and the great -peace spread; Russia, Turkey in Europe, Persia, India, Ancient Egypt, -Somaliland, and so on and so forth, were conquered and made happy. -America and Australia and the remains of Atlantis, still not completely -submerged, were discovered. They were forgotten again afterwards, but -they were really discovered then--and paid tribute. A League of Nations -was established. - -All the world told of the goodness of Sargon and lived golden days. For -Sargon ruled by the light of justice in his heart. He mitigated the -sacrifices in the Temples and introduced a kind of Protestantism into -the creeds and services. The people made songs praising him. Passing -men and women would run to kiss his hand. Nor did he deny himself to -his people. That confidence was his end. Came alas! the assassin’s -knife, the black assassin, a madman, a stranger----! - -It was wonderful. He could remember his people mourning after he was -dead. - -The white glove of a policeman against Mr. Preemby-Sargon’s chest -just saved him from stepping in front of a motor ’bus. He recoiled -dexterously. He was in Trafalgar Square, a great meeting-place, a -confluence. Here in the warm light of the October afternoon was a crowd -even greater than the Sumerian crowds. Here he would observe them. -They were dark crowds, anxious-faced crowds. His coming back had to do -with them. There had been a great war, much devastation; the world was -wounded and unable to recover. The poor rulers and politicians of this -age had no wisdom, had no instinct for the fundamentally right thing. -Once more a leader and a saviour was required, one who had the wisdom -that counts. - -It was Sargon that walked under the noses of Nelson’s lions and made -his way past the statue of George the Fourth to the balustrading that -commands the square. He took up his position there for a long survey. -He looked down Whitehall to the great tower of the Houses of Parliament -and Whitehall was full of a golden haze set with a glitter of traffic. -The stream of omnibuses, cars, and motor vans poured up to mingle with -the streams that came out of Northumberland Avenue and the Strand, and -the joint flow sundered again to the left of him and to the right away -to Pall Mall, across the square there. No street lamps were lit as yet, -but in the rounded bluffs of building to the left a few windows were -warm with lights. Below, across the square, thin streams of pedestrians -flowed like ants from one point to another and the squat little -station of the Tube Railway perpetually swallowed up dots and clumps -of individuals. Some sort of meeting was going on at the foot of the -Nelson column, a mere knot of people without evident enthusiasm. Men -with white and red placards about Unemployment were distributing white -handbills and shaking collecting boxes. Immediately underneath a few -poorly-dressed children ran about and played and squabbled.... - -Just a little patch this was in one of his cities. For, you see, by the -lapse of time and the development of his ancient empire, he was the -rightful owner and ruler of this city and of every other city in the -world. - -And he had come back to heal the swarming world’s disorders and -reinstate the deep peace of old Sumeria once again. - - -§ 2 - -But how to set about this task? - -That was the difficulty. There must be no Half Advent. He must take -hold swiftly and decisively he realized, and from the balustrading in -front of the National Gallery it looked a large, loose, scattering -sort of world to take hold of. It might refuse to be taken hold of. -If he began now, if he began to shout from this place, it was more -than likely that no one would heed him. He must watch warily for his -opportunity and _make no mistakes_. It did not become the Lord and -Restorer of the Whole Earth to make mistakes. - -Now, for example, that had nearly been a mistake at Buckingham Palace. -It had blown over all right but it might have had serious consequences. -People did not know the Master yet, had no inkling. “They might,” said -Sargon, lapsing into a Preemby homeliness “have run me in. And a Pretty -Fool I should have looked then!” - -There must be no more hasty action of that sort. - -No. Indeed it became him rather to wait for guidance. - -The Power that had brought him back into the world and awakened him -to a sense of his true identity and his mission, might be trusted -presently to send him an enlightened supporter or so--who would -recognize him. Because, of course, he must resemble the monarch he -had been--even as Hockleby had been recognizably like Prewm. As he -weighed this thought his hand sought his moustache and he twisted it -thoughtfully. It was in effect a disguise. Meanwhile--? Meanwhile he -must see what he could, determine the mood of the people and learn -their particular needs and distresses. He could go among his people -unsuspected--like Haroun al Raschid, but for a wiser purpose.... - -“Haroun al Raschid,” whispered Sargon and looked up to Lord Nelson -and nodded to him in a friendly way. “Haroun al Raschid. Would that -my pocket was full of pieces of gold! But of that to-morrow. That -man--what was his name?--Preemby had a bank somewhere.” - -He felt for his breast pocket. The cheque-book was still there. One -signed the cheques “_A. E. Preemby_”--queer, but one did. This A. E. -Preemby had played the part of a chrysalis. His hoard remained. - - -§ 3 - -In the Strand his Majesty caught a glimpse of his reflection in a shop -window. His hair was a little disordered, and he disliked to have -his hair disordered. He went into a hat shop that presented itself -conveniently and bought himself a hat. - -He took out his little note-case to pay--a reassuring thing to do. -For in it were no less than seven pound-notes. He counted them with -satisfaction. After paying up at Tunbridge he had drawn again on his -bank. He hesitated whether he should give largesse to the shopman--and -did not do so. - -It was not another grey felt hat with a black ribbon he bought; it -was an exceptional felt hat with a large brim such as an artist or a -literary personage might have chosen. It was not the hat that Albert -Edward Preemby, the restrained, the hesitating, would have bought; it -was much more Sargon’s sort of hat. Yet not pure Sargonesque; there -was a touch of disguise about it still, a more manifest disguise. The -brim came down over one’s brow. One could see ever and again in shop -windows and incidental mirrors that now a shadow of mystery lay upon -those brooding blue eyes. - -He made his way eastward towards Aldwych and so into Kingsway, looking -now at the shops, now scanning the faces of the people. - -To-day he was The Unknown. Scarce a soul that gave him a second glance. -But soon would come discovery and then all this careless jostling -crowd would be magnetized as he passed, would turn with one accord to -him. They would salute and whisper and wonder. And he must be ready -for them, ready to guide their destinies forthwith. It would not do -to stand at a loss and say “Er,” to stand collecting his thoughts and -clear his throat, “H’rrmp.” - -Terrible the responsibility that lay upon him! But he would not -shirk it. What should be his opening words to them when the moment -of revelation came? “First;--Let there be Peace!” Better words than -that one could not imagine. He muttered to himself; “Peace and not War -among the Nations. Peace and not War among individuals. Peace in the -street--in the workroom--in the shop. _Peace_. - -“Love and Peace. I, Sargon the Magnificent, command it. I, Sargon, have -come back after many ages to give Peace to the Whole World.” - -A shop window drew him. It was a map shop and prominently displayed in -the window was a map of _Europe after the Treaty of Versailles:--Two -and Sixpence._ He stood looking at that. It would all have to be -altered again. That was just part of his task. Then he surveyed the -rest of the window. Behind the map of Europe there hung a wall-map of -the world. He would need such a map of the world; you cannot rule the -world without a map of it. Or you may forget large portions. Or would a -globe be better? Maps are all to be seen at once, and besides they are -more portable. Furthermore, the shop did not seem to sell globes and -he did not know where globes were to be bought. He went in and bought -the world map and emerged again on Kingsway after an interval, with a -roll four feet long under his arm. He was also carrying an ingenious -flat-paper planisphere which had caught his fancy as he stood at the -counter. It might be useful, he felt, for astrological purposes. - -He began to think vaguely of his possible destination. Whither was he -going? - -He was seeking quarters, he was seeking indeed some lonely hermitage. -He had slipped away from the Princess Royal, who also had come -back--rather needlessly he thought--into this modern world, because -it was necessary for him to be absolutely alone for a time. He had -to spend some days or weeks in spiritual struggle and meditation and -mental purification before his revelation came. Even she might not -minister to him during that period. She was devoted, but she hampered -him. Indeed, she hampered him greatly. She did not fully understand. -Her remarks and questions were generally disconcerting and sometimes -downright annoying. It was quite probable that the metamorphosis might -never occur with her about. And, besides, always in the history of -great Visitants and marvellous returns there had been this opening -phase of withdrawal and self-communion. Buddha, Muhammad; they had all -done it. Perhaps he would fast. Perhaps fasting would be necessary. -Perhaps there would be Celestial Visitants. - -He wished he knew more of the technique of fasting. Did one just stop -having meals or were there ceremonies and precautions? But of that -later. First he had to find that quiet room, his secret place of final -preparation. - -Presently he found himself in the grey squares of Bloomsbury and -every house he passed displayed in its window a genteel card offering -“Apartments” or “Bed and Breakfast.” Here also were “Private Hotels” -and even a plain “Boarding House.” Well, here no doubt it had to be. A -simple room amidst his unsuspecting people, a simple, simply furnished -room. - - -§ 4 - -But through all Bloomsbury, to judge by the dark green and silver cards -in its ground-floor windows, was offering shelter and sustenance to the -homeless and the stranger, the new Lord of the World found it no easy -matter to secure that simple room he needed for his own use. For more -than an hour he was visiting one grey house after another, knocking, -standing on doorsteps, entering passages laid with immemorial oilcloth, -and demanding a sight of the accommodation offered, inspecting -it, asking prices--and--it became more and more evident--arousing -suspicion. The people stared at his rolled-up map and his planisphere -and seemed to dislike them instinctively. He had not expected such -blunt demands for information; his vague mysteriousness was swept -aside, he found himself difficult to explain. They wanted to know -how he was occupied and when he would like to move in. None of them -seemed prepared for him to just sit down in his room there and then. -They expected him to go out and fetch his luggage. It undermined his -confidence that behind him there was no luggage. All these people, he -realized more and more distinctly, would expect him to produce luggage -and might behave unreasonably if he did not do so. A mere readiness to -pay in advance, he gathered, was not enough for them. - -He had counted upon finding kind and simple people behind these -lodging-house doors, people who would accept him and look up to him -from the first and wonder about him and his planisphere, speculate -about its significance and gradually realize the marvellous visitant -that had come to them. But the people he saw were not simple people. -Mostly they were dingy, sophisticated people. They came up out of -basements in a mood of sceptical scrutiny, men in shirt sleeves, morose -for the most part and generally ill-shaven; extremely knowing and -anything but virginal young women, grimy looking older women, hungrily -lean or unwholesomely fat. One had a goitre-like growth. And always -there was something defensive in their manner. - -And the rooms he saw were even less simple than the people. His -consciousness was invaded by a sense of the vast moral changes that had -happened to the world since he had ruled the white-robed honesty of his -Sumerian irrigators. Then a room would have a table, a seat or two, a -shelf with a few phials, an image or suchlike religious object, a clay -tablet and a writing style, perhaps, if the occupant was educated. -But these rooms were encumbered with contradictions. They had windows -to let in the light and dark curtains to keep it out. Sargon’s hidden -second youth in the laundry had made him very sensitive to dirtiness, -and the cotton-lace curtains of those places were generally very -dirty indeed. Electric light was still rare in “apartments”; mostly -they were lit from gas brackets that descended from the centre of the -ceiling and carried globes of frosted and cut glass. Always there -was a considerable table in the centre and two uneasy arm-chairs. -And there were lumpish sideboards of shiny, liver-coloured wood and -comfortless sofas and incredible ornaments. Sometimes the rooms, and -particularly the bedrooms, had a meretricious smartness and gaiety with -mezzotints of ladies in the natural state trying to pass themselves -off as allegorical figures or of the Baths in the congested harems -of wealthy, rather than refined, Orientals. The over-mantels were -extraordinary affairs and much loaded with crockery ornaments, little -jars, small gilt-winged angels, red devils, or encouraging looking -ladies in bathing-dresses that were too tight for them. A common form -of decoration was to fasten up plates on the wall much as one sees -vermin nailed up on a barn. - -A considerable number of these homes for hire were as shabby as -roadside tramps. One stood out in his memory as faded and dusty -and grey and threadbare beyond the possibility of reality. His -self-absorption was penetrated by the wonder of who could live and who -could have lived in such quarters. All his life had been amongst clean -and bright surroundings; it was rare that he had any glimpses of that -worn and weary stratum of English town life in which things are patched -indeed, but in which it is rare for anything to be mended or cleaned -and incredible that anything should be replaced. Even the air in these -rooms seemed long out of date and the glass over the rusty engravings -of the Monarch of the Glen and the Stag at Bay spotted by remote -ancestral flies. - -“Does anyone ever stay here?” asked Sargon of the shattered-looking -lady in charge. - -He did not realize the cruelty of his question until he had asked it. - -“My last gentleman stayed here fifteen years,” said the shattered lady. -“He was a copying clerk. He died in hospital this June. Dropsy. He -always found this very satisfactory--_very_ satisfactory. I never knew -him complain. He was a very good friend to me.” - -A great desire for fresh air came upon Sargon. “How much are these -rooms?” he asked. “I must think it over. Think it over and let you -know.” - -She asked her price, the usual price in that street, but as she led the -way down to the door she said: “If it’s too much--If you made an offer, -sir----” - -Despair looked out of her grime-rimmed eyes. - -“I must think about it,” said Sargon and was once more at large. - -Why did people get so dirty and dismal and broken down? Surely in -Sumeria there were never lives like that! It would have to be altered; -all this would have to be altered when the Kingdom came. - - -§ 5 - -Then as the twilight deepened Sargon discovered just the peaceful -room he desired. It announced itself hopefully not by the usual -printed card but by a hand-written tablet saying “A Room to Let,” in -a window that had no lace curtains but little purple ones enhancing -rather than concealing a bare-looking white room lit pleasantly by the -flickering of a fire. There were one or two pictures--real coloured -pictures--hanging on the white wall. Rather wearily Sargon lifted the -knocker and supplemented its appeal by pressing the electric bell. - -There was no immediate answer, and he knocked a second time before the -door opened. A slender young man appeared holding a small girl perched -on his shoulder. She regarded Sargon gravely with very dark grey-blue -eyes. - -“Everybody seems to have gone out,” said the slender young man in a -very pleasant voice. “What can I do for you?” - -“You have a room to let,” said Sargon. - -“There _is_ a room to let here, yes,” said the slender young man and -his appreciative dark eyes took in the details of the figure in front -of him. - -“Could I see it?” - -“I suppose he might _see_ it, Susan,” the young man hesitated. - -“Of course the gem’s got to see it,” said the small girl. “If Mrs. -Richman was here she’d show it him fast enough, old stoopid.” And she -pulled the slender young man’s hair--affectionately but very, very hard. - -“You see,” the young man explained. “The landlady is out. _Don’t_, -Susan. And the landlady’s lady assistant is out, too. Every one is -out--and we’re sort of unofficially left in charge somehow. Properly, I -ought not to have answered the door.” - -“But I told you to--_silly_!” said the little girl. - -The young man made no definite move. Instead, he asked a question. “Is -that a map, sir, you are carrying?” he asked. - -“It is a map of the world,” said Sargon. - -“Very helpful I should think, sir. And so you found your way here. -Well--The room’s upstairs if you’d come up. Hold tight, Susan, and try -not to strangle me.” And he led the way up the staircase. - -It was just the usual staircase and hall with oilcloth and wall-paper -to imitate some exceptionally bilious coarse-grained wood. As they -ascended the young lady ran great risks in her resolution never to take -her eyes off Sargon and his map. She twisted round a complete circle -and forced her bearer to stop on the first landing and readjust her. -“If you pull my hair once more,” said the slender young man, “I shall -put you down and never, never, never give you a ride again. It’s on the -next floor, sir, if you’d go first.” - -The room appeared delightfully free from unnecessary furnishings. There -was a little plain bed, a table under the window, and a gas-stove, and -the walls were papered in brown paper, adorned with commonplace but -refreshing Japanese colour prints. There was a recess one side of the -fire-place with three empty shelves painted like the mantelpiece, a -deep blue. The young man had clicked on an electric light, which was -pleasantly shaded. - -“It’s rather plain,” said the young man. - -“I like it,” said Sargon. “I have no use for superfluities.” - -“It used to be my room,” said the young man, “but now I share the -dining-room floor with the people downstairs and I’ve given this up. -It’s rather on my conscience----” - -“People downstairs--what people downstairs? There aren’t no People -downstairs. It’s Daddy and Mummy he means,” said the young lady. - -“It’s rather on my conscience,” said the young man, “that I persuaded -Mrs. Richman to alter the furniture. It isn’t to everybody’s taste.” - -“May I ask,” said Sargon, “how much the room might be?” - -“Thirty shillings, I _believe_,” said the young man, “with breakfasts.” - -Sargon put down his map and the planisphere upon the table. He felt -that he must secure this room or be for ever defeated. - -“I am willing,” he said, “to take the room. I would pay for it in -advance. And take up my quarters at once. But, I must warn you, my -position in the world is peculiar. I give no reference, I bring no -luggage.” - -“Except of course these charts,” said the young man. “Haven’t you--for -instance--a toothbrush?” - -Sargon thought. “No. I must get myself a toothbrush.” - -“I think it would _look_ better,” said the young man. - -“If necessary,” said Sargon, “I will pay for two weeks in advance. And -I will get myself all necessary things.” - -The young man regarded him with an affectionate expression. “If it -was my room I should let you have it like a shot,” he said. “But Mrs. -Richman is the landlady and in many respects she’s different from me. -Have you--travelled far, sir?” - -“In space,” said Sargon, “_No_.” - -“But in time, perhaps?” - -“In time, yes. But I would rather not enter into explanations at -present.” - -The young man’s interest and amusement deepened. He put Susan down on -her feet. “Might I look at your map?” he asked. - -“Willingly,” said Sargon. He unrolled the map on the table and put his -finger on London. “We are here,” he said. - -“Exactly,” said the young man, helping to hold the map on the table -from which it seemed likely to slip. - -“It is still the most convenient centre in the world,” said Sargon. - -“For almost any purpose,” said the young man. - -“For mine, yes,” said Sargon. - -“And that star thing--that must be a great help?” - -“It is,” said Sargon. - -“I suppose you would--_work_ in the room? It would be just yourself? -There would be no coming and going of people?” - -“None. While I was here, no one would know me. Afterwards perhaps. But -that does not concern us. Here I should remain incognito.” - -“Incognito,” the young man repeated, as though he considered the word. -“Of course. Naturally. By the by, sir, might I ask your name? (If you -hit me again, Susan, I shall do something cruel and dreadful to you.) -We’d have to know your name.” - -“For the time I think Mr.--Mr. Sargon.” - -“Of course,” said the young man, “for the time. Sargon--wasn’t that an -Assyrian king, or does my memory betray me?” - -“It is not the Assyrian Sargon in this case, it is the Sumerian Sargon, -his predecessor.” - -“Not a word more, sir--I understand. You must be fatigued after your -long journey and I should love--I should dearly love to let you the -room. _Wow!_ Susan, you go downstairs. Pinching I can’t stand. Come -along. You go down to your own proper room and let’s have no nonsense -about it. _Come!_” - -Susan backed to the wall and prepared to resist tooth and nail. “I -didn’t _mean_ to pinch, Bobby,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pinch. -Troof and really! I was just feelin’ your trousis. Oh, don’t take me -down, Bobby! Don’t take me down. I _will_ be good! I’ll be awful good. -I’ll just stay here and look at the funny geman. If you take me down, -Bobby----” - -“Now, is this a real reformation, Susan--a conversion, a change of -heart? Will you be a _jeune femme rangée_ and all that, if I forgive -you?” - -“I’ll be anyfing, Bobby dear, flet me stay.” - -“Well! cease to exist then--for all practical purposes and I’ll forgive -you. What can the nice gentleman think of you, Susan? And you more -than five! _Bah!_ We were saying, Mr. Sargon--? Yes, of course, I was -saying that you ought to take the room. Payment in advance will be -accepted. _But_--there is that toothbrush. And other small--what shall -I say?--realistic touches. _I_ shouldn’t mind personally, but I’m -only an agent, so to speak. Properly I am a sort of writer. Properly -I ought to be writing a novel now, but, as you see, Mrs. Richman has -left the house on my hands and my friends downstairs have left this -charming young lady on my hands--Put that tongue back at once, Susan. -Unladylike child!--and here we are! But as I’m saying, Mrs. Richman -is the principal. She has her fancies about lodgers. It is useless to -dispute about them. She will want a show of luggage. She will insist. -But that is really not an insurmountable difficulty. This--you will -remember the name?--is Nine Midgard Street. If you go out from here and -turn to the left, take the third to the right and go straight on, you -will come to a main thoroughfare full of ’buses and trams and traffic -and light and noise, and at the corner you will find a shop where they -sell second-hand trunks and bags. Now if you bought an old, battered, -largish bag--and then went across the road to a chemist’s shop and -got those washing things you need--Oh! and a reserve collar or so at -the outfitter’s next door--You _must_ get such things.... You see the -idea?” - -Sargon stood in front of the unlit gas-stove. “This seems to be acting -a falsehood.” - -“But you must have clean collars sometimes,” protested the young man. - -“I admit that,” said Sargon. - -“And then you can settle down here and tell me about that business of -yours. Otherwise, you know, you’ll just wander about.” - -“Your suggestion is really quite a helpful one,” said Sargon, getting -the thing into focus. “I shall adopt it.” - -“You won’t lose the way back?” - -“Why should I?” - -“Nine Midgard Street.” - -“I shall remember.” - -“Queer world it is,” said the young man; “isn’t it? How did you leave -the old folks in--Sumeria?” - -“My people were happy,” said Sargon. - -“Exactly. I’ve been there since. _Quite_ recently. But the weather -wasn’t good and I got knocked about by a shell and had a nasty time as -a wounded prisoner. Hot. Crowded. No shelter. Nothing cool to drink. -But in your time it was different.” - -“Very,” said Sargon. - -“And now--by Jove! that kettle is boiling over all by this time, Susan. -Come down to my room, such as it is, and have a cup of tea, sir. And -then you can go out and make those little arrangements of yours and -dig yourself in so to speak before Mrs. Richman comes back. This, by -the by, is your gas meter. You get gas by the shilling in the slot -arrangement.” - -“You are being very, very helpful to me,” said Sargon. “It shall not be -forgotten when my time comes.” - -“Nothing. It just happened you came into my hands so to speak. No, -Susan, we don’t. You _walk_ downstairs. Pinching is forgiven but not -forgotten. You can leave your map, sir--and that star thing--as -visible signs of your occupation. No, Susan--on foot.” - - -§ 6 - -The young man’s room was bookish and rather untidy, and Susan had been -killing toys on the carpet--a china-headed doll and something or other -of yellow painted wood appeared to be the chief victims. The doll had -bled sawdust profusely. Dark curtains were drawn and a green-shaded -electric light threw all the apartment into darkness except the floor. -There was a gas-fire with a gas-ring on which a boiling kettle steamed -like an excited volcano; there was a deal table on which was a big -pile of letters address to “_Aunt Suzannah_” c/o Editor of _Wilkins’ -Weekly_, and there was a large untidy desk on which was another litter -of letters evidently receiving attention, and in the midst of the desk -a writing-pad, on which reposed a squeezable tube of liquid glue and a -half-mended toy. The glue oozed upon the face sheet of the writing-pad -beneath these words, written in a beautifully neat handwriting: - - UPS AND DOWNS - - _A Pedestrian Novel_ - - BY ROBERT ROOTHING - - CHAPTER THE FIRST - - WHICH INTRODUCES OUR HERO - -Beyond that the novel did not seem to have progressed. - -With the dexterity of long-established usage Bobby made tea and -produced plum-bread and butter. Meanwhile he kept a wary eye on Susan -who had sat down by the waste-paper basket and was tearing up paper, -and attended to the remarks and attitudes of his remarkable visitor. - -Sargon already liked this young man enormously. It was extremely -reassuring and encouraging to meet such kindly acceptance and -understanding after the chill and doubt and ugliness of the previous -hour’s experiences. And it was nice and refreshing to have tea. A sort -of grey insecurity, a threat of suppression that had come over his -mind, vanished in this genial atmosphere. The shrivelled incognito -expanded. The hidden mystery beneath it grew rich and full once more. -This young man--he seemed ready to believe anything. Sargon walked -up and down with his hands behind his back as if in the profoundest -meditation. He would have muttered a few phrases in Sumerian, but for -some reason he had quite forgotten that forgotten tongue. - -“And so you write books?” he said regally. - -“Not books,” Bobby answered over his shoulder; he was now toasting a -circle of plum-bread. “Not books _yet_. But--it _is_ ridiculous, isn’t -it?--I am a bit of a poet and all that sort of thing, and a journalist -of sorts. Just answers to correspondents--laborious, but a living.” He -indicated the piles of letters on the deal table. “As for books--I have -as a matter of fact _started_ a novel--it’s on that desk--but that’s -only in the last few days. And it’s so difficult to get a lot of time -to oneself to really let oneself go with it.” - -“Inspiration,” said Sargon understandingly. - -“Well, one must let oneself go a bit, I suppose; particularly at first. -But there’s always something one must do cropping up to prevent it.” - -“With me also.” - -“No doubt.” - -“That is why,” said Sargon, “I am withdrawing into this solitude. To -collect my forces. In Sumeria it was always the practice, before any -great undertaking, to go out into the wilderness for a certain tale of -days.” - -“If I go out into the wilderness I get so lonely in the evenings,” said -Bobby. “_Ssh!_ That was the front door.” - -He went out upon the staircase and stood listening. - -“Mrs. Richman,” Sargon heard him call. - -“S’me,” said a lady’s voice. - -“Here’s a lodger for the second-floor front.” - -“I bin to the pictures,” said the voice outside. “Mary and Doug--a fair -treat.” - -A corpulent lady in a black bonnet appeared breathing heavily. She -panted a few obvious questions and Bobby hovered helpfully at Sargon’s -elbow to prevent him making any mistakes. “He’ll pay in advance,” said -Bobby. - -“That’s awright,” said Mrs. Richman. “When will he move in?” - -“He’s getting his luggage right away,” said Bobby. - -“I suppose it’s all right,” said Mrs. Richman. - -“I know his people. At least I know about them. I’ve been in his part -of the country. You can be quite sure he’s all right,” said Bobby. - -“Well, if _you_ say so,” said Mrs. Richman. “’Ope you’ll be -comfortable, Mr.----” - -“Mr. Sargon.” - -“Mr. Sargon.” - -And after a few rather vague comments on the weather Mrs. Richman -withdrew. “And now,” said Bobby, “I’ll just unload Susan on her and -come with you for that bag. It’s extraordinary how people lose their -way in London at times.” - - -§ 7 - -“I’ve let the second-floor front to a lunatic,” said Bobby, breaking -the news to his ground-floor friends, Mr. and Mrs. Malmesbury. - -“Oh, _Bobby_! and with Susan about!” cried Mrs. Malmesbury -reproachfully. - -“But he’s a quite _harmless_ lunatic, Tessy--and he had to be taken in -somewhere.” - -“But a lunatic!” said Mrs. Malmesbury. - -“I only said that for effect,” said Bobby. “He’s really morbidly sane. -I wouldn’t have let him go for anything. Some day when I really get to -work on that novel I’ll put him in. I _must_ have material, Tessy. And -he’s wonderful.” - -He was preparing supper for the Malmesburys and himself. He was frying -some sausages and potatoes over a gas-ring. Previously Bobby had done -most of the putting of Susan to bed, and he had sat and told her -stories according to custom until she was fast asleep. Tessy Malmesbury -was out of sorts; she had a neuralgic headache, Billy Malmesbury had -taken her for a walk in Regent’s Park and she had come home exhausted; -things would have gone to pieces badly if Bobby had not taken them in -hand. - -Tessy was never very well nowadays; she was a slight and fragile little -thing and Susan had been a violent and aggressive child long before -she was born. In the long-lost days before the war when Bobby had -seen Tessy first she had been the lightest, daintiest, most perfect -thing imaginable; he had compared her to a white petal drifting down -through sunlight, and almost written a poem about her; he had loved -her tremendously. But it had seemed to him impossible to make love to -so exquisite a being, and Billy Malmesbury, who was less scrupulous, -had slipped in front of him and married her; she had not appreciated -the delicacy of not making love to her. And then came the war and -wounds and here they all were again, fagged and near the thirties, in a -world where their small annuities brought them far less than they had -promised to do. Billy was the junior partner of an architect and much -encumbered with drawing-boards. He was a large-framed young man with a -big, round, good-looking, slightly astonished face, pleasantly dappled -with freckles. He had a great protective affection for Bobby. He sat -now and designed a new sort of labour-saving pantry and, with a sense -of infinite protection, let Bobby get the meal. - -“And now I can tell you,” said Bobby, when at last all three of them -were sitting at table. - -“It’s a little dear of a lunatic,” he said. “If it’s a lunatic at all.” - -“I hope it isn’t,” said Tessy. - -“He’s quite tidy in his person and he hangs together--mentally he hangs -together--and his eyes aren’t in the least wild. A leetle too bright -and open perhaps. But he _does_ think the world belongs to him.” - -“Well, Susan does that,” said Billy. - -“And so does Billy,” said Tessy. - -“But not quite with the same air of magnificent responsibility. You see -he thinks he’s a certain Mesopotamian monarch called Sargon--I’ve heard -of him because we had a little dust-up with the Turks round and about -his stamping ground--he thinks he’s this Sargon come again and come -somehow--that bit’s a little difficult--into the empire of the whole -earth. It was Sargon, you know, who started all these British Lions and -Imperial Eagles in the world. And so he proposes to take possession of -the planet, which is in such a frightful mess----” - -“Hear, hear!” said Billy. - -“And put it in order.” - -“What more simple?” cried Tessy. - -“Exactly. Why haven’t we _all_ thought of that?” said Billy. - -“But where does he come from?” asked Tessy. - -“Not a sign. He might be a suburban nurseryman or a small draper or -something of that sort. I can’t place him. One or two phrases he -used suggested a house-agent. But he may have picked them up from -advertisements. And his first proceeding--perfectly rational--was to -buy a map of the world. Naturally if you are going to rule the world, -you ought to have a map of it handy.” - -“Has he any money?” - -“Enough to pay his way. He’s got a small note-case. That seems to be -all right. After we’d got a bag for him--he hadn’t any luggage, and -I thought he’d better buy a bag to satisfy Mrs. Richman--we sat down -upstairs and had a simple straightforward talk about the world and what -had to be done with it. Most instructive.” - -Bobby helped himself to some more fried potatoes. - -“And what _is_ going to be done with it?” - -“Let me see,” said Bobby; “it’s quite an attractive little programme. -Rather I think on the lines of the Labour programme. Only simpler and -more thorough. The Distinction of Rich and Poor is to be Abolished -Altogether. Women are to be Freed from all Disadvantages. There is to -be No More War. He gets at the roots of things every time.” - -“If those are the roots,” said Billy. - -“But isn’t the real question how to do it?” asked Tessy, “Aren’t we all -agreed about those things--in theory?” - -“In theory, yes,” said Bobby. “But not in reality. If every one really -wanted to abolish the difference of rich and poor it would be as easy -as pie to find a way. There’s always a way to everything if you want -to do it enough. But nobody really wants to do these things. Not as we -want meals. All sorts of other things people want, but wanting to have -no rich and poor any more isn’t real wanting; it is just a matter of -pious sentiment. And so it is about war. We don’t want to be poor and -we don’t want to be hurt or worried by war, but that’s not wanting to -end those things. _He_ wants to end them.” - -“But how’s he going to set about it?” said Billy. - -“That is still a little vague. I think there is to be a sort of -Proclamation. He’s thinking that out upstairs now. He seems to -think that he has to call up some sort of disciples. Then I think -he will go down to Westminster and take the Speaker’s place on the -Woolsack or something of that sort. It _is_ the Speaker sits on the -Woolsack, isn’t it? Or is it the Lord Chancellor? Anyhow, there are -to be demonstrations--on a large and dignified scale. The people have -forgotten the ancient simple laws, he says. He himself had forgotten -them. But he has remembered them now; they have come back to him, and -presently every one will remember them, all the great old things, -justice, faith, obedience, mutual service. As it was in Ancient -Sumeria. Dreamland Ancient Sumeria, you know. The dear old Golden -Age. He has come to remind people of the true things in life--which -every one has forgotten. And when he has reminded them every one will -remember. And be good. And there you are, Tessy! I hope it will affect -Susan--but I don’t feel at all sure. I have a sort of feeling that -Susan could stash up any golden age they started in about five minutes, -but then perhaps I’m a bit prejudiced about her.” - -“It’s rather wonderful all the same,” said Billy. - -“He _is_ rather wonderful. He sits up there and looks at you with -his little round innocent face and tells you all these things. And, -assuming he’s Lord of the World, they’re perfectly right and proper. -He sits with the map of the world unrolled on the table. I ventured -to suggest that he would require a lot of subordinate rulers and -directors. ‘They will come,’ he said. ‘No office, no duty shall be done -henceforth except by the Proper People. That has been neglected too -long. Let every man do that he is best fitted to do. Then everything -will be well.’” - -“And when’s all this to begin?” asked Billy. - -“Any time. I don’t think--” Bobby’s expression became profoundly -judicial. “I don’t think he’ll do anything for a day or so. I pointed -out to him that he ought to consider his demonstrations very carefully -before he makes them, and he seemed inclined to agree. Some mistake, -he says, has occurred already--I couldn’t find out what. Apparently -to-morrow he is just going to look at London, quietly but firmly, -from the Monument and from the Dome of Saint Paul’s. And also he wants -to observe the manners of his subjects in the streets and railway -stations, and wherever there is a concourse of people. The scales -have fallen from his eyes, he explains, and now that he knows that he -is Lord of the World he realizes how distressed and unsatisfactory -everybody’s life is--even when they don’t know it’s unsatisfactory. His -own life was terribly unsatisfactory he says, unreal and frustrated, -until he awoke and realized the greatness of his destiny.” - -“And what was that life of his?” asked Tessy. - -“I tried to get that. And he caught the eager note in my voice I -suppose, and shut up like an oyster. The draper’s shop perhaps. Or a -milk-round. I wonder.” - -“But, Bobby,” cried Billy in the expostulatory tone of one who -remonstrates with wild unreason; “he must come from _somewhere_!” - -“Exactly,” said Bobby. “And somewhere must be looking for him. But -you can’t always hurry these things. And meanwhile I take it it’s -our bounden duty to keep an eye on him and see that he doesn’t bump -himself too hard or fall into the wrong hands.... Until some one comes -along.... Don’t you get up, Tessy, you’re tired.” - -And Bobby jumped to his feet and proceeded to change the plates and -dishes while Billy fell into a profound meditation upon the problem of -the new neighbour upstairs. - -Presently he smiled and shook his head in kindly disapproval. - -“This will suit Bobby all right,” he said to Tessy. “Whenever he ought -to be upstairs in his own room getting on with that novel of his he -will be up on the second floor talking to--what is it?--Sargon.” - -“Accumulating material,” corrected Bobby from the Welsh dresser where -he was turning a tin of peaches out into a glass dish. “Accumulating -evidence.... Not even a spider could spin a yarn out of an empty -stomach. Tessy, have you just simply _lost_ the cream or have you put -it away in a new place very carefully for me to guess? Oh, right-o! -I’ve got it.” - - -§ 8 - -Let us be frank about it; Sargon had his doubts. - -Not always. There were times when his fantasy was bravely alive and -carried him high above any shadow of uncertainty, and he was all that -he could have ever wished to be. Then Mr. Preemby was almost forgotten. -But there were moments, there were phases, when he became aware of a -cold undertow of conviction that he was after all just Mr. Preemby, -Mr. Preemby, formerly of the Limpid Stream Laundry, making believe, -carrying it off and perhaps presently failing to carry it off. This -chill flow of doubt could even oblige him to reason with himself, force -him into a definite reassurance of himself. He would debate the whole -question, candidly, fairly. Surely there was no deception, could have -been no deception, about that séance. “Told me things no one but I -could have known,” he would repeat. “I pin my faith to that.” - -He knew that Christina Alberta had not really believed. It was just -because of her revealing scepticism that he had fled from her. She had -asked questions, tearing, rending questions, and she had said “Um.” It -is not proper to say “Um” to world emperors. If presently he fasted or -went into a trance, he felt sure that she would come and stand about -beside him and say “Um,” and spoil everything. Well, anyhow, he was -away from that for a bit. But to be away from doubt was not enough. The -great discovery threatened to evaporate. He wanted the comfort of the -disciple. He wanted help and reassurance. - -Bobby had comforted him greatly. While Sargon had been going from one -suspicious lodging-house keeper to another, the faith of the new -Saviour of mankind had weakened dreadfully. But Bobby from the first -had had something deferential in his manner, had seemed to understand. -His questions had grown more and more intelligent. Perhaps he was to -be the first of the reawakened adherents. Perhaps presently he would -be recognizable as some faithful servant in that still so largely -forgotten past, a trusted general perhaps or some intimate court -official. - -Yet even when Sargon doubted he believed. It is a very comprehensible -paradox. He knew clearly that to be Sargon was to be real, was to -signify and make all the world signify, was to go back into the past -and reach right out into the future, was to escape altogether from -the shrivelled insignificance of the Preemby life. To be Sargon was -to achieve not only greatness but goodness. Sargon could give and -Sargon could dare. Sargon could face lions and die for his people, but -Preemby could go round three fields, had been known to go round three -fields, to evade the hostility of a barking terrier. Preemby’s world -was dust and dirt, a mud speck in infinite space, and there was no -life on it but abjection. Preemby was death; Sargon was rebirth into -a world of spacious things. Not very clearly did Sargon achieve these -realizations, but he felt them throughout his being. Something had -happened to him of inestimable value and truth; he had to cling to this -gift and hold it and keep it or be for ever fallen. Christina Alberta -notwithstanding, the whole world notwithstanding. - -So he walked up and down his little upper room in Midgard Street and -elaborated his conception of his new rôle as lord and protector of -the whole world. Twilight gave place to night but he did not turn on -the light. He liked the friendly darkness. All visible things are -limiting things, but the darkness goes out and beyond everything to -God. “I must look,” he said. “I must watch and observe. But not for -too long. There is action. Action gives life. That fellow Preemby, -poor soul, he could look at things, but dared he lift a finger? No! -Everywhere suffering, everywhere injustice and disorder, the desert -and the wilderness breaking back in on us and he did nothing. If one -does not call and call aloud, how can one expect an answer? In this -world, vast, terrible--strikes--hoardings--adulteration--profiteers.... -Nevertheless men who once lived bravely and did their duty.... Who may -do it again.... Once they hear the call. Awake! Remember! The High -Path. Simple Honour. Sargon calls you.... H’rrmp....” - -He came to a halt at his uncurtained window and looked out on the -plain, flat face of the opposite houses, pierced here and there by a -lit window. Most had the blinds drawn, but just opposite a woman worked -by lamp-light at a table, sewing something, her needle hand flew out -perpetually and the book and one hand and the cuff of a reader came -also into the picture, the rest of him hidden behind the curtain. At a -bedroom window there was a looking-glass, and a girl tried on a hat and -looked at it this way and that; then suddenly she vanished, and after a -little interval the light went out. - -“All their scattered lives,” said Sargon, holding out his arms with -a benevolent gesture, “knitted--drawn together by wisdom and love. A -rudder put on the drifting world.” - -Came a knock at the door. “Come in,” said Sargon. - -Bobby appeared. “Getting on all right, sir?” he said in his engaging -subaltern manner. He clicked on the electric light and came into the -room. (Cadaverous and pleasant face he had; surely one would remember -presently what he had been.) “Wondered if you were eating anything -to-night?” he asked. - -“I quite forgot eating,” said Sargon. “Quite. My mind--troubled by many -grave matters. I have much to think of, much to plan. The hour grows -late. The time is near. I wonder if the serving woman here----?” - -“Only breakfasts,” said Bobby. “Here we are on bed and breakfast terms -strictly. The rest is with ourselves. For an emergency like this there -is nothing so good as the Rubicon Restaurant. The Grill Room keeps open -quite late. They will do you a chop or a cutlet. Or ham and eggs. Very -good ham and eggs--crisp ham. You go out from here, turn to the left at -the second corner, and go right down Hampshire Street until you come to -it. You’ll have no difficulty in finding it.” - -The word “crisp” had settled it. - -“I will avail myself,” said Sargon. - -“And it’s equally easy to find your way back,” said Bobby with a faint -flavour of anxiety in his voice. - -“Have no fear, young man,” said Sargon in a tone of jolly reassurance. -“Have no fear. I’ve found my way in many climes and under many -conditions--the wild mountains--the trackless desert. Time and space.” - -“Of course,” said Bobby. “I forgot that. - -“Still--London is different,” said Bobby. - - -§ 9 - -The next day at about half-past four in the afternoon a small but -heavily moustached figure, with eyes full of blue determination, -emerged from Saint Paul’s Cathedral and stood at the top of the steps -before the great doors, surveying the jostling traffic of Ludgate Hill -and the Churchyard. There was a sort of valiant uncertainty in the -figure’s pose, as though it was equally resolved to be up to something, -and uncertain about what it meant to do. London had been looked at from -the top of the Monument and from the Cathedral dome on a crystal-clear -October day, and it had betrayed an unusual loveliness and greatness -under the golden sunshine. But it had shown itself, too, as a vast -dreamy multitudinousness in which none but those who are resolute and -powerful in action can hope to escape being swallowed up. It had -stretched away to wide sunlit stretches that seemed to be the horizon, -and then up in the leaden-blue other stretches had been visible of -houses, of shipping, of distant hills. The vans and carts in the -shadowed streets below had looked like toys; the people were hats and -hurrying legs and feet, curiously proportioned. And over all an immense -dome of kindly cloud-flecked sky. - -He had walked round the little gallery under the ball, muttering: “A -wilderness. A city that has forgotten.... - -“How fair it might be. How great it might be! - -“How fair and great it _shall_ be!” - -And now he had come down again from these high places and the time -had come for him to gather together his disciples and ministers and -inaugurate the New World. He had to call them. Followers would not come -to him unless he called them; they would wait for him to act, not know -even of what awaited them until he called them, but when he called them -they would surely come. - -It was with an extraordinary sense of power over men’s destinies that -he stood now upon Saint Paul’s steps and reflected that even now men -and women might be passing by, among these busy men thronging the -pavement, among the people in omnibuses, among the girls clattering -away at their typewriters behind the upstairs windows, over whose busy, -petty, undistinguished lives hung the challenge of his summons. Yonder -perhaps was his Abu Bekr, his right-hand man, his Peter. Let them wait -a little longer. He waved the traffic onward with a gesture of kindly -encouragement. “Soon now,” he said, “very soon. Go on while ye may. -Even now the sorting of the lots begins.” - -Yet a moment more he stood still and silent, a statuette of destiny. -“And now,” he whispered; “and now.... - -“And first----” - -He was no longer troubled by his oblivion of the Sumerian tongue. -In the night he had recovered the gift of tongues; he had muttered -strange words in the darkness, and understood. - -“H’rrmp,” he said, a word common to many tongues, clearing the way -after five thousand years for the return of the forgotten sounds -to a renewed use in the world of men. “Dadendo Fizzoggo Grandioso -Magnificendodidodo--yes,” he whispered. “The Unveiling of the -Countenance. The First Revelation. Then perhaps they will see.” - -And slowly he descended the steps, his eyes searching the convergent -frontages of the Churchyard for some intimations of a barber’s shop. - - - - -CHAPTER THE SECOND - -_The Calling of the Disciples_ - - -§ 1 - -There are already wide differences of statement and opinion about -the order and the details of the calling of the followers of Sargon. -Happily we are in a position to give the circumstances with all the -exactitude that may be necessary, and with an authority that will -anticipate vexatious criticism. It was about half-past six that Sargon -appeared in Cheapside, and the day’s traffic was already ebbing in that -busy city thoroughfare. His countenance was transformed and shone with -that kind of luminosity that only the most thorough and exhaustive -shaving can give. A youthful smoothness had been restored to it. The -facial mane, the vast moustache, that had veiled it for so many years -from mankind was abandoned, a mess of clippings and lather now in a -barber’s basin. Now the face was as bare as the young Alexander, a -fresh-complexioned, sincere and innocent countenance speaking clearly -with an unfiltered voice. It was flushed with a natural excitement as -it went along Cheapside scrutinizing the faces of the foot passengers -on a momentous and mystical search. The blue eyes beneath the brim of -the distinguished-looking hat were alight. Was it to be this man? Was -it to be this? - - -§ 2 - -The first to be called was a young man of Leytonstone named Godley, -a young man with a large and excessively grave grey face and a -deliberation of utterance amounting to an impediment. He was carrying -a microscope in a wooden box. He was a student of biology with a -cytological bias; naturally very polite and temperamentally disposed to -be precise and deliberate in all he said and did. He was making his way -from Liverpool Street station to the Birkbeck Institute by a circuitous -route because he had nearly an hour in hand before his class began. He -stood poised on the pavement edge at a street-corner waiting for two -vans to pass, when his call came to him. - -He found a very earnest, barefaced little man beside him whose blue -eyes searched his countenance swiftly, and who then gripped his arm. - -“I think,” said Sargon, “that it is you.” - -Mr. Godley, who was not without a sense of humour, attempted to reply -that it certainly was him, but that impediment of his, partly natural -but greatly developed by affectation, arrested him about the word -“certainly,” and he was still sawing the air with his profile when -Sargon spoke again. - -“I have need of your help,” said Sargon. “The great task is beginning.” - -Mr. Godley went through the preliminary convulsions of explaining that -he had the better part of an hour to spare and that he was willing to -give help in any reasonable matter provided it was first explained to -him clearly just exactly what the matter was. But he could only give -help for a limited time. His engagement with his class at the Birkbeck -was imperative. Sargon paid little heed to the significance of the -various sounds that Mr. Godley was biting off and swallowing. He led -his captive by the arm and explained, with helpful gestures of his free -hand, the full significance of this call. “You are, I perceive, a young -man of scientific qualifications. They will be needed. I do not know -if you recognize me--your memory may still be imperfect--but I recall -your face, chief among the wise men of our ancient court. Yes, indeed, -chief among our wise men.” - -“N-no-no-not as-as-assure that I follow you aw-ow-ow quite,” said the -young man. “My my--my aw-ow-ow-work issferr’ll aw-ow-ow-known as yet.” - -“_I_ know it,” said Sargon boldly. “_I_ know it. I have been seeking -you. Do not be deceived by my plain incognito. Believe me I have -tremendous powers behind me. In a little while all men will understand. -The age of confusion draws near its end; a new age begins. We are the -first two particles, the very first, in a great crystallization----” - -“Where aaare we g-g-g-oing agg-aggs-aggs-exactly?” asked the young man. - -“Trust me,” said Sargon bravely. “Keep with me.” - -The young man struggled with some complex question. But now three -fresh individuals came under the magic attraction of the call and the -young man’s question fell in unheeded chunks. These new adherents were -a little group of men standing at the kerb, about a small, almost -inaudible hurdy-gurdy on which was a placard stating: “We want Work -not Charity; but there is no Work for Us in this So-called Civilized -State.” They were clad in faded khaki, and were all youths of less than -five-and-twenty. - -“Now look at that!” said Sargon. “Is it not time the new age began?” - -He addressed himself to the man on the right of the organ-grinder. - -“All this is to be altered here and now,” he said. “I have work for you -to do.” - -“Oh!” said the ex-soldier in the accent of a fairly well-educated man. -“What sort of work?” - -“We’re straight,” said the organ-grinder. “We’ll take it. If it’s work -we can do. We ain’t fakers. Wot work is it?” - -“Shillin’ an hour?” said the third. - -“More than that. Much more than that. And very great and responsible -work. A harvest! A splendid harvest! You shall be leaders of men. -Follow after me.” - -“Far?” asked the man who had spoken first. - -Sargon made a gesture that effectually concealed his own lack of a -definite plan, and led the way. - -“Lead on, Macbeth,” said the organ-grinder, and swung his hurdy-gurdy -into its carrying position on his back. The two other ex-soldiers -exchanged views that it was all right and that anyhow they’d see what -was offered them. Mr. Godley, keeping abreast of his leader, began an -immense and ultimately futile struggle with a fresh question. - -The next disciple was not so much called as fell into the gathering -body of Sargonites. He was a tall gentleman of a rich brown colour with -frizzy black hair, and a vast disarming smile. He was dressed in an -almost luminous grey frock-suit, a pink tie, buttoned shoes with bright -yellow uppers, and a hat as distinguished as Sargon’s own. He carried -a grey alpaca umbrella. He held out a sheet of paper in a big mahogany -hand and emitted in a rich abundant voice the word “Escuse.” The -paper had printed on it at the head the words, “Lean and Mackay, 329 -Leadenhall Street, E.C.” and below written in ink, “Mr. Kama Mobamba.” - -Sargon regarded his interlocutor for a moment and then recognized him. -“The Elamite King!” he said. - -“Non spik English,” said the black gentleman. “Portugaish.” - -“No,” said Sargon with a gesture that explained his intention. -“Providence. Follow after me.” - -The coloured gentleman fell in trustfully. - -“Look here!” protested one of the ex-soldiers. “There ain’t going to be -coloured labor on this job?” - -“Peace!” said Sargon. “Very soon everything will be shown to you.” - -“I don’t think you have any ub-ub-business to mislead ap-ap-people,” -said Mr. Godley, who was becoming more and more interested in, and -perplexed by, Sargon’s proceedings. - -Sargon quickened his pace. - -“This--this gentleman s-s-s-simply wa-wa-wanted tu-tu-tu-tu-to go to -that address,” said Mr. Godley. - -In his eagerness to get the idea home to Sargon he became a little -disregardful of his microscope box which inflicted a sudden sharp -blow on the knee of a passing gentleman, a business man in a silk -hat. The victim cursed aloud with extraordinary vehemence and stood -hopping on the pavement with his hand to his knee. Then he succumbed -to a passionate impulse to tell Mr. Godley exactly what he thought of -his conduct, his upbringing, and his type of human being. He joined -the followers of Sargon at a brisk limp, occasionally saying “Hi!” -in a breathless voice. A rather intoxicated man in deep mourning had -witnessed the incident. He came hurrying, with a certain margin of -error, to the side of the angry gentleman in the silk hat. - -“’Sgraceful salt,” he said. “’Sgraceful! F’want a witness _I_’m your -man!” - -His general intention was to go forward at the side of the gentleman -in the silk hat, but there were chemically emancipated factors in his -being that drove him sideways. The resultant was a sinuous course that -presently involved him with a display of oranges in a barrow at the -pavement edge. It was not a serious nor a prolonged contact, but it -involved a certain scattering of oranges in the gutter and added a new -ingredient, a very angry costermonger’s assistant with a remonstrance -and a claim for damages, to the gathering body of Sargon’s followers. - -The moral of a proverb depends entirely upon the image chosen, and -though a rolling stone gathers no moss, a rolling snowball grows -by what it rolls upon. A small hurrying group of people in a -London street is a moving body of the snowball type; its physical -pull is considerable; it appeals to curiosity and the increasing -gregariousness of mankind. Sargon, blue-eyed and exalted, with Mr. -Godley intent and eloquent upon his left hand, and Mr. Kama Mobamba, -tall, silent, smiling, with a shining confidence upon his ebony face -that soon he would be led into the presence of Messrs. Lean and -Mackay, formed the spearhead of the procession. Behind came the three -out-of-work ex-soldiers, who were now involved in obscure protests -and explanations with the gentleman in the silk hat, and a smart but -rather incomprehensible young newspaper reporter, who had acquired his -native tongue in Oldham, and had just come up to London to push his -fortunes, and was anxious for something called a “scoop.” He seemed to -think that Sargon might be the “scoop” he sought. Two ambiguous-looking -individuals in caps and neck-wraps had also fallen in, possibly for -nefarious purposes, a vague-faced young woman of the streets in a -weather-worn magenta hat was asking what was “_up_” and the intoxicated -man in mourning was explaining as wittily and obscurely as possible. -There was also a fringe of skirmishing juveniles. And an Eton boy. He -was very, very young and fresh-faced, a scion of one of the oldest and -best families in England and a convinced and fierce Communist. He had -been on his way with a bosom friend to the celebrated model engine shop -in Holborn when Sargon had swept past him and the inscription on the -organ had caught his eye. - -He was a boy of swift initiatives and with a highly developed dramatic -sense. - -“Sorry, old Fellow,” he said to his friend. “But I feel the time has -come. Unless I’m very much mistaken that little bunch is the beginning -of the Social Revolution, and I must do my duty.” - -“Oo I _say_, Rabbit!” said the friend. “Come and buy that steam-launch -first, anyhow.” - -“_What’s_ a model steam-launch?” said Rabbit scornfully, and turned to -follow Sargon. - -He would have liked to have had a swift strong hand-clasp first, but -you can’t do that sort of thing with a chap who will always keep both -hands in his trouser pockets. He darted off, and his friend followed -discreetly in a state between amusement and dismay, and at such a -distance as seemed to him to exonerate him from any personal complicity -with the social revolution. - -“Where are we going?” asked the young Etonian as he came up with the -hindmost of the out-of-work ex-soldiers. - -“_He_ knows,” said the out-of-work ex-soldier, indicating Sargon. - - -§ 3 - -But that was exactly what our dear Sargon did not know. By this time he -was no longer a convinced and complete Sargon. A scared and doubting -and protesting Preemby was struggling back into his being. - -Up to the beginning of the calling of the disciples Sargon had ruled -in his own soul assured and unchallenged. But he had expected his -disciples to respond to his call, to recognize and remember, to be -immediately understanding and helpful. The calling was to have been -like the lighting of a lamp in their minds and the world about them. -He had expected not only his own clear and unquestioning conviction -but accession and reinforcement for it. And so leaping from soul to -soul the restoration of Humanity, the Empire of Sargon would have -spread. For disciples who made conditions, for disciples who followed, -gesticulating strangely and spluttering and bubbling and stammering -injurious criticisms, for disciples who asked for a minimum wage, and -for disciples who came limping after one calling “Hi!” as though one -was a cab, Sargon was totally unprepared. - -Had he called these disciples rashly? Had he been premature again? Had -he made another mistake? - -These were unpleasantly urgent questions for a Master to solve while -he was going briskly to nowhere in particular about four miles an hour -along Holborn with his following gathering at his heels. Perhaps all -leadership is a kind of flight. In every leader of men perhaps the -fugitive has been latent. In Sargon now it was more than latent; it was -awake and stirring, and its name was Preemby. - -Since first mankind in its slow ascent from mere animalism became -susceptible to Prophets and Great Teachers and Leaders there must -always have been something of this internal conflict between the -greatness of the mission and something discreetly less, and there -must also have been always something of this clash of the disciples’ -quality and motive with the teacher’s expectations. The very calling -of disciples seems to admit a sense of weakness on the prophet’s part. -Their calling puts him in pledge. He puts himself in pledge to them. -They will, he knows, hold him to it when he falters; deep gregarious -instincts assure him he will not desert his declaration to them even -when he might desert himself. They desert him--inevitably. In the whole -record of the world there is only one unvarying, faithful disciple, Abu -Bekr. All other disciples failed and crippled their Masters and misled -them. They deserted or they drove the prophet whither he would not go. -Great things and little things of the same kind follow the same laws. -At the head of that small wedge of commotion driving along lamp-lit -Holborn in the October twilight went Sargon the Lord and Protector of -Mankind, the Restorer of Faith and Justice, the Magnificent One, and -though he was already aware of an error made and dangers incurred, he -was still resolved to pull a great occasion by some stupendous gesture -out of the jaws of disaster. And closer than his shadow was Preemby, -scared nearly out of his wits, ready for a desperate headlong bolt down -any side turning, a bolt from explanation, a bolt from effort, a bolt -back to Preembyism and infinite nothingness. - -Suddenly there came to Sargon a reassuring voice, the voice of one who -had at least seemed to believe and accept. - -There had been a slight altercation with Billy before Bobby came -hurrying across the road. “There he goes!” said Bobby. - -“That isn’t him,” said Billy. “Where’s his moustache? He was pretty -nearly all moustache.” - -“Shaved,” said Bobby. “I’d swear to him anywhere. A sort of prance in -his walk. It’s our prophet, Billy, and he’s heading for trouble.” - -“Looks more like a welsher,” said Billy. “Where’d he get that ecstatic -nigger? It’s too rummy for me altogether, Bobby. You keep out of it. -There’s a policeman tacking on now.” - -Bobby hesitated. “Can’t let him go like that,” he said, and dodged -across the road just as four racing omnibuses blotted out the -Sargonites from Billy’s eyes. - -“Forgive me, but where are you going?” said Bobby, stooping to Sargon’s -grateful ear in spite of a considerable push from Mr. Godley. - -“I have declared myself,” said Sargon, and straightway reassurance -came. This was the First of the Disciples, and he had found his way to -his Master. Quite clearly now did Sargon see what he had to do. These -first followers had to be instructed. The Teaching had to begin. To do -that it was necessary to lead them apart out of the hurry and tumult -of the street. A vision came to Sargon of a long brightly lit table, -and an array of disciples asking questions, and of memorable answers -and great sayings. And straight ahead, glowing, bursting with light, -already a friend, there towered up the inviting mass of the Rubicon -Restaurant, pioneer in the great enterprise of supplying dinners de -luxe at popular prices. - -“Yonder,” said Sargon with a sweeping gesture of the hand, “we will -rest and sit at meat, and I will talk, and all things shall be -explained.” - -The bright vision of a discourse to a gathering of disciples at a table -had so restored the gloriousness of Sargon that by the time he reached -the entrance of the Rubicon Restaurant, which bulges invitingly at a -corner, he had called two further disciples. One of these acquisitions -was a matchbox-holding beggar of venerable appearance, and the other -a highly intelligent-looking man of perhaps fifty, lean and thinly -bearded, carrying a book on the Doukhobors and wearing mittens and -a tall black felt hat--a hat of an unusual shape rather like the -steam-dome of a railway engine. This last acquisition was made at the -very door of the Restaurant. - -“Come in here,” said Sargon, seizing his arm, “and take meat with me. I -have things to tell you that will change your whole life.” - -“This is very _suddan_,” said the intelligent-looking man, speaking -in the high neighing protesting accent of an English scholar and -gentleman, as he yielded himself to Sargon’s grip. - - -§ 4 - -The actual invasion of the Rubicon Restaurant was a confused and swift -affair. Sargon’s mind was clear and simple now; he had to make that -vision of a long white table with his disciples grouped about him -a reality or incur a great defeat. His following was animated by a -mixture of unequal and incompatible motives, as all followings are, -and it was now swollen to something near thirty--the exact number -is uncertain because it passed marginally into mere onlookers and -passers-by--by the action of the least worthy of the three out-of-work -ex-soldiers, who had been uttering these magic words, “A Free Feed!” -ever since the Rubicon Restaurant had been in sight. - -The attention of that challenging individual, the outside porter, had -happened to be distracted by the arrival of guests in a motor car when -the Sargonites came along. They therefore swept through the outer -entrance without encountering any obstacle other than the rotating -door, which chopped the little crowd into ones and twos before it -reached the entrance hall. Perhaps twenty got into the entrance hall, -that space of marble and mahogany and hovering cloak-room attendants, -before the mechanical incompetence of the man in deep mourning and -his subsequent extraction by the politely indignant outer porter, the -costermonger’s assistant intervening unhelpfully, jammed the apparatus. -The man with the bruised shin seems to have fallen out before the -restaurant was reached, and the vague-faced young woman in the magenta -had drifted away at some unnoted moment. - -In the spacious, glittering and observant outer hall a tendency to -dispersal manifested itself. The out-of-work ex-soldier with the organ, -seized by a sudden shyness, made for the gentleman’s cloak-room to -deposit his instrument and became involved in an argument with his -colleagues. The two ambiguous young men in caps and neck-wraps seem to -have hesitated about the correctness of their costume. But Sargon held -the newly caught gentleman tight, and the venerable match-seller did -not mean to be separated from his patron in this bright, luxurious, -dangerous place. Mr. Kama Mobamba, tall and smiling and shining, handed -hat and umbrella to an attendant and followed closely upon the Master, -serene in his assurance that these were the lordly portals of the long -sought firm of African traders, Lean and Mackay. And Mr. Godley, with -his natural passion for explicitness, would not leave Sargon until -he had made it perfectly clear to him why he did not feel bound to -accompany him further. He came next after the others into the Large -Restaurant, making noises like a cuckoo clock that has lost control -of itself. The reporter from Oldham was also holding on, though in -considerable doubt now what sort of story he would have to write. The -Eton boy, more than half aware now of his error, and so disposed to be -a little detached also, came into the restaurant after depositing hat -and umbrella without. - -Bobby never came through. He was overtaken and held up in the entrance -hall by Billy. “This isn’t your affair, Bobby,” said Billy. “This -really isn’t your affair.” - -“I can’t make out what he’s up to,” said Bobby. “He’s bound to get into -trouble.” - -“Never mind.” - -“But I do mind.” - -“The management’s scared,” said Billy. “They’re sending for the police. -There’s a crowd gathered outside. Look at the faces looking in. See -that chap peering through the hole in the glass? Nice thing for Tessy -and Susan if we get into some police-court scrape.” - -“But we can’t leave him to get into a mess here.” - -“But how can we help him?” - - -§ 5 - -Within the restaurant Sargon made his supreme and final effort and -encountered swift and overwhelming defeat. But at any rate he did not -run away. He made a frontal attack on the world he had set out to -subdue--as Sargon. As Sargon, invincibly Sargon, he met disaster. - -Things had not begun to be very brisk yet in the Rubicon Restaurant. -But indeed it is never so brisk in the Rubicon of an evening as it is -at lunch time; it is too far from the west; pre-eminently a luncheon -place. And the hour even for such briskness as is customary had not yet -come. The neat lines of the little white tables, each with its lamp -and flowers, were only broken here and there by occupants. A family -group going to a circus; a little knot of people going to a meeting in -the Kingsway Hall; three or four couples of theatre-goers in evening -dress; three or four of those odd couples of a rather inexperienced -looking middle-aged business man and an extremely inexperienced looking -young woman in imperfectly conceived dinner dress who are to be seen -everywhere in London, and a group of three business men from the north -dressed in a canny grey and dining with a resolute completeness from -cocktail to liqueur, was all the company yet assembled in the body of -the restaurant. There were one or two occupants in the lower gallery, -dimly seen; the upper gallery was unlit. The atmosphere was still -timorous and chilly; even the three men from the north exacted their -tale of London luxury in a subdued and even furtive manner. - -The staff was still largely unemployed. The head-waiters, wine-waiters -and table-waiters fidgeted serviettes and glasses, or stood about with -that expression of self-astonishment and melancholy upon their faces -habitual to waiters. A slight hubbub in the entrance hall and the sound -of the smashing of the glass in the rotating door by the last effort of -the man in mourning preceded the entry of Sargon. - -Every one looked up. The guests forgot their food and their company -manners; the waiters forgot their secret sorrows. Sargon appeared, -an inconspicuous figure, a little white, almost luminous face, round -bright eyes. With one hand he still gripped his last disciple. With the -other he waved aside the gobbets of speech which Mr. Godley proffered -him. A tall expectant negro face rose like a shield of ebony and ivory -above him. Behind were the match-seller and other followers, less -clearly apprehended. - -A head-waiter faced him. Behind hovered a manager and a little further -off an assistant manager fiddled with the fruit on the buffet. - -Sargon released his latest catch and stood forward. - -“Set a table here,” he said with a fine gesture. “Set a table here for -a great company. I have called a following and must needs discourse -with them.” - -“Table, sir,” said the head-waiter. “For ’ow many, sir?” - -“A great company.” - -“Well, sir,” said the head-waiter with an appealing glance at the -manager, “we’d like to ’ave an idea ’ow many.” - -The manager came up to take control and the assistant manager deserted -his piles of fruit and came up behind helpfully. Sargon perceived he -was against opposition and gathered all the forces within him. “It is a -great company,” he said. “It must sit at meat with me here and I must -discourse to it. These people yonder may join. Set all the tables one -to another. The day of separate tables and separate lives is at an end. -Let even the tables manifest the Brotherhood of Man. Under Our Rule. -Set them together.” - -At the words “Brotherhood of Man” one of the three business men from -the north was smitten with understanding. “It’s a blood-stained -Bolshevik,” he said, or words to that effect. “Shovin’ in here! Of all -places!” - -“Oughtn’t to be allowed,” said his friend. “Aren’t we to have _no_ -peace from them?” - -The first business man expressed a general antipathy for incarmined -Bolsheviks and went on eating bread in a hurried, fussed, irritated -manner. “When’s that Fricassee of Chicken coming?” he said. “They must -have dropped it or something.” - -But the manager’s intelligence had been even quicker than the business -man’s. A swift signal had been given at the very beginning of Sargon’s -speech. The waiter sent to summon the police had already sped past -Billy and Bobby and the rest of the uncertain crowd in the entrance -hall, draughty now and uneasy because of the broken glass in the -rotating door that the man in mourning had broken. - -But Sargon heeded nothing of this byplay. He held on to the only course -that he could see before him, which was to overwhelm the opposition -that gathered against him. - -“We don’t have banquets in this room, sir,” said the manager, playing -for time. “Banquets you can have in the Syrian Hall or in the Elysian -Chamber or in the Great Masonic or Little Masonic Hall--given due -notice and after proper arrangements, but this is the general public -restaurant. You can’t _suddenly_ give a banquet to an unknown company -or society or something here. We don’t cater for that. It isn’t done.” - -“It will be done to-night,” said Sargon, with a glance and intonation -and gesture that would have bent all dream Sumeria to its knees. - -But the managers of European restaurants are made of sterner stuff, it -seems, than were the old Sumerians. “I’m afraid _not_, sir,” he said, -and stood blandly obstructive. - -“Do you know,” cried Sargon, “who it is with whom you have to deal?” - -“Not one of our regular customers, sir,” said the manager, with the -apologetic air of one who scores a point perforce. - -“Listen,” said Sargon. “This day is an Epoch. This is the End and the -Beginning of an Age. Men will count this banquet I shall hold here the -sunrise moment of a new world. I am Sargon, Sargon the Great, Sargon -the Restorer, come to proclaim myself. This multitude of my followers -must be fed and instructed here, fed bodily and fed spiritually. See to -it that your share is done.” - -He made a gesture behind him when he spoke of his followers, but indeed -there was no following behind him now save that one faithful but -deluded African, and that perplexed but persistent Oldham reporter. The -Eton boy had detached himself completely now. He was sitting at a table -afar off, where he had been joined by his friend, and they conversed -in undertones and watched. Even Mr. Godley with his microscope, and -the gentleman with the book about the Doukhobors, had faded out of -this story by this time, and were going along Holborn exchanging and -interrupting each other’s explanations and surmises about this singular -affair that had so unexpectedly deflected their high and reasonable -progress through life. - -“I can only sus-sas-sas-suppose that-the-fellow-was-mad,” said Mr. -Godley. - -While Sargon’s retinue had melted the manager’s had gathered. Behind -him now stood an array of waiters of every description, three dozen -perhaps of various and yet uniform waiters, tall waiters and short -ones, fat and thin, hairy and bald, young and old, waiters in aprons -and one in shirt sleeves. - -“I’m afraid you’re creating a disturbance here,” said the manager. “I’m -afraid I must ask you to go, sir.” - -Should he go? Never! - -“Oh, generation of blind and deaf!” he cried, lifting his voice in an -attempt to reach the scattered diners beyond this lowering crowd of -waiting men, “do you not recognize me? Have you neither memories nor -vision? Do you not see the light that offers itself to you? Can you not -hear the call that thrills throughout the world? The hour for awakening -has come. It is to-day; it is now. You may cease to be things of habit -and servitude, and you may become masters of a world reborn. Now! This -moment. _Will_ the change with me and the change is upon you! Sargon -calls you, Sargon the Ancient and the Eternal, the Wise Ruler and the -Bold One, calls you to light, to nobility, to freedom----” - -“’Fraid we can’t let you make speeches here,” said the manager with -hand extended. - -“Let’s chuck ’im out _now_,” said a short, thick-set waiter. - -“Chuck him out!” said the anti-Bolshevik business man, standing up and -speaking in a voice replete with indignation and gathering volume as -he went on. “And then bring us our Fricassee of Chicken. We have been -waiting Ten Minutes for THAT FRICASSEE OF CHICKEN!” - -And then a voice could be heard saying: “Wot’s it all _about_?” and -suddenly a policeman stood beside Sargon and overshadowed him. - -A wave of horror went through his soul, a wave of horror that was -entirely Preemby. Throughout his whole virtuous life he had never once -been in antagonism to the Police. “Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!” cried this -horror in his soul. “What have I done now? I’m going to be run in!” -The blue eyes grew rounder and he gasped for air, but no one there -perceived how close he came to ignominious collapse. Preemby shivered -and passed. Sargon choked and then spoke stoutly. “What is this, -Officer?” he said. “Would you lay hands on the Master of the World?” - -“My duty, sir, if he makes a disturbance,” said the policeman. “Master -or no Master.” - -Very rapidly did Sargon adjust himself to this new phase in his -affairs. He was defeated. He was to be led away. Yes, but he was still -Sargon. The Power that ruled him had thrust him into defeat, but that -could only be to try him. He had not expected this of the Power, but -since the Power willed it, so it had to be. - -“You understand, Officer, what it is you are doing?” he said, -magnificently and gently. - -“Quite, sir. I ’ope you don’t intend to give us any trouble.” - -A captive! Not thus had he foreseen the revelation of the Master. He -gave one last look at the rich decorations of the great restaurant in -which the opening banquet was to have taken place. Not here then but -in some squalid police-court it was that the New Empire of Justice and -Brotherhood had to be proclaimed. - -He turned in silence and went out at the policeman’s side quietly, deep -in thought. - - -§ 6 - -So ended Sargon’s first effort to enter into his Empire. Unless we -count the visit to Buckingham Palace as his first attempt. - -But before we go on to tell of the unexpected and dreadful experience -that now came upon him, we must record one or two minor incidents of -his capture. - -One is the behaviour of Mr. Kama Mobamba. He watched the closing -incidents in the restaurant with a growing amazement upon his great -bronze face. Had this little blue-eyed man been, after all, leading him -wrong? When at last Sargon was led away, Mr. Mobamba moved at first as -though still half inclined to follow him. Then he stood still, frowned -reflectingly and fumbled at his ticket-pocket. With some effort he -produced the sheet of paper that seemed to be his one intelligible link -with London; it was now in a rather crumpled condition. Smoothing it -out with his great hands, he advanced upon the manager with it extended. - -“What’s this?” said the manager. - -The black gentleman bowed with infinite suavity, still tending his -paper. “Non spik English,” said the black gentleman. “Portugaish. -Lean-a-Kay. Lemonallstree.” - -He was difficult to direct. - -Meanwhile in the entrance hall Bobby tacitly denied all knowledge of -Sargon. He was still hovering there with Billy, held by a curious -half-maternal solicitude. The ex-soldiers had “mizzled,” to use the -expressive word of the man with the organ, at the appearance of -policemen; the man in mourning and his troubles had been cleared up; -but there were still quite a number of people hanging about in a state -of vague anticipation, and the young reporter was trying to find some -one who understood the rare and obscure language of Oldham in order to -verify his facts. And there were several policemen; one evidently a -superior officer, a very good-looking man in a peaked cap and a frogged -coat. - -“Here he comes!” said Billy, and Sargon was led out. - -There was a silence as he passed through the hall to the rotating door. -And upon Sargon, it seemed to Bobby, there rested a hitherto unnoted -dignity. He looked neither to the right nor the left, and his eyes were -exceedingly mournful. - -“But what will they do with him?” asked Bobby. - -“You don’t happen to know him, sir?” asked the superior officer -abruptly. - -“Not a bit!” said Billy, taking the answer out of Bobby’s mouth. “Never -seen him before. We just came in here to see what was up.” - -And by his silence Bobby acquiesced. - -“I’ve got no power to move you on here,” said the police officer, and -smiled a suggestion of inopportuneness to Billy, and motioned to his -satellites that the business there was at an end. - -“We’d better go home,” said Billy, interpreting the smile. - - -§ 7 - -The three friends sat round a fire in the white room with the purple -curtains, and Bobby poured out his regret that he had denied Sargon. -“They’ve taken him off, Tessy,” he said for the third time, “and I do -not know what they will do with him.” - -“Discharge him with a caution,” said Billy with a drawing-board on his -knee. “He hadn’t committed very much of an offence that I can see.” - -“And then?” said Bobby, and meditated on the fire. - -“I shall go round to the police-court and try to pick him up again -afterwards if they let him go,” he said presently. - -“Better leave it all alone,” said Billy. - -But Tessy sat in her arm-chair between Billy and the fire and looked -at Bobby’s preoccupied profile rather sweetly out of the warm shadow. -And nobody in the world saw her. - -“They’ll warn him and he’ll come back here of his own accord, Bobby,” -said Tessy comfortingly. - -“Of course he’ll come back,” said Billy. - -“Very likely, Tessy,” said Bobby. “But suppose they don’t.” - -He got up and stood by the fire. “I suppose I ought to go upstairs and -do some work.” - -“I suppose you had,” said Billy. - -“How is the novel getting on?” asked Tessy. - -“Not much done yet,” said Bobby. “The Prophet has disorganized the -actual writing. But I’ve learnt a lot of things that will tell some -day. And of course I have to do all my Aunt Suzannah stuff. Aunt -Suzannah gets more and more popular. You can’t imagine the things they -ask me. It’s all material in the long run. Still--it takes time.... -I suppose they’ve locked him in a beastly little cell somewhere. And -he’s wondering why they don’t see that he’s truly the great Sargon, -come again to this world.... Billy, the world’s a dangerous place, a -dangerous, unkind place. Why couldn’t they let him rip a bit? And his -poor little map of the Whole World upstairs--he always called it the -Whole World--and his little paper star-machine, and his poor little -empty room and his poor little empty bed.” - -“I protest,” said Billy, putting his drawing-board aside. “Bobby, -you are a case of morbid overgrowth of the sympathies. You are a new -disease. You are the type case of Bobbyism. It’s bad enough that you -should sympathize openly with that little devil Susan when I have -spanked her, and so undo all my teaching. It’s bad enough that you -should do about a third of Mrs. Richman’s work because she needs -light and air. I can even understand something of your emotional -relationships with various stray cats and pigeons. But when it comes -to your being sorry for a poor little empty lodging-house bed, I draw -the line. Absolutely, Bobby; I draw the line. Poor little empty bed! -It’s--it’s _morbid_, Bobby.” - -“But of course he was thinking of Sargon,” said Tessy. “You’ll go to -the police-court to-morrow, Bobby?” - -“I’ll go--in spite of Billy. I don’t care if it is a disease. I’m -worried about that little man. I’m afraid. He’s too round-eyed for this -cruel world.” - -And next morning Bobby went. He went to Lemon Square Court and sat -through a frowsty morning and waited for Sargon who never appeared. He -heard all the morning “drunks” and suchlike come up for judgment, a -case about stolen soda-water syphons, two matrimonial differences, and -all about the wilful smashing of a plate-glass window with intent to -rob, but nothing about Sargon. The magistrate vanished and the court -began to disperse. He asked questions of a policeman who had never -heard of Sargon and the little trouble at the Rubicon Restaurant. Had -he come to the right court? the policeman asked. Bobby hurried headlong -to Minton Street. Minton Street, too, it seemed, had never heard of -Sargon. It did not occur to Bobby to ask in either police station. He -retired baffled. He tried to find something about Sargon in the evening -newspapers; there was not a line about the Rubicon or him. Perhaps he -had not been charged! He hurried back and rushed upstairs full of a -vain surmise; the room was desolate, the window open, the map of the -world on the floor. Had Sargon been spirited out of existence? - -Next day brought neither Sargon nor news of Sargon. Bobby lay awake of -nights. - -After three full days Billy, who had been watching his friend -furtively, remarked in a casual manner: “Why don’t you go and see the -Head Panjandrum at the Lemon Square Police Station about it? He’d be -sure to know if anyone does.” - -Shown in to Inspector Mullins, Bobby found himself confronted by the -same good-looking officer he had seen in the entrance hall of the -Rubicon Restaurant. “You’re the young man who didn’t happen to know -anything about him, three nights ago,” said Inspector Mullins, not -answering Bobby’s questions. - -Bobby explained the situation candidly. - -“Doesn’t help much now,” said the Inspector. “Still it’s all in order. -We took him, in the exercise of our discretion, to the Workhouse -Infirmary--for observation as to his mental state. Three clear days -they keep them there. Then they’re either certified or let go. Or -charged.” - -“Certified?” asked Bobby. - -“As a lunatic,” said Inspector Mullins. - -“And what happened to him?” - -“Usual thing, I suppose. He was a pretty clear case. By this time he’s -a certified lunatic, I suppose, and either at Cummerdown Hill or on his -way there. Or if that’s full--somewhere else.” - -“Phew!” said Bobby. “Pretty quick.” - -He sat disconcerted. “Can I go and see him at Cummerdown Hill?” he -asked. - -“Probably not,” said Inspector Mullins. “Seeing you’re not a relation.” - -“I’m interested in him.” - -“It isn’t your business.” - -“Exactly. But I like him. And I don’t think he’s exactly mad.... Seems -odd of his people--Do you know anything about his people? I might go -and talk to them about him.” - -“That’s possible,” said the Inspector. “I don’t know who they are. -You might find out at the Workhouse Infirmary or they might tell you -from Cummerdown. I don’t know. Very likely _they_ don’t know who his -relations are. There’s all sorts of such stragglers in the world. -Possibly he hasn’t any relations--the sort of relations, I mean, who -would want to bother about him. My impression is that once a man or -woman is certified and put away it’s rather hard for an outsider to get -through. But, as you say, you can but try. Sorry I can’t tell you any -more. I never saw him myself at all--except as he went past me. Not my -affair.... Yes, our usual procedure in such a case.... Oh! no trouble. -Good morning.” - -Left sitting squarely, an embodiment of implacable and indifferent law -and rule. - - - - -CHAPTER THE THIRD - -_The Journey of Sargon Underneath the World_ - - -§ 1 - -It has been said in an earlier chapter that Mr. Preemby, after his -wife’s death, was like some seed which germinates and thrusts out bold -and unexpected things. A new phase in that belated germination began as -he walked through the London streets beside his captor policeman. If -the thing had happened to Mr. Preemby while he was still Mr. Preemby, -it would have been merely a dreadful, shameful horror. It would have -been an insupportable experience, a thing to regret, a thing to get -through and conceal and if possible obliterate from record and memory. -If, again, it had happened in the early days of Sargon’s dreams it -would have been an occasion for an immense dramatic improvisation. He -would have thought of the effect upon the spectators and passers-by, he -would have posed and gesticulated and said profound, memorable words. -But some power of growth had taken possession of him now and he did -none of these things. He posed now neither to the world without nor to -himself within. For the first time in his life almost he was looking -directly at himself and at what he had done and what had befallen him, -and so full of wonder was he at this ultimate discovery of reality that -he forgot all the vast fabric of make-believe, imaginative response, -and deliberate self-delusion, up which he had clambered to this new -phase of vision. He walked so quietly through the lit streets that -only the most observant noted he was in charge and that the policeman -was on duty; to the rest he might have been any casual companion of a -home-going policeman. - -One determination had been released in this renascent mind with an -extraordinary strength and clearness, that he was not, and never -would again be, that Albert Edward Preemby who had launched him into -existence. He was a being called, it mattered not what, in reality, -but for his present purposes, Sargon, Sargon the Magnificent King. -The first concrete visions of Sumeria and his ancient glories had -passed now into the background of his mind. He had not lost his belief -in them at all, but they were now ancient history to him, and even -the revelation at the boarding house seemed very far away. His ideas -had travelled long distances and gathered much in the past week. The -expectation of an immediate sensational splendour had been rudely -shattered. The Power that had called him had surprised him exceedingly, -but had not overwhelmed him. He knew quite clearly that he had to be -Sargon who lived not for himself but for the Whole World, and that to -relinquish or deny that was to perish utterly. It had not seemed to be -necessary to him that his own faith should be tried, but manifestly the -Power had determined that it should be tried. And manifestly he was to -be put through some austere process of preparation before he entered -into his Empire. He was to know what prison was and to stand a trial. -He would be asked to deny himself. - -What should he say to them? I am not He--I am not Him--which was it? I -am not Him you suppose I am. He muttered it to himself. - -“Whassay?” said the policeman. - -“Nothing. Is it much further?” asked Sargon. - -It was just round the corner. Sargon found himself in a little austere -room with half a dozen quite amiable but slightly disrespectful men in -uniform. He was asked his name and address by one who sat at a table. -“Sargon,” he said. “Sargon the First.” - -“No Christian name?” - -“Pre-Christian,” said Sargon. - -“No given name, I mean,” said the questioner. - -“No.” - -“And the address?” - -“None at present.” - -“Just anywhere?” - -Sargon did not answer. - -“Case for Gifford Street,” said a voice behind him. - -“Memory case or something,” said the man at the table. “Anyhow, it’s -Gifford Street.” - -Sargon reflected. “What’s Gifford Street?” he asked. - -“’Ospital. Where they’ll give you a bit of a rest and quiet.” - -“But I want to meet a magistrate in open court. I have a message. I am -in no need of rest or quiet.” - -“They’ll tell you all about that at Gifford Street. Buxton, will you -take ’im round?” - -“But I am perfectly well! Why should I go to hospital?” - -“Routine I suppose,” said the seated policeman and gave his mind to -other things. - - -§ 2 - -Queer! Why should it be a hospital? The way the Power was treating him -was a strange way. He had to submit to the Power; he had to maintain -himself Sargon. Still he could have wished for more explicitness. - -He was so turned inward now that he went along beside Constable Buxton, -not noting the streets nor the traffic nor the passers-by. Presently -they were at a door in a high wall, within which there were buildings. -Then they were in a little office and a large, grey-faced porter -looked at him and exchanged muttered explanations with the constable. -Then they were going across a wide yard and through large doors into -a corridor where there was an unoccupied stretcher and two or three -nurses in uniform. They came to a little glazed-in office and Sargon -was asked to sit down on a bench against a wall while there was -telephoning. Constable Buxton hovered down the corridor as though the -task was nearly done. - -A small bright-eyed man in a grey suit came and looked at Sargon. For -some moments they regarded each other in silence. “Well?” said the man -in the grey suit. - -“My name is Sargon. I do not know why I have been brought here. Is this -a hospital? I understand it is. I am not ill.” - -“You may be ill without knowing it.” - -“No.” - -“We just want to have you here for a bit to have a look at you.” - -Sargon shrugged his shoulders. - -A very big man with exaggerated shoulders and a large, clean-shaven, -intensely self-satisfied looking face appeared. He had a wide, -thin-lipped mouth, protruding grey eyes and highly oiled and entirely -subjugated sandy hair with an army “quif” on the forehead. - -“Busy evening,” he said. “This is number three.” - -“Pretty full then,” said the small man in grey. - -“Too full,” said Mr. Jordan, “You don’t know where you are. This -_’im_?” he asked and indicated Sargon by creasing his thick neck and -depressing the corner of his mouth towards him. - -“This,” said the little man in grey to Sargon, “is Mr. Jordan. He’s -going to show you just where you have to go and just what you have to -do.” - -Immediately, instinctively, Sargon disliked Mr. Jordan. But he stood -up obediently because his idea of submission to the Power seemed in -some way to overlap and include this new coercion. Mr. Jordan produced -a voice of flat, oily, insincere amiability. “You come along, Old Chap, -with me,” he said. “We’ll make you comfortable all right ’fyou don’t -give no trouble.” - -They went round a corner and up a cheerless stone staircase that -turned back on itself; they came to a landing and double doors with -glass panes in them that opened upon a very long, dark passage lit by -a single very remote light. And suddenly it appeared to Sargon that -behind him and already distant lay that outer world of freedom, the -streets and the lights, the coming and going of people and things, the -endless chance encounters, the events and the spectacle of life to -which the Power had sent him, and before him were dark and narrow and -dreadful experiences. Why should he turn his back thus voluntarily on -the great outer world he had come to save? Was this again only another -mistake he was making? He took a step or so away from Jordan and faced -him. - -“No,” he said. “I do not want to go further into this place. I do not -wish it. Let me return. I have disciples to call and many things to do.” - -The full moon of Jordan’s face displayed incredulous astonishment that -passed into fierceness. “_Wot?_” he said. - -He left a tremendous pause after “Wot” and then spoke very rapidly. -“None of your tricks _’ere_, you thundering old Bastard.” With a swift -movement his huge, raw, red hand gripped Sargon by the upper arm. His -thin lips were retracted to show his teeth; his eyes seemed popping -out. He gripped not to hold but to pinch and compress and injure, and -he dug his fingers in between muscle and bone, so that Sargon stared at -him with dilated eyes and uttered a sharp, involuntary cry of pain. - -The grip relaxed from the acutely painful to the merely uncomfortable, -and the big face came down close to Sargon’s. It was manifest that Mr. -Jordan had been regaling himself on cheese and cocoa. “Don’t you try it -on, you Old Fool! Don’t you blooming well try it on. Whatever it is, -don’t you try it on ’ere. You’re right enough to understand what I say. -See? You do exactly wot you’re told ’ere. You do exactly wot you’re -told. You do your best to avoid givin’ trouble and I’ll do my best -ditto. But if you start doin’ tricks--Gawd ’elp you! See?” - -And he crushed the arm again. - -“Understan’?” - -The blue eyes seemed to assent. - -“Down that passage, blast you!” said Mr. Jordan. - -A distressed and wondering and yet not absolutely abject Sargon was -taken to a wet and untidy bathroom in which a broken chair, pools -of water, great splashings on the wall, and some crumpled towels in -the corner suggested a recent struggle. There he was made to undress -and take a tepid bath, dried with a towel that had already been in -action, put into a grey nightgown that was doubtfully clean, a grey -shoddy dressing-gown that certainly wasn’t, and a pair of down-at-heel -slippers two sizes too big, and so garbed, was led by Mr. Jordan, a -little propitiated now by alert obedience, into the ward in which he -was to pass the night. - -A rufous man with very light eyelashes appeared. - -“’Ere ’e is, Mr. ’Iggs,” said Mr. Jordan. - -“I’ve got his bed ready,” said Mr. Higgs. “’Ow many more of ’em?” - -“Perfec’ shower of ’em,” said Mr. Jordan. - -“Three,” said Mr. Higgs. - -“Well,” said Mr. Jordan. “So long.” - -“So long,” said Mr. Higgs. - -Neither of them addressed the Lord of the Whole World directly. He -might have been a parcel passed from hand to hand. - - -§ 3 - -When Sargon entered the Observation Ward of the Gifford Street -Infirmary his sense of having left life, ordinary current life, -far away behind him, beyond these grey passages and corridors and -staircases and glass offices and high walls and little doors, was -enormously reinforced. Never had he seen anything so emptily bleak and -cheerless as this place. A heartless great dingy room it was, with -green-grey distempered walls discoloured in patches, lit by a few bare -lights that gave neither high-lights nor shadows. Black night and a -greasily lit brick wall stared in through uncurtained windows. Half-way -down the length of the place projecting pieces of wall suggested that -two former rooms had been thrown into one. The floor was of polished -bare boards. Far off was a table set against the wall with two or -three torn and crumpled magazines thereon, and at the end an empty -fire-place. In the near half, on either side, there were iron bedsteads -in rows, twenty or thirty perhaps altogether. There was a foul smell -in the air, faint and yet indescribably offensive, a fæcal smell mixed -with a heavy soapy odour. - -Even had it been unoccupied, this cold, large, evil-smelling room would -have seemed a strange inhospitable place to Sargon. For it had always -been the lot of Mr. Preemby, even in the days of his early poverty, to -live snug, to have carpets, even if they were shabby carpets, under -his feet, and an encumbrance of furniture and silly human pictures -and brackets and things about him on the walls. Here in this harsh -plainness it was as though the fussy, accumulative, home-making -imagination of man had never been. - -But the strange soulless atmosphere of the place was but the first -instant impression of Sargon. It was followed by a far more vivid and -terrible realization, that this place was inhabited by beings who -were only at the first glance men. Then as one looked again it became -clear that they were not exactly men, they did not look up at his -entry as men should, or they showed their awareness of him by queer -unnatural movements. Several were in bed; others were dressed in shabby -and untidy clothes and either sat on their beds or were seated in -chairs about the lower part of the room. One individual only was in -motion; a grave-faced young man who was walking with an appearance of -concentrated method to and fro in a restricted circle in the far corner -of the ward. Another sat and seemed to remove a perpetually recurrent -cobweb from his face by a perpetually repeated gesture. Two men were -jammed behind the table against the wall and one, a fleshy lout with a -shining pink skin and curling red hair on his bare chest, was making -violent gestures, hammering the table with a freckled fist, talking -in a voice that rose and sank and occasionally broke into curses -while the other, a sallow-complexioned, cadaverous individual, seemed -to be sunken in profound despair. In one of the beds close at hand -a young man with a shock of black hair and an expression of fatuous -satisfaction, that changed with dramatic suddenness to triumphant -fierceness or insinuating lucidity, sat up and gesticulated and -composed and recited an interminable poem--something in the manner of -Browning. It was running in this fashion: - - “God shall smite them - And blight them - They may prevail but God will requite them - Light ’em. - Burn ’em to ashes and burn ’em to atoms - Atoms! - Burning atoms--exactly like stars. See? - Stars in the void and all over the place. - Atoms galore and God can’t show his face. - (Triumphant discovery.) - He _hasn’t_ a face. - That’s it! That’s it, my Boys! - Atheists wrong and theology wrong, - Plainly and simply here’s every one wrong! - And I have to tell ’em! - There’s a God, _item_ one, but he hasn’t a face - So he can’t show his face. - That’s the kink of it. - Naturally every one thinks he’s _non est_ - But he’s there as I know to my cost; - For I’m lost - But I’ve shown how it is all the same. - No face--what a game! - I found God in the void - Unmasked and a little annoyed. - _Quod erat demonstrandum_ X.L....” - -“There’s your bed,” said Mr. Higgs at Sargon’s elbow, shoving him -slightly. - -Sargon moved a little unwillingly, his puzzled eyes still on the talker. - -“You’ll hear enough of him before you’re done, Old Chap,” said Mr. -Higgs. “Hop into bed now.” - -Impelled partly by the arm of Mr. Higgs and partly by his natural -disposition to please, Sargon got into bed. Mr. Higgs assisted him in -a rough brotherly fashion. But before Sargon could pull up the clothes -about him, Mr. Higgs, glancing over his shoulder, became aware of -something that was happening down the room--Sargon could not see what. - -In an instant the genial authoritativeness of Mr. Higgs gave way to -rage. “Yaaps, you dirty old devil!” said Mr. Higgs. “You’re at it -again!” - -He quitted Sargon and ran down the room very swiftly. Sargon sat up in -bed to see what was happening. Three or four of the other patients did -the same. A very dirty old man with a face of extreme misery, who was -sitting in a chair, was seized upon and bumped up and down and hit -several times with great vigour by Mr. Higgs. Then Mr. Higgs departed -and returned, still uttering admonitions, with a pail and a rag. - -For Mr. Higgs was not only an attendant on the mentally afflicted but -also, on account of economy, the floor-scrubber and general cleaner -of the ward. He had been trained in the navy to ideals of a speckless -brightness and he scrubbed better than he attended. - -“Lie down there!” cried Mr. Higgs returning up the ward with his pail. -“It ain’t nothing to do with you.” - -The Lord of the World lay down. - - -§ 4 - -It was an extremely uninteresting ceiling to look at except for a -streak of yellowish stains, but it was better to look at the ceiling -for a time than to look too much at these distressing people around -him. They were distressing and distracting, and Sargon knew that it -was urgently necessary not to be distracted, but to think over his -position very carefully before anything further happened to him. All -this rush of consequences had been so unexpected, preposterous and -violent since--a few hours ago--he had surveyed London from the dome of -Saint Paul’s and decided that the moment had come to take hold of his -Lordship of the World, that he perceived he might very conceivably be -overwhelmed. How serene and distant now was that spectacle of London -spread out under the amber sunshine between its far blue hills and -its shining river, with its dense clusters of shipping and the black -ant-currents of folk below. From that he had come swiftly, inevitably, -to this echoing prison. For prison he saw it was. He knew quite well -that these men around him were demented men and that he had been seized -upon as a lunatic, but he thought that the Workhouse Observation -Ward in which he was, was a lunatic asylum already. In his wildest -imaginations he had never imagined the Power over all things could -treat him thus. The possibility of a brief interlude in prison, of a -severe but very public and triumphant trial, had entered his mind; but -not that he might be hustled away out of the possibility of any such -appeal. He had to think his position out anew, to discover what all -this monstrous experience was intended to show and to teach him, and -what he had to do to meet this strange occasion. - -And it was very difficult to do this with a raucous voice down the room -uttering foul threats about the ward attendant and a great fist beating -the table in sudden storms and with that smooth, fluctuating, unending -recitation nearer at hand, that cosmic poem, now almost inaudible--so -that one strained to catch the words--and now in high-pitched delight. -For long stretches it was just incoherent jumble and Sargon would -hold it almost completely out of his attention while he pursued his -own perplexities, and then it would rush together into something that -challenged its way to mingle with his inmost thoughts. - - “Filthy old Nature, she drives us amain; - One goad is lust and the other goad pain. - And so we get back to old nowhere again. - Nowhere to start from and nowhere again. - Want and be hurt, want and be hurt, - Out of the dirt you came, back to the dirt. - Hunger for dirt and dirty regretting - Dirty our feeding and dirty begetting - Smear yourself, paint yourself, wear a fine shirt - Put a brave face on it, Yah!--you are dirt.” - -“Now is that true?” asked Sargon of himself. Is that true? Dirt? What -is dirt? But no! he must not wander off after this mad raving! What -was it he had been thinking about? He had been asking why had the Power -thrust him into this dreadful place? Why had the Power brought him to -this place? If only the man would stop that improvisation of his for a -little while it might be possible to think that out. Why had he been -given over to the commands of Jordan and Higgs to live among the madmen -and--sudden fantastic side question!--why had _they_? - -If only that poem would cease! If only that voice would fade to -silence! It was now mere rubble and rubbish, as though thought had been -broken up with a pickaxe and loaded in carts and shot down a slope. -Don’t listen to it, Sargon! Don’t listen to it! Concentrate! - -In his endeavour to concentrate, Sargon forgot even Higgs. He sat up in -bed and drew his knees nearly to his chin and thought. - -He was Sargon; that was the great issue. He had to remain Sargon. -He was probably in this place of trouble and torment because of the -conflict between his being Sargon and the possibility of his relapsing -into Preemby. The Power had called him to be Sargon and to serve and -suffer for and at last to rule the Whole World, but manifestly it was -not a simple direct call. There was something working in opposition -to this destiny, an Anti-Power, opposed to the Power, which was -trying to put him back to Preemby and Preembyism, to being little and -insignificant, to living obscurely and to no purpose and so at last to -dying and becoming utterly and finally dead. That Anti-Power it was -that had been permitted to bring him here, to frighten and torment -him, to din mad rhymes into his ears, to urge upon him in a monotonous -persistent voice that he was dirt and that God was without a face, -and a multitude of suchlike blasphemies. But they were not true. The -Anti-Power might talk and talk--would God there could be a respite from -his talking!--but the truth was outside this place and greater than -this place and altogether comprehended it. He was one, Sargon was one, -from the beginning in Sumeria, in many lands and now here, the same -spirit, the ruler who serves; he was one just as London was one when it -was seen from on high up above there, endlessly multitudinous yet drawn -together into a single personality. And so was the whole world one. -To be Preemby was to be like a wretched little back street house down -below there, swallowed up in the general effect. Never more could he -be Preemby, even if he would. That was what he had to keep hold of. He -could only be Sargon by denying Preemby--even though he had to face the -pains of death. - -Yet all the while the Anti-Power was insulting life and himself through -that disordered poet and his recitation. The man had now fallen under -the spell of a fascinating but detestable word, if one may call such a -thing a word, “Tra-la-la.” - - “Tra-la-la. Tra-la-la. - That is the note of it. - Get the full gloat of it. - Tra-la-la. Tra-la-la. - All times and places - Happy derision for Gods without faces. - Tra-la-la sunshine or Tra-la-la rain. - Eat, drink, and kiss ’em and at it again. - Tra-la-la. Tra-la-la. - Kiss ’em and Kiss ’em and at it again. - At it again! - Tra-la-la.” - -He varied his recitation with a loud explosive noise made by his lips -on the back of his hand. - -“Pray don’t think me cynical,” he said to Sargon. “It is just pure Joy -de Vive.” - -Sargon could not stand it any longer. This was damnable teaching to -fling out before the very regenerator of mankind. He suddenly thrust -out a pointing finger. “You are wrong!” he said loudly and sharply. - -The poet stared for a minute and with a gesture of salutation said: -“Tra-la-la-la.” - -“I tell you life is real,” cried Sargon. “Life is immense. Life is full -of meaning and order. I have come to tell you and all men so.” - -The poet interrupted smilingly and politely with: - - “Tra-la-la - Tra-la-la - Life is a hiccup and life is a sneeze - A smell from a dunghill borne on the breeze - A thing of no moment--so do as you please! - Tra-la-la. Tra-la-la.” - -He was going on, but Sargon would not hear him. He lifted his voice to -drown his antagonist. “I tell you, you poor soul! you are utterly wrong -and blind,” he said. “For the light has come to me and understanding is -mine. You are not the lost thing you deem you are, or at least you need -not be. No! I, too, was a lost thing such as you are, a little while -ago. I, too, thought I was a grain, a fragment, a thing of no account. -But the call has come to me, and I have been called to call others to -take part with me in a new awakening. I have had a vision and I have -seen the world like one who awakens from a long sleep. All things are -joined together and work together and continue for ever.” - -The poet wrinkled up his nose and waved his hand at Sargon as who -should wave aside some object of offence. “Tra-la-la,” he shouted. - -“All things I tell you are joined together and work together----” - -“Tra-la-la,” louder. - -“I tell you,” much louder. - -“Shuddup there,” cried the loud and wrathful voice of Sanity embodied -in Mr. Higgs. - -“You’ll have the whole ward jabbering in a minute,” said Mr. Higgs, -approaching and addressing Sargon in tones of earnest expostulation. -“Shud Dup.” - -And after a brief pause of reflection the Lord of the Whole World -obeyed. - -With a gesture of extreme dignity he indicated to Higgs that his crude -demands were conceded. - -“That’s o right,” said Higgs. “_You_ can hold in if you want to. So you -better. _He_ can’t.” - -The poet went on in a soft insinuating undertone reviling and mocking -Sargon’s faith to a refrain of: “Tra-la-la. Tra-la-la.” - - -§ 5 - -Sargon sat up in bed, motionless now except that his head turned slowly -to look at the people about him, and silent. His recent outbreak had -in some way assuaged the exasperation of that endless recitation. It -continued, now crazily persuasive, now strident and vehement, now a -mere babble of words, it flowed past him and over him; it was now -manifestly directed at him, but he was able to disregard it. He sat up -and looked at the people about him and contemplated the vast dreadful -hours that plainly lay before him. - -He did not look beyond the coming night. That alone he foresaw as an -eternity. - -He knew that this harsh, naked electric light which prized up his -eyelids however tightly he closed them, would be glaring all night; he -knew that because he had noted a glance that Higgs had directed at the -violent man with red hair. Instantly he knew that Higgs was afraid of -that red-haired man with the shining pink skin and would never dare -to have the ward in darkness, never dare to have even shade in it, -whatever the custom or the regulations might be. And also he understood -why ever and again Higgs went out of the room at the upper end; he went -out to assure himself of the presence of Jordan or some such other -helper, within call. Yes, this light would certainly keep on all night -and the poet seemed as likely to keep on, and there would be occasional -outbreaks of table hammering and shouting from the red-haired man and -from another man who uttered a sudden flat shout ever and again. And -there would be misadventures of various sorts; noises and comings and -goings. So he might just as well sit up and think as lie down and make -hopeless attempts to slumber. One could always think. Of course if one -was too tired one would cease thinking onward, one would just think -round and round, but it would be impossible not to go on waking and -thinking. There was no sleeping in this place. Eyes, ears, nose were -all too much offended. Did anyone ever sleep here, mad or sane? - -There was nothing for him to do, therefore, but to sit up and think, -sit up and think, doze perhaps and think into a dream, until some -unexpected jolt or jar brought him back to his thinking. - -The longest night must end at last. - -Then suddenly Sargon, between sleeping and waking, saw something -horrible. At least it struck upon his nerves as horrible. Two beds away -from him there lay an extremely emaciated young man and his head was -lifted up. It was not supported by pillows; it was six inches above the -pillow. It was held up in an attitude that it was painful to realize. -The young man’s face expressed a serenely proud satisfaction at this -fantastic rigidity. It was incredible. Was there such a thing as an -invisible pillow? Or was this a delusion of Sargon’s eyes, a waking -dream? - -In the bed beyond another man was lying down with his wakeful face -towards Sargon. His eyes met Sargon’s. Neither man said a word nor -made a gesture, but to each came infinite comfort. For the eyes each -encountered were as sane as his own and each gave support to the other. -It is so, they said. It is strange, but your eyes are not deceiving -you. That is the form of that young man’s affliction. - -Sargon nodded. The other sane man nodded in reply and then turned over -in his bed as a reassured child might do, to sleep. But could he sleep? - -Sargon’s gaze went round the ward with a new discovery. Yes, several of -these others might be sane--sane as he was--and caught like himself. -There was another man across the corridor with a little beard, a very, -very mournful man, but he also had sane eyes. - -To-morrow Sargon must go and talk to these others and tell them about -himself and discuss this dreadful situation, but not now because Higgs -would certainly interfere. Many things had already conspired to annoy -Higgs. It was plain he could be easily irritated and it would be well -not to annoy him further. For the present one must just sit and think. - -What were the mad and what did madness mean? - -Why had he been lifted up by the Supreme Power, out of the common acts -and imaginations of his daily life, to a knowledge of his immortal -being, why had he been shown his endless destinies and a vision of the -whole world as his sphere, merely to be cast out of life and light and -freedom forthwith into this grey underworld of the demented? It could -not be that this was for nothing. It must signify. - -And then the wind of a second question blew across his mind. The -Power that had called him and called him it would seem only to bring -him into this place, had also brought all these others to this same -dreadfulness. _Why?_ For him it might be a trial but what was it for -these others, whose souls had indeed dissolved and gone? What was the -Power doing with them? - -The whole scheme of things in Sargon’s mind began to shudder and -dissolve. If the Power had not done this, then it must be the -Anti-Power had done it. There must be an Anti-Power as strong almost -as the Power then, able to snatch men out of life into confusion, -indignity, and death for ever. Or else--_there was Nothing_! - -He sat quite still with his chin on his knuckles and eyes staring -blankly at the last black possibility. - -Was the whole of this call and this mission of his a deception and a -delusion? Had he been cheated at Tunbridge Wells when the call first -came to him to arise and awake? Were those memories of Sumeria no more -than dreams? Was he indeed just Albert Edward Preemby--gone crazy? In -a crazy, pointless universe of commonplace inanities? If so he was -indeed the most foolish of living men. He had left his comfort and -securities, sound though insignificant; he had run away from his dear -Christina Alberta--to obey a Power that was nothing more than his own -imagination and to follow a phantom end. For days he had been shutting -Christina Alberta out of his thoughts; she was a sceptic, an ally of -the Anti-Power. Now she came back, over-valiant and rash, but just a -girl. He had left her to shift for herself, left her beyond reach of -his reproofs and cautions. What was she doing? What evil and danger -might not be overtaking her even now? It had not occurred to him before -that his disappearance might distress and endanger her. Now he saw -plainly that it must have done so. - -The enemy came and argued frankly with him. “You have been a fool, -Albert Edward Preemby,” said the enemy. “You have got yourself into a -position of great danger and discomfort, you have deserted your own -proper life for a horror of nothingness. Go back. Go back while there -is still a chance of going back.” - -But could he go back? - -Yes. That could be done. So easily! He could say plainly that now -he remembered his proper name. He could ask to see the doctor or the -director or whoever it was presided over Jordan and Higgs and their -colleagues; he could give his name and the address of the studio and -his bankers’ address and the address of the laundry and so forth, -speaking very plainly and quietly, he could admit that he had behaved -strangely but that the fit was over, and so he would pass out of -these grim shadows back into the world. It would rejoice the heart of -Christina Alberta.... - -He thought of that alert, kind, slightly antagonistic figure. If only -he could see it now! Coming down the long ward to him, to rescue, to -release.... - -Then he would be just Preemby again for the rest of his days, -comfortably Preemby, Preemby the bystander, Preemby the onlooker, the -ineffective, speechless man in the background of the noisy studio. But -certain things would be at an end. He would never go to any museums -again or browse in the dark shadows of book-shops over dusty forgotten -books about vanished cities and enigmatical symbols. He would think no -more of the wonder and mystery of Atlantis and of the measurements of -the Pyramids and of all the high riddles of the past and the future. -There would be no more wonder in his life at all, for he had sought to -enter into wonder and had found it delusion. Those things would be old -tales and fancies of things that would never arrive. Past and future -would be dead for him. The days would be dull and empty as they had -never been before. The bladder of his life would be pricked.... - -And the other way lay pain, indignity, rough treatment, vile food, -filthy circumstances, trials that might break him--but with the Power -still beckoning. - -He thought of the things that belonged to Sargon; of the Power, of -cities that were like great single persons, of the Whole World, of the -mystical promise of the stars, of all these things he must renounce -now and be Preemby, Preemby plain and sensible, to the end of his -days, if he would go out of this place. He sat at it seemed to him for -an immense time, still and brooding, though his answer was already -definite in his mind. And at last he spoke. “No,” he said in a hoarse -voice that was almost a shout. “I am Sargon, Sargon the servant of -God--and the Whole World is mine!” - - -§ 6 - -Long after midnight Sargon was still sitting up in that bleak greasy -glare amidst the noises and disorder about him. He had lost all count -of time; his watch had been taken from him. Somewhen in the small hours -he was praying. And at times he wept a little. - -He prayed. Sometimes he made sentences and whispered them to himself -and sometimes the sentences never got to words but passed through his -mind like serpents that are seen through deep, dark water. “Great is -the task thou hast put upon me. I see now I am not worthy, O Master, -to do the least thing that is required of me. I am not worthy. I am a -petty man and a foolish man and all I have done so far is folly. But -thou hast called me, knowing my folly. Forgive thou my folly and help -thou my faith.” Silent and still he sat with tears upon his cheeks. -“Any punishment and any trial,” he whispered at last, “only that thou -shouldst not desert me and vanish out of my world.” - -He prayed that the Power would yet make him the servant of the world -and added falteringly and feebly, “even as it was in the ancient days.” - -For had there even been those ancient days? Sumeria was now very far -away from him, and the white towns and the blue river and the river -galleys had faded and the worshipping crowds were just a faint smear -upon his mind no stranger than the fading memory of a dream. He said -nothing for a time, and then in a very loud whisper he said: “Help thou -my unbelief.” - -Sometimes he prayed in a whisper and sometimes he prayed silently -and sometimes he sat quite still. Higgs came and looked at him once -or twice but did not interfere with him. The poem in the adjacent -bed still went on, but it had now become a mere rhyming stream of -blasphemous obscenities. - -For a time after he had made an end to his praying, Sargon must have -slept; he must have slept because he was awakened by the dawn. It did -not come gradually; he awoke to it. - -A cold, shadowless light filled the ward and the electric lamps that -had seemed so bright were just luminous orange-yellow threads. And -Higgs was standing in the doorway peering intently at the red-haired -man, who was lying with his head on the table as though he were -asleep--but perhaps only pretending to be asleep. - - -§ 7 - -It was on the afternoon of the following day that two strangers came to -see Sargon. He was taken to them and they talked a little with him, and -then chiefly with each other. Higgs was off duty but Jordan hovered in -the background. - -Neither of these gentlemen explained their business with Sargon to him. -One of them was a short man in a black coat; he wore a gold watch-chain -and a rich-looking tie with a jewelled pin; he had a gold pince-nez, a -little pointed nose, a fat, clean-shaven white face, and a mouth like -an oblique spade-thrust in a lump of dough. He spoke with something -between a sniff and a lisp, and he was evidently rather in a hurry and -annoyed at having been called in to see Sargon. The other was large and -grey and worn-looking; he impressed Sargon in some indefinable way as -being a medical man who had private troubles. He seemed to consider -himself in charge of the conversation, and would occasionally refer -upon some point of fact to the hovering Jordan. - -“Understand,” said the pasty-faced man, “you wanted to give some sort -of dinner party to all sorts of people. Eh?--at the Rubicon. I suppose -it came on you sort of sudden like. Eh?” - -“I wished to confer with certain people,” said Sargon. “It may have -been a mistake on my part.” - -“No doubt it was a mistake, Mr.--Mr.----” - -“Won’t ’ave a Mister to it,” said Jordan from the background. “Calls -’isself Sargon.” - -The doctor became very acute in his manner. “Now isn’t that some sort -of historical name?” he asked with a sideways searching look. - -“It is,” said Sargon. - -“But it isn’t _your_ name, you know.” - -“Possibly not. I mean--It is my only name.” - -“That’s a bit of an answer, that is,” said the pasty-faced man. “My -_word_!” - -“What is your _real_ name?” asked the doctor persuasively. - -“Sargon.” - -“Not Mr. A. E. Preemby?” - -Sargon started and stared, possibly with a certain wildness in his -eyes. “With God’s help, _No_!” he said. - -“Was it ever Mr. Preemby?” asked the doctor. - -“That does not matter now. That is of no importance now.” - -“It may be of _some_ importance,” said the pasty-faced man. - -“And now you’re a King or a Lord or something and you own the world?” -said the doctor. - -Sargon made no answer. He felt he was in a net. - -The doctor turned to Jordan and beckoned him in a whisper. Only one -sentence came to Sargon’s ears. “’Iggs ’eard it,” said Mr. Jordan. - -“Aren’t you called Sargon the Magnificent?” asked the doctor. - -Sargon bent his head in sorrow. “Better were it to call me Sargon the -Unworthy. For in many things I have failed.” - -The pasty-faced man looked at the doctor. “Haven’t we had about enough -of this?” - -“My conclusions are clear,” said the doctor. “In fact, I have the -certificate ready.” - -“If you’re satisfied, Dr. Manningtree, I am. If I’m to see those other -fellers.” - -“I’ve got all the papers in my room,” said the doctor. - -“Right-o,” said the pasty-faced man. - -“It’s very good of you to come to-day. I wouldn’t have bothered you -until to-morrow but we are really getting overcrowded here. One chap’s -decidedly dangerous. The attendants here don’t like the look of him. -You need only just see him for a moment. Or any of them. All clear -cases for summary reception orders.” - -They spoke now as if Sargon were not present or as if he were an -inanimate object. And indeed for them he had become so; he had passed -for them already out of the comity of mankind. - -“Why have you been talking to me?” asked Sargon suddenly with a vague -fear of what had been said and done developing in his mind. - -The doctor’s manner altered. He spoke to Sargon as one might speak to a -small child. “You’ll be going back to bed now,” he said. “Jordan!” - -“But I want to know.” - -“Go with Mr. Jordan.” - -“What are these papers you speak about?” - -The doctor turned his back on Sargon without an answer and the man with -the pasty face opened the door to depart. Sargon made a step towards -them, but Jordan laid hold of his arm. - -And while Sargon was being steered back to bed, firmly rather than -gently, in the grip of Jordan, the justice and the doctor filled in and -signed the forms that were necessary to deprive him of nearly every -right he possessed as a human being. For there is no trial by jury -and no writ of habeas-corpus in Britain for the unfortunate charged -with insanity. He may not plead in public and there is no one to whom -he may appeal. He may write complaints but they will be neglected; -his most urgent expostulations will be disregarded in favour of any -dull attendant’s asseverations. He is handed over to the nearly -autocratic control of under-educated, ill-paid, ill-fed, and overworked -attendants. Every night and every day seems endless to him at first, -and then the nights and days fall into a sort of routine and become -unimportant and pass away more and more rapidly. He is almost always -kept in a state of bodily discomfort, always rather ill from the -ill-prepared and sometimes tainted food, and much incommoded by clumsy -drugging and particularly by the administration of violent purgatives. -In croton oil alone are our asylums truly generous. He has excellent -reason for fearing many of his fellow inmates and for a servile -obedience to the attendants in charge of him. A medical superintendent -hovers in the background; a medical staff with no special training in -mental science. They pass through the wards at the appointed times, -avoiding trouble, seeing as little as possible. - -And, after all, what can they do? They cannot raise the expenditure -upon food or increase the number or salaries of the attendants. -They are appointed to save and not to spend the ratepayers’ money. -The attendants work together and protect each other; they must hang -together; many of them go in fear of the violent cases. Occasionally, -after due notice, a visiting magistrate will pay a formal visit to the -asylum. Everything is put in order for the occasion. The inmate with a -grievance dares not accost him or does not know how to accost him nor -how to frame his complaint. The attendants are at hand to interrupt, -embarrass, and explain. So, with no possibility of redress, the poor -half-lunatic will be roughly handled, badly fed, and coarsely clothed, -and night and day he will have no other familiar company than the -insane. It is bad enough for the sane to be afflicted by the vagaries, -the violence, the exasperating mechanisms, the incoherences of the -truly demented, but what must it be for those upon whom the penumbra -of that same shadow has fallen? They have no privacy; no escape from -those others; no peace. Our world herds these discards together out of -sight, walls them up, spends so little upon them that they are neither -properly fed nor properly looked after, and does its brave hopeful best -to forget all about them. - -And our Sargon, who even in the outer world of usage and freedom was -sometimes a little at a loss, must now go on into this dark underworld. -For two days more he will be kept in the Gifford Street Observation -Ward awaiting the convenience of the authorities; then in the company -of four other prisoners he will be sent to a still bleaker and more -desolate and hopeless confinement within the clustering buildings and -walls and railings of Cummerdown Hill. - -So he passes now for a time out of sight of everyday mankind, and -so also for a time he shall pass out of this story. It would be -insufferable to tell with any fulness his daily tale of discomfort and -indignity. - - - - -_BOOK THE THIRD_ - -THE RESURRECTION OF SARGON, KING OF KINGS - - - - -CHAPTER THE FIRST - -_Christina Alberta in Search of a Father_ - - -§ 1 - -Hitherto Christina Alberta had faced life with a bold, disdainful, and -successful gesture. The discretions and scruples of others were not -for her. She had seen no reason for their prudent hesitations, their -conventions and restraints. Now for the first time she knew dismay. Her -Daddy had vanished into a world that she suddenly realized could be -immensely cruel. Teddy was rotten, so plainly rotten that only a fool -wrapped up in her own sensations would have touched him. She lay awake -for most of the night after her Daddy had vanished, biting her hands -and damning Teddy. Lambone the great friend was lazy, incompetent, and -futile. Harold and Fay seemed already a little tired of her misfortune -and vaguely disposed to blame her for bringing her Daddy to London. She -had no one else to whom she could turn. No one remained to her--except -Christina Alberta herself, feeling a little soiled now and more than a -little afraid. “But what am I to do?” she asked the night, again and -again, in her stuffy but artistic little bedroom. - -Among the other disadvantages of her position she had less than a pound -of ready money. - -It has to be recorded that for two whole days Christina Alberta did -not even take the obvious step of going to the police. She had a queer -instinctive knowledge of the danger of bringing the police and the -social system generally to bear upon her odd little Daddy. She had -an innate distrust of official human beings. It was Paul Lambone who -induced her to go to the police. He had the grace to be ashamed of his -unhelpfulness, and after an interval of two clear days he came round to -the Lonsdale Mews to offer his generous but sluggish help once more. He -caught her having tea with Fay. - -“Christina Alberta,” he said, looking a very large comfortable figure -of sorrow, “I’ve been worrying and worrying about you all the time. I -didn’t help enough. I thought he’d come back of his own accord and that -all the fuss was a little premature. Have you heard anything?” - -Christina Alberta was torn between the desire to snap his head off -and the realization that he was, after his fashion, quite sincerely -friendly to her and could be very useful. - -“_Say_ it!” said Lambone. “You’ll be better, my dear, after you’ve said -it and then we can talk matters over.” - -He got the reassurance of a smile. He brightened visibly. He was the -sort of man who would hate to feel hated even by a cockroach. “I won’t -sit in that chair, thanks,” he said to Fay. “It’s too comfortable. And -at any moment we may think of something, and I may have to leap up and -act. - -“Spartan,” he said, sitting down. - -“Eh?” said Fay. - -“Spartan. My doctor tells me to say it before every meal and especially -before tea. I don’t know why. Magic or Coué or something. Are these -things cocoanut cakes? I thought so.... Good they are. And what are we -going to do about it, Christina Alberta?” - -He became sane and helpful and more and more like the man who wrote -_What to Do on a Hundred and One Occasions_. He made Christina Alberta -admit to bankruptcy, and made it clear to her that it was her duty to -accept a loan of twenty-five pounds from him. He then dealt with the -point about reporting the disappearance to the police, and convinced -Christina Alberta upon that. If Mr. Preemby had fallen into bad hands -the sooner the police looked for him the better. But he did not think -that likely; he was much more inclined to the idea that Preemby had -made a disturbance and been taken up. He guessed he would be dealt with -as a mental case. He had consulted those useful books _The Justice -of the Peace_ and the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, and displayed the -excellence of his mental digestion. Christina Alberta perceived that he -had in him the makings of a competent barrister. - -He carried off Christina Alberta in a taxi to Scotland Yard. “Either -they’ll tell us there or tell us where we shall be told,” he said. - -Fay was impressed by the originality of that. “Now if it was a lost -umbrella,” she said, “I could understand it. But I’d never have thought -of going to Scotland Yard for a lost father.” - -By six Mr. Preemby had been traced to Gifford Street. But there was no -seeing him at Gifford Street. He had been certified as a lunatic and he -was bound, the attendant thought but wasn’t quite sure, for Cummerdown -Hill. Paul Lambone tried to be dignified and important and to prevail -over the attendant and extract further information, but not very -successfully. In the end he and Christina Alberta departed with little -more than one immense discouraging fact. They would not be able to see -Mr. Preemby nor to learn anything very material about his condition -until the next visiting day, whenever that might be, at Cummerdown -Hill. Then if he was “fit to be visited,” they might go and see him. -The attendant was rigid in his statements and had the air of disliking -both Lambone and Christina Alberta extremely. - -As they came away from Gifford Street Christina Alberta observed that -Lambone was angry. She had never seen him angry before. It was a very -transitory phase. There was an unusual depth of pink in his cheeks. - -“Dog in office,” he said. “Just there to annoy people--anxious people. -One would think ... man in my position ... certain standing.... Some -attention.... Any other country but this, Man of letters has respect.” - -Christina Alberta agreed mutely. - -“Manners in a public official--primary.” - -“He was detestable,” said Christina Alberta. - -“Not at the end of my resources,” said Lambone. - -Christina Alberta waited. - -“Ought to have gone to Devizes in the first place. Knows more about -mental cases and lunacy law than any other man in London. Wonderful -fellow. I’ll go back to my flat and I’ll ring him up and make an -appointment. Then he’ll put us wise about the whole business. And I -want you to meet him anyhow. You’ll appreciate Devizes. Come to think -of it, you’re remarkably like him.” - -“How?” - -“Got the Life Force and all that. And physically like him. Very. The -same nose--much the same profile.” - -“It’s a nose more suitable for a man,” said Christina Alberta. “I -suppose _he_ carries it off all right!” - -“It’s a damned good nose, Christina Alberta,” said Lambone. “It’s a -valiant nose. Don’t you break down to any modesty about it. It was -your nose attracted me first to you. You’ll spike a husband with it -yet, and he’ll adore it and follow it even as you do. Nowadays women -have to be free and individualized; they have got to have features -and distinction. The days of the wanton curl and the swan neck and -complexion have gone. Not that you haven’t the clearest skin I’ve ever -set eyes upon, Christina Alberta.” - -“Tell me some more about Dr. Devizes,” said Christina Alberta. - - -§ 2 - -But it wasn’t the next day that Christina Alberta met Devizes. She put -that off for a day and fled down to Woodford Wells in response to a -remarkable communication from Mr. Sam Widgery. - -The Widgerys had never been correspondents of the Preembys except in so -far as the payment of the dividends upon Mr. Preemby’s interest in the -Limpid Stream Laundry necessitated letters. There had been a certain -amount of friction in the flotation of the company, and Mr. Widgery had -remained resentful and sought to show as much by a studied curtness -in his communications. But now came this letter addressed to “Miss -Chrissie Preemby.” “_My dear Chrissie_,” the letter began. - -“_This is a shocking business about your poor father I can’t tell you -how shocked I am I went up post haste to the workhouse where you had -put him as soon as they wrote to me and got his watch and cheque-book. -It is fortunate they found my address in his pocket or I suppose I -should have been kept in the dark as per usual about all this he did -not know me and denied his own name but afterwards he said he knew -me for a filching commercial wrogue and would have my ears cut off -and threatened me. I was to be unpailed whatever that may be. I have -been thinking over all this business and since you are not yet of age -I suppose I am a sort of guardian to you and have to look into your -interests at the laundry which is not paying nearly so well as your -father led me to believe. I think he was already queer at the time and -didn’t fully understand what he was doing and I doubt if all that of -his about preference shares which I never held with really but did to -humour him ought to stand. Luckily there is no hurry about this has you -won’t have to pay anything for him where he is Mr. Punter says so long -as you leave well alone and we can see about these other things when -you have got over the first shock of your father’s breakdown. My wife -sends her love and kind sympathy. You must keep calm and not let these -things disturb you too much because very often it is hereriterary and -one cannot be too careful so leave everything to me and believe me to -remain_ - - “_Your affectionate cousin_ - - “_Sam Widgery_.” - -“Rather!” said Christina Alberta and telephoned forthwith to put off -Paul Lambone and Wilfred Devizes and hurried off with a combatant light -in her eye to the Underground and Liverpool Street Station. - - -§ 3 - -When Christina Alberta got down to Woodford Wells it seemed to her -that the laundry was just a little smaller than it used to be and -that a slight tarnish had fallen upon the bright blue delivery vans. -The swastika upon them had been covered over by paper bills in -red lettering saying: “Under Entirely New Management. Address all -Communications to the Managing Director Samuel Widgery Esq. By Order.” - -She went up the garden path to the door that had been home to her for -nearly all her life, and it was opened to her by Sam Widgery himself, -who had seen her coming. “So you came down,” he said, and seemed to -hesitate about admitting her. He was a tallish, stooping man with -a large bare pock-marked face, a dropping nether lip, a large nose -that snored occasionally when he breathed, and furtive very small -brown eyes. He was clad in dark grey ill-fitting garments, with a -frayed collar and a very worn made-up black satin tie. His waistcoat -was mainly unbuttoned and he fidgeted with his hands. He looked at -Christina Alberta as though he found her more formidable than he had -thought her. - -“Did you see Daddy?” said Christina Alberta, coming straight to the -point. - -He compressed his mouth and shook his head from side to side as though -he recalled painful things. - -“Was he bad? Was he queer or--_dreadful_?” - -“Not too loud, my dear,” he said in his husky whispering voice. “We -don’t want _every one_ to hear about your trouble. Come in here where -we can talk properly.” - -He led the way into the little living-room in which her father had so -recently planned the conditions for the conversion of the laundry into -a limited company. The familiar furniture had been rearranged rather -amazingly, and a large, dark bureau had been placed under the window. -With discreet gestures, Sam Widgery closed the door and came towards -her. “Sit down, Chrissie,” he said, “and don’t get excited. I was -afraid you might come rushing down here. But of course I was bound to -write to you.” - -“Did you see him?” she repeated. - -“Mad as a hatter,” he said. “They say he made a riot at the Rubicon -Restaurant. Wanted to give a great banquet there to all the beggars in -London.” - -“Did you see him? Was he well? Was he unhappy? What have they done with -him?” - -“You mustn’t _pelt_ me with questions, Chrissie. You mustn’t let your -mind go on at such a pace. I told you in my letter I went up and saw -him. They called him out and he came to me in a little room.” - -“Where was it? Where was this workhouse?” - -“There you go again. Just sit down and take things quietly, my girl. I -can’t answer all these questions at once.” - -“Where was it you saw him? Was it at Gifford Street?” - -“Yes. Where else could it be? They was waiting to remove him.” - -“Where?” - -“Some asylum I suppose?” - -“Cummerdown Hill?” - -“Come to think of it, it _was_ Cummerdown Hill. Yes--they said -Cummerdown Hill. He came out. He looked much as usual, but more vacant -perhaps, until he set eyes on me and then he gave a sort of start and -said, ‘Don’t know you,’ he said. Like that.” - -“Well, that wasn’t mad. Did he _look_ mad? I suppose he didn’t want to -talk to you--after all the disagreeable things that have been said.” - -“Very likely. Any’ow I said to him, ‘What! don’t know _me_?’ I said; -‘not know old Sam Widgery what you planted your laundry on?’ Just like -that--joking at him like. Quite kindly but--humorous. ‘I don’t know -you,’ he says and tried to go. ‘Hold hard!’ I said and took him by the -arm. ‘You’re a base, complaining scoundrel,’ he says to me and sort of -tried to push me away. ‘You’d rewin any laundry!’ he says--him to me, -what was in the laundry business a dozen years before he married your -poor mother. ‘Any ’ow I haven’t your complaint,’ I says, ‘Mr. Albert -Edward Preemby.’ He sort of stiffened. ‘Sargum,’ he says, ‘if you -please....’” - -“Sargon,” Christina Alberta corrected. - -“Maybe. It sounded like ‘Sargum.’ And ‘Sargum’ he would have it. Mad -as a hatter on that. I tried to talk but what was the good of talking? -I couldn’t get anything plain or straight out of him at all. Started -threatening me with the bastinado--whatever that may be. I asked him to -be decent with his language. ‘I’ve ’ad enough’ I says to the attendant -at last and the attendant took him away. And so we’re quit of him, -Chrissie.” - -“Quit of him!” - -“Quit of him. What can anyone do?” - -“Everything. Did he look very unhappy? Did he look frightened or -ill-treated?” - -“Why should he? They’re taking proper care of him and he’s out of -harm’s way.” - -“You’re sure he looked--serene?” - -“Bit jaded perhaps. That’s his own internal workings I expect. But he’s -where he ought to be, Chrissie. I feel that. What we’ve got to do, from -what Mr. Punter says, is to let well alone. There he is with everything -he wants, living on the ratepayers’ money. We’ve got ourselves to -consider. We’ve got to think of that crazy preference-share idea he’s -saddled the laundry with. _That’s_ urgent. It’s a charge of nearly five -hundred a year as things are, nearly ten pound a week. There isn’t a -laundry in London could stand it.” - -“I shall have to see my Daddy,” said Christina Alberta. “I don’t -believe he _is_ so comfortable. I’ve heard horrid stories of asylums. -Anyhow, I ought to go right away and see him.” - -“Can’t do that, Chrissie,” said Mr. Widgery, shaking his large grey -face slowly from side to side and watching her as he spoke. “They don’t -have visitors running in and out of these mad-houses just whenever they -want to. Wouldn’t _do_, you know. The poor creatures have to be kept -quiet and not excited. I daresay I could give you a letter for next -visiting day----” - -“_You!_ Give _me_ a letter!” - -Mr. Widgery shrugged his shoulders. “It would help you to get in. But -you won’t make anything of him, Chrissie, even if you see him. And -you’ll have to wait for a visiting day. You must do that.” - -“I want to see him.” - -“Very likely. But regulations are regulations. Meanwhile there’s all -this business muddle we got to put straight. While he’s in that asylum -I think what I ought to do is to give you ’n allowance, five pounds -a week say, and keep back the rest until we’re able to get something -settled up. Or four. Or perhaps as you want it--not a definite sum. I -don’t know. I haven’t thought it out yet. You can’t possibly want to do -with all that ten pounds a week with him off your hands. Then we’ll be -able to see where we stand and everything will be all right again.” - -He paused and scratched his cheek and watched her with his little -sidelong eyes. “See?” he said as if to stimulate her to speech. - -Christina Alberta looked at him in a silence that became painful. Then -she stood up and regarded him--her arms akimbo and her face alight. - -“I see now,” she said. “You damned old Rascal!” - -Mr. Widgery had nice old-fashioned ideas about young ladies and -ladylike language. He was taken aback. “Now!” he said. “_Now!_” - -“Always I should think,” said Christina Alberta. - -“You mustn’t say things like that, Chrissie. You mustn’t use words like -that. You mustn’t get wrong ideas about all this. What d’you mean? Old -rascal! Something old rascal! Why? I’m only doing what I got to do. You -aren’t really of age yet, you’re just a mere child legally speaking, -and it falls to _me_ naturally, _me_, his nearest relative so to speak, -to make such arrangements as have to be made about his affairs. That’s -all. You mustn’t get wrong ideas about it all and you mustn’t get -excited. See?” - -“I called you,” said Christina Alberta, “a damned old Rascal.” - -He did not meet her eye. He spoke as if he appealed to the bureau. - -“And does it do you any good to use such horrible expressions? And does -it do me any harm? And does it alter the fact that whether I like it or -not, I’ve got to look after his property now and see about it and see -you don’t get into any trouble or mischief? All me and your aunt have -been thinking about is just what’s right and proper to be done for you. -And then you turn on me like a serpent and use language----!” - -Words failed Mr. Widgery, and still seeking sympathy from the bureau, -he shrugged his shoulders and threw out his hands. - -“You’re no relation of his,” said Christina Alberta. “I guessed when I -read your letter that this was the sort of thing you’d be up to. You’re -glad to have him out of the way because he was such a one for punctual -payments. You think I’m all alone; you think I’m just a girl and that -you can do what you like now with me. You’ve made a mistake. I’ll make -you pay up every penny that’s due on the laundry and I’ll see you do it -more punctually than ever. And why didn’t you do something to get him -out as soon as you heard they’d taken him?” - -“Now don’t you go getting excited, Chrissie,” said Mr. Widgery. “Even -if I ain’t a blood relation of his, I am of yours. I’m your next-of-kin -and your best friend and I got to think what’s got to be done about -_you_. I got to act for _you_. In spite of bad language and everything. -I tell you he’s right and safe where he is and I’m not going to have -anything done to disturb him. Nothing at all. There he is and there -he’s going to stay, and I’m going to act as Mr. Punter advised me to -act. I’m going to keep back his dividends as they fall due, and pay you -what I think proper to pay you for your keep and so on and charge it to -him, and I’m going to see you live an orderly sort of life in future -now too, same as my poor cousin Christina would have wanted you to do. -You’ve been knocking about the world in a perfectly scandalous way and -learning to curse and swear. It can’t go on. That’s how things are, -Chrissie, and the sooner you see them the right way round the better.” - -The young woman stood speechless while Mr. Widgery unfolded his -intentions. - -“Where’s Mrs. Widgery?” she said at last with an effect of stupendous -self-control. - -“Up in the laundry seeing to things. No need to bother her. We been -talking about all this, over and over, and we’re quite of one mind -in the matter. It’s _our_ right to look after you and it’s _our_ -responsibility to look after you, and we mean to do our duty by you, -Chrissie, whether you like it or not.” - -Unpleasant doubts assailed Christina Alberta. She was still two months -short of one and twenty, and it was quite conceivable that the law -gave this ugly, oily creature all sorts of preposterous powers of -interference with her. Still it was her style to carry off things with -a brave face. - -“All this is just nonsense,” she said. “I’m not going to have my Daddy -put away like this without a word from me, and I’m not going to let you -muddle about with his property. Everybody in the family knows you’re -a crooked muddler. Mother used to say so. I’m going to see about him -myself, and I’m going to have him sent off to some special sort of -mental nursing place where he can have proper attention. And that’s -what I came to tell you.” - -Mr. Widgery’s little eyes seemed to weigh and judge her. “You’re giving -yourself high and mighty airs, Chrissie,” he said, after a little -pause. “You’ll do this and you’ll do that. You’ve got a sort of wrong -idea of what you can do in the world. You haven’t got any money and you -haven’t got any authority, and the sooner you get that into your head -the better.” - -That scared feeling was gaining upon Christina Alberta. In order to -counteract it she deliberately lost her temper. “I’ll jolly soon show -you what I can do and what you can’t,” she said with a flaming face. - -“Now don’t _yew_ go getting excited,” said Mr. Widgery. “You of all -people shouldn’t get excited.” - -“_Excited!_” said Christina Alberta; rallying for a repartee, and then -struck by an ugly thought she stopped short and stared at the little -bright brown eyes in the pock-marked face. Mutely they answered her -mute amazed question. This was the third or fourth time he had used the -word “excited” and now she knew what he was aiming at. Suddenly she -realized the train of ideas that her Daddy’s extinction had set going -in his head. He also had been studying the lunacy laws--and dreaming -dreams. - -“Exactly,” said Mr. Widgery. “You’ve always been a queerish sort of -girl, Chrissie, and the rackety life you lead and now this affair has -been a strain on you. Must have been. You’ve got no quiet friends but -your aunt and me and no quiet place to come to but here. Don’t you go -flaring out at me, Chrissie; I mean well by you. I’m not going to go -paying you money to keep you up there in London. Why!--you might go -gettings drugs or anything. Call me a something rascal if you like. -Swear at me as though you were out of your senses; it won’t alter what -I mean to do. I want you to come down here and rest your mind and -nerves for a time, and let me get in some one to see you--see what -ought to be done about you.... You’ll thank me for it some day.” - -His big grey face seemed to expand and swim about before her eyes and -the room grew small and dark. - -“It’s my duty to see after you,” he said. “It can’t hurt you or anyone -for us to have advice.” - -In the train from Liverpool Street she had told herself she had -intended to wipe the floor with Mr. Sam Widgery, but things hardly -seemed to be happening like that. - -“Bah!” she cried. “D’you think I’d come back here?” - -“Better than being lost in London, Chrissie,” he said. “Better than -being lost in London. We can’t have you wandering off in London, same -as your father did.” - -She felt that the time had come for her to go, but for a second or so -she could not move to do so. She could not move because she feared he -might do something to detain her, and if he did she did not know what -she would do. Then she pulled herself up by the feet. - -“Well,” she said with a step past him doorward that turned him on his -heel; “I’ve told you what I think of you. I’d better be getting back to -London.” - -In his eyes she saw the thought of obstructing her flash into being and -die. “Won’t you stay and have something,” he said, “before you go back?” - -“Eat _here_!” she cried and got to the door. - -Her hand trembled so that it was difficult to turn the handle. He -stood motionless, staring at her with his lower lip dropping and an -expression of doubt upon his face. It was as if he was not quite sure -of himself nor of the course he meant to pursue. The course he wanted -to pursue was appallingly plain. - - -§ 4 - -She walked with dignity out of the open front door and down the garden -path. She did not look back, but she knew his face came up close to the -window and watched her. Never in her whole life had panic come so near -to her. She would have liked to run. - -After the train had started she felt a little safer. “How the devil can -he get at me?” she said aloud to the empty compartment. - -But she wasn’t at all sure that she couldn’t be got at and she found -herself trying to estimate just how much support and friendship she -might find in her London friends. Could she, for instance, count upon -Mr. Paul Lambone? If supplies were cut off could she get some sort -of job and keep herself for a time until she could extract her silly -Daddy from the net into which he had fallen? How would Harold and Fay, -perennially hard-up, behave if supplies ran out? And meanwhile there -was Daddy, wondering why no help came to him--puzzled by what had -happened to him and no doubt getting sillier and sillier. - -Christina Alberta was growing up fast now. Beneath all her radicalism -and rebellion there had always hitherto been a belief, tacit, -sub-conscious, in the rightness and security and sustaining energy -of the social framework. There is under most youthful rebellion. She -had assumed without thinking very much about it that hospitals were -places of comfort and luxury, doctors in full possession and use of -all existing science, prisons clean and exemplary places, that though -laws might still be unjust that the administration of the law was -untouched by knavery or weakness. She had had the same confidence in -the ultimate integrity of social life that a little child has in the -invincible safeness of nursery and home. But now she was awakening to -the fact that the whole world was insecure. It was not that it was a -wicked or malignant world, but that it was an inattentive and casual -world. It dreaded bothers. It would do the meanest, most dangerous, and -cruellest things to escape the pressure of bothers, and it would refuse -to be bothered by any sufferings or evil it could possibly contrive -to ignore. It was a dangerous world, a world of bothered people in -which one might be lost and forgotten while one was still alive and -suffering. It was a world in which it is not good to be alone, and she -was beginning to feel herself very dangerously alone. - -She had never, she reflected, thought very much of her family, but now -she perceived a family may dissolve away too soon. She wanted a wall to -put her back against if after all Sam Widgery screwed up his courage -to be aggressive; she wanted some one who would be her very own, a -safe ally, some one she could count upon, some one closer than law -or custom, some one who would go about and find out exactly what had -happened to her if she fell into disaster, who would refuse to accept -her downfall, some one who would care for her more than he cared for -himself and not be lightly turned away. - -_Himself?_ Not _herself_. In fact, a lover. - -“Damn Teddy!” cried Christina Alberta, and knocked a puff of dust out -of the railway cushion with her fist. “He messes it up. - -“And I knew what he was. I knew all the time exactly what he was! - -“I’ve got to stick it alone,” said Christina Alberta. - -“And besides who’d have cared for me, anyhow, with a nose like mine?” - -“Even if there were such things in the world as lovers who loved like -that! But it’s a world of people who don’t care. It’s a world of people -who haven’t the guts to care. It’s a dust-heap of a world,” said -Christina Alberta. - - -§ 5 - -Her thoughts began to flow into a new region. After all, wasn’t there -something too disagreeably justifiable in the suggestion that she -was--how to put it--_queer_? Hitherto Christina Alberta had always -regarded herself as a model of sanity and mental directness--with no -fault indeed except possibly her nose. Now the word “queer” stuck in -her mind like a thorn that has gone right home. She could not get it -out again. - -She had always, she knew, been different. She had always had a style of -her own. - -Most of the people she had met in the world had impressed her as being -colourless, weak in speech and action, evasive--that was the word, -“evasive.” They evaded the use of all sorts of blunt words, they didn’t -know why. Christina Alberta was all for saying “Damn” and “guts” and so -forth until some one convinced her of some better reason for avoiding -them than merely that they weren’t used by “nice” people. These others -were always not saying things because they weren’t said and not doing -things because they weren’t done. And for what was said and what was -done, however manifestly preposterous it was, they had a sort of -terrified imitativeness. They just ran about being as far as possible -somebody else until they died. Why exist at all then? Why not get out -of it and leave some one else in possession? But, anyhow, they got -through life. They didn’t get into trouble. They supported one another. -And, on the other hand, if you didn’t evade? You puzzled other people. -You left the track. You were like a train leaving the rails and trying -to take a cross-country short-cut. You hit against--everything. - -Was this evasive life she had always despised really the sane life? Was -ceasing to evade ceasing to be sane? Sheep, she had read, had a disease -called gid; then they wandered alone and died. Was all this originality -and thinking for oneself and not going with the crowd and so forth, -that had been her pride and glory, just the way out from the sane life? -Originality, eccentricity, queerness, craziness, madness; was that -merely a quantitative scale? - -Was not her Daddy’s queerness this, that after years of the extremest -evasion he had at last tried to break away to something real and -strange? And had she, after her fashion, been attempting anything else? -Was she, too, lop-sided? Lop-sided in a different direction, perhaps, -but lop-sided none the less. An inherited lop-sidedness? - -Her mind went off at a tangent on the question whether she had really -inherited anything whatever from her Daddy. Was his queerness her sort -of queerness at all? It ought to be, seeing that they were father and -daughter. - -How different they were! For a father and daughter how amazingly -different they were!... - -But were they father and daughter? A much repressed fantasy came back -to her--a fantasy based on the flimsiest foundations, on chance phrases -her mother had used, on moments of intuition. Once or twice a reverie -had arisen out of these lurking particles of memory and had taken her -by surprise only to be thrust aside again with contempt. - -Blup. Blup. Blup. There came a familiar variation to the familiar -sounds of the train. Christina Alberta was running into Liverpool -Street Station and her perplexities were all unsolved. - -The old fantasy lost heart and faded away. What was the good of such -dreams? There she was. - - -§ 6 - -Christina Alberta’s meeting next day with Wilfred Devizes turned out to -be a much more exciting affair than she or he had expected it to be. - -Acting on the advice of Paul Lambone, she had brought photographs and a -letter or so in her Daddy’s handwriting with her, and she had thought -out what she judged would be significant things to tell about him. She -went in a taxi with Paul Lambone to Devizes’ house just off Cavendish -Square, and they were shown up at once past a waiting-room and a -consulting-room to a dignified little sitting-room with an open fire -and a table with tea-things and a great array of bookcases. Devizes -came in to them forthwith. - -She was a little shocked to think that this lank, dark, shock-headed -man could be recognizably like her. He was younger than she had -expected him to be, younger she thought, than her Daddy or Mr. Lambone, -and he wore a long unbuttoned morning coat. He carried the nose all -right; he was indeed very good-looking. - -“Hullo, Paul,” he said cheerfully. “Is this the young lady whose -father’s been stolen? We’ll have some tea. It’s Miss----?” - -“Miss Preemby,” said Paul Lambone, “but every one calls her Christina -Alberta.” - -Devizes turned an eye that was by habit and disposition a scrutinizing -eye upon her. He betrayed a faint momentary surprise and came and shook -hands. “Tell me all about it,” he said. “You don’t think he’s really -mad, but only rather exceptional and odd. That’s it, isn’t it? Lambone -tells me he is sane. It’s quite possible. I’d better go over the state -of his mind first, and then we can discuss the question of the asylum -afterwards. I gather you want to get him under your own care--outside. -That isn’t by any means simple. We’ll have to study the obstacles. -Meanwhile tea.... I’ve been disentangling the delusions of a perfectly -terrible old lady, and I’m rather deflated. Just tell me all about it -in your own way.” - -“Tell him,” said Paul, settling his shoulders into his arm-chair, and -preparing to interrupt. - -Christina Alberta began to unfold her premeditated discourse. Every now -and then Devizes would interrupt her with a question. He kept his eyes -on her, and it seemed to her even from the beginning that they betrayed -something more than attention to what she was saying. He looked at her -as though he had seen her before and couldn’t quite remember where. -She described her Daddy’s talks to her when she was a girl, about the -Pyramids and the Lost Atlantis and so forth, and the odd spirit of -release and renewed growth that had followed the death of her mother. -She told of the spiritualistic séance and the coming of Sargon. Devizes -was very keen on various aspects of the Sargon story. “It was odd that -the suggestion fell in so aptly with Preemby’s mental disposition. What -was that young man up to? I don’t quite understand him.” - -“I don’t know. I think he just hit by chance on the stuff he talked. It -was just bad luck that it fitted.” - -“Undergraduate idea of fun?” - -“Undergraduate fun. It might have been Tut-an-ka-man.” - -“But it happened to be Sargon.” - -“He may have been reading some ancient history.” - -“He didn’t, I suppose, know anything about your father?” - -“Couldn’t have done. I suppose he thought my--my Daddy looked a little -small and absurd, and I suppose it appealed to his sense of humour to -single him out from the others and make him a great king. I’d like to -have a few minutes straight talk with that young man.” - -“This you see isn’t a delusion, Devizes. It’s a deception,” said Paul -Lambone. - -“Is he generally coherent,” asked Devizes. - -“Granted his thesis, he’s amazingly coherent,” she said. - -“He doesn’t sometimes become some one else, God or a millionaire, or -anything of that sort?” - -“No. He believes in reincarnation and hints at having lived other -lives, but that’s all.” - -“Thousands of people do that,” said Lambone. - -“And nobody is persecuting him? Nobody makes noises to trouble him or -gets at him with X-rays or anything of that sort?” - -“Not a shadow of that sort of thing.” - -“The man’s sane. Unless he went mad when he walked out of your friends’ -studio.” - -“I’m for his sanity right out,” said Lambone. “I wish I’d had a chance -to talk to him. There’s something--everybody’s chattering now about -an Inferiority Complex. Well, isn’t it common for people who have -been rather put upon and deceived and so forth, and who don’t want -to face the facts of life, to take refuge in an assumed personality? -And putting the reveries, the spiritualist séance and so forth all -together, doesn’t it work out on those lines?” - -“He knows he is really, _au fond_, Preemby?” Devizes asked. - -“It annoyed him to tell him so,” said Christina Alberta. “I think one -reason why he went away was because I and my friend, Mrs. Crumb that -is, at the studio where we live, would try to make him be sensible -about that. It drove him away. He knows he is really Preemby and he -hates it. He knows this is all a make-believe.” - -Paul Lambone took up the discourse. “I do so sympathize with that. So -far from that being insane it’s perfectly rational. Becoming somebody -else greater than oneself is part of half the religions of the world. -All the Mithraists used to become Mithra. The Serapists, if I remember -rightly, used to become Osiris. We all want to be born again really. -Every one with any sense and humility does. Into something greater. -‘Who will deliver me from the body of this death?’ That’s why Christina -Alberta’s Daddy is so tremendously interesting. He’s got imagination; -he’s got originality. He may be a feeble little chap, but he has that.” - -“Having an exceptional mind isn’t insanity,” said Devizes, “or else we -should put all our poets and artists in asylums.” - -“Few would come up to that standard,” said Lambone. “I wish they did.” - -Devizes reflected. “I think I’ve got things clear. He’s coherent. He’s -neat in his dress. He isn’t persecuted. He’s unselfish in his thoughts, -almost romantically so. And he’s not fattish and lumpish, and he’s -never had any sort of fit. There’s no insane type a properly qualified -doctor could class him under, but then most doctors are altogether -unqualified for mental practice. A stupid doctor might mistake his -imaginations for the splendour of paranoia or take his abstraction in -reverie for _dementia præcox_ or think he was a masked epileptic. But -all these are cases of mental disease, and your father is probably -not diseased at all. He’s mentally disturbed, but that’s all. The -difference between him and a real lunatic is the difference between a -basketful of fruit that’s been overturned, and a basketful that’s gone -rotten. Overturned fruit gets bruised and rots very easily--but being -overturned isn’t being rotten. What sort of man is he to look at?” - -“She’s got photographs,” said Lambone. - -“I’d like to see them,” he said, and was given a recent one of Mr. -Preemby as laundryman. “Too much moustache by a long way,” he said. -“Is there anything--with some at least of his face uncovered? There’s -nothing here but his eyes.” - -“I thought you’d feel that,” said Lambone. “There’s one of Mr. Preemby -as a young man, taken soon after his wedding with Mrs. Preemby. Have -you got it, Christina Alberta?... Here we are.... That’s Mrs. Preemby -in the chair. The moustache--in bulk--has yet to come.” - -“He married young?” Devizes asked Christina Alberta. - -“He must have done,” she said. “I don’t know his exact age. My mother -never told me.” - -Devizes scrutinized the photograph. “Queer,” he said, and seemed to be -searching his memory. “Something familiar. I’ve met people like this. - -“They were both London people, I suppose,” he said, looking hard at -Christina Alberta. - -“Woodford Wells,” said Christina Alberta. - -“My father was born at Sheringham,” she added as an afterthought. - -“Sheringham. That’s queer.” With a manifestly deepened interest he -looked at the couple posed against one of those rustic backgrounds -dear to Victorian photographers. “Chrissy,” he repeated to himself. -“Chrissy. Christina Alberta. It _can’t_ be.” - -For some moments Dr. Devizes ceased to attend to his consultants and -they remained intently observing him. He tried to fix his attention on -the young man’s face in the picture, but it was the young woman who sat -on the rustic style that absorbed his interest. Amazing how completely -he had forgotten her face, and how she came back now incredibly unlike -and yet like his memory of her. He remembered the glasses and the neck -and shoulders. And a sort of stiff defiance. “When were your mother and -father married?” he asked. “How long ago?” - -“Eighteen ninety-nine,” she answered. - -“And then you were born straight away?” He asked the question with an -affectation of ease. - -“There was a decent interval,” said Christina Alberta with a clumsy -levity. “I was born in nineteen hundred.” - -“A little, fair, blue-eyed chap with rather an absent-minded manner. -I seem to see him,” Devizes said, and resumed his examination of -the photograph. Nobody spoke for the better part of a minute. “Good -Lord!” whispered Lambone to himself. Devizes drank a cup of tea -absent-mindedly. “Extraordinary,” he ejaculated. “I never dreamt of it.” - -“What is?” - -His answer went off at a tangent. “Christina Alberta’s resemblance -to my mother. It’s amazing. It’s been worrying me ever since I came -into the room. It’s been distracting my attention. I’ve got a little -picture....” - -He jumped up and went out of the room. Christina Alberta, puzzled, -excited, turned instantly on Lambone. “He knew my father and mother,” -she said. - -“Apparently,” said Lambone with something defensive in his voice. - -“_Apparently!_” she echoed. “But--he _knew_ them! He _knew_ them well. -And--_What’s he thinking of?_” - -Devizes reappeared holding out a small gold-framed picture. “Look at -that!” he said and handed it to Paul Lambone. “It might be Christina -Alberta. Don’t you see how like it is? Allowing for that preposterous -hair piled upon her head and the way her dress goes up round her neck.” - -He handed the picture to Christina Alberta and looked at Lambone in -amazed interrogation. - -“It might be me in fancy dress,” Christina Alberta agreed, with the -picture in her hands. There came a long pause. She looked up and -saw the expression of his face. Her mind gave a fantastic leap, so -fantastic that it instantly leapt back to the point of departure. It -was like a flash of lightning in a night as dark as pitch. She made a -great effort to pull the conversation together, to behave as though -her mind had never leapt at all. “But what has all this to do with my -Daddy’s case?” she asked. - -“Nothing directly. Your resemblance to my mother is a pure coincidence. -Pure. But it’s a curious coincidence! Just for the moment it pulled -my attention aside. Forgive me. I’ve a belief that where there’s -resemblance of this sort there’s a blood relationship. I suppose your -mother’s people--what did you say they were called--Hoskin?” - -“Did I say? I don’t remember. I _didn’t_ say. I didn’t. Her name was -Hossett.” - -“Ah, yes!--Hossett. I suppose that two or three generations back the -Hossetts and Devizes intermarried. And there we are! Cousins--at we -don’t know what remove. But types go under in a family and then bob up -again. It sort of links us, Christina Alberta, doesn’t it? It gives me -a special interest. I don’t feel now that you’re just any old patient. -Or, rather, just Paul’s friend. I feel linked. Well--That’s that. -Let’s come back to your father. Who married your mother just when they -were starting the old South African war. He’s always been a dreamy, -unobservant type. As we were saying. Even from the beginning....” - -He stopped short. - -“Always,” said Christina Alberta, after a long pause. - -“We’ve been into all that,” said Devizes and paused, and was for a -minute entirely at a loss for words. “Yes,” he said at last. - -Her heart was beating fast and there was a flush of excitement on her -cheeks. Her quick wits had filled in all the gaps. She understood -now--and then again it vanished. She would have liked to have gone -away and thought it all over at once. But that wouldn’t do. She must -disregard the questions that surged up within her. Her mind went -forward like an obstinate traveller caught in a whirlwind. Her mother -for example. She was trying to recall something about her mother that -had long been stifled in her mind. “Went away and left me to it,” -was it? “Went off and left me to it?” Her mother lying in bed and -wandering. Who had left her to what? That standing perplexity. That -suspicion. That dream. But attend to him now, Christina Alberta; attend -to him! She was observing him with all her being, and yet she seemed -deaf to what he said. - -He was saying that now that he agreed with them that Preemby was -sane, he could see his way to the real business before them. It was -the old, old story of making lunatics out of sane people which they -encountered in Preemby’s case. It was the old, old story of making -lunatics out of sane people which they encountered in Preemby’s case. -(He repeated his sentence word for word without apparently realizing -he had said it twice.) All exceptional people were in danger of being -misunderstood, but such a type as Preemby, original and yet incapable -of abstract expression or philosophical method, which sought fantastic -expression for its feelings and impulses, was particularly liable to -give offence, awaken suspicion and dread and hostility. It was just -these borderland cases he was always trying to save from asylums, and -just such cases that were always going there. And they were the last -people to bring into contact with real insanity. “To go back to my -metaphor, the basketful of fruit isn’t rotten, is scarcely speckled -with decay, but it is disordered and overturned. A mind is a delicate -thing to knock about. It will rot very easily, and a mind like your -father’s particularly will rot very easily under asylum conditions. -After all this rigmarole I come to just the conclusion you’ve already -reached, that we have to get Preemby out of Cummerdown Hill and away -under restful conditions as soon as possible. When we’ll comb out his -particular complex and get him into working relations with the world -again. I’m quite sure we can do that somehow, make his incognito -permanent, make him an Emperor in exile, restore his proper name, -organize a common daily round for him and get him back more and more to -be a chastened and released Preemby.” - -He paused. - -“That’s it,” said Lambone, roused from a profound contemplation of the -two interesting faces before him. - -“It isn’t easy. Even to get at him isn’t easy. There will be delays. -A careless magistrate and a silly doctor can make a lunatic in five -minutes. It takes no end of time to unmake one.” - -“That’s what I want to set about doing,” said Christina Alberta. - -“Naturally,” said Devizes, “and I’m with you.” - -He explained one or two points in lunacy law, began sketching a scheme -of operations, considered the people to whom she ought to write and the -people to whom he ought to write, and how soon it would be possible -to see Preemby, and give him a word of encouragement. Already Devizes -had had several brushes with lunacy organization; he was considered -a troublesome but dangerous man for a medical superintendent to be -up against. That might arouse either hostile obstruction or the -propitiatory spirit. They must go carefully. - -Lambone scarcely interrupted now at all. He had ceased to be acutely -interested in Preemby, immured away there in Cummerdown. He was lost -in admiration of the self-control his astonishing friends displayed. -He tried to imagine what an undertow of strange excitement, of queer -thoughts and confused emotions there must be beneath their highly -intelligent discussion of the case of Mr. Preemby. They wasted very -little attention upon the onlooker. Christina Alberta’s face was -faintly flushed, and her eyes glowed; Devizes was rather less of a -conversationalist than usual and rather more like a university tutor -with an exceptionally interesting student. - -The subject was exhausted at last and the time came to depart. Devizes -came to the door with them. - -“Don’t forget that I’m always round the corner, so to speak,” he said. -“I’m in the telephone directory. And don’t forget, Christina Alberta, -don’t forget I’m your long-lost cousin, very much at your service.” - -“I won’t forget that,” said Christina Alberta, meeting his eye. - -A little pause, and then rather stiffly they shook hands. - - -§ 7 - -“Am I mad?” said Christina Alberta as soon as she and Paul Lambone were -in the street together. “Am I dreaming?” - -Lambone was clumsy. “Mad? Dreaming? How?” - -“Oh! don’t pretend not to understand. That he’s my real father? Don’t -pretend! or, please don’t pretend! Is he or is he not?” - -Lambone did not reply for a moment. “You flash at things--like a -lizard. How could it have happened?” - -“Then you _did_ think?” - -“My dear Christina Alberta, he didn’t know you existed until he set -eyes on you. I’m sure of that.” - -“But then. Wasn’t it plain? He _knew them both_!” - -“Devizes,” said Lambone, “is ten years younger than I am. He’s barely -forty. He must have been--not more than eighteen. Nineteen at most. -It’s a little difficult.” - -“That makes it easier. You never knew mother. If they were both -young----” - -“It’s just possible,” said Lambone, “there is some other explanation.” - -“But what?” - -“Can’t imagine. I suppose he was at Sheringham--perhaps for a -holiday--and met her. But----” - -“It must have been something casual, a kind of accident. Mother used to -have flashes.... I never quite understood her. She used to suppress me, -and perhaps she was suppressing herself.... And at the end--she said -something. Someone had left her to it.... Do you know--at times--I’ve -had fancies--suspicions! It seemed as though she guessed that I was -guessing. Now I know--I _was_. It’s incredible. And yet it explains a -hundred things.” - -“He certainly never knew of you. He’s--amazed.” - -“And what’s going to happen next?” - -“Legally you’re Preemby’s daughter. Nothing can alter that. All the -resemblances and coincidences in the world won’t alter that.” - -“And all the law in the world won’t alter the facts. And----” - -She turned on Lambone with a flushed face. “Do you realize what it -means to think you are the daughter of a certified lunatic? And then -find you are not? All last night I was awake with that unendurable -thought.” - -“All night--at your age!” - -“It seemed all night. Last night--I _tried_ to imagine that something -of this sort had happened. Tried--and couldn’t. Tried to bring back all -those old fancies. And here it is! I might have known. I did know and -wouldn’t know. - -“Tell me about this real father of mine. I don’t know a thing about -him. Is he a good man? Is he a bad man? Has he a wife?” - -“He adored his wife. And so did I. She was one of the loveliest and -cleverest young women I’ve ever known. She was strong and jolly--and -the beastly influenza and pneumonia got her. In a week. It cut him to -ribbons. They’d had no children. They’d had only four years together. -He’s attractive to women, but I don’t think there’ll be a second Mrs. -Devizes for a long time. I can’t imagine it. Any other woman! Why! All -that house--it’s full of her presence.” - -“Yes,” said Christina Alberta, and thought for a time. - -They were detached for a time in crossing Bond Street, and the pavement -was too crowded and Piccadilly was too congested for them to talk again -until they went in St. James’ Street. - -“Daddy,” said Christina Alberta, “seems ten thousand miles away. But -when I’m over the amazement of this I expect I’ll get back to him all -right. But just for a time--he must wait.” - -“You’ll come in for a bit?” said Lambone at the corner of Half Moon -Street. “I could give you some dinner.” - -“No, thanks. I’ll walk all the way to Chelsea,” said Christina -Alberta. “I want to think this out by myself. I want to get alone with -this spinning head of mine and try to slow it down. My life’s gone -topsy-turvy. Or it’s been topsy-turvy and it’s suddenly come right side -up. I don’t know which. Oh!--I don’t know anything. I’ve got to begin -all over again.” - -She shook hands and paused. Lambone waited, for manifestly she had -something to say. She got it out at last. - -“Do you think--he liked me?” - -“He liked you all right, Christina Alberta. Don’t you worry about that.” - - -§ 8 - -It was a little more than two days before Christina Alberta, to use her -own expression, “got back” to her lost Daddy. - -Those two days were full of an immense excitement. Devizes was the -most wonderful fact in the world. She exploded into love for him. She -had the most vivid impression of him, dark and tall, rather grave, -watchful and amazingly understandable. Yet vivid as her impression -was she doubted every detail of it, and wanted to go back to him and -verify it all over again. It was their quality of mutual understanding -that was at once the most delightful and the most incredible aspect -of the whole affair. Their brains no doubt were unlike, as every -two individual brains must be, yet their unlikeness was not a mere -accumulation of accidental difference, but the unlikeness of two -variations of one theme. She could feel his intentions beneath his -words. Her mind had jumped with his realizations and there must be -kinks and turns in her brain, kinks and turns that just made her -difficult and queer for most people, which would find the completest -parallels in his. She didn’t believe there was a thing in her thoughts -and acts that she would be surprised at his knowing and comprehending. - -She had never before thought of parentage with any enthusiasm. She -had viewed it rather in the spirit of Samuel Butler and Bernard Shaw, -and conceived of parents generally in relation to their children -as embarrassed hypocrites with an instinctive disposition towards -restraint and suppression. She had made an exception of her own -particular pair; Daddy had been a great friend anyhow, though mother -for the most part had been a concentrated incarnate “Don’t.” But -she had never realized there might be something rather intimately -interesting in consanguinity. And then suddenly a door had opened, a -man had come in and sat down and talked to her and discovered himself -the nearest thing in life to her. And she to him. She wanted to go to -him again; she wanted to see more of him, be with him. But he made no -sign and she could think of no decent excuse for a call upon him. The -very intensity of her desire made her unable to go to him easily. She -wrote the various letters they had agreed she should write, and then -decided to master mental science and lunacy generally. That and the -case of her “Daddy” she perceived to be her formal link with Devizes. - -She set out for the Reading Room of the British Museum, for which she -had a students’ ticket, and she tried to concentrate her mind upon -the book she had requisitioned, instead of letting it wander off -into the strangest reveries about this miraculously discovered blood -relation. In the afternoon she rang up Lambone to be given tea, with -the intention of learning everything that the wise man could tell her -about Devizes and generally turning him over conversationally. But -Lambone was out. The next day the craving for Devizes was overpowering. -She rang him up. - -“May I have some tea?” she asked. “I’ve got nothing much to say, but I -want to see you.” - -“Delighted,” said Devizes. - -When she got to him she found herself shy, and him as shy as herself. -For a little while they made polite conversation; it might almost have -been the conversation of two people at a formal call in a country town. -He called her “Christina Alberta,” but she called him “Doctor Devizes,” -and he asked her if she played or danced, and whether she had ever been -abroad. She sat in an arm-chair and he stood over her on the hearthrug. -It was clear that the only way to intimacy lay in a frank treatment -of her Daddy. She felt that if this sort of talk went on for another -minute she would have to scream or throw her tea-cup in the fire. So -she plunged. - -“When did you first know my mother?” - -Devizes’ attitude stiffened, and he smiled faintly at her boldness. “I -was a Cambridge undergraduate reading for the Natural Science Tripos, -and I went down to Sheringham to read. We--we picked each other up on -the beach. We made love--in a scared, furtive, desperate, ignorant sort -of way. People were primitive in those days--compared with what they -are now.” - -“Daddy wasn’t there.” - -“He came in afterwards.” - -Devizes considered for a moment. He decided that it wasn’t fair to -oblige her to go on questioning him. “My father,” he said, “was a -pretty considerable old bully. He was Sir George Devizes, the man -who invented the Devizes biscuit and cured old Alphonso, and he -was celebrated for being rude to his patients. He would smack their -stomachs and tell them they ought to be scooped out. He helped make -Unter Magenbad. He suspected me of being a bit of a soft, though as a -matter of fact I wasn’t, and he generally had the effect of laying up -for a quarrel with me. He kept me pretty short. He wasn’t particularly -nice to my mother. He used to get at my mother through me. I didn’t -dare to have a scrape of any sort. I was really afraid of him. If I saw -a scrape blowing up my habit and disposition was to run away.” - -“I see.” - -Devizes considered the implications of that “I see.” “Not that I ran -away from any definite scrape that I knew of at Sheringham,” he said -very carefully. - -“What was my mother like in those days?” - -“A sort of subdued fierceness. A flushed warm face. She was pretty, you -know, and very upright in her carriage. And she had a swift decision -beneath her stiffness. Her wishes would suddenly crystallize out, and -after that there was no bending her.” - -“I know.” - -“I suppose you do.” - -“She wore glasses then?” - -“Oh, yes.” - -“Was she fresh then? Was she happy?” - -“A little too fierce to be happy.” - -“Did you--ever--love her?” - -“It is a long time ago, Christina Alberta. There was--seaside -love-making. Why do you cross-examine me like this?” - -“I want to know. Why”--Christina Alberta had a momentary terror at her -own boldness--“Why didn’t you marry her?” - -Devizes made no pretence of surprise at the question. “There was no -reason manifest why I should have married her. None at all. I can’t -conceive what my father would have done if I had come back from -Sheringham engaged to a chance acquaintance. And anyhow, why should I -have done anything of the sort?” - -His eyes defied hers. - -“I left her my address,” he added. “She could have written to me. She -never did.” - -“Did a letter go astray?” said Christina Alberta, and added hastily, -“my imagination is running away with me.” - -She hesitated and trembled at the next words she had resolved to say, -but she said them, with a forced offhandedness. “You see--I might have -fancied you as a father?” - -It produced no catastrophe. He looked her in the face and then smiled. -After that smile she felt that they understood each other completely, -and it was very pleasant to think that. “Instead of which, you have to -adopt me as a cousin,” he said deliberately. “Cousins it is, Christina -Alberta. It’s the best we can do. We have to put our heads together and -think of your Daddy. He’s our common concern. I’m interested in that -little man. He’s defended himself against many things by those dreams -of his. Very wilful dreams they may have been. Who knows? Necessary -protective dreams.” - -Christina Alberta did not speak for a little time. She nodded. She was -glad at their manifest understanding and yet she was disappointed, -though she could not have told herself what else she had expected. This -man a yard away was the nearest thing in the world to her, and always -there might be this invisible barrier between them. They were linked by -an invisible tie and they were separated by an unfathomable necessity. -Never before in her life had she known what love could be; she wanted -to be free to love him; she wanted him to love her. - -She realized that she was standing quite still, and that Devizes was -standing just as still upon his hearthrug, watching her face. His -mouth and eyes were quiet and serene, but she imagined he must be -gripping his hands together behind him. She had to obey him. There was -nothing for her to do but follow his lead. - -“Daddy’s our common concern,” she said. “I suppose I shall begin to -hear from some of those people to-morrow.” - - -§ 9 - -Christina Alberta got back to her Daddy in a dream. - -It was a queer dream. She was going about the world with Devizes and -they were locked together in such a way that she and he could never -look at each other, but were always side by side. But also with -the sublime incoherence of dreams they were at the same time great -ebony images, and they sat stiffly side by side like a Pharaoh and -his consort, and they looked over a great space; they were very big -effigies indeed and their profiles were alike. All through the dream -she thought of Devizes and herself as black. The space before them was -sometimes a sandy desert and sometimes a grey cloudy expanse. Then -suddenly something round and white came bounding into the midst of this -arena and became a little man, a familiar little blue-eyed man, tied up -into a ball with ropes and sorely maimed, who rolled about and panted -and struggled to be free. Oh! but he struggled pitifully. Christina -Alberta’s heart went out to him, and yet impelled by some tremendous -force within her she rose and Devizes rose beside her and they marched -stiffly forward. She could not help herself, she could not control the -rigid movements of her hands and feet. They stepped high and forcibly. -She was voiceless, she tried to cry out, “We shall trample upon him! -We shall trample upon him!” but there was no more than a hoarse -inarticulate sound of horror in her throat.... - -They were upon him. She felt the body of her Daddy writhe under her. -He was like a bladder. His soft, ineffectual body, with her feet upon -him, bent and bulged about. She forgot there was anything else but -her Daddy and herself. Why had she treated him like this? Devizes -disappeared. Her Daddy was clinging to her knees and now a crowd of -vile figures had appeared and sought to drag him away. “Save me, -Christina Alberta,” he was pleading, though she heard no sound. “Save -me. Save me! Every day they torture me.” But they dragged him away and -she could not put out her arms to him. Because she was made of ebony -and all of one piece with Devizes. - -Then some one, a bird or a Sphinx with the face and voice of Lambone, -came into the dream. “Listen to your Daddy,” he said. “Do not despise -him or simply pity him. He has much to teach you. The world will never -learn anything until it will learn from ridiculous people. All people -are ridiculous. I am. I am ridiculous. We learn in suffering what we -teach in song.” She saw that her Daddy was now sheltering between the -paws of the Sphinx, and that the evil men had vanished. - -She became intensely aware of a revealing absurdity in her dream. No -previous incompatibility had shocked her at all, and she had never -thought that she was dreaming up to this point. But now she became -intensely oppressed by the idea that the Sphinx was an ancient Egyptian -and classical figure, and that Sargon was a still more ancient -Sumerian. The dream was going wrong. The periods, the cultures, were -mixed. She conveyed this to Sphinx-Lambone, and he turned his head to -answer her, and immediately the evil figures were back, and taking -advantage of Lambone’s inattention, were dragging her Daddy away. She -tried to call Lambone’s attention to that, but he said there would be -plenty of time to recover her Daddy when the point about the Sphinx -was settled. He wasn’t a Sphinx, he explained, but a Winged Bull. He -never had been a Sphinx. Or why should he be wearing a long curly -stone beard? She wanted to argue that it was a false beard and that -he had only just put it on. And anyhow it was just like him to start -an inopportune discussion. Meanwhile her Daddy was receding into -wretchedness. She became aware of this rapidly and painfully. It was -her Daddy still, but his body was different; it was not a human body -any more, but a basket of fruit overturned. Unless she did something at -once it would go rotten and be bad for ever. - -She tried to cry out words of comfort and reassurance to the poor -tragic little figure before the dream came to an end--for now she knew -surely that it was a dream. Of course he was suffering intolerably. Why -had she not written to him or telegraphed to him? Surely they would -give him a letter or a telegram! A profound self-detestation for her -incompetence and negligence, and a great horror of pain and cruelty -came upon her, and she awoke completely to black night and infinite -dismay in her little hard bed in her stuffy little bedroom in Lonsdale -Mews. - - -§ 10 - -But the impression of her Daddy, desolate and broken-hearted and in -danger, remained with her, terribly vivid. It clung to her. She got up -in the morning anxious and depressed by it. - -“I am not doing enough for him,” she said. “I am letting days slip -by--and for him they must be days of despair.” - -“Sure th’ ’Sylums ’nt so ba-s-at,” said Fay. “Sure yr overrating it.” - -“But to live among lunatics and be classed as a lunatic!” - -“They’ve _bans_ play-them. Foxhill ’Sylum there’s _buful_ ban. -’Ntainments nors-sorts treats,” said Fay. - -Christina Alberta refrained from bad language. - -“You getting ill ove’ all this,” said Fay. “You doing no good ’n Lun. -Youffar be’r come dow’ Shore’m. The’s th’ouse spoilin’. In this las’ -bit of fine w’r.” - -For the October weather was holding out that year quite wonderfully, -a succession of calm golden days, and the Crumbs had been offered the -loan of a bungalow on the beach at Shoreham by a friend who had used it -throughout the summer. They wanted to go down to it before the weather -broke, but going down to it meant leaving Christina Alberta all alone -in the studio, and they did not want to do that. But they meant to go -to Shoreham. Christina Alberta, now that she had discovered Devizes, -could not endure the thought of getting out of telephone range of -him. London, she argued, was manifestly her proper centre. She could -get down to Cummerdown Hill in an hour; she could keep in touch with -everything. The Crumbs might go but she _must_ stay. - -Fay would not understand. She pestered. - -About eleven o’clock Christina Alberta went to the Post Office -telephone booth and rang up Devizes. - -“Can’t something be done to hurry things up?” she asked. “I’ve got -Daddy on my nerves. I can’t bear to think of him there day after day. -I’ve been dreaming of him.” - -“Worrying is no good. We--I’ve got some bad news for you. So put all -your controls on.” - -He paused. Christina Alberta, for all her love of Devizes, had to -restrain her violent desire to snap, “Oh! what is it?” - -“Visiting day was yesterday. He had one visitor. I suppose that’s the -agreeable relation you described--what was his name? Wiggles? Mr. -Widgery. But your Daddy can’t be seen again by the outer world for a -week. Not until next Tuesday.” - -“Oh, damn!” said Christina Alberta. - -“Exactly. I’ll do what I can to arrange some sort of special access. -I got on to the Medical Superintendent himself. But he’s queer. He’s -evidently quite friendly and well disposed, but he fences about. He -can’t say either Yes or No. Odd! I’m free to-day in the afternoon, -but I’m tied up to-morrow. I was for going down to see _him_--the -superintendent I mean, for a talk after lunch. ‘Better in a day or so,’ -he says. Hope there’s nothing wrong that he’s keeping back. Afterwards -he promised me to ring me up later, and then abruptly he switched off. -So hold yourself ready, there. What’s your telephone number?” - -“Haven’t got one. You must telegraph.” - -“Or I’ll chase round in a taxi and pick you up. Sorry to hold you up -like this, Christina Alberta.” - -“I don’t mind anything so long as it’s getting towards Daddy.” - -“Right-o,” and the voice was cut off. - -The telegram came after an interval of two hours, two hours which -had been devoted to a rambling dispute with Fay about the Shoreham -difficulty. The message ran as follows: “_Has your father turned up he -escaped at dawn this morning in slippers and dressing-gown and nothing -seen of him since if not appeared meet me Victoria two-seven for -Cummerdown telephone Gerrard 0247 if there._” - - -§ 11 - -But Mr. Preemby did not turn up anywhere. He just vanished. - -Christina Alberta, in a state of incredulous astonishment at this -fresh disappearance, went down with Devizes to Cummerdown. They found -a Medical Superintendent by no means so amazed as they were. Sargon -had been missing at breakfast time; everything seemed to point to -his just walking out of the Asylum. That sort of thing had happened -before. It showed a certain sleepy negligence on the part of one or -two attendants, and they would be reprimanded. But as for wonder, the -Medical Superintendent refused to wonder. Lunatics often stray or -escape, and unless they are dangerous the authorities made no great -commotion about it. They kept it out of the newspapers as far as it was -possible to do so. - -“This place isn’t Portland,” said the Medical Superintendent. “They get -back all right. I give him a day. He’s probably coming back now. He may -be hiding up a mile away. I’m chiefly anxious about his catching cold. -Pneumonia is the standard death of a lunatic. But it’s wonderfully warm -for the time of year. I’ve never known such an October.” - -He was much more desirous to talk to Devizes about lunacy reform, -and convince him that he was a highly progressive and able Medical -Superintendent than to discuss the special case of Mr. Preemby. “We -do what we can,” he said, “but we’re fixed by the extreme economy we -have to practise. Low-grade attendants and not enough even of them. -The public indifference to lunatics is monstrous. Everybody--even the -people with insane relations--wants to forget all about them.” - -“But how could Preemby have got out of the grounds?” asked Devizes. -“Aren’t there walls all round?” - -“Like everything else about lunacy law, the back is not as good as -the front,” said the superintendent. “But here we have got at least -a complete wall of sorts all round. The original building used to be -a private mansion with a walled park. For a time--in the eighteenth -century--it was a boys’ school.” - -He showed them from his window over the roofs of a clump of -outbuildings the limits of the garden and farm at the back, dropping -towards a streamlet and defined by a roadside wall and old thorn and -oak trees. “For my own part,” said the Medical Superintendent, “I admit -the urgency of very drastic reforms.” - -“I wonder if Cousin Widgery can throw any light on this,” said Devizes. - -“Widgery?” - -“That was his visitor yesterday.” - -“_Was_ it?” said the Medical Superintendent, and reflected and went to -his desk as if to look for a paper. “I thought it was a different sort -of name--rather more like Goodchild. Perhaps I’ve mixed up the names.” - -“Mr. Sam Widgery,” said Christina Alberta, “would be the last person -who’d want Daddy to get out. He probably came to make sure that he -wouldn’t. He may have come just for the pleasure of gloating over him. -Uncle Sam’s not a pretty soul. He may have wanted to make sure the wall -went all the way round.” - -The Medical Superintendent forgot his doubt about the name and the -paper and turned with a fresh idea to them. “You don’t think there was -any animus? You don’t think he may have made for Mr. Widgery? Where -does this Mr. Widgery live?” - -But neither Devizes nor Christina Alberta thought there was any great -possibility of Mr. Preemby beating back to Woodford Wells. - -“He’s much more likely to go to Canterbury or Windsor or start straight -off for Rome,” said Christina Alberta. - -“Or Mesopotamia--or the British Museum,” said Devizes. - -“Or _anywhere_!” said Christina Alberta with a note of despair. - -They returned to London completely baffled. Christina Alberta was -for a visit to the Cummerdown Police Station and for a search in the -villages round about, but Devizes explained that this might do more -harm than good. Until now Christina Alberta had never heard of that one -kindly weakness in the British lunacy laws, the release of the fourteen -days freedom. If the lunatic can get away from the Asylum and remain -at large for that period, he or she becomes legally sane again, and -cannot be touched without a fresh examination and a new certificate. To -set the whole countryside hunting for Preemby might merely lead to his -recapture by the Asylum authorities. And whatever happened the mystery -must not get into the papers. - -“But while we do nothing, he may be lying dead in some out-of-the-way -ditch,” said Christina Alberta. - -“If he’s dead he won’t mind a little delay in finding him,” said -Devizes. - -No, the only thing was to wait at Lonsdale Mews against the chance of -his returning thither. The Crumbs went off to Shoreham and Christina -Alberta was left alone in the studio, but after one endless day of it -Paul Lambone thought of a convenient agency called “Universal Aunts,” -and a suitable lady was sent to relieve her from a continuous vigil. - -One, two, three days passed. There came no sign from Sargon, no news -of any fresh calling of disciples or visits to the King. He had -evaporated. A vision of a little crumpled-up body in a ditch replaced -the tormented figure in the cell in the distressed imagination of -Christina Alberta. But the mind refuses to go on with a painful fancy -that leads to nothing, and Christina Alberta’s imagination presently -ceased further dealings with her Daddy until fresh material came to -hand. “He will turn up somewhere,” she repeated feebly, and became a -great consumer of evening papers. “He will turn up somehow.” Her chief -anxiety was that he should not turn up with too tremendous head-lines. -She began to adjust herself like an early Christian for the Second -Coming. The riddle of her Daddy’s disappearance became a habit of -mind, became, as it were, a frame, a proscenium arch to her current -activities. Beneath it she returned to the urgent and extraordinary -problem of herself and her relationship to Devizes. - - -§ 12 - -It was manifest that he was almost as excited as she was at their -mutual discovery. The possible proceedings of Sargon, fantastic as -they might prove to be when they came to light, remained for him -as for her a matter of urgent importance, but the thought of this -strange relationship completely overshadowed it. Each had a reciprocal -desire to get at the other, to discover what magic of sympathy and -understanding might not be latent in their consanguinity. - -The evening after the Universal Aunt was installed he took Christina -Alberta out to dine with him at a pleasant little Italian restaurant in -the corner of Sloane Square, and afterwards he came back to the studio -with her and talked until nearly one in the morning. He showed himself -shyly anxious to find out her aims and purposes in life, and what she -was doing and what might be done to let out her possibilities. He was -evidently disposed to shoulder just as much parental responsibility as -he could, subject to the preservation of appearances and a proper care -for the self-respect of the vanished Sargon. She attracted him and he -liked her. Her feelings for him were more tumultuous and abundant and -indefinite. She didn’t particularly want help or support from him. The -idea of being dependent upon him for anything repelled rather than -attracted her, but she wanted to get hold of him, to please and satisfy -him, to be better than he had expected and interesting in fresh ways. -She wanted him to like her--to care for her more than mere liking. She -wanted that anxiously and tremendously. - -She liked a sort of ease and confidence he had with waiters and cabmen -and the common services of life. He seemed to know just what people -would do and they seemed to know just what he would do; there was -no tension in these matters, no nervous “h’rrmping.” These common -attributes of habitual prosperity were so little in her experience -that they seemed a distinction of his; and they threw a flavour of -knowing what he was about, and being serenely in control over most of -the conversation, when indeed he was as curious and experimental and -emotionally stirred almost as she was. The eyes that met hers when she -talked were steady, friendly, interested, intimate eyes, and her heart -went out to them. - -Over the dinner he talked at first about music. He had had no music -in his education, and now he was discovering it. A friend of his had -been taking him to concerts, and he had got a pianola, “so as to spell -it out at home first.” But Christina Alberta’s education had missed -out music too, and she hadn’t as yet discovered it. So that topic died -out presently. He tried her about pictures, but there again she wasn’t -particularly interested. They had a little silence. - -He looked across at her and smiled. - -“I’d like to ask you all sorts of questions, Christina Alberta, if I -dared,” he said. - -She blushed--absurdly. “Any questions you like,” she said. - -“Immense questions,” he said. “For example--generally--what do you -think you are up to?” - -She understood what he meant at once. But she was so unprepared with an -answer that she became evasive. - -“Up to!” she said, playing for time. “I suppose I’m looking for my lost -Daddy.” - -“But what are you up to generally? What are you doing with your life? -Where are you going?” - -“I’m at sea,” she said at last. “Lots of my generation are, I think. -The girls especially. You are older than I am; I’m only beginning. -I don’t want to seem cheeky, but aren’t you better able to say what -_you_ are up to? Suppose--” Her slightly scared gravity broke into an -impudent smile that Devizes found very congenial--“suppose you play -first?” - -He considered that. “Perfectly fair,” he said. “I will. Have another -olive. I’m glad you like olives. I do too. Nobody’s called me to -account for a long time. What _is_ my game? It’s a fair question.” - -But not an easy one evidently. - -“I suppose one ought to begin right back at one’s philosophy,” he said. -“A long story. But I started the idea.” - -Christina Alberta was greatly elated at her successful repulse of his -projected cross-examination. Instead of making a display herself she -could watch him. She watched him over the flowers on the table and had -to be nudged by the waiter when he brought the pheasant to her elbow. -“How _should_ one begin?” he plunged. She had heard of Pragmatism? Yes. -She was probably better read in that sort of thing than he was. He was, -he considered, a sort of Pragmatist. Most modern-minded, intelligent -people he held were Pragmatists as he understood it. Pragmatist? As he -understood it? He met her eye and explained. In this sense he meant it; -we, none of us, had a clear vision of reality; nobody perhaps would -ever do more than approach reality. What we perceived was just that -much of reality that got through to us, through our very defective -powers of interpretation. “They’ve done this pheasant _en casserole_ -very well,” he broke off. “Three minutes’ truce we ought to give it. Do -you find I’m talking comprehensibly? I doubt it.” - -“I’m hanging on,” said Christina Alberta.... - -“Perhaps I’m beginning rather too far off.” - -Pheasant.... - -“To come back to my confession of faith,” he said presently.... “Mind -you, Christina Alberta, you’ve got to say your bit afterwards.” - -“It won’t be as definite as yours,” she said. “Some of yours I shall -steal. But go on--telling me.” - -“Well, keep hold, Christina Alberta. I feel I’m going to be at once -hesitating and condensed. And I’m not sure of what you know or don’t -know. If I say I’m an Agnostic about the nature of the universe, and -how it began and where it ends, does that convey anything to you?” - -“Just what I think,” said Christina Alberta. - -“Well.” He started afresh and got into parenthetical difficulties. The -Pêche Melba came to interrupt and permit a fresh start. He unfolded a -psychologist’s vision of the world for her inspection, a curious and -yet attractive vision to her. He expressed himself in terms of mind and -understanding. She was used to hearing everything expressed in terms of -labour and material necessity. Life, he said, was one continuous thing, -all life was connected. He tried to illustrate that. The conscious -life of most lower animals was intensely individual, a lizard, for -example, was just itself, just its instincts and appetites; it received -no teaching and no tradition, it handed on nothing to its kind. But -the higher animals were taught when they were young, learnt and taught -others and communicated with each other. Men far more than any animal. -He had developed picture-writing, speech, oral tradition, scientific -record. There was now a common mind of the race, a great growing body -of knowledge and interpretations. - -“People like ourselves are just cross-sections of that flow. -Individually we receive it, react to it, change it a little, and pass -away. We are just passing phases of that increasing mind--which may be -for all we can certainly say, an immortal mind. Does this sound like -Greek--or nonsense to you?” - -“No,” she said, “I think I get the drift of it.” She looked at his -intent face. He wasn’t in the least talking down to her; he was simply -trying to express himself as well as he possibly could to her. He was -treating her like an equal. Like an equal! - -That was his general philosophy. He was coming to the question of -himself now, he said. He became very earnest over the coffee cups -and ash tray on the swept tablecloth. He spread elucidatory hands -before her. He was conscientiously explicit. He saw in himself two -phases, or rather two levels of existence. Roughly speaking, two. -They had links and intermediate stages of course, but they could be -ignored when one just wanted to express the idea. First of all, he was -the old instinctive individual, fearful, greedy, lustful, jealous, -self-assertive. That was the primary self. He had to attend to that -primary self because it carried all the rest of him, as a rider -must see that his horse gets oats. Deeper lay social instincts and -dispositions arising out of family life. That was the second self, the -social self. Man, he threw out, is a creature that has become more -and more consciously social in the last two or three hundred thousand -years. He has been lengthening his life, keeping his children with him -longer and longer, enlarging his community from family herds into clans -and tribes and nations. The deep-lying continuity of life was becoming -more apparent and finding more and more definite expression with this -socialization of man. To educate anyone in the proper sense of the word -was to make him more and more aware of this continuity. The importance -of the passionate feverish self was then reduced. True education was -self-subordination to a greater life, to the social self. The natural -instincts and limitations of the primary self were in conflict with -this wider underflow; education, _good_ education, tended to correct -them. - -“Here am I,” said Devizes, “as we all are, a creature in a state of -internal conflict, quicker, fiercer mortal instincts at issue with a -deeper, calmer, less brightly lit, but finally stronger drive towards -immortal purposes. And I am--how shall I put it?--I personally am, to -the best of my ability, on the side of the deeper things. My aptitudes -and temperament and opportunities have brought me to psychology--as a -profession. I work to add to the accumulation of human knowledge and -understanding about the mind. I work for illumination. My particular -work is to study and cure troubled and tangled minds. I try to -straighten them out and simplify them and illuminate them. And above -all I try to learn from them. I seek the mental or physical cause -of their distresses. I try to set down as clearly and accessibly as -possible, all I observe and learn. That’s my job. That’s my aim. It -gives me a general direction for my life. All the stuff of my mere -individual existence I try to subordinate to that end. Not always. My -monkey individual gets loose at times and gibbers on the roof. And at -other times it’s rather good company as a relief from overwork. Vanity -and self-indulgence have their uses. But never mind the monkey now. I -do not want to be a brilliant person; I want to be a vital part. That’s -my essential creed. I want to be the sort of wheel in the machinery -they call a mental expert. As good a wheel as I can be. That’s what I’m -up to in general terms, Christina Alberta. That’s what I think I am.” - -“Yes,” said Christina Alberta, reflecting profoundly. “Of course I -can’t produce a statement like that. You’ve got your system--complete.” - -“And finished,” said Devizes. “You’ve got to tell your story in your -own way. At your age--you ought to be with loose ends to all your -convictions.” - -“I wonder if I can tell you any story.” - -“You’ve got to try your best now. It’s only fair play.” - -“Yes.” - -There was a little silence. - -“It’s wonderful to talk to you like this,” said Christina Alberta. -“It’s wonderful to talk to anyone like this.” - -“I feel that you and I--have to understand each other.” - -She met his grave eyes for a moment. There was a wave of emotion within -her. She could not speak. She reached out her hand to touch his, and -for a moment their hands were together. - - -§ 13 - -Christina Alberta only got to her confession of faith in the studio -after they had returned thither and relieved the Universal Aunt. Even -then they didn’t settle down to the business all at once. Devizes -walked about and looked for drawings by Harold; he deduced Harold from -his drawings to a quite remarkable extent, Christina Alberta thought. -He was curious about Fay. “What’s Mrs. Crumb like?” he asked. “Show me -something of hers, something that seems to give her.” - -It pleased Christina Alberta very much to think that he was shy with -her. She felt that this was a recognition of her equality. He was -respecting her and she was very eager that she should be respected by -him. - -He got to an anchorage at last in the gaily painted seat by the -gas-fire; and Christina Alberta, after flitting about the room for -a time, came and stood before it, shapely legs wide apart and hands -behind her back in an attitude that would have shocked all her feminine -ancestors for many generations. But it did not shock Devizes; he found -her more and more interesting to watch, and he sat at his ease and -regarded her with a lively admiration. Most of us get used to our -daughters so gradually; they grow up and we carry the wonder of them -as Milo carried his ox; it isn’t common for a man to get an unexpected -daughter abruptly at the age of twenty-one. - -She said she hadn’t much in the way of metaphysics; she was a -Materialist. - -“No prayers at mother’s knee? Religion of Mother and Daddy? School -prayers and teaching? Church or chapel?” - -“It all washed out and faded out, I think, as they laid it on.” - -“No fear of hell? Most of my generation went through the fear of hell.” - -“Not a trace of it,” said the New Age. - -“But--a desire for God in the night?” - -Christina Alberta paused for a little while. “I have that,” she said. -“It comes--sometimes. I don’t know whether it’s very important or not -important at all.” - -“It’s part,” said Devizes slowly, “of something that has to do with -wanting to be more than a miserable worm--and disliking meanness--and -so forth.” - -“Yes. Do you know more about it?” - -Rather oddly he didn’t answer that. “And how do you see yourself in -relation to mankind--and the animals--and the stars? What sense of -obligation have you? What do you think the road is along which you have -to go?” - -“H’m,” said Christina Alberta. She considered she was a Communist, she -said, though she didn’t belong to the Party. But she knew some other -young people who did. She produced some of the phrases of the movement, -“the materialist conception of history” and so forth. He said he failed -to understand and asked rather irritating questions; she thought -controversially. She didn’t realize at first how widely apart was their -phraseology. As they talked this became apparent. He seemed to have -nothing too good to say for the Communist idea, for wasn’t it just his -own idea of being a part of a greater being of life? but he seemed to -have nothing too bad for practical Communism. Marxist Communism he -said wasn’t a constructive movement at all; it was merely a solvent. -It had no idea, no plan. Christina Alberta was put on the defensive. -“Enthusiasm for an ideal Communist state isn’t nearly so important as -the question of immediate Communist tactics in a decaying society,” she -recited, in an almost official tone. That was how her young friends in -the Party talked. But when she talked like this to him it didn’t seem -so effective. He wouldn’t leave her phrases alone. He wanted to know -what she meant by decay in a society, whether there had ever been a -society not actively in decay and not also actively in growth, what -good tactics were except in relation to general strategy and whether -there could be any strategy without a clear war-end. She countered more -vigorously than effectively and their manner became controversial. - -He pressed the difference in their opinions. Communism for him meant a -new spirit, a spirit of science reorganizing the world upon scientific -collective lines, but the whole temper of party communism was -contemporary. It was saturated with the feelings and ideas of existing -social classes, with the natural resentment of the dispossessed. It -had the angry dogmatism of desperate people not sure of their grip. -It needed more of the passion of creative self-forgetfulness. Many -Communists, he said, were simply reversed capitalists, egotists without -capital; they wanted revenge and expropriation, and when they were -through with that they would be left with nothing but social ruins -and everything to begin all over again. And they were suspicious and -intolerant because of their want of internal assurance. They distrusted -their best friends, their proper leaders, scientific men like Keynes -and Soddy. - -“Keynes a Communist!” cried Christina Alberta in derision. “He doesn’t -accept the first scientific fact of the class war.” - -“It isn’t much of a fact--certainly not a First Scientific Fact,” he -replied. “Keynes builds up slowly a conception of a scientifically -organized exchange system. Most of your friends in Russia don’t seem -capable even of realizing that such a thing is necessary.” - -“But they do!” - -“Have they shown it?” - -“What do _you_ know of the Russian Bolsheviks?” - -“What do _you_? You just look at the labels on people. Nothing genuine -without the red label--and everything genuine with.” - -She said he saw things from his “bourgeois” standpoint, and he laughed -cheerfully at her social classifications; there was no bourgeoisie -in England, he said; she attempted some of the stock cynicisms and -sarcasms of the movement but with an unusual lack of conviction. It -was easy for him to criticize, she said, living as he did on invested -capital. - -“It would make it easier,” he smiled. “But really I live on my fees.” - -“You have invested capital.” - -“Some. I don’t live on it.” - -They had exhausted the dispute for a time. After all she reflected she -hadn’t put up such a bad fight, considering her age and standing. The -momentary glow of controversial exasperation faded again. They drifted -to the more immediate question in which they were interested, the -question of what she was to do with her life. - - -§ 14 - -“We progress, Christina Alberta,” said Devizes, “but it’s still -generally the rule that a woman’s life is determined very largely by -the character and occupations of--the leading man in the play. Have you -by any chance been in love yet?” - -She wanted to tell him all the truth about herself, but some things are -untellable. She hesitated and blushed hotly. “Nowadays,” she said, and -stopped. “I’ve some imagination. I’ve run about London. I’ve perhaps -imagined things----” - -His eyes were very searching for a moment but none the less kindly. - -“I’ve been in love--in a kind of way,” she admitted. - -He nodded with a dreadful effect of complete comprehension. - -“I don’t want to run my life in relation to any man,” she extended. - -“Clever girls never do. Any more than clever young men want to spend -their lives adoring a goddess.” - -“In any case I don’t see myself becoming a child-producing -housekeeper,” she said. - -“Even if you married. No. I doubt whether you are that type. But if you -are going to reject that easy way--and it _is_ an easy way, in spite of -what people say--if you are going to be a citizen on your own as a man -is, then you’ve got to do a man’s work, Christina Alberta. There’s to -be none of the Pretty Fanny business you know.” - -“Well, _am_ I?” asked Christina Alberta. - -“No, I don’t think you are. And in that case, I guess you want some -more education. You’re clever, but you’re a bit patchy.” - -“I’m good enough to get a job. And then learn.” - -“Learn,” he said. “That’s enough to take you all your time. I’d rather -we agreed it’s got to be a student for two or three years more. You -need have no anxiety about ways and means. You and I are of the same -Clan--a clan of two practically--and I am the head. I’ll see you -through just as though you were a son. And now, what sort of work is it -to be? Law? Medicine? a general education for journalism or affairs? -Doors open to women now--fresh doors every day.” - -To that Christina Alberta could speak a little more fully. She had been -thinking out some of these things. She wanted to know about life and -the world as a whole. Could she have a good year at physical science, -biology and geology chiefly and anthropology? Would that be possible? -And then if she was any good at medical work, another year at mental -science or politics and public health? “It sounds ambitious I know,” -she said. - -“Ambitious! It’s an encyclopædia in a year.” - -“But I want to know about all these things.” - -“Naturally.” - -“Could I have longer than that?” - -“You’d have to have longer than that.” - -“It seems to be asking for so much.” - -“It wouldn’t be if you were in trousers. We’ve agreed to unsex you to -that extent. Why shouldn’t you be ambitious?” - -“You think I might do work--scientific work--at last--as you do?” - -“Why not?” - -“A girl?” - -“You’re the sort of stuff I am, Christina Alberta.” - -“Do you think--some day--I might even come to work--to work with you?” - -“Kindred minds may follow kindred courses,” he said, with the -completest recognition of their relationship “Why not?” - -She stood and looked at him with a dark excitement in her eyes and he -had a momentary intimation of all that he might be to her. Gallant she -was and fine and ambitious; a wonderful life to come out of nothingness -into his own. And she meant this relationship to grow, as well it might -grow, into something very great and deep for both of them. - -He went off at a tangent to talk of the contrast of men and women -students and of men and women as workers. “You’ll never run parallel -with men, you free women, so don’t expect it. You’ve got to work out -a way that is similar perhaps but different. Different down to the -roots.” He argued that probably the whole fabric of a man had its -qualities that a woman’s did not possess and vice versa, down even to -a muscular fibre or a nerve tendril. A time might come when we should -be able to put a drop of blood or a scrap of skin under the microscope -or apply some subtle reagent to it and tell its sex. “A man resists,” -he said. “A man is intractable. He has greater inertia, physical and -mental. That keeps him to his course. Men compared with women are -steadier and stupider. Women compared with men are quicker and sillier. -Bludgeons and bodkins.” - -He talked of his student days when women medical students were still -rather novel intrusions, and from that he passed to his father’s -prejudices, to his father’s treatment of his mother and his boyish -days. Presently they were exchanging experiences of childish delusions -and fancies. She forgot how much older and more experienced he was in -the ease of his talk. He told her about himself because he recognized -her right to know about him; he listened with a friendly eagerness -to all she chose to tell him of her Daddy and herself and about -her impressions and her few adventures in encounter as a suburban -student in London. They shared their delight in Paul Lambone’s kindly -absurdity. Presently it occurred to her to offer him drink. The Crumbs -had left a bottle of beer and a syphon. But Devizes asked her to make -tea and helped her with the kettle. Meanwhile the mutual exploration -went on. Their friendliness grew richer and deeper as they talked. She -had never before met so intimate and delightful a curiosity as his. She -had had friends before but no such friendliness; she had had a lover -but never such intimacy. - -It was one o’clock before he went away. - -The talk had ebbed. He sat thoughtful for a moment. - -“I must go,” he said, and stood up. They faced each other, a little at -a loss for parting words. - -“It’s been wonderful to talk to you,” she said. - -“It’s a great thing to have discovered you.” - -Another pause. “It’s a great thing for me,” she said lamely. - -“We’ll talk--many times,” he said. - -He wanted to call her “my dear,” and an absurd shyness prevented him. -And she was aware of that suppression. - -She stood up straight before him in the passage with a flush on her -cheeks and her eyes alight, and he wondered he had not thought her -beautiful from the beginning. “Good-bye for the time,” he said, and -smiled at her gravely and took and held her hand for a moment. - -“Good night,” she said, and hesitated and then opened the green door -for him and stood and watched him go up the Mews. - -At the top he turned and waved his hand to her before he disappeared. -“Good night,” she whispered and started, and looked about her as if she -feared that her unspoken thoughts had been audible. - -Father. Her father! - -So real fathers leave one aglow like this! - -He had left her tense as a violin string on which the bow rests -motionless. Now Daddy, who wasn’t her father, she would just have -hugged and kissed. - - - - -CHAPTER THE SECOND - -_How Bobby Stole a Lunatic_ - - -§ 1 - -A man may be a mental expert and yet fail to take the most obvious -hints in a detective investigation. The medical superintendent at -Cummerdown Hill had doubted for a moment whether Widgery was the name -of Sargon’s visitor. He had thought it was more like Goodchild. But -since there was no known Goodchild in the world of Christina Alberta, -neither she nor Devizes had troubled to scrutinize this momentary -uncertainty. Nor had she and Devizes asked themselves why Widgery -should have made a second visit to his cousin. Indeed, he had not done -so. It was a much younger man who had visited Sargon that Tuesday; he -had falsely represented himself as Sargon’s nephew and given the name -of “Robin Goodchild.” His real name was Robert Roothing, and he had -come for the sole purpose of getting Sargon out of the asylum as soon -as possible, because he could not endure the thought of his staying -there. - -Circumstances had conspired with a natural predisposition to give Bobby -a great horror of all restraint. His mother, a gentle dark creature, -the wife of a large blond negligent landowner, had died when Bobby was -twelve; and he had been entrusted to the care of a harsh, old-fashioned -aunt--to whom the cupboard seemed a proper place for discipline. When -she discovered that he was really distressed by it, she sought to break -his “cowardice” by giving him quite liberal doses of it--even when -he had committed no offence. He went to a school where discipline -was maintained by “keeping-in.” The war eliminated his father, who -died suddenly of over-excitement while in command of an anti-aircraft -gun during an air-raid, and it led Bobby through some tiresome -campaigning in Mesopotamia and the beleaguerment of Kut to an extremely -unsympathetic Turkish prison. In any case he would probably have been -a free-going easy creature, but now he had so passionate a hatred of -cages that he wanted to release even canaries. He disliked the iron -fences round the public parks and squares with a propagandist passion, -he wrote articles about them in _Wilkins’ Weekly_ and elsewhere -clamouring for their “liberation,” and he never went by train if he -could help it because of the claustrophobia that assailed him in the -compartment. He would ride a push-bike except for long distances, and -then he would borrow Billy’s motor bicycle. He did his best to prevent -his craving for the large and open from becoming too conspicuous or a -nuisance to other people, but Tessy and Billy understood about it and -did their best to make things easy for him. - -It was not only claustrophobia that Bobby had to fight against. He -carried on a secret internal conflict with a disinclination to act -upon most occasions, that he believed had developed in him as a result -of war experiences. Sometimes it seemed to him to be just indolence, -sometimes fastidiousness, sometimes sheer funk and cowardice. He -could not tell. He had a rankling memory of a case of cruelty he had -witnessed in the prisoners’ camp when he had stood by and done nothing. -He would wake up sometimes at three o’clock in the morning and say -to himself aloud, “I stood by and I did nothing. Oh God! Oh _God_! -Oh GOD!” And at times he would walk up and down his study repeating: -“_Act!_ You vegetable! you hiding cur! Out and act!” Meanwhile he -obeyed routines and did whatever came to his hand. As “Aunt Suzannah” -he was excellent, indefatigably considerate, lucid, really helpful. -_Wilkins’ Weekly_ was proud of him. He was the backbone of the paper. - -And now this affair of Sargon’s had twisted him up very badly between -his desire to free the little man, who had taken an extraordinary hold -upon his imagination and sympathy, and his sense of the immense forces -against which he would have to pit himself if he tried to give him any -help. It was only after a considerable struggle with himself that he -had called at the police station and the Gifford Street Workhouse. He -was afraid of awkward questions, afraid above all of being “detained.” -The workhouse was a detestable place with high walls and a paved court -and a general effect of sinister seclusion from the grubby street -outside. For the best part of a day after his Gifford Street visit he -hesitated whether he should do anything more. - -“Bobby’s got a grouch,” Susan told Tessy. “He’s stoopid. Just sits and -says ’E ’as to fink sumpfink over. What’s he fink fings over for? Said -I was to come downstairs again, there was a good girl.... Meant it.... -Said so.... Puss’d me ’way.... I do-o-n’t fink I lo-o-o-ove Bobby -’nymore.” - -Great distress. A storm of tears. Tessy was deeply sympathetic. - -But after tea Bobby was brighter and drew Susan her “Good night -picture” and came down and sat on her bed and talked her to sleep the -same as usual, and Tessy perceived that the worst of Bobby’s trouble -was over. - -At supper Bobby unfolded his plans. - -“I mean to go to Cummerdown Hill to-morrow,” he said compactly. - -“To see Sargon?” said Tessy understandingly. - -“If I can. But it won’t be visiting day. That’s Tuesday. I want to look -round.” - -Billy raised his eyebrows and helped himself to butter. - -“But--” said Tessy, and stopped short. - -“Yes?” said Bobby. - -“You won’t be able to see him. You don’t know the name he’s under.” - -“They’ll call him Mr. Sargon,” said Billy. - -“His name’s Preemby. He’s a laundryman. They told me at the workhouse. -His people _want him to be there_!” - -“I can’t stand the thought of it,” said Bobby after a brief silence. - -“Don’t follow,” said Billy. - -“That nice little thing being made into a lunatic. Like a little -blue-eyed bird he was. High walls. Great louting warders. Sargon, King -of Kings.... I’ve got to do something about it or I shall burst.” - -He looked at once weak and desperate. Tessy reflected. “You’d better -go,” she said. - -“But what good will that do?” said Billy, and was quelled by a glance -from Tessy. - -“If you can lend me the old motor bike and the side-car. You’re not -using it this week-end.” - -“You can take off the side-car,” said Billy. - -“I may want it,” said Bobby. - -“You don’t mean--!” said Billy. - -Bobby came as near to an explosion as he ever did. - -“Oh never mind _what_ I mean. I tell you I’m going down to Cummerdown -to have a look at the place. No doubt I’m a futile ass, Billy, but I -just can’t help myself going. The poor little beggar’s got no friends. -His own family’s helped to put him away. Families do. It’s an infernal -world. I’ve got to do something. If it’s only to shake ’em up. If I -stay here another day I shall start smacking Susan.” - -“Somebody ought to,” said Billy. - -“If he can only keep away for fourteen days clear----” - -“He’s free?” said Tessy. - -“He has to be certified all over again--anyhow,” said Bobby. - - -§ 2 - -Bobby discovered that the village of Cummerdown lies nearly two miles -away from the asylum, and does its best very successfully to have as -little to do with it as possible. It nestles among trees just off the -high-road to Ashford and Hastings, and has one cramped little inn that -gave him a bleak bedroom and accommodated his machine and side-car in -an open outhouse crowded with two carts and a Ford and populous with -hens. The day was still young, and after he had deposited the elderly -rucksac in which he had brought his “things” upstairs, he set out with -a walking-stick and an air of detached interest to reconnoitre the -asylum and develop his plans for the rescue of Sargon. That golden -autumn was still holding out; the pleasant lane he followed to the -high-road was patterned with green and yellow chestnut leaves and the -trees overhead were full of sunshine. It was a reassuring day. It -encouraged him. It took him with a kindly seriousness and made him feel -that rescuing people from lunatic asylums was the sort of work the sun -could shine upon and nature welcome. - -It had needed a great effort to get down from London. He had felt then -like a midget setting out to attack an embattled universe. Amidst the -Croydon traffic he had been half-minded to go back, but he had felt -that he could not face Tessy until he had been at least definitely -defeated. It was delightful to note an increased assurance within -himself as he drew nearer to his enterprise. He felt much more on -the scale of the powers he attacked. After all, what were laws and -regulations but just things patched up by men like himself? What were -prison walls but the slow work of shirking bricklayers and evasive -contractors? The attendants and custodians, the superintendents and -so forth he was setting out to circumvent, were all as fallible as -himself. And the thing was urgent and outrageous, this seizure of a -harmless little fantastic, this frightful imprisonment. It had to be -fought. The world would be intolerable unless such things were fought. - -Queer world it was! Such beauty on these tree-stems, such a glow, and -the delightfulness of rustling one’s feet through these leaves! But all -that was by the way; the real business of life was to fight evil things. - -He came out from between the trees and saw the wide downs opening out -before him and the blocked masses of the asylum with its broad bare -grounds and walls, an eyesore. This was his objective. In that place -somewhere was Sargon, and he had to be released. - -He seated himself on a convenient stile and inspected that heavy -architecture and tried to frame a plan. That white building in the -centre looked like a gaunt Georgian private house. That was probably -the nucleus of the whole place. Two men were visible in front of it -mowing the grass--patients perhaps. The wall and railings along the -road looked implacable. Two stern-looking lodges there were, no doubt -with a testy janitor lurking within, and there were iron gates--one -open. A van was coming out, a furniture dealer’s van. For a time -Bobby’s mind ran on the possibility of becoming a tradesman with -parcels or a crate to deliver.... Many difficulties that way.... - -“But why a frontal attack?” said Bobby with an effect of discovery. The -place fell away behind, down-hill. He would inspect the rear. If he -worked round by the open down to the right, he would probably get on to -slopes commanding a view of the asylum grounds. - -An hour later Bobby was sitting on a heap of flints by the side of a -minor road which ran over the rising ground behind the asylum. He -found the rear of the place much more hopeful and much more interesting -than the front. There were fields with a number of men working in them, -and at one place near the buildings a row of men seemed to be digging -a trench under the supervision of an attendant. There was quite a lot -of movement closer to the buildings, under a sort of open shed half -a dozen men seemed to be taking exercise by walking up and down. It -vexed Bobby to think that any one of these figures might be his Sargon. -If only he had the elementary common sense to bring a field-glass, he -reproached himself, he might have been able to make out his little -friend’s features. “No clearness of thought,” he whispered. “No -decision.” A lot of these people seemed to be going about very freely, -carrying gardening implements and so forth. One he noted, walking about -and gesticulating as if he talked to himself; he was manifestly a -patient and quite unattended. - -The wall bounding the asylum on this side had none of the austerity of -the front wall. It seemed to be an old estate wall; in several places -it was covered with ivy and here and there it was overhung with trees. -The ground dropped away to his right, there was a little stream which -ran out of the asylum grounds at the lowest corner; the corner was -shaded by trees and seemed to be left to the trees and undergrowth; the -stream ran under a low arch in the wall and went on down a widening -valley towards London. The seclusion and shade of this corner appealed -to Bobby very strongly. It seemed to him exactly the point at which -Sargon ought to be got out of the place. He decided that presently -he would stroll down and examine its possibilities as precisely as -possible. If one could get Sargon to come down there---- - -He found the details difficult. He meant to have a plan worked out -in every detail and to communicate it to Sargon on the next visiting -day, but it was very hard to fit this plan together. He did not know -when it would be most convenient for Sargon to attempt to slip away, -whether this was to be a daylight or a night affair. He saw before -him a great vista of inquiries to be made and suspicious people to be -faced. “Damn!” said Bobby, and for a time he was again for abandoning -the attempt. - -Why couldn’t one go in at these gates, boldly and overwhelmingly, and -say, “There is a sane man here and I have come to set him free?” A -superman might do that, or an archangel. How splendid it would be to be -a sort of Archangel-Knight-Errant, a great flaming presence of light -and winged power, righting wrongs, reproving oppressors, liberating -every kind of captive creature. Then one might do things. Bobby lapsed -into a childish day-dream. - -Presently he roused himself, stood up and went down towards the exit of -the stream. The wall struck him as quite climbable--even by a little -old gentleman. The stream came out meandering among pebbles through -a short tunnel. One could have got into the asylum grounds or out of -them quite easily over the wall by the ivy or through the culvert. He -resolved to come again at twilight and--just to satisfy himself about -his own pluck among other things--get into the asylum premises and walk -about a little. - -Yes. He would do that. - -He tried to imagine himself assisting Sargon over the wall. One could -get on the top of the wall and reach down to his hands. A cripple could -do it. The motor bicycle would have to be waiting up there in the lane. -And then? _Where would he take him?_ - -This was a new consideration. For a time Bobby’s mind was appalled and -paralyzed by the complexities of his enterprise. He had not thought of -taking him anywhere in particular. - -The days that intervened before visiting day seemed at once -interminable and frightfully swift. He had been to Dymchurch in the -summer with the Malmesburys, and liked the landlady of his lodgings -very much; he wired to her “Can I come with a relation not ill but -overworked for week or so you will remember me last summer Roothing the -Feathers Cummerdown” and had got a reply, “Glad to see you any time.” -So that was all right. But the rest of the plan failed very largely to -materialize. He made his nocturnal visit to the asylum grounds without -misadventure. - -The morning of visiting day found him with half a dozen plans, and they -all had gaps and none seemed much better or worse than the others. And -he had walked round the asylum grounds at various discreet distances, -by night and day just twenty-three times, not counting loops, returns -and visits to particular points of interest. Fortunately asylums are -much preoccupied with their internal affairs, and do not keep look-out -men upon the battlements. They do not reckon with rescuers from outside. - -Bobby made his final decision among these conflicting projects over -his breakfast bacon. With a resolute sang-froid and his nerves all -a-tingle, he set out for the asylum to see Sargon and begin the work of -rescue as he had thought it out. First he had to find out what freedom -of movement was permitted Sargon, when it might be possible for him to -get away to the corner by the culvert, and he had to arrange a time for -that meeting. Then he would have to provide also for alternative times -if Sargon failed to keep his first appointment. Bobby would be waiting -under the wall and the motor bicycle and side-car would be hidden among -the bushes up by the road. In a trice Sargon would be over the wall. -After that they could laugh at pursuit. Off they would go to Dymchurch, -and there, safe and untrackable, Sargon would keep indoors until the -fifteen days needed to make him legally a sane man again had passed. -And then Bobby could find out those relations of his and talk the -matter over with them, and get things on a proper footing. So Bobby -planned it out. - -Just at the lodge gates he decided upon an assumed name. He wasn’t -quite clear why he didn’t give his own name, but an assumed name seemed -to him to be more in the spirit of the adventure. - - -§ 3 - -When Sargon was informed that he was to be visited by Mr. Robin -Goodchild he was in a depressed mood. He betrayed no surprise at the -name. It seemed to him to be as good as any other name. It might be -the name of some intelligent inquirer or possibly even some precursor -of the release he still hoped for. His spirits rose. He submitted -cheerfully to a searching examination of his personal tidiness, and he -nodded acquiescently to a warning not to talk about “_every_ blessed -thing” he’d seen. - -His spirits rose still more when he saw the dark kindliness of Bobby’s -face. It was the one disciple who had ever seemed to believe. He held -out both his hands in a little storm of emotion. Whatever sort of -muddler Bobby might be to himself, to Sargon in that moment at least he -was strength and hope. - -The meeting occurred in the reception-room downstairs, for no one -from the outside world may ever penetrate to the wards and the -bleak realities of everyday asylum life. The reception-room had a -baize-covered table in the middle, a black horsehair sofa and numerous -chairs; it was totally devoid of small movables; there was an A B C -time-table and one or two illustrated weeklies on the table, and the -walls bore brown-spotted steel engravings of Prince Albert and Queen -Victoria in the Highlands and of Windsor Castle from the Thames. There -were three or four groups, each of two or three people, with their -heads together conversing in tactful undertones; there were several -women and one little girl; a tearful lady in profound mourning sat -apart by the empty fire-place and no doubt awaited a patient; two -attendants tried hard not to look as though they were listening as -intently as possible to the conversations going on about them. The -patients present were all in the sanest phase, “fit to be visited.” -There was no madness visible; at most only a little nervous oddity. -Bobby had been watching these other groups while he waited, and he had -been impressed by a certain quality of furtiveness in their behaviour. -The furtiveness he connected with the alertness of the attendants. -One affected to look out of the window, the other half sat at a -table holding an old _Graphic_, and ever and again there would be a -quick glance at this patient or that. It had not occurred to Bobby -that his talk to Sargon would be semi-public; it was a disconcerting -interference that would greatly hamper him in giving his instructions. - -Bobby saw at once that Sargon was very much thinner than when he had -taken his room in Midgard Street. He looked ill and worn, an effect -that was emphasized by the fact that he was badly shaven and wearing -ill-fitting clothes. His eyes seemed larger and sunken under his brows -and his forehead more definitely lined. Yet if he looked unhappier he -also looked more intelligent. He seemed more aware of the things about -him--less a man in a dream. - -“I have come to see if I can be of service to you,” said Bobby, holding -out his hands. “Your friends and disciples are anxious for your -welfare.” - -“You have come to see me,” he said, and glanced sideways at the -listening attendant and dropped his voice; “me--_Sargon_?” - -Bobby understood that note of doubt and it grieved him. “You, Sargon, -the King out of the Past.” - -“They would have me deny it,” whispered Sargon. - -Bobby raised his eyebrows and nodded his head as who should say, -“They’d do _anything_.” - -The little man’s manner changed. “How is one to know?” he said. “How is -one to know?” - -He sighed. “Nothing seems certain any more.” - -“Can we sit down and talk together?” said Bobby. “There is much to be -said between us.” - -Sargon glanced round. There were two chairs in a corner, and in that -corner they might be a little beyond the eavesdropper’s range. “I -cannot understand this madness,” said Sargon as they sat down. “I -cannot understand this Riddle that has been set me. Why does the Power, -why does God, permit men to be mad? When they are mad they are beyond -good and evil. What are they? Men still? What becomes of justice, what -becomes of righteousness--when men go mad?” His voice sank. His eyes -became furtive. “Dreadful things happen here,” he whispered. “Dreadful -things. Quite dreadful things.” - -He ceased. For a little while neither he nor Bobby said a word. - -“I want to get you out of this,” said Bobby. - -“Are my friends doing anything?” asked Sargon. “What is Christina -Alberta doing? Is she well?” - -“She is splendid,” he said haphazard. No doubt she was one of this -beastly family of Sargon’s that was content to leave him here. “I want -you to listen to me,” he said. - -But Sargon had things to tell. “Everyone in this place is always -thinking about what their friends outside are doing for them. The poor -souls come and talk to me. They know I am different from what they are. -They write letters, petitions. I tell them that when God releases me I -will bear them all in mind. Some mock at me. They have delusions. They -think they are kings or emperors or rich men or great discoverers, and -that the world has plotted against them.... Some are suspicious and -cruel.... Darkened souls.... Some have dreadful habits. You cannot -help but see.... Some are badly sunken--degraded--indescribably.... It -is very painful, very painful.” - -The blue eyes stared blankly at unpleasant memories. - -“There can be no doubt that I am Sargon,” he said abruptly, and looked -sharply at Bobby. - -“I call you by no other name,” said Bobby. - -The momentary acuteness faded again. “That man Preemby was unawakened. -He was asleep--scarcely dreaming of life. _But I have seen!_ I have -looked at the world from high places. And from dark places too.... -Sargon. Sargon is a different person.... But it is difficult.” - -He became silent. - -Bobby felt that they were getting nowhere. In his anticipations of this -conversation he had talked and Sargon had listened. And there had been -no one to overhear. But this was all unexpected. Anyhow, the plan had -to be told; Sargon had to be instructed in his part. He glanced warily -at the people nearest to them. “There are those among us,” he said -quietly and quickly, “who would set you free. I want to tell you--” On -the spur of the moment he attempted a code. “When I speak of a city in -Central Asia it will mean this place, the Asylum. Do you understand?” - -“This place--Central Asia. If I am Sargon.... Everything is possibly -something else. But we are still in England nevertheless.” - -“In reality. But I want to explain to you.” - -“Yes, yes. Explain.” - -“I shall speak of great discoveries in Central Asia. That will mean -this.” - -_Did_ he understand? - -“_Rescue!_” whispered Bobby in Sargon’s ear, and glanced at the -attendant and met his eye and was discomposed. - -“Tell me about the discoveries,” said Sargon after a little pause as -though he had not heard that whispered word. - -“It is a symbol for this place,” said Bobby. - -Sargon looked puzzled. The attendant was watching their faces now. -Perhaps he suspected already. Bobby flushed hotly and plunged abruptly -into an account of the discoveries of an amazing Russian he called -Bobinsky. Bobinsky had found a walled city with no way out. “Yes,” said -Sargon, interested. The attendant was now looking away. “Like this -place,” said Bobby, and more explicitly; “I _mean_ this place.” There -was a river ran through the city, the city of confinement, and went -out by the lower part. There it was the helper waited. The rescuers. -That was the place for them to wait. Did he understand? At that point -where the trees grew and the river went out through the wall. They they -waited. There they would wait until the captive king came to them. - -“It is a curious story,” said Sargon. “What captive king do you mean?” - -“It is meant for you.” - -“The river you speak of may be the Euphrates,” said Sargon. “I dream of -the Euphrates.” - -He had missed it all! He was out upon some woolgathering of his own. -Euphrates! What had the Euphrates to do with Central Asia? Or the -Asylum? - -“Bother!” said Bobby. “I say-- It is a smaller river I mean, a -streamlet--in the grounds here. Don’t you understand?” - -A tall sharp-faced woman in a hat of hard black straw came near them -and sat down. Bobby, as he talked, observed her out of the corner of -his eye. Was she the friend of a patient or what was she doing here? “I -speak in symbols,” said Bobby, still watching and thinking about this -woman. “This city is your prison.” He caught the woman exchanging a -glance of intelligence with the male attendant who had moved a couple -of yards up the room. They knew each other. Then she must be another -observer. “I want no other prison than this,” said Sargon, evidently -quite at cross-purposes. “One prison is enough.” - -“I don’t mean that,” said Bobby. “Can you walk about here pretty -freely?” - -“Not freely,” said Sargon. “No.” - -“If you could come out into the grounds. To-morrow.” - -The woman turned her long sharp foxy nose towards him, and stared at -him with rather stupid green-blue eyes. - -Bobby’s nerve was going to pieces altogether. He was always more -afraid of women than men. This prim sharp-nosed figure so manifestly -listening, and listening with a faint hostility to all he said, -completed his discomfiture. He tried to improvise a story of lost -and recovered cities that would be crystal clear to Sargon and yet -incomprehensible to the listener. But his invention faltered at the -difficult task. Where the river ran out of the city, he repeated; -he harped upon that idea; where there were trees and ivy, there the -faithful waited. When was the propitious hour for the Master to steal -away to them? Everything was prepared. When could it be? When might -it be? Fragmentally and mixed with many irrelevancies Bobby tried to -get the import of these suggestions over to his hearer. Now he would -be explicit; now as the fear of the listener returned, vague and -misleading. He did convey a sense of mystery and intention to Sargon, -that was plain; but he felt he conveyed nothing more. The time was -slipping by. Bobby could have throttled that infernal woman. More and -more did she become audience to his floundering efforts. He maundered -back to his starting point about Bobinsky. “There is no such person as -Bobinsky,” he threw in. - -“Then how could he explore cities?” asked Sargon, manifestly more and -more perplexed at Bobby’s rigmarole. - -“He is dead,” said Bobby. “He was just a mask.” - -“Some men are.” - -“Don’t mind about Bobinsky. Could you slip away to that corner? No, no. -She’s looking. Don’t answer. - -“Now _answer_.” - -“I don’t understand,” said Sargon. - -Bobby felt that he was only puzzling Sargon. But what else was to be -done? He could have kicked himself for not having brought a brief -statement of his plan written plainly on a little piece of paper that -he could have slipped into Sargon’s hand--or pocket. It would have been -so simple. He could have made a map and a drawing. Too late to do that -now. - -Despair came upon Bobby. Everything had gone wrong. He got up to go and -then sat down again to make another attempt. He felt murderous towards -that woman, towards himself, even towards slow-witted little Sargon. - -“It was very good of you to come and see me,” said Sargon. - -“_Why_ did you come?... - -“Do you think anything will be done about me?... - -“You will see Christina Alberta? When I saw you first I thought you -had things to tell me--important things. One lives on such hopes here. -Here--when there are no visitors--nothing happens, nothing pleasant. -And one is distressed.... - -“I am interested to hear of those cities in Central Asia of course, but -it is a little puzzling. Did you come specially about them? Or just to -see me? - -“You will come again. Even to come down here to this sitting-room is an -event....” - -Then in a swift whisper. “The food is frightful. So badly cooked. It -disagrees with me....” - -“That woman,” said Bobby as he went, “She has spoilt everything. I -can’t stand her.” - -“That woman?” said Sargon, and followed the direction of Bobby’s eyes. -“Poor soul,” he said. “She’s a deaf mute. She comes to see her brother. -The whole family is defective or insane.” - -A maddened Bobby returned towards his little inn. Should he chuck the -whole thing? Intolerable thought! He must make fresh plans--fresh plans -altogether. He must begin all over again. The little man was evidently -wretched. But it was going to be harder to get hold of him than Bobby -had thought. - -Bobby had no sleep that night. - - -§ 4 - -In the night just before daybreak suddenly Sargon woke up and -understood. He understood quite clearly what the young man had been -saying to him. He had said “Rescue!” Of course he had meant to say -“Escape”! That city in Central Asia was only a parable; he had said -as much. He had been describing a corner of the asylum grounds, -that corner where the stream ran out beyond the work-fields and the -shrubbery where the patients were supposed not to go. He had been -telling of friends who would wait outside. He had been trying to -arrange an hour when these friends would come there. And Sargon had -failed to understand. He sat up in bed very still. - -It was perfectly clear, but through a sort of dulness that came upon -him at times he had not grasped the drift of it at the time. The young -man had shown irritation, naturally enough. What would he do now? Would -he try again? Were the friends still waiting? - -Who was this young man? His name was unknown or forgotten. But he -believed. He had said, “I call you by no other name.” Sargon! And there -were these friends he spoke of, who waited outside for the king. They -must know. How could they know, if there was nothing to be known? After -all, perhaps it was no dream. Perhaps the world was awakening.... But -he had failed them. He had not understood.... They waited without.... - -How still everything was! A strange unusual stillness. It was rare for -this place to be so bereft of noise. It was dark and yet not altogether -dark. The ward was dimly lit by a blue-shaded light. The three nearer -beds were unoccupied, and beyond the man who tossed and muttered almost -incessantly lay for a little while at peace. The man who raved had died -three days ago; the man who gave sudden loud shouts had been taken away -to another ward. Through the open door one could see across the landing -into the little yellow-lit room, where Brand the ward attendant sat -with his arms crossed and chin on his chest and slept, his patience -cards spread out before him. He seemed to be alone and yet he could -sleep like that! Where could the other man be--the new attendant whose -name Sargon did not know? And yet he felt--some one had just gone out! - -The uncurtained windows showed the night outside, a darkness that -became translucent, a streak of very black cloud and five pale stars. -Across the lower edge of that oblong picture one could see indistinctly -a tracery of tree branches and the lumpish head of a young oak still -bearing its leaves, the trees along the first hedge. These outlines -grew distincter as he watched. It was like the slow development of a -photographic plate in the dark-room. The stars dissolved. Had there -been five? There were three; the other two had dissolved into the pale -invading light. - -Dared one venture on to the landing? If Brand awoke he could make some -natural excuse. He stood well with Brand. But the other fellow----? - -There was not a trace of him. Where had he gone?... - -_Do it now!_--wisest of maxims. - -Very swiftly Sargon slipped out of bed and put on his dressing-gown and -slippers. Hush! _What was that?_... Only some one snoring. Nothing -more. He went out and stood on the landing. Brand slept on like a log. - -The stone staircase was lit and empty and from the open door to the -left downstairs came the harsh breathing of a sleeper. All the world -seemed asleep for once, except Sargon and those friendly watchers -outside the walls. Far away there were sounds of bawling and raving, -but these were stifled by distance and an intervening door. They merely -made the nearer silence more perceptible. - -Something stirred, a little clicking sound that sent Sargon’s heart -racing. Then a resonant blow. A second blow. It was nothing; it was the -clock downstairs striking six. - -Very quietly but very resolutely he walked downstairs. An intuition, an -instinct impelled him. He felt and peered at the door and behold! it -was ajar! Unbolted! Unlocked! Brand’s colleague was abroad upon some -errand of his own. The cold air of freedom blew upon Sargon’s face. - -The door opened and closed softly and Sargon stood upon the doorstep of -the left wing of the asylum, facing the dim world of a November dawn. - -It was dark but it was clear, a world of ebony outlines and colourless -forms. Everything looked as if it had just been wiped over with a -wet rag. It was cold, but it was cold without any of the hate and -bitterness of wind. - -He crossed the gravel drive and came to a stop and stood looking -about him. The heavy building of the left wing rose above him, a vast -bulk that went up into the paler darkness of the sky. It receded in -perspective and the central block beyond looked like the ghost of a -house. Here and there were orange-lit windows and others fainter lit -by some remote reflected light. In the lodge to the left of the gates -there was also a light. For where there is madness there is never -perfect sleep. - -But the asylum was as near complete silence that morning as an asylum -can ever be. - -He looked and listened. Not a footfall. It would not do to be found -here by that other attendant.... - -But the man was snugly away somewhere. No one would loiter here in this -chill air. - -What was it Sargon had to remember? - -The friends and believers were waiting for him. They were waiting now. -Where the river ran out of the city wall; that was to say where the -little streamlet ran out of the grounds. That would be this way--to the -left, where the fields dropped down-hill. He stepped on to the grass, -for his feet made loud sounds on the gravel. The grass hissed crisply. -It was heavy with white frost and his footmarks made black blots in the -wet silvery grey. - -He walked past and away from the ponderous dark mass of the asylum into -the open, colder air of freedom. He unlatched and went through the -small iron gate in the iron fencing that separated the trim grass plots -of the front from the cabbage field. It complained a little on its -hinge and he opened and closed it very carefully. He struck across the -field. The path ran before him into a mist. It came out of the mist to -his feet and vanished behind him. It was as if it went past him while -he marked time. He could not remember whither the path ran, nor how it -lay with regard to the corner he sought. But every moment things grew -clearer. - -Every moment things grew clearer. There had been something dark and -brooding in the sky that hung over him and seemed to watch him. He had -done his best to ignore the vague presence, because he was afraid of -his own imagination. But suddenly he saw plainly that it was just the -tops of trees showing above the mist. That must be the line of trees -along the hedge parallel to the asylum front. He must go through these -if he wanted to go down-hill. He left the path and made his way slowly -along a frozen ridge of dug earth. He skirted long rows of stalky -cabbages, black and shrivelled and unkempt they looked like Cossack -sentinels afoot. They all leant towards him as though they listened to -the sound of him. - -As he drew near the hedge and the trees he heard a sound like the feet -of an army of midgets. It was the drip, drip of moisture from the trees. - -Far away behind him and quite invisible to him a motor car scurried -along the high-road. - -He had some difficulty in finding a way through the hedge and a bramble -scratched his ankle. He told himself there was no hurry; the friends -waited. Beyond the hedge the ground went down-hill and the mist grew -whiter and thicker. The daylight was strong enough now to show the mist -dead-white. It veiled the stream altogether. - -He walked slowly. He had no sense of being pursued. Brand would not go -into the ward for an hour yet; he might not miss him for a long time.... - -What a wonderful thing, thought Sargon, is daybreak, and how little -one sees of it! Every day begins with this miraculous drama and we -sleep through it as though it did not concern us and rouse ourselves -only for the trite day. A little while ago the world had been an inky -monochrome and now it was touched with colour. The sky was blue. All -the stars had gone--but no! not all. One still shone, a large pale -star, the star of Sargon. And the sky about it was flushed with a faint -increasing pinkiness. That must be the east and that star must be the -morning star, hanging above the outhouse chimneys. Those chimneys were -very distinct. The butt end of the asylum which had been a black and -shapeless monster a little while ago, had now become a dark purple -shape outlined with an exquisite clearness, eaves and ridges and -chimneys and creasings and window-frames. Four windows shone a fading -orange and two of them suddenly blinked and vanished. - -Would anyone look out of a window there and see him? - -It did not matter. He would go on down towards the stream. This -friendly mist would hide him. - -It was wonderful to be in this white mist and yet not in it. It was -always a little way from him. And nevertheless it wetted him. How crisp -the frosted ground was, but if one kicked through the surface, it was -soft. - -Overhead the blueness increased and there was now a rippled patch of -pink cloud. - -He went deeper and deeper into the soft mist. Presently he was walking -on long wet shrivelled grass. When he turned presently to look back at -the asylum it had altogether disappeared. - -_What was that?_ Was it something talking or was it the beating heart -of some busy elfin machine? Listen! Peer! Think! - -It was the stream. - -Now everything was plain and easy. - -He walked beside the stream. Near at hand trees became visible, -attendant trees with mist about their waists, white-clad sentinel -trees. The dry grass was ranker here. And what was this, like a denser -lower mist within the mist? This was the wall. Beyond that wall, almost -within shouting distance now, the friends and believers would be -waiting. How discreet they were! Not a murmur, not a footfall. - -For a long time Sargon stood motionless beside the culvert beneath the -wall. At last he roused himself and by a great effort and with the help -of the ivy he scrambled to the top of the wall. - -No one waited. Some dim four-footed thing bolted from the frost-bitten -weeds below, and then there was silence. There was no sign of watchers -nor helpers. - -No matter. If it was God’s will they would come. - -He sat very still. He did not feel deserted nor alone. He was not in -the least dismayed. He felt that the Power who had called him into -being was all about him. - -Slowly, steadily the light grew brighter. A little cloud like a -floating feather caught fire very suddenly and then another. A great -beam of light, like the beam of a searchlight, only very much broader, -appeared slanting to the north. Then above a whaleback of distant -downland came a knife-edge of dazzling light, an effulgence, like a -curved knife, like a cap, like a dome, a quivering blazing fire-birth. -And then torn clear of the hill and round and red the November sun had -risen. - - -§ 5 - -It was full daylight and the mist had dissolved away. The roofs of -the asylum buildings were now visible over the crest, divested of all -magic, bleak and commonplace. From some point in that direction a dog -was barking. - -It was strange that there should be no one here. That young man whose -name he had never known, had made it very plain that there were friends -in waiting here. Perhaps they had gone away and would come back -presently. - -Still it did not matter now very much. At any rate he had seen a -sunrise of almost incredible beauty. How good a thing the sun was! The -thing of all visible things that was most like God. - -Perhaps there were no helpers here at all. Perhaps he had -misunderstood. He was stupid he knew. He misunderstood more and more. -Perhaps presently keepers would come in search of him and take him back -to the asylum. It might be so that things were decreed. He would not -let it distress him. Life was full of trials and disappointments. He -was feeling now very cold throughout his substance and tired so that -all his energy was gone. With a start he became aware that there was a -man standing up the slope that overlooked the asylum grounds. He felt a -thrill of renewed vitality. This man was standing quite still looking -down at the asylum. It might be one of the staff looking for him. Or -one of the promised helpers. One of the promised helpers? - -Sargon was not so calm and apathetic as he had supposed. He was -atremble from head to foot. He was not shivering with cold but -trembling with excitement. He felt he must end this doubt one way or -the other. Could he catch this man’s eye? He waved a hand. Then he drew -a dirty little pocket-handkerchief from his dressing-gown pocket and -began to wave it. Now! Now it seemed the man was looking straight down -at Sargon. - -He was moving towards Sargon slowly, as if incredulous. Then he was -signalling and running. - -Sargon sat quite still. He knew all along they would come for him. - -It was Bobby, close at hand now and crying out, “Sargon! It is you! -Sargon!” Sargon did not wait for him. He turned about and scrambled and -dropped off the wall. They clasped hands. “You have come to fetch me?” - -“I was in despair. I didn’t dream you understood me. I’m all amazed.... -Let me think; what are we to do? This is splendid. My motor bicycle is -in the inn. Nuisance that. Yes, come along. I must hide you somewhere -and fetch it. Then we will get away. I didn’t think you’d have no -clothes. Clothes? Won’t show much. Cold? May be cold. I’ll get a rug. -There’s a rug in the side-car.” - -He led the way back up the slope, glancing ever and again at the asylum -fields. Sargon trotted beside him, calmly confident in God and Bobby, -with the limitless docility of one who trusts his servant. - - -§ 6 - -Bobby’s mind was fresh and bright that morning. He had wandered out to -the asylum simply because he could lie in bed in a fever of regrets no -longer. His extreme luck in encountering Sargon had restored all his -confidence in himself and in the propitiousness of things. He made his -plans quickly and with decision. It would be impossible to take Sargon -back to the inn and give him coffee. So soon as he was missed they -would surely go to the village. And every one would note this queer -little figure with its dressing-gown and slippers and scarred ankles. -He must get the little man into hiding somewhere close at hand. In that -small beech-wood just over the next crest. (Pity he was so scantily -clad!) Then the motor bicycle must be fetched as quickly as possible. - -Sargon was absolutely trustful and obedient. “It is cold I know,” said -Bobby, “but unavoidable. I wish there were not so many wet dead leaves.” - -“Only be quick and fetch help,” said Sargon. - -“Don’t stir from here,” said Bobby. - -It was not the most perfect hiding-place in the world, a ditch, a -clump of holly on the edge of a bare beech-wood, but it was all that -downland was likely to provide. “So long,” said Bobby and set off at -a smart trot for the inn and the motor bicycle. He arrived flushed, -dishevelled, and out of breath and found the inn suspicious and -reluctant when he announced that he wanted his bill instantly, refused -any breakfast but a cup of tea and a chunk of bread and butter, and -set about packing his little roll. There seemed endless things to -do, taking an interminable time. To cap a score of irritating delays -the inn was short of change and had to send out to the village shop. -Billy’s motor bicycle, always a temperamental creature, gave great -trouble with its kick starter. And meanwhile Sargon was shivering -amidst the mud and dead leaves under the dripping trees or worse, being -recaptured and led back into captivity. - -It was nearly eight before Bobby came back along the cart-track into -sight of the little beech-wood, and his heart jumped when he saw two -heavy-looking men advancing towards him. He knew them for asylum men -at once; they had the unmistakable flavour of subaltern authority -that distinguishes prison warders, ex-policemen, time-keepers, and the -keepers of the insane. As he throbbed near them they came into the -middle of the road and made signs for him to stop. “Hell!” said Bobby, -and pulled up. - -They came alongside and without evident hostility. - -“Excuse me, sir,” said one--and Bobby felt better. - -“That large place you see there, sir, is Cummerdown Asylum. Perhaps you -know it, sir?” - -“No. _Which_ is the asylum? All of it?” Bobby felt he was being really -clever and his spirits rose. - -“Yesir.” - -“Damn great place!” said Bobby. - -“We’ve got one of our inmates astray this morning. Harmless little man, -he is, and we ventured to stop you and ask you if you’ve seen him.” - -Bobby had an inspiration. “I believe I have. Was he in a sort of brown -robe and slippers with nothing on his head?” - -“That’s ’im, sir. Where did you see him?” - -Bobby turned round and pointed in the direction from which he had -come. “He was making off along the edge of a field,” he said. “I saw -him not--oh, not five minutes ago. Mile, or a bit more, away from -here. Running he was. Along a hedge to the right--left I mean--near a -chestnut plantation.” - -“That’s ’im all right, Jim. _Where_ did you say, sir?” - -Bobby’s brilliance increased. “If one of you will sit behind me and -the other get into this contraption--bit of a load, but we can manage -it--I’ll run you back to the very place. Right away.” And without more -ado he set about turning round. “That’s a real help, sir,” said Jim. -“Don’t mention it,” said Bobby. - -Bobby was now at the top of his form. He loaded them in with helpful -words--even the smaller of the two was a tight fit for the side-car and -the other sat like a sack on the luggage carrier--he took them back -a mile and a half until he found the suitable hedge by the chestnut -tree. He unloaded them carefully, received their hearty but hasty -thanks with a generous gesture and sent them off at a smart trot across -the fields. “He can’t have a mile’s start,” he said. “And he wasn’t -going particularly fast. Sort of limping.” - -“That’s ’im,” said Jim. - -Bobby kissed his hand to their retreating backs. “That’s _you_,” said -Bobby. “God help you both and cleanse your hearts. And now for Sargon.” - -He buzzed back to the place where he had left Sargon, turned his -machine round again and then looked towards the corner of the wood by -the holly clump where the little man ought to have been waiting. But -there was no sign of a peeping head. “Queer!” said Bobby, and ran up to -the place where he had left Sargon crouching in the ditch. Not a sign -was there of him. Bobby looked about him, baffled and frightened. After -all, after everything, could things go wrong now? - -“Sargon,” he called, and then louder, “Sargon!” - -Not a sound, not a rustle came in reply. - -“He’s hidden! Can he have crawled away and fainted? Exhausted perhaps!” - -Fear touched Bobby with a chilly finger. Had he mistaken the place -perhaps? Had Sargon strayed away in spite of his promise, or crept -back numbed and wretched to the warmth and shelter of the asylum? -Bobby followed the ditch down to the corner of the wood, and beyond -the corner in the ditch to the right he suddenly beheld a little old -woman, a little old woman sitting bunched in a heap on a litter of -dry straw and fast asleep. She was wearing a battered black straw hat -adorned with a broken black feather, a small black jacket bodice; a -sack was drawn over her feet and a second sack thrown shawlwise over -her shoulders. She was so crumpled up her face was hidden, all except -one bright red ear, and behind her on the bank lay two large stakes -tied in the form of a cross. To Bobby she was the most astonishing of -apparitions. It was disconcerting enough to discover Sargon gone. It -was still more amazing to find him so oddly replaced. - -Bobby stood hesitating for the better part of a minute. Should he wake -the old thing up and ask her about Sargon, or should he steal away? -Nothing, he decided, would be lost by asking. - -He went close up to her and coughed. “Excuse me, Madam,” he said. - -The sleeper did not awake. - -Bobby rustled among the leaves, coughed louder, and asked to be excused -again. The sleeper muttered a choking snore, woke with a start, looked -up, and revealed the face of Sargon. He stared at Bobby without -recognition for a moment and then gave way to an enormous yawn. While -he yawned, his blue eyes gathered intelligence and understanding. “I -was so cold,” he said. “I took these things from the scarecrow. And the -straw was nice and dry to sit on. Shall we put it all back?” - -“Oh, glorious idea!” cried Bobby, with all his spirits restored. “It -makes an honest woman of you. Can you walk in that sack? No, we haven’t -time to put it back. Shake it down off your legs and bring it with you. -The side-car isn’t two hundred yards away. You’ll be able to put it on -again then. This is magnificent! This is wonderful! Certainly we won’t -put it back. Off we’ll go, and when we’ve a good ten miles between us -and the asylum we’ll stop and get some hot coffee and something to eat.” - -“Hot coffee!” said Sargon, brightening visibly. “And bacon and eggs?” - -“Hot coffee and bacon and eggs,” said Bobby. - -“The coffee there is--_beastly_,” said Sargon. - -Bobby helped Sargon into the side-car and raised the hood over him, -erected the wind-screen, and so packed him away. He became a quite -passable aunt, dimly seen. And in another minute Bobby had kicked the -engine into an impatient fuss and was in the saddle. - -He felt himself now the cleverest fellow that ever stole a lunatic. Not -that it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to get a lunatic away. -If you knew how.... They quivered and jolted along the little minor -road and so on to the smooth main highway to Ashford and Folkestone. -The accelerator was urged to do its best. “Good-bye, Cummerdown,” sang -Bobby. “Cummerdown Hill, good-bye!” - -The little old motor bike was going beautifully. - - -§ 7 - -They got their breakfast at an inn near a Post Office a mile or so -beyond Offham. Bobby left Sargon dozing in the side-car and went -to send a telegram to Dymchurch announcing his coming. There was -some delay in the Post Office, as the post-mistress had mislaid her -spectacles. Bobby returned to find the breakfast nearly ready and to -assist Sargon out of his sack and into the little room of the inn. -The landlord was a short, stout man, with a grave observant face. He -watched this emergence of Sargon and his progress to a chair behind the -little white tablecloth, with silent wonder. Then for a time he hid. -Then he came back into the little room where the table was set. For -some moments he stood regarding Sargon. “Umph!” he said at last and -turned about and went slowly into his kitchen where some sort of wife -seemed to be cooking things. “’E’s a rummun”; Bobby heard him remark, -and so was prepared for discussion. - -The ham and eggs and coffee were served and received with eagerness. -The landlord stood over them scrutinizing their reception of his -provisions. “Hain’t ’ad no breakfast, then?” he said. - -“Having it now,” said Bobby, helping himself to mustard. - -“Come far?” said the landlord after a thoughtful pause. - -“Fairly,” said Bobby with judgment. - -“Going far?” the landlord tried. - -“So-so,” said Bobby. - -The landlord rallied his forces for a great effort. “We get some rummy -customers here at times,” he said. - -“You must attract them,” said Bobby. - -The landlord could make nothing of that. He turned about and said -“Umph”--meaningly. - -“Umph,” said Bobby, just saturating it with meaning. - -The landlord made a cunning attempt as they were departing. “Hope you -enjoyed your breakfast,” he said. “I don’t know rightly whether it’s a -lady or a gentleman you got with you--still----” - -Bobby’s mercurial temperament was far too high just then. “It’s -hermaphrodite,” he said in a confidential whisper and left the landlord -with that. - -But when they had gone a few miles further he told Sargon he had -decided to buy him some socks and a jacket and trousers at the next -shop they saw. “As it is,” he said, “you are ambiguous. And then we’ll -put that hat and jacket and the sacking by the wayside for anyone who -wants to use them. And I’ll have to send another telegram. I made a -mistake.” - -Bobby’s mental state became more febrile as the day wore on. He -developed a wonderfully circumstantial lie about a cottage and a -fire and how his friend had only escaped with just a few articles of -clothing hastily put on. “Everything else,” said Bobby, “practically -incinerated.” They were going down to take refuge with a variable -relation, a brother, an uncle, a maiden aunt. As the day progressed -the circumstances of the fire became richer and more remarkable and -the particulars of the escape more definitely thrilling. Bobby told -such lies with great sincerity and gravity; they were a form of -freedom--from reality. - -Sargon himself said very little. For him this adventure was a severer -endurance test than Bobby realized at the time. For the most part he -was either cramped up and boxed in under the hood and wind-screen and -being jolted and jumped along the hard high-road, or he was hastily -changing some garment by the roadside, or he was sitting still in the -side-car taking refreshment and being lucidly but perplexingly, and -usually quite unnecessarily, explained. - - -§ 8 - -Mrs. Plumer, of Maresett Cottage, Dymchurch, was an anxious widow -woman. She had a kind, serviceable heart, but it was troubled about -many things. She saved and eked out almost too much. She let most of -her rooms in the summer and some even in the winter, but she hated to -think of the things careless lodgers might do to her furniture. She -liked everything to be in order and lodgers better looking and better -behaved than Mrs. Pringle’s lodgers or Mrs. Mackinder’s lodgers. She -had taken a fancy to Bobby because he had fitted in nicely when she had -had only one room to spare, and because he had shaved in cold water -instead of calling down as every other man lodger did--there was no -bell in that room--for hot. Also he talked agreeably when he came in -and out and didn’t want more at meals. - -She was very pleased when he wrote to take her downstairs living-room -and two bedrooms for himself and a friend for a fortnight. There were -few people in Dymchurch who got “lets” in November. They might come -“any time” after Tuesday. - -She told Mrs. Pringle and Mrs. Mackinder that she was expecting two -young gentlemen, and left them to suppose that her guests might stay on -indefinitely. - -On Wednesday she was excited and rather perplexed by a series of -telegrams from Bobby. The first said plainly and distinctly: “_Arriving -with aunt about four Roothing._” That disappointed her. She would have -infinitely preferred two gentlemen. - -But within an hour came another wire and this said: “_Error in telegram -not aunt uncle sorry Roothing._” - -Now what was one to make of _that_? - -Presently the child from the Post Office was back again. “_Uncle -catching cold fire hot-water bottles whisky._” - -The next sensational telegram announced a delay. “_Tyre trouble not so -soon later Roothing._” - -Then came: “_Sixish almost certain good fire please Roothing._” - -“It’s very good of him,” said Mrs. Plumer “to keep me informed like -this. But I hope the old gentleman won’t be fussy.” - -The fire in the downstairs sitting-room was burning brightly at six, -there was a kettle on the hob, there were not only tea-things, but -whisky, sugar, glasses, and a lemon on the table and a hot-water bottle -in both the beds upstairs when the fugitives arrived. Mrs. Plumer’s -first feelings at the sight of Sargon were feelings of disappointment. -She had allowed her mind to run away with the idea of a warm, -comfortable uncle with at most a whisky-drinking cold, an uncle who -would be, if not absolutely golden, at least gilt-edged. She had, if -anything, exaggerated her memories of Mr. Roothing’s geniality. So soon -as she held open her door at the roar and toot of the motor bicycle, -she saw that her anticipations would have to be modified again. Things -were rather indistinct in the deepening twilight, but she could see -that Bobby wasn’t wearing the full and proper leather costume with -gauntlets and goggles complete, that a real young gentleman would have -worn on such an occasion and which Mrs. Pringle and Mrs. Mackinder -would have respected, and that the shape he was extracting from the -side-car was not the shape of a properly-expanded uncle. It looked much -more like a large hen taken out of a small basket on market day. - -As Sargon came into the light of the living-room, Mrs. Plumer’s -disillusionment deepened and decreased. She had rarely seen so strange -and weather-beaten an outcast. His blue eyes stared pitifully out of a -pale face; his hair, beneath an unsuitable black felt hat, was greatly -disordered. He was clad chiefly in an excessive pair of trousers -which he clutched nervously to keep up; very full they were with his -dressing-gown tails; his too ample white socks fell like gaiters -over his old felt slippers and betrayed his distressful ankles. He -looked afraid. He stared at her almost as though he anticipated an -unfriendly reaction. And Bobby, too, standing beside him, looked rough -and travel-worn and eventful, and not at all the self-effacing young -gentleman she had remembered. - -When Bobby saw the swift play of Mrs. Plumer’s expression he realized -that their foothold in this pleasant, restful, firelit apartment was -precarious. Happily a reserve lie he had thought of, but not hitherto -used, came aptly to his mind. - -“Isn’t it a shame!” he said. “They went off with his clothes. Even his -socks.” - -“They seem to have,” said Mrs. Plumer, “whoever they were.” - -“Pure hold-up. This side of Ashford. My big bag too.” - -“And where did the gentleman get the clothes he’s wearing?” she asked. -Her tone was unpleasantly sceptical. - -“They exchanged. I’d gone back along the road to see if I could see -anything of the tyre-pump I’d dropped, never thinking anything of the -sort was possible on an English high-road. (Come and sit by the fire, -uncle.) And when I came back they’d gone and there he was--as you see -him. Imagine my astonishment!” - -“And you never sent a telegram about it!” said Mrs. Plumer. - -“Too near home. I’d have got here first, anyhow. Well, we’ve had -adventures enough to-day, anyhow. I’ve never known such a journey. -Thank heaven, we’ve had our tea. I think the best place for uncle is -bed--until we can arrange some clothes for him. What do you think, Mrs. -Plumer?” - -“After he’s had a good wash,” said Mrs. Plumer. She was still doubtful, -but a sort of kindliness was struggling to the surface. “Weren’t you -afraid when they jumped out on you, sir!” She asked Sargon directly. -His blue eyes sought Bobby’s for instructions. - -“It was a great shock to him,” said Bobby, “a great shock. He’s hardly -got over it yet.” - -“Hardly got over it yet,” said Sargon in confirmation. - -“Took all your clothes off, they did. It’s shameful,” said Mrs. Plumer. -“And you with a cold coming on.” - -“We’ll get him to bed. Of course, if you’ve got anything for us to -eat we might have it first here. Perhaps just a bit of toasted cheese -or Welsh Rarebit, or something of that sort, and a good hot grog. Eh, -uncle?” - -“Don’t want much to eat,” said Sargon. “No.” - -“I haven’t forgotten that Welsh Rarebit you made for me, Mrs. Plumer, -after I got caught in the rain on the way from Hythe.” - -“Well, I daresay I could get you a Welsh Rarebit,” said Mrs. Plumer, -softening visibly. - -“Famous,” said Bobby. “Make a new man of him. And meanwhile I’ll run -the old bike round to the shed. If I may put it in the shed? You’ll be -all right here, uncle?” - -“It’s safe?” - -“Every one’s safe with Mrs. Plumer,” said Bobby, and held the door open -for her to precede him out of the room. - -“I’ll tell you about him to-morrow morning,” he said to her -confidentially in the passage. “He’s a wonderful man.” - -“He’s all right?” asked Mrs. Plumer. - -“Right as can be.” - -“He looks that distraught!” - -“He’s a poet,” said Bobby, “besides playing on the violin,” and so -satisfied her completely. - -But he did not feel that he had brought the wonderful day to a -completely successful end until he had got Sargon washed and brushed -and tucked up cosily in Mrs. Plumer’s bright little best bedroom. “Now -we’re anchored,” he said. He went into his own room and sat down for a -time to invent things about his uncle in case Mrs. Plumer was desirous -of more explicit information when he went downstairs. He decided to -say “He’s eccentric,” in an impressive, elucidatory way. “And very -shy.” His uncle, he would explain, was suffering from overwork, due to -writing an heroic poem about the Prince of Wales’ journey round the -world. He wanted a complete rest. And sea air. The more he stayed in -bed and indoors the better. He filled in a few useful details of this -story, sat for a little while twiddling the toes of his boots, and -then got up and went downstairs. He felt sure he could carry it off -all right with Mrs. Plumer. He found her waiting for him. The chief -difficulty he encountered was her conviction that the police ought to -be told of the highway robbery this side of Ashford at once. - -“H’m,” said Bobby and for a moment he was at a loss. Then he decided. -“I’ve done that already,” he said. - -“But when?” - -“I telephoned from an Automobile Association box. To the Ashford -police. It will be in their district you know. Not in Romney Marsh. -Sharp fellows, the Ashford police. I had to describe the lost clothes -and everything. They don’t let much get by them.” - -She took it beautifully. After that everything was easy. - - -§ 9 - -The next morning found Sargon developing an evil cold in his throat -and chest. His chest was painful and he was feverish, red-cheeked, -bright-eyed, and short of breath. Bobby did not care to consult a -doctor. He believed that all doctors constituted a league for the -re-incarceration of escaped lunatics. He imagined secret notices about -escapes being circulated throughout the profession. He motored to Hythe -and got ammoniated quinine, several sorts of voice jujube, two iodine -preparations for the chest, and suchlike trifles that the chemist -recommended. When he returned about midday the patient looked better -and seemed in less pain. After Bobby had administered quinine and -rubbed his chest and made a generally curative fuss, he was able and -disposed to talk. - -“The pillow all right?” said Bobby. - -“Perfect.” - -“You ought to doze for a bit now.” - -“Yes.” - -Sargon thought. “I shall not have to go back to that Place again?” - -“I hope not.” - -The flushed face became very earnest. “Promise me not. Promise me not. -I couldn’t endure it.” - -“No need to be anxious,” said Bobby. “Here, you are quite safe.” - -“And there will be no need to get into that side-car again?” - -“None.” - -“Never?” - -“No.” - -“It bumped--horribly.... Where is Christina Alberta?” - -Bobby did not answer for a moment or so. - -“Perhaps I ought to explain. I do not know who Christina Alberta is. I -took you out of the asylum because I do not believe you are mad. But I -know nothing of your family. I know nothing about your circumstances at -all. I just couldn’t bear the thought of you in an asylum.” - -Sargon lay in silence for a little while with his blue eyes on Bobby’s -face. “You were sorry for me?” - -“I liked you from the very first moment I saw you in Midgard Street.” - -“_Liked_ me? But you believed I was Sargon, King of Kings?” - -“Practically,” said Bobby. - -“You didn’t. Neither, I suppose, did I.” - -The vague blue eyes left Bobby’s face and stared out of the window at -the sky. “I have been very much confused in my mind,” said Sargon. -“Even now I am not clear. But I realize I am confused. Christina -Alberta is my daughter. The Princess Royal I called her. In Sumeria. -She is a very dear, bold girl. She is all I have. I left her and came -away from her, and I must have distressed her greatly.” - -“Then she may not know where you have been?” - -“She may be looking for me.” - -“Where is she?” - -“I have been trying to remember. It was in a studio somewhere--with -peculiar pictures. I never liked those pictures. A studio in a Mew. It -had a name but I cannot remember its name. It is stupid of me. Probably -Christina Alberta is there with her friends--still wondering what has -become of me.” - -“At the--at the _Place_, they told me your name was Preemby.” - -“Albert Edward Preemby.... I wonder.” - -He lay reflecting for a time. “I remember that for a long time I -thought I was Albert Edward Preemby, a small creature, a little man -living a mean life in a laundry. A laundry with large blue vans. The -swastika. You cannot imagine what a small, insignificant life it was -that this Preemby led. And then suddenly I thought I could not possibly -be Preemby and also an immortal soul. Either there was no Preemby, I -thought, or there was no God. There could not possibly be both. It -perplexed and worried me very much. Because there I was--Preemby. I am -not good at thinking--all my thinking goes off into a kind of dreaming. -And then when there came evidence that seemed satisfactory--perhaps -I jumped at what I was told. But Sargon must have been a great king, -a very great king, and I am small and weak and not very intelligent. -When the keepers and attendants bullied me and ill-treated me I did not -behave as a great king should have behaved, and when I saw them doing -evil things to other--other patients, I did not interfere. Yet all the -time I think I am something different from the Albert Edward Preemby -I used to be, something more and something better. But it leaves me -confused to think who I am, and I am very tired. Perhaps, when I have -rested a day or two, I may be better able to think about these things.” - -The faded voice died away. The blue eyes remained staring tranquilly at -the sky. - -Bobby said nothing for a little while. Then he remarked, “I have seen -men ill-treated.” - -And then; “and I am not so slight as you are.” - -He said no more. It did not seem as though Sargon had heard him. Bobby -stood up. - -“You must rest. You are perfectly safe here. If we can remain unnoted -here for two weeks then it will be impossible ever to send you back to -that place again. Are you comfortable?” - -“It is a beautiful bed,” said Sargon. - -But beautiful though the bed was it was not sufficient to arrest -the trouble in Sargon’s aching chest. He seemed very exhausted that -evening. In the night he began coughing; he coughed so distressingly -that Bobby went in to him. In the morning he was spiritless and did -not want to eat. Bobby sat in the room downstairs working at the pile -of Aunt Suzannah correspondence that Billy had sent on to him. He was -half-minded to appeal to Tessy to come down and help with the nursing, -but there was no bedroom available for her. Mrs. Plumer pressed for -a doctor and he put her off. Finally, on her own responsibility, she -brought in a young man who was just starting a practice in the place. -Bobby had a terrifying interview, but the young doctor betrayed no -suspicions. On the whole, he was reassuring. There was congestion of -the lungs but nothing worse. Sargon must keep very warm and take this -and that. No urgent need for a nurse. Keep him warm and give him his -medicine. - -Late in the evening Bobby went up to say good night and found Sargon -better and more talkative. - -“I have been thinking of Christina Alberta and I should like to see -her. I would like to see her and tell her things I have been thinking -about her. I have been thinking out all sorts of curious things. -Perhaps I am not so much to her as she may think. But chiefly I want to -talk to her about a young man I dislike. What was he called? When I was -last at Lonsdale Mews, she danced with him.” - -“Lonsdale Mews!” - -“Yes, yes, of course. I had forgotten. Eight Lonsdale Mews, Lonsdale -Road, Chelsea. But my mind is very confused and I do not know what I -should say to her even if she came.” - -Bobby wrote down the address forthwith. - -“And this Christina Alberta is all you have?” he asked. - -“All I have. - -“Twenty. Quite a child really. I ought never to have left her. But -there came a sort of wonder upon me--As though the world was opening. -It made everything else seem very trivial.” - - -§ 10 - -“_There came a sort of wonder upon me as though the world was opening._” - -Bobby wrote that down also. And he sat very late before the fire in -the ground-floor room thinking that over and thinking over the message -he would have to send to Christina Alberta in the morning. To-morrow -he would have to explain himself and his extraordinary intervention -in Preemby affairs. It was by no means plain to himself as yet, and -to-morrow he would have to make plain to a probably very indignant -young lady why her father had so caught his sympathies and fascinated -his imagination as to tempt him to this escapade. He found himself -thrown back on self-analysis. He found himself scrutinizing his own -motives and his own scheme of existence. - -He knew and understood that feeling, “as though the world was opening” -so well. Still better did he know that feeling of dead emptiness -in life out of which it arose. In his own case he had thought this -habitual discontent with the daily round, this urgency towards -something strange and grandiose, was due to the dislocation of all his -expectations of life by the great war; that it was a subjective aspect -of nervous instability; but in the case of this little laundryman it -could not have been the war that had sent him out, a sort of emigrant -from himself, to find a fantastic universal kingdom. It must be -something more fundamental than the war accident. It must be a normal -disposition in men towards detachment from safety and comfort. - -He glanced towards the pile of his Aunt Suzannah correspondence on -the table and the next sheet of “copy” for _Wilkins’ Weekly_ he had -distilled therefrom. He rose from his arm-chair and went back to his -work with his wisdom refreshed. He wrote: “So soon as man’s elementary -needs are satisfied and he is sure of food, clothing and shelter, he -comes under the sway of a greater imperative; he goes out to look for -trouble. So that I would not discourage ‘Croydon’s’ desire to become -a missionary in West Africa in spite of his religious doubts and his -peculiar feeling about black people. Such a region as Sherborough -Island will probably supply him with a good sustained, sustaining, and -ennobling system of troubles. A white man who has once challenged the -hostility of a West African secret society will have little leisure for -morbid introspection. He will hardly have a dull moment....” - -He stopped writing. “Reads a little ironical,” he said “And not quite -Aunt Suzannah enough.” - -He reflected. “My mind scampers off from me at times. Not in the vein -to-day.” - -The one thing they must never feel about Aunt Suzannah was that she -could be ironical. No! it wouldn’t do. He ran his pen through the six -sentences he had just written and pushed the sheet away from him. He -drew another sheet towards him on which he had been composing with -great difficulty a telegram to be sent next morning to “Preemby, 8 -Lonsdale Mews, Chelsea.” He read over various drafts. The current form -ran as follows: “_Your father safe but with severe chest cold care of -Roothing Maresett Cottage Dymchurch desires see you discretion very -necessary return confinement fatal results best station Hythe and cab -could meet you Hythe if wire in time but do not know you personally am -tallish slender dark Roothing._” - -Properly considered it was all right. - -He tried to imagine what sort of girl this Christina Alberta Preemby -would be. She would be blue-eyed of course and probably very fair; -a little taller and rounder than her father, soft-voiced and rather -dreamy. She would be timid and affectionate, very kind and gentle and -a little incompetent. Perhaps it would be well to meet her at Hythe -so soon as he knew which train she was coming by. The cab business -might be a strain on her. He would have to tell her what to do. To -a considerable extent now he had made himself responsible for the -fortunes of both these people. And he liked to think that. He liked to -think that perhaps these might become his own people, more of his own -people than the Malmesburys. Because to be frank about it with himself -he was a little bit of an interpolation in the Malmesbury household. -They liked him; they were perfect dears to him; but they could do -without him. Even that little devil Susan managed without him; she -liked him and tyrannized over him but he knew he wasn’t indispensable -to her. Here at last might be two people who couldn’t do without him, -who might to an extraordinary extent become his people. - -Of course he would have to put on a little more appearance of strength -and determination than was actually his quality. He owed it to them to -keep up their confidence in him so that he might be able to direct them -in their difficulties. - -He would say to her--what would he say to her? “I have been hasty, I -know, but I know something of the strain that is put upon the sane -patient in an asylum. I thought that the first thing to do was to get -your father out of it. It didn’t occur to me that for a time he might -have forgotten your address. Perhaps I ought to have come to you before -I acted. But then how was I to know there _was_ a you? Until he told me -of your existence. In so many cases in these asylums the relatives are -hostile to release. It is dreadful to admit it, but it is so.” - -Then rather humorously and quite modestly he would describe the escape. -He was already forgetting the uncertainties of the visiting-day -conversation and the numerous accidental factors in the meeting by the -culvert. But all history has this knack of eliminating unnecessary -detail. - -So he would make his statement. It did not occur to him that Christina -Alberta might be the sort of person who interrupts speeches with -elucidatory questions. - -He lit a cigarette, strolled about the room, and came to rest standing -before the fire and looking down on the glowing coals. He was sure -now that Christina Alberta was blue-eyed, fragile, shy--with a deep -sweet vein of humorous fantasy hidden away in her. Very probably she -concealed a gift for writing. It would be for him perhaps to discover -that and cultivate it and bring it out. Together they would protect -Sargon, already more than half recovered from the intoxication of his -dream. They would have to soften the humiliations of his complete -awakening. How fortunate and as it were providential it was that he had -been impelled to rescue the little man!--for otherwise he would never -have met Christina Alberta, never won her timid wealth of love.... - -“_Eh!_ - -“But this is all damned nonsense!” said Bobby violently, and threw his -cigarette into the fire. “This is just fancy! I haven’t even _seen_ the -girl!” - -He lit his candle, put out Mrs. Plumer’s oil lamp with all the devices -and precautions proper to this dangerous survival from the Dark Ages, -and went up to bed. He stopped and listened outside Sargon’s door. The -patient was asleep and breathing rather noisily--ever and again choking -with a little cough. - -“I wish the weather had kept warmer,” said Bobby. - -When he opened his own bedroom door, the flame of his candle writhed -and flared horizontally, the curtains streamed into the room and a -sheet of paper flapped on the dressing-table. He put down the candle -and went to shut the window. The wind was rising and there was a little -patter of raindrops on the pane. - - - - -CHAPTER THE THIRD - -_The Last Phase_ - - -§ 1 - -It was part of the general unsatisfactoriness of Bobby’s make-up that -he was acutely responsive to meteorological conditions. That late -Indian summer was over now, and the heavens and the earth and the -air between began to push, hustle, wet, chill, darken, distress and -bully him. Jumbled grey clouds came hurrying across Dymchurch from -Dungeness and the Atlantic, torn, angular, outstretched clouds with -malicious expressions like witches and warlocks, emitting fierce -squirts of rain. Under their skirts came the waves in long rolling -regiments, threatening from afar, breaking into premature handfuls of -foam, gathering force at last, towering up for a last culminating thud -against the sea-wall and spouting heavenward in white fountains of -suddy water. - -“Face it, man,” said Bobby. “Face it. It’s only Nature. Brace up to it. -Think of this poor girl.” - -He forced himself to do a morning’s walk along the top of the sea-wall, -with his wet trousers flapping against his legs like flags against -their staves. - -“Glorious wind!” he told Sargon when he went in to see him. “But I wish -there was a gleam of sun.” - -“Have you any news from Christina Alberta?” asked Sargon. - -“There’s hardly time yet for a reply to my wire. But she’ll surely -come,” said Bobby, and went downstairs to dry his legs at the fire. - -He did not expect a summons to Hythe to meet the young lady very much -before half-past twelve. Meanwhile he went out to the shed and assured -himself that the motor bicycle and side-car were in perfect order for a -hasty journey. Half-past twelve came, one, half-past one. He had some -lunch. He became very restless, and rose and looked out of the window -frequently to see if the messenger girl was coming with Christina -Alberta’s telegram. About two a large, silent, luxurious-looking, -hired Daimler car appeared outside and stopped at Mrs. Plumer’s gate. -A hatless bobbed head appeared at the window and exchanged remarks -with the driver, who descended and opened the door. The car emitted a -handsome and determined young woman of advanced appearance, hatless and -short-skirted, and a lean, dark, prosperous-looking man of thirty-eight -or forty in blue serge and a grey felt hat. The man opened the gate for -the girl, and she surveyed the house as she advanced. - -Bobby realized that Christina Alberta had not kept her promise to be -blue-eyed and fragile. She had betrayed him. Yet for all her treachery -he had built up a sense of personal relationship with her that gripped -him still. He watched her approach with an excitement he found -difficult to control. He wondered who the devil the dark man was. A -cousin perhaps. She discovered Bobby watching her from the window and -their eyes met. - - -§ 2 - -Bobby, with an instinct that is given to young people for such -occasions, perceived that he interested Christina Alberta extremely. He -parleyed with her and Devizes in Mrs. Plumer’s little downstairs room. -He spoke chiefly to her. Devizes he treated as a secondary figure, a -voice at her elbow. “He’s got a nasty cold on his chest,” he said. -“He’s been asking for Miss Preemby----” - -“Christina Alberta,” said Christina Alberta. - -“Christina Alberta a lot. But it was only last night I could get the -address out of him. He’d forgotten it before. We’ve been here over a -day. He caught the cold coming here.” - -“How did you come here?” Devizes threw in. - -“Motor bicycle,” said Bobby. “But there was a lot of waiting about -before we could get away and it was a cold raw morning, and he had -just his nightgown and dressing-gown and slippers. So hard to foresee -everything.” - -“But how did you come to be rescuing him?” - -Bobby smiled at Devizes. “Somebody had to be rescuing him.” - -He turned to Christina Alberta again. “Couldn’t bear the thought of his -being under lock and key. He took a room, you see, in the place where -I lodged, and there was something innocent and--delightful about him. -I’ve a weakness, a sympathy perhaps, with absurdity.... You ought to go -up to him and see him.” - -“Yes, we’d better look at him,” said Devizes. - -(Who the devil was this fellow?) - -Bobby asserted himself. “Christina Alberta first, I think.” - -He took Christina Alberta up to her daddy and closed the door on a -warm embrace. “And now, Mr. de Vezes, or whatever you are,” he said -to himself on the staircase, “where do _you_ come in?” He descended -and found Devizes standing very irritatingly upon his hearthrug before -his fire. As he stood there a remote resemblance to Christina Alberta -was perceptible. Bobby had an incoherent recognition of the fact that -in some obscure way Devizes was responsible for Christina Alberta’s -failure to produce blue eyes. He was a little slow in saying what he -intended to say, and Devizes was able to take the initiative. “Forgive -my blunt impertinence,” he said, “but may I ask who you are?” - -“I’m a writer,” said Bobby, refraining from any glance at the -accumulation of Aunt Suzannah material upon the side table. - -“You’ve finished lunch?” asked Devizes in a disregarded parenthesis. - -“May I ask the same question of you?” said Bobby, “and how it is you -come to be connected with the Preembys?” - -“I’m a blood relation,” said Devizes, considering it. “On the mother’s -side. A sort of cousin. And I happen to be a nervous and mental -specialist. That’s why I’ve been brought in to-day.” - -“I see,” said Bobby. “You’ve got no intention of--putting him back?” - -“None at all. We’re not antagonists, Mr----” - -“Roothing.” - -“We’re on the same side. You did well to get him out. We were trying -to do the same thing by less original methods. We’re very grateful to -you. The lunacy laws are rather a clumsy and indiscriminating machine. -But, as you probably know, if he keeps clear of them for fourteen -days, they’ll have to begin with him all over again. He renews his -sanity. We’re allies in that. We’ve got to know each other better. Your -intervention--most surprising--strikes me as being at once eccentric -and courageous. I wish you’d tell me more about it, how you met him, -how they got hold of him, and what set you thinking of an escape.” - -“H’m,” said Bobby, and came and asserted his right to half the -hearthrug. He had thought of the way in which he could tell this -story--to Christina Alberta--the original Christina Alberta with the -blue eyes. He felt that that version needed considerable revision, -indeed, possibly even a complete rearrangement, for the present hearer. -He was by no means sure he wanted to tell it to the present hearer. The -man was a doctor and a mental specialist and a distant relation, and -he was for keeping Sargon out of an asylum, and that was all to the -good, but it still lingered in Bobby’s mind that he was an interloper. -Nevertheless, he made way for Bobby quite civilly on the hearthrug, -and his manner was attentive and respectful. Bobby embarked upon a -description of Sargon’s first appearance in Midgard Street. - -Devizes showed himself alert and intelligent. He grasped the -significance of Sargon’s projected visit to the dome of Saint Paul’s at -once. “I’ve no doubt he did it,” said Devizes. “Neither have I,” said -Bobby, “though I’ve not asked him about it yet.” They pieced together -the probable story of the calling of the disciples before Billy and -Bobby had come upon the procession. “It’s touching,” said Devizes, “and -immense.” Bobby approved these words. - -“You see how he got me,” said Bobby. - -A distinct flavour of friendliness for Devizes crept by imperceptible -degrees into Bobby’s mind. Difficulties that had seemed to threaten his -explanation vanished; this man, he perceived, could understand anything -a fellow did. Devizes made him feel that the extraction of Sargon from -Cummerdown by a perfect stranger was the most simple and natural thing -to do imaginable. Bobby warmed to his story; his sense of humour took -heart of grace, and he became frank and amusing about his difficulties -on the visiting day. As he was telling of the foxy-faced deaf mute, -Christina Alberta came back again into the downstairs room. - -“He takes me as a matter of course,” she said. “He seems weak and -drowsy and his chest is bad.” She spoke more definitely to Devizes. “I -think you ought to overhaul him.” - -“There is a doctor in attendance?” he asked Bobby. - -Bobby explained. Devizes considered. Was Sargon dozing? Yes. Then let -him doze for a bit. Bobby, working now a little more consciously for -effect, went on with his story. Christina Alberta regarded him with -manifest approval. - -By tea-time Bobby had adjusted his mind to the existence of Devizes -and the unexpectedness of Christina Alberta. All that carried over -from his state of expectation was the idea that his relations with -Christina Alberta were to be very profound and intimate. He still -believed that, hidden away in her somewhere, there must be a blue-eyed, -yielding, really feminine person, but it was very deeply hidden. -Meanwhile the superimposed disguise struck him as agreeable, alert, -humorous, and friendly. Devizes too he saw more and more as a strong, -capable, understanding personality. He had seen Devizes examining -Sargon, and it was clever, confidence-provoking doctoring. Sargon’s -lungs, he said, were badly congested, especially on the left side; he -was on the edge of pneumonia and without much vitality to fight it. He -ought to be kept in a warmer, less draughty room with a night-nurse -available. Mrs. Plumer had no room for a nurse, and not an hour away by -automobile was Paul Lambone’s excessively comfortable week-end cottage -at Udimore. A little masterly telephoning and telegraphing and the -cottage was available, fires were alight in the best bedroom, a trained -nurse was on her way to it, and it was all settled for Sargon, warmly -wrapped up and fortified with hot-water bottles, to go thither. Bobby -found himself a mere accessory in this new system of things; he was -to follow next day to Udimore on his motor bicycle, for there would -be room for all of them in Paul Lambone’s cottage. Apparently Paul -Lambone’s conception of a simple cottage in the wilderness involved a -housekeeper, several servants, and four or five visitors’ rooms. - -This fellow Devizes carried out all his arrangements with a smooth -competence that gave Bobby no scope for self-assertion. Sargon and -Christina Alberta and Devizes would depart at five and get to Udimore -by six, by which time the nurse would be installed. Then Devizes would -go back to London and get there in time to dress for a dinner he had -to attend. On Saturday morning he would be busy in London, and then -he would come back to Udimore and see if Sargon was recovered enough -for the beginnings of his mental treatment. Perhaps the unknown Paul -Lambone would be there too. He was a lazy person, Bobby gathered; he’d -have to be brought down by Devizes. Bobby was to stay at Udimore for -some days. He made modest protestations. “No, you’re _in_ it now,” said -Devizes cheerfully and glanced at Christina Alberta. “You’re in for -Sargon like the rest of us. Bring your work with you.” - -“Yes, do come,” said Christina Alberta. - -The only reason Bobby had for resisting the invitation was that it -attracted him so much. - - -§ 3 - -This “cottage” at Udimore, which struck Bobby as being a really very -pretty and comfortable modern house, and these three people, Christina -Alberta, Devizes and Paul Lambone, who now grouped themselves round -Sargon, exercised his mind in a quite extraordinary way. They struck -him as being novel and definite to a degree he’d never met in anyone -before, and even the house was fresh and decisive in its broad white -grace, like no house that had ever before held his attention. It made -most of the other houses he had ever observed seem accidental and -aggregatory and second-hand and wandering in their purpose. But this -house was the work of a clever young architect who had considered Paul -Lambone intelligently, and its white rough-cast walls sat comfortably -on the hill-side and looked with an honest, entirely detached -admiration at Rye and across the marsh to Winchelsea and the remote -blue sea; and it had seats and arbours and a gazebo for sitting about -in, and up hill was a walled garden with broad paths up which you -looked from the back of the house through lead-paned windows. You could -watch the sunset from a number of excellent points of view, but it did -not shine upon any room to weary and blind you. There was a kind wall -to shelter hollyhocks and delphiniums from the south-west wind, and to -bear a plum or so and a pear and a fig tree. Downstairs was mainly one -great rambling room with a dining recess in one corner and the power -of opening itself out into a loggia, and with conversational centres -about fire-places or windows as the season might require, but there -were several little studies about the house in which one could be shut -off and write. Bookshelves grew in convenient corners, and the house -was everywhere mysteriously warm from unseen and scarce suspected -radiators. The house was so like Paul Lambone, and Paul Lambone so much -a part of his house that he seemed to be really no more than its voice -and its eyes. - -Paul Lambone was the first successful writer Bobby had ever met. -Bobby knew various needy young writers, tadpole writers, insecure -writers, but this was the first completely grown-up and established -and massively adult writer he had ever known. The man struck Bobby as -being stupendously secure and free and prosperous. And the remarkable -thing was that he was in no way a great writer, no Dickens nor Scott -nor Hardy; his work wasn’t, after all, in Bobby’s opinion anything so -very remotely above Bobby’s own efforts. A certain terseness he had -at times, a certain penetration: those were the chief differences. In -Bobby’s imagination the literary and artistic life had hitherto had -an unavoidable flavour of casual adventure, glorious achievements, -maddening difficulties, wild delights and tragic unhappinesses. Swift, -Savage, Goldsmith, the Carlyles, Balzac, Dumas, Edgar Allan Poe, -these had been his types. But this new bright house was as sound and -comfortable as any country house, and Lambone sat in it with as safe -a dignity as though he was a provincial banker or a mine owner or -the senior member of some widespread firm of solicitors. No fears of -losing his “job” or “writing himself out” oppressed him. He said and -did exactly what he thought proper, and the policeman saluted him as he -passed. - -If this sort of thing could spring from the _Book of Everyday Wisdom_ -and Paul’s amiable novels, what hitherto unsuspected possibilities of -accumulation and ease and security and helpfulness might there not be -in Aunt Suzannah’s kindly responsiveness? It had never before seemed -credible to Bobby that a day might come when he would be secure and his -own master, able to refuse limitations himself and to release other -people from limitations. All Bobby’s life hitherto had been a matter -of direction and eminent necessity. He had been _sent_ to school and -_sent_ to college. He had been on the eve of being _put into_ the -position of agent upon a friendly estate when the Great War had seized -upon him and the rest of his generation and drilled him and sent him -off to Mesopotamia. And after the war he had had to do something to -supplement his diminished inheritance. Life had been so indicated -and prescribed for him at every stage, his parents’ existence had -been so entirely directed by a class tradition, that Bobby’s mind was -exceptionally well prepared to be impressed by Paul Lambone’s freedoms. - -It was curious to note how completely Paul Lambone arose out of the -present-day world, and how completely he didn’t belong to it. He had -all its advantages and so little of its standard obligations. He had -escaped from it with most of its gifts. He had to go to no court, -follow no seasons, make no calls, and perform no functions. Was he -exceptional in his circumstances altogether, or were there a lot -of people escaping, as he was escaping, prosperously, from the old -decaying social system? a queer sort of new people who didn’t belong? - -Bobby sat on the terrace and looked over the back of his seat at this -extremely new but very sightly and comfortable cottage of Lambone’s, -with this freshly arrived idea of a new sort of people getting loose in -the world and living unrelated to the old order of things and shaping -out new ways of living, very active in his mind. This house seemed to -embody that idea; it was new and novel, but not a bit apologetic nor -rebellious. It was just breaking out like a new fashion. It was just -arising like a new century. He had always assumed that revolutions came -from below through the rage of the excluded and the disinherited. He -had thought every one took that for granted. But suppose revolutions -were merely smashes-up that hadn’t very much to do with real progress -either way, and that the new age dawned anywhere in the social order -where people could get free enough to work out new ideas. - -New ideas! - -Sargon was new, Paul Lambone was new, Devizes new; before the war -there could not have been any such people. They had grown out of -their own past selves; they were as different from pre-war people as -nineteenth-century people had been different from eighteenth-century -people. Newest of all was this Christina Alberta who had effaced her -blue-eyed predecessor. She was so direct and free in her thoughts and -talk that she made Bobby feel that his own mind wore a bonnet and -flounces. He had gone for two walks with her, once to Brede and once -to Rye, and he liked her tremendously. Whether he was in love with her -he didn’t yet know. Falling in love with her for anyone was evidently -going to be a quite unconventional, untested, and difficult series -of exercises. Nothing at all like that unborn normal affair with the -non-existent blue-eyed girl. - -She seemed to like him, and particularly the way his hair grew on his -head. She had mentioned it twice and ruffled it once. - -A queer aspect of the situation was the riddle of how she and Sargon -and himself came to be the guests of Paul Lambone with Devizes -in attendance. It was just a part of Paul Lambone’s freedom from -prescription that he should be able to give sanctuary to Sargon and -assemble this odd, unconventional week-end party. But Bobby had a -sense of hidden links and missing clues. Devizes was a natural enough -visitor, of course; he was manifestly Lambone’s close friend. But their -interest in Sargon was stronger than Bobby could imagine it ought -to be. He was puzzled; he examined all sorts of possibilities in a -gingerly fashion. Some impulse like his own, no doubt, but not quite -the same, lay at the bottom of this--Sargonism. - -Bobby had begun by feeling very hostile to Devizes as an unexpected -intruder on a system of relationships sufficiently interesting without -him. He was glad that he had to go to London for Friday, and not -particularly pleased by his return on Saturday. Then he found his -feelings changing to a curious respect, mingled with a defensive -element that was almost like fear. - -Devizes was more aware of you than Lambone. He looked at you, his -mind came at you. It had the habit of coming at people. He was more -actively and aggressively interested in things than Lambone and more -self-forgetful. Lambone observed enough to make bright comments; -Devizes made penetrating observations. Bobby often felt encumbered -with himself; most people he thought were encumbered with themselves, -but Devizes to a conspicuous degree wasn’t. He was a man of science; -a man of scientific habits. Bobby had known one or two scientific men -before, rather wrapped away from ordinary things, but the interest that -wrapped them was something that wrapped them away from oneself; one had -been concerned chiefly with stresses in glass and another with the eggs -of echinoderms. You always seemed to be looking at the backs of these -fellows’ heads and smiling at their immense preoccupation. But this -man Devizes was wrapped up in the motives and thoughts of people; he -didn’t look away from you; he looked into you. That grew upon Bobby’s -consciousness. Devizes’ eye lacked delicacy. - -He had come down for the week-end chiefly to deal with Sargon. He went -up and had long talks to Sargon. He was “treating” Sargon. He didn’t -go up and talk to Sargon as man to man, as Bobby would have done. He -went up to a sort of mental jiu-jitsu with Sargon to exercise him -and push him about into new attitudes. Devizes was formidable enough -in himself, but far more formidable as a portent. He had all the -appearance of being a precursor, the most vigorous precursor--they were -all precursors!--of a new type of human relationships, relationships -without delicate reservations, without rich accumulations of feeling -behind emotions avoided and things unsaid. So it seemed to Bobby, -who didn’t for a moment suspect how much these people were avoiding -and suppressing. Christina Alberta’s thoughts and speech seemed to -him to be moving about without a stitch on, like the people in some -horrible Utopia by Wells. He compared the vast impalpable network of -“understanding” he and Tessy had woven between each other. - -“New people,” he whispered, and looked Paul Lambone’s new house in the -face. To him they were stupendously new, an immense discovery. The -war had overstrained him, he realized, and left him too tired for a -time to see new things. He had been one of the vast multitude of those -who had come out of the war in the expectation of a trite and obvious -old-fashioned millennium, and who expressed their disappointment -by declaring that nothing had happened except devastation and -impoverishment. They were too jaded at first to observe anything else. -But indeed Bobby now realized the European world had been travelling -faster and faster since the break-up of the armed peace in 1914; and -here were new types, new habits of thought, new ideas, new reactions, -new morals, new ways of living. He discovered himself in the advent of -a new age, a new age that was coming so fast that there hadn’t been -time ever to clear the forms and institutions of the old age away. They -weren’t reversed or abolished, they weren’t overthrown, they were just -disregarded. Which was just why it was possible to get along for a year -or so without noting the tremendous changes everything was undergoing. - -“New People.” Did that apply to Sargon? That was Sargon’s room: the two -long windows between the buttresses. Was Sargon also an escape from the -established order of relationships into novel things? What was the real -significance of the absurd little man with his preposterous map of the -world and his still more preposterous planisphere, who wanted to be -Lord of the Earth? - - -§ 4 - -When Bobby came to talk it over with Sargon it seemed to him that -Devizes had taken the little man completely to pieces and presented -him with the disarticulated portions of himself. Devizes went back to -London on Monday; he took Christina Alberta with him in his hired car; -but Lambone urged Bobby to stay on for a day or so to cheer up the -patient. Lambone, so far as he could discover his own intentions, meant -to stay on at Udimore for a week or more and work. Bobby saw Christina -Alberta off, meditated on her for an hour, then gave the rest of the -morning to Aunt Suzannah and the afternoon to Sargon; and Sargon, who -was distinctly better, sat propped up by two pillows and discussed the -dissected structure of himself. - -“Not a bit fatigued,” said Sargon. “I’m having a tonic now. Every three -hours.” - -He considered his next remark for some moments before he made it. “Who -_is_ this Mr. Paul Lambone?” he asked. “It is very hospitable for him -to entertain us. Very. (_H’rrmp_).... Is he a friend of yours?” - -“He’s quite a well-known writer. He’s a friend of Christina Alberta’s.” - -“She has so many friends. Young people do nowadays. And what is this -Dr. Devizes?” - -“He is a nervous specialist, and he was consulted--he was consulted -about the possibilities of getting you away from that--Place.” - -“Nervous specialist. He is a wonderful talker--most intelligent and -(h’rrmp) understanding. I have a curious feeling that somewhere, -somewhen, somehow I have met him before. In this life--or some other. -It is all quite vague, and he does not seem to have any corresponding -recollection. No. Probably a coincidence of some sort.” - -Bobby saw nothing in the coincidence. - -Sargon shut his eyes for a second or so. - -“We talked of my recent experiences,” he resumed. - -“Naturally,” said Bobby, helping. - -“There has been a lot of confusion about my personality. It is a -trouble more frequent nowadays than it used to be. Most of my life -I have thought that I was a person called Albert Edward Preemby, a -limited person, a most limited person. Then I had a light. I began -to realize that nobody could really be such a thing as that Albert -Edward Preemby. I began to seek for myself. I had reason--too long to -explain--to suppose that I was Sargon the First, the great Sumerian, -the founder of the first Empire in the world. Then--then came trouble. -You saw something of it. I grasped at the sceptre--one afternoon--in -Holborn--rashly. Most painful affair. I was sent to that Place. Yes. It -shook me. Humiliations. Hardship. Real--uncleanness. I doubted whether -I wasn’t after all just that little Preemby. A human rabbit. My faith -faltered. I admit it faltered.” - -He mused painfully for some moments. - -Then he laid his hand reassuringly on Bobby’s wrist. - -“I _am_ Sargon,” he said. “Talking to your friend Devizes has cleared -my mind greatly. I _am_ Sargon, but in a rather different sense from -what I had imagined. Preemby was, as I had supposed, a mere accidental -covering. But----” - -The little face puckered with intellectual effort. “I am not -_exclusively_ Sargon. You--you perhaps are still unawakened--but you -are Sargon too. His blood is in our veins. We are co-heirs. It is -fairly easy to understand. Sargon, regal position. Naturally many -wives. Political--biological necessity. Offspring numerous. They -again--positions of advantage--many children. Next generation, more. -Like a vast expanding beam of intellectual and moral force. You can -prove it--prove it by mathematics. Dr. Devizes and I--we worked it out -on a piece of paper. We are all descended from Sargon, just as we are -all descended from Cæsar--just as nearly all English and Americans are -descended from William the Conqueror. Few people realize this. A little -arithmetic--it is perfectly plain. Long before the Christian era the -blood of Sargon was diffused throughout all mankind. His traditions -still more so. We all inherit. Not merely from him--from all the great -kings, from all the noble conquerors. From all the brave and beautiful -women. All the statesmen and inventors and creators. If not directly -from them, from their fathers and mothers. All that rich wine from the -past is in my veins. And I thought I was just Albert Edward Preemby! -And at Woodford Wells I went for a silly little walk nearly every -afternoon with sixpence in my pocket to spend and nothing in the world -to do! For twenty years. It seems incredible.” - -The blue eyes sought confirmation from Bobby, who nodded. - -“There was I walking about Epping Forest in a suit of clothes I -never really liked--a rather exaggerated golfing suit with baggy -knickerbockers that my wife chose for me--they seemed to get baggier -every year--and I was quite ignorant that I was the heir of all the -ages, and that the whole earth down to the centre and up to the sky was -mine. And yours. Ours. I had no sense of duty to it; I hadn’t woke up -to self-respect. I wasn’t only Sargon, but all the men and women who -have ever mattered on earth. I was God’s Everlasting Servant. Instead -of which I was rather timid about horses and strange dogs, and often -when I saw people approaching and thought they were observing me and -speaking about me, I did not know what to do with my arms and legs, and -became quite confused about them.” - -He paused to smile at the thought of it. - -“It has been interesting to talk to your Dr. Devizes of the absurdity -of that contracted blind littleness in which I lived so long. We talked -of the Great Man I really was, the Great Men we really were. All the -Incorporated Great Men. You and I, the same. Because in the past you -and I and he were one, and in the future we may come together again. We -have just separated to take hold of things as the hand separates into -thumb and fingers. We talked of the time when the spirit that is in -us made the first hut, launched the first ship, rode the first horse. -We could not remember those great moments as exact incidents, but we -recalled them--generally. We recalled a blazing day when a band of men -went out across a sandy desert for the first time, and when a man first -stood upon a glacier. It was--slippery. Then I remembered watching my -people heap up the earth-walls of my first city. We went out against -the robbers of the first herds. Then Dr. Devizes and I stood in -imagination on a sort of quarter-deck, and watched our men lugging the -great oars of the galley that took us to Iceland and Vinland. We both -saw. We planned the Great Walls of China; I counted our lateen sails -upon our grand canal. You see, I have built a million wonderful temples -and made an innumerable multititude of lovely sculptures, paintings, -jewels and decorations. I had forgotten it, but I have. And I have -loved a billion loves--I have indeed--to bring me here. We all have. We -talked it over, your Dr. Devizes and I. I had not dreamt the millionth -part of what I am. When I thought I was Sargon wholly and solely I -still did not realize my great inheritance and my enormous destiny. -Even now I am only beginning to see that.... It is preposterous to -think that I who have all this past of efforts and adventures behind me -should have been content to run about Woodford Wells in a ridiculous -suit of tweeds with plus-four breeches that were extremely heavy and -uncomfortable--they tickled me, you know--on hot days. Yet I did. I -did.... Not realizing.... I used to go on until I could endure it no -longer, and then I would have to stop and scratch behind my knees.... - -“Of course, when I called myself Sargon, King of Kings, and proposed -to rule all the world I was--Dr. Devizes called it--_symbolizing_. Of -course, everybody is really Sargon, King of Kings, and everybody ought -to take hold of all the world and save it and rule it just as I have -got to do.” - -He had concluded his exposition. He had spread out his disarticulated -parts before Bobby just as Devizes had returned them to him. - - -§ 5 - -“But just what are you going to do?” said Bobby. - -“I have been thinking of that.” - -For a little while he continued to think. - -“It becomes all different,” he said, “when one realizes that one is not -the _only_ Sargon. I thought of being a great king, a great leader, -with the rest of the world just following me. I doubt if I ever felt -quite _up_ to a job of that sort, but I couldn’t see any other way of -being Sargon and a king. Now I do. I did my best, but even when I went -to Buckingham Palace I realized that the thing was going to be too big -for me. I was telling Dr. Devizes--I told him, that since he was Sargon -and King just as much as me and that almost anyone might become Sargon -and King, then it wasn’t a case for palaces and thrones any longer, or -for being proclaimed and crowned--such things were as much out of date -as flint implements; and that the real things was to be just a kingly -person and work with all the other kingly persons in the world to make -the world worthy of our high descent. Anyone who wakes up to that -becomes a kingly person. We can be active kings even if we remain kings -incognito. One can be a laundryman like I was when I was just Preemby, -and think of nothing but the profits and needs and vanities and fears -of a little laundryman--and how dull it was!--or one can be a king, the -descendant of ten thousand kings, the joint heir to the inheritance -of all human affairs, the lord of the generations still unborn--who -happens to be living in exile as a laundryman.” - -He paused. - -“I agree with most of that,” said Bobby. “It’s--it’s attractive.” - -“So far it is as plain as can be. But after that the difficulties -begin. It isn’t enough just to say you are a king. You have to be a -king. You have to _do_. You can’t be a king and not do kingly things. -But it’s just there that Dr. Devizes and I--we weren’t so clear. -There’s a lot to be thought out. What is my kingly task? In this frail -body--and what I am? I am not clear. Yet the mere fact that I am not -clear shows clearly where I have to begin. I have to get clear. I have -to get knowledge, find out about my kingdom. That’s reasonable. I have -to learn more about my great inheritance, our great inheritance, the -history of it, the possibilities of it, the ways of the men who misrule -it. I have to learn about business and economics and money; and then -when I see it all plain I have to exert myself and vote and work, and I -have to find out what particular gifts I have and how I may best give -them to our kingdom. Each king must glorify his particular reign with -his particular gift. We agreed about that. - -“So far I do not know my particular gift. Dr. Devizes says that so -far as he is concerned he must work out human motives and human -relationships; his gift and his natural interest is for mental science. -He has his task meted out for him, his kingly task. But for me at -present there isn’t that much self-knowledge. I have to begin lower -down and with broader questions. I have to learn about the universe -and about the history of this world-empire of Sargon’s, and of all the -things I have neglected in my dreams and littleness. I have to go to -school again. To learn how to think harder. I don’t mind the fatigue. -But I am impatient. When I think of all that lies before me, the -reading, the inquiries, the visits to museums and suchlike places, I -want to get up right away and begin. I have lived so unobservant and -irresponsible a life that I am puzzled how to account for the years I -have spent. I have mooned them away. But I am glad I have awakened to -my kingship before it is too late. - -“I am quite a young man still. I am a little past forty, but that is -nothing. Half of that was childhood and boyhood, and much of the rest -inattention. For all I know I may live for another forty years. I’m -not half through. And they may be the best years, the full years. I -can spend three or four just learning--learning the round world. I -shall begin to find out politics, and why men and women are servile -and little-minded. I shall begin to realize how I can extend to those -others this great liberation that has come to me. I shall begin to have -a political life. A man who has no political life is like a rat which -lives in a ship rather than like a man who navigates it. Then within -that I shall begin to find my own proper life, my particular task. -It is premature, I think, but I am very greatly drawn to the riddle -of madness and asylums. I do not understand why there is madness. It -puzzles and distresses me, and Dr. Devizes agrees with me that when a -thing puzzles and distresses the mind the thing to do is to gather all -the knowledge and ideas one can about it--scientifically. Presently it -ceases to distress; it interests and occupies. And when I was in--that -Place, I talked to some of those poor creatures. I was very sorry for -them, I made them promises to help them when my kingdom came. And now I -begin to see what my kingdom is, and the way in which I must enter in -to possess it. Perhaps in good time I shall learn and spread knowledge -about asylums, and make things better in them so that they will not -simply imprison people but help and cure them. - -“It was Dr. Devizes’ idea, I think--or we may have worked it out -together--that there is a real and important purpose in madness. It -is a sort of simplification, a removal of checks and controls, and a -sort of natural experiment. The secret things of the mind are laid -bare. But then if poor souls are to suffer that sort of thing to -yield knowledge for others, they ought to be treated properly; they -ought to be cherished and made the utmost use of, and not handed over -to such brutes as we had.... I can’t tell you. Not yet. Brutes they -were.... And in their sane moments--they all have sane moments, these -lunatics--they ought to be comforted and told.” - -The queer little round face, with its sprouting moustache and its pale -blue eyes, stared at Bobby. - -“When first I saw you,” said Sargon, “I did not realize in the -least how things really were between us. I was still wrapped up in -vaingloriousness; I thought I was a great prophet and teacher and -king, and that all the world had to obey me. I thought you were going -to be the first and best and nearest of my disciples. But now I know -better about myself. And about other people. They are here not to be -my followers and disciples but to be my fellow kings. We have to work -together with all the others who are awakened, for our kingdom and the -great progress of mankind.” - -He went on talking rather to himself than to Bobby. - -“I have always wanted to know things, but now I shall have the will -really to know them. I shall be different now. It seems incredible -that a little while ago I was bothered about what I should do with my -time. Now I am only eager to get at things, and however long my time -may be I know it will be full. It is astonishing to me that there -has been flying in my kingdom for a dozen years, and I have never -been in an aeroplane. I must look at the world from an aeroplane. And -perhaps I shall need to go to India and China and suchlike strange and -wonderful countries, because they, too, are a part of my inheritance. -I need to know about them. And jungles and wildernesses that we have -to subjugate; I have to see them. The beasts are under us; we have -to cherish them or destroy them mercifully as the necessities of -our kingdom may require. It is a terrible thing even to be lord of -a beast. All the beasts, wild or tame, are under our dominion. And -there is science. All the wonderful work men do in laboratories and -their marvellous discoveries are our care. If I do not understand I -may hinder. How blind I have been to the splendour of my life. When I -think of all these things, I can hardly endure to be here in bed; I am -so impatient to get on with them. But I suppose I must be patient with -these poor wheezing lungs. - -“Patient,” he repeated. - -He looked at his wrist-watch and it had stopped. “Can you tell me the -time? At seven I ought to take some more of that excellent tonic. It -is working wonders in me. But no! don’t trouble; the nurse will be -thinking of it.... It puts fresh life into me.” - - -§ 6 - -But Sargon did not live forty years more, nor thirty, nor twenty. He -lived just a day under seven weeks from that conversation. He stayed -in bed for two days after Bobby returned to London; then Lambone also -went and he became intractable. As his strength returned he bothered -his nurse more and more for books he couldn’t name or describe, and for -volumes of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_; and when she declared that -seven volumes of that monumental publication were surely as much as any -invalid could need at one time, he got up and put on his rough little -dressing-gown and came paddling downstairs, h’rrmping resolutely, to -the library. After that he got up for three days running. A fire was -made in the most bookish corner of the downstairs room and screens put -to keep him warm. But his tonic was driving him, perhaps it was too -stimulating a tonic, and he would not stay in his protected corner. - -The nurse seems to have been a weak, complaining character, indisposed -to act without authority. She telephoned through to Devizes in London, -but she did not succeed in making clear to him the gravity of Sargon’s -misbehaviour. The crowning offence came when he wouldn’t go to bed at -seven, but instead slipped out, in an overcoat and a wrapper indeed but -in slippers, upon the terrace before the house. His bare ankles and -legs were exposed to the cold wind. The slow-moving periodic beams of -light from the lighthouse upon the coast, sweeping across the phantom -hills under the clear starlight, had drawn him out, those processional -lights, and Sirius that white splendour, and the steadfast sprawling -glory of Orion. It was a clear November night with frost in the air. -The nurse heard him cough and rushed out to him. He was looking at -Sirius through Lambone’s field-glasses and she had to drag him in by -main force. She lost her temper; there was an ungracious struggle. - -The next day he was in no state to leave his bed. Yet he tossed about -and exposed his inflamed chest in feeble attempts to read. “I know -nothing,” he complained. For a while he got better again, and then it -is highly probable that he went to his open window in the night and sat -for a long time wondering at the stars. After that came a relapse and a -week or so of struggle, and then after a phase of delirium came great -weakness, and then one night, death. He was quite alone when he died. - -Bobby had not expected the death at all. He heard of it from Christina -Alberta with great astonishment. He had been told nothing of Sargon -being worse nor of his misbehaviour; he had been thinking of him rather -enviously as growing steadily stronger and better and gratifying day by -day a happy and expanding curiosity. He had looked forward presently to -another talk and another phase in this odd belated adolescence. It was -as though an interesting story had come to an abrupt end in the middle, -as though all its concluding chapters had been torn out rudely and -unreasonably. - -This mood of frustrated sympathy lasted over the cremation of Sargon -at Golders Green. Bobby went to that queer ceremony. He arrived late -with Billy; the coffin that held the little body stood ready to glide -into the furnace, the Church of England burial service had already -begun. There were very few people in the chapel. Christina Alberta in -the black she had worn for her mother was in the front seat, as chief -mourner, between Paul Lambone and Devizes. Behind her with an air -of earnest support were Harold and Fay Crumb, astonishingly in deep -mourning and following the service meticulously in two prayer-books. -An unpleasant-looking individual with a very long pock-marked sheep’s -face, small eyes and habitual-looking blacks turned round and stared -at Bobby as he came in. He was accompanied by a very large blonde -lady who seemed to have slept in her mourning under a bed. Relations -of the deceased? The air of relationship was unmistakable. Behind, -a young woman and two detached old ladies seemed to be indulging a -simple propensity for funeral services at large. They completed the -congregation. - -Christina Alberta looked unusually small and overshadowed by her two -odd men friends. It was a grey day outside, and the general effect of -the gathering was thin and scattered and damp and chilly. The organ -was playing as Bobby came in, and he thought he had never heard a less -musical organ. The service as it went on sounded more and more trite -and theological and insincere. What an old second-hand damp mackintosh -the Church of England is, thought Bobby, for a striving soul to wear? -But then what can any religion in the world really be in the face of -normal death? Theologically one should rejoice when a good man dies, -but none of these religions had had the pluck to brazen it out to that -extent. None can get rid of the effect of confrontation with a blank -amazing interrogation. Was there anything within that coffin there that -heard or cared a jot for those sombre mummeries? - -Bobby’s thoughts converged upon that still thing within the coffin. The -little face would be wearing a waxen unaccustomed dignity; the round, -preposterously innocent blue eyes would be closed and a little sunken. -Where were those thoughts and hopes, now, that Bobby had listened to -a few weeks since? Sargon had talked of flying, of visiting India and -China, of doing noble work in the world. He had said that half his life -still lay before him. He had seemed to be opening like a flower on the -first sunny morning of a belated spring. And it was all delusion; the -door of death that had slammed upon him was already closing then. - -Surely those hopes had been life! In them if in anything was something -of the life that lives and cannot die. But was it yonder? No. That in -the coffin there was no more than a photographic impression, a cast -garment, the parings of a nail. There was more of Sargon now in Bobby’s -brain alone, than in that coffin. But Sargon, where was he? Where were -those dreams and desires? - -Bobby became aware of the voice of the officiating clergyman driving -high, like a flying bird, over the welter of his thoughts: “_But some -men will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they -come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened unless it die. -And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but -bare grain, it may chance of wheat or any other grain: But God giveth -it a body, as it hath pleased him, but to every seed its own body...._” - -“Queer, tortuous, ingenious fellow that Paul,” thought Bobby. Now -what exactly was he driving at there? Queer fellow! Bad manners too -with his “Thou fool.” A rather strained analogy this about the seed, -“sown in corruption.” After all a seed was the cleanest, most living -bit of vegetable matter you could have; it had to be sown in clean -mould. Growing plants you manured perhaps, but not seed-boxes. But -there was a queer insistence in the discourse of the “difference,” the -discontinuity, of the new life. What was to come was to be altogether -different from what was sown. Bobby had never noted that before, never -noted how plainly the apostle insisted that no body, no earthly sort of -body, no personality, ever came back. - -“_The glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial -is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the -moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differeth from -another star in glory._” - -What was the drift of that? Was it translated properly? What had Paul -been up against in Corinth? After all, why couldn’t the Church speak -to one’s living needs instead of disinterring this Levantine argument? -And that analogy of the seed; was it after all a good one? Whatever -comes from a seed must itself die again; it is no more immortal than -the plant that came before it. The clergyman was going too fast, too, -to follow him closely. Better get a prayer-book at home afterwards and -read all this. - -“_O Grave where is thy sting? O death where is thy victory? The sting -of death is sin and the strength of sin is in the law._” - -No. There was no following that. It sounded like nonsense. One just -missed the implications. It was like listening to some one who was -too far off to be heard distinctly but who made eloquent gestures and -noises. - -The service came to an embarrassed pause. Everyone was motionless, -arrested. - -“_Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live.... He cometh -up and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow...._” - -Set in motion by unseen hands the coffin went gliding towards the -furnace doors which opened to receive it. There was a deep roar, a -sound like a mighty rushing wind, an elemental and chaotic sound.... - -Life is a faint dispersed film upon one little planet, but flames roar -like this and great winds rush and whirl, out to the remotest star in -the unfathomable depths of space. That deep disorderly tumult is the -true voice of lifeless matter, not of dead matter, for what has never -lived cannot be dead, but of lifeless matter, outside of and beneath -and beyond life. - -Everyone in the chapel seemed still and bowed and hushed and dwarfed to -minute dimensions until the furnace doors had closed again upon that -soulless devouring clamour. - - - - -CHAPTER THE FOURTH - -_May at Udimore_ - - -§ 1 - -Bobby _forgot_ that glimpse of the elemental powers that the furnace -doors had given him altogether, for such things do not remain -naturally in the mind. They inconvenience life. But the voice of the -clergyman hustling the arguments of St. Paul along, and the scene in -the Crematorium Chapel with the little coffin waiting to be launched -into eternity and the few still black mourners dotted among the yellow -benches came back to him very vividly when Paul Lambone began to quote -and twist those familiar sentences about the contrast between the -corruptible and the incorruptible and expand a fantastic philosophy of -his own. Bobby had always intended to read that funeral service over -again slowly and judicially, but he had never done so and he regretted -it now very much. It left him--and Paul of Tarsus--at the mercy of -Paul Lambone, and he knew that Paul Lambone loved ingenious slight -misquotations. - -It was a very warm, serenely still May evening, and Lambone’s party -sat after dinner in the twilight, some just inside the house and some -on deck-chairs upon the terrace. They looked out over the marsh and -over the still sea. The sky was like the inside of a deep blue globe -on which an ever increasing multitude of starry midges was alighting, -and Rye and Winchelsea crouched low beneath it, black low lumps with a -street light and a window or so showing minutely. Receding out to sea -was a liner quite brightly lit. With a swift steadiness the beam of the -nearer lighthouse swept the distant flats, came near, lit the faces of -the talkers, lit the room, called a church tower and a group of trees -into existence and dropped them back into the darkness and forgot about -them and passed on. And then presently it was coming again, a thin -white streak of light hurrying far away across the levels. - -When one’s attention wandered from the talk one became aware of an -abundance of nightingales. They were nightingales newly come from the -south. One or it might be two were in the trees close at hand; others -remoter wove a gauze curtain of faint sweet sounds over the visible -universe. - -Bobby sat on the step between the room and the terrace with his back -against a pillar and with his empty coffee-cup beside him. He had put -himself there by the feet of Christina Alberta, who was deep in a big -arm-chair and very still. Her face was dim except when her cigarette -glowed and showed a red-lit unfamiliar face. And yet that afternoon -she had been the most familiar thing in the world to him; she had -kissed him and pulled his ears and he had kissed her bare shoulders -and clasped her in his arms. Devizes too was silent and preoccupied. -He sat over against Christina Alberta on the other side of the opening -of the room; and he was so much in the twilight that except when the -lighthouse beam lit his face, only his shining shoes and socks were -clearly visible to Bobby. There had been times when Bobby had thought -that Devizes was in love with Christina Alberta, and he had a vague -inexplicable feeling that to some extent she was or had been in love -with Devizes. He had a sense of unfathomed deeps in their relationship, -but he did not know where these deeps lay. If Christina Alberta loved -Devizes she would have said so. Bobby knew of no reason why she -should not. But to-day she had hugged and kissed Bobby so that it was -impossible to believe she loved anyone else. - -Yet in the last three or four months she had gone about with Devizes -a lot; Bobby had seen her mind responding and changing with her talks -with this man. She used to quote him, and she would say things exactly -like the things he said. It had been a great inconvenience and trial -to Bobby, this preoccupation. And then suddenly he found Devizes -wasn’t the lover at all, never could have been a lover. That day she -had proved that up to the hilt. And now in a state between pride and -servitude Bobby sat at her feet. He sat at her feet and close to her; -Devizes in the darkness was remote, a full three yards away. - -Except for Lambone’s unquenchable flow it had not been a very talkative -party. To-night it was less talkative than ever. “This is too perfect,” -Margaret Means had sighed. “I can’t talk. I just thank God I am alive,” -and she had nestled into her big deck-chair upon the terrace. This was -the girl--it had suddenly become apparent to Bobby a fortnight ago in -London--whom Devizes intended to marry. Abruptly she had come upon the -scene to destroy the triangle that had obsessed Bobby’s imagination. -A sweetly pretty fragile thing she was; in the twilight she seemed as -faint and fragrant as nightstock, and she was a wonderful pianist. -Last night she had played for two hours. Paul’s sister, Miss Lambone, -had been evoked from somewhere in the west of England to come and be -hostess to the engaged couple. Bobby had tried to talk to Christina -Alberta about Margaret, but Christina Alberta hadn’t wanted to talk -about her. “You see,” said Christina Alberta compactly, “she has opened -the whole world of music to him. That’s what brought them together. -She’s clever; she’s very clear and clever. - -“I’d never heard of her--until you mentioned their engagement. - -“They’ve gone to concerts together and that sort of thing. He’s known -her much longer than he has known me.” - -“When did you first meet Devizes?” - -“About the time my Daddy came to Midgard Street. As recently as that. -It’s hardly six months. Paul Lambone took me to him to get advice -about Daddy. But _they_ have been going about--for more than a year. -I thought it was just music that interested them. They’d seemed to be -friends. And I thought he didn’t mean to marry again. He just suddenly -decided.” - -Christina Alberta reflected. “That’s the way with life, Bobby. Things -accumulate, and then you suddenly decide.” - -“Had she been undecided? Had she made him wait?” - -“Not her,” said Christina Alberta with a remarkable hardness in her -voice. - -“No,” she said. “_He_ decided.” - -She seemed to feel there was still something to express. “He just took -hold of the situation.” - - -§ 2 - -This was Bobby’s second visit to Udimore. Paul Lambone had suddenly -seen fit to gather this party; apparently on the spur of Devizes’ -engagement. In the interval Bobby had seen Christina Alberta a number -of times and developed an immense sense of relationship to her. It -filled his life. He had always been dreaming things about her from the -time when he anticipated her with blue eyes and a fragile person, and -always she was and did things that tore his dreams to shreds. This -made her profoundly interesting. More and more he had become dependent -upon her for interest. He wanted to marry her if only to make sure he -wouldn’t lose the interest of her. She had refused--twice. Without any -of the graces proper to the occasion. “No fear, Bobby,” she said. “It -wouldn’t do. I’m not the woman you take me for.” - -“You never are,” he said. “I don’t mind that.” - -“You’re the dearest companion,” she said. “I like the way your hair -grows.” - -“Then why not make it yours, and be companions for ever?” - -“Nothing more frightful,” she said, and so dismissed the proposal. - -They went about together; they spent much of their spare time together -except for those distressing occasions when she would suddenly throw -him over to go to a theatre or walk with Devizes. Or to go to Devizes -to talk. She never hesitated to throw him over for Devizes. Yet Bobby -got a lot of her. She didn’t know much about theatres or music-halls -or restaurants or dancing-places or that sort of thing, and Bobby was -discreetly competent in that province. The Malmesburys felt themselves -deserted, and Susan was vindictive in her resentment at his frequent -absence from her bed-time rituals. Tessy, Bobby declared, remained his -dearest friend; but when he tried to tell her all about himself in the -old, old fashion--which he did when Christina Alberta was away with -Devizes--he naturally had to tell her all about Christina Alberta. But -Tessy declined in the most emphatic way to be told about Christina -Alberta. It was extremely surprising and disappointing to Bobby to find -out how incapable Tessy was of appreciating the endless interestingness -and charm of Christina Alberta. It was a blind spot in her mind. She -seemed to assume that Christina Alberta was no better than she should -be, whereas she was much better. It estranged Bobby and Tessy very -much, and it was a great sorrow to Bobby. - -Because Christina Alberta _was_ good--and interesting--beyond dispute. -She was growing with tremendous rapidity mentally and in her knowledge -of the world. Every time he met her she seemed more of a person, with -richer, fuller, more commanding ideas. She seemed to be living every -moment of her time. She was working now at the Royal College of Science -under Macbride. She was taking hold of her new studies there with -tremendous enthusiasm. She was in love with comparative anatomy. Bobby -had always thought that comparative anatomy was dry, pedantic stuff -about bones, but she declared it lit up the whole story of life for -her. It changed her ideas about the world and about herself profoundly. -“It is the most romantic stuff I have ever read or thought about,” she -said. “It makes human history seem silly.” - -She took him three times to the Natural History Museum at South -Kensington to show him something of the fine realizations that stirred -her mind. She made it clear to him how the bones of a wing or the -scratches of a flint could restore the storms and sunlight and passions -of ten million years ago. - -And then suddenly a week ago Christina Alberta had consented to marry -Bobby. She had taken back her two refusals. But the way she did it -made it like everything else she did, astonishing and disconcerting. -She had a confession to make, and for a time until he could think it -over thoroughly that confession seemed to Bobby to explain her refusals -completely and to clear up everything about her. - -She got him to take her to Hampton Court. But they did not go into the -gardens because they saw through the park gates that the chestnuts of -Bushey Avenue were in full blossom; they went instead by the pond and -up under the riotously flowering branches. A belated spring was coming -now in a hurry, warm and brilliant. The trees were glorious. It was as -if a bright green sea was splashing up warm creamy foam under a shower -of cannon shots. The blue sky hummed with light. - -“The spring has come fast now that it has begun to come,” she said. - -He felt she had something to say and waited. - -“I never know, Bobby--this year less than ever--whether spring is the -happiest time in the year or the most miserably restless. Everybody and -everything is falling in love.” - -“I didn’t wait for spring,” said Bobby. - -“But what of the frogs that can’t find water?” said Christina Alberta. - -“There’s water where there are frogs,” said Bobby. - -“Everybody is marrying and giving in marriage,” she said. “I thought--I -thought--Dr. Devizes at least was an inconsolable widower. But the -spring tides have caught even him. They catch everybody.” - -“They’ve caught you?” - -“I don’t know. I’m miserable, Bobby, and restless and all astir.” - -“Then let yourself go.” - -“One aches--alone.” - -“But are you alone?” - -“Fairly.” - -“There’s me.” - -“Bobby dear, what do you want in me?” - -“_You._ To be with you. To be always about with you. And to be loved by -you.” - -“It’s kind of you.” - -“Oh, nonsense! _Kindness!_” - -“Listen, Bobby,” she said, and made a long pause. - -Her voice when she spoke had adopted the ease of casual conversation. -“Do you believe in chastity, Bobby? Could you love a girl who -wasn’t--chaste?” - -Bobby winced as if she had struck his face with a whip. He went white. -“What do you mean?” he asked. - -“Plainly,” she said. - -For a time neither of them said a word. - -“You have had _your_ experiences,” she thrust. “In France. They all -did.” - -Bobby made no answer to that. - -“Now you know,” she flung at him. - -For a little while the light had gone out of Bobby’s world. - -“Did you love the man?” he asked. - -“If I did I don’t remember it. It was just--curiosity. And the stir of -growing up. And the intolerable sense of being forbidden. No--I think I -was almost--cold-blooded. I liked the look of him. And then I disliked -him.... But there it is, Bobby. That’s how things are.” - -Bobby weighed his words. “I’d care if it were any girl but you. -You--you’re different. I love you. What has or hasn’t happened to you -doesn’t matter. At least--it doesn’t matter so much.” - -“You’re sure it doesn’t matter so much?” - -“Quite.” - -“Sure for good?” - -“Yes.” - -“From this moment you forget, you begin to forget what I have told you? -As I want to forget it?” - -“It will go soon enough if you want to forget it. It doesn’t matter at -all. I see now, it doesn’t matter at all.” - -“But why on earth do you want to marry me, Bobby? What is there in me? -I’m ugly, rude, greedy, inconsiderate. I’ve no purity, no devotion.” - -“You’re incessantly interesting. You’re straight, swift, and endlessly -beautiful.” - -“Bobby, truly! Does it look like that to you?” - -“Yes. Doesn’t my manner--? Don’t you _know_?” - -“Yes,” she said gravely; “I suppose I know.” - -She came to a stop in front of him with her arms akimbo. They stood -looking at one another, and Bobby winced as if he was going to cry. Her -face was grave and troubled, and then at the sight of his expression -her smile broke through. Her gravity vanished. She was a different -Christina Alberta. She was suddenly the gayest conceivable thing to -him, confident and impudent. - -“If you were to kiss me, Bobby, right here and now in Bushey Park, -would they lock us up?...” - -Most wonderful it was to Bobby to take her in his arms. A new -Christina Alberta was revealed to Bobby; Christina Alberta seen from a -distance of six inches or so, an amazingly beautiful Christina Alberta. -One might have thought she had never lived for anything but being loved -by Bobby. - -“You’re learning,” said Christina Alberta after a little while. “Now do -it all over again, Bobby. Nobody seems to be looking....” - - -§ 3 - -Neither Lambone nor Devizes had seemed in the least surprised at their -engagement. Indeed their attitude of gratified expectation was almost -embarrassing. The young couple had come down to Udimore with Devizes -and Miss Means under the ample protection of Miss Lambone almost as -though they had been appointed for each other from the beginning of -things. - -But at Udimore there were further surprises and perplexities for -Bobby. All day Saturday Christina Alberta seemed to be not so much -in love as in a thoroughly bad temper. She seemed far more concerned -by the fact that Devizes was going to marry Miss Means than by the -generous devotion that Bobby was prepared to lavish upon her. She was -inattentive to his various little manœuvres to get isolated with her. -The two couples played tennis after tea until it was time to dress for -dinner; she was badly out of practice and fundamentally unorthodox, and -Margaret played with a smoothness and sweetness that roused her to a -pitch of viciousness only too evident to Bobby’s fine perceptions. It -seemed to Bobby that Devizes also noted her annoyance, but Miss Means -was blissfully unobservant of anything in the world but Devizes. - -On Sunday morning Christina Alberta carried off Bobby through the -distant cheerfulness of church bells for a walk to Brede Castle. And -she announced to Bobby that she did not intend to marry him. - -Bobby protested. “You don’t love me?” - -“Haven’t I kissed you? Didn’t I hug you? Haven’t I ruffled your hair?” - -“Then why don’t you want to marry me?” - -“I do not want to marry anyone. I don’t love anybody. Except of course -you. But even you, I can’t marry. I want to be loved, Bobby, yes. But -not to be married.” - -“But why? Not the--the old reason?” - -“No. I took your word about that. But all the same I don’t want to -marry you, Bobby.... I think it’s because I don’t want to be bound up -with anyone’s life. I don’t want to be a wife. I want to be my free and -independent self. I’ve got to grow. That’s it, Bobby. I want to be free -to grow.” - -Bobby made protesting noises. - -“I don’t want some one seeing me grow all the time. You’d always be -looking at me, Bobby; I know you would.” - -It was useless of Bobby to say he wouldn’t. He would. - -“I didn’t know that things were going to take me like this until I -fixed to marry you. I wanted to marry you when I consented--honestly -I did. I wanted dreadfully then to get close to some one, as close as -possible, and to be kissed and told ‘There! There!’ and to keep there. -It was a comfort for me, Bobby. You are a comfort for me. I’d ache to -madness without you. But how close we come when we love, Bobby, and how -far away we are all the time! How can we know each other when we hardly -know ourselves? When we don’t _dare_ know ourselves? - -“You are such a dear, Bobby. You are so warm and kind that it seems -ungrateful not to give myself to you with both hands. But I just -can’t. I’m not a normal woman perhaps. Or something has happened to me -unawares. Perhaps life has cheated me out of something.... Oh, I don’t -know, Bobby. I want some one dreadfully; I want you dreadfully and I -don’t want you at all. I’d rather be dead than a female thing like -Margaret Means. If _that’s_ marrying----!” - -“But I thought,” said Bobby, “after all that’s happened----” - -“No.” - -“I’ll wait ten years for you,” said Bobby, “on the chance of your -altering your mind.” - -“You are the dearest comforter,” said Christina Alberta, and stopped -short.... - -And suddenly she had put her hands upon his shoulders and clung to him -and broken into a wild passion of weeping. - -“Wetting you instead of wedding you,” she sobbed and laughed. “Oh, my -poor Bobby! you dear lover!” - -She clung to him for a time. Then she detached herself and stood wiping -her eyes, the Christina Alberta he generally knew, except for the -traces of her tears. “If women can’t control their emotions better,” -she said, “they’ll have to go back to Harems. We can’t have it both -ways. But I _won’t_ marry you. There’s no man in the world I can marry. -I’m going to be a free and independent woman, Bobby. From now on.” - -“But I don’t understand!” said Bobby. - -“It’s not because I don’t want you to love me.” - -He was baffled. “_Bobby!_” she whispered, and seemed to glow. - -Bobby took her back into his arms and held her, and pressed his cheek -and ears against hers, and kissed her and kissed her again, and it -seemed to him to mark his own unworthiness that he should think at such -a time that there were no such wonderful kisses in the world as kisses -flavoured with salt tears. - -And yet she wasn’t going to marry him! She had snatched herself back -from him and nevertheless she was in his arms. - -He was enormously perplexed at what was happening, but it was quite -clear that the end of his engagement was not to be the end of his -love-making. Anyhow here was love. It was so manifestly the time for -love. High May ruled the world. About them there were hawthorn trees -white with blossom and great bushes of elder just breaking into flower. - - -§ 4 - -Bobby sat in the gloaming with his friends and thought of the things -that had happened to him that day, thought of Christina Alberta’s -salt tears and the incessant intriguing strangeness of her ways. He -was still immensely puzzled, but now in a large, restful, contented -fashion. Christina Alberta and he were not to marry it seemed; -nevertheless he had kissed her and embraced her, and he was free to sit -at her feet. For a time he was not even to humiliate himself by telling -these others he was not to marry her. He said nothing. His thoughts and -feelings were beyond words. Christina Alberta too was darkly silent. -Everyone indeed seemed preoccupied. Talk about the view and the stars -and the coming of the nightingales, and about migratory birds and -lighthouses rambled on for a time and died away. - -They were all too full for talking. The silence lengthened. He wondered -what would happen if nobody spoke any more. He thought of Christina -Alberta close behind him and he began to quiver in all his being. The -silence was becoming oppressive. He felt as though he could no longer -change his attitude. Nobody stirred. But Lambone saved the situation. - -“It is exactly six months ago to-night that Sargon died upstairs,” said -Lambone. He paused and seemed to answer an unspoken question. “We don’t -know when he died exactly. He just faded out in the night.” - -“I wish I could have known him,” said Margaret Means after quite a long -interval. - -Bobby’s thoughts came round to Sargon. That still young woman sitting -in the darkness behind him ceased to dominate his thoughts. He was -moved to speak, and had to cough to clear his throat. - -“I hate to think of his being burnt and scattered,” he said. - -“It’s not so disagreeable,” said Miss Lambone, “as to think of the body -all shut up in the coffin and decaying.” - -“Oh, don’t!” cried Bobby. “It’s death--any death, that I hate to think -of. Now when it is spring time, when the whole world is so full of -life, I remember all he was, the hopes he had, and they are scattered -and dispersed. Anyhow they are scattered and dispersed, they are not -boxed up and locked up and buried.... When I was here last he was like -a little boy who has just heard of the world. He was going to fly, -going to India and China, going to learn all about everything and then -do all sorts of splendid things. And there were the beastly bacteria at -work in his lungs and beating his strength down and none of it was ever -to happen.... When first I heard he was dead I could not believe it.” - -“_Is_ he dead?” said Paul Lambone. - -There was no reply to be made to that. - -Paul adjusted his shoulder-blades a little more comfortably against the -back of the small deep sofa on which he sat. “The more I think over -Sargon the less dead he seems to me, and the more important he becomes. -I don’t agree with you, Roothing. I don’t find anything futile in his -life. I think he was--symbolically--perfect. I have thought about him -endlessly.” - -“And talked,” said Devizes, “endlessly.” - -“And given you some very helpful ideas for your treatment. Don’t be -ungrateful. You think that Sargon is over. He has only just begun. You -are becoming too professional with success, Devizes. You begin to take -up cases and work them off and drop them out of your mind. You don’t go -on with them and learn. You don’t sit about and think about them as I -do. I continue to think about Sargon. I go on with him because he is -still a living being for me. I have got a new religion from him, the -religion of Sargonism. I declare him prophet of a new dispensation. -It is my latest new religion. There will always be new religions, and -the new religions will always be the only ones that matter. Religion -is a living thing, and what is alive must be continually dying and be -continually born again--differently but the same.” - -“You believe in immortality, Mr. Lambone,” said Miss Means. “I wish -that I could. But when I try to imagine it my wits fail me. Sometimes -one seems to _feel_ what it might be. On a night like this perhaps----” - -Her pretty clear voice died away in the stillness as the trail of a -falling star dies away. - -Paul, a large dark lump on the dim pale sofa, went on speaking. -“Immortality,” he said, “is a mystery. One can only speak of it in dark -metaphors. How can we believe that each of our individual commonplace -lives is to have an endless commonplace sequel? That is incredible -nonsense. Yet we go on living after death nevertheless. When we die we -are changed. All wise teachers have insisted upon that. As Roothing -said, we are not boxed up and buried and forgotten. Our real death is -an escape, and we escape and become--what did you say?--dispersed. -Immortal life is endless consequence. Our lives are like lines in a -great poem. It is an unfinished and yet it is a perfect poem. The line -begins and ends but it has to be there, and once it is there, it is -there eternally. Nothing could follow if it was not there. But every -star has not the same glory. Some lives, some lines, stand out as more -significant than the others. They open a new branch of the subject, -they start a new point of view, they express something fresh. They are -geniuses, they are prophets, they are major stars. Sargon was the last, -the latest of these prophets, and I am his Paul. Not for nothing was I -christened Paul.” - -“Paul of Tarsus,” said Devizes, “was a man of energy.” - -“There will always be minor differences in such parallels,” said -Lambone. - -“I will tell you my doctrine,” he said. - -He began to talk in that clear miniature voice of his, which was so -like a little mouse running out of the mountain of his person, of -Sargon and his struggles with his individuality, and of the struggles -in every man between his individual life and something greater that -is also in him. There was a streak of fantasy in what he was saying, -a touch of burlesque in his constant use of theological and religious -phrasing, and withal a profound sincerity. In every human being, he -declared, the little laundryman battled with the King of Kings. He -expanded and amplified his theme. Ever and again Devizes would cut into -the monologue and talk for a time, not so much to make objections as to -restate and amend and amplify. The others said little. Margaret Means -twice made soft sweet sounds suggestive of intellectual sensuousness, -and once Christina Alberta said “But--!” very loudly and then “Never -mind. Go on” and relapsed for a long time into a silence that could -be felt. Bobby sat still, sometimes listening intently and sometimes -with his mind spreading out like an uncared-for stream into a number of -parallel channels. The argument itself was interesting to follow, but -moving at the side of that was the question of the talker’s sincerity. -How much of all this stuff did Lambone mean? How much of what he said -was of a piece with the rest of his observant, self-indulgent life, his -life as a humorous comment on a universe that was profoundly absurd? - -How easily Lambone played with phrases and ideas for which men had -lived and died! How widely he had read and thought to bring so many -things together! He produced a great effect of erudition. The Golden -Bough he had at his fingers’ ends. He talked of the sacramental -mysteries of half a dozen cults, from Mithraism to ritual sacrifices, -of varying ideas of personality that had held and swayed human life -from Fiji to Yucatan. Now he was in pre-Christian Alexandria, and now -among the Chinese philosophers. The “Superior Person” of Confucius he -declared was merely an example of our way of translating all Chinese -phrases as ridiculously as possible; it meant really the Higher and -Greater Man, the Universal Man, in whom the inferior egotistical man -merged himself. It was the salvation of the Revivalist everywhere; it -was the Spiritual Man of Pauline Christianity. When the late Mr. Albert -Edward Preemby poured out all his little being into the personality of -Sargon, King of Kings, he was only doing over again what the saints -and mystics, the religious teachers and fanatics, have done throughout -the ages. He was just the Master under the Bo Tree translated into the -cockney of Woodford Wells. - -Presently Devizes was talking. Devizes was a great contrast to -Lambone. He talked a different language. He did not seem nearly so -clear and clever to Bobby as Lambone did, but he had an effect of -sincerity and solidity of conviction that Lambone lacked altogether. -His interventions made all that Lambone said seem like a wild and -picturesque parody of something that was otherwise inexpressible. Both -he and Lambone had an air of casting verbal nets for some truth that -still eluded them. And yet this truth so remotely and imperfectly -apprehended was for each of them the most important thing in life. - -“Stripped of its theological trappings,” Devizes said to Lambone, “your -new religion is simply a statement of this. That our race has reached, -and is now receding, from a maximum of _individuation_. That it turns -now towards synthesis and co-operation. It will move back towards what -you call Sargon, the great ruler, and it will swallow up individual -egotistical men in its common aims. As already scientific work swallows -them up. Or good administrative work. Or art. That is what you are -saying.” - -“Exactly,” said Paul Lambone. “If we _must_ talk your language, -Devizes, and not mine. Art, science, public service, creative work of -every sort, these are parts of what you, I suppose, would call the race -mind, parts of the race life. Every man who matters is a fresh thought, -a fresh idea. He is himself still, it is true, but his significance is -that he comes out of his past and out of his conditions and he flows on -to further men. This is the new realization that is changing all the -values in human life. It is happening everywhere. Even in the books and -reading of to-day you can see the thing happening. History now becomes -more important than biography. What made up the whole of life in the -romantic past; the love story, the treasure story, the career, getting -on, making a fortune, the personal deed and victory, the sacrifices for -an individual friend or love or leader; remains no longer the whole -of life and sometimes not even the leading interest in life. We are -passing into a new way of living, into a new sort of lives, into new -relationships. The world which seemed for a time not to be changing any -more is changing very swiftly ... in its mental substance.” - -“New sorts of people,” said Bobby softly, and went off from listening -to Lambone’s lucid little voice into a final recapitulation of the -puzzling things Christina Alberta had said and done that day. - - -§ 5 - -Bobby was recalled to the matter of the talk by a movement in the chair -behind him. - -Lambone’s smooth voice was explaining: “So that it does not matter so -much what we achieve as what we contribute. That cherished personal -life which men and women struggle to round off and make noble and -perfect, disappears from the scheme of things. What matters more and -more is the work one does. What matters less and less is our personal -romance and our personal honour. Or rather our honour will go out of us -into our work. Our love affairs, our devotions and private passions, -for example, will fall more and more definitely into a subordination -to our science or whatever our function is. Our romances and our fame -and honour will join our vices among the things we suppress. There was -a time when men lived for a noble tomb and in order to leave sweet and -great memories behind them; soon it will matter nothing to a man and -his work to know that he will probably die in a ditch--misunderstood. -So long as he gets the work done.” - -“With no last Judgment ever to vindicate him,” said Devizes. - -“That will not matter in the least to him.” - -“I agree. Some of us begin to feel like that even now.” - -“Even if one has done nothing worth doing,” said Paul Lambone, and in -his voice was that faint quality of the sigh of one who has crowned a -rather difficult and uncertain card castle, “even if Sargon had died -unrescued in his Asylum and all the world had thought him mad, all the -same he would have escaped, his imagination would have touched the -imagination of the greater life.” - -Came a pause of edification and then a sigh of satisfaction from Miss -Lambone. She never understood in the least what her brother was talking -about, but she adored him when he talked. Nobody she thought had ever -talked like him, or could possibly talk like him. His voice was so -clear and bright, like the best sort of print. Only sometimes you -wished you had spectacles. - -But now Miss Lambone was to receive a shock. Christina Alberta suddenly -came out of the silence in which she had been sitting. - -“I don’t believe in this,” said Christina Alberta out of the depths of -her chair. - -Bobby was beginning to know the voice of Christina Alberta very well; -and he knew now that she was terrified at having to talk, and at the -same time desperately resolved to get something said. He knew too that -she was gripping hard at the arms of her chair. He glanced at Devizes -and in that instant the lighthouse beam touched his face and Bobby -saw it very intent, watching Christina Alberta steadily and as if -forgetful of all other things. It was intent and tender and tenderly -apprehensive, grave and very pale in that white illumination. When the -light had passed away Bobby still seemed to see that face, but now -conversely it was a face of ebony. - -“I do not believe in _any_ of this,” said Christina Alberta. - -She paused with the effect of marshalling her argument. “It is -theology, I suppose,” she said. “Or mysticism. It is all an -intellectual game that men have played to comfort themselves. Men -rather than women. It makes no real difference. Tragedy _is_ tragedy, -failure _is_ failure, death is death.” - -“But is there ever complete failure?” asked Lambone. - -“Suppose,” said Christina Alberta, “suppose a man is thrown into prison -and misrepresented to all the world, suppose he is taken away presently -and made to dig his own grave, and shot at the edge of it and buried -and then lied about for a time and forgotten. It isn’t part of the race -that is murdered, it isn’t a wonderful thing that passes on; it is a -man who has been killed and made away with. Your mysticism is just an -attempt to dodge the desolation of that. It doesn’t. Such things have -happened. They happen to-day. In Russia. In America. Everywhere. Men -are just wiped out, body and soul, hope and will. That man and his -black personal universe are done with and over, and there is an end -to his business; he is beaten and wiped out, and all the clever talk -upon easy sofas in the warm twilight will not alter that one jot. It -is frustration. If I am frustrated I am frustrated, if I have desires -and dreams and they are defeated and die, I die. It is playing with -words to say I do not die or that they are changed and sublimated and -carried on into something better.” - -“My dear,” said Miss Lambone to Miss Means. “You are sure you are not -feeling cold?” Her voice conveyed a faint intimation that she would -cease to be acutely interested in the talk if this chit of a girl -intervened any further in the discussion, and that she would begin to -do things with wraps and shawls and break up the meeting. - -“I’m perfectly happy, dear,” Miss Means answered. “All this--! I wish -it could go on for ever.” - -But Christina Alberta disregarded Miss Lambone’s warning. She had -something to say and there was some one she wanted to say it to, not -too pointedly, not too plainly. - -“All this theology, this religion, the new religions that are only the -old ones painted over----” - -“Reborn,” said Paul. - -“Painted over. I don’t want them. But that is not what I want to say. -What I want to say is that you are wrong about my Daddy, you are quite -wrong about him. That I do know. Mr. Lambone has dressed him up to suit -his own philosophy. He had that philosophy long before he knew him. And -you talked my Daddy over and put Mr. Lambone’s ideas into him when he -was beaten and broken because they suited his case. They weren’t there -before. I know him and exactly how he thought. I was brought up on him. -He talked to me more than to anyone. And it is all nonsense to talk of -him--his exaltation, as being like the great soul coming like the tidal -sea into the pool of the little soul. It didn’t. When he said he was -Lord of the World he wanted to be Lord of the World. He didn’t want to -incorporate any other people at all--or be incorporated. He was just -as exclusively himself when he was Sargon as when he was Albert Edward -Preemby. More so.... And I believe that is how it is with all of us.” - -She went on rather hurriedly, for she knew there were forces there very -ready to silence her. - -“I want to be myself and nothing else. I want the world--for myself. -I want to be a goddess in the world. It does not matter that I am an -ugly girl with natural bad manners. It does not matter that it is -impossible. That is what I want. That is what I am made to want. One -may get moments anyhow. A moment of glory is better than none.... -I believe that sort of thing is what you all want really. You just -persuade yourselves you don’t. And you call that religion. I don’t -believe anyone has ever believed religion from the beginning. Buddhism, -Christianity, this fantastic Sargonism, this burlesque religion you -invent to make an evening’s talk, they are all consolations and -patchings-up--bandages and wooden legs. People have tried to believe in -such religions no doubt. Broken people. But because we cannot satisfy -the desires of our hearts--why should we cry ‘Sour grapes’ at them? - -“I don’t want to serve--anything or anybody. I may be heading for -frustration, the universe may be a system of frustration, but that -doesn’t alter the fact that this is how I feel about it. I may be -defeated; it may be certain that I shall be defeated--but as for -bringing a contrite heart out of the mess and starting again as a good -little part of something--I _don’t_ fink. Oh, I know I beat my hands -against a wall. It’s not my fault. Why don’t we take? Oh, why don’t we -dare?” - -Miss Lambone stirred and rustled. - -The darkness that was Devizes spoke to Christina Alberta, and Miss -Lambone became still. - -“We don’t take and we don’t dare,” he said, “we don’t defy laws and -customs because there are other things in our lives, _in_ us and not -outside us, that are more important to us. That is why. It pleases Paul -to dress up his view of these things in old mystical phrasing, but -what he says is really an unscientific way of putting psychological -fact. You think you are simple, but you are really complex. You are the -individual but you are the race also. That is your nature and mine and -everyone’s. The more our intelligence awakens the more we know that.” - -“But it is the difference that is distinctively me, and not the -general part. The race in me is no more to me than the ground I walk -on. I am Christina Alberta; I am not Woman or Mankind. As Christina -Alberta, I want and I want and I want. And when the door is slammed -upon my imaginations I cry out against it. Why pretend I give up a -thing because I can’t have it? Why make a glory of renunciation and -letting-go? I hate the idea of self-sacrifice. What is the good of -coming into the world as Christina Alberta just in order to sacrifice -being Christina Alberta? What is the good of being different if one is -not to live a different life?” - -Unexpectedly Miss Lambone intervened, “The life of a woman is one long -sacrifice,” she said. - -There was a pause. - -“But we have the vote now?” said Christina Alberta almost flippantly. -“Why is a woman’s life sacrifice?” - -“Think of the children we bear,” said Miss Lambone in a constrained -voice. - -“_Well!_” said Christina Alberta, and suppressed some scandalous remark. - -“The most astonishing thing about us,” she broke out again, after a -pause; “the most astonishing thing in the feminine make-up is that -hardly any of us _do_ seem to want children. A lot of us anyhow don’t. -Now that I am beginning to learn something about biology, I realize how -marvellous that is. As a race of creatures specialized for children, -we ought to be eaten up by the desire for children. As a matter of -fact most modern women will do anything to avoid having children. We -dread them. To me they seem like a swarm of hidden dwarfs, prepared to -come upon me and eat up my whole existence. It’s not simply I don’t -want them; I live in fear of them. Love we _may_ want. Many of us do. -Intensely. We want to love and be loved--to get close and near to -some one. It’s a delusion I suppose. One of Nature’s clumsy tricks. -It is all a delusion. He vanishes--he was never there. Under the old -conditions it availed; it got the children Nature wanted. But we -don’t think of children. We don’t want to think about them. There it -is! And anyway children do not take a woman out of her egotism; they -only extend and intensify it. I have known intelligent girls marry -and have children, and when the baby appeared their minds evaporated. -They became creatures of instinct, messing about with napkins. I could -scream at the thought of it. No, I am an egoist pure and simple. I am -Christina Alberta, and her only. I am not Sargon. I refuse altogether -to mix with that promiscuous anybody-nobody.” - -“After all that may only be a phase in your development,” said Devizes. - -“It is the only one I know.” - -“That is evident. But I assure you, Christina Alberta, that this revolt -and distress of yours is a phase. You are talking rebellion and egoism -and anarchism as a healthy baby screams to get breath into its lungs, -and escape from the stuffiness of old air. The baby doesn’t know why it -screams and no doubt finds some dim little grievance in its brain----” - -“Go on,” said Christina Alberta. “Chastise me and chastise me.” - -It seemed to Bobby that there were tears in her voice. - -“No, but you are so young, my dear,” said Devizes. - -My dear! - -“Not so young. Not so actually young,” cried Christina Alberta. - -“If I live to be eighty,” said Christina Alberta, “shall I ever be able -to feel more than I am feeling now? Why will you always treat me like a -child nowadays?” - -“Feeling isn’t the only measure,” said Devizes. “Even now, to-night, -you are talking below your beliefs. You are not an egoistic -adventurer. You take sides on a score of matters. You insist you are a -Communist for example.” - -“Oh! just to smash up things,” said Christina Alberta. “Just to smash -up everything.” - -“No. You say that to-night, but you have told me differently before. -You have a care for the world. You want to help forward the common -interest. You develop a passion for scientific truth. Well--there’s no -way of fencing in your individuality from other minds in science or in -public affairs. You’re a part by necessity; you can’t be a complete -whole. You find already you can’t keep away from these things. They -will take you more and more, whether you like it or not, because it is -the spirit of the time. That is what is happening to us all. You can’t -escape. Our work, our part, is the first thing in our lives. To that, -pride must bow now and passion and romance. We have to slam and lock -and bar the door against all personal passion that might wreck our -work. Bar it and put it out of your mind. As a secondary thing. Work. -Give the greater things a chance to keep you.” - -“That’s all very well.” - -“It’s everything.” - -“Why _should_ they keep me?” came from Christina Alberta, sullenly and -resolutely. - -“I know that this is your faith,” she said. “You told me all about it. -You’ve always told me about it.” Bobby’s quick ear detected a change in -her voice “Do you remember our first talk together? Do you remember our -talk in Lonsdale Mews? When we dined together at that Italian place? -That night. Just after we had found each other.” - -Found each other? - -“But I did not know then that your faith meant all the suppressions and -sacrifices and discretions it seems to do. I thought it was something -robust and bold. I did not understand its--qualifications. But since -then we have argued about these things and argued. That day at Kew -Gardens. That day when you took me for that walk over the downs to -Shere. We have threshed things out. Why should we argue again? I am -giving in--what can I do but give in?--and soon I will be a Sargonite -with you and Paul. But not this summer. Not now. This night--This -wonderful first night of summer. To-night I rebel against any -renunciation, any fobbing-off of individuals with second-best things. -I am going to be impossible and absurd. For the last time. I want the -world from the stars to the bottom of the sea for myself, for my own -hungry self. And all between. The precious things between. The love.... -_There!_” - -Vague questions appeared and vanished again on the screen of Bobby’s -mind. What had Christina Alberta renounced? What was she renouncing? -What was anyone renouncing? And had his ears cheated him, or had -Devizes called her, “my dear”? In front of Margaret Means and in face -of all the circumstances of the case it seemed to Bobby that Devizes -was the last person who ought to call Christina Alberta “my dear.” -And what was this about “fobbing-off”? Was this really a shameless -plainness of speech, an atrocious confession, or something that he -misunderstood? - -Miss Lambone stirred uneasily. - -It was as if an evil spirit possessed Christina Alberta. “Oh, _damn_ -renunciation!” she said with bitter gusto. - -They seemed to be sitting for some moments in a profound silence, and -then the nightingale became very audible. - - -§ 6 - -“I think,” said Miss Lambone in the silence, “that it is getting just a -_leetle_ chilly.” - -“It is so beautiful here,” said Miss Means, who was warm in Miss -Lambone’s shawl. “Perfectly beautiful. - -“How you can talk of frustration--!” she added, and left her sentence -incomplete. - -“I think,” said Miss Lambone, “that I shall go in and light the -candles. It is too wonderful a night for the electric lights, far too -wonderful. We will just light the candles and the fire. And perhaps you -will play us something beautiful. These are such marvellous fire-places -here that they blaze up at once. I don’t know if you have noticed -them--a new sort. The fire is all on the hearth--no draught below, but -the shape of the back draws it up. - -“I love a wood fire,” said Miss Lambone, and sighed and rose slowly and -voluminously. - - -§ 7 - -Two days later Bobby came into one of the little studies on the garden -side of Paul Lambone’s house. Paul had found out that Bobby wanted a -few days of uninterrupted thought in which to begin his novel, and had -asked him to stay on after the other guests had returned to London. -It was a perfect room for a writer of Bobby’s temperament; it had a -low writing-table close to the sill of the casemented window, and -on the sill was a silver bowl of forget-me-nots and white tulips. A -little glass-paned door released one into the garden without one’s -having to go back through the house. The writing-table had everything -a fastidious writer could desire, a pleasant paper-rack and wafers, -and real quill pens, and plenty of elbow room. The chair he sat in was -an arm-chair, immensely comfortable but not too luxurious; no hint -of repose in it but only a completely loyal support for a working -occupant. A garden path ran up hill from the window, a garden path -skirted by wonderful clusters of pansies. On either side of the pansies -were rose bushes, and though not a rosebud was showing, yet the fresh -green leaves, tinged with ruddy brown, were very exquisite in the -light. - -He stood looking up the path for a time and then sat down and drew the -writing-pad towards him. He took one of those delightful quills, tested -the delicious flexibility of its points, dipped it in the ink and wrote -in his very neat and beautiful handwriting: - - UPS AND DOWNS - - _A Pedestrian Novel_ - - BY ROBERT ROOTHING - - CHAPTER THE FIRST - - WHICH INTRODUCES OUR HERO - -He wrote this very readily because it was very familiar to him. From -first to last he had written it on fair fresh sheets of paper perhaps -half a dozen times. - -Then he stopped short and sat quite still with his head on one side. -Then very neatly he corrected “which introduces” into “in which we -introduce.” - -It was nearly two years now since he had first begun his novel in -this fashion, and he was still quite uncertain about the details -of his hero’s introduction. His original intention about the story -still floated pleasantly in the sky of his mind; a promise of a happy -succession of fine, various and delightful adventures, told easily -and good-humouredly; the fortunes of a kindly, unpretending, not too -brave but brave enough young man, on his way through the world, to live -happily afterwards with a delicious young woman. “Picaresque” was the -magic word. None of these adventures had as yet assumed a concrete form -in his mind. He felt they would come to him definitely enough one day. -If one sat and mused one half saw them, and that was assurance enough -for him. And so having rewritten his title page neatly and prettily, he -fell into a day-dream and was presently thinking round and about his -Christina Alberta as a good hero should. - -Bobby was always being puzzled by Christina Alberta, always coming -upon something that seemed to clear up everything, and then being -puzzled again. But now it seemed to him that he really did know the -last fact of importance that was to be known about her. Overnight Paul -Lambone had described how he had taken her to Devizes to get advice, -and how they had blundered upon the reality of her parentage. He told -his story well as a story-writer should; he gave it dramatic point. -Evidently he told the tale of set intention, because it was time Bobby -knew. Lambone was aware of Christina Alberta’s engagement. He did not -know and nobody but Bobby knew that she never intended to be married. -But this, it seemed to Bobby, made the understanding of her situation -possible; explained that watchful tenderness of Devizes’ face suddenly -betrayed by the light of his inadvertent “my dear”; explained her -position as though she belonged to him and Paul Lambone instead of -being a rather unaccountable visitor; excused her vehement jealousy of -Margaret Means, because evidently she had become violently possessive -of her father, and had counted perhaps upon recognition and being very -much with him. No doubt Margaret Means stood in the way of that. It -was natural for Christina Alberta to want to be with Devizes and work -with him, and natural for her to suspect and anticipate and resent an -intervening personality. Apart from the magic of kinship it was natural -that two such subtle and abundant personalities should attract each -other greatly. That Devizes should have decided quite abruptly to marry -Margaret Means did not present any difficulties to Bobby; he was not -thinking very closely about Devizes. Margaret Means was pretty enough -for anyone to want to marry her. There are times, as Bobby knew, when -that sweet prettiness can stab one like an arrow. It had evidently -stabbed and won Devizes. And almost the only thing that gave Bobby -a second thought, but no more than a second thought, was Christina -Alberta’s fluctuation of purpose, why she should have consented to -marry him and then have changed her mind so quickly and definitely and -yet have retained him as a lover. - -That resolution not to marry seemed after all just a part of her -immense modernity. Because of all this group of “new people” in which -he found her, she seemed to Bobby to be in every way the newest. -She was the boldest enterprise in living he had ever met. Her flare -of hungry rebel individuality fascinated him. Where in this world -was she going? Would she win out to this free personal life she -desired or would she fail to find an objective of work and come upon -disappointment and solitude like some creature that has strayed? The -world had terrified Bobby in his own person greatly; it terrified him -still more when he thought of this valiant little figure going out to -challenge it. - -Bobby was naturally, inherently, afraid; his instinct was for security, -protection, kindliness and help. He clung to his “Aunt Suzannah” job -for safety. He didn’t believe Christina Alberta knew one tenth of the -dangers she ran of insult, defeat, humiliation, neglect, repulse, -fatigue and lonely distress. His imagination presented a tormenting -picture of her away there in dark, confused, immense and blundering -London, as an excessively fragile figure, light on its feet, shock-head -erect, arms akimbo, unaware of monstrous ambushed dangers. Now that -he began to understand her, he began to understand a great number of -bright-eyed, adventurous, difficult young women he had met in the last -few years, and he had his first dim realization of the meaning of the -deep wide stir among womankind that had won them votes and a score of -unprecedented freedoms. - -Many of these younger women were doing their work and holding their -own exactly like men. They were painting and drawing like men, writing -criticism like men, writing plays and novels like men, leading -movements, doing scientific work, playing a part in politics. Like -men? On reflection--not exactly. No. They still kept different. But -they didn’t do their things in any fashion one could call womanly. -Without adding strange new meanings to “womanly.” The novels they were -writing interested him immensely. People like Stella Benson wrote -books like--anybody; you could not tell from her work whether she was -a man or a woman. All that again was new. George Eliot perhaps was a -precursor. Perhaps. The former sort of women’s writings, when they -were not “pretty me” books, were “kindly auntie” books; you heard the -petticoats swish in every page. - -Sexless, these new ones? Bobby weighed the word. The earlier generation -of women who wanted to be emancipated suppressed sex, suppressed it so -fiercely that its negative presence became the dominant factor in their -lives. They ceased to be positive woman; they became fantastically -negative woman. But this newer multitude was not so much repressing as -forgetting their sex, making little of it. Christina Alberta had in -a way made nothing of her sex, not by struggling against it, but by -making it cheap for herself as a man makes it cheap for himself--so -that it was a thing of mere intermittent moods and impulses for -her--and she could go on to other things. - -Going on to other things. His imagination recurred to that little -figure resolved to conquer the world for itself in defiance of every -tradition. - -There was a strong urgency in him to start off to London in pursuit -of her, to hover about her, intervene, protect her and carry her off -to security. He knew she wouldn’t permit that sort of thing to happen -anyhow. He’d have to be just a friend and companion to her, be at hand -for her, and if she did encounter some disaster, stand by her. - -It was a queer thing that he should want to stand by this unsexed -young woman. It was just what one would not expect; it was part, -perhaps, of the immense biological changes of the time. In the past -the species had needed half the race specialized for child-bearing and -child-rearing; now plainly it didn’t. The tremendous and worshipful -dignity of wife and mother was not for all women any longer. That would -remain for a certain sort of them to take up if they would. But a vast -multitude of women were born now to miss that. Some would become pretty -nuisances who would presently cease to be pretty, parasites on love and -the respect for motherhood; shams, simulacra. Others would break away -to a real individual life--a third sex. Perhaps in the new world there -would cease to be two sexes only; there would be recognized varieties -and subdivisions. So Bobby speculated. For just as there were women who -did not want to bear children, so there were men who did not want to -lord it over wife and children. - -They would want to love all the same. Every individual of a social -species needed love; to fail in that need was to escape out of social -life to lonely futility. “Mutual comfort,” Bobby quoted. In his past -Bobby had dreamt of the love of children. Even now he remembered as -a fact that he had dreamt particularly of a little girl of his own -that he could protect and explore. But now the thought and interest of -Christina Alberta had blotted that out. It was extraordinary to him -to perceive how possessed he was by her. He could endure no prospect -of life just now unless it was to include Christina Alberta as its -principal fact. But he’d be no use to her unless she respected him. -He couldn’t hope to stand subordinate to her, any more than he could -hope to be her master. In the latter case she’d rebel; in the former, -she’d despise. They would have to stand side by side. And since she was -clever, able and resolved to work hard and distinguish herself, he must -word hard and also distinguish himself too. He had to be her equal and -remain and keep himself her equal.... - -That, in fact, was why he was going to write a great novel--not just a -novel but a great one. - -He looked again at the neatly written page. “Ups and Downs,” he read. -“A Pedestrian Novel.” - -It dawned upon him that there was something profoundly wrong about that. - -It was to have been a story of wandering about in the world that is; -the story of the happy adventures of a well tempered mind in a well -understood scheme of things. But Bobby was beginning to realize that -there is not, and there never has been, a world that is; there is -only a world that has been and a world that is to be. “New people,” -whispered Bobby, and dipped a quill in the ink and made a border of -dots round his title. Then suddenly he crossed out those three words -“Ups and Downs” and wrote instead, “New Country.” - -“That might be the title of any novel that matters,” said Bobby. - -He mused deeply. Then he altered the sub-title to “The History of an -Explorer.” - -He scratched out “Explorer.” - -“Involuntary traveller,” said Bobby. - -Finally he put back “A Pedestrian Novel” as his sub-title.... - -He became aware of an intermittent dull tapping, and following the -sound discovered a thrush trying to break up a snail on the gravel -path. But the gravel path was too fine and soft to give a firm anvil -for the beating. “The silly bird ought to find a brick or a potsherd,” -said Bobby and reflected. “I suppose all the flower-pots are shut up in -the shed.... - -“I don’t like to see that bird wasting the morning and being -disappointed.... - -“It wouldn’t take a minute....” - -He got up, let himself out by the little glass door beside the window -and went to find a brick. Presently he returned with it. - -But he did not go back into the study because while he had been -looking for the brick, he had seen a young blackbird which had got -under the strawberry netting, and was evidently scared out of its -silly wits. So he went back to see about the blackbird. The minutes -passed and he did not reappear. Perhaps he had found some other -fellow-creature in trouble. - -Presently a little breeze blew into the study through the open glass -door, and lifted the sheet of paper which was to introduce our hero, -and wafted it softly and suggestively on to the unlit wood fire upon -the hearth. There it lay for a long time. - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Superscripted characters are preceded by a carat character: n^{th}. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. - - Archaic or variant spelling has been retained. - - No attempt has been made to regularize dialect. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 69410 *** |