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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/8080-0.txt b/8080-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c33d0b3 --- /dev/null +++ b/8080-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3139 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Passionate Pilgrim, by Henry James + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: A Passionate Pilgrim + +Author: Henry James + +Release Date: June 12, 2003 [eBook #8080] +[Most recently updated: November 7, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Eve Sobol and David Widger + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PASSIONATE PILGRIM *** + + + + +A PASSIONATE PILGRIM + +By Henry James + + + + +I + +Intending to sail for America in the early part of June, I determined to +spend the interval of six weeks in England, to which country my mind’s +eye only had as yet been introduced. I had formed in Italy and France a +resolute preference for old inns, considering that what they sometimes +cost the ungratified body they repay the delighted mind. On my arrival +in London, therefore, I lodged at a certain antique hostelry, much +to the east of Temple Bar, deep in the quarter that I had inevitably +figured as the Johnsonian. Here, on the first evening of my stay, I +descended to the little coffee-room and bespoke my dinner of the genius +of “attendance” in the person of the solitary waiter. No sooner had +I crossed the threshold of this retreat than I felt I had cut a +golden-ripe crop of English “impressions.” The coffee-room of the Red +Lion, like so many other places and things I was destined to see in the +motherland, seemed to have been waiting for long years, with just that +sturdy sufferance of time written on its visage, for me to come and +extract the romantic essence of it. + +The latent preparedness of the American mind even for the most +characteristic features of English life was a matter I meanwhile failed +to get to the bottom of. The roots of it are indeed so deeply buried +in the soil of our early culture that, without some great upheaval +of feeling, we are at a loss to say exactly when and where and how it +begins. It makes an American’s enjoyment of England an emotion more +searching than anything Continental. I had seen the coffee-room of +the Red Lion years ago, at home--at Saragossa Illinois--in books, in +visions, in dreams, in Dickens, in Smollett, in Boswell. It was small +and subdivided into six narrow compartments by a series of perpendicular +screens of mahogany, something higher than a man’s stature, furnished +on either side with a meagre uncushioned ledge, denominated in ancient +Britain a seat. In each of these rigid receptacles was a narrow table--a +table expected under stress to accommodate no less than four pairs of +active British elbows. High pressure indeed had passed away from the +Red Lion for ever. It now knew only that of memories and ghosts and +atmosphere. Round the room there marched, breast-high, a magnificent +panelling of mahogany, so dark with time and so polished with unremitted +friction that by gazing a while into its lucid blackness I made out +the dim reflexion of a party of wigged gentlemen in knee-breeches just +arrived from York by the coach. On the dark yellow walls, coated by +the fumes of English coal, of English mutton, of Scotch whiskey, were a +dozen melancholy prints, sallow-toned with age--the Derby favourite of +the year 1807, the Bank of England, her Majesty the Queen. On the floor +was a Turkey carpet--as old as the mahogany almost, as the Bank +of England, as the Queen--into which the waiter had in his lonely +revolutions trodden so many massive soot-flakes and drops of overflowing +beer that the glowing looms of Smyrna would certainly not have +recognised it. To say that I ordered my dinner of this archaic type +would be altogether to misrepresent the process owing to which, having +dreamed of lamb and spinach and a _salade de saison_, I sat down in +penitence to a mutton-chop and a rice pudding. Bracing my feet against +the cross-beam of my little oaken table, I opposed to the mahogany +partition behind me the vigorous dorsal resistance that must have +expressed the old-English idea of repose. The sturdy screen refused even +to creak, but my poor Yankee joints made up the deficiency. + +While I was waiting there for my chop there came into the room a person +whom, after I had looked at him a moment, I supposed to be a fellow +lodger and probably the only one. He seemed, like myself, to have +submitted to proposals for dinner; the table on the other side of my +partition had been prepared to receive him. He walked up to the fire, +exposed his back to it and, after consulting his watch, looked directly +out of the window and indirectly at me. He was a man of something less +than middle age and more than middle stature, though indeed you would +have called him neither young nor tall. He was chiefly remarkable for +his emphasised leanness. His hair, very thin on the summit of his head, +was dark short and fine. His eye was of a pale turbid grey, unsuited, +perhaps, to his dark hair and well-drawn brows, but not altogether out +of harmony with his colourless bilious complexion. His nose was aquiline +and delicate; beneath it his moustache languished much rather than +bristled. His mouth and chin were negative, or at the most provisional; +not vulgar, doubtless, but ineffectually refined. A cold fatal +gentlemanly weakness was expressed indeed in his attenuated person. His +eye was restless and deprecating; his whole physiognomy, his manner of +shifting his weight from foot to foot, the spiritless droop of his head, +told of exhausted intentions, of a will relaxed. His dress was neat and +“toned down”--he might have been in mourning. I made up my mind on three +points: he was a bachelor, he was out of health, he was not indigenous +to the soil. The waiter approached him, and they conversed in accents +barely audible. I heard the words “claret,” “sherry” with a tentative +inflexion, and finally “beer” with its last letter changed to “ah.” + Perhaps he was a Russian in reduced circumstances; he reminded me +slightly of certain sceptical cosmopolite Russians whom I had met on the +Continent. While in my extravagant way I followed this train--for +you see I was interested--there appeared a short brisk man with +reddish-brown hair, with a vulgar nose, a sharp blue eye and a red +beard confined to his lower jaw and chin. My putative Russian, still in +possession of the rug, let his mild gaze stray over the dingy ornaments +of the room. The other drew near, and his umbrella dealt a playful +poke at the concave melancholy waistcoat. “A penny ha’penny for your +thoughts!” + +My friend, as I call him, uttered an exclamation, stared, then laid +his two hands on the other’s shoulders. The latter looked round at me +keenly, compassing me in a momentary glance. I read in its own vague +light that this was a transatlantic eyebeam; and with such confidence +that I hardly needed to see its owner, as he prepared, with his +companion, to seat himself at the table adjoining my own, take from his +overcoat-pocket three New York newspapers and lay them beside his +plate. As my neighbours proceeded to dine I felt the crumbs of their +conversation scattered pretty freely abroad. I could hear almost all +they said, without straining to catch it, over the top of the partition +that divided us. Occasionally their voices dropped to recovery of +discretion, but the mystery pieced itself together as if on purpose to +entertain me. Their speech was pitched in the key that may in English +air be called alien in spite of a few coincidences. The voices were +American, however, with a difference; and I had no hesitation in +assigning the softer and clearer sound to the pale thin gentleman, whom +I decidedly preferred to his comrade. The latter began to question him +about his voyage. + +“Horrible, horrible! I was deadly sick from the hour we left New York.” + +“Well, you do look considerably reduced,” said the second-comer. + +“Reduced! I’ve been on the verge of the grave. I haven’t slept six hours +for three weeks.” This was said with great gravity. + +“Well, I’ve made the voyage for the last time.” + +“The plague you have! You mean to locate here permanently?” + +“Oh it won’t be so very permanent!” + +There was a pause; after which: “You’re the same merry old boy, Searle. +Going to give up the ghost to-morrow, eh?” + +“I almost wish I were.” + +“You’re not so sweet on England then? I’ve heard people say at home that +you dress and talk and act like an Englishman. But I know these people +here and I know you. You’re not one of this crowd, Clement Searle, not +you. You’ll go under here, sir; you’ll go under as sure as my name’s +Simmons.” + +Following this I heard a sudden clatter as of the drop of a knife and +fork. “Well, you’re a delicate sort of creature, if it IS your ugly +name! I’ve been wandering about all day in this accursed city, ready +to cry with homesickness and heartsickness and every possible sort of +sickness, and thinking, in the absence of anything better, of meeting +you here this evening and of your uttering some sound of cheer and +comfort and giving me some glimmer of hope. Go under? Ain’t I under now? +I can’t do more than get under the ground!” + +Mr. Simmons’s superior brightness appeared to flicker a moment in this +gust of despair, but the next it was burning steady again. “_Don’t_ ‘cry,’ +Searle,” I heard him say. “Remember the waiter. I’ve grown Englishman +enough for that. For heaven’s sake don’t let’s have any nerves. Nerves +won’t do anything for you here. It’s best to come to the point. Tell me +in three words what you expect of me.” + +I heard another movement, as if poor Searle had collapsed in his +chair. “Upon my word, sir, you’re quite inconceivable. You never got my +letter?” + +“Yes, I got your letter. I was never sorrier to get anything in my +life.” + +At this declaration Mr. Searle rattled out an oath, which it was well +perhaps that I but partially heard. “Abijah Simmons,” he then cried, +“what demon of perversity possesses you? Are you going to betray me here +in a foreign land, to turn out a false friend, a heartless rogue?” + +“Go on, sir,” said sturdy Simmons. “Pour it all out. I’ll wait till +you’ve done. Your beer’s lovely,” he observed independently to the +waiter. “I’ll have some more.” + +“For God’s sake explain yourself!” his companion appealed. + +There was a pause, at the end of which I heard Mr. Simmons set down his +empty tankard with emphasis. “You poor morbid mooning man,” he resumed, +“I don’t want to say anything to make you feel sore. I regularly pity +you. But you must allow that you’ve acted more like a confirmed crank +than a member of our best society--in which every one’s so sensible.” + +Mr. Searle seemed to have made an effort to compose himself. “Be so good +as to tell me then what was the meaning of your letter.” + +“Well, you had got on _my_ nerves, if you want to know, when I wrote it. +It came of my always wishing so to please folks. I had much better have +let you alone. To tell you the plain truth I never was so horrified in +my life as when I found that on the strength of my few kind words you +had come out here to seek your fortune.” + +“What then did you expect me to do?” + +“I expected you to wait patiently till I had made further enquiries and +had written you again.” + +“And you’ve made further enquiries now?” + +“Enquiries! I’ve committed assaults.” + +“And you find I’ve no claim?” + +“No claim that one of _these_ big bugs will look at. It struck me at first +that you had rather a neat little case. I confess the look of it took +hold of me--” + +“Thanks to your liking so to please folks!” Mr. Simmons appeared for +a moment at odds with something; it proved to be with his liquor. “I +rather think your beer’s too good to be true,” he said to the waiter. “I +guess I’ll take water. Come, old man,” he resumed, “don’t challenge me +to the arts of debate, or you’ll have me right down on you, and then you +_will_ feel me. My native sweetness, as I say, was part of it. The idea +that if I put the thing through it would be a very pretty feather in +my cap and a very pretty penny in my purse was part of it. And the +satisfaction of seeing a horrid low American walk right into an old +English estate was a good deal of it. Upon my word, Searle, when I think +of it I wish with all my heart that, extravagant vain man as you are, I +_could_, for the charm of it, put you through! I should hardly care what +you did with the blamed place when you got it. I could leave you alone +to turn it into Yankee notions--into ducks and drakes as they call ‘em +here. I should like to see you tearing round over it and kicking up its +sacred dust in their very faces!” + +“You don’t know me one little bit,” said Mr. Searle, rather shirking, +I thought, the burden of this tribute and for all response to the +ambiguity of the compliment. + +“I should be very glad to think I didn’t, sir. I’ve been to no small +amount of personal inconvenience for you. I’ve pushed my way right up +to the headspring. I’ve got the best opinion that’s to be had. The best +opinion that’s to be had just gives you one leer over its spectacles. I +guess that look will fix you if you ever get it straight. I’ve been +able to tap, indirectly,” Mr. Simmons went on, “the solicitor of your +usurping cousin, and he evidently knows something to be in the wind. It +seems your elder brother twenty years ago put out a feeler. So you’re +not to have the glory of even making them sit up.” + +“I never made any one sit up,” I heard Mr. Searle plead. “I shouldn’t +begin at this time of day. I should approach the subject like a +gentleman.” + +“Well, if you want very much to do something like a gentleman you’ve got +a capital chance. Take your disappointment like a gentleman.” + +I had finished my dinner and had become keenly interested in poor Mr. +Searle’s unencouraging--or unencouraged--claim; so interested that I +at last hated to hear his trouble reflected in his voice without being +able--all respectfully!--to follow it in his face. I left my place, went +over to the fire, took up the evening paper and established a post of +observation behind it. + +His cold counsellor was in the act of choosing a soft chop from the +dish--an act accompanied by a great deal of prying and poking with that +gentleman’s own fork. My disillusioned compatriot had pushed away his +plate; he sat with his elbows on the table, gloomily nursing his head +with his hands. His companion watched him and then seemed to wonder--to +do Mr. Simmons justice--how he could least ungracefully give him up. +“I say, Searle,”--and for my benefit, I think, taking me for a native +ingenuous enough to be dazzled by his wit, he lifted his voice a little +and gave it an ironical ring--“in this country it’s the inestimable +privilege of a loyal citizen, under whatsoever stress of pleasure or of +pain, to make a point of eating his dinner.” + +Mr. Searle gave his plate another push. “Anything may happen now. I +don’t care a straw.” + +“You ought to care. Have another chop and you _will_ care. Have some +better tipple. Take my advice!” Mr. Simmons went on. + +My friend--I adopt that name for him--gazed from between his two hands +coldly before him. “I’ve had enough of your advice.” + +“A little more,” said Simmons mildly; “I shan’t trouble you again. What +do you mean to do?” + +“Nothing.” + +“Oh come!” + +“Nothing, nothing, nothing!” + +“Nothing but starve. How about meeting expenses?” + +“Why do you ask?” said my friend. “You don’t care.” + +“My dear fellow, if you want to make me offer you twenty pounds you set +most clumsily about it. You said just now I don’t know you,” Mr. Simmons +went on. “Possibly. Come back with me then,” he said kindly enough, “and +let’s improve our acquaintance.” + +“I won’t go back. I shall never go back.” + +“Never?” + +“Never.” + +Mr. Simmons thought it shrewdly over. “Well, you _are_ sick!” he exclaimed +presently. “All I can say is that if you’re working out a plan for cold +poison, or for any other act of desperation, you had better give it +right up. You can’t get a dose of the commonest kind of cold poison +for nothing, you know. Look here, Searle”--and the worthy man made what +struck me as a very decent appeal. “If you’ll consent to return home +with me by the steamer of the twenty-third I’ll pay your passage down. +More than that, I’ll pay for your beer.” + +My poor gentleman met it. “I believe I never made up my mind to anything +before, but I think it’s made up now. I shall stay here till I take my +departure for a newer world than any patched-up newness of ours. It’s an +odd feeling--I rather like it! What should I do at home?” + +“You said just now you were homesick.” + +“I meant I was sick for a home. Don’t I belong here? Haven’t I longed to +get here all my life? Haven’t I counted the months and the years till I +should be able to ‘go’ as we say? And now that I’ve ‘gone,’ that is that +I’ve come, must I just back out? No, no, I’ll move on. I’m much obliged +to you for your offer. I’ve enough money for the present. I’ve about my +person some forty pounds’ worth of British gold, and the same amount, +say, of the toughness of the heaven-sent idiot. They’ll see me through +together! After they’re gone I shall lay my head in some English +churchyard, beside some ivied tower, beneath an old gnarled black yew.” + +I had so far distinctly followed the dialogue; but at this point the +landlord entered and, begging my pardon, would suggest that number 12, +a most superior apartment, having now been vacated, it would give him +pleasure if I would look in. I declined to look in, but agreed for +number 12 at a venture and gave myself again, with dissimulation, to +my friends. They had got up; Simmons had put on his overcoat; he stood +polishing his rusty black hat with his napkin. “Do you mean to go down +to the place?” he asked. + +“Possibly. I’ve thought of it so often that I should like to see it.” + +“Shall you call on Mr. Searle?” + +“Heaven forbid!” + +“Something has just occurred to me,” Simmons pursued with a grin that +made his upper lip look more than ever denuded by the razor and jerked +the ugly ornament of his chin into the air. “There’s a certain Miss +Searle, the old man’s sister.” + +“Well?” my gentleman quavered. + +“Well, sir!--you talk of moving on. You might move on the damsel.” + +Mr. Searle frowned in silence and his companion gave him a tap on the +stomach. “Line those ribs a bit first!” He blushed crimson; his eyes +filled with tears. “You ARE a coarse brute,” he said. The scene +quite harrowed me, but I was prevented from seeing it through by the +reappearance of the landlord on behalf of number 12. He represented to +me that I ought in justice to him to come and see how tidy they _had_ +made it. Half an hour afterwards I was rattling along in a hansom toward +Covent Garden, where I heard Madame Bosio in _The Barber of Seville_. On +my return from the opera I went into the coffee-room; it had occurred +to me I might catch there another glimpse of Mr. Searle. I was not +disappointed. I found him seated before the fire with his head sunk on +his breast: he slept, dreaming perhaps of Abijah Simmons. I watched him +for some moments. His closed eyes, in the dim lamplight, looked even +more helpless and resigned, and I seemed to see the fine grain of his +nature in his unconscious mask. They say fortune comes while we sleep, +and, standing there, I felt really tender enough--though otherwise most +unqualified--to be poor Mr. Searle’s fortune. As I walked away I noted +in one of the little prandial pews I have described the melancholy +waiter, whose whiskered chin also reposed on the bulge of his +shirt-front. I lingered a moment beside the old inn-yard in which, upon +a time, the coaches and post-chaises found space to turn and disgorge. +Above the dusky shaft of the enclosing galleries, where lounging lodgers +and crumpled chambermaids and all the picturesque domesticity of a +rattling tavern must have leaned on their elbows for many a year, I made +out the far-off lurid twinkle of the London constellations. At the foot +of the stairs, enshrined in the glittering niche of her well-appointed +bar, the landlady sat napping like some solemn idol amid votive brass +and plate. + +The next morning, not finding the subject of my benevolent curiosity in +the coffee-room, I learned from the waiter that he had ordered breakfast +in bed. Into this asylum I was not yet prepared to pursue him. I spent +the morning in the streets, partly under pressure of business, but +catching all kinds of romantic impressions by the way. To the searching +American eye there is no tint of association with which the great grimy +face of London doesn’t flush. As the afternoon approached, however, +I began to yearn for some site more gracefully classic than what +surrounded me, and, thinking over the excursions recommended to the +ingenuous stranger, decided to take the train to Hampton Court. The day +was the more propitious that it yielded just that dim subaqueous light +which sleeps so fondly upon the English landscape. + +At the end of an hour I found myself wandering through the apartments of +the great palace. They follow each other in infinite succession, with no +great variety of interest or aspect, but with persistent pomp and a fine +specific effect. They are exactly of their various times. You pass from +painted and panelled bedchambers and closets, anterooms, drawing-rooms, +council-rooms, through king’s suite, queen’s suite, prince’s suite, +until you feel yourself move through the appointed hours and stages +of some rigid monarchical day. On one side are the old monumental +upholsteries, the big cold tarnished beds and canopies, with the +circumference of disapparelled royalty symbolised by a gilded +balustrade, and the great carved and yawning chimney-places where +dukes-in-waiting may have warmed their weary heels; on the other, +in deep recesses, rise the immense windows, the framed and draped +embrasures where the sovereign whispered and favourites smiled, looking +out on terraced gardens and misty park. The brown walls are dimly +illumined by innumerable portraits of courtiers and captains, more +especially with various members of the Batavian _entourage_ of William +of Orange, the restorer of the palace; with good store too of the +lily-bosomed models of Lely and Kneller. The whole tone of this +processional interior is singularly stale and sad. The tints of all +things have both faded and darkened--you taste the chill of the place +as you walk from room to room. It was still early in the day and in +the season, and I flattered myself that I was the only visitor. This +complacency, however, dropped at sight of a person standing motionless +before a simpering countess of Sir Peter Lely’s creation. On hearing +my footstep this victim of an evaporated spell turned his head and I +recognised my fellow lodger of the Red Lion. I was apparently recognised +as well; he looked as if he could scarce wait for me to be kind to him, +and in fact didn’t wait. Seeing I had a catalogue he asked the name of +the portrait. On my satisfying him he appealed, rather timidly, as to my +opinion of the lady. + +“Well,” said I, not quite timidly enough perhaps, “I confess she strikes +me as no great matter.” + +He remained silent and was evidently a little abashed. As we strolled +away he stole a sidelong glance of farewell at his leering shepherdess. +To speak with him face to face was to feel keenly that he was no less +interesting than infirm. We talked of our inn, of London, of the palace; +he uttered his mind freely, but seemed to struggle with a weight of +depression. It was an honest mind enough, with no great cultivation but +with a certain natural love of excellent things. I foresaw that I +should find him quite to the manner born--to ours; full of glimpses and +responses, of deserts and desolations. His perceptions would be fine and +his opinions pathetic; I should moreover take refuge from his sense of +proportion in his sense of humour, and then refuge from _that_, ah me!--in +what? On my telling him that I was a fellow citizen he stopped short, +deeply touched, and, silently passing his arm into my own, suffered me +to lead him through the other apartments and down into the gardens. A +large gravelled platform stretches itself before the basement of the +palace, taking the afternoon sun. Parts of the great structure are +reserved for private use and habitation, occupied by state-pensioners, +reduced gentlewomen in receipt of the Queen’s bounty and other deserving +persons. Many of the apartments have their dependent gardens, and here +and there, between the verdure-coated walls, you catch a glimpse of +these somewhat stuffy bowers. My companion and I measured more than once +this long expanse, looking down on the floral figures of the rest of the +affair and on the stoutly-woven tapestry of creeping plants that muffle +the foundations of the huge red pile. I thought of the various images of +old-world gentility which, early and late, must have strolled in front +of it and felt the protection and security of the place. We peeped +through an antique grating into one of the mossy cages and saw an old +lady with a black mantilla on her head, a decanter of water in one hand +and a crutch in the other, come forth, followed by three little dogs and +a cat, to sprinkle a plant. She would probably have had an opinion on +the virtue of Queen Caroline. Feeling these things together made us +quickly, made us extraordinarily, intimate. My companion seemed to ache +with his impression; he scowled, all gently, as if it gave him pain. I +proposed at last that we should dine somewhere on the spot and take +a late train to town. We made our way out of the gardens into the +adjoining village, where we entered an inn which I pronounced, very +sincerely, exactly what we wanted. Mr. Searle had approached our board +as shyly as if it had been a cold bath; but, gradually warming to his +work, he declared at the end of half an hour that for the first time in +a month he enjoyed his victuals. + +“I’m afraid you’re rather out of health,” I risked. + +“Yes, sir--I’m an incurable.” + +The little village of Hampton Court stands clustered about the entrance +of Bushey Park, and after we had dined we lounged along into the +celebrated avenue of horse-chestnuts. There is a rare emotion, familiar +to every intelligent traveller, in which the mind seems to swallow the +sum total of its impressions at a gulp. You take in the whole place, +whatever it be. You feel England, you feel Italy, and the sensation +involves for the moment a kind of thrill. I had known it from time to +time in Italy and had opened my soul to it as to the spirit of the +Lord. Since my landing in England I had been waiting for it to arrive. A +bottle of tolerable Burgundy, at dinner, had perhaps unlocked to it the +gates of sense; it arrived now with irresistible force. Just the scene +around me was the England of one’s early reveries. Over against us, amid +the ripeness of its gardens, the dark red residence, with its formal +facings and its vacant windows, seemed to make the past definite and +massive; the little village, nestling between park and palace, around +a patch of turfy common, with its taverns of figurative names, its +ivy-towered church, its mossy roofs, looked like the property of a +feudal lord. It was in this dark composite light that I had read the +British classics; it was this mild moist air that had blown from the +pages of the poets; while I seemed to feel the buried generations in the +dense and elastic sod. And that I must have testified in some form or +other to what I have called my thrill I gather, remembering it, from a +remark of my companion’s. + +“You’ve the advantage over me in coming to all this with an educated +eye. You already know what old things can be. I’ve never known it but by +report. I’ve always fancied I should like it. In a small way at home, of +course, I did try to stand by my idea of it. I must be a conservative by +nature. People at home used to call me a cockney and a fribble. But it +wasn’t true,” he went on; “if it had been I should have made my way over +here long ago: before--before--” He paused, and his head dropped sadly +on his breast. + +The bottle of Burgundy had loosened his tongue; I had but to choose my +time for learning his story. Something told me that I had gained his +confidence and that, so far as attention and attitude might go, I was +“in” for responsibilities. But somehow I didn’t dread them. “Before you +lost your health,” I suggested. + +“Before I lost my health,” he answered. “And my property--the little I +had. And my ambition. And any power to take myself seriously.” + +“Come!” I cried. “You shall recover everything. This tonic English +climate will wind you up in a month. And _then_ see how you’ll take +yourself--and how I shall take you!” + +“Oh,” he gratefully smiled, “I may turn to dust in your hands! I should +like,” he presently pursued, “to be an old genteel pensioner, lodged +over there in the palace and spending my days in maundering about these +vistas. I should go every morning, at the hour when it gets the sun, +into that long gallery where all those pretty women of Lely’s are +hung--I know you despise them!--and stroll up and down and say something +kind to them. Poor precious forsaken creatures! So flattered and courted +in their day, so neglected now! Offering up their shoulders and ringlets +and smiles to that musty deadly silence!” + +I laid my hand on my friend’s shoulder. “Oh sir, you’re all right!” + +Just at this moment there came cantering down the shallow glade of the +avenue a young girl on a fine black horse--one of those little budding +gentlewomen, perfectly mounted and equipped, who form to alien eyes one +of the prettiest incidents of English scenery. She had distanced her +servant and, as she came abreast of us, turned slightly in her saddle +and glanced back at him. In the movement she dropped the hunting-crop +with which she was armed; whereupon she reined up and looked shyly at +us and at the implement. “This is something better than a Lely,” I +said. Searle hastened forward, picked up the crop and, with a particular +courtesy that became him, handed it back to the rider. Fluttered and +blushing she reached forward, took it with a quick sweet sound, and the +next moment was bounding over the quiet turf. Searle stood watching her; +the servant, as he passed us, touched his hat. When my friend turned +toward me again I saw that he too was blushing. “Oh sir, you’re all +right,” I repeated. + +At a short distance from where we had stopped was an old stone bench. We +went and sat down on it and, as the sun began to sink, watched the light +mist powder itself with gold. “We ought to be thinking of the train back +to London, I suppose,” I at last said. + +“Oh hang the train!” sighed my companion. + +“Willingly. There could be no better spot than this to feel the English +evening stand still.” So we lingered, and the twilight hung about us, +strangely clear in spite of the thickness of the air. As we sat there +came into view an apparition unmistakeable from afar as an immemorial +vagrant--the disowned, in his own rich way, of all the English ages. As +he approached us he slackened pace and finally halted, touching his cap. +He was a man of middle age, clad in a greasy bonnet with false-looking +ear-locks depending from its sides. Round his neck was a grimy red +scarf, tucked into his waistcoat; his coat and trousers had a remote +affinity with those of a reduced hostler. In one hand he had a stick; on +his arm he bore a tattered basket, with a handful of withered +vegetables at the bottom. His face was pale haggard and degraded beyond +description--as base as a counterfeit coin, yet as modelled somehow as +a tragic mask. He too, like everything else, had a history. From what +height had he fallen, from what depth had he risen? He was the perfect +symbol of generated constituted baseness; and I felt before him in +presence of a great artist or actor. + +“For God’s sake, gentlemen,” he said in the raucous tone of +weather-beaten poverty, the tone of chronic sore-throat exacerbated +by perpetual gin, “for God’s sake, gentlemen, have pity on a poor +fern-collector!”--turning up his stale daisies. “Food hasn’t passed my +lips, gentlemen, for the last three days.” We gaped at him and at each +other, and to our imagination his appeal had almost the force of a +command. “I wonder if half-a-crown would help?” I privately wailed. And +our fasting botanist went limping away through the park with the grace +of controlled stupefaction still further enriching his outline. + +“I feel as if I had seen my _Doppelgänger_,” said Searle. “He reminds me +of myself. What am I but a mere figure in the landscape, a wandering +minstrel or picker of daisies?” + +“What are you ‘anyway,’ my friend?” I thereupon took occasion to ask. +“Who are you? kindly tell me.” + +The colour rose again to his pale face and I feared I had offended +him. He poked a moment at the sod with the point of his umbrella before +answering. “Who am I?” he said at last. “My name is Clement Searle. I +was born in New York, and that’s the beginning and the end of me.” + +“Ah not the end!” I made bold to plead. + +“Then it’s because I _have_ no end--any more than an ill-written book. I +just stop anywhere; which means I’m a failure,” the poor man all lucidly +and unreservedly pursued: “a failure, as hopeless and helpless, sir, as +any that ever swallowed up the slender investments of the widow and +the orphan. I don’t pay five cents on the dollar. What I might have +been--once!--there’s nothing left to show. I was rotten before I was +ripe. To begin with, certainly, I wasn’t a fountain of wisdom. All the +more reason for a definite channel--for having a little character and +purpose. But I hadn’t even a little. I had nothing but nice tastes, as +they call them, and fine sympathies and sentiments. Take a turn through +New York to-day and you’ll find the tattered remnants of these things +dangling on every bush and fluttering in every breeze; the men to whom +I lent money, the women to whom I made love, the friends I trusted, the +follies I invented, the poisonous fumes of pleasure amid which nothing +was worth a thought but the manhood they stifled! It was my fault that I +believed in pleasure here below. I believe in it still, but as I believe +in the immortality of the soul. The soul is immortal, certainly--if +you’ve got one; but most people haven’t. Pleasure would be right if it +were pleasure straight through; but it never is. My taste was to be the +best in the world; well, perhaps it was. I had a little money; it went +the way of my little wit. Here in my pocket I have the scant dregs +of it. I should tell you I was the biggest kind of ass. Just now that +description would flatter me; it would assume there’s something left of +me. But the ghost of a donkey--what’s that? I think,” he went on with +a charming turn and as if striking off his real explanation, “I should +have been all right in a world arranged on different lines. Before +heaven, sir--whoever you are--I’m in practice so absurdly tender-hearted +that I can afford to say it: I entered upon life a perfect gentleman. +I had the love of old forms and pleasant rites, and I found them +nowhere--found a world all hard lines and harsh lights, without shade, +without composition, as they say of pictures, without the lovely mystery +of colour. To furnish colour I melted down the very substance of my own +soul. I went about with my brush, touching up and toning down; a very +pretty chiaroscuro you’ll find in my track! Sitting here in this old +park, in this old country, I feel that I hover on the misty verge of +what might have been! I should have been born here and not there; here +my makeshift distinctions would have found things they’d have been true +of. How it was I never got free is more than I can say. It might have +cut the knot, but the knot was too tight. I was always out of health or +in debt or somehow desperately dangling. Besides, I had a horror of the +great black sickening sea. A year ago I was reminded of the existence of +an old claim to an English estate, which has danced before the eyes of +my family, at odd moments, any time these eighty years. I confess it’s a +bit of a muddle and a tangle, and am by no means sure that to this hour +I’ve got the hang of it. You look as if you had a clear head: some other +time, if you consent, we’ll have a go at it, such as it is, together. +Poverty was staring me in the face; I sat down and tried to commit the +‘points’ of our case to memory, as I used to get nine-times-nine by +heart as a boy. I dreamed of it for six months, half-expecting to wake +up some fine morning and hear through a latticed casement the cawing of +an English rookery. A couple of months ago there came out to England on +business of his own a man who once got me out of a dreadful mess (not +that I had hurt anyone but myself), a legal practitioner in our courts, +a very rough diamond, but with a great deal of _flair_, as they say in New +York. It was with him yesterday you saw me dining. He undertook, as +he called it, to ‘nose round’ and see if anything could be made of our +questionable but possible show. The matter had never seriously been +taken up. A month later I got a letter from Simmons assuring me that it +seemed a very good show indeed and that he should be greatly surprised +if I were unable to do something. This was the greatest push I had ever +got in my life; I took a deliberate step, for the first time; I sailed +for England. I’ve been here three days: they’ve seemed three months. +After keeping me waiting for thirty-six hours my legal adviser makes his +appearance last night and states to me, with his mouth full of mutton, +that I haven’t a leg to stand on, that my claim is moonshine, and that +I must do penance and take a ticket for six more days of purgatory +with his presence thrown in. My friend, my friend--shall I say I was +disappointed? I’m already resigned. I didn’t really believe I had +any case. I felt in my deeper consciousness that it was the crowning +illusion of a life of illusions. Well, it was a pretty one. Poor legal +adviser!--I forgive him with all my heart. But for him I shouldn’t be +sitting in this place, in this air, under these impressions. This is a +world I could have got on with beautifully. There’s an immense charm in +its having been kept for the last. After it nothing else would have been +tolerable. I shall now have a month of it, I hope, which won’t be long +enough for it to “go back on me. There’s one thing!”--and here, pausing, +he laid his hand on mine; I rose and stood before him--“I wish it were +possible you should be with me to the end.” + +“I promise you to leave you only when you kick me downstairs.” But I +suggested my terms. “It must be on condition of your omitting from your +conversation this intolerable flavour of mortality. I know nothing of +‘ends.’ I’m all for beginnings.” + +He kept on me his sad weak eyes. Then with a faint smile: “Don’t cut +down a man you find hanging. He has had a reason for it. I’m bankrupt.” + +“Oh health’s money!” I said. “Get well, and the rest will take care of +itself. I’m interested in your questionable claim--it’s the question +that’s the charm; and pretenders, to anything big enough, have always +been, for me, an attractive class. Only their first duty’s to be +gallant.” + +“Their first duty’s to understand their own points and to know their own +mind,” he returned with hopeless lucidity. “Don’t ask me to climb our +family tree now,” he added; “I fear I haven’t the head for it. I’ll try +some day--if it will bear my weight; or yours added to mine. There’s +no doubt, however, that we, as they say, go back. But I know nothing of +business. If I were to take the matter in hand I should break in two the +poor little silken thread from which everything hangs. In a better world +than this I think I should be listened to. But the wind doesn’t set to +ideal justice. There’s no doubt that a hundred years ago we suffered +a palpable wrong. Yet we made no appeal at the time, and the dust of a +century now lies heaped upon our silence. Let it rest!” + +“What then,” I asked, “is the estimated value of your interest?” + +“We were instructed from the first to accept a compromise. Compared with +the whole property our ideas have been small. We were once advised in +the sense of a hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Why a hundred and +thirty I’m sure I don’t know. Don’t beguile me into figures.” + +“Allow me one more question,” I said. “Who’s actually in possession?” + +“A certain Mr. Richard Searle. I know nothing about him.” + +“He’s in some way related to you?” + +“Our great-grandfathers were half-brothers. What does that make us?” + +“Twentieth cousins, say. And where does your twentieth cousin live?” + +“At a place called Lackley--in Middleshire.” + +I thought it over. “Well, suppose we look up Lackley in Middleshire!” + +He got straight up. “Go and see it?” + +“Go and see it.” + +“Well,” he said, “with you I’ll go anywhere.” + +On our return to town we determined to spend three days there together +and then proceed to our errand. We were as conscious one as the other of +that deeper mystic appeal made by London to those superstitious pilgrims +who feel it the mother-city of their race, the distributing heart of +their traditional life. Certain characteristics of the dusky Babylon, +certain aspects, phases, features, “say” more to the American spiritual +ear than anything else in Europe. The influence of these things on +Searle it charmed me to note. His observation I soon saw to be, as +I pronounced it to him, searching and caressing. His almost morbid +appetite for any over-scoring of time, well-nigh extinct from long +inanition, threw the flush of its revival into his face and his talk. + + + + +II + +We looked out the topography of Middleshire in a county-guide, which +spoke highly, as the phrase is, of Lackley Park, and took up our abode, +our journey ended, at a wayside inn where, in the days of leisure, the +coach must have stopped for luncheon and burnished pewters of rustic +ale been handed up as straight as possible to outsiders athirst with +the sense of speed. We stopped here for mere gaping joy of its +steep-thatched roof, its latticed windows, its hospitable porch, and +allowed a couple of days to elapse in vague undirected strolls and sweet +sentimental observance of the land before approaching the particular +business that had drawn us on. The region I allude to is a compendium +of the general physiognomy of England. The noble friendliness of the +scenery, its latent old-friendliness, the way we scarcely knew whether +we were looking at it for the first or the last time, made it arrest us +at every step. The countryside, in the full warm rains of the last +of April, had burst into sudden perfect spring. The dark walls of the +hedgerows had turned into blooming screens, the sodden verdure of lawn +and meadow been washed over with a lighter brush. We went forth without +loss of time for a long walk on the great grassy hills, smooth arrested +central billows of some primitive upheaval, from the summits of which +you find half England unrolled at your feet. A dozen broad counties, +within the scope of your vision, commingle their green exhalations. +Closely beneath us lay the dark rich hedgy flats and the copse-chequered +slopes, white with the blossom of apples. At widely opposite points of +the expanse two great towers of cathedrals rose sharply out of a reddish +blur of habitation, taking the mild English light. + +We gave an irrepressible attention to this same solar reserve, and found +in it only a refinement of art. The sky never was empty and never idle; +the clouds were continually at play for our benefit. Over against +us, from our station on the hills, we saw them piled and dissolved, +condensed and shifted, blotting the blue with sullen rain-spots, +stretching, breeze-fretted, into dappled fields of grey, bursting into +an explosion of light or melting into a drizzle of silver. We made our +way along the rounded ridge of the downs and reached, by a descent, +through slanting angular fields, green to cottage-doors, a russet +village that beckoned us from the heart of the maze in which the hedges +wrapped it up. Close beside it, I admit, the roaring train bounces out +of a hole in the hills; yet there broods upon this charming hamlet an +old-time quietude that makes a violation of confidence of naming it so +far away. We struck through a narrow lane, a green lane, dim with its +barriers of hawthorn; it led us to a superb old farmhouse, now rather +rudely jostled by the multiplied roads and by-ways that have reduced its +ancient appanage. It stands there in stubborn picturesqueness, doggedly +submitting to be pointed out and sketched. It is a wonderful image of +the domiciliary conditions of the past--cruelly complete; with bended +beams and joists, beneath the burden of gables, that seem to ache and +groan with memories and regrets. The short low windows, where lead and +glass combine equally to create an inward gloom, retain their opacity as +a part of the primitive idea of defence. Such an old house provokes on +the part of an American a luxury of respect. So propped and patched, so +tinkered with clumsy tenderness, clustered so richly about its central +English sturdiness, its oaken vertebrations, so humanised with ages +of use and touches of beneficent affection, it seemed to offer to our +grateful eyes a small rude symbol of the great English social order. +Passing out upon the highroad, we came to the common browsing-patch, +the “village-green” of the tales of our youth. Nothing was absent: the +shaggy mouse-coloured donkey, nosing the turf with his mild and huge +proboscis, the geese, the old woman--_the_ old woman, in person, with +her red cloak and her black bonnet, frilled about the face and +double-frilled beside her decent placid cheeks--the towering ploughman +with his white smock-frock puckered on chest and back, his short +corduroys, his mighty calves, his big red rural face. We greeted these +things as children greet the loved pictures in a storybook lost and +mourned and found again. We recognised them as one recognises the +handwriting on letter-backs. Beside the road we saw a ploughboy straddle +whistling on a stile, and he had the merit of being not only a ploughboy +but a Gainsborough. Beyond the stile, across the level velvet of a +meadow, a footpath wandered like a streak drawn by a finger over a +surface of fine plush. We followed it from field to field and from +stile to stile; it was all adorably the way to church. At the church we +finally arrived, lost in its rook-haunted churchyard, hidden from the +workday world by the broad stillness of pastures--a grey, grey tower, a +huge black yew, a cluster of village-graves with crooked headstones and +protrusions that had settled and sunk. The place seemed so to ache with +consecration that my sensitive companion gave way to the force of it. + +“You must bury me here, you know”--he caught at my arm. “It’s the first +place of worship I’ve seen in my life. How it makes a Sunday where it +stands!” + +It took the Church, we agreed, to make churches, but we had the sense +the next day of seeing still better why. We walked over some seven +miles, to the nearer of the two neighbouring seats of that lesson; and +all through such a mist of local colour that we felt ourselves a pair +of Smollett’s pedestrian heroes faring tavernward for a night of +adventures. As we neared the provincial city we saw the steepled mass of +the cathedral, long and high, rise far into the cloud-freckled blue; and +as we got closer stopped on a bridge and looked down at the reflexion of +the solid minster in a yellow stream. Going further yet we entered +the russet town--where surely Miss Austen’s heroines, in chariots +and curricles, must often have come a-shopping for their sandals and +mittens; we lounged in the grassed and gravelled precinct and gazed +insatiably at that most soul-soothing sight, the waning wasting +afternoon light, the visible ether that feels the voices of the chimes +cling far aloft to the quiet sides of the cathedral-tower; saw it linger +and nestle and abide, as it loves to do on all perpendicular spaces, +converting them irresistibly into registers and dials; tasted too, as +deeply, of the peculiar stillness of this place of priests; saw a rosy +English lad come forth and lock the door of the old foundation-school +that dovetailed with cloister and choir, and carry his big responsible +key into one of the quiet canonical houses: and then stood musing +together on the effect on one’s mind of having in one’s boyhood gone and +come through cathedral-shades as a King’s scholar, and yet kept ruddy +with much cricket in misty river meadows. On the third morning we betook +ourselves to Lackley, having learned that parts of the “grounds” were +open to visitors, and that indeed on application the house was sometimes +shown. + +Within the range of these numerous acres the declining spurs of the +hills continued to undulate and subside. A long avenue wound and circled +from the outermost gate through an untrimmed woodland, whence you +glanced at further slopes and glades and copses and bosky recesses--at +everything except the limits of the place. It was as free and untended +as I had found a few of the large loose villas of old Italy, and I was +still never to see the angular fact of English landlordism muffle itself +in so many concessions. The weather had just become perfect; it was one +of the dozen exquisite days of the English year--days stamped with a +purity unknown in climates where fine weather is cheap. It was as if the +mellow brightness, as tender as that of the primroses which starred the +dark waysides like petals wind-scattered over beds of moss, had been +meted out to us by the cubic foot--distilled from an alchemist’s +crucible. From this pastoral abundance we moved upon the more composed +scene, the park proper--passed through a second lodge-gate, with +weather-worn gilding on its twisted bars, to the smooth slopes where the +great trees stood singly and the tame deer browsed along the bed of +a woodland stream. Here before us rose the gabled grey front of the +Tudor-time, developed and terraced and gardened to some later loss, as +we were afterwards to know, of type. + +“Here you can wander all day,” I said to Searle, “like an exiled +prince who has come back on tiptoe and hovers about the dominion of the +usurper.” + +“To think of ‘others’ having hugged this all these years!” he answered. +“I know what I am, but what might I have been? What do such places make +of a man?” + +“I dare say he gets stupidly used to them,” I said. “But I dare say too, +even then, that when you scratch the mere owner you find the perfect +lover.” + +“What a perfect scene and background it forms!” my friend, however, +had meanwhile gone on. “What legends, what histories it knows! My heart +really breaks with all I seem to guess. There’s Tennyson’s Talking Oak! +What summer days one could spend here! How I could lounge the rest of my +life away on this turf of the middle ages! Haven’t I some maiden-cousin +in that old hall, or grange, or court--what in the name of enchantment +do you call the thing?--who would give me kind leave?” And then he +turned almost fiercely upon me. “Why did you bring me here? Why did you +drag me into this distraction of vain regrets?” + +At this moment there passed within call a decent lad who had emerged +from the gardens and who might have been an underling in the stables. I +hailed him and put the question of our possible admittance to the house. +He answered that the master was away from home, but that he thought it +probable the housekeeper would consent to do the honours. I passed my +arm into Searle’s. “Come,” I said; “drain the cup, bitter-sweet though +it be. We must go in.” We hastened slowly and approached the fine front. +The house was one of the happiest fruits of its freshly-feeling era, +a multitudinous cluster of fair gables and intricate chimneys, brave +projections and quiet recesses, brown old surfaces weathered to silver +and mottled roofs that testified not to seasons but to centuries. Two +broad terraces commanded the wooded horizon. Our appeal was answered by +a butler who condescended to our weakness. He renewed the assertion that +Mr. Searle was away from home, but he would himself lay our case before +the housekeeper. We would be so good, however, as to give him our cards. +This request, following so directly on the assertion that Mr. Searle +was absent, was rather resented by my companion. “Surely not for the +housekeeper.” + +The butler gave a diplomatic cough. “Miss Searle is at home, sir.” + +“Yours alone will have to serve,” said my friend. I took out a card and +pencil and wrote beneath my name _New York_. As I stood with the pencil +poised a temptation entered into it. Without in the least considering +proprieties or results I let my implement yield--I added above my name +that of Mr. Clement Searle. What would come of it? + +Before many minutes the housekeeper waited upon us--a fresh rosy little +old woman in a clean dowdy cap and a scanty sprigged gown; a quaint +careful person, but accessible to the tribute of our pleasure, to say +nothing of any other. She had the accent of the country, but the manners +of the house. Under her guidance we passed through a dozen apartments, +duly stocked with old pictures, old tapestry, old carvings, old armour, +with a hundred ornaments and treasures. The pictures were especially +valuable. The two Vandykes, the trio of rosy Rubenses, the sole and +sombre Rembrandt, glowed with conscious authenticity. A Claude, a +Murillo, a Greuze, a couple of Gainsboroughs, hung there with high +complacency. Searle strolled about, scarcely speaking, pale and grave, +with bloodshot eyes and lips compressed. He uttered no comment on what +we saw--he asked but a question or two. Missing him at last from my side +I retraced my steps and found him in a room we had just left, on a faded +old ottoman and with his elbows on his knees and his face buried in +his hands. Before him, ranged on a great _crédence_, was a magnificent +collection of old Italian majolica; plates of every shape, with their +glaze of happy colour, jugs and vases nobly bellied and embossed. There +seemed to rise before me, as I looked, a sudden vision of the young +English gentleman who, eighty years ago, had travelled by slow stages to +Italy and been waited on at his inn by persuasive toymen. “What is it, +my dear man?” I asked. “Are you unwell?” + +He uncovered his haggard face and showed me the flush of a consciousness +sharper, I think, to myself than to him. “A memory of the past! +There comes back to me a china vase that used to stand on the parlour +mantel-shelf when I was a boy, with a portrait of General Jackson +painted on one side and a bunch of flowers on the other. How long do you +suppose that majolica has been in the family?” + +“A long time probably. It was brought hither in the last century, into +old, old England, out of old, old Italy, by some contemporary dandy with +a taste for foreign gimcracks. Here it has stood for a hundred years, +keeping its clear firm hues in this quiet light that has never sought to +advertise it.” + +Searle sprang to his feet. “I say, for mercy’s sake, take me away! I +can’t stand this sort of thing. Before I know it I shall do something +scandalous. I shall steal some of their infernal crockery. I shall +proclaim my identity and assert my rights. I shall go blubbering to Miss +Searle and ask her in pity’s name to ‘put me up.’” + +If he could ever have been said to threaten complications he rather +visibly did so now. I began to regret my officious presentation of +his name and prepared without delay to lead him out of the house. We +overtook the housekeeper in the last room of the series, a small unused +boudoir over whose chimney-piece hung a portrait of a young man in a +powdered wig and a brocaded waistcoat. I was struck with his resemblance +to my companion while our guide introduced him. “This is Mr. Clement +Searle, Mr. Searle’s great-uncle, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. He died young, +poor gentleman; he perished at sea, going to America.” + +“He was the young buck who brought the majolica out of Italy,” I +supplemented. + +“Indeed, sir, I believe he did,” said the housekeeper without wonder. + +“He’s the image of you, my dear Searle,” I further observed. + +“He’s remarkably like the gentleman, saving his presence,” said the +housekeeper. + +My friend stood staring. “Clement Searle--at sea--going to America--?” + he broke out. Then with some sharpness to our old woman: “Why the devil +did he go to America?” + +“Why indeed, sir? You may well ask. I believe he had kinsfolk there. It +was for them to come to him.” + +Searle broke into a laugh. “It was for them to come to him! Well, well,” + he said, fixing his eyes on our guide, “they’ve come to him at last!” + +She blushed like a wrinkled rose-leaf. “Indeed, sir, I verily believe +you’re one of _us!_” + +“My name’s the name of that beautiful youth,” Searle went on. “Dear +kinsman I’m happy to meet you! And what do you think of this?” he +pursued as he grasped me by the arm. “I have an idea. He perished at +sea. His spirit came ashore and wandered about in misery till it got +another incarnation--in this poor trunk!” And he tapped his hollow +chest. “Here it has rattled about these forty years, beating its wings +against its rickety cage, begging to be taken home again. And I never +knew what was the matter with me! Now at last the bruised spirit can +escape!” + +Our old lady gaped at a breadth of appreciation--if not at the +disclosure of a connexion--beyond her. The scene was really +embarrassing, and my confusion increased as we became aware of another +presence. A lady had appeared in the doorway and the housekeeper dropped +just audibly: “Miss Searle!” My first impression of Miss Searle was that +she was neither young nor beautiful. She stood without confidence on the +threshold, pale, trying to smile and twirling my card in her fingers. +I immediately bowed. Searle stared at her as if one of the pictures had +stepped out of its frame. + +“If I’m not mistaken one of you gentlemen is Mr. Clement Searle,” the +lady adventured. + +“My friend’s Mr. Clement Searle,” I took upon myself to reply. “Allow me +to add that I alone am responsible for your having received his name.” + +“I should have been sorry not to--not to see him,” said Miss Searle, +beginning to blush. “Your being from America has led me--perhaps to +intrude!” + +“The intrusion, madam, has been on our part. And with just that +excuse--that we come from so far away.” + +Miss Searle, while I spoke, had fixed her eyes on my friend as he stood +silent beneath Sir Joshua’s portrait. The housekeeper, agitated and +mystified, fairly let herself go. “Heaven preserve us, Miss! It’s your +great-uncle’s picture come to life.” + +“I’m not mistaken then,” said Miss Searle--“we must be distantly +related.” She had the air of the shyest of women, for whom it was almost +anguish to make an advance without help. Searle eyed her with gentle +wonder from head to foot, and I could easily read his thoughts. This +then was his maiden-cousin, prospective mistress of these hereditary +treasures. She was of some thirty-five years of age, taller than was +then common and perhaps stouter than is now enjoined. She had small +kind grey eyes, a considerable quantity of very light-brown hair and a +smiling well-formed mouth. She was dressed in a lustreless black +satin gown with a short train. Disposed about her neck was a blue +handkerchief, and over this handkerchief, in many convolutions, a string +of amber beads. Her appearance was singular; she was large yet somehow +vague, mature yet undeveloped. Her manner of addressing us spoke of all +sorts of deep diffidences. Searle, I think, had prefigured to himself +some proud cold beauty of five-and-twenty; he was relieved at finding +the lady timid and not obtrusively fair. He at once had an excellent +tone. + +“We’re distant cousins, I believe. I’m happy to claim a relationship +which you’re so good as to remember. I hadn’t counted on your knowing +anything about me.” + +“Perhaps I’ve done wrong.” And Miss Searle blushed and smiled anew. “But +I’ve always known of there being people of our blood in America, and +have often wondered and asked about them--without ever learning much. +To-day, when this card was brought me and I understood a Clement Searle +to be under our roof as a stranger, I felt I ought to do something. But, +you know, I hardly knew what. My brother’s in London. I’ve done what I +think he would have done. Welcome as a cousin.” And with a resolution +that ceased to be awkward she put out her hand. + +“I’m welcome indeed if he would have done it half so graciously!” Again +Searle, taking her hand, acquitted himself beautifully. + +“You’ve seen what there is, I think,” Miss Searle went on. “Perhaps now +you’ll have luncheon.” We followed her into a small breakfast-room where +a deep bay window opened on the mossy flags of a terrace. Here, for some +moments, she remained dumb and abashed, as if resting from a measurable +effort. Searle too had ceased to overflow, so that I had to relieve the +silence. It was of course easy to descant on the beauties of park and +mansion, and as I did so I observed our hostess. She had no arts, no +impulses nor graces--scarce even any manners; she was queerly, almost +frowsily dressed; yet she pleased me well. She had an antique sweetness, +a homely fragrance of old traditions. To be so simple, among those +complicated treasures, so pampered and yet so fresh, so modest and yet +so placid, told of just the spacious leisure in which Searle and I had +imagined human life to be steeped in such places as that. This figure +was to the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood what a fact is to a fairy-tale, +an interpretation to a myth. We, on our side, were to our hostess +subjects of a curiosity not cunningly veiled. + +“I should like so to go abroad!” she exclaimed suddenly, as if she meant +us to take the speech for an expression of interest in ourselves. + +“Have you never been?” one of us asked. + +“Only once. Three years ago my brother took me to Switzerland. We +thought it extremely beautiful. Except for that journey I’ve always +lived here. I was born in this house. It’s a dear old place indeed, and +I know it well. Sometimes one wants a change.” And on my asking her +how she spent her time and what society she saw, “Of course it’s very +quiet,” she went on, proceeding by short steps and simple statements, in +the manner of a person called upon for the first time to analyse to that +extent her situation. “We see very few people. I don’t think there are +many nice ones hereabouts. At least we don’t know them. Our own family’s +very small. My brother cares for nothing but riding and books. He had +a great sorrow ten years ago. He lost his wife and his only son, a dear +little boy, who of course would have had everything. Do you know that +that makes me the heir, as they’ve done something--I don’t quite +know what--to the entail? Poor old me! Since his loss my brother has +preferred to be quite alone. I’m sorry he’s away. But you must wait till +he comes back. I expect him in a day or two.” She talked more and more, +as if our very strangeness led her on, about her circumstances, her +solitude, her bad eyes, so that she couldn’t read, her flowers, her +ferns, her dogs, and the vicar, recently presented to the living by +her brother and warranted quite safe, who had lately begun to light his +altar candles; pausing every now and then to gasp in self-surprise, yet, +in the quaintest way in the world, keeping up her story as if it were +a slow rather awkward old-time dance, a difficult _pas seul_ in which +she would have been better with more practice, but of which she must +complete the figure. Of all the old things I had seen in England this +exhibited mind of Miss Searle’s seemed to me the oldest, the most handed +down and taken for granted; fenced and protected as it was by convention +and precedent and usage, thoroughly acquainted with its subordinate +place. I felt as if I were talking with the heroine of a last-century +novel. As she talked she rested her dull eyes on her kinsman with +wondering kindness. At last she put it to him: “Did you mean to go away +without asking for us?” + +“I had thought it over, Miss Searle, and had determined not to trouble +you. You’ve shown me how unfriendly I should have been.” + +“But you knew of the place being ours, and of our relationship?” + +“Just so. It was because of these things that I came down here--because +of them almost that I came to England. I’ve always liked to think of +them,” said my companion. + +“You merely wished to look then? We don’t pretend to be much to look +at.” + +He waited; her words were too strange. “You don’t know what you are, +Miss Searle.” + +“You like the old place then?” + +Searle looked at her again in silence. “If I could only tell you!” he +said at last. + +“Do tell me. You must come and stay with us.” + +It moved him to an oddity of mirth. “Take care, take care--I should +surprise you! I’m afraid I should bore you. I should never leave you.” + +“Oh you’d get homesick--for your real home!” + +At this he was still more amused. “By the way, tell Miss Searle about +our real home,” he said to me. And he stepped, through the window, out +upon the terrace, followed by two beautiful dogs, a setter and a young +stag-hound who from the moment we came in had established the fondest +relation with him. Miss Searle looked at him, while he went, as if she +vaguely yearned over him; it began to be plain that she was interested +in her exotic cousin. I suddenly recalled the last words I had heard +spoken by my friend’s adviser in London and which, in a very crude form, +had reference to his making a match with this lady. If only Miss Searle +could be induced to think of that, and if one had but the tact to put it +in a light to her! Something assured me that her heart was virgin-soil, +that the flower of romantic affection had never bloomed there. If I +might just sow the seed! There seemed to shape itself within her the +perfect image of one of the patient wives of old. + +“He has lost his heart to England,” I said. “He ought to have been born +here.” + +“And yet he doesn’t look in the least an Englishman,” she still rather +guardedly prosed. + +“Oh it isn’t his looks, poor fellow.” + +“Of course looks aren’t everything. I never talked with a foreigner +before; but he talks as I have fancied foreigners.” + +“Yes, he’s foreign enough.” + +“Is he married?” + +“His wife’s dead and he’s all alone in the world.” + +“Has he much property?” + +“None to speak of.” + +“But he has means to travel.” + +I meditated. “He has not expected to travel far,” I said at last. “You +know, he’s in very poor health.” + +“Poor gentleman! So I supposed.” + +“But there’s more of him to go on with than he thinks. He came here +because he wanted to see your place before he dies.” + +“Dear me--kind man!” And I imagined in the quiet eyes the hint of a +possible tear. “And he was going away without my seeing him?” + +“He’s very modest, you see.” + +“He’s very much the gentleman.” + +I couldn’t but smile. “He’s _all_--” + +At this moment we heard on the terrace a loud harsh cry. “It’s the great +peacock!” said Miss Searle, stepping to the window and passing out while +I followed her. Below us, leaning on the parapet, stood our appreciative +friend with his arm round the neck of the setter. Before him on +the grand walk strutted the familiar fowl of gardens--a splendid +specimen--with ruffled neck and expanded tail. The other dog had +apparently indulged in a momentary attempt to abash the gorgeous biped, +but at Searle’s summons had bounded back to the terrace and leaped upon +the ledge, where he now stood licking his new friend’s face. The scene +had a beautiful old-time air: the peacock flaunting in the foreground +like the genius of stately places; the broad terrace, which flattered +an innate taste of mine for all deserted walks where people may have sat +after heavy dinners to drink coffee in old Sevres and where the stiff +brocade of women’s dresses may have rustled over grass or gravel; and +far around us, with one leafy circle melting into another, the timbered +acres of the park. “The very beasts have made him welcome,” I noted as +we rejoined our companion. + +“The peacock has done for you, Mr. Searle,” said his cousin, “what he +does only for very great people. A year ago there came here a great +person--a grand old lady--to see my brother. I don’t think that since +then he has spread his tail as wide for any one else--not by a dozen +feathers.” + +“It’s not alone the peacock,” said Searle. “Just now there came slipping +across my path a little green lizard, the first I ever saw, the lizard +of literature! And if you’ve a ghost, broad daylight though it be, +I expect to see him here. Do you know the annals of your house, Miss +Searle?” + +“Oh dear, no! You must ask my brother for all those things.” + +“You ought to have a collection of legends and traditions. You ought to +have loves and murders and mysteries by the roomful. I shall be ashamed +of you if you haven’t.” + +“Oh Mr. Searle! We’ve always been a very well-behaved family,” she quite +seriously pleaded. “Nothing out of the way has ever happened, I think.” + +“Nothing out of the way? Oh that won’t do! We’ve managed better than +that in America. Why I myself!”--and he looked at her ruefully enough, +but enjoying too his idea that he might embody the social scandal or +point to the darkest drama of the Searles. “Suppose I should turn out +a better Searle than you--better than you nursed here in romance and +extravagance? Come, don’t disappoint me. You’ve some history among you +all, you’ve some poetry, you’ve some accumulation of legend. I’ve been +famished all my days for these things. Don’t you understand? Ah you +can’t understand! Tell me,” he rambled on, “something tremendous. When +I think of what must have happened here; of the lovers who must have +strolled on this terrace and wandered under the beeches, of all the +figures and passions and purposes that must have haunted these walls! +When I think of the births and deaths, the joys and sufferings, the +young hopes and the old regrets, the rich experience of life--!” He +faltered a moment with the increase of his agitation. His humour of +dismay at a threat of the commonplace in the history he felt about him +had turned to a deeper reaction. I began to fear however that he was +really losing his head. He went on with a wilder play. “To see it all +called up there before me, if the Devil alone could do it I’d make a +bargain with the Devil! Ah Miss Searle,” he cried, “I’m a most unhappy +man!” + +“Oh dear, oh dear!” she almost wailed while I turned half away. + +“Look at that window, that dear little window!” I turned back to see him +point to a small protruding oriel, above us, relieved against the purple +brickwork, framed in chiselled stone and curtained with ivy. + +“It’s my little room,” she said. + +“Of course it’s a woman’s room. Think of all the dear faces--all of them +so mild and yet so proud--that have looked out of that lattice, and of +all the old-time women’s lives whose principal view of the world has +been this quiet park! Every one of them was a cousin of mine. And you, +dear lady, you’re one of them yet.” With which he marched toward her and +took her large white hand. She surrendered it, blushing to her eyes +and pressing her other hand to her breast. “You’re a woman of the past. +You’re nobly simple. It has been a romance to see you. It doesn’t matter +what I say to you. You didn’t know me yesterday, you’ll not know me +to-morrow. Let me to-day do a mad sweet thing. Let me imagine in you the +spirit of all the dead women who have trod the terrace-flags that lie +here like sepulchral tablets in the pavement of a church. Let me say I +delight in you!”--he raised her hand to his lips. She gently withdrew it +and for a moment averted her face. Meeting her eyes the next instant I +saw the tears had come. The Sleeping Beauty was awake. + +There followed an embarrassed pause. An issue was suddenly presented by +the appearance of the butler bearing a letter. “A telegram, Miss,” he +announced. + +“Oh what shall I do?” cried Miss Searle. “I can’t open a telegram. +Cousin, help me.” + +Searle took the missive, opened it and read aloud: “_I shall be home to +dinner. Keep the American._” + + + + +III + +“Keep the American!” Miss Searle, in compliance with the injunction +conveyed in her brother’s telegram (with something certainly of +telegraphic curtness), lost no time in expressing the pleasure it would +give her that our friend should remain. “Really you must,” she said; +and forthwith repaired to the house-keeper to give orders for the +preparation of a room. + +“But how in the world did he know of my being here?” my companion put to +me. + +I answered that he had probably heard from his solicitor of the other’s +visit. “Mr. Simmons and that gentleman must have had another interview +since your arrival in England. Simmons, for reasons of his own, has +made known to him your journey to this neighbourhood, and Mr. Searle, +learning this, has immediately taken for granted that you’ve formally +presented yourself to his sister. He’s hospitably inclined and wishes +her to do the proper thing by you. There may even,” I went on, “be more +in it than that. I’ve my little theory that he’s the very phoenix of +usurpers, that he has been very much struck with what the experts have +had to say for you, and that he wishes to have the originality of making +over to you your share--so limited after all--of the estate.” + +“I give it up!” my friend mused. “Come what come will!” + +“You, of course,” said Miss Searle, reappearing and turning to me, “are +included in my brother’s invitation. I’ve told them to see about a room +for you. Your luggage shall immediately be sent for.” + +It was arranged that I in person should be driven over to our little inn +and that I should return with our effects in time to meet Mr. Searle at +dinner. On my arrival several hours later I was immediately conducted +to my room. The servant pointed out to me that it communicated by a +door and a private passage with that of my fellow visitor. I made my way +along this passage--a low narrow corridor with a broad latticed casement +through which there streamed upon a series of grotesquely sculptured +oaken closets and cupboards the vivid animating glow of the western +sun--knocked at his door and, getting no answer, opened it. In an +armchair by the open window sat my friend asleep, his arms and legs +relaxed and head dropped on his breast. It was a great relief to see him +rest thus from his rhapsodies, and I watched him for some moments before +waking him. There was a faint glow of colour in his cheek and a light +expressive parting of his lips, something nearer to ease and peace than +I had yet seen in him. It was almost happiness, it was almost health. I +laid my hand on his arm and gently shook it. He opened his eyes, gazed +at me a moment, vaguely recognised me, then closed them again. “Let me +dream, let me dream!” + +“What are you dreaming about?” + +A moment passed before his answer came. “About a tall woman in a quaint +black dress, with yellow hair and a sweet, sweet smile, and a soft low +delicious voice! I’m in love with her.” + +“It’s better to see her than to dream about her,” I said. “Get up and +dress; then we’ll go down to dinner and meet her.” + +“Dinner--dinner--?” And he gradually opened his eyes again. “Yes, upon +my word I shall dine!” + +“Oh you’re all right!” I declared for the twentieth time as he rose to +his feet. “You’ll live to bury Mr. Simmons.” He told me he had spent the +hours of my absence with Miss Searle--they had strolled together half +over the place. “You must be very intimate,” I smiled. + +“She’s intimate with _me_. Goodness knows what rigmarole I’ve treated her +to!” They had parted an hour ago; since when, he believed, her brother +had arrived. + +The slow-fading twilight was still in the great drawing-room when we +came down. The housekeeper had told us this apartment was rarely used, +there being others, smaller and more convenient, for the same needs. +It seemed now, however, to be occupied in my comrade’s honour. At the +furthest end, rising to the roof like a royal tomb in a cathedral, was +a great chimney-piece of chiselled white marble, yellowed by time, in +which a light fire was crackling. Before the fire stood a small short +man, with his hands behind him; near him was Miss Searle, so transformed +by her dress that at first I scarcely knew her. There was in our +entrance and reception something remarkably chilling and solemn. We +moved in silence up the long room; Mr. Searle advanced slowly, a dozen +steps, to meet us; his sister stood motionless. I was conscious of her +masking her visage with a large white tinselled fan, and that her eyes, +grave and enlarged, watched us intently over the top of it. The master +of Lackley grasped in silence the proffered hand of his kinsman and eyed +him from head to foot, suppressing, I noted, a start of surprise at his +resemblance to Sir Joshua’s portrait. “This is a happy day.” And then +turning to me with an odd little sharp stare: “My cousin’s friend is my +friend.” Miss Searle lowered her fan. + +The first thing that struck me in Mr. Searle’s appearance was his very +limited stature, which was less by half a head than that of his sister. +The second was the preternatural redness of his hair and beard. They +intermingled over his ears and surrounded his head like a huge lurid +nimbus. His face was pale and attenuated, the face of a scholar, a +dilettante, a comparer of points and texts, a man who lives in a library +bending over books and prints and medals. At a distance it might have +passed for smooth and rather blankly composed; but on a nearer view +it revealed a number of wrinkles, sharply etched and scratched, of a +singularly aged and refined effect. It was the complexion of a man of +sixty. His nose was arched and delicate, identical almost with the nose +of my friend. His eyes, large and deep-set, had a kind of auburn glow, +the suggestion of a keen metal red-hot--or, more plainly, were full +of temper and spirit. Imagine this physiognomy--grave and solemn, +grotesquely solemn, in spite of the bushy brightness which made a sort +of frame for it--set in motion by a queer, quick, defiant, perfunctory, +preoccupied smile, and you will have an imperfect notion of the +remarkable presence of our host; something better worth seeing and +knowing, I perceived as I quite breathlessly took him in, than anything +we had yet encountered. How thoroughly I had entered into sympathy +with my poor picked-up friend, and how effectually I had associated my +sensibilities with his own, I had not suspected till, within the short +five minutes before the signal for dinner, I became aware, without his +giving me the least hint, of his placing himself on the defensive. To +neither of us was Mr. Searle sympathetic. I might have guessed from her +attitude that his sister entered into our thoughts. A marked change had +been wrought in her since the morning; during the hour, indeed--as +I read in the light of the wondering glance he cast at her--that had +elapsed since her parting with her cousin. She had not yet recovered +from some great agitation. Her face was pale and she had clearly +been crying. These notes of trouble gave her a new and quite perverse +dignity, which was further enhanced by something complimentary and +commemorative in her dress. + +Whether it was taste or whether it was accident I know not; but the +amiable creature, as she stood there half in the cool twilight, half in +the arrested glow of the fire as it spent itself in the vastness of its +marble cave, was a figure for a painter. She was habited in some faded +splendour of sea-green crape and silk, a piece of millinery which, +though it must have witnessed a number of dull dinners, preserved still +a festive air. Over her white shoulders she wore an ancient web of the +most precious and venerable lace and about her rounded throat a single +series of large pearls. I went in with her to dinner, and Mr. Searle, +following with my friend, took his arm, as the latter afterwards told +me, and pretended jocosely to conduct him. As dinner proceeded the +feeling grew within me that a drama had begun to be played in which the +three persons before me were actors--each of a really arduous part. The +character allotted to my friend, however, was certainly the least easy +to represent with effect, though I overflowed with the desire that he +should acquit himself to his honour. I seemed to see him urge his faded +faculties to take their cue and perform. The poor fellow tried to do +himself credit more seriously than ever in his old best days. With Miss +Searle, credulous passive and pitying, he had finally flung aside all +vanity and propriety and shown the bottom of his fantastic heart. +But with our host there might be no talking of nonsense nor taking +of liberties; there and then, if ever, sat a consummate conservative, +breathing the fumes of hereditary privilege and security. For an hour, +accordingly, I saw my poor protege attempt, all in pain, to meet a new +decorum. He set himself the task of appearing very American, in order +that his appreciation of everything Mr. Searle represented might seem +purely disinterested. What his kinsman had expected him to be I know +not; but I made Mr. Searle out as annoyed, in spite of his exaggerated +urbanity, at finding him so harmless. Our host was not the man to +show his hand, but I think his best card had been a certain implicit +confidence that so provincial a parasite would hardly have good manners. + +He led the conversation to the country we had left; rather as if a leash +had been attached to the collar of some lumpish and half-domesticated +animal the tendency of whose movements had to be recognised. He spoke of +it indeed as of some fabled planet, alien to the British orbit, lately +proclaimed to have the admixture of atmospheric gases required +to support animal life, but not, save under cover of a liberal +afterthought, to be admitted into one’s regular conception of things. I, +for my part, felt nothing but regret that the spheric smoothness of +his universe should be disfigured by the extrusion even of such +inconsiderable particles as ourselves. + +“I knew in a general way of our having somehow ramified over there,” Mr. +Searle mentioned; “but had scarcely followed it more than you pretend to +pick up the fruit your long-armed pear tree may drop, on the other side +of your wall, in your neighbour’s garden. There was a man I knew at +Cambridge, a very odd fellow, a decent fellow too; he and I were rather +cronies; I think he afterwards went to the Middle States. They’ll be, +I suppose, about the Mississippi? At all events, there was that +great-uncle of mine whom Sir Joshua painted. He went to America, but he +never got there. He was lost at sea. You look enough like him to make +one fancy he _did_ get there and that you’ve kept him alive by one of +those beastly processes--I think you have ‘em over there: what do you +call it, ‘putting up’ things? If you’re he you’ve not done a wise thing +to show yourself here. He left a bad name behind him. There’s a ghost +who comes sobbing about the house every now and then, the ghost of one +to whom he did a wrong.” + +“Oh mercy _on_ us!” cried Miss Searle in simple horror. + +“Of course _you_ know nothing of such things,” he rather dryly allowed. +“You’re too sound a sleeper to hear the sobbing of ghosts.” + +“I’m sure I should like immensely to hear the sobbing of a ghost,” said +my friend, the light of his previous eagerness playing up into his eyes. +“Why does it sob? I feel as if that were what we’ve come above all to +learn.” + +Mr. Searle eyed his audience a moment gaugingly; he held the balance as +to measure his resources. He wished to do justice to his theme. With +the long finger-nails of his left hand nervously playing against the +tinkling crystal of his wineglass and his conscious eyes betraying that, +small and strange as he sat there, he knew himself, to his pleasure and +advantage, remarkably impressive, he dropped into our untutored minds +the sombre legend of his house. “Mr. Clement Searle, from all I gather, +was a young man of great talents but a weak disposition. His mother was +left a widow early in life, with two sons, of whom he was the elder and +the more promising. She educated him with the greatest affection and +care. Of course when he came to manhood she wished him to marry well. +His means were quite sufficient to enable him to overlook the want of +money in his wife; and Mrs. Searle selected a young lady who possessed, +as she conceived, every good gift save a fortune--a fine proud handsome +girl, the daughter of an old friend, an old lover I suspect, of her own. +Clement, however, as it appeared, had either chosen otherwise or was +as yet unprepared to choose. The young lady opened upon him in vain the +battery of her attractions; in vain his mother urged her cause. Clement +remained cold, insensible, inflexible. Mrs. Searle had a character which +appears to have gone out of fashion in my family nowadays; she was a +great manager, a _maîtresse-femme_. A proud passionate imperious woman, +she had had immense cares and ever so many law-suits; they had sharpened +her temper and her will. She suspected that her son’s affections had +another object, and this object she began to hate. Irritated by his +stubborn defiance of her wishes she persisted in her purpose. The more +she watched him the more she was convinced he loved in secret. If he +loved in secret of course he loved beneath him. He went about the place +all sombre and sullen and brooding. At last, with the rashness of an +angry woman, she threatened to bring the young lady of her choice--who, +by the way, seems to have been no shrinking blossom--to stay in the +house. A stormy scene was the result. He threatened that if she did +so he would leave the country and sail for America. She probably +disbelieved him; she knew him to be weak, but she overrated his +weakness. At all events the rejected one arrived and Clement Searle +departed. On a dark December day he took ship at Southampton. The two +women, desperate with rage and sorrow, sat alone in this big house, +mingling their tears and imprecations. A fortnight later, on Christmas +Eve, in the midst of a great snowstorm long famous in the country, +something happened that quickened their bitterness. A young woman, +battered and chilled by the storm, gained entrance to the house and, +making her way into the presence of the mistress and her guest, poured +out her tale. She was a poor curate’s daughter out of some little hole +in Gloucestershire. Clement Searle had loved her--loved her all too +well! She had been turned out in wrath from her father’s house; his +mother at least might pity her--if not for herself then for the child +she was soon to bring forth. But the poor girl had been a second time +too trustful. The women, in scorn, in horror, with blows possibly, drove +her forth again into the storm. In the storm she wandered and in the +deep snow she died. Her lover, as you know, perished in that hard winter +weather at sea; the news came to his mother late, but soon enough. We’re +haunted by the curate’s daughter!” + +Mr. Searle retailed this anecdote with infinite taste and point, the +happiest art; when he ceased there was a pause of some moments. “Ah well +we may be!” Miss Searle then mournfully murmured. + +Searle blazed up into enthusiasm. “Of course, you know”--with which he +began to blush violently--“I should be sorry to claim any identity +with the poor devil my faithless namesake. But I should be immensely +gratified if the young lady’s spirit, deceived by my resemblance, were +to mistake me for her cruel lover. She’s welcome to the comfort of it. +What one can do in the case I shall be glad to do. But can a ghost haunt +a ghost? I _am_ a ghost!” + +Mr. Searle stared a moment and then had a subtle sneer. “I could almost +believe you are!” + +“Oh brother--and cousin!” cried Miss Searle with the gentlest yet most +appealing dignity. “How can you talk so horribly?” The horrible talk, +however, evidently possessed a potent magic for my friend; and his +imagination, checked a while by the influence of his kinsman, began +again to lead him a dance. From this moment he ceased to steer his frail +bark, to care what he said or how he said it, so long as he expressed +his passionate appreciation of the scene around him. As he kept up this +strain I ceased even secretly to wish he wouldn’t. I have wondered since +that I shouldn’t have been annoyed by the way he reverted constantly to +himself. But a great frankness, for the time, makes its own law and +a great passion its own channel. There was moreover an irresponsible +indescribable effect of beauty in everything his lips uttered. Free +alike from adulation and from envy, the essence of his discourse was a +divine apprehension, a romantic vision free as the flight of Ariel, of +the poetry of his companions’ situation and their contrasted general +irresponsiveness. + +“How does the look of age come?” he suddenly broke out at dessert. “Does +it come of itself, unobserved, unrecorded, unmeasured? Or do you woo it +and set baits and traps for it, and watch it like the dawning brownness +of a meerschaum pipe, and make it fast, when it appears, just where it +peeps out, and light a votive taper beneath it and give thanks to it +daily? Or do you forbid it and fight it and resist it, and yet feel it +settling and deepening about you as irresistible as fate?” + +“What the deuce is the man talking about?” said the smile of our host. + +“I found a little grey hair this morning,” Miss Searle incoherently +prosed. + +“Well then I hope you paid it every respect!” cried her visitor. + +“I looked at it for a long time in my hand-glass,” she answered with +more presence of mind. + +“Miss Searle can for many years to come afford to be amused at grey +hairs,” I interposed in the hope of some greater ease. It had its +effect. “Ten years from last Thursday I shall be forty-four,” she almost +comfortably smiled. + +“Well, that’s just what I am,” said Searle. “If I had only come here ten +years ago! I should have had more time to enjoy the feast, but I should +have had less appetite. I needed first to get famished.” + +“Oh why did you wait for that?” his entertainer asked. “To think of +these ten years that we might have been enjoying you!” At the vision of +which waste and loss Mr. Searle had a fine shrill laugh. + +“Well,” my friend explained, “I always had a notion--a stupid vulgar +notion if there ever was one--that to come abroad properly one had to +have a pot of money. My pot was too nearly empty. At last I came with my +empty pot!” + +Mr. Searle had a wait for delicacy, but he proceeded. “You’re reduced, +you’re--a--straitened?” + +Our companion’s very breath blew away the veil. “Reduced to nothing. +Straitened to the clothes on my back!” + +“You don’t say so!” said Mr. Searle with a large vague gasp. +“Well--well--well!” he added in a voice which might have meant +everything or nothing; and then, in his whimsical way, went on to finish +a glass of wine. His searching eye, as he drank, met mine, and for a +moment we each rather deeply sounded the other, to the effect no doubt +of a slight embarrassment. “And you,” he said by way of carrying this +off--“how about _your_ wardrobe?” + +“Oh his!” cried my friend; “his wardrobe’s immense. He could dress up a +regiment!” He had drunk more champagne--I admit that the champagne +was good--than was from any point of view to have been desired. He was +rapidly drifting beyond any tacit dissuasion of mine. He was feverish +and rash, and all attempt to direct would now simply irritate him. As +we rose from the table he caught my troubled look. Passing his arm for +a moment into mine, “This is the great night!” he strangely and softly +said; “the night and the crisis that will settle me.” + +Mr. Searle had caused the whole lower portion of the house to be thrown +open and a multitude of lights to be placed in convenient and effective +positions. Such a marshalled wealth of ancient candlesticks and +flambeaux I had never beheld. Niched against the dusky wainscots, +casting great luminous circles upon the pendent stiffness of sombre +tapestries, enhancing and completing with admirable effect the variety +and mystery of the great ancient house, they seemed to people the wide +rooms, as our little group passed slowly from one to another, with a +dim expectant presence. We had thus, in spite of everything, a wonderful +hour of it. Mr. Searle at once assumed the part of cicerone, and--I had +not hitherto done him justice--Mr. Searle became almost agreeable. While +I lingered behind with his sister he walked in advance with his kinsman. +It was as if he had said: “Well, if you want the old place you shall +have it--so far as the impression goes!” He spared us no thrill--I +had almost said no pang--of that experience. Carrying a tall silver +candlestick in his left hand, he raised it and lowered it and cast the +light hither and thither, upon pictures and hangings and carvings and +cornices. He knew his house to perfection. He touched upon a hundred +traditions and memories, he threw off a cloud of rich reference to +its earlier occupants. He threw off again, in his easy elegant way, a +dozen--happily lighter--anecdotes. His relative attended with a brooding +deference. Miss Searle and I meanwhile were not wholly silent. + +“I suppose that by this time you and your cousin are almost old +friends,” I remarked. + +She trifled a moment with her fan and then raised her kind small +eyes. “Old friends--yet at the same time strangely new! My cousin, my +cousin”--and her voice lingered on the word--“it seems so strange to +call him my cousin after thinking these many years that I’ve no one in +the world but my brother. But he’s really so very odd!” + +“It’s not so much he as--well, as his situation, that deserves that +name,” I tried to reason. + +“I’m so sorry for his situation. I wish I could help it in some way. He +interests me so much.” She gave a sweet-sounding sigh. “I wish I could +have known him sooner--and better. He tells me he’s but the shadow of +what he used to be.” + +I wondered if he had been consciously practising on the sensibilities of +this gentle creature. If he had I believed he had gained his point. But +his position had in fact become to my sense so precarious that I hardly +ventured to be glad. “His better self just now seems again to be taking +shape,” I said. “It will have been a good deed on your part if you help +to restore him to all he ought to be.” + +She met my idea blankly. “Dear me, what can I do?” + +“Be a friend to him. Let him like you, let him love you. I dare say you +see in him now much to pity and to wonder at. But let him simply enjoy +a while the grateful sense of your nearness and dearness. He’ll be +a better and stronger man for it, and then you can love him, you can +esteem him, without restriction.” + +She fairly frowned for helplessness. “It’s a hard part for poor stupid +me to play!” + +Her almost infantine innocence left me no choice but to be absolutely +frank. “Did you ever play any part at all?” + +She blushed as if I had been reproaching her with her insignificance. +“Never! I think I’ve hardly lived.” + +“You’ve begun to live now perhaps. You’ve begun to care for something +else than your old-fashioned habits. Pardon me if I seem rather +meddlesome; you know we Americans are very rough and ready. It’s a great +moment. I wish you joy!” + +“I could almost believe you’re laughing at me. I feel more trouble than +joy.” + +“Why do you feel trouble?” + +She paused with her eyes fixed on our companions. “My cousin’s arrival’s +a great disturbance,” she said at last. + +“You mean you did wrong in coming to meet him? In that case the fault’s +mine. He had no intention of giving you the opportunity.” + +“I certainly took too much on myself. But I can’t find it in my heart to +regret it. I never shall regret it! I did the only thing I _could_, heaven +forgive me!” + +“Heaven bless you, Miss Searle! Is any harm to come of it? I did the +evil; let me bear the brunt!” + +She shook her head gravely. “You don’t know my brother!” + +“The sooner I master the subject the better then,” I said. I couldn’t +help relieving myself--at least by the tone of my voice--of the +antipathy with which, decidedly, this gentleman had inspired me. “Not +perhaps that we should get on so well together!” After which, as she +turned away, “Are you _very_ much afraid of him?” I added. + +She gave me a shuddering sidelong glance. “He’s looking at me!” + +He was placed with his back to us, holding a large Venetian hand-mirror, +framed in chiselled silver, which he had taken from a shelf of +antiquities, just at such an angle that he caught the reflexion of his +sister’s person. It was evident that I too was under his attention, and +was resolved I wouldn’t be suspected for nothing. “Miss Searle,” I said +with urgency, “promise me something.” + +She turned upon me with a start and a look that seemed to beg me to +spare her. “Oh don’t ask me--please don’t!” It was as if she were +standing on the edge of a place where the ground had suddenly fallen +away, and had been called upon to make a leap. I felt retreat was +impossible, however, and that it was the greater kindness to assist her +to jump. + +“Promise me,” I repeated. + +Still with her eyes she protested. “Oh what a dreadful day!” she cried +at last. + +“Promise me to let him speak to you alone if he should ask you--any wish +you may suspect on your brother’s part notwithstanding.” She coloured +deeply. “You mean he has something so particular to say?” + +“Something so particular!” + +“Poor cousin!” + +“Well, poor cousin! But promise me.” + +“I promise,” she said, and moved away across the long room and out of +the door. + +“You’re in time to hear the most delightful story,” Searle began to me +as I rejoined him and his host. They were standing before an old sombre +portrait of a lady in the dress of Queen Anne’s time, whose ill-painted +flesh-tints showed livid, in the candle-light, against her dark drapery +and background. “This is Mrs. Margaret Searle--a sort of Beatrix +Esmond--_qui se passait ses fantaisies_. She married a paltry Frenchman, +a penniless fiddler, in the teeth of her whole family. Pretty Mrs. +Margaret, you must have been a woman of courage! Upon my word, she looks +like Miss Searle! But pray go on. What came of it all?” + +Our companion watched him with an air of distaste for his boisterous +homage and of pity for his crude imagination. But he took up the tale +with an effective dryness: “I found a year ago, in a box of very old +papers, a letter from the lady in question to a certain Cynthia Searle, +her elder sister. It was dated from Paris and dreadfully ill-spelled. +It contained a most passionate appeal for pecuniary assistance. She +had just had a baby, she was starving and dreadfully neglected by her +husband--she cursed the day she had left England. It was a most dismal +production. I never heard she found means to return.” + +“So much for marrying a Frenchman!” I said sententiously. + +Our host had one of his waits. “This is the only lady of the family who +ever was taken in by an adventurer.” + +“Does Miss Searle know her history?” asked my friend with a stare at the +rounded whiteness of the heroine’s cheek. + +“Miss Searle knows nothing!” said our host with expression. + +“She shall know at least the tale of Mrs. Margaret,” their guest +returned; and he walked rapidly away in search of her. + +Mr. Searle and I pursued our march through the lighted rooms. “You’ve +found a cousin with a vengeance,” I doubtless awkwardly enough laughed. + +“Ah a vengeance?” my entertainer stiffly repeated. + +“I mean that he takes as keen an interest in your annals and possessions +as yourself.” + +“Oh exactly so! He tells me he’s a bad invalid,” he added in a moment. +“I should never have supposed it.” + +“Within the past few hours he’s a changed man. Your beautiful house, +your extreme kindness, have refreshed him immensely.” Mr. Searle uttered +the vague ejaculation with which self-conscious Britons so often betray +the concussion of any especial courtesy of speech. But he followed this +by a sudden odd glare and the sharp declaration: “I’m an honest man!” I +was quite prepared to assent; but he went on with a fury of frankness, +as if it were the first time in his life he had opened himself to any +one, as if the process were highly disagreeable and he were hurrying +through it as a task. “An honest man, mind you! I know nothing about Mr. +Clement Searle! I never expected to see him. He has been to me a--a--!” + And here he paused to select a word which should vividly enough express +what, for good or for ill, his kinsman represented. “He has been to me +an Amazement! I’ve no doubt he’s a most amiable man. You’ll not deny, +however, that he’s a very extraordinary sort of person. I’m sorry he’s +ill. I’m sorry he’s poor. He’s my fiftieth cousin. Well and good. I’m +an honest man. He shall not have it to say that he wasn’t received at my +house.” + +“He too, thank heaven, is an honest man!” I smiled. + +“Why the devil then,” cried Mr. Searle, turning almost fiercely on me, +“has he put forward this underhand claim to my property?” + +The question, quite ringing out, flashed backward a gleam of light upon +the demeanour of our host and the suppressed agitation of his sister. In +an instant the jealous gentleman revealed itself. For a moment I was so +surprised and scandalised at the directness of his attack that I lacked +words to reply. As soon as he had spoken indeed Mr. Searle appeared to +feel he had been wanting in form. “Pardon me,” he began afresh, “if I +speak of this matter with heat. But I’ve been more disgusted than I +can say to hear, as I heard this morning from my solicitor, of the +extraordinary proceedings of Mr. Clement Searle. Gracious goodness, +sir, for what does the man take me? He pretends to the Lord knows what +fantastic admiration for my place. Let him then show his respect for it +by not taking too many liberties! Let him, with his high-flown parade +of loyalty, imagine a tithe of what _I_ feel! I love my estate; it’s my +passion, my conscience, my life! Am I to divide it up at this time of +day with a beggarly foreigner--a man without means, without appearance, +without proof, a pretender, an adventurer, a chattering mountebank? I +thought America boasted having lands for all men! Upon my soul, sir, +I’ve never been so shocked in my life.” + +I paused for some moments before speaking, to allow his passion fully to +expend itself and to flicker up again if it chose; for so far as I was +concerned in the whole awkward matter I but wanted to deal with him +discreetly. “Your apprehensions, sir,” I said at last, “your not +unnatural surprise, perhaps, at the candour of our interest, have acted +too much on your nerves. You’re attacking a man of straw, a creature +of unworthy illusion; though I’m sadly afraid you’ve wounded a man +of spirit and conscience. Either my friend has no valid claim on your +estate, in which case your agitation is superfluous; or he _has_ a valid +claim--” + +Mr. Searle seized my arm and glared at me; his pale face paler still +with the horror of my suggestion, his great eyes of alarm glowing and +his strange red hair erect and quivering. “A valid claim!” he shouted. +“Let him try it--let him bring it into court!” + +We had emerged into the great hall and stood facing the main doorway. +The door was open into the portico, through the stone archway of which +I saw the garden glitter in the blue light of a full moon. As the master +of the house uttered the words I have just repeated my companion came +slowly up into the porch from without, bareheaded, bright in the outer +moonlight, dark in the shadow of the archway, and bright again in the +lamplight at the entrance of the hall. As he crossed the threshold the +butler made an appearance at the head of the staircase on our left, +faltering visibly a moment at sight of Mr. Searle; after which, noting +my friend, he gravely descended. He bore in his hand a small silver +tray. On the tray, gleaming in the light of the suspended lamp, lay a +folded note. Clement Searle came forward, staring a little and startled, +I think, by some quick nervous prevision of a catastrophe. The butler +applied the match to the train. He advanced to my fellow visitor, all +solemnly, with the offer of his missive. Mr. Searle made a movement as +if to spring forward, but controlled himself. “Tottenham!” he called in +a strident voice. + +“Yes, sir!” said Tottenham, halting. + +“Stand where you are. For whom is that note?” + +“For Mr. Clement Searle,” said the butler, staring straight before him +and dissociating himself from everything. + +“Who gave it to you?” + +“Mrs. Horridge, sir.” This personage, I afterwards learned, was our +friend the housekeeper. + +“Who gave it Mrs. Horridge?” + +There was on Tottenham’s part just an infinitesimal pause before +replying. + +“My dear sir,” broke in Searle, his equilibrium, his ancient ease, +completely restored by the crisis, “isn’t that rather my business?” + +“What happens in my house is my business, and detestable things seem to +be happening.” Our host, it was clear, now so furiously detested them +that I was afraid he would snatch the bone of contention without more +ceremony. “Bring me that thing!” he cried; on which Tottenham stiffly +moved to obey. + +“Really this is too much!” broke out my companion, affronted and +helpless. + +So indeed it struck me, and before Mr. Searle had time to take the note +I possessed myself of it. “If you’ve no consideration for your sister +let a stranger at least act for her.” And I tore the disputed object +into a dozen pieces. + +“In the name of decency, what does this horrid business mean?” my +companion quavered. + +Mr. Searle was about to open fire on him, but at that moment our hostess +appeared on the staircase, summoned evidently by our high-pitched +contentious voices. She had exchanged her dinner-dress for a dark +wrapper, removed her ornaments and begun to disarrange her hair, a +thick tress of which escaped from the comb. She hurried down with a +pale questioning face. Feeling distinctly that, for ourselves, immediate +departure was in the air, and divining Mr. Tottenham to be a person of +a few deep-seated instincts and of much latent energy, I seized the +opportunity to request him, _sotto voce_, to send a carriage to the door +without delay. “And put up our things,” I added. + +Our host rushed at his sister and grabbed the white wrist that escaped +from the loose sleeve of her dress. “What was in that note?” he quite +hissed at her. + +Miss Searle looked first at its scattered fragments and then at her +cousin. “Did you read it?” + +“No, but I thank you for it!” said Searle. + +Her eyes, for an instant, communicated with his own as I think they had +never, never communicated with any other source of meaning; then she +transferred them to her brother’s face, where the sense went out of +them, only to leave a dull sad patience. But there was something even +in this flat humility that seemed to him to mock him, so that he flushed +crimson with rage and spite and flung her away. “You always were an +idiot! Go to bed.” + +In poor Searle’s face as well the gathered serenity had been by this +time all blighted and distorted and the reflected brightness of his +happy day turned to blank confusion. “Have I been dealing these three +hours with a madman?” he woefully cried. + +“A madman, yes, if you will! A man mad with the love of his home and the +sense of its stability. I’ve held my tongue till now, but you’ve been +too much for me. Who the devil are you, and what and why and whence?” + the terrible little man continued. “From what paradise of fools do you +come that you fancy I shall make over to you, for the asking, a part +of my property and my life? I’m forsooth, you ridiculous person, to go +shares with you? Prove your preposterous claim! There isn’t _that_ in it!” + And he kicked one of the bits of paper on the floor. + +Searle received this broadside gaping. Then turning away he went and +seated himself on a bench against the wall and rubbed his forehead +amazedly. I looked at my watch and listened for the wheels of our +carriage. + +But his kinsman was too launched to pull himself up. “Wasn’t it enough +that you should have plotted against my rights? Need you have come into +my very house to intrigue with my sister?” + +My friend put his two hands to his face. “Oh, oh, oh!” he groaned while +Miss Searle crossed rapidly and dropped on her knees at his side. + +“Go to bed, you fool!” shrieked her brother. + +“Dear cousin,” she said, “it’s cruel you’re to have so to think of us!” + +“Oh I shall think of _you_ as you’d like!” He laid a hand on her head. + +“I believe you’ve done nothing wrong,” she brought bravely out. + +“I’ve done what I could,” Mr. Searle went on--“but it’s arrant folly to +pretend to friendship when this abomination lies between us. You were +welcome to my meat and my wine, but I wonder you could swallow them. The +sight spoiled _my_ appetite!” cried the master of Lackley with a laugh. +“Proceed with your trumpery case! My people in London are instructed and +prepared.” + +“I shouldn’t wonder if your case had improved a good deal since you gave +it up,” I was moved to observe to Searle. + +“Oho! you don’t feign ignorance then?” and our insane entertainer shook +his shining head at me. “It’s very kind of you to give it up! Perhaps +you’ll also give up my sister!” + +Searle sat staring in distress at his adversary. “Ah miserable man--I +thought we had become such beautiful friends.” + +“Boh, you hypocrite!” screamed our host. + +Searle seemed not to hear him. “Am I seriously expected,” he slowly and +painfully pursued, “to defend myself against the accusation of any real +indelicacy--to prove I’ve done nothing underhand or impudent? Think what +you please!” And he rose, with an effort, to his feet. “I know what _you_ +think!” he added to Miss Searle. + +The wheels of the carriage resounded on the gravel, and at the same +moment a footman descended with our two portmanteaux. Mr. Tottenham +followed him with our hats and coats. + +“Good God,” our host broke out again, “you’re not going away?”--an +ejaculation that, after all that had happened, had the grandest +comicality. “Bless my soul,” he then remarked as artlessly, “of course +you’re going!” + +“It’s perhaps well,” said Miss Searle with a great effort, inexpressibly +touching in one for whom great efforts were visibly new and strange, +“that I should tell you what my poor little note contained.” + +“That matter of your note, madam,” her brother interrupted, “you and I +will settle together!” + +“Let me imagine all sorts of kind things!” Searle beautifully pleaded. + +“Ah too much has been imagined!” she answered simply. “It was only a +word of warning. It was to tell you to go. I knew something painful was +coming.” + +He took his hat. “The pains and the pleasures of this day,” he said to +his kinsman, “I shall equally never forget. Knowing you,” and he offered +his hand to Miss Searle, “has been the pleasure of pleasures. I hoped +something more might have come of it.” + +“A monstrous deal too much has come of it!” Mr. Searle irrepressibly +declared. + +His departing guest looked at him mildly, almost benignantly, from head +to foot, and then with closed eyes and some collapse of strength, “I’m +afraid so, I can’t stand more,” he went on. I gave him my arm and we +crossed the threshold. As we passed out I heard Miss Searle break into +loud weeping. + +“We shall hear from each other yet, I take it!” her brother pursued, +harassing our retreat. + +My friend stopped, turning round on him fiercely. “You very impossible +man!” he cried in his face. + +“Do you mean to say you’ll not prosecute?” Mr. Searle kept it up. “I +shall force you to prosecute! I shall drag you into court, and you shall +be beaten--beaten--beaten!” Which grim reiteration followed us on our +course. + +We drove of course to the little wayside inn from which we had departed +in the morning so unencumbered, in all broad England, either with +enemies or friends. My companion, as the carriage rolled along, seemed +overwhelmed and exhausted. “What a beautiful horrible dream!” he +confusedly wailed. “What a strange awakening! What a long long day! What +a hideous scene! Poor me! Poor woman!” When we had resumed possession of +our two little neighbouring rooms I asked him whether Miss Searle’s +note had been the result of anything that had passed between them on +his going to rejoin her. “I found her on the terrace,” he said, “walking +restlessly up and down in the moonlight. I was greatly excited--I +hardly know what I said. I asked her, I think, if she knew the story of +Margaret Searle. She seemed frightened and troubled, and she used +just the words her brother had used--‘I know nothing.’ For the moment, +somehow, I felt as a man drunk. I stood before her and told her, with +great emphasis, how poor Margaret had married a beggarly foreigner--all +in obedience to her heart and in defiance to her family. As I talked the +sheeted moonlight seemed to close about us, so that we stood there in +a dream, in a world quite detached. She grew younger, prettier, more +attractive--I found myself talking all kinds of nonsense. Before I knew +it I had gone very far. I was taking her hand and calling her ‘Margaret, +dear Margaret!’ She had said it was impossible, that she could do +nothing, that she was a fool, a child, a slave. Then with a sudden +sense--it was odd how it came over me there--of the reality of my +connexion with the place, I spoke of my claim against the estate. ‘It +exists,’ I declared, ‘but I’ve given it up. Be generous! Pay me for my +sacrifice.’ For an instant her face was radiant. ‘If I marry you,’ +she asked, ‘will it make everything right?’ Of that I at once assured +her--in our marriage the whole difficulty would melt away like a +rain-drop in the great sea. ‘Our marriage!’ she repeated in wonder; and +the deep ring of her voice seemed to wake us up and show us our folly. +‘I love you, but I shall never see you again,’ she cried; and she +hurried away with her face in her hands. I walked up and down the +terrace for some moments, and then came in and met you. That’s the only +witchcraft I’ve used!” + +The poor man was at once so roused and so shaken by the day’s events +that I believed he would get little sleep. Conscious on my own part that +I shouldn’t close my eyes, I but partly undressed, stirred my fire +and sat down to do some writing. I heard the great clock in the little +parlour below strike twelve, one, half-past one. Just as the vibration +of this last stroke was dying on the air the door of communication with +Searle’s room was flung open and my companion stood on the threshold, +pale as a corpse, in his nightshirt, shining like a phantom against the +darkness behind him. “Look well at me!” he intensely gasped; “touch me, +embrace me, revere me! You see a man who has seen a ghost!” + +“Gracious goodness, what do you mean?” + +“Write it down!” he went on. “There, take your pen. Put it into dreadful +words. How do I look? Am I human? Am I pale? Am I red? Am I speaking +English? A ghost, sir! Do you understand?” + +I confess there came upon me by contact a kind of supernatural shock. I +shall always feel by the whole communication of it that I too have seen +a ghost. My first movement--I can smile at it now--was to spring to the +door, close it quickly and turn the key upon the gaping blackness from +which Searle had emerged. I seized his two hands; they were wet with +perspiration. I pushed my chair to the fire and forced him to sit down +in it; then I got on my knees and held his hands as firmly as possible. +They trembled and quivered; his eyes were fixed save that the pupil +dilated and contracted with extraordinary force. I asked no questions, +but waited there, very curious for what he would say. At last he spoke. +“I’m not frightened, but I’m--oh excited! This is life! This is living! +My nerves--my heart--my brain! They’re throbbing--don’t you feel it? Do +you tingle? Are you hot? Are you cold? Hold me tight--tight--tight! I +shall tremble away into waves--into surges--and know all the secrets of +things and all the reasons and all the mysteries!” He paused a moment +and then went on: “A woman--as clear as that candle: no, far clearer! In +a blue dress, with a black mantle on her head and a little black muff. +Young and wonderfully pretty, pale and ill; with the sadness of all +the women who ever loved and suffered pleading and accusing in her +wet-looking eyes. God knows I never did any such thing! But she took me +for my elder, for the other Clement. She came to me here as she would +have come to me there. She wrung her hands and she spoke to me ‘marry +me!’ she moaned; ‘marry me and put an end to my shame!’ I sat up in bed, +just as I sit here, looked at her, heard her--heard her voice melt away, +watched her figure fade away. Bless us and save us! Here I be!” + +I made no attempt either to explain or to criticise this extraordinary +passage. It’s enough that I yielded for the hour to the strange force +of my friend’s emotion. On the whole I think my own vision was the +more interesting of the two. He beheld but the transient irresponsible +spectre--I beheld the human subject hot from the spectral presence. Yet +I soon recovered my judgement sufficiently to be moved again to try to +guard him against the results of excitement and exposure. It was easily +agreed that he was not for the night to return to his room, and I made +him fairly comfortable in his place by my fire. Wishing above all to +preserve him from a chill I removed my bedding and wrapped him in the +blankets and counterpane. I had no nerves either for writing or for +sleep; so I put out my lights, renewed the fuel and sat down on the +opposite side of the hearth. I found it a great and high solemnity just +to watch my companion. Silent, swathed and muffled to his chin, he sat +rigid and erect with the dignity of his adventure. For the most part +his eyes were closed; though from time to time he would open them with +a steady expansion and stare, never blinking, into the flame, as if he +again beheld without terror the image of the little woman with the muff. +His cadaverous emaciated face, his tragic wrinkles intensified by the +upward glow from the hearth, his distorted moustache, his extraordinary +gravity and a certain fantastical air as the red light flickered over +him, all re-enforced his fine likeness to the vision-haunted knight of +La Mancha when laid up after some grand exploit. The night passed wholly +without speech. Toward its close I slept for half an hour. When I awoke +the awakened birds had begun to twitter and Searle, unperturbed, sat +staring at me. We exchanged a long look, and I felt with a pang that his +glittering eyes had tasted their last of natural sleep. “How is it? Are +you comfortable?” I nevertheless asked. + +He fixed me for a long time without replying and then spoke with a +weak extravagance and with such pauses between his words as might have +represented the slow prompting of an inner voice. “You asked me when +you first knew me what I was. ‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘nothing of any +consequence.’ Nothing I’ve always supposed myself to be. But I’ve +wronged myself--I’m a great exception. I’m a haunted man!” + +If sleep had passed out of his eyes I felt with even a deeper pang that +sanity had abandoned his spirit. From this moment I was prepared for +the worst. There were in my friend, however, such confirmed habits of +mildness that I found myself not in the least fearing he would prove +unmanageable. As morning began fully to dawn upon us I brought our +curious vigil to a close. Searle was so enfeebled that I gave him +my hands to help him out of his chair, and he retained them for some +moments after rising to his feet, unable as he seemed to keep his +balance. “Well,” he said, “I’ve been once favoured, but don’t think I +shall be favoured again. I shall soon be myself as fit to ‘appear’ as +any of them. I shall haunt the master of Lackley! It can only mean +one thing--that they’re getting ready for me on the other side of the +grave.” + +When I touched the question of breakfast he replied that he had his +breakfast in his pocket; and he drew from his travelling-bag a phial of +morphine. He took a strong dose and went to bed. At noon I found him +on foot again, dressed, shaved, much refreshed. “Poor fellow,” he said, +“you’ve got more than you bargained for--not only a man with a grievance +but a man with a ghost. Well, it won’t be for long!” It had of course +promptly become a question whither we should now direct our steps. “As +I’ve so little time,” he argued for this, “I should like to see the +best, the best alone.” I answered that either for time or eternity I had +always supposed Oxford to represent the English maximum, and for Oxford +in the course of an hour we accordingly departed. + + + + +IV + +Of that extraordinary place I shall not attempt to speak with any order +or indeed with any coherence. It must ever remain one of the supreme +gratifications of travel for any American aware of the ancient pieties +of race. The impression it produces, the emotions it kindles in the +mind of such a visitor, are too rich and various to be expressed in the +halting rhythm of prose. Passing through the small oblique streets in +which the long grey battered public face of the colleges seems to watch +jealously for sounds that may break upon the stillness of study, you +feel it the most dignified and most educated of cities. Over and through +it all the great corporate fact of the University slowly throbs after +the fashion of some steady bass in a concerted piece or that of the +mediaeval mystical presence of the Empire in the old States of Germany. +The plain perpendicular of the so mildly conventual fronts, masking +blest seraglios of culture and leisure, irritates the imagination +scarce less than the harem-walls of Eastern towns. Within their arching +portals, however, you discover more sacred and sunless courts, and +the dark verdure soothing and cooling to bookish eyes. The grey-green +quadrangles stand for ever open with a trustful hospitality. The seat of +the humanities is stronger in her own good manners than in a marshalled +host of wardens and beadles. Directly after our arrival my friend and +I wandered forth in the luminous early dusk. We reached the bridge +that under-spans the walls of Magdalen and saw the eight-spired tower, +delicately fluted and embossed, rise in temperate beauty--the perfect +prose of Gothic--wooing the eyes to the sky that was slowly drained +of day. We entered the low monkish doorway and stood in the dim little +court that nestles beneath the tower, where the swallows niche more +lovingly in the tangled ivy than elsewhere in Oxford, and passed into +the quiet cloister and studied the small sculptured monsters on the +entablature of the arcade. I rejoiced in every one of my unhappy +friend’s responsive vibrations, even while feeling that they might as +direfully multiply as those that had preceded them. I may say that from +this time forward I found it difficult to distinguish in his company +between the riot of fancy and the labour of thought, or to fix the +balance between what he saw and what he imagined. He had already begun +playfully to exchange his identity for that of the earlier Clement +Searle, and he now delivered himself almost wholly in the character of +his old-time kinsman. + +“_This_ was my college, you know,” he would almost anywhere break out, +applying the words wherever we stood--“the sweetest and noblest in +the whole place. How often have I strolled in this cloister with my +intimates of the other world! They are all dead and buried, but many a +young fellow as we meet him, dark or fair, tall or short, reminds me of +the past age and the early attachment. Even as we stand here, they say, +the whole thing feels about its massive base the murmurs of the tide of +time; some of the foundation-stones are loosened, some of the breaches +will have to be repaired. Mine was the old unregenerate Oxford, the home +of rank abuses, of distinctions and privileges the most delicious and +invidious. What cared I, who was a perfect gentleman and with my pockets +full of money? I had an allowance of a thousand a year.” + +It was at once plain to me that he had lost the little that remained of +his direct grasp on life and was unequal to any effort of seeing things +in their order. He read my apprehension in my eyes and took pains to +assure me I was right. “I’m going straight down hill. Thank heaven it’s +an easy slope, coated with English turf and with an English churchyard +at the foot.” The hysterical emotion produced by our late dire +misadventure had given place to an unruffled calm in which the scene +about us was reflected as in an old-fashioned mirror. We took an +afternoon walk through Christ-Church meadow and at the river-bank +procured a boat which I pulled down the stream to Iffley and to the +slanting woods of Nuneham--the sweetest flattest reediest stream-side +landscape that could be desired. Here of course we encountered the +scattered phalanx of the young, the happy generation, clad in white +flannel and blue, muscular fair-haired magnificent fresh, whether +floated down the current by idle punts and lounging in friendly couples +when not in a singleness that nursed ambitions, or straining together +in rhythmic crews and hoarsely exhorted from the near bank. When to the +exhibition of so much of the clearest joy of wind and limb we added the +great sense of perfumed protection shed by all the enclosed lawns and +groves and bowers, we felt that to be young in such scholastic shades +must be a double, an infinite blessing. As my companion found himself +less and less able to walk we repaired in turn to a series of gardens +and spent long hours sitting in their greenest places. They struck us as +the fairest things in England and the ripest and sweetest fruit of the +English system. Locked in their antique verdure, guarded, as in the case +of New College, by gentle battlements of silver-grey, outshouldering the +matted leafage of undisseverable plants, filled with nightingales and +memories, a sort of chorus of tradition; with vaguely-generous youths +sprawling bookishly on the turf as if to spare it the injury of +their boot-heels, and with the great conservative college countenance +appealing gravely from the restless outer world, they seem places to +lie down on the grass in for ever, in the happy faith that life is all +a green old English garden and time an endless summer afternoon. This +charmed seclusion was especially grateful to my friend, and his sense of +it reached its climax, I remember, on one of the last of such occasions +and while we sat in fascinated _flânerie_ over against the sturdy back of +Saint John’s. The wide discreetly-windowed wall here perhaps broods upon +the lawn with a more effective air of property than elsewhere. Searle +dropped into fitful talk and spun his humour into golden figures. Any +passing undergraduate was a peg to hang a fable, every feature of the +place a pretext for more embroidery. + +“Isn’t it all a delightful lie?” he wanted to know. “Mightn’t one fancy +this the very central point of the world’s heart, where all the echoes +of the general life arrive but to falter and die? Doesn’t one feel the +air just thick with arrested voices? It’s well there should be such +places, shaped in the interest of factitious needs, invented to minister +to the book-begotten longing for a medium in which one may dream unwaked +and believe unconfuted; to foster the sweet illusion that all’s well in +a world where so much is so damnable, all right and rounded, smooth and +fair, in this sphere of the rough and ragged, the pitiful unachieved +especially, and the dreadful uncommenced. The world’s made--work’s over. +Now for leisure! England’s safe--now for Theocritus and Horace, for +lawn and sky! What a sense it all gives one of the composite life of +the country and of the essential furniture of its luckier minds! Thank +heaven they had the wit to send me here in the other time. I’m not much +visibly the braver perhaps, but think how I’m the happier! The misty +spires and towers, seen far off on the level, have been all these years +one of the constant things of memory. Seriously, what do the spires and +towers do for these people? Are they wiser, gentler, finer, cleverer? +My diminished dignity reverts in any case at moments to the naked +background of our own education, the deadly dry air in which we gasp for +impressions and comparisons. I assent to it all with a sort of desperate +calmness; I accept it with a dogged pride. We’re nursed at the opposite +pole. Naked come we into a naked world. There’s a certain grandeur +in the lack of decorations, a certain heroic strain in that young +imagination of ours which finds nothing made to its hands, which has to +invent its own traditions and raise high into our morning-air, with +a ringing hammer and nails, the castles in which we dwell. _Noblesse +oblige_--Oxford must damnably do so. What a horrible thing not to rise +to such examples! If you pay the pious debt to the last farthing of +interest you may go through life with her blessing; but if you let it +stand unhonoured you’re a worse barbarian than we! But for the better or +worse, in a myriad private hearts, think how she must be loved! How the +youthful sentiment of mankind seems visibly to brood upon her! Think of +the young lives now taking colour in her cloisters and halls. Think of +the centuries’ tale of dead lads--dead alike with the end of the young +days to which these haunts were a present world, and the close of +the larger lives which the general mother-scene has dropped into less +bottomless traps. What are those two young fellows kicking their heels +over on the grass there? One of them has the _Saturday Review;_ the +other--upon my soul--the other has Artemus Ward! Where do they live, +how do they live, to what end do they live? Miserable boys! How can they +read Artemus Ward under those windows of Elizabeth? What do you think +loveliest in all Oxford? The poetry of certain windows. Do you see that +one yonder, the second of those lesser bays, with the broken cornice +and the lattice? That used to be the window of my bosom friend a hundred +years ago. Remind me to tell you the story of that broken cornice. Don’t +pretend it’s not a common thing to have one’s bosom friend at another +college. Pray was I committed to common things? He was a charming +fellow. By the way, he was a good deal like you. Of course his cocked +hat, his long hair in a black ribbon, his cinnamon velvet suit and his +flowered waistcoat made a difference. We gentlemen used to wear swords.” + +There was really the touch of grace in my poor friend’s divagations--the +disheartened dandy had so positively turned rhapsodist and seer. I +was particularly struck with his having laid aside the diffidence and +self-consciousness of the first days of our acquaintance. He had become +by this time a disembodied observer and critic; the shell of sense, +growing daily thinner and more transparent, transmitted the tremor of +his quickened spirit. He seemed to pick up acquaintances, in the course +of our contemplations, merely by putting out his hand. If I left him for +ten minutes I was sure to find him on my return in earnest conversation +with some affable wandering scholar. Several young men with whom he had +thus established relations invited him to their rooms and entertained +him, as I gathered, with rather rash hospitality. For myself, I chose +not to be present at these symposia; I shrank partly from being held +in any degree responsible for his extravagance, partly from the pang of +seeing him yield to champagne and an admiring circle. He reported such +adventures with less keen a complacency than I had supposed he might +use, but a certain method in his madness, a certain dignity in his +desire to fraternise, appeared to save him from mischance. If they +didn’t think him a harmless lunatic they certainly thought him a +celebrity of the Occident. Two things, however, grew evident--that he +drank deeper than was good for him and that the flagrant freshness of +his young patrons rather interfered with his predetermined sense of the +element of finer romance. At the same time it completed his knowledge +of the place. Making the acquaintance of several tutors and fellows, +he dined in hall in half a dozen colleges, alluding afterwards to these +banquets with religious unction. One evening after a participation +indiscreetly prolonged he came back to the hotel in a cab, accompanied +by a friendly undergraduate and a physician and looking deadly pale. He +had swooned away on leaving table and remained so rigidly unconscious +as much to agitate his banqueters. The following twenty-four hours he of +course spent in bed, but on the third day declared himself strong enough +to begin afresh. On his reaching the street his strength once more +forsook him, so that I insisted on his returning to his room. He +besought me with tears in his eyes not to shut him up. “It’s my last +chance--I want to go back for an hour to that garden of Saint John’s. +Let me eat and drink--to-morrow I die.” It seemed to me possible that +with a Bath-chair the expedition might be accomplished. The hotel, it +appeared, possessed such a convenience, which was immediately produced. +It became necessary hereupon that we should have a person to propel the +chair. As there was no one on the spot at liberty I was about to perform +the office; but just as my patient had got seated and wrapped--he now +had a perpetual chill--an elderly man emerged from a lurking-place near +the door and, with a formal salute, offered to wait upon the gentleman. +We assented, and he proceeded solemnly to trundle the chair before him. +I recognised him as a vague personage whom I had observed to lounge +shyly about the doors of the hotels, at intervals during our stay, with +a depressed air of wanting employment and a poor semblance of finding +it. He had once indeed in a half-hearted way proposed himself as an +amateur cicerone for a tour through the colleges; and I now, as I +looked at him, remembered with a pang that I had too curtly declined his +ministrations. Since then his shyness, apparently, had grown less or +his misery greater, for it was with a strange grim avidity that he +now attached himself to our service. He was a pitiful image of shabby +gentility and the dinginess of “reduced circumstances.” He would +have been, I suppose, some fifty years of age; but his pale haggard +unwholesome visage, his plaintive drooping carriage and the irremediable +disarray of his apparel seemed to add to the burden of his days and +tribulations. His eyes were weak and bloodshot, his bold nose was sadly +compromised, and his reddish beard, largely streaked with grey, bristled +under a month’s neglect of the razor. In all this rusty forlornness +lurked a visible assurance of our friend’s having known better days. +Obviously he was the victim of some fatal depreciation in the market +value of pure gentility. There had been something terribly affecting in +the way he substituted for the attempt to touch the greasy rim of his +antiquated hat some such bow as one man of the world might make another. +Exchanging a few words with him as we went I was struck with the +decorum of his accent. His fine whole voice should have been congruously +cracked. + +“Take me by some long roundabout way,” said Searle, “so that I may see +as many college-walls as possible.” + +“You know,” I asked of our attendant, “all these wonderful ins and +outs?” + +“I ought to, sir,” he said, after a moment, with pregnant gravity. And +as we were passing one of the colleges, “That used to be my place,” he +added. + +At these words Searle desired him to stop and come round within sight. +“You say that’s _your_ college?” + +“The place might deny me, sir; but heaven forbid I should seem to take +it ill of her. If you’ll allow me to wheel you into the quad I’ll show +you my windows of thirty years ago.” + +Searle sat staring, his huge pale eyes, which now left nothing else +worth mentioning in his wasted face, filled with wonder and pity. “If +you’ll be so kind,” he said with great deference. But just as this +perverted product of a liberal education was about to propel him across +the threshold of the court he turned about, disengaged the mercenary +hands, with one of his own, from the back of the chair, drew their owner +alongside and turned to me. “While we’re here, my dear fellow,” he said, +“be so good as to perform this service. You understand?” I gave our +companion a glance of intelligence and we resumed our way. The latter +showed us his window of the better time, where a rosy youth in a scarlet +smoking-fez now puffed a cigarette at the open casement. Thence we +proceeded into the small garden, the smallest, I believe, and certainly +the sweetest, of all the planted places of Oxford. I pushed the chair +along to a bench on the lawn, turned it round, toward the front of +the college and sat down by it on the grass. Our attendant shifted +mournfully from one foot to the other, his patron eyeing him +open-mouthed. At length Searle broke out: “God bless my soul, sir, you +don’t suppose I expect you to stand! There’s an empty bench.” + +“Thank you,” said our friend, who bent his joints to sit. + +“You English are really fabulous! I don’t know whether I most admire or +most abominate you! Now tell me: who are you? what are you? what brought +you to this?” + +The poor fellow blushed up to his eyes, took off his hat and wiped his +forehead with an indescribable fabric drawn from his pocket. “My name’s +Rawson, sir. Beyond that it’s a long story.” + +“I ask out of sympathy,” said Searle. “I’ve a fellow-feeling. If you’re +a poor devil I’m a poor devil as well.” + +“I’m the poorer devil of the two,” said the stranger with an assurance +for once presumptuous. + +“Possibly. I suppose an English poor devil’s the poorest of all +poor devils. And then you’ve fallen from a height. From a gentleman +commoner--is that what they called you?--to a propeller of Bath-chairs. +Good heavens, man, the fall’s enough to kill you!” + +“I didn’t take it all at once, sir. I dropped a bit one time and a bit +another.” + +“That’s me, that’s me!” cried Searle with all his seriousness. + +“And now,” said our friend, “I believe I can’t drop any further.” + +“My dear fellow”--and Searle clasped his hand and shook it--“I too am at +the very bottom of the hole.” + +Mr. Rawson lifted his eyebrows. “Well, sir, there’s a difference between +sitting in such a pleasant convenience and just trudging behind it!” + +“Yes--there’s a shade. But I’m at my last gasp, Mr. Rawson.” + +“I’m at my last penny, sir.” + +“Literally, Mr. Rawson?” + +Mr. Rawson shook his head with large loose bitterness. “I’ve almost come +to the point of drinking my beer and buttoning my coat figuratively; but +I don’t talk in figures.” + +Fearing the conversation might appear to achieve something like gaiety +at the expense of Mr. Rawson’s troubles, I took the liberty of asking +him, with all consideration, how he made a living. + +“I don’t make a living,” he answered with tearful eyes; “I can’t make +a living. I’ve a wife and three children--and all starving, sir. You +wouldn’t believe what I’ve come to. I sent my wife to her mother’s, who +can ill afford to keep her, and came to Oxford a week ago, thinking I +might pick up a few half-crowns by showing people about the colleges. +But it’s no use. I haven’t the assurance. I don’t look decent. They +want a nice little old man with black gloves and a clean shirt and a +silver-headed stick. What do I look as if I knew about Oxford, sir?” + +“Mercy on us,” cried Searle, “why didn’t you speak to us before?” + +“I wanted to; half a dozen times I’ve been on the point of it. I knew +you were Americans.” + +“And Americans are rich!” cried Searle, laughing. “My dear Mr. Rawson, +American as I am I’m living on charity.” + +“And I’m exactly not, sir! There it is. I’m dying for the lack of that +same. You say you’re a pauper, but it takes an American pauper to go +bowling about in a Bath-chair. America’s an easy country.” + +“Ah me!” groaned Searle. “Have I come to the most delicious corner of +the ancient world to hear the praise of Yankeeland?” + +“Delicious corners are very well, and so is the ancient world,” said Mr. +Rawson; “but one may sit here hungry and shabby, so long as one isn’t +too shabby, as well as elsewhere. You’ll not persuade me that it’s not +an easier thing to keep afloat yonder than here. I wish _I_ were in +Yankeeland, that’s all!” he added with feeble force. Then brooding for +a moment on his wrongs: “Have you a bloated brother? or you, sir? It +matters little to you. But it has mattered to me with a vengeance! +Shabby as I sit here I can boast that advantage--as he his five thousand +a year. Being but a twelvemonth my elder he swaggers while I go thus. +There’s old England for you! A very pretty place for _him!_” + +“Poor old England!” said Searle softly. + +“Has your brother never helped you?” I asked. + +“A five-pound note now and then! Oh I don’t say there haven’t been times +when I haven’t inspired an irresistible sympathy. I’ve not been what I +should. I married dreadfully out of the way. But the devil of it is that +he started fair and I started foul; with the tastes, the desires, the +needs, the sensibilities of a gentleman--and not another blessed ‘tip.’ +I can’t afford to live in England.” + +“_This_ poor gentleman fancied a couple of months ago that he couldn’t +afford to live in America,” I fondly explained. + +“I’d ‘swap’--do you call it?--chances with him!” And Mr. Rawson looked +quaintly rueful over his freedom of speech. + +Searle sat supported there with his eyes closed and his face twitching +for violent emotion, and then of a sudden had a glare of gravity. “My +friend, you’re a dead failure! Be judged! Don’t talk about ‘swapping.’ +Don’t talk about chances. Don’t talk about fair starts and false starts. +I’m at that point myself that I’ve a right to speak. It lies neither +in one’s chance nor one’s start to make one a success; nor in anything +one’s brother--however bloated--can do or can undo. It lies in one’s +character. You and I, sir, have _had_ no character--that’s very plain. +We’ve been weak, sir; as weak as water. Here we are for it--sitting +staring in each other’s faces and reading our weakness in each other’s +eyes. We’re of no importance whatever, Mr. Rawson!” + +Mr. Rawson received this sally with a countenance in which abject +submission to the particular affirmed truth struggled with the +comparative propriety of his general rebellion against fate. In the +course of a minute a due self-respect yielded to the warm comfortable +sense of his being relieved of the cares of an attitude. “Go on, sir, go +on,” he said. “It’s wholesome doctrine.” And he wiped his eyes with what +seemed his sole remnant of linen. + +“Dear, dear,” sighed Searle, “I’ve made you cry! Well, we speak as from +man to man. I should be glad to think you had felt for a moment the +side-light of that great undarkening of the spirit which precedes--which +precedes the grand illumination of death.” + +Mr. Rawson sat silent a little, his eyes fixed on the ground and his +well-cut nose but the more deeply dyed by his agitation. Then at last +looking up: “You’re a very good-natured man, sir, and you’ll never +persuade me you don’t come of a kindly race. Say what you please about a +chance; when a man’s fifty--degraded, penniless, a husband and father--a +chance to get on his legs again is not to be despised. Something tells +me that my luck may be in your country--which has brought luck to so +many. I can come on the parish here of course, but I don’t want to come +on the parish. Hang it, sir, I want to hold up my head. I see thirty +years of life before me yet. If only by God’s help I could have a real +change of air! It’s a fixed idea of mine. I’ve had it for the last ten +years. It’s not that I’m a low radical. Oh I’ve no vulgar opinions. Old +England’s good enough for me, but I’m not good enough for old England. +I’m a shabby man that wants to get out of a room full of staring +gentlefolk. I’m for ever put to the blush. It’s a perfect agony of +spirit; everything reminds me of my younger and better self. The thing +for me would be a cooling cleansing plunge into the unknowing and the +unknown! I lie awake thinking of it.” + +Searle closed his eyes, shivering with a long-drawn tremor which I +hardly knew whether to take for an expression of physical or of mental +pain. In a moment I saw it was neither. “Oh my country, my country, +my country!” he murmured in a broken voice; and then sat for some time +abstracted and lost. I signalled our companion that it was time we +should bring our small session to a close, and he, without hesitating, +possessed himself of the handle of the Bath-chair and pushed it before +him. We had got halfway home before Searle spoke or moved. Suddenly +in the High Street, as we passed a chop-house from whose open doors we +caught a waft of old-fashioned cookery and other restorative elements, +he motioned us to halt. “This is my last five pounds”--and he drew a +note from his pocket-book. “Do me the favour, Mr. Rawson, to accept +it. Go in there and order the best dinner they can give you. Call for a +bottle of Burgundy and drink it to my eternal rest!” + +Mr. Rawson stiffened himself up and received the gift with fingers +momentarily irresponsive. But Mr. Rawson had the nerves of a gentleman. +I measured the spasm with which his poor dispossessed hand closed upon +the crisp paper, I observed his empurpled nostril convulsive under the +other solicitation. He crushed the crackling note in his palm with a +passionate pressure and jerked a spasmodic bow. “I shall not do you the +wrong, sir, of anything but the best!” The next moment the door swung +behind him. + +Searle sank again into his apathy, and on reaching the hotel I helped +him to get to bed. For the rest of the day he lay without motion or +sound and beyond reach of any appeal. The doctor, whom I had constantly +in attendance, was sure his end was near. He expressed great surprise +that he should have lasted so long; he must have been living for a +month on the very dregs of his strength. Toward evening, as I sat by his +bedside in the deepening dusk, he roused himself with a purpose I had +vaguely felt gathering beneath his stupor. “My cousin, my cousin,” he +said confusedly. “Is she here?” It was the first time he had spoken of +Miss Searle since our retreat from her brother’s house, and he continued +to ramble. “I was to have married her. What a dream! That day was like +a string of verses--rhymed hours. But the last verse is bad measure. +What’s the rhyme to ‘love’? _Above!_ Was she a simple woman, a kind sweet +woman? Or have I only dreamed it? She had the healing gift; her touch +would have cured my madness. I want you to do something. Write three +lines, three words: ‘Good-bye; remember me; be happy.’” And then after +a long pause: “It’s strange a person in my state should have a wish. Why +should one eat one’s breakfast the day one’s hanged? What a creature +is man! What a farce is life! Here I lie, worn down to a mere throbbing +fever-point; I breathe and nothing more, and yet I _desire!_ My desire +lives. If I could see her! Help me out with it and let me die.” + +Half an hour later, at a venture, I dispatched by post a note to Miss +Searle: “_Your cousin is rapidly sinking. He asks to see you._” I was +conscious of a certain want of consideration in this act, since it would +bring her great trouble and yet no power to face the trouble; but out +of her distress I fondly hoped a sufficient force might be born. On the +following day my friend’s exhaustion had become so great that I began +to fear his intelligence altogether broken up. But toward evening he +briefly rallied, to maunder about many things, confounding in a sinister +jumble the memories of the past weeks and those of bygone years. “By the +way,” he said suddenly, “I’ve made no will. I haven’t much to bequeath. +Yet I have something.” He had been playing listlessly with a large +signet-ring on his left hand, which he now tried to draw off. “I leave +you this”--working it round and round vainly--“if you can get it off. +What enormous knuckles! There must be such knuckles in the mummies of +the Pharaohs. Well, when I’m gone--! No, I leave you something more +precious than gold--the sense of a great kindness. But I’ve a little +gold left. Bring me those trinkets.” I placed on the bed before him +several articles of jewellery, relics of early foppery: his watch +and chain, of great value, a locket and seal, some odds and ends +of goldsmith’s work. He trifled with them feebly for some moments, +murmuring various names and dates associated with them. At last, looking +up with clearer interest, “What has become,” he asked, “of Mr. Rawson?” + +“You want to see him?” + +“How much are these things worth?” he went on without heeding me. “How +much would they bring?” And he weighed them in his weak hands. “They’re +pretty heavy. Some hundred or so? Oh I’m richer than I thought! +Rawson--Rawson--you want to get out of this awful England?” + +I stepped to the door and requested the servant whom I kept in constant +attendance in our adjacent sitting-room to send and ascertain if Mr. +Rawson were on the premises. He returned in a few moments, introducing +our dismal friend. Mr. Rawson was pale even to his nose and derived from +his unaffectedly concerned state an air of some distinction. I led him +up to the bed. In Searle’s eyes, as they fell on him, there shone for a +moment the light of a human message. + +“Lord have mercy!” gasped Mr. Rawson. + +“My friend,” said Searle, “there’s to be one American the less--so let +there be at the same time one the more. At the worst you’ll be as good a +one as I. Foolish me! Take these battered relics; you can sell them; let +them help you on your way. They’re gifts and mementoes, but this is a +better use. Heaven speed you! May America be kind to you. Be kind, at +the last, to your own country!” + +“Really this is too much; I can’t,” the poor man protested, almost +scared and with tears in his eyes. “Do come round and get well and I’ll +stop here. I’ll stay with you and wait on you.” + +“No, I’m booked for my journey, you for yours. I hope you don’t mind the +voyage.” + +Mr. Rawson exhaled a groan of helpless gratitude, appealing piteously +from so strange a windfall. “It’s like the angel of the Lord who bids +people in the Bible to rise and flee!” + +Searle had sunk back upon his pillow, quite used up; I led Mr. Rawson +back into the sitting-room, where in three words I proposed to him +a rough valuation of our friend’s trinkets. He assented with perfect +good-breeding; they passed into my possession and a second bank-note +into his. + +From the collapse into which this wondrous exercise of his imagination +had plunged him my charge then gave few signs of being likely to emerge. +He breathed, as he had said, and nothing more. The twilight deepened; I +lighted the night-lamp. The doctor sat silent and official at the foot +of the bed; I resumed my constant place near the head. Suddenly our +patient opened his eyes wide. “She’ll not come,” he murmured. “Amen! +she’s an English sister.” Five minutes passed; he started forward. +“She’s come, she’s here!” he confidently quavered. His words conveyed to +my mind so absolute an assurance that I lightly rose and passed into the +sitting-room. At the same moment, through the opposite door, the +servant introduced a lady. A lady, I say; for an instant she was simply +such--tall pale dressed in deep mourning. The next instant I had uttered +her name--“Miss Searle!” She looked ten years older. + +She met me with both hands extended and an immense question in her +face. “He has just announced you,” I said. And then with a fuller +consciousness of the change in her dress and countenance: “What has +happened?” + +“Oh death, death!” she wailed. “You and I are left.” + +There came to me with her words a sickening shock, the sense of poetic +justice somehow cheated, defeated. “Your brother?” I panted. + +She laid her hand on my arm and I felt its pressure deepen as she spoke. +“He was thrown from his horse in the park. He died on the spot. Six days +have passed. Six months!” + +She accepted my support and a moment later we had entered the room and +approached the bedside, from which the doctor withdrew. Searle opened +his eyes and looked at her from head to foot. Suddenly he seemed to make +out her mourning. “Already!” he cried audibly and with a smile, as I +felt, of pleasure. + +She dropped on her knees and took his hand. “Not for you, cousin,” she +whispered. “For my poor brother.” + +He started, in all his deathly longitude, as with a galvanic shock. +“Dead! _He_ dead! Life itself!” And then after a moment and with a slight +rising inflexion: “You’re free?” + +“Free, cousin. Too sadly free. And now--_now_--with what use for freedom?” + +He looked steadily into her eyes, dark in the heavy shadow of her musty +mourning-veil. “For me wear colours!” + +In a moment more death had come, the doctor had silently attested it, +and she had burst into sobs. + +We buried him in the little churchyard in which he had expressed the +wish to lie; beneath one of the blackest and widest of English yews and +the little tower than which none in all England has a softer and hoarier +grey. A year has passed; Miss Searle, I believe, has begun to wear +colours. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PASSIONATE PILGRIM *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following +the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use +of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: A Passionate Pilgrim</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Henry James</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 12, 2003 [eBook #8080]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 7, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Eve Sobol and David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PASSIONATE PILGRIM ***</div> + +<h1>A PASSIONATE PILGRIM</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">By Henry James</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h3>Contents</h3> + +<table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto"> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0001">I</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0002">II</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0003">III</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0004">IV</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + + <h2><a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"></a> + I + </h2> + <p> + Intending to sail for America in the early part of June, I determined to + spend the interval of six weeks in England, to which country my mind’s eye + only had as yet been introduced. I had formed in Italy and France a + resolute preference for old inns, considering that what they sometimes + cost the ungratified body they repay the delighted mind. On my arrival in + London, therefore, I lodged at a certain antique hostelry, much to the + east of Temple Bar, deep in the quarter that I had inevitably figured as + the Johnsonian. Here, on the first evening of my stay, I descended to the + little coffee-room and bespoke my dinner of the genius of “attendance” in + the person of the solitary waiter. No sooner had I crossed the threshold + of this retreat than I felt I had cut a golden-ripe crop of English + “impressions.” The coffee-room of the Red Lion, like so many other places + and things I was destined to see in the motherland, seemed to have been + waiting for long years, with just that sturdy sufferance of time written + on its visage, for me to come and extract the romantic essence of it. + </p> + <p> + The latent preparedness of the American mind even for the most + characteristic features of English life was a matter I meanwhile failed to + get to the bottom of. The roots of it are indeed so deeply buried in the + soil of our early culture that, without some great upheaval of feeling, we + are at a loss to say exactly when and where and how it begins. It makes an + American’s enjoyment of England an emotion more searching than anything + Continental. I had seen the coffee-room of the Red Lion years ago, at home—at + Saragossa Illinois—in books, in visions, in dreams, in Dickens, in + Smollett, in Boswell. It was small and subdivided into six narrow + compartments by a series of perpendicular screens of mahogany, something + higher than a man’s stature, furnished on either side with a meagre + uncushioned ledge, denominated in ancient Britain a seat. In each of these + rigid receptacles was a narrow table—a table expected under stress + to accommodate no less than four pairs of active British elbows. High + pressure indeed had passed away from the Red Lion for ever. It now knew + only that of memories and ghosts and atmosphere. Round the room there + marched, breast-high, a magnificent panelling of mahogany, so dark with + time and so polished with unremitted friction that by gazing a while into + its lucid blackness I made out the dim reflexion of a party of wigged + gentlemen in knee-breeches just arrived from York by the coach. On the + dark yellow walls, coated by the fumes of English coal, of English mutton, + of Scotch whiskey, were a dozen melancholy prints, sallow-toned with age—the + Derby favourite of the year 1807, the Bank of England, her Majesty the + Queen. On the floor was a Turkey carpet—as old as the mahogany + almost, as the Bank of England, as the Queen—into which the waiter + had in his lonely revolutions trodden so many massive soot-flakes and + drops of overflowing beer that the glowing looms of Smyrna would certainly + not have recognised it. To say that I ordered my dinner of this archaic + type would be altogether to misrepresent the process owing to which, + having dreamed of lamb and spinach and a <i>salade de saison</i>, I sat down in + penitence to a mutton-chop and a rice pudding. Bracing my feet against the + cross-beam of my little oaken table, I opposed to the mahogany partition + behind me the vigorous dorsal resistance that must have expressed the + old-English idea of repose. The sturdy screen refused even to creak, but + my poor Yankee joints made up the deficiency. + </p> + <p> + While I was waiting there for my chop there came into the room a person + whom, after I had looked at him a moment, I supposed to be a fellow lodger + and probably the only one. He seemed, like myself, to have submitted to + proposals for dinner; the table on the other side of my partition had been + prepared to receive him. He walked up to the fire, exposed his back to it + and, after consulting his watch, looked directly out of the window and + indirectly at me. He was a man of something less than middle age and more + than middle stature, though indeed you would have called him neither young + nor tall. He was chiefly remarkable for his emphasised leanness. His hair, + very thin on the summit of his head, was dark short and fine. His eye was + of a pale turbid grey, unsuited, perhaps, to his dark hair and well-drawn + brows, but not altogether out of harmony with his colourless bilious + complexion. His nose was aquiline and delicate; beneath it his moustache + languished much rather than bristled. His mouth and chin were negative, or + at the most provisional; not vulgar, doubtless, but ineffectually refined. + A cold fatal gentlemanly weakness was expressed indeed in his attenuated + person. His eye was restless and deprecating; his whole physiognomy, his + manner of shifting his weight from foot to foot, the spiritless droop of + his head, told of exhausted intentions, of a will relaxed. His dress was + neat and “toned down”—he might have been in mourning. I made up my + mind on three points: he was a bachelor, he was out of health, he was not + indigenous to the soil. The waiter approached him, and they conversed in + accents barely audible. I heard the words “claret,” “sherry” with a + tentative inflexion, and finally “beer” with its last letter changed to + “ah.” Perhaps he was a Russian in reduced circumstances; he reminded me + slightly of certain sceptical cosmopolite Russians whom I had met on the + Continent. While in my extravagant way I followed this train—for you + see I was interested—there appeared a short brisk man with + reddish-brown hair, with a vulgar nose, a sharp blue eye and a red beard + confined to his lower jaw and chin. My putative Russian, still in + possession of the rug, let his mild gaze stray over the dingy ornaments of + the room. The other drew near, and his umbrella dealt a playful poke at + the concave melancholy waistcoat. “A penny ha’penny for your thoughts!” + </p> + <p> + My friend, as I call him, uttered an exclamation, stared, then laid his + two hands on the other’s shoulders. The latter looked round at me keenly, + compassing me in a momentary glance. I read in its own vague light that + this was a transatlantic eyebeam; and with such confidence that I hardly + needed to see its owner, as he prepared, with his companion, to seat + himself at the table adjoining my own, take from his overcoat-pocket three + New York newspapers and lay them beside his plate. As my neighbours + proceeded to dine I felt the crumbs of their conversation scattered pretty + freely abroad. I could hear almost all they said, without straining to + catch it, over the top of the partition that divided us. Occasionally + their voices dropped to recovery of discretion, but the mystery pieced + itself together as if on purpose to entertain me. Their speech was pitched + in the key that may in English air be called alien in spite of a few + coincidences. The voices were American, however, with a difference; and I + had no hesitation in assigning the softer and clearer sound to the pale + thin gentleman, whom I decidedly preferred to his comrade. The latter + began to question him about his voyage. + </p> + <p> + “Horrible, horrible! I was deadly sick from the hour we left New York.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you do look considerably reduced,” said the second-comer. + </p> + <p> + “Reduced! I’ve been on the verge of the grave. I haven’t slept six hours + for three weeks.” This was said with great gravity. + </p> + <p> + “Well, I’ve made the voyage for the last time.” + </p> + <p> + “The plague you have! You mean to locate here permanently?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh it won’t be so very permanent!” + </p> + <p> + There was a pause; after which: “You’re the same merry old boy, Searle. + Going to give up the ghost to-morrow, eh?” + </p> + <p> + “I almost wish I were.” + </p> + <p> + “You’re not so sweet on England then? I’ve heard people say at home that + you dress and talk and act like an Englishman. But I know these people + here and I know you. You’re not one of this crowd, Clement Searle, not + you. You’ll go under here, sir; you’ll go under as sure as my name’s + Simmons.” + </p> + <p> + Following this I heard a sudden clatter as of the drop of a knife and + fork. “Well, you’re a delicate sort of creature, if it IS your ugly name! + I’ve been wandering about all day in this accursed city, ready to cry with + homesickness and heartsickness and every possible sort of sickness, and + thinking, in the absence of anything better, of meeting you here this + evening and of your uttering some sound of cheer and comfort and giving me + some glimmer of hope. Go under? Ain’t I under now? I can’t do more than + get under the ground!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Simmons’s superior brightness appeared to flicker a moment in this + gust of despair, but the next it was burning steady again. “<i>Don’t</i> ‘cry,’ + Searle,” I heard him say. “Remember the waiter. I’ve grown Englishman + enough for that. For heaven’s sake don’t let’s have any nerves. Nerves + won’t do anything for you here. It’s best to come to the point. Tell me in + three words what you expect of me.” + </p> + <p> + I heard another movement, as if poor Searle had collapsed in his chair. + “Upon my word, sir, you’re quite inconceivable. You never got my letter?” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, I got your letter. I was never sorrier to get anything in my life.” + </p> + <p> + At this declaration Mr. Searle rattled out an oath, which it was well + perhaps that I but partially heard. “Abijah Simmons,” he then cried, “what + demon of perversity possesses you? Are you going to betray me here in a + foreign land, to turn out a false friend, a heartless rogue?” + </p> + <p> + “Go on, sir,” said sturdy Simmons. “Pour it all out. I’ll wait till you’ve + done. Your beer’s lovely,” he observed independently to the waiter. “I’ll + have some more.” + </p> + <p> + “For God’s sake explain yourself!” his companion appealed. + </p> + <p> + There was a pause, at the end of which I heard Mr. Simmons set down his + empty tankard with emphasis. “You poor morbid mooning man,” he resumed, “I + don’t want to say anything to make you feel sore. I regularly pity you. + But you must allow that you’ve acted more like a confirmed crank than a + member of our best society—in which every one’s so sensible.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Searle seemed to have made an effort to compose himself. “Be so good + as to tell me then what was the meaning of your letter.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, you had got on <i>my</i> nerves, if you want to know, when I wrote it. It + came of my always wishing so to please folks. I had much better have let + you alone. To tell you the plain truth I never was so horrified in my life + as when I found that on the strength of my few kind words you had come out + here to seek your fortune.” + </p> + <p> + “What then did you expect me to do?” + </p> + <p> + “I expected you to wait patiently till I had made further enquiries and + had written you again.” + </p> + <p> + “And you’ve made further enquiries now?” + </p> + <p> + “Enquiries! I’ve committed assaults.” + </p> + <p> + “And you find I’ve no claim?” + </p> + <p> + “No claim that one of <i>these</i> big bugs will look at. It struck me at first + that you had rather a neat little case. I confess the look of it took hold + of me—” + </p> + <p> + “Thanks to your liking so to please folks!” Mr. Simmons appeared for a + moment at odds with something; it proved to be with his liquor. “I rather + think your beer’s too good to be true,” he said to the waiter. “I guess + I’ll take water. Come, old man,” he resumed, “don’t challenge me to the + arts of debate, or you’ll have me right down on you, and then you <i>will</i> + feel me. My native sweetness, as I say, was part of it. The idea that if I + put the thing through it would be a very pretty feather in my cap and a + very pretty penny in my purse was part of it. And the satisfaction of + seeing a horrid low American walk right into an old English estate was a + good deal of it. Upon my word, Searle, when I think of it I wish with all + my heart that, extravagant vain man as you are, I <i>could</i>, for the charm of + it, put you through! I should hardly care what you did with the blamed + place when you got it. I could leave you alone to turn it into Yankee + notions—into ducks and drakes as they call ‘em here. I should like + to see you tearing round over it and kicking up its sacred dust in their + very faces!” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t know me one little bit,” said Mr. Searle, rather shirking, I + thought, the burden of this tribute and for all response to the ambiguity + of the compliment. + </p> + <p> + “I should be very glad to think I didn’t, sir. I’ve been to no small + amount of personal inconvenience for you. I’ve pushed my way right up to + the headspring. I’ve got the best opinion that’s to be had. The best + opinion that’s to be had just gives you one leer over its spectacles. I + guess that look will fix you if you ever get it straight. I’ve been able + to tap, indirectly,” Mr. Simmons went on, “the solicitor of your usurping + cousin, and he evidently knows something to be in the wind. It seems your + elder brother twenty years ago put out a feeler. So you’re not to have the + glory of even making them sit up.” + </p> + <p> + “I never made any one sit up,” I heard Mr. Searle plead. “I shouldn’t + begin at this time of day. I should approach the subject like a + gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + “Well, if you want very much to do something like a gentleman you’ve got a + capital chance. Take your disappointment like a gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + I had finished my dinner and had become keenly interested in poor Mr. + Searle’s unencouraging—or unencouraged—claim; so interested + that I at last hated to hear his trouble reflected in his voice without + being able—all respectfully!—to follow it in his face. I left + my place, went over to the fire, took up the evening paper and established + a post of observation behind it. + </p> + <p> + His cold counsellor was in the act of choosing a soft chop from the dish—an + act accompanied by a great deal of prying and poking with that gentleman’s + own fork. My disillusioned compatriot had pushed away his plate; he sat + with his elbows on the table, gloomily nursing his head with his hands. + His companion watched him and then seemed to wonder—to do Mr. + Simmons justice—how he could least ungracefully give him up. “I say, + Searle,”—and for my benefit, I think, taking me for a native + ingenuous enough to be dazzled by his wit, he lifted his voice a little + and gave it an ironical ring—“in this country it’s the inestimable + privilege of a loyal citizen, under whatsoever stress of pleasure or of + pain, to make a point of eating his dinner.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Searle gave his plate another push. “Anything may happen now. I don’t + care a straw.” + </p> + <p> + “You ought to care. Have another chop and you <i>will</i> care. Have some better + tipple. Take my advice!” Mr. Simmons went on. + </p> + <p> + My friend—I adopt that name for him—gazed from between his two + hands coldly before him. “I’ve had enough of your advice.” + </p> + <p> + “A little more,” said Simmons mildly; “I shan’t trouble you again. What do + you mean to do?” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh come!” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing, nothing, nothing!” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing but starve. How about meeting expenses?” + </p> + <p> + “Why do you ask?” said my friend. “You don’t care.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear fellow, if you want to make me offer you twenty pounds you set + most clumsily about it. You said just now I don’t know you,” Mr. Simmons + went on. “Possibly. Come back with me then,” he said kindly enough, “and + let’s improve our acquaintance.” + </p> + <p> + “I won’t go back. I shall never go back.” + </p> + <p> + “Never?” + </p> + <p> + “Never.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Simmons thought it shrewdly over. “Well, you <i>are</i> sick!” he exclaimed + presently. “All I can say is that if you’re working out a plan for cold + poison, or for any other act of desperation, you had better give it right + up. You can’t get a dose of the commonest kind of cold poison for nothing, + you know. Look here, Searle”—and the worthy man made what struck me + as a very decent appeal. “If you’ll consent to return home with me by the + steamer of the twenty-third I’ll pay your passage down. More than that, + I’ll pay for your beer.” + </p> + <p> + My poor gentleman met it. “I believe I never made up my mind to anything + before, but I think it’s made up now. I shall stay here till I take my + departure for a newer world than any patched-up newness of ours. It’s an + odd feeling—I rather like it! What should I do at home?” + </p> + <p> + “You said just now you were homesick.” + </p> + <p> + “I meant I was sick for a home. Don’t I belong here? Haven’t I longed to + get here all my life? Haven’t I counted the months and the years till I + should be able to ‘go’ as we say? And now that I’ve ‘gone,’ that is that + I’ve come, must I just back out? No, no, I’ll move on. I’m much obliged to + you for your offer. I’ve enough money for the present. I’ve about my + person some forty pounds’ worth of British gold, and the same amount, say, + of the toughness of the heaven-sent idiot. They’ll see me through + together! After they’re gone I shall lay my head in some English + churchyard, beside some ivied tower, beneath an old gnarled black yew.” + </p> + <p> + I had so far distinctly followed the dialogue; but at this point the + landlord entered and, begging my pardon, would suggest that number 12, a + most superior apartment, having now been vacated, it would give him + pleasure if I would look in. I declined to look in, but agreed for number + 12 at a venture and gave myself again, with dissimulation, to my friends. + They had got up; Simmons had put on his overcoat; he stood polishing his + rusty black hat with his napkin. “Do you mean to go down to the place?” he + asked. + </p> + <p> + “Possibly. I’ve thought of it so often that I should like to see it.” + </p> + <p> + “Shall you call on Mr. Searle?” + </p> + <p> + “Heaven forbid!” + </p> + <p> + “Something has just occurred to me,” Simmons pursued with a grin that made + his upper lip look more than ever denuded by the razor and jerked the ugly + ornament of his chin into the air. “There’s a certain Miss Searle, the old + man’s sister.” + </p> + <p> + “Well?” my gentleman quavered. + </p> + <p> + “Well, sir!—you talk of moving on. You might move on the damsel.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Searle frowned in silence and his companion gave him a tap on the + stomach. “Line those ribs a bit first!” He blushed crimson; his eyes + filled with tears. “You ARE a coarse brute,” he said. The scene quite + harrowed me, but I was prevented from seeing it through by the + reappearance of the landlord on behalf of number 12. He represented to me + that I ought in justice to him to come and see how tidy they <i>had</i> made it. + Half an hour afterwards I was rattling along in a hansom toward Covent + Garden, where I heard Madame Bosio in <i>The Barber of Seville</i>. On my return + from the opera I went into the coffee-room; it had occurred to me I might + catch there another glimpse of Mr. Searle. I was not disappointed. I found + him seated before the fire with his head sunk on his breast: he slept, + dreaming perhaps of Abijah Simmons. I watched him for some moments. His + closed eyes, in the dim lamplight, looked even more helpless and resigned, + and I seemed to see the fine grain of his nature in his unconscious mask. + They say fortune comes while we sleep, and, standing there, I felt really + tender enough—though otherwise most unqualified—to be poor Mr. + Searle’s fortune. As I walked away I noted in one of the little prandial + pews I have described the melancholy waiter, whose whiskered chin also + reposed on the bulge of his shirt-front. I lingered a moment beside the + old inn-yard in which, upon a time, the coaches and post-chaises found + space to turn and disgorge. Above the dusky shaft of the enclosing + galleries, where lounging lodgers and crumpled chambermaids and all the + picturesque domesticity of a rattling tavern must have leaned on their + elbows for many a year, I made out the far-off lurid twinkle of the London + constellations. At the foot of the stairs, enshrined in the glittering + niche of her well-appointed bar, the landlady sat napping like some solemn + idol amid votive brass and plate. + </p> + <p> + The next morning, not finding the subject of my benevolent curiosity in + the coffee-room, I learned from the waiter that he had ordered breakfast + in bed. Into this asylum I was not yet prepared to pursue him. I spent the + morning in the streets, partly under pressure of business, but catching + all kinds of romantic impressions by the way. To the searching American + eye there is no tint of association with which the great grimy face of + London doesn’t flush. As the afternoon approached, however, I began to + yearn for some site more gracefully classic than what surrounded me, and, + thinking over the excursions recommended to the ingenuous stranger, + decided to take the train to Hampton Court. The day was the more + propitious that it yielded just that dim subaqueous light which sleeps so + fondly upon the English landscape. + </p> + <p> + At the end of an hour I found myself wandering through the apartments of + the great palace. They follow each other in infinite succession, with no + great variety of interest or aspect, but with persistent pomp and a fine + specific effect. They are exactly of their various times. You pass from + painted and panelled bedchambers and closets, anterooms, drawing-rooms, + council-rooms, through king’s suite, queen’s suite, prince’s suite, until + you feel yourself move through the appointed hours and stages of some + rigid monarchical day. On one side are the old monumental upholsteries, + the big cold tarnished beds and canopies, with the circumference of + disapparelled royalty symbolised by a gilded balustrade, and the great + carved and yawning chimney-places where dukes-in-waiting may have warmed + their weary heels; on the other, in deep recesses, rise the immense + windows, the framed and draped embrasures where the sovereign whispered + and favourites smiled, looking out on terraced gardens and misty park. The + brown walls are dimly illumined by innumerable portraits of courtiers and + captains, more especially with various members of the Batavian <i>entourage</i> + of William of Orange, the restorer of the palace; with good store too of + the lily-bosomed models of Lely and Kneller. The whole tone of this + processional interior is singularly stale and sad. The tints of all things + have both faded and darkened—you taste the chill of the place as you + walk from room to room. It was still early in the day and in the season, + and I flattered myself that I was the only visitor. This complacency, + however, dropped at sight of a person standing motionless before a + simpering countess of Sir Peter Lely’s creation. On hearing my footstep + this victim of an evaporated spell turned his head and I recognised my + fellow lodger of the Red Lion. I was apparently recognised as well; he + looked as if he could scarce wait for me to be kind to him, and in fact + didn’t wait. Seeing I had a catalogue he asked the name of the portrait. + On my satisfying him he appealed, rather timidly, as to my opinion of the + lady. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” said I, not quite timidly enough perhaps, “I confess she strikes + me as no great matter.” + </p> + <p> + He remained silent and was evidently a little abashed. As we strolled away + he stole a sidelong glance of farewell at his leering shepherdess. To + speak with him face to face was to feel keenly that he was no less + interesting than infirm. We talked of our inn, of London, of the palace; + he uttered his mind freely, but seemed to struggle with a weight of + depression. It was an honest mind enough, with no great cultivation but + with a certain natural love of excellent things. I foresaw that I should + find him quite to the manner born—to ours; full of glimpses and + responses, of deserts and desolations. His perceptions would be fine and + his opinions pathetic; I should moreover take refuge from his sense of + proportion in his sense of humour, and then refuge from <i>that</i>, ah me!—in + what? On my telling him that I was a fellow citizen he stopped short, + deeply touched, and, silently passing his arm into my own, suffered me to + lead him through the other apartments and down into the gardens. A large + gravelled platform stretches itself before the basement of the palace, + taking the afternoon sun. Parts of the great structure are reserved for + private use and habitation, occupied by state-pensioners, reduced + gentlewomen in receipt of the Queen’s bounty and other deserving persons. + Many of the apartments have their dependent gardens, and here and there, + between the verdure-coated walls, you catch a glimpse of these somewhat + stuffy bowers. My companion and I measured more than once this long + expanse, looking down on the floral figures of the rest of the affair and + on the stoutly-woven tapestry of creeping plants that muffle the + foundations of the huge red pile. I thought of the various images of + old-world gentility which, early and late, must have strolled in front of + it and felt the protection and security of the place. We peeped through an + antique grating into one of the mossy cages and saw an old lady with a + black mantilla on her head, a decanter of water in one hand and a crutch + in the other, come forth, followed by three little dogs and a cat, to + sprinkle a plant. She would probably have had an opinion on the virtue of + Queen Caroline. Feeling these things together made us quickly, made us + extraordinarily, intimate. My companion seemed to ache with his + impression; he scowled, all gently, as if it gave him pain. I proposed at + last that we should dine somewhere on the spot and take a late train to + town. We made our way out of the gardens into the adjoining village, where + we entered an inn which I pronounced, very sincerely, exactly what we + wanted. Mr. Searle had approached our board as shyly as if it had been a + cold bath; but, gradually warming to his work, he declared at the end of + half an hour that for the first time in a month he enjoyed his victuals. + </p> + <p> + “I’m afraid you’re rather out of health,” I risked. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir—I’m an incurable.” + </p> + <p> + The little village of Hampton Court stands clustered about the entrance of + Bushey Park, and after we had dined we lounged along into the celebrated + avenue of horse-chestnuts. There is a rare emotion, familiar to every + intelligent traveller, in which the mind seems to swallow the sum total of + its impressions at a gulp. You take in the whole place, whatever it be. + You feel England, you feel Italy, and the sensation involves for the + moment a kind of thrill. I had known it from time to time in Italy and had + opened my soul to it as to the spirit of the Lord. Since my landing in + England I had been waiting for it to arrive. A bottle of tolerable + Burgundy, at dinner, had perhaps unlocked to it the gates of sense; it + arrived now with irresistible force. Just the scene around me was the + England of one’s early reveries. Over against us, amid the ripeness of its + gardens, the dark red residence, with its formal facings and its vacant + windows, seemed to make the past definite and massive; the little village, + nestling between park and palace, around a patch of turfy common, with its + taverns of figurative names, its ivy-towered church, its mossy roofs, + looked like the property of a feudal lord. It was in this dark composite + light that I had read the British classics; it was this mild moist air + that had blown from the pages of the poets; while I seemed to feel the + buried generations in the dense and elastic sod. And that I must have + testified in some form or other to what I have called my thrill I gather, + remembering it, from a remark of my companion’s. + </p> + <p> + “You’ve the advantage over me in coming to all this with an educated eye. + You already know what old things can be. I’ve never known it but by + report. I’ve always fancied I should like it. In a small way at home, of + course, I did try to stand by my idea of it. I must be a conservative by + nature. People at home used to call me a cockney and a fribble. But it + wasn’t true,” he went on; “if it had been I should have made my way over + here long ago: before—before—” He paused, and his head dropped + sadly on his breast. + </p> + <p> + The bottle of Burgundy had loosened his tongue; I had but to choose my + time for learning his story. Something told me that I had gained his + confidence and that, so far as attention and attitude might go, I was “in” + for responsibilities. But somehow I didn’t dread them. “Before you lost + your health,” I suggested. + </p> + <p> + “Before I lost my health,” he answered. “And my property—the little + I had. And my ambition. And any power to take myself seriously.” + </p> + <p> + “Come!” I cried. “You shall recover everything. This tonic English climate + will wind you up in a month. And <i>then</i> see how you’ll take yourself—and + how I shall take you!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh,” he gratefully smiled, “I may turn to dust in your hands! I should + like,” he presently pursued, “to be an old genteel pensioner, lodged over + there in the palace and spending my days in maundering about these vistas. + I should go every morning, at the hour when it gets the sun, into that + long gallery where all those pretty women of Lely’s are hung—I know + you despise them!—and stroll up and down and say something kind to + them. Poor precious forsaken creatures! So flattered and courted in their + day, so neglected now! Offering up their shoulders and ringlets and smiles + to that musty deadly silence!” + </p> + <p> + I laid my hand on my friend’s shoulder. “Oh sir, you’re all right!” + </p> + <p> + Just at this moment there came cantering down the shallow glade of the + avenue a young girl on a fine black horse—one of those little + budding gentlewomen, perfectly mounted and equipped, who form to alien + eyes one of the prettiest incidents of English scenery. She had distanced + her servant and, as she came abreast of us, turned slightly in her saddle + and glanced back at him. In the movement she dropped the hunting-crop with + which she was armed; whereupon she reined up and looked shyly at us and at + the implement. “This is something better than a Lely,” I said. Searle + hastened forward, picked up the crop and, with a particular courtesy that + became him, handed it back to the rider. Fluttered and blushing she + reached forward, took it with a quick sweet sound, and the next moment was + bounding over the quiet turf. Searle stood watching her; the servant, as + he passed us, touched his hat. When my friend turned toward me again I saw + that he too was blushing. “Oh sir, you’re all right,” I repeated. + </p> + <p> + At a short distance from where we had stopped was an old stone bench. We + went and sat down on it and, as the sun began to sink, watched the light + mist powder itself with gold. “We ought to be thinking of the train back + to London, I suppose,” I at last said. + </p> + <p> + “Oh hang the train!” sighed my companion. + </p> + <p> + “Willingly. There could be no better spot than this to feel the English + evening stand still.” So we lingered, and the twilight hung about us, + strangely clear in spite of the thickness of the air. As we sat there came + into view an apparition unmistakeable from afar as an immemorial vagrant—the + disowned, in his own rich way, of all the English ages. As he approached + us he slackened pace and finally halted, touching his cap. He was a man of + middle age, clad in a greasy bonnet with false-looking ear-locks depending + from its sides. Round his neck was a grimy red scarf, tucked into his + waistcoat; his coat and trousers had a remote affinity with those of a + reduced hostler. In one hand he had a stick; on his arm he bore a tattered + basket, with a handful of withered vegetables at the bottom. His face was + pale haggard and degraded beyond description—as base as a + counterfeit coin, yet as modelled somehow as a tragic mask. He too, like + everything else, had a history. From what height had he fallen, from what + depth had he risen? He was the perfect symbol of generated constituted + baseness; and I felt before him in presence of a great artist or actor. + </p> + <p> + “For God’s sake, gentlemen,” he said in the raucous tone of weather-beaten + poverty, the tone of chronic sore-throat exacerbated by perpetual gin, + “for God’s sake, gentlemen, have pity on a poor fern-collector!”—turning + up his stale daisies. “Food hasn’t passed my lips, gentlemen, for the last + three days.” We gaped at him and at each other, and to our imagination his + appeal had almost the force of a command. “I wonder if half-a-crown would + help?” I privately wailed. And our fasting botanist went limping away + through the park with the grace of controlled stupefaction still further + enriching his outline. + </p> + <p> + “I feel as if I had seen my <i>Doppelgänger</i>,” said Searle. “He reminds me of + myself. What am I but a mere figure in the landscape, a wandering minstrel + or picker of daisies?” + </p> + <p> + “What are you ‘anyway,’ my friend?” I thereupon took occasion to ask. “Who + are you? kindly tell me.” + </p> + <p> + The colour rose again to his pale face and I feared I had offended him. He + poked a moment at the sod with the point of his umbrella before answering. + “Who am I?” he said at last. “My name is Clement Searle. I was born in New + York, and that’s the beginning and the end of me.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah not the end!” I made bold to plead. + </p> + <p> + “Then it’s because I <i>have</i> no end—any more than an ill-written book. + I just stop anywhere; which means I’m a failure,” the poor man all lucidly + and unreservedly pursued: “a failure, as hopeless and helpless, sir, as + any that ever swallowed up the slender investments of the widow and the + orphan. I don’t pay five cents on the dollar. What I might have been—once!—there’s + nothing left to show. I was rotten before I was ripe. To begin with, + certainly, I wasn’t a fountain of wisdom. All the more reason for a + definite channel—for having a little character and purpose. But I + hadn’t even a little. I had nothing but nice tastes, as they call them, + and fine sympathies and sentiments. Take a turn through New York to-day + and you’ll find the tattered remnants of these things dangling on every + bush and fluttering in every breeze; the men to whom I lent money, the + women to whom I made love, the friends I trusted, the follies I invented, + the poisonous fumes of pleasure amid which nothing was worth a thought but + the manhood they stifled! It was my fault that I believed in pleasure here + below. I believe in it still, but as I believe in the immortality of the + soul. The soul is immortal, certainly—if you’ve got one; but most + people haven’t. Pleasure would be right if it were pleasure straight + through; but it never is. My taste was to be the best in the world; well, + perhaps it was. I had a little money; it went the way of my little wit. + Here in my pocket I have the scant dregs of it. I should tell you I was + the biggest kind of ass. Just now that description would flatter me; it + would assume there’s something left of me. But the ghost of a donkey—what’s + that? I think,” he went on with a charming turn and as if striking off his + real explanation, “I should have been all right in a world arranged on + different lines. Before heaven, sir—whoever you are—I’m in + practice so absurdly tender-hearted that I can afford to say it: I entered + upon life a perfect gentleman. I had the love of old forms and pleasant + rites, and I found them nowhere—found a world all hard lines and + harsh lights, without shade, without composition, as they say of pictures, + without the lovely mystery of colour. To furnish colour I melted down the + very substance of my own soul. I went about with my brush, touching up and + toning down; a very pretty chiaroscuro you’ll find in my track! Sitting + here in this old park, in this old country, I feel that I hover on the + misty verge of what might have been! I should have been born here and not + there; here my makeshift distinctions would have found things they’d have + been true of. How it was I never got free is more than I can say. It might + have cut the knot, but the knot was too tight. I was always out of health + or in debt or somehow desperately dangling. Besides, I had a horror of the + great black sickening sea. A year ago I was reminded of the existence of + an old claim to an English estate, which has danced before the eyes of my + family, at odd moments, any time these eighty years. I confess it’s a bit + of a muddle and a tangle, and am by no means sure that to this hour I’ve + got the hang of it. You look as if you had a clear head: some other time, + if you consent, we’ll have a go at it, such as it is, together. Poverty + was staring me in the face; I sat down and tried to commit the ‘points’ of + our case to memory, as I used to get nine-times-nine by heart as a boy. I + dreamed of it for six months, half-expecting to wake up some fine morning + and hear through a latticed casement the cawing of an English rookery. A + couple of months ago there came out to England on business of his own a + man who once got me out of a dreadful mess (not that I had hurt anyone but + myself), a legal practitioner in our courts, a very rough diamond, but + with a great deal of <i>flair</i>, as they say in New York. It was with him + yesterday you saw me dining. He undertook, as he called it, to ‘nose + round’ and see if anything could be made of our questionable but possible + show. The matter had never seriously been taken up. A month later I got a + letter from Simmons assuring me that it seemed a very good show indeed and + that he should be greatly surprised if I were unable to do something. This + was the greatest push I had ever got in my life; I took a deliberate step, + for the first time; I sailed for England. I’ve been here three days: + they’ve seemed three months. After keeping me waiting for thirty-six hours + my legal adviser makes his appearance last night and states to me, with + his mouth full of mutton, that I haven’t a leg to stand on, that my claim + is moonshine, and that I must do penance and take a ticket for six more + days of purgatory with his presence thrown in. My friend, my friend—shall + I say I was disappointed? I’m already resigned. I didn’t really believe I + had any case. I felt in my deeper consciousness that it was the crowning + illusion of a life of illusions. Well, it was a pretty one. Poor legal + adviser!—I forgive him with all my heart. But for him I shouldn’t be + sitting in this place, in this air, under these impressions. This is a + world I could have got on with beautifully. There’s an immense charm in + its having been kept for the last. After it nothing else would have been + tolerable. I shall now have a month of it, I hope, which won’t be long + enough for it to “go back on me. There’s one thing!”—and here, + pausing, he laid his hand on mine; I rose and stood before him—“I + wish it were possible you should be with me to the end.” + </p> + <p> + “I promise you to leave you only when you kick me downstairs.” But I + suggested my terms. “It must be on condition of your omitting from your + conversation this intolerable flavour of mortality. I know nothing of + ‘ends.’ I’m all for beginnings.” + </p> + <p> + He kept on me his sad weak eyes. Then with a faint smile: “Don’t cut down + a man you find hanging. He has had a reason for it. I’m bankrupt.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh health’s money!” I said. “Get well, and the rest will take care of + itself. I’m interested in your questionable claim—it’s the question + that’s the charm; and pretenders, to anything big enough, have always + been, for me, an attractive class. Only their first duty’s to be gallant.” + </p> + <p> + “Their first duty’s to understand their own points and to know their own + mind,” he returned with hopeless lucidity. “Don’t ask me to climb our + family tree now,” he added; “I fear I haven’t the head for it. I’ll try + some day—if it will bear my weight; or yours added to mine. There’s + no doubt, however, that we, as they say, go back. But I know nothing of + business. If I were to take the matter in hand I should break in two the + poor little silken thread from which everything hangs. In a better world + than this I think I should be listened to. But the wind doesn’t set to + ideal justice. There’s no doubt that a hundred years ago we suffered a + palpable wrong. Yet we made no appeal at the time, and the dust of a + century now lies heaped upon our silence. Let it rest!” + </p> + <p> + “What then,” I asked, “is the estimated value of your interest?” + </p> + <p> + “We were instructed from the first to accept a compromise. Compared with + the whole property our ideas have been small. We were once advised in the + sense of a hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Why a hundred and thirty + I’m sure I don’t know. Don’t beguile me into figures.” + </p> + <p> + “Allow me one more question,” I said. “Who’s actually in possession?” + </p> + <p> + “A certain Mr. Richard Searle. I know nothing about him.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s in some way related to you?” + </p> + <p> + “Our great-grandfathers were half-brothers. What does that make us?” + </p> + <p> + “Twentieth cousins, say. And where does your twentieth cousin live?” + </p> + <p> + “At a place called Lackley—in Middleshire.” + </p> + <p> + I thought it over. “Well, suppose we look up Lackley in Middleshire!” + </p> + <p> + He got straight up. “Go and see it?” + </p> + <p> + “Go and see it.” + </p> + <p> + “Well,” he said, “with you I’ll go anywhere.” + </p> + <p> + On our return to town we determined to spend three days there together and + then proceed to our errand. We were as conscious one as the other of that + deeper mystic appeal made by London to those superstitious pilgrims who + feel it the mother-city of their race, the distributing heart of their + traditional life. Certain characteristics of the dusky Babylon, certain + aspects, phases, features, “say” more to the American spiritual ear than + anything else in Europe. The influence of these things on Searle it + charmed me to note. His observation I soon saw to be, as I pronounced it + to him, searching and caressing. His almost morbid appetite for any + over-scoring of time, well-nigh extinct from long inanition, threw the + flush of its revival into his face and his talk. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + + <h2><a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"></a> + II + </h2> + <p> + We looked out the topography of Middleshire in a county-guide, which spoke + highly, as the phrase is, of Lackley Park, and took up our abode, our + journey ended, at a wayside inn where, in the days of leisure, the coach + must have stopped for luncheon and burnished pewters of rustic ale been + handed up as straight as possible to outsiders athirst with the sense of + speed. We stopped here for mere gaping joy of its steep-thatched roof, its + latticed windows, its hospitable porch, and allowed a couple of days to + elapse in vague undirected strolls and sweet sentimental observance of the + land before approaching the particular business that had drawn us on. The + region I allude to is a compendium of the general physiognomy of England. + The noble friendliness of the scenery, its latent old-friendliness, the + way we scarcely knew whether we were looking at it for the first or the + last time, made it arrest us at every step. The countryside, in the full + warm rains of the last of April, had burst into sudden perfect spring. The + dark walls of the hedgerows had turned into blooming screens, the sodden + verdure of lawn and meadow been washed over with a lighter brush. We went + forth without loss of time for a long walk on the great grassy hills, + smooth arrested central billows of some primitive upheaval, from the + summits of which you find half England unrolled at your feet. A dozen + broad counties, within the scope of your vision, commingle their green + exhalations. Closely beneath us lay the dark rich hedgy flats and the + copse-chequered slopes, white with the blossom of apples. At widely + opposite points of the expanse two great towers of cathedrals rose sharply + out of a reddish blur of habitation, taking the mild English light. + </p> + <p> + We gave an irrepressible attention to this same solar reserve, and found + in it only a refinement of art. The sky never was empty and never idle; + the clouds were continually at play for our benefit. Over against us, from + our station on the hills, we saw them piled and dissolved, condensed and + shifted, blotting the blue with sullen rain-spots, stretching, + breeze-fretted, into dappled fields of grey, bursting into an explosion of + light or melting into a drizzle of silver. We made our way along the + rounded ridge of the downs and reached, by a descent, through slanting + angular fields, green to cottage-doors, a russet village that beckoned us + from the heart of the maze in which the hedges wrapped it up. Close beside + it, I admit, the roaring train bounces out of a hole in the hills; yet + there broods upon this charming hamlet an old-time quietude that makes a + violation of confidence of naming it so far away. We struck through a + narrow lane, a green lane, dim with its barriers of hawthorn; it led us to + a superb old farmhouse, now rather rudely jostled by the multiplied roads + and by-ways that have reduced its ancient appanage. It stands there in + stubborn picturesqueness, doggedly submitting to be pointed out and + sketched. It is a wonderful image of the domiciliary conditions of the + past—cruelly complete; with bended beams and joists, beneath the + burden of gables, that seem to ache and groan with memories and regrets. + The short low windows, where lead and glass combine equally to create an + inward gloom, retain their opacity as a part of the primitive idea of + defence. Such an old house provokes on the part of an American a luxury of + respect. So propped and patched, so tinkered with clumsy tenderness, + clustered so richly about its central English sturdiness, its oaken + vertebrations, so humanised with ages of use and touches of beneficent + affection, it seemed to offer to our grateful eyes a small rude symbol of + the great English social order. Passing out upon the highroad, we came to + the common browsing-patch, the “village-green” of the tales of our youth. + Nothing was absent: the shaggy mouse-coloured donkey, nosing the turf with + his mild and huge proboscis, the geese, the old woman—<i>the</i> old woman, + in person, with her red cloak and her black bonnet, frilled about the face + and double-frilled beside her decent placid cheeks—the towering + ploughman with his white smock-frock puckered on chest and back, his short + corduroys, his mighty calves, his big red rural face. We greeted these + things as children greet the loved pictures in a storybook lost and + mourned and found again. We recognised them as one recognises the + handwriting on letter-backs. Beside the road we saw a ploughboy straddle + whistling on a stile, and he had the merit of being not only a ploughboy + but a Gainsborough. Beyond the stile, across the level velvet of a meadow, + a footpath wandered like a streak drawn by a finger over a surface of fine + plush. We followed it from field to field and from stile to stile; it was + all adorably the way to church. At the church we finally arrived, lost in + its rook-haunted churchyard, hidden from the workday world by the broad + stillness of pastures—a grey, grey tower, a huge black yew, a + cluster of village-graves with crooked headstones and protrusions that had + settled and sunk. The place seemed so to ache with consecration that my + sensitive companion gave way to the force of it. + </p> + <p> + “You must bury me here, you know”—he caught at my arm. “It’s the + first place of worship I’ve seen in my life. How it makes a Sunday where + it stands!” + </p> + <p> + It took the Church, we agreed, to make churches, but we had the sense the + next day of seeing still better why. We walked over some seven miles, to + the nearer of the two neighbouring seats of that lesson; and all through + such a mist of local colour that we felt ourselves a pair of Smollett’s + pedestrian heroes faring tavernward for a night of adventures. As we + neared the provincial city we saw the steepled mass of the cathedral, long + and high, rise far into the cloud-freckled blue; and as we got closer + stopped on a bridge and looked down at the reflexion of the solid minster + in a yellow stream. Going further yet we entered the russet town—where + surely Miss Austen’s heroines, in chariots and curricles, must often have + come a-shopping for their sandals and mittens; we lounged in the grassed + and gravelled precinct and gazed insatiably at that most soul-soothing + sight, the waning wasting afternoon light, the visible ether that feels + the voices of the chimes cling far aloft to the quiet sides of the + cathedral-tower; saw it linger and nestle and abide, as it loves to do on + all perpendicular spaces, converting them irresistibly into registers and + dials; tasted too, as deeply, of the peculiar stillness of this place of + priests; saw a rosy English lad come forth and lock the door of the old + foundation-school that dovetailed with cloister and choir, and carry his + big responsible key into one of the quiet canonical houses: and then stood + musing together on the effect on one’s mind of having in one’s boyhood + gone and come through cathedral-shades as a King’s scholar, and yet kept + ruddy with much cricket in misty river meadows. On the third morning we + betook ourselves to Lackley, having learned that parts of the “grounds” + were open to visitors, and that indeed on application the house was + sometimes shown. + </p> + <p> + Within the range of these numerous acres the declining spurs of the hills + continued to undulate and subside. A long avenue wound and circled from + the outermost gate through an untrimmed woodland, whence you glanced at + further slopes and glades and copses and bosky recesses—at + everything except the limits of the place. It was as free and untended as + I had found a few of the large loose villas of old Italy, and I was still + never to see the angular fact of English landlordism muffle itself in so + many concessions. The weather had just become perfect; it was one of the + dozen exquisite days of the English year—days stamped with a purity + unknown in climates where fine weather is cheap. It was as if the mellow + brightness, as tender as that of the primroses which starred the dark + waysides like petals wind-scattered over beds of moss, had been meted out + to us by the cubic foot—distilled from an alchemist’s crucible. From + this pastoral abundance we moved upon the more composed scene, the park + proper—passed through a second lodge-gate, with weather-worn gilding + on its twisted bars, to the smooth slopes where the great trees stood + singly and the tame deer browsed along the bed of a woodland stream. Here + before us rose the gabled grey front of the Tudor-time, developed and + terraced and gardened to some later loss, as we were afterwards to know, + of type. + </p> + <p> + “Here you can wander all day,” I said to Searle, “like an exiled prince + who has come back on tiptoe and hovers about the dominion of the usurper.” + </p> + <p> + “To think of ‘others’ having hugged this all these years!” he answered. “I + know what I am, but what might I have been? What do such places make of a + man?” + </p> + <p> + “I dare say he gets stupidly used to them,” I said. “But I dare say too, + even then, that when you scratch the mere owner you find the perfect + lover.” + </p> + <p> + “What a perfect scene and background it forms!” my friend, however, had + meanwhile gone on. “What legends, what histories it knows! My heart really + breaks with all I seem to guess. There’s Tennyson’s Talking Oak! What + summer days one could spend here! How I could lounge the rest of my life + away on this turf of the middle ages! Haven’t I some maiden-cousin in that + old hall, or grange, or court—what in the name of enchantment do you + call the thing?—who would give me kind leave?” And then he turned + almost fiercely upon me. “Why did you bring me here? Why did you drag me + into this distraction of vain regrets?” + </p> + <p> + At this moment there passed within call a decent lad who had emerged from + the gardens and who might have been an underling in the stables. I hailed + him and put the question of our possible admittance to the house. He + answered that the master was away from home, but that he thought it + probable the housekeeper would consent to do the honours. I passed my arm + into Searle’s. “Come,” I said; “drain the cup, bitter-sweet though it be. + We must go in.” We hastened slowly and approached the fine front. The + house was one of the happiest fruits of its freshly-feeling era, a + multitudinous cluster of fair gables and intricate chimneys, brave + projections and quiet recesses, brown old surfaces weathered to silver and + mottled roofs that testified not to seasons but to centuries. Two broad + terraces commanded the wooded horizon. Our appeal was answered by a butler + who condescended to our weakness. He renewed the assertion that Mr. Searle + was away from home, but he would himself lay our case before the + housekeeper. We would be so good, however, as to give him our cards. This + request, following so directly on the assertion that Mr. Searle was + absent, was rather resented by my companion. “Surely not for the + housekeeper.” + </p> + <p> + The butler gave a diplomatic cough. “Miss Searle is at home, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Yours alone will have to serve,” said my friend. I took out a card and + pencil and wrote beneath my name <i>New York</i>. As I stood with the pencil + poised a temptation entered into it. Without in the least considering + proprieties or results I let my implement yield—I added above my + name that of Mr. Clement Searle. What would come of it? + </p> + <p> + Before many minutes the housekeeper waited upon us—a fresh rosy + little old woman in a clean dowdy cap and a scanty sprigged gown; a quaint + careful person, but accessible to the tribute of our pleasure, to say + nothing of any other. She had the accent of the country, but the manners + of the house. Under her guidance we passed through a dozen apartments, + duly stocked with old pictures, old tapestry, old carvings, old armour, + with a hundred ornaments and treasures. The pictures were especially + valuable. The two Vandykes, the trio of rosy Rubenses, the sole and sombre + Rembrandt, glowed with conscious authenticity. A Claude, a Murillo, a + Greuze, a couple of Gainsboroughs, hung there with high complacency. + Searle strolled about, scarcely speaking, pale and grave, with bloodshot + eyes and lips compressed. He uttered no comment on what we saw—he + asked but a question or two. Missing him at last from my side I retraced + my steps and found him in a room we had just left, on a faded old ottoman + and with his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands. Before + him, ranged on a great <i>crédence</i>, was a magnificent collection of old + Italian majolica; plates of every shape, with their glaze of happy colour, + jugs and vases nobly bellied and embossed. There seemed to rise before me, + as I looked, a sudden vision of the young English gentleman who, eighty + years ago, had travelled by slow stages to Italy and been waited on at his + inn by persuasive toymen. “What is it, my dear man?” I asked. “Are you + unwell?” + </p> + <p> + He uncovered his haggard face and showed me the flush of a consciousness + sharper, I think, to myself than to him. “A memory of the past! There + comes back to me a china vase that used to stand on the parlour + mantel-shelf when I was a boy, with a portrait of General Jackson painted + on one side and a bunch of flowers on the other. How long do you suppose + that majolica has been in the family?” + </p> + <p> + “A long time probably. It was brought hither in the last century, into + old, old England, out of old, old Italy, by some contemporary dandy with a + taste for foreign gimcracks. Here it has stood for a hundred years, + keeping its clear firm hues in this quiet light that has never sought to + advertise it.” + </p> + <p> + Searle sprang to his feet. “I say, for mercy’s sake, take me away! I can’t + stand this sort of thing. Before I know it I shall do something + scandalous. I shall steal some of their infernal crockery. I shall + proclaim my identity and assert my rights. I shall go blubbering to Miss + Searle and ask her in pity’s name to ‘put me up.’” + </p> + <p> + If he could ever have been said to threaten complications he rather + visibly did so now. I began to regret my officious presentation of his + name and prepared without delay to lead him out of the house. We overtook + the housekeeper in the last room of the series, a small unused boudoir + over whose chimney-piece hung a portrait of a young man in a powdered wig + and a brocaded waistcoat. I was struck with his resemblance to my + companion while our guide introduced him. “This is Mr. Clement Searle, Mr. + Searle’s great-uncle, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. He died young, poor + gentleman; he perished at sea, going to America.” + </p> + <p> + “He was the young buck who brought the majolica out of Italy,” I + supplemented. + </p> + <p> + “Indeed, sir, I believe he did,” said the housekeeper without wonder. + </p> + <p> + “He’s the image of you, my dear Searle,” I further observed. + </p> + <p> + “He’s remarkably like the gentleman, saving his presence,” said the + housekeeper. + </p> + <p> + My friend stood staring. “Clement Searle—at sea—going to + America—?” he broke out. Then with some sharpness to our old woman: + “Why the devil did he go to America?” + </p> + <p> + “Why indeed, sir? You may well ask. I believe he had kinsfolk there. It + was for them to come to him.” + </p> + <p> + Searle broke into a laugh. “It was for them to come to him! Well, well,” + he said, fixing his eyes on our guide, “they’ve come to him at last!” + </p> + <p> + She blushed like a wrinkled rose-leaf. “Indeed, sir, I verily believe + you’re one of <i>us!</i>” + </p> + <p> + “My name’s the name of that beautiful youth,” Searle went on. “Dear + kinsman I’m happy to meet you! And what do you think of this?” he pursued + as he grasped me by the arm. “I have an idea. He perished at sea. His + spirit came ashore and wandered about in misery till it got another + incarnation—in this poor trunk!” And he tapped his hollow chest. + “Here it has rattled about these forty years, beating its wings against + its rickety cage, begging to be taken home again. And I never knew what + was the matter with me! Now at last the bruised spirit can escape!” + </p> + <p> + Our old lady gaped at a breadth of appreciation—if not at the + disclosure of a connexion—beyond her. The scene was really + embarrassing, and my confusion increased as we became aware of another + presence. A lady had appeared in the doorway and the housekeeper dropped + just audibly: “Miss Searle!” My first impression of Miss Searle was that + she was neither young nor beautiful. She stood without confidence on the + threshold, pale, trying to smile and twirling my card in her fingers. I + immediately bowed. Searle stared at her as if one of the pictures had + stepped out of its frame. + </p> + <p> + “If I’m not mistaken one of you gentlemen is Mr. Clement Searle,” the lady + adventured. + </p> + <p> + “My friend’s Mr. Clement Searle,” I took upon myself to reply. “Allow me + to add that I alone am responsible for your having received his name.” + </p> + <p> + “I should have been sorry not to—not to see him,” said Miss Searle, + beginning to blush. “Your being from America has led me—perhaps to + intrude!” + </p> + <p> + “The intrusion, madam, has been on our part. And with just that excuse—that + we come from so far away.” + </p> + <p> + Miss Searle, while I spoke, had fixed her eyes on my friend as he stood + silent beneath Sir Joshua’s portrait. The housekeeper, agitated and + mystified, fairly let herself go. “Heaven preserve us, Miss! It’s your + great-uncle’s picture come to life.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m not mistaken then,” said Miss Searle—“we must be distantly + related.” She had the air of the shyest of women, for whom it was almost + anguish to make an advance without help. Searle eyed her with gentle + wonder from head to foot, and I could easily read his thoughts. This then + was his maiden-cousin, prospective mistress of these hereditary treasures. + She was of some thirty-five years of age, taller than was then common and + perhaps stouter than is now enjoined. She had small kind grey eyes, a + considerable quantity of very light-brown hair and a smiling well-formed + mouth. She was dressed in a lustreless black satin gown with a short + train. Disposed about her neck was a blue handkerchief, and over this + handkerchief, in many convolutions, a string of amber beads. Her + appearance was singular; she was large yet somehow vague, mature yet + undeveloped. Her manner of addressing us spoke of all sorts of deep + diffidences. Searle, I think, had prefigured to himself some proud cold + beauty of five-and-twenty; he was relieved at finding the lady timid and + not obtrusively fair. He at once had an excellent tone. + </p> + <p> + “We’re distant cousins, I believe. I’m happy to claim a relationship which + you’re so good as to remember. I hadn’t counted on your knowing anything + about me.” + </p> + <p> + “Perhaps I’ve done wrong.” And Miss Searle blushed and smiled anew. “But + I’ve always known of there being people of our blood in America, and have + often wondered and asked about them—without ever learning much. + To-day, when this card was brought me and I understood a Clement Searle to + be under our roof as a stranger, I felt I ought to do something. But, you + know, I hardly knew what. My brother’s in London. I’ve done what I think + he would have done. Welcome as a cousin.” And with a resolution that + ceased to be awkward she put out her hand. + </p> + <p> + “I’m welcome indeed if he would have done it half so graciously!” Again + Searle, taking her hand, acquitted himself beautifully. + </p> + <p> + “You’ve seen what there is, I think,” Miss Searle went on. “Perhaps now + you’ll have luncheon.” We followed her into a small breakfast-room where a + deep bay window opened on the mossy flags of a terrace. Here, for some + moments, she remained dumb and abashed, as if resting from a measurable + effort. Searle too had ceased to overflow, so that I had to relieve the + silence. It was of course easy to descant on the beauties of park and + mansion, and as I did so I observed our hostess. She had no arts, no + impulses nor graces—scarce even any manners; she was queerly, almost + frowsily dressed; yet she pleased me well. She had an antique sweetness, a + homely fragrance of old traditions. To be so simple, among those + complicated treasures, so pampered and yet so fresh, so modest and yet so + placid, told of just the spacious leisure in which Searle and I had + imagined human life to be steeped in such places as that. This figure was + to the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood what a fact is to a fairy-tale, an + interpretation to a myth. We, on our side, were to our hostess subjects of + a curiosity not cunningly veiled. + </p> + <p> + “I should like so to go abroad!” she exclaimed suddenly, as if she meant + us to take the speech for an expression of interest in ourselves. + </p> + <p> + “Have you never been?” one of us asked. + </p> + <p> + “Only once. Three years ago my brother took me to Switzerland. We thought + it extremely beautiful. Except for that journey I’ve always lived here. I + was born in this house. It’s a dear old place indeed, and I know it well. + Sometimes one wants a change.” And on my asking her how she spent her time + and what society she saw, “Of course it’s very quiet,” she went on, + proceeding by short steps and simple statements, in the manner of a person + called upon for the first time to analyse to that extent her situation. + “We see very few people. I don’t think there are many nice ones + hereabouts. At least we don’t know them. Our own family’s very small. My + brother cares for nothing but riding and books. He had a great sorrow ten + years ago. He lost his wife and his only son, a dear little boy, who of + course would have had everything. Do you know that that makes me the heir, + as they’ve done something—I don’t quite know what—to the + entail? Poor old me! Since his loss my brother has preferred to be quite + alone. I’m sorry he’s away. But you must wait till he comes back. I expect + him in a day or two.” She talked more and more, as if our very strangeness + led her on, about her circumstances, her solitude, her bad eyes, so that + she couldn’t read, her flowers, her ferns, her dogs, and the vicar, + recently presented to the living by her brother and warranted quite safe, + who had lately begun to light his altar candles; pausing every now and + then to gasp in self-surprise, yet, in the quaintest way in the world, + keeping up her story as if it were a slow rather awkward old-time dance, a + difficult <i>pas seul</i> in which she would have been better with more practice, + but of which she must complete the figure. Of all the old things I had + seen in England this exhibited mind of Miss Searle’s seemed to me the + oldest, the most handed down and taken for granted; fenced and protected + as it was by convention and precedent and usage, thoroughly acquainted + with its subordinate place. I felt as if I were talking with the heroine + of a last-century novel. As she talked she rested her dull eyes on her + kinsman with wondering kindness. At last she put it to him: “Did you mean + to go away without asking for us?” + </p> + <p> + “I had thought it over, Miss Searle, and had determined not to trouble + you. You’ve shown me how unfriendly I should have been.” + </p> + <p> + “But you knew of the place being ours, and of our relationship?” + </p> + <p> + “Just so. It was because of these things that I came down here—because + of them almost that I came to England. I’ve always liked to think of + them,” said my companion. + </p> + <p> + “You merely wished to look then? We don’t pretend to be much to look at.” + </p> + <p> + He waited; her words were too strange. “You don’t know what you are, Miss + Searle.” + </p> + <p> + “You like the old place then?” + </p> + <p> + Searle looked at her again in silence. “If I could only tell you!” he said + at last. + </p> + <p> + “Do tell me. You must come and stay with us.” + </p> + <p> + It moved him to an oddity of mirth. “Take care, take care—I should + surprise you! I’m afraid I should bore you. I should never leave you.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh you’d get homesick—for your real home!” + </p> + <p> + At this he was still more amused. “By the way, tell Miss Searle about our + real home,” he said to me. And he stepped, through the window, out upon + the terrace, followed by two beautiful dogs, a setter and a young + stag-hound who from the moment we came in had established the fondest + relation with him. Miss Searle looked at him, while he went, as if she + vaguely yearned over him; it began to be plain that she was interested in + her exotic cousin. I suddenly recalled the last words I had heard spoken + by my friend’s adviser in London and which, in a very crude form, had + reference to his making a match with this lady. If only Miss Searle could + be induced to think of that, and if one had but the tact to put it in a + light to her! Something assured me that her heart was virgin-soil, that + the flower of romantic affection had never bloomed there. If I might just + sow the seed! There seemed to shape itself within her the perfect image of + one of the patient wives of old. + </p> + <p> + “He has lost his heart to England,” I said. “He ought to have been born + here.” + </p> + <p> + “And yet he doesn’t look in the least an Englishman,” she still rather + guardedly prosed. + </p> + <p> + “Oh it isn’t his looks, poor fellow.” + </p> + <p> + “Of course looks aren’t everything. I never talked with a foreigner + before; but he talks as I have fancied foreigners.” + </p> + <p> + “Yes, he’s foreign enough.” + </p> + <p> + “Is he married?” + </p> + <p> + “His wife’s dead and he’s all alone in the world.” + </p> + <p> + “Has he much property?” + </p> + <p> + “None to speak of.” + </p> + <p> + “But he has means to travel.” + </p> + <p> + I meditated. “He has not expected to travel far,” I said at last. “You + know, he’s in very poor health.” + </p> + <p> + “Poor gentleman! So I supposed.” + </p> + <p> + “But there’s more of him to go on with than he thinks. He came here + because he wanted to see your place before he dies.” + </p> + <p> + “Dear me—kind man!” And I imagined in the quiet eyes the hint of a + possible tear. “And he was going away without my seeing him?” + </p> + <p> + “He’s very modest, you see.” + </p> + <p> + “He’s very much the gentleman.” + </p> + <p> + I couldn’t but smile. “He’s <i>all</i>—” + </p> + <p> + At this moment we heard on the terrace a loud harsh cry. “It’s the great + peacock!” said Miss Searle, stepping to the window and passing out while I + followed her. Below us, leaning on the parapet, stood our appreciative + friend with his arm round the neck of the setter. Before him on the grand + walk strutted the familiar fowl of gardens—a splendid specimen—with + ruffled neck and expanded tail. The other dog had apparently indulged in a + momentary attempt to abash the gorgeous biped, but at Searle’s summons had + bounded back to the terrace and leaped upon the ledge, where he now stood + licking his new friend’s face. The scene had a beautiful old-time air: the + peacock flaunting in the foreground like the genius of stately places; the + broad terrace, which flattered an innate taste of mine for all deserted + walks where people may have sat after heavy dinners to drink coffee in old + Sevres and where the stiff brocade of women’s dresses may have rustled + over grass or gravel; and far around us, with one leafy circle melting + into another, the timbered acres of the park. “The very beasts have made + him welcome,” I noted as we rejoined our companion. + </p> + <p> + “The peacock has done for you, Mr. Searle,” said his cousin, “what he does + only for very great people. A year ago there came here a great person—a + grand old lady—to see my brother. I don’t think that since then he + has spread his tail as wide for any one else—not by a dozen + feathers.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s not alone the peacock,” said Searle. “Just now there came slipping + across my path a little green lizard, the first I ever saw, the lizard of + literature! And if you’ve a ghost, broad daylight though it be, I expect + to see him here. Do you know the annals of your house, Miss Searle?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh dear, no! You must ask my brother for all those things.” + </p> + <p> + “You ought to have a collection of legends and traditions. You ought to + have loves and murders and mysteries by the roomful. I shall be ashamed of + you if you haven’t.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh Mr. Searle! We’ve always been a very well-behaved family,” she quite + seriously pleaded. “Nothing out of the way has ever happened, I think.” + </p> + <p> + “Nothing out of the way? Oh that won’t do! We’ve managed better than that + in America. Why I myself!”—and he looked at her ruefully enough, but + enjoying too his idea that he might embody the social scandal or point to + the darkest drama of the Searles. “Suppose I should turn out a better + Searle than you—better than you nursed here in romance and + extravagance? Come, don’t disappoint me. You’ve some history among you + all, you’ve some poetry, you’ve some accumulation of legend. I’ve been + famished all my days for these things. Don’t you understand? Ah you can’t + understand! Tell me,” he rambled on, “something tremendous. When I think + of what must have happened here; of the lovers who must have strolled on + this terrace and wandered under the beeches, of all the figures and + passions and purposes that must have haunted these walls! When I think of + the births and deaths, the joys and sufferings, the young hopes and the + old regrets, the rich experience of life—!” He faltered a moment + with the increase of his agitation. His humour of dismay at a threat of + the commonplace in the history he felt about him had turned to a deeper + reaction. I began to fear however that he was really losing his head. He + went on with a wilder play. “To see it all called up there before me, if + the Devil alone could do it I’d make a bargain with the Devil! Ah Miss + Searle,” he cried, “I’m a most unhappy man!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh dear, oh dear!” she almost wailed while I turned half away. + </p> + <p> + “Look at that window, that dear little window!” I turned back to see him + point to a small protruding oriel, above us, relieved against the purple + brickwork, framed in chiselled stone and curtained with ivy. + </p> + <p> + “It’s my little room,” she said. + </p> + <p> + “Of course it’s a woman’s room. Think of all the dear faces—all of + them so mild and yet so proud—that have looked out of that lattice, + and of all the old-time women’s lives whose principal view of the world + has been this quiet park! Every one of them was a cousin of mine. And you, + dear lady, you’re one of them yet.” With which he marched toward her and + took her large white hand. She surrendered it, blushing to her eyes and + pressing her other hand to her breast. “You’re a woman of the past. You’re + nobly simple. It has been a romance to see you. It doesn’t matter what I + say to you. You didn’t know me yesterday, you’ll not know me to-morrow. + Let me to-day do a mad sweet thing. Let me imagine in you the spirit of + all the dead women who have trod the terrace-flags that lie here like + sepulchral tablets in the pavement of a church. Let me say I delight in + you!”—he raised her hand to his lips. She gently withdrew it and for + a moment averted her face. Meeting her eyes the next instant I saw the + tears had come. The Sleeping Beauty was awake. + </p> + <p> + There followed an embarrassed pause. An issue was suddenly presented by + the appearance of the butler bearing a letter. “A telegram, Miss,” he + announced. + </p> + <p> + “Oh what shall I do?” cried Miss Searle. “I can’t open a telegram. Cousin, + help me.” + </p> + <p> + Searle took the missive, opened it and read aloud: “<i>I shall be home to + dinner. Keep the American.</i>” + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + + <h2><a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"></a> + III + </h2> + <p> + “Keep the American!” Miss Searle, in compliance with the injunction + conveyed in her brother’s telegram (with something certainly of + telegraphic curtness), lost no time in expressing the pleasure it would + give her that our friend should remain. “Really you must,” she said; and + forthwith repaired to the house-keeper to give orders for the preparation + of a room. + </p> + <p> + “But how in the world did he know of my being here?” my companion put to + me. + </p> + <p> + I answered that he had probably heard from his solicitor of the other’s + visit. “Mr. Simmons and that gentleman must have had another interview + since your arrival in England. Simmons, for reasons of his own, has made + known to him your journey to this neighbourhood, and Mr. Searle, learning + this, has immediately taken for granted that you’ve formally presented + yourself to his sister. He’s hospitably inclined and wishes her to do the + proper thing by you. There may even,” I went on, “be more in it than that. + I’ve my little theory that he’s the very phoenix of usurpers, that he has + been very much struck with what the experts have had to say for you, and + that he wishes to have the originality of making over to you your share—so + limited after all—of the estate.” + </p> + <p> + “I give it up!” my friend mused. “Come what come will!” + </p> + <p> + “You, of course,” said Miss Searle, reappearing and turning to me, “are + included in my brother’s invitation. I’ve told them to see about a room + for you. Your luggage shall immediately be sent for.” + </p> + <p> + It was arranged that I in person should be driven over to our little inn + and that I should return with our effects in time to meet Mr. Searle at + dinner. On my arrival several hours later I was immediately conducted to + my room. The servant pointed out to me that it communicated by a door and + a private passage with that of my fellow visitor. I made my way along this + passage—a low narrow corridor with a broad latticed casement through + which there streamed upon a series of grotesquely sculptured oaken closets + and cupboards the vivid animating glow of the western sun—knocked at + his door and, getting no answer, opened it. In an armchair by the open + window sat my friend asleep, his arms and legs relaxed and head dropped on + his breast. It was a great relief to see him rest thus from his + rhapsodies, and I watched him for some moments before waking him. There + was a faint glow of colour in his cheek and a light expressive parting of + his lips, something nearer to ease and peace than I had yet seen in him. + It was almost happiness, it was almost health. I laid my hand on his arm + and gently shook it. He opened his eyes, gazed at me a moment, vaguely + recognised me, then closed them again. “Let me dream, let me dream!” + </p> + <p> + “What are you dreaming about?” + </p> + <p> + A moment passed before his answer came. “About a tall woman in a quaint + black dress, with yellow hair and a sweet, sweet smile, and a soft low + delicious voice! I’m in love with her.” + </p> + <p> + “It’s better to see her than to dream about her,” I said. “Get up and + dress; then we’ll go down to dinner and meet her.” + </p> + <p> + “Dinner—dinner—?” And he gradually opened his eyes again. + “Yes, upon my word I shall dine!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh you’re all right!” I declared for the twentieth time as he rose to his + feet. “You’ll live to bury Mr. Simmons.” He told me he had spent the hours + of my absence with Miss Searle—they had strolled together half over + the place. “You must be very intimate,” I smiled. + </p> + <p> + “She’s intimate with <i>me</i>. Goodness knows what rigmarole I’ve treated her + to!” They had parted an hour ago; since when, he believed, her brother had + arrived. + </p> + <p> + The slow-fading twilight was still in the great drawing-room when we came + down. The housekeeper had told us this apartment was rarely used, there + being others, smaller and more convenient, for the same needs. It seemed + now, however, to be occupied in my comrade’s honour. At the furthest end, + rising to the roof like a royal tomb in a cathedral, was a great + chimney-piece of chiselled white marble, yellowed by time, in which a + light fire was crackling. Before the fire stood a small short man, with + his hands behind him; near him was Miss Searle, so transformed by her + dress that at first I scarcely knew her. There was in our entrance and + reception something remarkably chilling and solemn. We moved in silence up + the long room; Mr. Searle advanced slowly, a dozen steps, to meet us; his + sister stood motionless. I was conscious of her masking her visage with a + large white tinselled fan, and that her eyes, grave and enlarged, watched + us intently over the top of it. The master of Lackley grasped in silence + the proffered hand of his kinsman and eyed him from head to foot, + suppressing, I noted, a start of surprise at his resemblance to Sir + Joshua’s portrait. “This is a happy day.” And then turning to me with an + odd little sharp stare: “My cousin’s friend is my friend.” Miss Searle + lowered her fan. + </p> + <p> + The first thing that struck me in Mr. Searle’s appearance was his very + limited stature, which was less by half a head than that of his sister. + The second was the preternatural redness of his hair and beard. They + intermingled over his ears and surrounded his head like a huge lurid + nimbus. His face was pale and attenuated, the face of a scholar, a + dilettante, a comparer of points and texts, a man who lives in a library + bending over books and prints and medals. At a distance it might have + passed for smooth and rather blankly composed; but on a nearer view it + revealed a number of wrinkles, sharply etched and scratched, of a + singularly aged and refined effect. It was the complexion of a man of + sixty. His nose was arched and delicate, identical almost with the nose of + my friend. His eyes, large and deep-set, had a kind of auburn glow, the + suggestion of a keen metal red-hot—or, more plainly, were full of + temper and spirit. Imagine this physiognomy—grave and solemn, + grotesquely solemn, in spite of the bushy brightness which made a sort of + frame for it—set in motion by a queer, quick, defiant, perfunctory, + preoccupied smile, and you will have an imperfect notion of the remarkable + presence of our host; something better worth seeing and knowing, I + perceived as I quite breathlessly took him in, than anything we had yet + encountered. How thoroughly I had entered into sympathy with my poor + picked-up friend, and how effectually I had associated my sensibilities + with his own, I had not suspected till, within the short five minutes + before the signal for dinner, I became aware, without his giving me the + least hint, of his placing himself on the defensive. To neither of us was + Mr. Searle sympathetic. I might have guessed from her attitude that his + sister entered into our thoughts. A marked change had been wrought in her + since the morning; during the hour, indeed—as I read in the light of + the wondering glance he cast at her—that had elapsed since her + parting with her cousin. She had not yet recovered from some great + agitation. Her face was pale and she had clearly been crying. These notes + of trouble gave her a new and quite perverse dignity, which was further + enhanced by something complimentary and commemorative in her dress. + </p> + <p> + Whether it was taste or whether it was accident I know not; but the + amiable creature, as she stood there half in the cool twilight, half in + the arrested glow of the fire as it spent itself in the vastness of its + marble cave, was a figure for a painter. She was habited in some faded + splendour of sea-green crape and silk, a piece of millinery which, though + it must have witnessed a number of dull dinners, preserved still a festive + air. Over her white shoulders she wore an ancient web of the most precious + and venerable lace and about her rounded throat a single series of large + pearls. I went in with her to dinner, and Mr. Searle, following with my + friend, took his arm, as the latter afterwards told me, and pretended + jocosely to conduct him. As dinner proceeded the feeling grew within me + that a drama had begun to be played in which the three persons before me + were actors—each of a really arduous part. The character allotted to + my friend, however, was certainly the least easy to represent with effect, + though I overflowed with the desire that he should acquit himself to his + honour. I seemed to see him urge his faded faculties to take their cue and + perform. The poor fellow tried to do himself credit more seriously than + ever in his old best days. With Miss Searle, credulous passive and + pitying, he had finally flung aside all vanity and propriety and shown the + bottom of his fantastic heart. But with our host there might be no talking + of nonsense nor taking of liberties; there and then, if ever, sat a + consummate conservative, breathing the fumes of hereditary privilege and + security. For an hour, accordingly, I saw my poor protege attempt, all in + pain, to meet a new decorum. He set himself the task of appearing very + American, in order that his appreciation of everything Mr. Searle + represented might seem purely disinterested. What his kinsman had expected + him to be I know not; but I made Mr. Searle out as annoyed, in spite of + his exaggerated urbanity, at finding him so harmless. Our host was not the + man to show his hand, but I think his best card had been a certain + implicit confidence that so provincial a parasite would hardly have good + manners. + </p> + <p> + He led the conversation to the country we had left; rather as if a leash + had been attached to the collar of some lumpish and half-domesticated + animal the tendency of whose movements had to be recognised. He spoke of + it indeed as of some fabled planet, alien to the British orbit, lately + proclaimed to have the admixture of atmospheric gases required to support + animal life, but not, save under cover of a liberal afterthought, to be + admitted into one’s regular conception of things. I, for my part, felt + nothing but regret that the spheric smoothness of his universe should be + disfigured by the extrusion even of such inconsiderable particles as + ourselves. + </p> + <p> + “I knew in a general way of our having somehow ramified over there,” Mr. + Searle mentioned; “but had scarcely followed it more than you pretend to + pick up the fruit your long-armed pear tree may drop, on the other side of + your wall, in your neighbour’s garden. There was a man I knew at + Cambridge, a very odd fellow, a decent fellow too; he and I were rather + cronies; I think he afterwards went to the Middle States. They’ll be, I + suppose, about the Mississippi? At all events, there was that great-uncle + of mine whom Sir Joshua painted. He went to America, but he never got + there. He was lost at sea. You look enough like him to make one fancy he + <i>did</i> get there and that you’ve kept him alive by one of those beastly + processes—I think you have ‘em over there: what do you call it, + ‘putting up’ things? If you’re he you’ve not done a wise thing to show + yourself here. He left a bad name behind him. There’s a ghost who comes + sobbing about the house every now and then, the ghost of one to whom he + did a wrong.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh mercy <i>on</i> us!” cried Miss Searle in simple horror. + </p> + <p> + “Of course <i>you</i> know nothing of such things,” he rather dryly allowed. + “You’re too sound a sleeper to hear the sobbing of ghosts.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m sure I should like immensely to hear the sobbing of a ghost,” said my + friend, the light of his previous eagerness playing up into his eyes. “Why + does it sob? I feel as if that were what we’ve come above all to learn.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Searle eyed his audience a moment gaugingly; he held the balance as to + measure his resources. He wished to do justice to his theme. With the long + finger-nails of his left hand nervously playing against the tinkling + crystal of his wineglass and his conscious eyes betraying that, small and + strange as he sat there, he knew himself, to his pleasure and advantage, + remarkably impressive, he dropped into our untutored minds the sombre + legend of his house. “Mr. Clement Searle, from all I gather, was a young + man of great talents but a weak disposition. His mother was left a widow + early in life, with two sons, of whom he was the elder and the more + promising. She educated him with the greatest affection and care. Of + course when he came to manhood she wished him to marry well. His means + were quite sufficient to enable him to overlook the want of money in his + wife; and Mrs. Searle selected a young lady who possessed, as she + conceived, every good gift save a fortune—a fine proud handsome + girl, the daughter of an old friend, an old lover I suspect, of her own. + Clement, however, as it appeared, had either chosen otherwise or was as + yet unprepared to choose. The young lady opened upon him in vain the + battery of her attractions; in vain his mother urged her cause. Clement + remained cold, insensible, inflexible. Mrs. Searle had a character which + appears to have gone out of fashion in my family nowadays; she was a great + manager, a <i>maîtresse-femme</i>. A proud passionate imperious woman, she had + had immense cares and ever so many law-suits; they had sharpened her + temper and her will. She suspected that her son’s affections had another + object, and this object she began to hate. Irritated by his stubborn + defiance of her wishes she persisted in her purpose. The more she watched + him the more she was convinced he loved in secret. If he loved in secret + of course he loved beneath him. He went about the place all sombre and + sullen and brooding. At last, with the rashness of an angry woman, she + threatened to bring the young lady of her choice—who, by the way, + seems to have been no shrinking blossom—to stay in the house. A + stormy scene was the result. He threatened that if she did so he would + leave the country and sail for America. She probably disbelieved him; she + knew him to be weak, but she overrated his weakness. At all events the + rejected one arrived and Clement Searle departed. On a dark December day + he took ship at Southampton. The two women, desperate with rage and + sorrow, sat alone in this big house, mingling their tears and + imprecations. A fortnight later, on Christmas Eve, in the midst of a great + snowstorm long famous in the country, something happened that quickened + their bitterness. A young woman, battered and chilled by the storm, gained + entrance to the house and, making her way into the presence of the + mistress and her guest, poured out her tale. She was a poor curate’s + daughter out of some little hole in Gloucestershire. Clement Searle had + loved her—loved her all too well! She had been turned out in wrath + from her father’s house; his mother at least might pity her—if not + for herself then for the child she was soon to bring forth. But the poor + girl had been a second time too trustful. The women, in scorn, in horror, + with blows possibly, drove her forth again into the storm. In the storm + she wandered and in the deep snow she died. Her lover, as you know, + perished in that hard winter weather at sea; the news came to his mother + late, but soon enough. We’re haunted by the curate’s daughter!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Searle retailed this anecdote with infinite taste and point, the + happiest art; when he ceased there was a pause of some moments. “Ah well + we may be!” Miss Searle then mournfully murmured. + </p> + <p> + Searle blazed up into enthusiasm. “Of course, you know”—with which + he began to blush violently—“I should be sorry to claim any identity + with the poor devil my faithless namesake. But I should be immensely + gratified if the young lady’s spirit, deceived by my resemblance, were to + mistake me for her cruel lover. She’s welcome to the comfort of it. What + one can do in the case I shall be glad to do. But can a ghost haunt a + ghost? I <i>am</i> a ghost!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Searle stared a moment and then had a subtle sneer. “I could almost + believe you are!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh brother—and cousin!” cried Miss Searle with the gentlest yet + most appealing dignity. “How can you talk so horribly?” The horrible talk, + however, evidently possessed a potent magic for my friend; and his + imagination, checked a while by the influence of his kinsman, began again + to lead him a dance. From this moment he ceased to steer his frail bark, + to care what he said or how he said it, so long as he expressed his + passionate appreciation of the scene around him. As he kept up this strain + I ceased even secretly to wish he wouldn’t. I have wondered since that I + shouldn’t have been annoyed by the way he reverted constantly to himself. + But a great frankness, for the time, makes its own law and a great passion + its own channel. There was moreover an irresponsible indescribable effect + of beauty in everything his lips uttered. Free alike from adulation and + from envy, the essence of his discourse was a divine apprehension, a + romantic vision free as the flight of Ariel, of the poetry of his + companions’ situation and their contrasted general irresponsiveness. + </p> + <p> + “How does the look of age come?” he suddenly broke out at dessert. “Does + it come of itself, unobserved, unrecorded, unmeasured? Or do you woo it + and set baits and traps for it, and watch it like the dawning brownness of + a meerschaum pipe, and make it fast, when it appears, just where it peeps + out, and light a votive taper beneath it and give thanks to it daily? Or + do you forbid it and fight it and resist it, and yet feel it settling and + deepening about you as irresistible as fate?” + </p> + <p> + “What the deuce is the man talking about?” said the smile of our host. + </p> + <p> + “I found a little grey hair this morning,” Miss Searle incoherently + prosed. + </p> + <p> + “Well then I hope you paid it every respect!” cried her visitor. + </p> + <p> + “I looked at it for a long time in my hand-glass,” she answered with more + presence of mind. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Searle can for many years to come afford to be amused at grey + hairs,” I interposed in the hope of some greater ease. It had its effect. + “Ten years from last Thursday I shall be forty-four,” she almost + comfortably smiled. + </p> + <p> + “Well, that’s just what I am,” said Searle. “If I had only come here ten + years ago! I should have had more time to enjoy the feast, but I should + have had less appetite. I needed first to get famished.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh why did you wait for that?” his entertainer asked. “To think of these + ten years that we might have been enjoying you!” At the vision of which + waste and loss Mr. Searle had a fine shrill laugh. + </p> + <p> + “Well,” my friend explained, “I always had a notion—a stupid vulgar + notion if there ever was one—that to come abroad properly one had to + have a pot of money. My pot was too nearly empty. At last I came with my + empty pot!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Searle had a wait for delicacy, but he proceeded. “You’re reduced, + you’re—a—straitened?” + </p> + <p> + Our companion’s very breath blew away the veil. “Reduced to nothing. + Straitened to the clothes on my back!” + </p> + <p> + “You don’t say so!” said Mr. Searle with a large vague gasp. “Well—well—well!” + he added in a voice which might have meant everything or nothing; and + then, in his whimsical way, went on to finish a glass of wine. His + searching eye, as he drank, met mine, and for a moment we each rather + deeply sounded the other, to the effect no doubt of a slight + embarrassment. “And you,” he said by way of carrying this off—“how + about <i>your</i> wardrobe?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh his!” cried my friend; “his wardrobe’s immense. He could dress up a + regiment!” He had drunk more champagne—I admit that the champagne + was good—than was from any point of view to have been desired. He + was rapidly drifting beyond any tacit dissuasion of mine. He was feverish + and rash, and all attempt to direct would now simply irritate him. As we + rose from the table he caught my troubled look. Passing his arm for a + moment into mine, “This is the great night!” he strangely and softly said; + “the night and the crisis that will settle me.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Searle had caused the whole lower portion of the house to be thrown + open and a multitude of lights to be placed in convenient and effective + positions. Such a marshalled wealth of ancient candlesticks and flambeaux + I had never beheld. Niched against the dusky wainscots, casting great + luminous circles upon the pendent stiffness of sombre tapestries, + enhancing and completing with admirable effect the variety and mystery of + the great ancient house, they seemed to people the wide rooms, as our + little group passed slowly from one to another, with a dim expectant + presence. We had thus, in spite of everything, a wonderful hour of it. Mr. + Searle at once assumed the part of cicerone, and—I had not hitherto + done him justice—Mr. Searle became almost agreeable. While I + lingered behind with his sister he walked in advance with his kinsman. It + was as if he had said: “Well, if you want the old place you shall have it—so + far as the impression goes!” He spared us no thrill—I had almost + said no pang—of that experience. Carrying a tall silver candlestick + in his left hand, he raised it and lowered it and cast the light hither + and thither, upon pictures and hangings and carvings and cornices. He knew + his house to perfection. He touched upon a hundred traditions and + memories, he threw off a cloud of rich reference to its earlier occupants. + He threw off again, in his easy elegant way, a dozen—happily lighter—anecdotes. + His relative attended with a brooding deference. Miss Searle and I + meanwhile were not wholly silent. + </p> + <p> + “I suppose that by this time you and your cousin are almost old friends,” + I remarked. + </p> + <p> + She trifled a moment with her fan and then raised her kind small eyes. + “Old friends—yet at the same time strangely new! My cousin, my + cousin”—and her voice lingered on the word—“it seems so + strange to call him my cousin after thinking these many years that I’ve no + one in the world but my brother. But he’s really so very odd!” + </p> + <p> + “It’s not so much he as—well, as his situation, that deserves that + name,” I tried to reason. + </p> + <p> + “I’m so sorry for his situation. I wish I could help it in some way. He + interests me so much.” She gave a sweet-sounding sigh. “I wish I could + have known him sooner—and better. He tells me he’s but the shadow of + what he used to be.” + </p> + <p> + I wondered if he had been consciously practising on the sensibilities of + this gentle creature. If he had I believed he had gained his point. But + his position had in fact become to my sense so precarious that I hardly + ventured to be glad. “His better self just now seems again to be taking + shape,” I said. “It will have been a good deed on your part if you help to + restore him to all he ought to be.” + </p> + <p> + She met my idea blankly. “Dear me, what can I do?” + </p> + <p> + “Be a friend to him. Let him like you, let him love you. I dare say you + see in him now much to pity and to wonder at. But let him simply enjoy a + while the grateful sense of your nearness and dearness. He’ll be a better + and stronger man for it, and then you can love him, you can esteem him, + without restriction.” + </p> + <p> + She fairly frowned for helplessness. “It’s a hard part for poor stupid me + to play!” + </p> + <p> + Her almost infantine innocence left me no choice but to be absolutely + frank. “Did you ever play any part at all?” + </p> + <p> + She blushed as if I had been reproaching her with her insignificance. + “Never! I think I’ve hardly lived.” + </p> + <p> + “You’ve begun to live now perhaps. You’ve begun to care for something else + than your old-fashioned habits. Pardon me if I seem rather meddlesome; you + know we Americans are very rough and ready. It’s a great moment. I wish + you joy!” + </p> + <p> + “I could almost believe you’re laughing at me. I feel more trouble than + joy.” + </p> + <p> + “Why do you feel trouble?” + </p> + <p> + She paused with her eyes fixed on our companions. “My cousin’s arrival’s a + great disturbance,” she said at last. + </p> + <p> + “You mean you did wrong in coming to meet him? In that case the fault’s + mine. He had no intention of giving you the opportunity.” + </p> + <p> + “I certainly took too much on myself. But I can’t find it in my heart to + regret it. I never shall regret it! I did the only thing I <i>could</i>, heaven + forgive me!” + </p> + <p> + “Heaven bless you, Miss Searle! Is any harm to come of it? I did the evil; + let me bear the brunt!” + </p> + <p> + She shook her head gravely. “You don’t know my brother!” + </p> + <p> + “The sooner I master the subject the better then,” I said. I couldn’t help + relieving myself—at least by the tone of my voice—of the + antipathy with which, decidedly, this gentleman had inspired me. “Not + perhaps that we should get on so well together!” After which, as she + turned away, “Are you <i>very</i> much afraid of him?” I added. + </p> + <p> + She gave me a shuddering sidelong glance. “He’s looking at me!” + </p> + <p> + He was placed with his back to us, holding a large Venetian hand-mirror, + framed in chiselled silver, which he had taken from a shelf of + antiquities, just at such an angle that he caught the reflexion of his + sister’s person. It was evident that I too was under his attention, and + was resolved I wouldn’t be suspected for nothing. “Miss Searle,” I said + with urgency, “promise me something.” + </p> + <p> + She turned upon me with a start and a look that seemed to beg me to spare + her. “Oh don’t ask me—please don’t!” It was as if she were standing + on the edge of a place where the ground had suddenly fallen away, and had + been called upon to make a leap. I felt retreat was impossible, however, + and that it was the greater kindness to assist her to jump. + </p> + <p> + “Promise me,” I repeated. + </p> + <p> + Still with her eyes she protested. “Oh what a dreadful day!” she cried at + last. + </p> + <p> + “Promise me to let him speak to you alone if he should ask you—any + wish you may suspect on your brother’s part notwithstanding.” She coloured + deeply. “You mean he has something so particular to say?” + </p> + <p> + “Something so particular!” + </p> + <p> + “Poor cousin!” + </p> + <p> + “Well, poor cousin! But promise me.” + </p> + <p> + “I promise,” she said, and moved away across the long room and out of the + door. + </p> + <p> + “You’re in time to hear the most delightful story,” Searle began to me as + I rejoined him and his host. They were standing before an old sombre + portrait of a lady in the dress of Queen Anne’s time, whose ill-painted + flesh-tints showed livid, in the candle-light, against her dark drapery + and background. “This is Mrs. Margaret Searle—a sort of Beatrix + Esmond—<i>qui se passait ses fantaisies</i>. She married a paltry + Frenchman, a penniless fiddler, in the teeth of her whole family. Pretty + Mrs. Margaret, you must have been a woman of courage! Upon my word, she + looks like Miss Searle! But pray go on. What came of it all?” + </p> + <p> + Our companion watched him with an air of distaste for his boisterous + homage and of pity for his crude imagination. But he took up the tale with + an effective dryness: “I found a year ago, in a box of very old papers, a + letter from the lady in question to a certain Cynthia Searle, her elder + sister. It was dated from Paris and dreadfully ill-spelled. It contained a + most passionate appeal for pecuniary assistance. She had just had a baby, + she was starving and dreadfully neglected by her husband—she cursed + the day she had left England. It was a most dismal production. I never + heard she found means to return.” + </p> + <p> + “So much for marrying a Frenchman!” I said sententiously. + </p> + <p> + Our host had one of his waits. “This is the only lady of the family who + ever was taken in by an adventurer.” + </p> + <p> + “Does Miss Searle know her history?” asked my friend with a stare at the + rounded whiteness of the heroine’s cheek. + </p> + <p> + “Miss Searle knows nothing!” said our host with expression. + </p> + <p> + “She shall know at least the tale of Mrs. Margaret,” their guest returned; + and he walked rapidly away in search of her. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Searle and I pursued our march through the lighted rooms. “You’ve + found a cousin with a vengeance,” I doubtless awkwardly enough laughed. + </p> + <p> + “Ah a vengeance?” my entertainer stiffly repeated. + </p> + <p> + “I mean that he takes as keen an interest in your annals and possessions + as yourself.” + </p> + <p> + “Oh exactly so! He tells me he’s a bad invalid,” he added in a moment. “I + should never have supposed it.” + </p> + <p> + “Within the past few hours he’s a changed man. Your beautiful house, your + extreme kindness, have refreshed him immensely.” Mr. Searle uttered the + vague ejaculation with which self-conscious Britons so often betray the + concussion of any especial courtesy of speech. But he followed this by a + sudden odd glare and the sharp declaration: “I’m an honest man!” I was + quite prepared to assent; but he went on with a fury of frankness, as if + it were the first time in his life he had opened himself to any one, as if + the process were highly disagreeable and he were hurrying through it as a + task. “An honest man, mind you! I know nothing about Mr. Clement Searle! I + never expected to see him. He has been to me a—a—!” And here + he paused to select a word which should vividly enough express what, for + good or for ill, his kinsman represented. “He has been to me an Amazement! + I’ve no doubt he’s a most amiable man. You’ll not deny, however, that he’s + a very extraordinary sort of person. I’m sorry he’s ill. I’m sorry he’s + poor. He’s my fiftieth cousin. Well and good. I’m an honest man. He shall + not have it to say that he wasn’t received at my house.” + </p> + <p> + “He too, thank heaven, is an honest man!” I smiled. + </p> + <p> + “Why the devil then,” cried Mr. Searle, turning almost fiercely on me, + “has he put forward this underhand claim to my property?” + </p> + <p> + The question, quite ringing out, flashed backward a gleam of light upon + the demeanour of our host and the suppressed agitation of his sister. In + an instant the jealous gentleman revealed itself. For a moment I was so + surprised and scandalised at the directness of his attack that I lacked + words to reply. As soon as he had spoken indeed Mr. Searle appeared to + feel he had been wanting in form. “Pardon me,” he began afresh, “if I + speak of this matter with heat. But I’ve been more disgusted than I can + say to hear, as I heard this morning from my solicitor, of the + extraordinary proceedings of Mr. Clement Searle. Gracious goodness, sir, + for what does the man take me? He pretends to the Lord knows what + fantastic admiration for my place. Let him then show his respect for it by + not taking too many liberties! Let him, with his high-flown parade of + loyalty, imagine a tithe of what <i>I</i> feel! I love my estate; it’s my + passion, my conscience, my life! Am I to divide it up at this time of day + with a beggarly foreigner—a man without means, without appearance, + without proof, a pretender, an adventurer, a chattering mountebank? I + thought America boasted having lands for all men! Upon my soul, sir, I’ve + never been so shocked in my life.” + </p> + <p> + I paused for some moments before speaking, to allow his passion fully to + expend itself and to flicker up again if it chose; for so far as I was + concerned in the whole awkward matter I but wanted to deal with him + discreetly. “Your apprehensions, sir,” I said at last, “your not unnatural + surprise, perhaps, at the candour of our interest, have acted too much on + your nerves. You’re attacking a man of straw, a creature of unworthy + illusion; though I’m sadly afraid you’ve wounded a man of spirit and + conscience. Either my friend has no valid claim on your estate, in which + case your agitation is superfluous; or he <i>has</i> a valid claim—” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Searle seized my arm and glared at me; his pale face paler still with + the horror of my suggestion, his great eyes of alarm glowing and his + strange red hair erect and quivering. “A valid claim!” he shouted. “Let + him try it—let him bring it into court!” + </p> + <p> + We had emerged into the great hall and stood facing the main doorway. The + door was open into the portico, through the stone archway of which I saw + the garden glitter in the blue light of a full moon. As the master of the + house uttered the words I have just repeated my companion came slowly up + into the porch from without, bareheaded, bright in the outer moonlight, + dark in the shadow of the archway, and bright again in the lamplight at + the entrance of the hall. As he crossed the threshold the butler made an + appearance at the head of the staircase on our left, faltering visibly a + moment at sight of Mr. Searle; after which, noting my friend, he gravely + descended. He bore in his hand a small silver tray. On the tray, gleaming + in the light of the suspended lamp, lay a folded note. Clement Searle came + forward, staring a little and startled, I think, by some quick nervous + prevision of a catastrophe. The butler applied the match to the train. He + advanced to my fellow visitor, all solemnly, with the offer of his + missive. Mr. Searle made a movement as if to spring forward, but + controlled himself. “Tottenham!” he called in a strident voice. + </p> + <p> + “Yes, sir!” said Tottenham, halting. + </p> + <p> + “Stand where you are. For whom is that note?” + </p> + <p> + “For Mr. Clement Searle,” said the butler, staring straight before him and + dissociating himself from everything. + </p> + <p> + “Who gave it to you?” + </p> + <p> + “Mrs. Horridge, sir.” This personage, I afterwards learned, was our friend + the housekeeper. + </p> + <p> + “Who gave it Mrs. Horridge?” + </p> + <p> + There was on Tottenham’s part just an infinitesimal pause before replying. + </p> + <p> + “My dear sir,” broke in Searle, his equilibrium, his ancient ease, + completely restored by the crisis, “isn’t that rather my business?” + </p> + <p> + “What happens in my house is my business, and detestable things seem to be + happening.” Our host, it was clear, now so furiously detested them that I + was afraid he would snatch the bone of contention without more ceremony. + “Bring me that thing!” he cried; on which Tottenham stiffly moved to obey. + </p> + <p> + “Really this is too much!” broke out my companion, affronted and helpless. + </p> + <p> + So indeed it struck me, and before Mr. Searle had time to take the note I + possessed myself of it. “If you’ve no consideration for your sister let a + stranger at least act for her.” And I tore the disputed object into a + dozen pieces. + </p> + <p> + “In the name of decency, what does this horrid business mean?” my + companion quavered. + </p> + <p> + Mr. Searle was about to open fire on him, but at that moment our hostess + appeared on the staircase, summoned evidently by our high-pitched + contentious voices. She had exchanged her dinner-dress for a dark wrapper, + removed her ornaments and begun to disarrange her hair, a thick tress of + which escaped from the comb. She hurried down with a pale questioning + face. Feeling distinctly that, for ourselves, immediate departure was in + the air, and divining Mr. Tottenham to be a person of a few deep-seated + instincts and of much latent energy, I seized the opportunity to request + him, <i>sotto voce</i>, to send a carriage to the door without delay. “And put up + our things,” I added. + </p> + <p> + Our host rushed at his sister and grabbed the white wrist that escaped + from the loose sleeve of her dress. “What was in that note?” he quite + hissed at her. + </p> + <p> + Miss Searle looked first at its scattered fragments and then at her + cousin. “Did you read it?” + </p> + <p> + “No, but I thank you for it!” said Searle. + </p> + <p> + Her eyes, for an instant, communicated with his own as I think they had + never, never communicated with any other source of meaning; then she + transferred them to her brother’s face, where the sense went out of them, + only to leave a dull sad patience. But there was something even in this + flat humility that seemed to him to mock him, so that he flushed crimson + with rage and spite and flung her away. “You always were an idiot! Go to + bed.” + </p> + <p> + In poor Searle’s face as well the gathered serenity had been by this time + all blighted and distorted and the reflected brightness of his happy day + turned to blank confusion. “Have I been dealing these three hours with a + madman?” he woefully cried. + </p> + <p> + “A madman, yes, if you will! A man mad with the love of his home and the + sense of its stability. I’ve held my tongue till now, but you’ve been too + much for me. Who the devil are you, and what and why and whence?” the + terrible little man continued. “From what paradise of fools do you come + that you fancy I shall make over to you, for the asking, a part of my + property and my life? I’m forsooth, you ridiculous person, to go shares + with you? Prove your preposterous claim! There isn’t <i>that</i> in it!” And he + kicked one of the bits of paper on the floor. + </p> + <p> + Searle received this broadside gaping. Then turning away he went and + seated himself on a bench against the wall and rubbed his forehead + amazedly. I looked at my watch and listened for the wheels of our + carriage. + </p> + <p> + But his kinsman was too launched to pull himself up. “Wasn’t it enough + that you should have plotted against my rights? Need you have come into my + very house to intrigue with my sister?” + </p> + <p> + My friend put his two hands to his face. “Oh, oh, oh!” he groaned while + Miss Searle crossed rapidly and dropped on her knees at his side. + </p> + <p> + “Go to bed, you fool!” shrieked her brother. + </p> + <p> + “Dear cousin,” she said, “it’s cruel you’re to have so to think of us!” + </p> + <p> + “Oh I shall think of <i>you</i> as you’d like!” He laid a hand on her head. + </p> + <p> + “I believe you’ve done nothing wrong,” she brought bravely out. + </p> + <p> + “I’ve done what I could,” Mr. Searle went on—“but it’s arrant folly + to pretend to friendship when this abomination lies between us. You were + welcome to my meat and my wine, but I wonder you could swallow them. The + sight spoiled <i>my</i> appetite!” cried the master of Lackley with a laugh. + “Proceed with your trumpery case! My people in London are instructed and + prepared.” + </p> + <p> + “I shouldn’t wonder if your case had improved a good deal since you gave + it up,” I was moved to observe to Searle. + </p> + <p> + “Oho! you don’t feign ignorance then?” and our insane entertainer shook + his shining head at me. “It’s very kind of you to give it up! Perhaps + you’ll also give up my sister!” + </p> + <p> + Searle sat staring in distress at his adversary. “Ah miserable man—I + thought we had become such beautiful friends.” + </p> + <p> + “Boh, you hypocrite!” screamed our host. + </p> + <p> + Searle seemed not to hear him. “Am I seriously expected,” he slowly and + painfully pursued, “to defend myself against the accusation of any real + indelicacy—to prove I’ve done nothing underhand or impudent? Think + what you please!” And he rose, with an effort, to his feet. “I know what + <i>you</i> think!” he added to Miss Searle. + </p> + <p> + The wheels of the carriage resounded on the gravel, and at the same moment + a footman descended with our two portmanteaux. Mr. Tottenham followed him + with our hats and coats. + </p> + <p> + “Good God,” our host broke out again, “you’re not going away?”—an + ejaculation that, after all that had happened, had the grandest + comicality. “Bless my soul,” he then remarked as artlessly, “of course + you’re going!” + </p> + <p> + “It’s perhaps well,” said Miss Searle with a great effort, inexpressibly + touching in one for whom great efforts were visibly new and strange, “that + I should tell you what my poor little note contained.” + </p> + <p> + “That matter of your note, madam,” her brother interrupted, “you and I + will settle together!” + </p> + <p> + “Let me imagine all sorts of kind things!” Searle beautifully pleaded. + </p> + <p> + “Ah too much has been imagined!” she answered simply. “It was only a word + of warning. It was to tell you to go. I knew something painful was + coming.” + </p> + <p> + He took his hat. “The pains and the pleasures of this day,” he said to his + kinsman, “I shall equally never forget. Knowing you,” and he offered his + hand to Miss Searle, “has been the pleasure of pleasures. I hoped + something more might have come of it.” + </p> + <p> + “A monstrous deal too much has come of it!” Mr. Searle irrepressibly + declared. + </p> + <p> + His departing guest looked at him mildly, almost benignantly, from head to + foot, and then with closed eyes and some collapse of strength, “I’m afraid + so, I can’t stand more,” he went on. I gave him my arm and we crossed the + threshold. As we passed out I heard Miss Searle break into loud weeping. + </p> + <p> + “We shall hear from each other yet, I take it!” her brother pursued, + harassing our retreat. + </p> + <p> + My friend stopped, turning round on him fiercely. “You very impossible + man!” he cried in his face. + </p> + <p> + “Do you mean to say you’ll not prosecute?” Mr. Searle kept it up. “I shall + force you to prosecute! I shall drag you into court, and you shall be + beaten—beaten—beaten!” Which grim reiteration followed us on + our course. + </p> + <p> + We drove of course to the little wayside inn from which we had departed in + the morning so unencumbered, in all broad England, either with enemies or + friends. My companion, as the carriage rolled along, seemed overwhelmed + and exhausted. “What a beautiful horrible dream!” he confusedly wailed. + “What a strange awakening! What a long long day! What a hideous scene! + Poor me! Poor woman!” When we had resumed possession of our two little + neighbouring rooms I asked him whether Miss Searle’s note had been the + result of anything that had passed between them on his going to rejoin + her. “I found her on the terrace,” he said, “walking restlessly up and + down in the moonlight. I was greatly excited—I hardly know what I + said. I asked her, I think, if she knew the story of Margaret Searle. She + seemed frightened and troubled, and she used just the words her brother + had used—‘I know nothing.’ For the moment, somehow, I felt as a man + drunk. I stood before her and told her, with great emphasis, how poor + Margaret had married a beggarly foreigner—all in obedience to her + heart and in defiance to her family. As I talked the sheeted moonlight + seemed to close about us, so that we stood there in a dream, in a world + quite detached. She grew younger, prettier, more attractive—I found + myself talking all kinds of nonsense. Before I knew it I had gone very + far. I was taking her hand and calling her ‘Margaret, dear Margaret!’ She + had said it was impossible, that she could do nothing, that she was a + fool, a child, a slave. Then with a sudden sense—it was odd how it + came over me there—of the reality of my connexion with the place, I + spoke of my claim against the estate. ‘It exists,’ I declared, ‘but I’ve + given it up. Be generous! Pay me for my sacrifice.’ For an instant her + face was radiant. ‘If I marry you,’ she asked, ‘will it make everything + right?’ Of that I at once assured her—in our marriage the whole + difficulty would melt away like a rain-drop in the great sea. ‘Our + marriage!’ she repeated in wonder; and the deep ring of her voice seemed + to wake us up and show us our folly. ‘I love you, but I shall never see + you again,’ she cried; and she hurried away with her face in her hands. I + walked up and down the terrace for some moments, and then came in and met + you. That’s the only witchcraft I’ve used!” + </p> + <p> + The poor man was at once so roused and so shaken by the day’s events that + I believed he would get little sleep. Conscious on my own part that I + shouldn’t close my eyes, I but partly undressed, stirred my fire and sat + down to do some writing. I heard the great clock in the little parlour + below strike twelve, one, half-past one. Just as the vibration of this + last stroke was dying on the air the door of communication with Searle’s + room was flung open and my companion stood on the threshold, pale as a + corpse, in his nightshirt, shining like a phantom against the darkness + behind him. “Look well at me!” he intensely gasped; “touch me, embrace me, + revere me! You see a man who has seen a ghost!” + </p> + <p> + “Gracious goodness, what do you mean?” + </p> + <p> + “Write it down!” he went on. “There, take your pen. Put it into dreadful + words. How do I look? Am I human? Am I pale? Am I red? Am I speaking + English? A ghost, sir! Do you understand?” + </p> + <p> + I confess there came upon me by contact a kind of supernatural shock. I + shall always feel by the whole communication of it that I too have seen a + ghost. My first movement—I can smile at it now—was to spring + to the door, close it quickly and turn the key upon the gaping blackness + from which Searle had emerged. I seized his two hands; they were wet with + perspiration. I pushed my chair to the fire and forced him to sit down in + it; then I got on my knees and held his hands as firmly as possible. They + trembled and quivered; his eyes were fixed save that the pupil dilated and + contracted with extraordinary force. I asked no questions, but waited + there, very curious for what he would say. At last he spoke. “I’m not + frightened, but I’m—oh excited! This is life! This is living! My + nerves—my heart—my brain! They’re throbbing—don’t you + feel it? Do you tingle? Are you hot? Are you cold? Hold me tight—tight—tight! + I shall tremble away into waves—into surges—and know all the + secrets of things and all the reasons and all the mysteries!” He paused a + moment and then went on: “A woman—as clear as that candle: no, far + clearer! In a blue dress, with a black mantle on her head and a little + black muff. Young and wonderfully pretty, pale and ill; with the sadness + of all the women who ever loved and suffered pleading and accusing in her + wet-looking eyes. God knows I never did any such thing! But she took me + for my elder, for the other Clement. She came to me here as she would have + come to me there. She wrung her hands and she spoke to me ‘marry me!’ she + moaned; ‘marry me and put an end to my shame!’ I sat up in bed, just as I + sit here, looked at her, heard her—heard her voice melt away, + watched her figure fade away. Bless us and save us! Here I be!” + </p> + <p> + I made no attempt either to explain or to criticise this extraordinary + passage. It’s enough that I yielded for the hour to the strange force of + my friend’s emotion. On the whole I think my own vision was the more + interesting of the two. He beheld but the transient irresponsible spectre—I + beheld the human subject hot from the spectral presence. Yet I soon + recovered my judgement sufficiently to be moved again to try to guard him + against the results of excitement and exposure. It was easily agreed that + he was not for the night to return to his room, and I made him fairly + comfortable in his place by my fire. Wishing above all to preserve him + from a chill I removed my bedding and wrapped him in the blankets and + counterpane. I had no nerves either for writing or for sleep; so I put out + my lights, renewed the fuel and sat down on the opposite side of the + hearth. I found it a great and high solemnity just to watch my companion. + Silent, swathed and muffled to his chin, he sat rigid and erect with the + dignity of his adventure. For the most part his eyes were closed; though + from time to time he would open them with a steady expansion and stare, + never blinking, into the flame, as if he again beheld without terror the + image of the little woman with the muff. His cadaverous emaciated face, + his tragic wrinkles intensified by the upward glow from the hearth, his + distorted moustache, his extraordinary gravity and a certain fantastical + air as the red light flickered over him, all re-enforced his fine likeness + to the vision-haunted knight of La Mancha when laid up after some grand + exploit. The night passed wholly without speech. Toward its close I slept + for half an hour. When I awoke the awakened birds had begun to twitter and + Searle, unperturbed, sat staring at me. We exchanged a long look, and I + felt with a pang that his glittering eyes had tasted their last of natural + sleep. “How is it? Are you comfortable?” I nevertheless asked. + </p> + <p> + He fixed me for a long time without replying and then spoke with a weak + extravagance and with such pauses between his words as might have + represented the slow prompting of an inner voice. “You asked me when you + first knew me what I was. ‘Nothing,’ I said, ‘nothing of any consequence.’ + Nothing I’ve always supposed myself to be. But I’ve wronged myself—I’m + a great exception. I’m a haunted man!” + </p> + <p> + If sleep had passed out of his eyes I felt with even a deeper pang that + sanity had abandoned his spirit. From this moment I was prepared for the + worst. There were in my friend, however, such confirmed habits of mildness + that I found myself not in the least fearing he would prove unmanageable. + As morning began fully to dawn upon us I brought our curious vigil to a + close. Searle was so enfeebled that I gave him my hands to help him out of + his chair, and he retained them for some moments after rising to his feet, + unable as he seemed to keep his balance. “Well,” he said, “I’ve been once + favoured, but don’t think I shall be favoured again. I shall soon be + myself as fit to ‘appear’ as any of them. I shall haunt the master of + Lackley! It can only mean one thing—that they’re getting ready for + me on the other side of the grave.” + </p> + <p> + When I touched the question of breakfast he replied that he had his + breakfast in his pocket; and he drew from his travelling-bag a phial of + morphine. He took a strong dose and went to bed. At noon I found him on + foot again, dressed, shaved, much refreshed. “Poor fellow,” he said, + “you’ve got more than you bargained for—not only a man with a + grievance but a man with a ghost. Well, it won’t be for long!” It had of + course promptly become a question whither we should now direct our steps. + “As I’ve so little time,” he argued for this, “I should like to see the + best, the best alone.” I answered that either for time or eternity I had + always supposed Oxford to represent the English maximum, and for Oxford in + the course of an hour we accordingly departed. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + + <h2><a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"></a> + IV + </h2> + <p> + Of that extraordinary place I shall not attempt to speak with any order or + indeed with any coherence. It must ever remain one of the supreme + gratifications of travel for any American aware of the ancient pieties of + race. The impression it produces, the emotions it kindles in the mind of + such a visitor, are too rich and various to be expressed in the halting + rhythm of prose. Passing through the small oblique streets in which the + long grey battered public face of the colleges seems to watch jealously + for sounds that may break upon the stillness of study, you feel it the + most dignified and most educated of cities. Over and through it all the + great corporate fact of the University slowly throbs after the fashion of + some steady bass in a concerted piece or that of the mediaeval mystical + presence of the Empire in the old States of Germany. The plain + perpendicular of the so mildly conventual fronts, masking blest seraglios + of culture and leisure, irritates the imagination scarce less than the + harem-walls of Eastern towns. Within their arching portals, however, you + discover more sacred and sunless courts, and the dark verdure soothing and + cooling to bookish eyes. The grey-green quadrangles stand for ever open + with a trustful hospitality. The seat of the humanities is stronger in her + own good manners than in a marshalled host of wardens and beadles. + Directly after our arrival my friend and I wandered forth in the luminous + early dusk. We reached the bridge that under-spans the walls of Magdalen + and saw the eight-spired tower, delicately fluted and embossed, rise in + temperate beauty—the perfect prose of Gothic—wooing the eyes + to the sky that was slowly drained of day. We entered the low monkish + doorway and stood in the dim little court that nestles beneath the tower, + where the swallows niche more lovingly in the tangled ivy than elsewhere + in Oxford, and passed into the quiet cloister and studied the small + sculptured monsters on the entablature of the arcade. I rejoiced in every + one of my unhappy friend’s responsive vibrations, even while feeling that + they might as direfully multiply as those that had preceded them. I may + say that from this time forward I found it difficult to distinguish in his + company between the riot of fancy and the labour of thought, or to fix the + balance between what he saw and what he imagined. He had already begun + playfully to exchange his identity for that of the earlier Clement Searle, + and he now delivered himself almost wholly in the character of his + old-time kinsman. + </p> + <p> + “<i>This</i> was my college, you know,” he would almost anywhere break out, + applying the words wherever we stood—“the sweetest and noblest in + the whole place. How often have I strolled in this cloister with my + intimates of the other world! They are all dead and buried, but many a + young fellow as we meet him, dark or fair, tall or short, reminds me of + the past age and the early attachment. Even as we stand here, they say, + the whole thing feels about its massive base the murmurs of the tide of + time; some of the foundation-stones are loosened, some of the breaches + will have to be repaired. Mine was the old unregenerate Oxford, the home + of rank abuses, of distinctions and privileges the most delicious and + invidious. What cared I, who was a perfect gentleman and with my pockets + full of money? I had an allowance of a thousand a year.” + </p> + <p> + It was at once plain to me that he had lost the little that remained of + his direct grasp on life and was unequal to any effort of seeing things in + their order. He read my apprehension in my eyes and took pains to assure + me I was right. “I’m going straight down hill. Thank heaven it’s an easy + slope, coated with English turf and with an English churchyard at the + foot.” The hysterical emotion produced by our late dire misadventure had + given place to an unruffled calm in which the scene about us was reflected + as in an old-fashioned mirror. We took an afternoon walk through + Christ-Church meadow and at the river-bank procured a boat which I pulled + down the stream to Iffley and to the slanting woods of Nuneham—the + sweetest flattest reediest stream-side landscape that could be desired. + Here of course we encountered the scattered phalanx of the young, the + happy generation, clad in white flannel and blue, muscular fair-haired + magnificent fresh, whether floated down the current by idle punts and + lounging in friendly couples when not in a singleness that nursed + ambitions, or straining together in rhythmic crews and hoarsely exhorted + from the near bank. When to the exhibition of so much of the clearest joy + of wind and limb we added the great sense of perfumed protection shed by + all the enclosed lawns and groves and bowers, we felt that to be young in + such scholastic shades must be a double, an infinite blessing. As my + companion found himself less and less able to walk we repaired in turn to + a series of gardens and spent long hours sitting in their greenest places. + They struck us as the fairest things in England and the ripest and + sweetest fruit of the English system. Locked in their antique verdure, + guarded, as in the case of New College, by gentle battlements of + silver-grey, outshouldering the matted leafage of undisseverable plants, + filled with nightingales and memories, a sort of chorus of tradition; with + vaguely-generous youths sprawling bookishly on the turf as if to spare it + the injury of their boot-heels, and with the great conservative college + countenance appealing gravely from the restless outer world, they seem + places to lie down on the grass in for ever, in the happy faith that life + is all a green old English garden and time an endless summer afternoon. + This charmed seclusion was especially grateful to my friend, and his sense + of it reached its climax, I remember, on one of the last of such occasions + and while we sat in fascinated <i>flânerie</i> over against the sturdy back of + Saint John’s. The wide discreetly-windowed wall here perhaps broods upon + the lawn with a more effective air of property than elsewhere. Searle + dropped into fitful talk and spun his humour into golden figures. Any + passing undergraduate was a peg to hang a fable, every feature of the + place a pretext for more embroidery. + </p> + <p> + “Isn’t it all a delightful lie?” he wanted to know. “Mightn’t one fancy + this the very central point of the world’s heart, where all the echoes of + the general life arrive but to falter and die? Doesn’t one feel the air + just thick with arrested voices? It’s well there should be such places, + shaped in the interest of factitious needs, invented to minister to the + book-begotten longing for a medium in which one may dream unwaked and + believe unconfuted; to foster the sweet illusion that all’s well in a + world where so much is so damnable, all right and rounded, smooth and + fair, in this sphere of the rough and ragged, the pitiful unachieved + especially, and the dreadful uncommenced. The world’s made—work’s + over. Now for leisure! England’s safe—now for Theocritus and Horace, + for lawn and sky! What a sense it all gives one of the composite life of + the country and of the essential furniture of its luckier minds! Thank + heaven they had the wit to send me here in the other time. I’m not much + visibly the braver perhaps, but think how I’m the happier! The misty + spires and towers, seen far off on the level, have been all these years + one of the constant things of memory. Seriously, what do the spires and + towers do for these people? Are they wiser, gentler, finer, cleverer? My + diminished dignity reverts in any case at moments to the naked background + of our own education, the deadly dry air in which we gasp for impressions + and comparisons. I assent to it all with a sort of desperate calmness; I + accept it with a dogged pride. We’re nursed at the opposite pole. Naked + come we into a naked world. There’s a certain grandeur in the lack of + decorations, a certain heroic strain in that young imagination of ours + which finds nothing made to its hands, which has to invent its own + traditions and raise high into our morning-air, with a ringing hammer and + nails, the castles in which we dwell. <i>Noblesse oblige</i>—Oxford must + damnably do so. What a horrible thing not to rise to such examples! If you + pay the pious debt to the last farthing of interest you may go through + life with her blessing; but if you let it stand unhonoured you’re a worse + barbarian than we! But for the better or worse, in a myriad private + hearts, think how she must be loved! How the youthful sentiment of mankind + seems visibly to brood upon her! Think of the young lives now taking + colour in her cloisters and halls. Think of the centuries’ tale of dead + lads—dead alike with the end of the young days to which these haunts + were a present world, and the close of the larger lives which the general + mother-scene has dropped into less bottomless traps. What are those two + young fellows kicking their heels over on the grass there? One of them has + the <i>Saturday Review;</i> the other—upon my soul—the other has + Artemus Ward! Where do they live, how do they live, to what end do they + live? Miserable boys! How can they read Artemus Ward under those windows + of Elizabeth? What do you think loveliest in all Oxford? The poetry of + certain windows. Do you see that one yonder, the second of those lesser + bays, with the broken cornice and the lattice? That used to be the window + of my bosom friend a hundred years ago. Remind me to tell you the story of + that broken cornice. Don’t pretend it’s not a common thing to have one’s + bosom friend at another college. Pray was I committed to common things? He + was a charming fellow. By the way, he was a good deal like you. Of course + his cocked hat, his long hair in a black ribbon, his cinnamon velvet suit + and his flowered waistcoat made a difference. We gentlemen used to wear + swords.” + </p> + <p> + There was really the touch of grace in my poor friend’s divagations—the + disheartened dandy had so positively turned rhapsodist and seer. I was + particularly struck with his having laid aside the diffidence and + self-consciousness of the first days of our acquaintance. He had become by + this time a disembodied observer and critic; the shell of sense, growing + daily thinner and more transparent, transmitted the tremor of his + quickened spirit. He seemed to pick up acquaintances, in the course of our + contemplations, merely by putting out his hand. If I left him for ten + minutes I was sure to find him on my return in earnest conversation with + some affable wandering scholar. Several young men with whom he had thus + established relations invited him to their rooms and entertained him, as I + gathered, with rather rash hospitality. For myself, I chose not to be + present at these symposia; I shrank partly from being held in any degree + responsible for his extravagance, partly from the pang of seeing him yield + to champagne and an admiring circle. He reported such adventures with less + keen a complacency than I had supposed he might use, but a certain method + in his madness, a certain dignity in his desire to fraternise, appeared to + save him from mischance. If they didn’t think him a harmless lunatic they + certainly thought him a celebrity of the Occident. Two things, however, + grew evident—that he drank deeper than was good for him and that the + flagrant freshness of his young patrons rather interfered with his + predetermined sense of the element of finer romance. At the same time it + completed his knowledge of the place. Making the acquaintance of several + tutors and fellows, he dined in hall in half a dozen colleges, alluding + afterwards to these banquets with religious unction. One evening after a + participation indiscreetly prolonged he came back to the hotel in a cab, + accompanied by a friendly undergraduate and a physician and looking deadly + pale. He had swooned away on leaving table and remained so rigidly + unconscious as much to agitate his banqueters. The following twenty-four + hours he of course spent in bed, but on the third day declared himself + strong enough to begin afresh. On his reaching the street his strength + once more forsook him, so that I insisted on his returning to his room. He + besought me with tears in his eyes not to shut him up. “It’s my last + chance—I want to go back for an hour to that garden of Saint John’s. + Let me eat and drink—to-morrow I die.” It seemed to me possible that + with a Bath-chair the expedition might be accomplished. The hotel, it + appeared, possessed such a convenience, which was immediately produced. It + became necessary hereupon that we should have a person to propel the + chair. As there was no one on the spot at liberty I was about to perform + the office; but just as my patient had got seated and wrapped—he now + had a perpetual chill—an elderly man emerged from a lurking-place + near the door and, with a formal salute, offered to wait upon the + gentleman. We assented, and he proceeded solemnly to trundle the chair + before him. I recognised him as a vague personage whom I had observed to + lounge shyly about the doors of the hotels, at intervals during our stay, + with a depressed air of wanting employment and a poor semblance of finding + it. He had once indeed in a half-hearted way proposed himself as an + amateur cicerone for a tour through the colleges; and I now, as I looked + at him, remembered with a pang that I had too curtly declined his + ministrations. Since then his shyness, apparently, had grown less or his + misery greater, for it was with a strange grim avidity that he now + attached himself to our service. He was a pitiful image of shabby + gentility and the dinginess of “reduced circumstances.” He would have + been, I suppose, some fifty years of age; but his pale haggard unwholesome + visage, his plaintive drooping carriage and the irremediable disarray of + his apparel seemed to add to the burden of his days and tribulations. His + eyes were weak and bloodshot, his bold nose was sadly compromised, and his + reddish beard, largely streaked with grey, bristled under a month’s + neglect of the razor. In all this rusty forlornness lurked a visible + assurance of our friend’s having known better days. Obviously he was the + victim of some fatal depreciation in the market value of pure gentility. + There had been something terribly affecting in the way he substituted for + the attempt to touch the greasy rim of his antiquated hat some such bow as + one man of the world might make another. Exchanging a few words with him + as we went I was struck with the decorum of his accent. His fine whole + voice should have been congruously cracked. + </p> + <p> + “Take me by some long roundabout way,” said Searle, “so that I may see as + many college-walls as possible.” + </p> + <p> + “You know,” I asked of our attendant, “all these wonderful ins and outs?” + </p> + <p> + “I ought to, sir,” he said, after a moment, with pregnant gravity. And as + we were passing one of the colleges, “That used to be my place,” he added. + </p> + <p> + At these words Searle desired him to stop and come round within sight. + “You say that’s <i>your</i> college?” + </p> + <p> + “The place might deny me, sir; but heaven forbid I should seem to take it + ill of her. If you’ll allow me to wheel you into the quad I’ll show you my + windows of thirty years ago.” + </p> + <p> + Searle sat staring, his huge pale eyes, which now left nothing else worth + mentioning in his wasted face, filled with wonder and pity. “If you’ll be + so kind,” he said with great deference. But just as this perverted product + of a liberal education was about to propel him across the threshold of the + court he turned about, disengaged the mercenary hands, with one of his + own, from the back of the chair, drew their owner alongside and turned to + me. “While we’re here, my dear fellow,” he said, “be so good as to perform + this service. You understand?” I gave our companion a glance of + intelligence and we resumed our way. The latter showed us his window of + the better time, where a rosy youth in a scarlet smoking-fez now puffed a + cigarette at the open casement. Thence we proceeded into the small garden, + the smallest, I believe, and certainly the sweetest, of all the planted + places of Oxford. I pushed the chair along to a bench on the lawn, turned + it round, toward the front of the college and sat down by it on the grass. + Our attendant shifted mournfully from one foot to the other, his patron + eyeing him open-mouthed. At length Searle broke out: “God bless my soul, + sir, you don’t suppose I expect you to stand! There’s an empty bench.” + </p> + <p> + “Thank you,” said our friend, who bent his joints to sit. + </p> + <p> + “You English are really fabulous! I don’t know whether I most admire or + most abominate you! Now tell me: who are you? what are you? what brought + you to this?” + </p> + <p> + The poor fellow blushed up to his eyes, took off his hat and wiped his + forehead with an indescribable fabric drawn from his pocket. “My name’s + Rawson, sir. Beyond that it’s a long story.” + </p> + <p> + “I ask out of sympathy,” said Searle. “I’ve a fellow-feeling. If you’re a + poor devil I’m a poor devil as well.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m the poorer devil of the two,” said the stranger with an assurance for + once presumptuous. + </p> + <p> + “Possibly. I suppose an English poor devil’s the poorest of all poor + devils. And then you’ve fallen from a height. From a gentleman commoner—is + that what they called you?—to a propeller of Bath-chairs. Good + heavens, man, the fall’s enough to kill you!” + </p> + <p> + “I didn’t take it all at once, sir. I dropped a bit one time and a bit + another.” + </p> + <p> + “That’s me, that’s me!” cried Searle with all his seriousness. + </p> + <p> + “And now,” said our friend, “I believe I can’t drop any further.” + </p> + <p> + “My dear fellow”—and Searle clasped his hand and shook it—“I + too am at the very bottom of the hole.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Rawson lifted his eyebrows. “Well, sir, there’s a difference between + sitting in such a pleasant convenience and just trudging behind it!” + </p> + <p> + “Yes—there’s a shade. But I’m at my last gasp, Mr. Rawson.” + </p> + <p> + “I’m at my last penny, sir.” + </p> + <p> + “Literally, Mr. Rawson?” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Rawson shook his head with large loose bitterness. “I’ve almost come + to the point of drinking my beer and buttoning my coat figuratively; but I + don’t talk in figures.” + </p> + <p> + Fearing the conversation might appear to achieve something like gaiety at + the expense of Mr. Rawson’s troubles, I took the liberty of asking him, + with all consideration, how he made a living. + </p> + <p> + “I don’t make a living,” he answered with tearful eyes; “I can’t make a + living. I’ve a wife and three children—and all starving, sir. You + wouldn’t believe what I’ve come to. I sent my wife to her mother’s, who + can ill afford to keep her, and came to Oxford a week ago, thinking I + might pick up a few half-crowns by showing people about the colleges. But + it’s no use. I haven’t the assurance. I don’t look decent. They want a + nice little old man with black gloves and a clean shirt and a + silver-headed stick. What do I look as if I knew about Oxford, sir?” + </p> + <p> + “Mercy on us,” cried Searle, “why didn’t you speak to us before?” + </p> + <p> + “I wanted to; half a dozen times I’ve been on the point of it. I knew you + were Americans.” + </p> + <p> + “And Americans are rich!” cried Searle, laughing. “My dear Mr. Rawson, + American as I am I’m living on charity.” + </p> + <p> + “And I’m exactly not, sir! There it is. I’m dying for the lack of that + same. You say you’re a pauper, but it takes an American pauper to go + bowling about in a Bath-chair. America’s an easy country.” + </p> + <p> + “Ah me!” groaned Searle. “Have I come to the most delicious corner of the + ancient world to hear the praise of Yankeeland?” + </p> + <p> + “Delicious corners are very well, and so is the ancient world,” said Mr. + Rawson; “but one may sit here hungry and shabby, so long as one isn’t too + shabby, as well as elsewhere. You’ll not persuade me that it’s not an + easier thing to keep afloat yonder than here. I wish <i>I</i> were in + Yankeeland, that’s all!” he added with feeble force. Then brooding for a + moment on his wrongs: “Have you a bloated brother? or you, sir? It matters + little to you. But it has mattered to me with a vengeance! Shabby as I sit + here I can boast that advantage—as he his five thousand a year. + Being but a twelvemonth my elder he swaggers while I go thus. There’s old + England for you! A very pretty place for <i>him!</i>” + </p> + <p> + “Poor old England!” said Searle softly. + </p> + <p> + “Has your brother never helped you?” I asked. + </p> + <p> + “A five-pound note now and then! Oh I don’t say there haven’t been times + when I haven’t inspired an irresistible sympathy. I’ve not been what I + should. I married dreadfully out of the way. But the devil of it is that + he started fair and I started foul; with the tastes, the desires, the + needs, the sensibilities of a gentleman—and not another blessed + ‘tip.’ I can’t afford to live in England.” + </p> + <p> + “<i>This</i> poor gentleman fancied a couple of months ago that he couldn’t + afford to live in America,” I fondly explained. + </p> + <p> + “I’d ‘swap’—do you call it?—chances with him!” And Mr. Rawson + looked quaintly rueful over his freedom of speech. + </p> + <p> + Searle sat supported there with his eyes closed and his face twitching for + violent emotion, and then of a sudden had a glare of gravity. “My friend, + you’re a dead failure! Be judged! Don’t talk about ‘swapping.’ Don’t talk + about chances. Don’t talk about fair starts and false starts. I’m at that + point myself that I’ve a right to speak. It lies neither in one’s chance + nor one’s start to make one a success; nor in anything one’s brother—however + bloated—can do or can undo. It lies in one’s character. You and I, + sir, have <i>had</i> no character—that’s very plain. We’ve been weak, sir; + as weak as water. Here we are for it—sitting staring in each other’s + faces and reading our weakness in each other’s eyes. We’re of no + importance whatever, Mr. Rawson!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Rawson received this sally with a countenance in which abject + submission to the particular affirmed truth struggled with the comparative + propriety of his general rebellion against fate. In the course of a minute + a due self-respect yielded to the warm comfortable sense of his being + relieved of the cares of an attitude. “Go on, sir, go on,” he said. “It’s + wholesome doctrine.” And he wiped his eyes with what seemed his sole + remnant of linen. + </p> + <p> + “Dear, dear,” sighed Searle, “I’ve made you cry! Well, we speak as from + man to man. I should be glad to think you had felt for a moment the + side-light of that great undarkening of the spirit which precedes—which + precedes the grand illumination of death.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Rawson sat silent a little, his eyes fixed on the ground and his + well-cut nose but the more deeply dyed by his agitation. Then at last + looking up: “You’re a very good-natured man, sir, and you’ll never + persuade me you don’t come of a kindly race. Say what you please about a + chance; when a man’s fifty—degraded, penniless, a husband and father—a + chance to get on his legs again is not to be despised. Something tells me + that my luck may be in your country—which has brought luck to so + many. I can come on the parish here of course, but I don’t want to come on + the parish. Hang it, sir, I want to hold up my head. I see thirty years of + life before me yet. If only by God’s help I could have a real change of + air! It’s a fixed idea of mine. I’ve had it for the last ten years. It’s + not that I’m a low radical. Oh I’ve no vulgar opinions. Old England’s good + enough for me, but I’m not good enough for old England. I’m a shabby man + that wants to get out of a room full of staring gentlefolk. I’m for ever + put to the blush. It’s a perfect agony of spirit; everything reminds me of + my younger and better self. The thing for me would be a cooling cleansing + plunge into the unknowing and the unknown! I lie awake thinking of it.” + </p> + <p> + Searle closed his eyes, shivering with a long-drawn tremor which I hardly + knew whether to take for an expression of physical or of mental pain. In a + moment I saw it was neither. “Oh my country, my country, my country!” he + murmured in a broken voice; and then sat for some time abstracted and + lost. I signalled our companion that it was time we should bring our small + session to a close, and he, without hesitating, possessed himself of the + handle of the Bath-chair and pushed it before him. We had got halfway home + before Searle spoke or moved. Suddenly in the High Street, as we passed a + chop-house from whose open doors we caught a waft of old-fashioned cookery + and other restorative elements, he motioned us to halt. “This is my last + five pounds”—and he drew a note from his pocket-book. “Do me the + favour, Mr. Rawson, to accept it. Go in there and order the best dinner + they can give you. Call for a bottle of Burgundy and drink it to my + eternal rest!” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Rawson stiffened himself up and received the gift with fingers + momentarily irresponsive. But Mr. Rawson had the nerves of a gentleman. I + measured the spasm with which his poor dispossessed hand closed upon the + crisp paper, I observed his empurpled nostril convulsive under the other + solicitation. He crushed the crackling note in his palm with a passionate + pressure and jerked a spasmodic bow. “I shall not do you the wrong, sir, + of anything but the best!” The next moment the door swung behind him. + </p> + <p> + Searle sank again into his apathy, and on reaching the hotel I helped him + to get to bed. For the rest of the day he lay without motion or sound and + beyond reach of any appeal. The doctor, whom I had constantly in + attendance, was sure his end was near. He expressed great surprise that he + should have lasted so long; he must have been living for a month on the + very dregs of his strength. Toward evening, as I sat by his bedside in the + deepening dusk, he roused himself with a purpose I had vaguely felt + gathering beneath his stupor. “My cousin, my cousin,” he said confusedly. + “Is she here?” It was the first time he had spoken of Miss Searle since + our retreat from her brother’s house, and he continued to ramble. “I was + to have married her. What a dream! That day was like a string of verses—rhymed + hours. But the last verse is bad measure. What’s the rhyme to ‘love’? + <i>Above!</i> Was she a simple woman, a kind sweet woman? Or have I only dreamed + it? She had the healing gift; her touch would have cured my madness. I + want you to do something. Write three lines, three words: ‘Good-bye; + remember me; be happy.’” And then after a long pause: “It’s strange a + person in my state should have a wish. Why should one eat one’s breakfast + the day one’s hanged? What a creature is man! What a farce is life! Here I + lie, worn down to a mere throbbing fever-point; I breathe and nothing + more, and yet I <i>desire!</i> My desire lives. If I could see her! Help me out + with it and let me die.” + </p> + <p> + Half an hour later, at a venture, I dispatched by post a note to Miss + Searle: “<i>Your cousin is rapidly sinking. He asks to see you.</i>” I was + conscious of a certain want of consideration in this act, since it would + bring her great trouble and yet no power to face the trouble; but out of + her distress I fondly hoped a sufficient force might be born. On the + following day my friend’s exhaustion had become so great that I began to + fear his intelligence altogether broken up. But toward evening he briefly + rallied, to maunder about many things, confounding in a sinister jumble + the memories of the past weeks and those of bygone years. “By the way,” he + said suddenly, “I’ve made no will. I haven’t much to bequeath. Yet I have + something.” He had been playing listlessly with a large signet-ring on his + left hand, which he now tried to draw off. “I leave you this”—working + it round and round vainly—“if you can get it off. What enormous + knuckles! There must be such knuckles in the mummies of the Pharaohs. + Well, when I’m gone—! No, I leave you something more precious than + gold—the sense of a great kindness. But I’ve a little gold left. + Bring me those trinkets.” I placed on the bed before him several articles + of jewellery, relics of early foppery: his watch and chain, of great + value, a locket and seal, some odds and ends of goldsmith’s work. He + trifled with them feebly for some moments, murmuring various names and + dates associated with them. At last, looking up with clearer interest, + “What has become,” he asked, “of Mr. Rawson?” + </p> + <p> + “You want to see him?” + </p> + <p> + “How much are these things worth?” he went on without heeding me. “How + much would they bring?” And he weighed them in his weak hands. “They’re + pretty heavy. Some hundred or so? Oh I’m richer than I thought! Rawson—Rawson—you + want to get out of this awful England?” + </p> + <p> + I stepped to the door and requested the servant whom I kept in constant + attendance in our adjacent sitting-room to send and ascertain if Mr. + Rawson were on the premises. He returned in a few moments, introducing our + dismal friend. Mr. Rawson was pale even to his nose and derived from his + unaffectedly concerned state an air of some distinction. I led him up to + the bed. In Searle’s eyes, as they fell on him, there shone for a moment + the light of a human message. + </p> + <p> + “Lord have mercy!” gasped Mr. Rawson. + </p> + <p> + “My friend,” said Searle, “there’s to be one American the less—so + let there be at the same time one the more. At the worst you’ll be as good + a one as I. Foolish me! Take these battered relics; you can sell them; let + them help you on your way. They’re gifts and mementoes, but this is a + better use. Heaven speed you! May America be kind to you. Be kind, at the + last, to your own country!” + </p> + <p> + “Really this is too much; I can’t,” the poor man protested, almost scared + and with tears in his eyes. “Do come round and get well and I’ll stop + here. I’ll stay with you and wait on you.” + </p> + <p> + “No, I’m booked for my journey, you for yours. I hope you don’t mind the + voyage.” + </p> + <p> + Mr. Rawson exhaled a groan of helpless gratitude, appealing piteously from + so strange a windfall. “It’s like the angel of the Lord who bids people in + the Bible to rise and flee!” + </p> + <p> + Searle had sunk back upon his pillow, quite used up; I led Mr. Rawson back + into the sitting-room, where in three words I proposed to him a rough + valuation of our friend’s trinkets. He assented with perfect + good-breeding; they passed into my possession and a second bank-note into + his. + </p> + <p> + From the collapse into which this wondrous exercise of his imagination had + plunged him my charge then gave few signs of being likely to emerge. He + breathed, as he had said, and nothing more. The twilight deepened; I + lighted the night-lamp. The doctor sat silent and official at the foot of + the bed; I resumed my constant place near the head. Suddenly our patient + opened his eyes wide. “She’ll not come,” he murmured. “Amen! she’s an + English sister.” Five minutes passed; he started forward. “She’s come, + she’s here!” he confidently quavered. His words conveyed to my mind so + absolute an assurance that I lightly rose and passed into the + sitting-room. At the same moment, through the opposite door, the servant + introduced a lady. A lady, I say; for an instant she was simply such—tall + pale dressed in deep mourning. The next instant I had uttered her name—“Miss + Searle!” She looked ten years older. + </p> + <p> + She met me with both hands extended and an immense question in her face. + “He has just announced you,” I said. And then with a fuller consciousness + of the change in her dress and countenance: “What has happened?” + </p> + <p> + “Oh death, death!” she wailed. “You and I are left.” + </p> + <p> + There came to me with her words a sickening shock, the sense of poetic + justice somehow cheated, defeated. “Your brother?” I panted. + </p> + <p> + She laid her hand on my arm and I felt its pressure deepen as she spoke. + “He was thrown from his horse in the park. He died on the spot. Six days + have passed. Six months!” + </p> + <p> + She accepted my support and a moment later we had entered the room and + approached the bedside, from which the doctor withdrew. Searle opened his + eyes and looked at her from head to foot. Suddenly he seemed to make out + her mourning. “Already!” he cried audibly and with a smile, as I felt, of + pleasure. + </p> + <p> + She dropped on her knees and took his hand. “Not for you, cousin,” she + whispered. “For my poor brother.” + </p> + <p> + He started, in all his deathly longitude, as with a galvanic shock. “Dead! + <i>He</i> dead! Life itself!” And then after a moment and with a slight rising + inflexion: “You’re free?” + </p> + <p> + “Free, cousin. Too sadly free. And now—<i>now</i>—with what use for + freedom?” + </p> + <p> + He looked steadily into her eyes, dark in the heavy shadow of her musty + mourning-veil. “For me wear colours!” + </p> + <p> + In a moment more death had come, the doctor had silently attested it, and + she had burst into sobs. + </p> + <p> + We buried him in the little churchyard in which he had expressed the wish + to lie; beneath one of the blackest and widest of English yews and the + little tower than which none in all England has a softer and hoarier grey. + A year has passed; Miss Searle, I believe, has begun to wear colours. + </p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PASSIONATE PILGRIM ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c8cb44b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #8080 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8080) diff --git a/old/8080.txt b/old/8080.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e1dfbef --- /dev/null +++ b/old/8080.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3157 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Passionate Pilgrim, by Henry James + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Passionate Pilgrim + +Author: Henry James + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8080] +Posting Date: July 24, 2009 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PASSIONATE PILGRIM *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol + + + + + +A PASSIONATE PILGRIM + + +By Henry James + + + + + +I + +Intending to sail for America in the early part of June, I determined to +spend the interval of six weeks in England, to which country my mind's +eye only had as yet been introduced. I had formed in Italy and France a +resolute preference for old inns, considering that what they sometimes +cost the ungratified body they repay the delighted mind. On my arrival +in London, therefore, I lodged at a certain antique hostelry, much +to the east of Temple Bar, deep in the quarter that I had inevitably +figured as the Johnsonian. Here, on the first evening of my stay, I +descended to the little coffee-room and bespoke my dinner of the genius +of "attendance" in the person of the solitary waiter. No sooner had +I crossed the threshold of this retreat than I felt I had cut a +golden-ripe crop of English "impressions." The coffee-room of the Red +Lion, like so many other places and things I was destined to see in the +motherland, seemed to have been waiting for long years, with just that +sturdy sufferance of time written on its visage, for me to come and +extract the romantic essence of it. + +The latent preparedness of the American mind even for the most +characteristic features of English life was a matter I meanwhile failed +to get to the bottom of. The roots of it are indeed so deeply buried +in the soil of our early culture that, without some great upheaval +of feeling, we are at a loss to say exactly when and where and how it +begins. It makes an American's enjoyment of England an emotion more +searching than anything Continental. I had seen the coffee-room of +the Red Lion years ago, at home--at Saragossa Illinois--in books, in +visions, in dreams, in Dickens, in Smollett, in Boswell. It was small +and subdivided into six narrow compartments by a series of perpendicular +screens of mahogany, something higher than a man's stature, furnished +on either side with a meagre uncushioned ledge, denominated in ancient +Britain a seat. In each of these rigid receptacles was a narrow table--a +table expected under stress to accommodate no less than four pairs of +active British elbows. High pressure indeed had passed away from the +Red Lion for ever. It now knew only that of memories and ghosts and +atmosphere. Round the room there marched, breast-high, a magnificent +panelling of mahogany, so dark with time and so polished with unremitted +friction that by gazing a while into its lucid blackness I made out +the dim reflexion of a party of wigged gentlemen in knee-breeches just +arrived from York by the coach. On the dark yellow walls, coated by +the fumes of English coal, of English mutton, of Scotch whiskey, were a +dozen melancholy prints, sallow-toned with age--the Derby favourite of +the year 1807, the Bank of England, her Majesty the Queen. On the floor +was a Turkey carpet--as old as the mahogany almost, as the Bank +of England, as the Queen--into which the waiter had in his lonely +revolutions trodden so many massive soot-flakes and drops of overflowing +beer that the glowing looms of Smyrna would certainly not have +recognised it. To say that I ordered my dinner of this archaic type +would be altogether to misrepresent the process owing to which, having +dreamed of lamb and spinach and a salade de saison, I sat down in +penitence to a mutton-chop and a rice pudding. Bracing my feet against +the cross-beam of my little oaken table, I opposed to the mahogany +partition behind me the vigorous dorsal resistance that must have +expressed the old-English idea of repose. The sturdy screen refused even +to creak, but my poor Yankee joints made up the deficiency. + +While I was waiting there for my chop there came into the room a person +whom, after I had looked at him a moment, I supposed to be a fellow +lodger and probably the only one. He seemed, like myself, to have +submitted to proposals for dinner; the table on the other side of my +partition had been prepared to receive him. He walked up to the fire, +exposed his back to it and, after consulting his watch, looked directly +out of the window and indirectly at me. He was a man of something less +than middle age and more than middle stature, though indeed you would +have called him neither young nor tall. He was chiefly remarkable for +his emphasised leanness. His hair, very thin on the summit of his head, +was dark short and fine. His eye was of a pale turbid grey, unsuited, +perhaps, to his dark hair and well-drawn brows, but not altogether out +of harmony with his colourless bilious complexion. His nose was aquiline +and delicate; beneath it his moustache languished much rather than +bristled. His mouth and chin were negative, or at the most provisional; +not vulgar, doubtless, but ineffectually refined. A cold fatal +gentlemanly weakness was expressed indeed in his attenuated person. His +eye was restless and deprecating; his whole physiognomy, his manner of +shifting his weight from foot to foot, the spiritless droop of his head, +told of exhausted intentions, of a will relaxed. His dress was neat and +"toned down"--he might have been in mourning. I made up my mind on three +points: he was a bachelor, he was out of health, he was not indigenous +to the soil. The waiter approached him, and they conversed in accents +barely audible. I heard the words "claret," "sherry" with a tentative +inflexion, and finally "beer" with its last letter changed to "ah." +Perhaps he was a Russian in reduced circumstances; he reminded me +slightly of certain sceptical cosmopolite Russians whom I had met on the +Continent. While in my extravagant way I followed this train--for +you see I was interested--there appeared a short brisk man with +reddish-brown hair, with a vulgar nose, a sharp blue eye and a red +beard confined to his lower jaw and chin. My putative Russian, still in +possession of the rug, let his mild gaze stray over the dingy ornaments +of the room. The other drew near, and his umbrella dealt a playful +poke at the concave melancholy waistcoat. "A penny ha'penny for your +thoughts!" + +My friend, as I call him, uttered an exclamation, stared, then laid +his two hands on the other's shoulders. The latter looked round at me +keenly, compassing me in a momentary glance. I read in its own vague +light that this was a transatlantic eyebeam; and with such confidence +that I hardly needed to see its owner, as he prepared, with his +companion, to seat himself at the table adjoining my own, take from his +overcoat-pocket three New York newspapers and lay them beside his +plate. As my neighbours proceeded to dine I felt the crumbs of their +conversation scattered pretty freely abroad. I could hear almost all +they said, without straining to catch it, over the top of the partition +that divided us. Occasionally their voices dropped to recovery of +discretion, but the mystery pieced itself together as if on purpose to +entertain me. Their speech was pitched in the key that may in English +air be called alien in spite of a few coincidences. The voices were +American, however, with a difference; and I had no hesitation in +assigning the softer and clearer sound to the pale thin gentleman, whom +I decidedly preferred to his comrade. The latter began to question him +about his voyage. + +"Horrible, horrible! I was deadly sick from the hour we left New York." + +"Well, you do look considerably reduced," said the second-comer. + +"Reduced! I've been on the verge of the grave. I haven't slept six hours +for three weeks." This was said with great gravity. + +"Well, I've made the voyage for the last time." + +"The plague you have! You mean to locate here permanently?" + +"Oh it won't be so very permanent!" + +There was a pause; after which: "You're the same merry old boy, Searle. +Going to give up the ghost to-morrow, eh?" + +"I almost wish I were." + +"You're not so sweet on England then? I've heard people say at home that +you dress and talk and act like an Englishman. But I know these people +here and I know you. You're not one of this crowd, Clement Searle, not +you. You'll go under here, sir; you'll go under as sure as my name's +Simmons." + +Following this I heard a sudden clatter as of the drop of a knife and +fork. "Well, you're a delicate sort of creature, if it IS your ugly +name! I've been wandering about all day in this accursed city, ready +to cry with homesickness and heartsickness and every possible sort of +sickness, and thinking, in the absence of anything better, of meeting +you here this evening and of your uttering some sound of cheer and +comfort and giving me some glimmer of hope. Go under? Ain't I under now? +I can't do more than get under the ground!" + +Mr. Simmons's superior brightness appeared to flicker a moment in this +gust of despair, but the next it was burning steady again. "DON'T 'cry,' +Searle," I heard him say. "Remember the waiter. I've grown Englishman +enough for that. For heaven's sake don't let's have any nerves. Nerves +won't do anything for you here. It's best to come to the point. Tell me +in three words what you expect of me." + +I heard another movement, as if poor Searle had collapsed in his +chair. "Upon my word, sir, you're quite inconceivable. You never got my +letter?" + +"Yes, I got your letter. I was never sorrier to get anything in my +life." + +At this declaration Mr. Searle rattled out an oath, which it was well +perhaps that I but partially heard. "Abijah Simmons," he then cried, +"what demon of perversity possesses you? Are you going to betray me here +in a foreign land, to turn out a false friend, a heartless rogue?" + +"Go on, sir," said sturdy Simmons. "Pour it all out. I'll wait till +you've done. Your beer's lovely," he observed independently to the +waiter. "I'll have some more." + +"For God's sake explain yourself!" his companion appealed. + +There was a pause, at the end of which I heard Mr. Simmons set down his +empty tankard with emphasis. "You poor morbid mooning man," he resumed, +"I don't want to say anything to make you feel sore. I regularly pity +you. But you must allow that you've acted more like a confirmed crank +than a member of our best society--in which every one's so sensible." + +Mr. Searle seemed to have made an effort to compose himself. "Be so good +as to tell me then what was the meaning of your letter." + +"Well, you had got on MY nerves, if you want to know, when I wrote it. +It came of my always wishing so to please folks. I had much better have +let you alone. To tell you the plain truth I never was so horrified in +my life as when I found that on the strength of my few kind words you +had come out here to seek your fortune." + +"What then did you expect me to do?" + +"I expected you to wait patiently till I had made further enquiries and +had written you again." + +"And you've made further enquiries now?" + +"Enquiries! I've committed assaults." + +"And you find I've no claim?" + +"No claim that one of THESE big bugs will look at. It struck me at first +that you had rather a neat little case. I confess the look of it took +hold of me--" + +"Thanks to your liking so to please folks!" Mr. Simmons appeared for +a moment at odds with something; it proved to be with his liquor. "I +rather think your beer's too good to be true," he said to the waiter. "I +guess I'll take water. Come, old man," he resumed, "don't challenge me +to the arts of debate, or you'll have me right down on you, and then you +WILL feel me. My native sweetness, as I say, was part of it. The idea +that if I put the thing through it would be a very pretty feather in +my cap and a very pretty penny in my purse was part of it. And the +satisfaction of seeing a horrid low American walk right into an old +English estate was a good deal of it. Upon my word, Searle, when I think +of it I wish with all my heart that, extravagant vain man as you are, I +COULD, for the charm of it, put you through! I should hardly care what +you did with the blamed place when you got it. I could leave you alone +to turn it into Yankee notions--into ducks and drakes as they call 'em +here. I should like to see you tearing round over it and kicking up its +sacred dust in their very faces!" + +"You don't know me one little bit," said Mr. Searle, rather shirking, +I thought, the burden of this tribute and for all response to the +ambiguity of the compliment. + +"I should be very glad to think I didn't, sir. I've been to no small +amount of personal inconvenience for you. I've pushed my way right up +to the headspring. I've got the best opinion that's to be had. The best +opinion that's to be had just gives you one leer over its spectacles. I +guess that look will fix you if you ever get it straight. I've been +able to tap, indirectly," Mr. Simmons went on, "the solicitor of your +usurping cousin, and he evidently knows something to be in the wind. It +seems your elder brother twenty years ago put out a feeler. So you're +not to have the glory of even making them sit up." + +"I never made any one sit up," I heard Mr. Searle plead. "I shouldn't +begin at this time of day. I should approach the subject like a +gentleman." + +"Well, if you want very much to do something like a gentleman you've got +a capital chance. Take your disappointment like a gentleman." + +I had finished my dinner and had become keenly interested in poor Mr. +Searle's unencouraging--or unencouraged--claim; so interested that I +at last hated to hear his trouble reflected in his voice without being +able--all respectfully!--to follow it in his face. I left my place, went +over to the fire, took up the evening paper and established a post of +observation behind it. + +His cold counsellor was in the act of choosing a soft chop from the +dish--an act accompanied by a great deal of prying and poking with that +gentleman's own fork. My disillusioned compatriot had pushed away his +plate; he sat with his elbows on the table, gloomily nursing his head +with his hands. His companion watched him and then seemed to wonder--to +do Mr. Simmons justice--how he could least ungracefully give him up. +"I say, Searle,"--and for my benefit, I think, taking me for a native +ingenuous enough to be dazzled by his wit, he lifted his voice a little +and gave it an ironical ring--"in this country it's the inestimable +privilege of a loyal citizen, under whatsoever stress of pleasure or of +pain, to make a point of eating his dinner." + +Mr. Searle gave his plate another push. "Anything may happen now. I +don't care a straw." + +"You ought to care. Have another chop and you WILL care. Have some +better tipple. Take my advice!" Mr. Simmons went on. + +My friend--I adopt that name for him--gazed from between his two hands +coldly before him. "I've had enough of your advice." + +"A little more," said Simmons mildly; "I shan't trouble you again. What +do you mean to do?" + +"Nothing." + +"Oh come!" + +"Nothing, nothing, nothing!" + +"Nothing but starve. How about meeting expenses?" + +"Why do you ask?" said my friend. "You don't care." + +"My dear fellow, if you want to make me offer you twenty pounds you set +most clumsily about it. You said just now I don't know you," Mr. Simmons +went on. "Possibly. Come back with me then," he said kindly enough, "and +let's improve our acquaintance." + +"I won't go back. I shall never go back." + +"Never?" + +"Never." + +Mr. Simmons thought it shrewdly over. "Well, you ARE sick!" he exclaimed +presently. "All I can say is that if you're working out a plan for cold +poison, or for any other act of desperation, you had better give it +right up. You can't get a dose of the commonest kind of cold poison +for nothing, you know. Look here, Searle"--and the worthy man made what +struck me as a very decent appeal. "If you'll consent to return home +with me by the steamer of the twenty-third I'll pay your passage down. +More than that, I'll pay for your beer." + +My poor gentleman met it. "I believe I never made up my mind to anything +before, but I think it's made up now. I shall stay here till I take my +departure for a newer world than any patched-up newness of ours. It's an +odd feeling--I rather like it! What should I do at home?" + +"You said just now you were homesick." + +"I meant I was sick for a home. Don't I belong here? Haven't I longed to +get here all my life? Haven't I counted the months and the years till I +should be able to 'go' as we say? And now that I've 'gone,' that is that +I've come, must I just back out? No, no, I'll move on. I'm much obliged +to you for your offer. I've enough money for the present. I've about my +person some forty pounds' worth of British gold, and the same amount, +say, of the toughness of the heaven-sent idiot. They'll see me through +together! After they're gone I shall lay my head in some English +churchyard, beside some ivied tower, beneath an old gnarled black yew." + +I had so far distinctly followed the dialogue; but at this point the +landlord entered and, begging my pardon, would suggest that number 12, +a most superior apartment, having now been vacated, it would give him +pleasure if I would look in. I declined to look in, but agreed for +number 12 at a venture and gave myself again, with dissimulation, to +my friends. They had got up; Simmons had put on his overcoat; he stood +polishing his rusty black hat with his napkin. "Do you mean to go down +to the place?" he asked. + +"Possibly. I've thought of it so often that I should like to see it." + +"Shall you call on Mr. Searle?" + +"Heaven forbid!" + +"Something has just occurred to me," Simmons pursued with a grin that +made his upper lip look more than ever denuded by the razor and jerked +the ugly ornament of his chin into the air. "There's a certain Miss +Searle, the old man's sister." + +"Well?" my gentleman quavered. + +"Well, sir!--you talk of moving on. You might move on the damsel." + +Mr. Searle frowned in silence and his companion gave him a tap on the +stomach. "Line those ribs a bit first!" He blushed crimson; his eyes +filled with tears. "You ARE a coarse brute," he said. The scene +quite harrowed me, but I was prevented from seeing it through by the +reappearance of the landlord on behalf of number 12. He represented to +me that I ought in justice to him to come and see how tidy they HAD +made it. Half an hour afterwards I was rattling along in a hansom toward +Covent Garden, where I heard Madame Bosio in The Barber of Seville. On +my return from the opera I went into the coffee-room; it had occurred +to me I might catch there another glimpse of Mr. Searle. I was not +disappointed. I found him seated before the fire with his head sunk on +his breast: he slept, dreaming perhaps of Abijah Simmons. I watched him +for some moments. His closed eyes, in the dim lamplight, looked even +more helpless and resigned, and I seemed to see the fine grain of his +nature in his unconscious mask. They say fortune comes while we sleep, +and, standing there, I felt really tender enough--though otherwise most +unqualified--to be poor Mr. Searle's fortune. As I walked away I noted +in one of the little prandial pews I have described the melancholy +waiter, whose whiskered chin also reposed on the bulge of his +shirt-front. I lingered a moment beside the old inn-yard in which, upon +a time, the coaches and post-chaises found space to turn and disgorge. +Above the dusky shaft of the enclosing galleries, where lounging lodgers +and crumpled chambermaids and all the picturesque domesticity of a +rattling tavern must have leaned on their elbows for many a year, I made +out the far-off lurid twinkle of the London constellations. At the foot +of the stairs, enshrined in the glittering niche of her well-appointed +bar, the landlady sat napping like some solemn idol amid votive brass +and plate. + +The next morning, not finding the subject of my benevolent curiosity in +the coffee-room, I learned from the waiter that he had ordered breakfast +in bed. Into this asylum I was not yet prepared to pursue him. I spent +the morning in the streets, partly under pressure of business, but +catching all kinds of romantic impressions by the way. To the searching +American eye there is no tint of association with which the great grimy +face of London doesn't flush. As the afternoon approached, however, +I began to yearn for some site more gracefully classic than what +surrounded me, and, thinking over the excursions recommended to the +ingenuous stranger, decided to take the train to Hampton Court. The day +was the more propitious that it yielded just that dim subaqueous light +which sleeps so fondly upon the English landscape. + +At the end of an hour I found myself wandering through the apartments of +the great palace. They follow each other in infinite succession, with no +great variety of interest or aspect, but with persistent pomp and a fine +specific effect. They are exactly of their various times. You pass from +painted and panelled bedchambers and closets, anterooms, drawing-rooms, +council-rooms, through king's suite, queen's suite, prince's suite, +until you feel yourself move through the appointed hours and stages +of some rigid monarchical day. On one side are the old monumental +upholsteries, the big cold tarnished beds and canopies, with the +circumference of disapparelled royalty symbolised by a gilded +balustrade, and the great carved and yawning chimney-places where +dukes-in-waiting may have warmed their weary heels; on the other, +in deep recesses, rise the immense windows, the framed and draped +embrasures where the sovereign whispered and favourites smiled, looking +out on terraced gardens and misty park. The brown walls are dimly +illumined by innumerable portraits of courtiers and captains, more +especially with various members of the Batavian entourage of William +of Orange, the restorer of the palace; with good store too of the +lily-bosomed models of Lely and Kneller. The whole tone of this +processional interior is singularly stale and sad. The tints of all +things have both faded and darkened--you taste the chill of the place +as you walk from room to room. It was still early in the day and in +the season, and I flattered myself that I was the only visitor. This +complacency, however, dropped at sight of a person standing motionless +before a simpering countess of Sir Peter Lely's creation. On hearing +my footstep this victim of an evaporated spell turned his head and I +recognised my fellow lodger of the Red Lion. I was apparently recognised +as well; he looked as if he could scarce wait for me to be kind to him, +and in fact didn't wait. Seeing I had a catalogue he asked the name of +the portrait. On my satisfying him he appealed, rather timidly, as to my +opinion of the lady. + +"Well," said I, not quite timidly enough perhaps, "I confess she strikes +me as no great matter." + +He remained silent and was evidently a little abashed. As we strolled +away he stole a sidelong glance of farewell at his leering shepherdess. +To speak with him face to face was to feel keenly that he was no less +interesting than infirm. We talked of our inn, of London, of the palace; +he uttered his mind freely, but seemed to struggle with a weight of +depression. It was an honest mind enough, with no great cultivation but +with a certain natural love of excellent things. I foresaw that I +should find him quite to the manner born--to ours; full of glimpses and +responses, of deserts and desolations. His perceptions would be fine and +his opinions pathetic; I should moreover take refuge from his sense of +proportion in his sense of humour, and then refuge from THAT, ah me!--in +what? On my telling him that I was a fellow citizen he stopped short, +deeply touched, and, silently passing his arm into my own, suffered me +to lead him through the other apartments and down into the gardens. A +large gravelled platform stretches itself before the basement of the +palace, taking the afternoon sun. Parts of the great structure are +reserved for private use and habitation, occupied by state-pensioners, +reduced gentlewomen in receipt of the Queen's bounty and other deserving +persons. Many of the apartments have their dependent gardens, and here +and there, between the verdure-coated walls, you catch a glimpse of +these somewhat stuffy bowers. My companion and I measured more than once +this long expanse, looking down on the floral figures of the rest of the +affair and on the stoutly-woven tapestry of creeping plants that muffle +the foundations of the huge red pile. I thought of the various images of +old-world gentility which, early and late, must have strolled in front +of it and felt the protection and security of the place. We peeped +through an antique grating into one of the mossy cages and saw an old +lady with a black mantilla on her head, a decanter of water in one hand +and a crutch in the other, come forth, followed by three little dogs and +a cat, to sprinkle a plant. She would probably have had an opinion on +the virtue of Queen Caroline. Feeling these things together made us +quickly, made us extraordinarily, intimate. My companion seemed to ache +with his impression; he scowled, all gently, as if it gave him pain. I +proposed at last that we should dine somewhere on the spot and take +a late train to town. We made our way out of the gardens into the +adjoining village, where we entered an inn which I pronounced, very +sincerely, exactly what we wanted. Mr. Searle had approached our board +as shyly as if it had been a cold bath; but, gradually warming to his +work, he declared at the end of half an hour that for the first time in +a month he enjoyed his victuals. + +"I'm afraid you're rather out of health," I risked. + +"Yes, sir--I'm an incurable." + +The little village of Hampton Court stands clustered about the entrance +of Bushey Park, and after we had dined we lounged along into the +celebrated avenue of horse-chestnuts. There is a rare emotion, familiar +to every intelligent traveller, in which the mind seems to swallow the +sum total of its impressions at a gulp. You take in the whole place, +whatever it be. You feel England, you feel Italy, and the sensation +involves for the moment a kind of thrill. I had known it from time to +time in Italy and had opened my soul to it as to the spirit of the +Lord. Since my landing in England I had been waiting for it to arrive. A +bottle of tolerable Burgundy, at dinner, had perhaps unlocked to it the +gates of sense; it arrived now with irresistible force. Just the scene +around me was the England of one's early reveries. Over against us, amid +the ripeness of its gardens, the dark red residence, with its formal +facings and its vacant windows, seemed to make the past definite and +massive; the little village, nestling between park and palace, around +a patch of turfy common, with its taverns of figurative names, its +ivy-towered church, its mossy roofs, looked like the property of a +feudal lord. It was in this dark composite light that I had read the +British classics; it was this mild moist air that had blown from the +pages of the poets; while I seemed to feel the buried generations in the +dense and elastic sod. And that I must have testified in some form or +other to what I have called my thrill I gather, remembering it, from a +remark of my companion's. + +"You've the advantage over me in coming to all this with an educated +eye. You already know what old things can be. I've never known it but by +report. I've always fancied I should like it. In a small way at home, of +course, I did try to stand by my idea of it. I must be a conservative by +nature. People at home used to call me a cockney and a fribble. But it +wasn't true," he went on; "if it had been I should have made my way over +here long ago: before--before--" He paused, and his head dropped sadly +on his breast. + +The bottle of Burgundy had loosened his tongue; I had but to choose my +time for learning his story. Something told me that I had gained his +confidence and that, so far as attention and attitude might go, I was +"in" for responsibilities. But somehow I didn't dread them. "Before you +lost your health," I suggested. + +"Before I lost my health," he answered. "And my property--the little I +had. And my ambition. And any power to take myself seriously." + +"Come!" I cried. "You shall recover everything. This tonic English +climate will wind you up in a month. And THEN see how you'll take +yourself--and how I shall take you!" + +"Oh," he gratefully smiled, "I may turn to dust in your hands! I should +like," he presently pursued, "to be an old genteel pensioner, lodged +over there in the palace and spending my days in maundering about these +vistas. I should go every morning, at the hour when it gets the sun, +into that long gallery where all those pretty women of Lely's are +hung--I know you despise them!--and stroll up and down and say something +kind to them. Poor precious forsaken creatures! So flattered and courted +in their day, so neglected now! Offering up their shoulders and ringlets +and smiles to that musty deadly silence!" + +I laid my hand on my friend's shoulder. "Oh sir, you're all right!" + +Just at this moment there came cantering down the shallow glade of the +avenue a young girl on a fine black horse--one of those little budding +gentlewomen, perfectly mounted and equipped, who form to alien eyes one +of the prettiest incidents of English scenery. She had distanced her +servant and, as she came abreast of us, turned slightly in her saddle +and glanced back at him. In the movement she dropped the hunting-crop +with which she was armed; whereupon she reined up and looked shyly at +us and at the implement. "This is something better than a Lely," I +said. Searle hastened forward, picked up the crop and, with a particular +courtesy that became him, handed it back to the rider. Fluttered and +blushing she reached forward, took it with a quick sweet sound, and the +next moment was bounding over the quiet turf. Searle stood watching her; +the servant, as he passed us, touched his hat. When my friend turned +toward me again I saw that he too was blushing. "Oh sir, you're all +right," I repeated. + +At a short distance from where we had stopped was an old stone bench. We +went and sat down on it and, as the sun began to sink, watched the light +mist powder itself with gold. "We ought to be thinking of the train back +to London, I suppose," I at last said. + +"Oh hang the train!" sighed my companion. + +"Willingly. There could be no better spot than this to feel the English +evening stand still." So we lingered, and the twilight hung about us, +strangely clear in spite of the thickness of the air. As we sat there +came into view an apparition unmistakeable from afar as an immemorial +vagrant--the disowned, in his own rich way, of all the English ages. As +he approached us he slackened pace and finally halted, touching his cap. +He was a man of middle age, clad in a greasy bonnet with false-looking +ear-locks depending from its sides. Round his neck was a grimy red +scarf, tucked into his waistcoat; his coat and trousers had a remote +affinity with those of a reduced hostler. In one hand he had a stick; on +his arm he bore a tattered basket, with a handful of withered +vegetables at the bottom. His face was pale haggard and degraded beyond +description--as base as a counterfeit coin, yet as modelled somehow as +a tragic mask. He too, like everything else, had a history. From what +height had he fallen, from what depth had he risen? He was the perfect +symbol of generated constituted baseness; and I felt before him in +presence of a great artist or actor. + +"For God's sake, gentlemen," he said in the raucous tone of +weather-beaten poverty, the tone of chronic sore-throat exacerbated +by perpetual gin, "for God's sake, gentlemen, have pity on a poor +fern-collector!"--turning up his stale daisies. "Food hasn't passed my +lips, gentlemen, for the last three days." We gaped at him and at each +other, and to our imagination his appeal had almost the force of a +command. "I wonder if half-a-crown would help?" I privately wailed. And +our fasting botanist went limping away through the park with the grace +of controlled stupefaction still further enriching his outline. + +"I feel as if I had seen my Doppelganger," said Searle. "He reminds me +of myself. What am I but a mere figure in the landscape, a wandering +minstrel or picker of daisies?" + +"What are you 'anyway,' my friend?" I thereupon took occasion to ask. +"Who are you? kindly tell me." + +The colour rose again to his pale face and I feared I had offended +him. He poked a moment at the sod with the point of his umbrella before +answering. "Who am I?" he said at last. "My name is Clement Searle. I +was born in New York, and that's the beginning and the end of me." + +"Ah not the end!" I made bold to plead. + +"Then it's because I HAVE no end--any more than an ill-written book. I +just stop anywhere; which means I'm a failure," the poor man all lucidly +and unreservedly pursued: "a failure, as hopeless and helpless, sir, as +any that ever swallowed up the slender investments of the widow and +the orphan. I don't pay five cents on the dollar. What I might have +been--once!--there's nothing left to show. I was rotten before I was +ripe. To begin with, certainly, I wasn't a fountain of wisdom. All the +more reason for a definite channel--for having a little character and +purpose. But I hadn't even a little. I had nothing but nice tastes, as +they call them, and fine sympathies and sentiments. Take a turn through +New York to-day and you'll find the tattered remnants of these things +dangling on every bush and fluttering in every breeze; the men to whom +I lent money, the women to whom I made love, the friends I trusted, the +follies I invented, the poisonous fumes of pleasure amid which nothing +was worth a thought but the manhood they stifled! It was my fault that I +believed in pleasure here below. I believe in it still, but as I believe +in the immortality of the soul. The soul is immortal, certainly--if +you've got one; but most people haven't. Pleasure would be right if it +were pleasure straight through; but it never is. My taste was to be the +best in the world; well, perhaps it was. I had a little money; it went +the way of my little wit. Here in my pocket I have the scant dregs +of it. I should tell you I was the biggest kind of ass. Just now that +description would flatter me; it would assume there's something left of +me. But the ghost of a donkey--what's that? I think," he went on with +a charming turn and as if striking off his real explanation, "I should +have been all right in a world arranged on different lines. Before +heaven, sir--whoever you are--I'm in practice so absurdly tender-hearted +that I can afford to say it: I entered upon life a perfect gentleman. +I had the love of old forms and pleasant rites, and I found them +nowhere--found a world all hard lines and harsh lights, without shade, +without composition, as they say of pictures, without the lovely mystery +of colour. To furnish colour I melted down the very substance of my own +soul. I went about with my brush, touching up and toning down; a very +pretty chiaroscuro you'll find in my track! Sitting here in this old +park, in this old country, I feel that I hover on the misty verge of +what might have been! I should have been born here and not there; here +my makeshift distinctions would have found things they'd have been true +of. How it was I never got free is more than I can say. It might have +cut the knot, but the knot was too tight. I was always out of health or +in debt or somehow desperately dangling. Besides, I had a horror of the +great black sickening sea. A year ago I was reminded of the existence of +an old claim to an English estate, which has danced before the eyes of +my family, at odd moments, any time these eighty years. I confess it's a +bit of a muddle and a tangle, and am by no means sure that to this hour +I've got the hang of it. You look as if you had a clear head: some other +time, if you consent, we'll have a go at it, such as it is, together. +Poverty was staring me in the face; I sat down and tried to commit the +'points' of our case to memory, as I used to get nine-times-nine by +heart as a boy. I dreamed of it for six months, half-expecting to wake +up some fine morning and hear through a latticed casement the cawing of +an English rookery. A couple of months ago there came out to England on +business of his own a man who once got me out of a dreadful mess (not +that I had hurt anyone but myself), a legal practitioner in our courts, +a very rough diamond, but with a great deal of FLAIR, as they say in New +York. It was with him yesterday you saw me dining. He undertook, as +he called it, to 'nose round' and see if anything could be made of our +questionable but possible show. The matter had never seriously been +taken up. A month later I got a letter from Simmons assuring me that it +seemed a very good show indeed and that he should be greatly surprised +if I were unable to do something. This was the greatest push I had ever +got in my life; I took a deliberate step, for the first time; I sailed +for England. I've been here three days: they've seemed three months. +After keeping me waiting for thirty-six hours my legal adviser makes his +appearance last night and states to me, with his mouth full of mutton, +that I haven't a leg to stand on, that my claim is moonshine, and that +I must do penance and take a ticket for six more days of purgatory +with his presence thrown in. My friend, my friend--shall I say I was +disappointed? I'm already resigned. I didn't really believe I had +any case. I felt in my deeper consciousness that it was the crowning +illusion of a life of illusions. Well, it was a pretty one. Poor legal +adviser!--I forgive him with all my heart. But for him I shouldn't be +sitting in this place, in this air, under these impressions. This is a +world I could have got on with beautifully. There's an immense charm in +its having been kept for the last. After it nothing else would have been +tolerable. I shall now have a month of it, I hope, which won't be long +enough for it to "go back on me. There's one thing!"--and here, pausing, +he laid his hand on mine; I rose and stood before him--"I wish it were +possible you should be with me to the end." + +"I promise you to leave you only when you kick me downstairs." But I +suggested my terms. "It must be on condition of your omitting from your +conversation this intolerable flavour of mortality. I know nothing of +'ends.' I'm all for beginnings." + +He kept on me his sad weak eyes. Then with a faint smile: "Don't cut +down a man you find hanging. He has had a reason for it. I'm bankrupt." + +"Oh health's money!" I said. "Get well, and the rest will take care of +itself. I'm interested in your questionable claim--it's the question +that's the charm; and pretenders, to anything big enough, have always +been, for me, an attractive class. Only their first duty's to be +gallant." + +"Their first duty's to understand their own points and to know their own +mind," he returned with hopeless lucidity. "Don't ask me to climb our +family tree now," he added; "I fear I haven't the head for it. I'll try +some day--if it will bear my weight; or yours added to mine. There's +no doubt, however, that we, as they say, go back. But I know nothing of +business. If I were to take the matter in hand I should break in two the +poor little silken thread from which everything hangs. In a better world +than this I think I should be listened to. But the wind doesn't set to +ideal justice. There's no doubt that a hundred years ago we suffered +a palpable wrong. Yet we made no appeal at the time, and the dust of a +century now lies heaped upon our silence. Let it rest!" + +"What then," I asked, "is the estimated value of your interest?" + +"We were instructed from the first to accept a compromise. Compared with +the whole property our ideas have been small. We were once advised in +the sense of a hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Why a hundred and +thirty I'm sure I don't know. Don't beguile me into figures." + +"Allow me one more question," I said. "Who's actually in possession?" + +"A certain Mr. Richard Searle. I know nothing about him." + +"He's in some way related to you?" + +"Our great-grandfathers were half-brothers. What does that make us?" + +"Twentieth cousins, say. And where does your twentieth cousin live?" + +"At a place called Lackley--in Middleshire." + +I thought it over. "Well, suppose we look up Lackley in Middleshire!" + +He got straight up. "Go and see it?" + +"Go and see it." + +"Well," he said, "with you I'll go anywhere." + +On our return to town we determined to spend three days there together +and then proceed to our errand. We were as conscious one as the other of +that deeper mystic appeal made by London to those superstitious pilgrims +who feel it the mother-city of their race, the distributing heart of +their traditional life. Certain characteristics of the dusky Babylon, +certain aspects, phases, features, "say" more to the American spiritual +ear than anything else in Europe. The influence of these things on +Searle it charmed me to note. His observation I soon saw to be, as +I pronounced it to him, searching and caressing. His almost morbid +appetite for any over-scoring of time, well-nigh extinct from long +inanition, threw the flush of its revival into his face and his talk. + + + + +II + +We looked out the topography of Middleshire in a county-guide, which +spoke highly, as the phrase is, of Lackley Park, and took up our abode, +our journey ended, at a wayside inn where, in the days of leisure, the +coach must have stopped for luncheon and burnished pewters of rustic +ale been handed up as straight as possible to outsiders athirst with +the sense of speed. We stopped here for mere gaping joy of its +steep-thatched roof, its latticed windows, its hospitable porch, and +allowed a couple of days to elapse in vague undirected strolls and sweet +sentimental observance of the land before approaching the particular +business that had drawn us on. The region I allude to is a compendium +of the general physiognomy of England. The noble friendliness of the +scenery, its latent old-friendliness, the way we scarcely knew whether +we were looking at it for the first or the last time, made it arrest us +at every step. The countryside, in the full warm rains of the last +of April, had burst into sudden perfect spring. The dark walls of the +hedgerows had turned into blooming screens, the sodden verdure of lawn +and meadow been washed over with a lighter brush. We went forth without +loss of time for a long walk on the great grassy hills, smooth arrested +central billows of some primitive upheaval, from the summits of which +you find half England unrolled at your feet. A dozen broad counties, +within the scope of your vision, commingle their green exhalations. +Closely beneath us lay the dark rich hedgy flats and the copse-chequered +slopes, white with the blossom of apples. At widely opposite points of +the expanse two great towers of cathedrals rose sharply out of a reddish +blur of habitation, taking the mild English light. + +We gave an irrepressible attention to this same solar reserve, and found +in it only a refinement of art. The sky never was empty and never idle; +the clouds were continually at play for our benefit. Over against +us, from our station on the hills, we saw them piled and dissolved, +condensed and shifted, blotting the blue with sullen rain-spots, +stretching, breeze-fretted, into dappled fields of grey, bursting into +an explosion of light or melting into a drizzle of silver. We made our +way along the rounded ridge of the downs and reached, by a descent, +through slanting angular fields, green to cottage-doors, a russet +village that beckoned us from the heart of the maze in which the hedges +wrapped it up. Close beside it, I admit, the roaring train bounces out +of a hole in the hills; yet there broods upon this charming hamlet an +old-time quietude that makes a violation of confidence of naming it so +far away. We struck through a narrow lane, a green lane, dim with its +barriers of hawthorn; it led us to a superb old farmhouse, now rather +rudely jostled by the multiplied roads and by-ways that have reduced its +ancient appanage. It stands there in stubborn picturesqueness, doggedly +submitting to be pointed out and sketched. It is a wonderful image of +the domiciliary conditions of the past--cruelly complete; with bended +beams and joists, beneath the burden of gables, that seem to ache and +groan with memories and regrets. The short low windows, where lead and +glass combine equally to create an inward gloom, retain their opacity as +a part of the primitive idea of defence. Such an old house provokes on +the part of an American a luxury of respect. So propped and patched, so +tinkered with clumsy tenderness, clustered so richly about its central +English sturdiness, its oaken vertebrations, so humanised with ages +of use and touches of beneficent affection, it seemed to offer to our +grateful eyes a small rude symbol of the great English social order. +Passing out upon the highroad, we came to the common browsing-patch, +the "village-green" of the tales of our youth. Nothing was absent: the +shaggy mouse-coloured donkey, nosing the turf with his mild and huge +proboscis, the geese, the old woman--THE old woman, in person, with +her red cloak and her black bonnet, frilled about the face and +double-frilled beside her decent placid cheeks--the towering ploughman +with his white smock-frock puckered on chest and back, his short +corduroys, his mighty calves, his big red rural face. We greeted these +things as children greet the loved pictures in a storybook lost and +mourned and found again. We recognised them as one recognises the +handwriting on letter-backs. Beside the road we saw a ploughboy straddle +whistling on a stile, and he had the merit of being not only a ploughboy +but a Gainsborough. Beyond the stile, across the level velvet of a +meadow, a footpath wandered like a streak drawn by a finger over a +surface of fine plush. We followed it from field to field and from +stile to stile; it was all adorably the way to church. At the church we +finally arrived, lost in its rook-haunted churchyard, hidden from the +workday world by the broad stillness of pastures--a grey, grey tower, a +huge black yew, a cluster of village-graves with crooked headstones and +protrusions that had settled and sunk. The place seemed so to ache with +consecration that my sensitive companion gave way to the force of it. + +"You must bury me here, you know"--he caught at my arm. "It's the first +place of worship I've seen in my life. How it makes a Sunday where it +stands!" + +It took the Church, we agreed, to make churches, but we had the sense +the next day of seeing still better why. We walked over some seven +miles, to the nearer of the two neighbouring seats of that lesson; and +all through such a mist of local colour that we felt ourselves a pair +of Smollett's pedestrian heroes faring tavernward for a night of +adventures. As we neared the provincial city we saw the steepled mass of +the cathedral, long and high, rise far into the cloud-freckled blue; and +as we got closer stopped on a bridge and looked down at the reflexion of +the solid minster in a yellow stream. Going further yet we entered +the russet town--where surely Miss Austen's heroines, in chariots +and curricles, must often have come a-shopping for their sandals and +mittens; we lounged in the grassed and gravelled precinct and gazed +insatiably at that most soul-soothing sight, the waning wasting +afternoon light, the visible ether that feels the voices of the chimes +cling far aloft to the quiet sides of the cathedral-tower; saw it linger +and nestle and abide, as it loves to do on all perpendicular spaces, +converting them irresistibly into registers and dials; tasted too, as +deeply, of the peculiar stillness of this place of priests; saw a rosy +English lad come forth and lock the door of the old foundation-school +that dovetailed with cloister and choir, and carry his big responsible +key into one of the quiet canonical houses: and then stood musing +together on the effect on one's mind of having in one's boyhood gone and +come through cathedral-shades as a King's scholar, and yet kept ruddy +with much cricket in misty river meadows. On the third morning we betook +ourselves to Lackley, having learned that parts of the "grounds" were +open to visitors, and that indeed on application the house was sometimes +shown. + +Within the range of these numerous acres the declining spurs of the +hills continued to undulate and subside. A long avenue wound and circled +from the outermost gate through an untrimmed woodland, whence you +glanced at further slopes and glades and copses and bosky recesses--at +everything except the limits of the place. It was as free and untended +as I had found a few of the large loose villas of old Italy, and I was +still never to see the angular fact of English landlordism muffle itself +in so many concessions. The weather had just become perfect; it was one +of the dozen exquisite days of the English year--days stamped with a +purity unknown in climates where fine weather is cheap. It was as if the +mellow brightness, as tender as that of the primroses which starred the +dark waysides like petals wind-scattered over beds of moss, had been +meted out to us by the cubic foot--distilled from an alchemist's +crucible. From this pastoral abundance we moved upon the more composed +scene, the park proper--passed through a second lodge-gate, with +weather-worn gilding on its twisted bars, to the smooth slopes where the +great trees stood singly and the tame deer browsed along the bed of +a woodland stream. Here before us rose the gabled grey front of the +Tudor-time, developed and terraced and gardened to some later loss, as +we were afterwards to know, of type. + +"Here you can wander all day," I said to Searle, "like an exiled +prince who has come back on tiptoe and hovers about the dominion of the +usurper." + +"To think of 'others' having hugged this all these years!" he answered. +"I know what I am, but what might I have been? What do such places make +of a man?" + +"I dare say he gets stupidly used to them," I said. "But I dare say too, +even then, that when you scratch the mere owner you find the perfect +lover." + +"What a perfect scene and background it forms!" my friend, however, +had meanwhile gone on. "What legends, what histories it knows! My heart +really breaks with all I seem to guess. There's Tennyson's Talking Oak! +What summer days one could spend here! How I could lounge the rest of my +life away on this turf of the middle ages! Haven't I some maiden-cousin +in that old hall, or grange, or court--what in the name of enchantment +do you call the thing?--who would give me kind leave?" And then he +turned almost fiercely upon me. "Why did you bring me here? Why did you +drag me into this distraction of vain regrets?" + +At this moment there passed within call a decent lad who had emerged +from the gardens and who might have been an underling in the stables. I +hailed him and put the question of our possible admittance to the house. +He answered that the master was away from home, but that he thought it +probable the housekeeper would consent to do the honours. I passed my +arm into Searle's. "Come," I said; "drain the cup, bitter-sweet though +it be. We must go in." We hastened slowly and approached the fine front. +The house was one of the happiest fruits of its freshly-feeling era, +a multitudinous cluster of fair gables and intricate chimneys, brave +projections and quiet recesses, brown old surfaces weathered to silver +and mottled roofs that testified not to seasons but to centuries. Two +broad terraces commanded the wooded horizon. Our appeal was answered by +a butler who condescended to our weakness. He renewed the assertion that +Mr. Searle was away from home, but he would himself lay our case before +the housekeeper. We would be so good, however, as to give him our cards. +This request, following so directly on the assertion that Mr. Searle +was absent, was rather resented by my companion. "Surely not for the +housekeeper." + +The butler gave a diplomatic cough. "Miss Searle is at home, sir." + +"Yours alone will have to serve," said my friend. I took out a card and +pencil and wrote beneath my name NEW YORK. As I stood with the pencil +poised a temptation entered into it. Without in the least considering +proprieties or results I let my implement yield--I added above my name +that of Mr. Clement Searle. What would come of it? + +Before many minutes the housekeeper waited upon us--a fresh rosy little +old woman in a clean dowdy cap and a scanty sprigged gown; a quaint +careful person, but accessible to the tribute of our pleasure, to say +nothing of any other. She had the accent of the country, but the manners +of the house. Under her guidance we passed through a dozen apartments, +duly stocked with old pictures, old tapestry, old carvings, old armour, +with a hundred ornaments and treasures. The pictures were especially +valuable. The two Vandykes, the trio of rosy Rubenses, the sole and +sombre Rembrandt, glowed with conscious authenticity. A Claude, a +Murillo, a Greuze, a couple of Gainsboroughs, hung there with high +complacency. Searle strolled about, scarcely speaking, pale and grave, +with bloodshot eyes and lips compressed. He uttered no comment on what +we saw--he asked but a question or two. Missing him at last from my side +I retraced my steps and found him in a room we had just left, on a faded +old ottoman and with his elbows on his knees and his face buried in +his hands. Before him, ranged on a great credence, was a magnificent +collection of old Italian majolica; plates of every shape, with their +glaze of happy colour, jugs and vases nobly bellied and embossed. There +seemed to rise before me, as I looked, a sudden vision of the young +English gentleman who, eighty years ago, had travelled by slow stages to +Italy and been waited on at his inn by persuasive toymen. "What is it, +my dear man?" I asked. "Are you unwell?" + +He uncovered his haggard face and showed me the flush of a consciousness +sharper, I think, to myself than to him. "A memory of the past! +There comes back to me a china vase that used to stand on the parlour +mantel-shelf when I was a boy, with a portrait of General Jackson +painted on one side and a bunch of flowers on the other. How long do you +suppose that majolica has been in the family?" + +"A long time probably. It was brought hither in the last century, into +old, old England, out of old, old Italy, by some contemporary dandy with +a taste for foreign gimcracks. Here it has stood for a hundred years, +keeping its clear firm hues in this quiet light that has never sought to +advertise it." + +Searle sprang to his feet. "I say, for mercy's sake, take me away! I +can't stand this sort of thing. Before I know it I shall do something +scandalous. I shall steal some of their infernal crockery. I shall +proclaim my identity and assert my rights. I shall go blubbering to Miss +Searle and ask her in pity's name to 'put me up.'" + +If he could ever have been said to threaten complications he rather +visibly did so now. I began to regret my officious presentation of +his name and prepared without delay to lead him out of the house. We +overtook the housekeeper in the last room of the series, a small unused +boudoir over whose chimney-piece hung a portrait of a young man in a +powdered wig and a brocaded waistcoat. I was struck with his resemblance +to my companion while our guide introduced him. "This is Mr. Clement +Searle, Mr. Searle's great-uncle, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. He died young, +poor gentleman; he perished at sea, going to America." + +"He was the young buck who brought the majolica out of Italy," I +supplemented. + +"Indeed, sir, I believe he did," said the housekeeper without wonder. + +"He's the image of you, my dear Searle," I further observed. + +"He's remarkably like the gentleman, saving his presence," said the +housekeeper. + +My friend stood staring. "Clement Searle--at sea--going to America--?" +he broke out. Then with some sharpness to our old woman: "Why the devil +did he go to America?" + +"Why indeed, sir? You may well ask. I believe he had kinsfolk there. It +was for them to come to him." + +Searle broke into a laugh. "It was for them to come to him! Well, well," +he said, fixing his eyes on our guide, "they've come to him at last!" + +She blushed like a wrinkled rose-leaf. "Indeed, sir, I verily believe +you're one of US!" + +"My name's the name of that beautiful youth," Searle went on. "Dear +kinsman I'm happy to meet you! And what do you think of this?" he +pursued as he grasped me by the arm. "I have an idea. He perished at +sea. His spirit came ashore and wandered about in misery till it got +another incarnation--in this poor trunk!" And he tapped his hollow +chest. "Here it has rattled about these forty years, beating its wings +against its rickety cage, begging to be taken home again. And I never +knew what was the matter with me! Now at last the bruised spirit can +escape!" + +Our old lady gaped at a breadth of appreciation--if not at the +disclosure of a connexion--beyond her. The scene was really +embarrassing, and my confusion increased as we became aware of another +presence. A lady had appeared in the doorway and the housekeeper dropped +just audibly: "Miss Searle!" My first impression of Miss Searle was that +she was neither young nor beautiful. She stood without confidence on the +threshold, pale, trying to smile and twirling my card in her fingers. +I immediately bowed. Searle stared at her as if one of the pictures had +stepped out of its frame. + +"If I'm not mistaken one of you gentlemen is Mr. Clement Searle," the +lady adventured. + +"My friend's Mr. Clement Searle," I took upon myself to reply. "Allow me +to add that I alone am responsible for your having received his name." + +"I should have been sorry not to--not to see him," said Miss Searle, +beginning to blush. "Your being from America has led me--perhaps to +intrude!" + +"The intrusion, madam, has been on our part. And with just that +excuse--that we come from so far away." + +Miss Searle, while I spoke, had fixed her eyes on my friend as he stood +silent beneath Sir Joshua's portrait. The housekeeper, agitated and +mystified, fairly let herself go. "Heaven preserve us, Miss! It's your +great-uncle's picture come to life." + +"I'm not mistaken then," said Miss Searle--"we must be distantly +related." She had the air of the shyest of women, for whom it was almost +anguish to make an advance without help. Searle eyed her with gentle +wonder from head to foot, and I could easily read his thoughts. This +then was his maiden-cousin, prospective mistress of these hereditary +treasures. She was of some thirty-five years of age, taller than was +then common and perhaps stouter than is now enjoined. She had small +kind grey eyes, a considerable quantity of very light-brown hair and a +smiling well-formed mouth. She was dressed in a lustreless black +satin gown with a short train. Disposed about her neck was a blue +handkerchief, and over this handkerchief, in many convolutions, a string +of amber beads. Her appearance was singular; she was large yet somehow +vague, mature yet undeveloped. Her manner of addressing us spoke of all +sorts of deep diffidences. Searle, I think, had prefigured to himself +some proud cold beauty of five-and-twenty; he was relieved at finding +the lady timid and not obtrusively fair. He at once had an excellent +tone. + +"We're distant cousins, I believe. I'm happy to claim a relationship +which you're so good as to remember. I hadn't counted on your knowing +anything about me." + +"Perhaps I've done wrong." And Miss Searle blushed and smiled anew. "But +I've always known of there being people of our blood in America, and +have often wondered and asked about them--without ever learning much. +To-day, when this card was brought me and I understood a Clement Searle +to be under our roof as a stranger, I felt I ought to do something. But, +you know, I hardly knew what. My brother's in London. I've done what I +think he would have done. Welcome as a cousin." And with a resolution +that ceased to be awkward she put out her hand. + +"I'm welcome indeed if he would have done it half so graciously!" Again +Searle, taking her hand, acquitted himself beautifully. + +"You've seen what there is, I think," Miss Searle went on. "Perhaps now +you'll have luncheon." We followed her into a small breakfast-room where +a deep bay window opened on the mossy flags of a terrace. Here, for some +moments, she remained dumb and abashed, as if resting from a measurable +effort. Searle too had ceased to overflow, so that I had to relieve the +silence. It was of course easy to descant on the beauties of park and +mansion, and as I did so I observed our hostess. She had no arts, no +impulses nor graces--scarce even any manners; she was queerly, almost +frowsily dressed; yet she pleased me well. She had an antique sweetness, +a homely fragrance of old traditions. To be so simple, among those +complicated treasures, so pampered and yet so fresh, so modest and yet +so placid, told of just the spacious leisure in which Searle and I had +imagined human life to be steeped in such places as that. This figure +was to the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood what a fact is to a fairy-tale, +an interpretation to a myth. We, on our side, were to our hostess +subjects of a curiosity not cunningly veiled. + +"I should like so to go abroad!" she exclaimed suddenly, as if she meant +us to take the speech for an expression of interest in ourselves. + +"Have you never been?" one of us asked. + +"Only once. Three years ago my brother took me to Switzerland. We +thought it extremely beautiful. Except for that journey I've always +lived here. I was born in this house. It's a dear old place indeed, and +I know it well. Sometimes one wants a change." And on my asking her +how she spent her time and what society she saw, "Of course it's very +quiet," she went on, proceeding by short steps and simple statements, in +the manner of a person called upon for the first time to analyse to that +extent her situation. "We see very few people. I don't think there are +many nice ones hereabouts. At least we don't know them. Our own family's +very small. My brother cares for nothing but riding and books. He had +a great sorrow ten years ago. He lost his wife and his only son, a dear +little boy, who of course would have had everything. Do you know that +that makes me the heir, as they've done something--I don't quite +know what--to the entail? Poor old me! Since his loss my brother has +preferred to be quite alone. I'm sorry he's away. But you must wait till +he comes back. I expect him in a day or two." She talked more and more, +as if our very strangeness led her on, about her circumstances, her +solitude, her bad eyes, so that she couldn't read, her flowers, her +ferns, her dogs, and the vicar, recently presented to the living by +her brother and warranted quite safe, who had lately begun to light his +altar candles; pausing every now and then to gasp in self-surprise, yet, +in the quaintest way in the world, keeping up her story as if it were +a slow rather awkward old-time dance, a difficult pas seul in which +she would have been better with more practice, but of which she must +complete the figure. Of all the old things I had seen in England this +exhibited mind of Miss Searle's seemed to me the oldest, the most handed +down and taken for granted; fenced and protected as it was by convention +and precedent and usage, thoroughly acquainted with its subordinate +place. I felt as if I were talking with the heroine of a last-century +novel. As she talked she rested her dull eyes on her kinsman with +wondering kindness. At last she put it to him: "Did you mean to go away +without asking for us?" + +"I had thought it over, Miss Searle, and had determined not to trouble +you. You've shown me how unfriendly I should have been." + +"But you knew of the place being ours, and of our relationship?" + +"Just so. It was because of these things that I came down here--because +of them almost that I came to England. I've always liked to think of +them," said my companion. + +"You merely wished to look then? We don't pretend to be much to look +at." + +He waited; her words were too strange. "You don't know what you are, +Miss Searle." + +"You like the old place then?" + +Searle looked at her again in silence. "If I could only tell you!" he +said at last. + +"Do tell me. You must come and stay with us." + +It moved him to an oddity of mirth. "Take care, take care--I should +surprise you! I'm afraid I should bore you. I should never leave you." + +"Oh you'd get homesick--for your real home!" + +At this he was still more amused. "By the way, tell Miss Searle about +our real home," he said to me. And he stepped, through the window, out +upon the terrace, followed by two beautiful dogs, a setter and a young +stag-hound who from the moment we came in had established the fondest +relation with him. Miss Searle looked at him, while he went, as if she +vaguely yearned over him; it began to be plain that she was interested +in her exotic cousin. I suddenly recalled the last words I had heard +spoken by my friend's adviser in London and which, in a very crude form, +had reference to his making a match with this lady. If only Miss Searle +could be induced to think of that, and if one had but the tact to put it +in a light to her! Something assured me that her heart was virgin-soil, +that the flower of romantic affection had never bloomed there. If I +might just sow the seed! There seemed to shape itself within her the +perfect image of one of the patient wives of old. + +"He has lost his heart to England," I said. "He ought to have been born +here." + +"And yet he doesn't look in the least an Englishman," she still rather +guardedly prosed. + +"Oh it isn't his looks, poor fellow." + +"Of course looks aren't everything. I never talked with a foreigner +before; but he talks as I have fancied foreigners." + +"Yes, he's foreign enough." + +"Is he married?" + +"His wife's dead and he's all alone in the world." + +"Has he much property?" + +"None to speak of." + +"But he has means to travel." + +I meditated. "He has not expected to travel far," I said at last. "You +know, he's in very poor health." + +"Poor gentleman! So I supposed." + +"But there's more of him to go on with than he thinks. He came here +because he wanted to see your place before he dies." + +"Dear me--kind man!" And I imagined in the quiet eyes the hint of a +possible tear. "And he was going away without my seeing him?" + +"He's very modest, you see." + +"He's very much the gentleman." + +I couldn't but smile. "He's ALL--" + +At this moment we heard on the terrace a loud harsh cry. "It's the great +peacock!" said Miss Searle, stepping to the window and passing out while +I followed her. Below us, leaning on the parapet, stood our appreciative +friend with his arm round the neck of the setter. Before him on +the grand walk strutted the familiar fowl of gardens--a splendid +specimen--with ruffled neck and expanded tail. The other dog had +apparently indulged in a momentary attempt to abash the gorgeous biped, +but at Searle's summons had bounded back to the terrace and leaped upon +the ledge, where he now stood licking his new friend's face. The scene +had a beautiful old-time air: the peacock flaunting in the foreground +like the genius of stately places; the broad terrace, which flattered +an innate taste of mine for all deserted walks where people may have sat +after heavy dinners to drink coffee in old Sevres and where the stiff +brocade of women's dresses may have rustled over grass or gravel; and +far around us, with one leafy circle melting into another, the timbered +acres of the park. "The very beasts have made him welcome," I noted as +we rejoined our companion. + +"The peacock has done for you, Mr. Searle," said his cousin, "what he +does only for very great people. A year ago there came here a great +person--a grand old lady--to see my brother. I don't think that since +then he has spread his tail as wide for any one else--not by a dozen +feathers." + +"It's not alone the peacock," said Searle. "Just now there came slipping +across my path a little green lizard, the first I ever saw, the lizard +of literature! And if you've a ghost, broad daylight though it be, +I expect to see him here. Do you know the annals of your house, Miss +Searle?" + +"Oh dear, no! You must ask my brother for all those things." + +"You ought to have a collection of legends and traditions. You ought to +have loves and murders and mysteries by the roomful. I shall be ashamed +of you if you haven't." + +"Oh Mr. Searle! We've always been a very well-behaved family," she quite +seriously pleaded. "Nothing out of the way has ever happened, I think." + +"Nothing out of the way? Oh that won't do! We've managed better than +that in America. Why I myself!"--and he looked at her ruefully enough, +but enjoying too his idea that he might embody the social scandal or +point to the darkest drama of the Searles. "Suppose I should turn out +a better Searle than you--better than you nursed here in romance and +extravagance? Come, don't disappoint me. You've some history among you +all, you've some poetry, you've some accumulation of legend. I've been +famished all my days for these things. Don't you understand? Ah you +can't understand! Tell me," he rambled on, "something tremendous. When +I think of what must have happened here; of the lovers who must have +strolled on this terrace and wandered under the beeches, of all the +figures and passions and purposes that must have haunted these walls! +When I think of the births and deaths, the joys and sufferings, the +young hopes and the old regrets, the rich experience of life--!" He +faltered a moment with the increase of his agitation. His humour of +dismay at a threat of the commonplace in the history he felt about him +had turned to a deeper reaction. I began to fear however that he was +really losing his head. He went on with a wilder play. "To see it all +called up there before me, if the Devil alone could do it I'd make a +bargain with the Devil! Ah Miss Searle," he cried, "I'm a most unhappy +man!" + +"Oh dear, oh dear!" she almost wailed while I turned half away. + +"Look at that window, that dear little window!" I turned back to see him +point to a small protruding oriel, above us, relieved against the purple +brickwork, framed in chiselled stone and curtained with ivy. + +"It's my little room," she said. + +"Of course it's a woman's room. Think of all the dear faces--all of them +so mild and yet so proud--that have looked out of that lattice, and of +all the old-time women's lives whose principal view of the world has +been this quiet park! Every one of them was a cousin of mine. And you, +dear lady, you're one of them yet." With which he marched toward her and +took her large white hand. She surrendered it, blushing to her eyes +and pressing her other hand to her breast. "You're a woman of the past. +You're nobly simple. It has been a romance to see you. It doesn't matter +what I say to you. You didn't know me yesterday, you'll not know me +to-morrow. Let me to-day do a mad sweet thing. Let me imagine in you the +spirit of all the dead women who have trod the terrace-flags that lie +here like sepulchral tablets in the pavement of a church. Let me say I +delight in you!"--he raised her hand to his lips. She gently withdrew it +and for a moment averted her face. Meeting her eyes the next instant I +saw the tears had come. The Sleeping Beauty was awake. + +There followed an embarrassed pause. An issue was suddenly presented by +the appearance of the butler bearing a letter. "A telegram, Miss," he +announced. + +"Oh what shall I do?" cried Miss Searle. "I can't open a telegram. +Cousin, help me." + +Searle took the missive, opened it and read aloud: "I shall be home to +dinner. Keep the American." + + + + +III + +"KEEP the American!" Miss Searle, in compliance with the injunction +conveyed in her brother's telegram (with something certainly of +telegraphic curtness), lost no time in expressing the pleasure it would +give her that our friend should remain. "Really you must," she said; +and forthwith repaired to the house-keeper to give orders for the +preparation of a room. + +"But how in the world did he know of my being here?" my companion put to +me. + +I answered that he had probably heard from his solicitor of the other's +visit. "Mr. Simmons and that gentleman must have had another interview +since your arrival in England. Simmons, for reasons of his own, has +made known to him your journey to this neighbourhood, and Mr. Searle, +learning this, has immediately taken for granted that you've formally +presented yourself to his sister. He's hospitably inclined and wishes +her to do the proper thing by you. There may even," I went on, "be more +in it than that. I've my little theory that he's the very phoenix of +usurpers, that he has been very much struck with what the experts have +had to say for you, and that he wishes to have the originality of making +over to you your share--so limited after all--of the estate." + +"I give it up!" my friend mused. "Come what come will!" + +"You, of course," said Miss Searle, reappearing and turning to me, "are +included in my brother's invitation. I've told them to see about a room +for you. Your luggage shall immediately be sent for." + +It was arranged that I in person should be driven over to our little inn +and that I should return with our effects in time to meet Mr. Searle at +dinner. On my arrival several hours later I was immediately conducted +to my room. The servant pointed out to me that it communicated by a +door and a private passage with that of my fellow visitor. I made my way +along this passage--a low narrow corridor with a broad latticed casement +through which there streamed upon a series of grotesquely sculptured +oaken closets and cupboards the vivid animating glow of the western +sun--knocked at his door and, getting no answer, opened it. In an +armchair by the open window sat my friend asleep, his arms and legs +relaxed and head dropped on his breast. It was a great relief to see him +rest thus from his rhapsodies, and I watched him for some moments before +waking him. There was a faint glow of colour in his cheek and a light +expressive parting of his lips, something nearer to ease and peace than +I had yet seen in him. It was almost happiness, it was almost health. I +laid my hand on his arm and gently shook it. He opened his eyes, gazed +at me a moment, vaguely recognised me, then closed them again. "Let me +dream, let me dream!" + +"What are you dreaming about?" + +A moment passed before his answer came. "About a tall woman in a quaint +black dress, with yellow hair and a sweet, sweet smile, and a soft low +delicious voice! I'm in love with her." + +"It's better to see her than to dream about her," I said. "Get up and +dress; then we'll go down to dinner and meet her." + +"Dinner--dinner--?" And he gradually opened his eyes again. "Yes, upon +my word I shall dine!" + +"Oh you're all right!" I declared for the twentieth time as he rose to +his feet. "You'll live to bury Mr. Simmons." He told me he had spent the +hours of my absence with Miss Searle--they had strolled together half +over the place. "You must be very intimate," I smiled. + +"She's intimate with ME. Goodness knows what rigmarole I've treated her +to!" They had parted an hour ago; since when, he believed, her brother +had arrived. + +The slow-fading twilight was still in the great drawing-room when we +came down. The housekeeper had told us this apartment was rarely used, +there being others, smaller and more convenient, for the same needs. +It seemed now, however, to be occupied in my comrade's honour. At the +furthest end, rising to the roof like a royal tomb in a cathedral, was +a great chimney-piece of chiselled white marble, yellowed by time, in +which a light fire was crackling. Before the fire stood a small short +man, with his hands behind him; near him was Miss Searle, so transformed +by her dress that at first I scarcely knew her. There was in our +entrance and reception something remarkably chilling and solemn. We +moved in silence up the long room; Mr. Searle advanced slowly, a dozen +steps, to meet us; his sister stood motionless. I was conscious of her +masking her visage with a large white tinselled fan, and that her eyes, +grave and enlarged, watched us intently over the top of it. The master +of Lackley grasped in silence the proffered hand of his kinsman and eyed +him from head to foot, suppressing, I noted, a start of surprise at his +resemblance to Sir Joshua's portrait. "This is a happy day." And then +turning to me with an odd little sharp stare: "My cousin's friend is my +friend." Miss Searle lowered her fan. + +The first thing that struck me in Mr. Searle's appearance was his very +limited stature, which was less by half a head than that of his sister. +The second was the preternatural redness of his hair and beard. They +intermingled over his ears and surrounded his head like a huge lurid +nimbus. His face was pale and attenuated, the face of a scholar, a +dilettante, a comparer of points and texts, a man who lives in a library +bending over books and prints and medals. At a distance it might have +passed for smooth and rather blankly composed; but on a nearer view +it revealed a number of wrinkles, sharply etched and scratched, of a +singularly aged and refined effect. It was the complexion of a man of +sixty. His nose was arched and delicate, identical almost with the nose +of my friend. His eyes, large and deep-set, had a kind of auburn glow, +the suggestion of a keen metal red-hot--or, more plainly, were full +of temper and spirit. Imagine this physiognomy--grave and solemn, +grotesquely solemn, in spite of the bushy brightness which made a sort +of frame for it--set in motion by a queer, quick, defiant, perfunctory, +preoccupied smile, and you will have an imperfect notion of the +remarkable presence of our host; something better worth seeing and +knowing, I perceived as I quite breathlessly took him in, than anything +we had yet encountered. How thoroughly I had entered into sympathy +with my poor picked-up friend, and how effectually I had associated my +sensibilities with his own, I had not suspected till, within the short +five minutes before the signal for dinner, I became aware, without his +giving me the least hint, of his placing himself on the defensive. To +neither of us was Mr. Searle sympathetic. I might have guessed from her +attitude that his sister entered into our thoughts. A marked change had +been wrought in her since the morning; during the hour, indeed--as +I read in the light of the wondering glance he cast at her--that had +elapsed since her parting with her cousin. She had not yet recovered +from some great agitation. Her face was pale and she had clearly +been crying. These notes of trouble gave her a new and quite perverse +dignity, which was further enhanced by something complimentary and +commemorative in her dress. + +Whether it was taste or whether it was accident I know not; but the +amiable creature, as she stood there half in the cool twilight, half in +the arrested glow of the fire as it spent itself in the vastness of its +marble cave, was a figure for a painter. She was habited in some faded +splendour of sea-green crape and silk, a piece of millinery which, +though it must have witnessed a number of dull dinners, preserved still +a festive air. Over her white shoulders she wore an ancient web of the +most precious and venerable lace and about her rounded throat a single +series of large pearls. I went in with her to dinner, and Mr. Searle, +following with my friend, took his arm, as the latter afterwards told +me, and pretended jocosely to conduct him. As dinner proceeded the +feeling grew within me that a drama had begun to be played in which the +three persons before me were actors--each of a really arduous part. The +character allotted to my friend, however, was certainly the least easy +to represent with effect, though I overflowed with the desire that he +should acquit himself to his honour. I seemed to see him urge his faded +faculties to take their cue and perform. The poor fellow tried to do +himself credit more seriously than ever in his old best days. With Miss +Searle, credulous passive and pitying, he had finally flung aside all +vanity and propriety and shown the bottom of his fantastic heart. +But with our host there might be no talking of nonsense nor taking +of liberties; there and then, if ever, sat a consummate conservative, +breathing the fumes of hereditary privilege and security. For an hour, +accordingly, I saw my poor protege attempt, all in pain, to meet a new +decorum. He set himself the task of appearing very American, in order +that his appreciation of everything Mr. Searle represented might seem +purely disinterested. What his kinsman had expected him to be I know +not; but I made Mr. Searle out as annoyed, in spite of his exaggerated +urbanity, at finding him so harmless. Our host was not the man to +show his hand, but I think his best card had been a certain implicit +confidence that so provincial a parasite would hardly have good manners. + +He led the conversation to the country we had left; rather as if a leash +had been attached to the collar of some lumpish and half-domesticated +animal the tendency of whose movements had to be recognised. He spoke of +it indeed as of some fabled planet, alien to the British orbit, lately +proclaimed to have the admixture of atmospheric gases required +to support animal life, but not, save under cover of a liberal +afterthought, to be admitted into one's regular conception of things. I, +for my part, felt nothing but regret that the spheric smoothness of +his universe should be disfigured by the extrusion even of such +inconsiderable particles as ourselves. + +"I knew in a general way of our having somehow ramified over there," Mr. +Searle mentioned; "but had scarcely followed it more than you pretend to +pick up the fruit your long-armed pear tree may drop, on the other side +of your wall, in your neighbour's garden. There was a man I knew at +Cambridge, a very odd fellow, a decent fellow too; he and I were rather +cronies; I think he afterwards went to the Middle States. They'll be, +I suppose, about the Mississippi? At all events, there was that +great-uncle of mine whom Sir Joshua painted. He went to America, but he +never got there. He was lost at sea. You look enough like him to make +one fancy he DID get there and that you've kept him alive by one of +those beastly processes--I think you have 'em over there: what do you +call it, 'putting up' things? If you're he you've not done a wise thing +to show yourself here. He left a bad name behind him. There's a ghost +who comes sobbing about the house every now and then, the ghost of one +to whom he did a wrong." + +"Oh mercy ON us!" cried Miss Searle in simple horror. + +"Of course YOU know nothing of such things," he rather dryly allowed. +"You're too sound a sleeper to hear the sobbing of ghosts." + +"I'm sure I should like immensely to hear the sobbing of a ghost," said +my friend, the light of his previous eagerness playing up into his eyes. +"Why does it sob? I feel as if that were what we've come above all to +learn." + +Mr. Searle eyed his audience a moment gaugingly; he held the balance as +to measure his resources. He wished to do justice to his theme. With +the long finger-nails of his left hand nervously playing against the +tinkling crystal of his wineglass and his conscious eyes betraying that, +small and strange as he sat there, he knew himself, to his pleasure and +advantage, remarkably impressive, he dropped into our untutored minds +the sombre legend of his house. "Mr. Clement Searle, from all I gather, +was a young man of great talents but a weak disposition. His mother was +left a widow early in life, with two sons, of whom he was the elder and +the more promising. She educated him with the greatest affection and +care. Of course when he came to manhood she wished him to marry well. +His means were quite sufficient to enable him to overlook the want of +money in his wife; and Mrs. Searle selected a young lady who possessed, +as she conceived, every good gift save a fortune--a fine proud handsome +girl, the daughter of an old friend, an old lover I suspect, of her own. +Clement, however, as it appeared, had either chosen otherwise or was +as yet unprepared to choose. The young lady opened upon him in vain the +battery of her attractions; in vain his mother urged her cause. Clement +remained cold, insensible, inflexible. Mrs. Searle had a character which +appears to have gone out of fashion in my family nowadays; she was a +great manager, a maitresse-femme. A proud passionate imperious woman, +she had had immense cares and ever so many law-suits; they had sharpened +her temper and her will. She suspected that her son's affections had +another object, and this object she began to hate. Irritated by his +stubborn defiance of her wishes she persisted in her purpose. The more +she watched him the more she was convinced he loved in secret. If he +loved in secret of course he loved beneath him. He went about the place +all sombre and sullen and brooding. At last, with the rashness of an +angry woman, she threatened to bring the young lady of her choice--who, +by the way, seems to have been no shrinking blossom--to stay in the +house. A stormy scene was the result. He threatened that if she did +so he would leave the country and sail for America. She probably +disbelieved him; she knew him to be weak, but she overrated his +weakness. At all events the rejected one arrived and Clement Searle +departed. On a dark December day he took ship at Southampton. The two +women, desperate with rage and sorrow, sat alone in this big house, +mingling their tears and imprecations. A fortnight later, on Christmas +Eve, in the midst of a great snowstorm long famous in the country, +something happened that quickened their bitterness. A young woman, +battered and chilled by the storm, gained entrance to the house and, +making her way into the presence of the mistress and her guest, poured +out her tale. She was a poor curate's daughter out of some little hole +in Gloucestershire. Clement Searle had loved her--loved her all too +well! She had been turned out in wrath from her father's house; his +mother at least might pity her--if not for herself then for the child +she was soon to bring forth. Hut the poor girl had been a second time +too trustful. The women, in scorn, in horror, with blows possibly, drove +her forth again into the storm. In the storm she wandered and in the +deep snow she died. Her lover, as you know, perished in that hard winter +weather at sea; the news came to his mother late, but soon enough. We're +haunted by the curate's daughter!" + +Mr. Searle retailed this anecdote with infinite taste and point, the +happiest art; when he ceased there was a pause of some moments. "Ah well +we may be!" Miss Searle then mournfully murmured. + +Searle blazed up into enthusiasm. "Of course, you know"--with which he +began to blush violently--"I should be sorry to claim any identity +with the poor devil my faithless namesake. But I should be immensely +gratified if the young lady's spirit, deceived by my resemblance, were +to mistake me for her cruel lover. She's welcome to the comfort of it. +What one can do in the case I shall be glad to do. But can a ghost haunt +a ghost? I AM a ghost!" + +Mr. Searle stared a moment and then had a subtle sneer. "I could almost +believe you are!" + +"Oh brother--and cousin!" cried Miss Searle with the gentlest yet most +appealing dignity. "How can you talk so horribly?" The horrible talk, +however, evidently possessed a potent magic for my friend; and his +imagination, checked a while by the influence of his kinsman, began +again to lead him a dance. From this moment he ceased to steer his frail +bark, to care what he said or how he said it, so long as he expressed +his passionate appreciation of the scene around him. As he kept up this +strain I ceased even secretly to wish he wouldn't. I have wondered since +that I shouldn't have been annoyed by the way he reverted constantly to +himself. But a great frankness, for the time, makes its own law and +a great passion its own channel. There was moreover an irresponsible +indescribable effect of beauty in everything his lips uttered. Free +alike from adulation and from envy, the essence of his discourse was a +divine apprehension, a romantic vision free as the flight of Ariel, of +the poetry of his companions' situation and their contrasted general +irresponsiveness. + +"How does the look of age come?" he suddenly broke out at dessert. "Does +it come of itself, unobserved, unrecorded, unmeasured? Or do you woo it +and set baits and traps for it, and watch it like the dawning brownness +of a meerschaum pipe, and make it fast, when it appears, just where it +peeps out, and light a votive taper beneath it and give thanks to it +daily? Or do you forbid it and fight it and resist it, and yet feel it +settling and deepening about you as irresistible as fate?" + +"What the deuce is the man talking about?" said the smile of our host. + +"I found a little grey hair this morning," Miss Searle incoherently +prosed. + +"Well then I hope you paid it every respect!" cried her visitor. + +"I looked at it for a long time in my hand-glass," she answered with +more presence of mind. + +"Miss Searle can for many years to come afford to be amused at grey +hairs," I interposed in the hope of some greater ease. It had its +effect. "Ten years from last Thursday I shall be forty-four," she almost +comfortably smiled. + +"Well, that's just what I am," said Searle. "If I had only come here ten +years ago! I should have had more time to enjoy the feast, but I should +have had less appetite. I needed first to get famished." + +"Oh why did you wait for that?" his entertainer asked. "To think of +these ten years that we might have been enjoying you!" At the vision of +which waste and loss Mr. Searle had a fine shrill laugh. + +"Well," my friend explained, "I always had a notion--a stupid vulgar +notion if there ever was one--that to come abroad properly one had to +have a pot of money. My pot was too nearly empty. At last I came with my +empty pot!" + +Mr. Searle had a wait for delicacy, but he proceeded. "You're reduced, +you're--a--straitened?" + +Our companion's very breath blew away the veil. "Reduced to nothing. +Straitened to the clothes on my back!" + +"You don't say so!" said Mr. Searle with a large vague gasp. +"Well--well--well!" he added in a voice which might have meant +everything or nothing; and then, in his whimsical way, went on to finish +a glass of wine. His searching eye, as he drank, met mine, and for a +moment we each rather deeply sounded the other, to the effect no doubt +of a slight embarrassment. "And you," he said by way of carrying this +off--"how about YOUR wardrobe?" + +"Oh his!" cried my friend; "his wardrobe's immense. He could dress up a +regiment!" He had drunk more champagne--I admit that the champagne +was good--than was from any point of view to have been desired. He was +rapidly drifting beyond any tacit dissuasion of mine. He was feverish +and rash, and all attempt to direct would now simply irritate him. As +we rose from the table he caught my troubled look. Passing his arm for +a moment into mine, "This is the great night!" he strangely and softly +said; "the night and the crisis that will settle me." + +Mr. Searle had caused the whole lower portion of the house to be thrown +open and a multitude of lights to be placed in convenient and effective +positions. Such a marshalled wealth of ancient candlesticks and +flambeaux I had never beheld. Niched against the dusky wainscots, +casting great luminous circles upon the pendent stiffness of sombre +tapestries, enhancing and completing with admirable effect the variety +and mystery of the great ancient house, they seemed to people the wide +rooms, as our little group passed slowly from one to another, with a +dim expectant presence. We had thus, in spite of everything, a wonderful +hour of it. Mr. Searle at once assumed the part of cicerone, and--I had +not hitherto done him justice--Mr. Searle became almost agreeable. While +I lingered behind with his sister he walked in advance with his kinsman. +It was as if he had said: "Well, if you want the old place you shall +have it--so far as the impression goes!" He spared us no thrill--I +had almost said no pang--of that experience. Carrying a tall silver +candlestick in his left hand, he raised it and lowered it and cast the +light hither and thither, upon pictures and hangings and carvings and +cornices. He knew his house to perfection. He touched upon a hundred +traditions and memories, he threw off a cloud of rich reference to +its earlier occupants. He threw off again, in his easy elegant way, a +dozen--happily lighter--anecdotes. His relative attended with a brooding +deference. Miss Searle and I meanwhile were not wholly silent. + +"I suppose that by this time you and your cousin are almost old +friends," I remarked. + +She trifled a moment with her fan and then raised her kind small +eyes. "Old friends--yet at the same time strangely new! My cousin, my +cousin"--and her voice lingered on the word--"it seems so strange to +call him my cousin after thinking these many years that I've no one in +the world but my brother. But he's really so very odd!" + +"It's not so much he as--well, as his situation, that deserves that +name," I tried to reason. + +"I'm so sorry for his situation. I wish I could help it in some way. He +interests me so much." She gave a sweet-sounding sigh. "I wish I could +have known him sooner--and better. He tells me he's but the shadow of +what he used to be." + +I wondered if he had been consciously practising on the sensibilities of +this gentle creature. If he had I believed he had gained his point. But +his position had in fact become to my sense so precarious that I hardly +ventured to be glad. "His better self just now seems again to be taking +shape," I said. "It will have been a good deed on your part if you help +to restore him to all he ought to be." + +She met my idea blankly. "Dear me, what can I do?" + +"Be a friend to him. Let him like you, let him love you. I dare say you +see in him now much to pity and to wonder at. But let him simply enjoy +a while the grateful sense of your nearness and dearness. He'll be +a better and stronger man for it, and then you can love him, you can +esteem him, without restriction." + +She fairly frowned for helplessness. "It's a hard part for poor stupid +me to play!" + +Her almost infantine innocence left me no choice but to be absolutely +frank. "Did you ever play any part at all?" + +She blushed as if I had been reproaching her with her insignificance. +"Never! I think I've hardly lived." + +"You've begun to live now perhaps. You've begun to care for something +else than your old-fashioned habits. Pardon me if I seem rather +meddlesome; you know we Americans are very rough and ready. It's a great +moment. I wish you joy!" + +"I could almost believe you're laughing at me. I feel more trouble than +joy." + +"Why do you feel trouble?" + +She paused with her eyes fixed on our companions. "My cousin's arrival's +a great disturbance," she said at last. + +"You mean you did wrong in coming to meet him? In that case the fault's +mine. He had no intention of giving you the opportunity." + +"I certainly took too much on myself. But I can't find it in my heart to +regret it. I never shall regret it! I did the only thing I COULD, heaven +forgive me!" + +"Heaven bless you, Miss Searle! Is any harm to come of it? I did the +evil; let me bear the brunt!" + +She shook her head gravely. "You don't know my brother!" + +"The sooner I master the subject the better then," I said. I couldn't +help relieving myself--at least by the tone of my voice--of the +antipathy with which, decidedly, this gentleman had inspired me. "Not +perhaps that we should get on so well together!" After which, as she +turned away, "Are you VERY much afraid of him?" I added. + +She gave me a shuddering sidelong glance. "He's looking at me!" + +He was placed with his back to us, holding a large Venetian hand-mirror, +framed in chiselled silver, which he had taken from a shelf of +antiquities, just at such an angle that he caught the reflexion of his +sister's person. It was evident that I too was under his attention, and +was resolved I wouldn't be suspected for nothing. "Miss Searle," I said +with urgency, "promise me something." + +She turned upon me with a start and a look that seemed to beg me to +spare her. "Oh don't ask me--please don't!" It was as if she were +standing on the edge of a place where the ground had suddenly fallen +away, and had been called upon to make a leap. I felt retreat was +impossible, however, and that it was the greater kindness to assist her +to jump. + +"Promise me," I repeated. + +Still with her eyes she protested. "Oh what a dreadful day!" she cried +at last. + +"Promise me to let him speak to you alone if he should ask you--any wish +you may suspect on your brother's part notwithstanding." She coloured +deeply. "You mean he has something so particular to say?" + +"Something so particular!" + +"Poor cousin!" + +"Well, poor cousin! But promise me." + +"I promise," she said, and moved away across the long room and out of +the door. + +"You're in time to hear the most delightful story," Searle began to me +as I rejoined him and his host. They were standing before an old sombre +portrait of a lady in the dress of Queen Anne's time, whose ill-painted +flesh-tints showed livid, in the candle-light, against her dark drapery +and background. "This is Mrs. Margaret Searle--a sort of Beatrix +Esmond--qui se passait ses fantaisies. She married a paltry Frenchman, +a penniless fiddler, in the teeth of her whole family. Pretty Mrs. +Margaret, you must have been a woman of courage! Upon my word, she looks +like Miss Searle! But pray go on. What came of it all?" + +Our companion watched him with an air of distaste for his boisterous +homage and of pity for his crude imagination. But he took up the tale +with an effective dryness: "I found a year ago, in a box of very old +papers, a letter from the lady in question to a certain Cynthia Searle, +her elder sister. It was dated from Paris and dreadfully ill-spelled. +It contained a most passionate appeal for pecuniary assistance. She +had just had a baby, she was starving and dreadfully neglected by her +husband--she cursed the day she had left England. It was a most dismal +production. I never heard she found means to return." + +"So much for marrying a Frenchman!" I said sententiously. + +Our host had one of his waits. "This is the only lady of the family who +ever was taken in by an adventurer." + +"Does Miss Searle know her history?" asked my friend with a stare at the +rounded whiteness of the heroine's cheek. + +"Miss Searle knows nothing!" said our host with expression. + +"She shall know at least the tale of Mrs. Margaret," their guest +returned; and he walked rapidly away in search of her. + +Mr. Searle and I pursued our march through the lighted rooms. "You've +found a cousin with a vengeance," I doubtless awkwardly enough laughed. + +"Ah a vengeance?" my entertainer stiffly repeated. + +"I mean that he takes as keen an interest in your annals and possessions +as yourself." + +"Oh exactly so! He tells me he's a bad invalid," he added in a moment. +"I should never have supposed it." + +"Within the past few hours he's a changed man. Your beautiful house, +your extreme kindness, have refreshed him immensely." Mr. Searle uttered +the vague ejaculation with which self-conscious Britons so often betray +the concussion of any especial courtesy of speech. But he followed this +by a sudden odd glare and the sharp declaration: "I'm an honest man!" I +was quite prepared to assent; but he went on with a fury of frankness, +as if it were the first time in his life he had opened himself to any +one, as if the process were highly disagreeable and he were hurrying +through it as a task. "An honest man, mind you! I know nothing about Mr. +Clement Searle! I never expected to see him. He has been to me a--a--!" +And here he paused to select a word which should vividly enough express +what, for good or for ill, his kinsman represented. "He has been to me +an Amazement! I've no doubt he's a most amiable man. You'll not deny, +however, that he's a very extraordinary sort of person. I'm sorry he's +ill. I'm sorry he's poor. He's my fiftieth cousin. Well and good. I'm +an honest man. He shall not have it to say that he wasn't received at my +house." + +"He too, thank heaven, is an honest man!" I smiled. + +"Why the devil then," cried Mr. Searle, turning almost fiercely on me, +"has he put forward this underhand claim to my property?" + +The question, quite ringing out, flashed backward a gleam of light upon +the demeanour of our host and the suppressed agitation of his sister. In +an instant the jealous gentleman revealed itself. For a moment I was so +surprised and scandalised at the directness of his attack that I lacked +words to reply. As soon as he had spoken indeed Mr. Searle appeared to +feel he had been wanting in form. "Pardon me," he began afresh, "if I +speak of this matter with heat. But I've been more disgusted than I +can say to hear, as I heard this morning from my solicitor, of the +extraordinary proceedings of Mr. Clement Searle. Gracious goodness, +sir, for what does the man take me? He pretends to the Lord knows what +fantastic admiration for my place. Let him then show his respect for it +by not taking too many liberties! Let him, with his high-flown parade +of loyalty, imagine a tithe of what _I_ feel! I love my estate; it's my +passion, my conscience, my life! Am I to divide it up at this time of +day with a beggarly foreigner--a man without means, without appearance, +without proof, a pretender, an adventurer, a chattering mountebank? I +thought America boasted having lands for all men! Upon my soul, sir, +I've never been so shocked in my life." + +I paused for some moments before speaking, to allow his passion fully to +expend itself and to flicker up again if it chose; for so far as I was +concerned in the whole awkward matter I but wanted to deal with him +discreetly. "Your apprehensions, sir," I said at last, "your not +unnatural surprise, perhaps, at the candour of our interest, have acted +too much on your nerves. You're attacking a man of straw, a creature +of unworthy illusion; though I'm sadly afraid you've wounded a man +of spirit and conscience. Either my friend has no valid claim on your +estate, in which case your agitation is superfluous; or he HAS a valid +claim--" + +Mr. Searle seized my arm and glared at me; his pale face paler still +with the horror of my suggestion, his great eyes of alarm glowing and +his strange red hair erect and quivering. "A valid claim!" he shouted. +"Let him try it--let him bring it into court!" + +We had emerged into the great hall and stood facing the main doorway. +The door was open into the portico, through the stone archway of which +I saw the garden glitter in the blue light of a full moon. As the master +of the house uttered the words I have just repeated my companion came +slowly up into the porch from without, bareheaded, bright in the outer +moonlight, dark in the shadow of the archway, and bright again in the +lamplight at the entrance of the hall. As he crossed the threshold the +butler made an appearance at the head of the staircase on our left, +faltering visibly a moment at sight of Mr. Searle; after which, noting +my friend, he gravely descended. He bore in his hand a small silver +tray. On the tray, gleaming in the light of the suspended lamp, lay a +folded note. Clement Searle came forward, staring a little and startled, +I think, by some quick nervous prevision of a catastrophe. The butler +applied the match to the train. He advanced to my fellow visitor, all +solemnly, with the offer of his missive. Mr. Searle made a movement as +if to spring forward, but controlled himself. "Tottenham!" he called in +a strident voice. + +"Yes, sir!" said Tottenham, halting. + +"Stand where you are. For whom is that note?" + +"For Mr. Clement Searle," said the butler, staring straight before him +and dissociating himself from everything. + +"Who gave it to you?" + +"Mrs. Horridge, sir." This personage, I afterwards learned, was our +friend the housekeeper. + +"Who gave it Mrs. Horridge?" + +There was on Tottenham's part just an infinitesimal pause before +replying. + +"My dear sir," broke in Searle, his equilibrium, his ancient ease, +completely restored by the crisis, "isn't that rather my business?" + +"What happens in my house is my business, and detestable things seem to +be happening." Our host, it was clear, now so furiously detested them +that I was afraid he would snatch the bone of contention without more +ceremony. "Bring me that thing!" he cried; on which Tottenham stiffly +moved to obey. + +"Really this is too much!" broke out my companion, affronted and +helpless. + +So indeed it struck me, and before Mr. Searle had time to take the note +I possessed myself of it. "If you've no consideration for your sister +let a stranger at least act for her." And I tore the disputed object +into a dozen pieces. + +"In the name of decency, what does this horrid business mean?" my +companion quavered. + +Mr. Searle was about to open fire on him, but at that moment our hostess +appeared on the staircase, summoned evidently by our high-pitched +contentious voices. She had exchanged her dinner-dress for a dark +wrapper, removed her ornaments and begun to disarrange her hair, a +thick tress of which escaped from the comb. She hurried down with a +pale questioning face. Feeling distinctly that, for ourselves, immediate +departure was in the air, and divining Mr. Tottenham to be a person of +a few deep-seated instincts and of much latent energy, I seized the +opportunity to request him, sotto voce, to send a carriage to the door +without delay. "And put up our things," I added. + +Our host rushed at his sister and grabbed the white wrist that escaped +from the loose sleeve of her dress. "What was in that note?" he quite +hissed at her. + +Miss Searle looked first at its scattered fragments and then at her +cousin. "Did you read it?" + +"No, but I thank you for it!" said Searle. + +Her eyes, for an instant, communicated with his own as I think they had +never, never communicated with any other source of meaning; then she +transferred them to her brother's face, where the sense went out of +them, only to leave a dull sad patience. But there was something even +in this flat humility that seemed to him to mock him, so that he flushed +crimson with rage and spite and flung her away. "You always were an +idiot! Go to bed." + +In poor Searle's face as well the gathered serenity had been by this +time all blighted and distorted and the reflected brightness of his +happy day turned to blank confusion. "Have I been dealing these three +hours with a madman?" he woefully cried. + +"A madman, yes, if you will! A man mad with the love of his home and the +sense of its stability. I've held my tongue till now, but you've been +too much for me. Who the devil are you, and what and why and whence?" +the terrible little man continued. "From what paradise of fools do you +come that you fancy I shall make over to you, for the asking, a part +of my property and my life? I'm forsooth, you ridiculous person, to go +shares with you? Prove your preposterous claim! There isn't THAT in it!" +And he kicked one of the bits of paper on the floor. + +Searle received this broadside gaping. Then turning away he went and +seated himself on a bench against the wall and rubbed his forehead +amazedly. I looked at my watch and listened for the wheels of our +carriage. + +But his kinsman was too launched to pull himself up. "Wasn't it enough +that you should have plotted against my rights? Need you have come into +my very house to intrigue with my sister?" + +My friend put his two hands to his face. "Oh, oh, oh!" he groaned while +Miss Searle crossed rapidly and dropped on her knees at his side. + +"Go to bed, you fool!" shrieked her brother. + +"Dear cousin," she said, "it's cruel you're to have so to think of us!" + +"Oh I shall think of YOU as you'd like!" He laid a hand on her head. + +"I believe you've done nothing wrong," she brought bravely out. + +"I've done what I could," Mr. Searle went on--"but it's arrant folly to +pretend to friendship when this abomination lies between us. You were +welcome to my meat and my wine, but I wonder you could swallow them. The +sight spoiled MY appetite!" cried the master of Lackley with a laugh. +"Proceed with your trumpery case! My people in London are instructed and +prepared." + +"I shouldn't wonder if your case had improved a good deal since you gave +it up," I was moved to observe to Searle. + +"Oho! you don't feign ignorance then?" and our insane entertainer shook +his shining head at me. "It's very kind of you to give it up! Perhaps +you'll also give up my sister!" + +Searle sat staring in distress at his adversary. "Ah miserable man--I +thought we had become such beautiful friends." + +"Boh, you hypocrite!" screamed our host. + +Searle seemed not to hear him. "Am I seriously expected," he slowly and +painfully pursued, "to defend myself against the accusation of any real +indelicacy--to prove I've done nothing underhand or impudent? Think what +you please!" And he rose, with an effort, to his feet. "I know what YOU +think!" he added to Miss Searle. + +The wheels of the carriage resounded on the gravel, and at the same +moment a footman descended with our two portmanteaux. Mr. Tottenham +followed him with our hats and coats. + +"Good God," our host broke out again, "you're not going away?"--an +ejaculation that, after all that had happened, had the grandest +comicality. "Bless my soul," he then remarked as artlessly, "of course +you're going!" + +"It's perhaps well," said Miss Searle with a great effort, inexpressibly +touching in one for whom great efforts were visibly new and strange, +"that I should tell you what my poor little note contained." + +"That matter of your note, madam," her brother interrupted, "you and I +will settle together!" + +"Let me imagine all sorts of kind things!" Searle beautifully pleaded. + +"Ah too much has been imagined!" she answered simply. "It was only a +word of warning. It was to tell you to go. I knew something painful was +coming." + +He took his hat. "The pains and the pleasures of this day," he said to +his kinsman, "I shall equally never forget. Knowing you," and he offered +his hand to Miss Searle, "has been the pleasure of pleasures. I hoped +something more might have come of it." + +"A monstrous deal too much has come of it!" Mr. Searle irrepressibly +declared. + +His departing guest looked at him mildly, almost benignantly, from head +to foot, and then with closed eyes and some collapse of strength, "I'm +afraid so, I can't stand more," he went on. I gave him my arm and we +crossed the threshold. As we passed out I heard Miss Searle break into +loud weeping. + +"We shall hear from each other yet, I take it!" her brother pursued, +harassing our retreat. + +My friend stopped, turning round on him fiercely. "You very impossible +man!" he cried in his face. + +"Do you mean to say you'll not prosecute?" Mr. Searle kept it up. "I +shall force you to prosecute! I shall drag you into court, and you shall +be beaten--beaten--beaten!" Which grim reiteration followed us on our +course. + +We drove of course to the little wayside inn from which we had departed +in the morning so unencumbered, in all broad England, either with +enemies or friends. My companion, as the carriage rolled along, seemed +overwhelmed and exhausted. "What a beautiful horrible dream!" he +confusedly wailed. "What a strange awakening! What a long long day! What +a hideous scene! Poor me! Poor woman!" When we had resumed possession of +our two little neighbouring rooms I asked him whether Miss Searle's +note had been the result of anything that had passed between them on +his going to rejoin her. "I found her on the terrace," he said, "walking +restlessly up and down in the moonlight. I was greatly excited--I +hardly know what I said. I asked her, I think, if she knew the story of +Margaret Searle. She seemed frightened and troubled, and she used +just the words her brother had used--'I know nothing.' For the moment, +somehow, I felt as a man drunk. I stood before her and told her, with +great emphasis, how poor Margaret had married a beggarly foreigner--all +in obedience to her heart and in defiance to her family. As I talked the +sheeted moonlight seemed to close about us, so that we stood there in +a dream, in a world quite detached. She grew younger, prettier, more +attractive--I found myself talking all kinds of nonsense. Before I knew +it I had gone very far. I was taking her hand and calling her 'Margaret, +dear Margaret!' She had said it was impossible, that she could do +nothing, that she was a fool, a child, a slave. Then with a sudden +sense--it was odd how it came over me there--of the reality of my +connexion with the place, I spoke of my claim against the estate. 'It +exists,' I declared, 'but I've given it up. Be generous! Pay me for my +sacrifice.' For an instant her face was radiant. 'If I marry you,' +she asked, 'will it make everything right?' Of that I at once assured +her--in our marriage the whole difficulty would melt away like a +rain-drop in the great sea. 'Our marriage!' she repeated in wonder; and +the deep ring of her voice seemed to wake us up and show us our folly. +'I love you, but I shall never see you again,' she cried; and she +hurried away with her face in her hands. I walked up and down the +terrace for some moments, and then came in and met you. That's the only +witchcraft I've used!" + +The poor man was at once so roused and so shaken by the day's events +that I believed he would get little sleep. Conscious on my own part that +I shouldn't close my eyes, I but partly undressed, stirred my fire +and sat down to do some writing. I heard the great clock in the little +parlour below strike twelve, one, half-past one. Just as the vibration +of this last stroke was dying on the air the door of communication with +Searle's room was flung open and my companion stood on the threshold, +pale as a corpse, in his nightshirt, shining like a phantom against the +darkness behind him. "Look well at me!" he intensely gasped; "touch me, +embrace me, revere me! You see a man who has seen a ghost!" + +"Gracious goodness, what do you mean?" + +"Write it down!" he went on. "There, take your pen. Put it into dreadful +words. How do I look? Am I human? Am I pale? Am I red? Am I speaking +English? A ghost, sir! Do you understand?" + +I confess there came upon me by contact a kind of supernatural shock. I +shall always feel by the whole communication of it that I too have seen +a ghost. My first movement--I can smile at it now--was to spring to the +door, close it quickly and turn the key upon the gaping blackness from +which Searle had emerged. I seized his two hands; they were wet with +perspiration. I pushed my chair to the fire and forced him to sit down +in it; then I got on my knees and held his hands as firmly as possible. +They trembled and quivered; his eyes were fixed save that the pupil +dilated and contracted with extraordinary force. I asked no questions, +but waited there, very curious for what he would say. At last he spoke. +"I'm not frightened, but I'm--oh excited! This is life! This is living! +My nerves--my heart--my brain! They're throbbing--don't you feel it? Do +you tingle? Are you hot? Are you cold? Hold me tight--tight--tight! I +shall tremble away into waves--into surges--and know all the secrets of +things and all the reasons and all the mysteries!" He paused a moment +and then went on: "A woman--as clear as that candle: no, far clearer! In +a blue dress, with a black mantle on her head and a little black muff. +Young and wonderfully pretty, pale and ill; with the sadness of all +the women who ever loved and suffered pleading and accusing in her +wet-looking eyes. God knows I never did any such thing! But she took me +for my elder, for the other Clement. She came to me here as she would +have come to me there. She wrung her hands and she spoke to me 'marry +me!' she moaned; 'marry me and put an end to my shame!' I sat up in bed, +just as I sit here, looked at her, heard her--heard her voice melt away, +watched her figure fade away. Bless us and save us! Here I be!" + +I made no attempt either to explain or to criticise this extraordinary +passage. It's enough that I yielded for the hour to the strange force +of my friend's emotion. On the whole I think my own vision was the +more interesting of the two. He beheld but the transient irresponsible +spectre--I beheld the human subject hot from the spectral presence. Yet +I soon recovered my judgement sufficiently to be moved again to try to +guard him against the results of excitement and exposure. It was easily +agreed that he was not for the night to return to his room, and I made +him fairly comfortable in his place by my fire. Wishing above all to +preserve him from a chill I removed my bedding and wrapped him in the +blankets and counterpane. I had no nerves either for writing or for +sleep; so I put out my lights, renewed the fuel and sat down on the +opposite side of the hearth. I found it a great and high solemnity just +to watch my companion. Silent, swathed and muffled to his chin, he sat +rigid and erect with the dignity of his adventure. For the most part +his eyes were closed; though from time to time he would open them with +a steady expansion and stare, never blinking, into the flame, as if he +again beheld without terror the image of the little woman with the muff. +His cadaverous emaciated face, his tragic wrinkles intensified by the +upward glow from the hearth, his distorted moustache, his extraordinary +gravity and a certain fantastical air as the red light flickered over +him, all re-enforced his fine likeness to the vision-haunted knight of +La Mancha when laid up after some grand exploit. The night passed wholly +without speech. Toward its close I slept for half an hour. When I awoke +the awakened birds had begun to twitter and Searle, unperturbed, sat +staring at me. We exchanged a long look, and I felt with a pang that his +glittering eyes had tasted their last of natural sleep. "How is it? Are +you comfortable?" I nevertheless asked. + +He fixed me for a long time without replying and then spoke with a +weak extravagance and with such pauses between his words as might have +represented the slow prompting of an inner voice. "You asked me when +you first knew me what I was. 'Nothing,' I said, 'nothing of any +consequence.' Nothing I've always supposed myself to be. But I've +wronged myself--I'm a great exception. I'm a haunted man!" + +If sleep had passed out of his eyes I felt with even a deeper pang that +sanity had abandoned his spirit. From this moment I was prepared for +the worst. There were in my friend, however, such confirmed habits of +mildness that I found myself not in the least fearing he would prove +unmanageable. As morning began fully to dawn upon us I brought our +curious vigil to a close. Searle was so enfeebled that I gave him +my hands to help him out of his chair, and he retained them for some +moments after rising to his feet, unable as he seemed to keep his +balance. "Well," he said, "I've been once favoured, but don't think I +shall be favoured again. I shall soon be myself as fit to 'appear' as +any of them. I shall haunt the master of Lackley! It can only mean +one thing--that they're getting ready for me on the other side of the +grave." + +When I touched the question of breakfast he replied that he had his +breakfast in his pocket; and he drew from his travelling-bag a phial of +morphine. He took a strong dose and went to bed. At noon I found him +on foot again, dressed, shaved, much refreshed. "Poor fellow," he said, +"you've got more than you bargained for--not only a man with a grievance +but a man with a ghost. Well, it won't be for long!" It had of course +promptly become a question whither we should now direct our steps. "As +I've so little time," he argued for this, "I should like to see the +best, the best alone." I answered that either for time or eternity I had +always supposed Oxford to represent the English maximum, and for Oxford +in the course of an hour we accordingly departed. + + + + +IV + +Of that extraordinary place I shall not attempt to speak with any order +or indeed with any coherence. It must ever remain one of the supreme +gratifications of travel for any American aware of the ancient pieties +of race. The impression it produces, the emotions it kindles in the +mind of such a visitor, are too rich and various to be expressed in the +halting rhythm of prose. Passing through the small oblique streets in +which the long grey battered public face of the colleges seems to watch +jealously for sounds that may break upon the stillness of study, you +feel it the most dignified and most educated of cities. Over and through +it all the great corporate fact of the University slowly throbs after +the fashion of some steady bass in a concerted piece or that of the +mediaeval mystical presence of the Empire in the old States of Germany. +The plain perpendicular of the so mildly conventual fronts, masking +blest seraglios of culture and leisure, irritates the imagination +scarce less than the harem-walls of Eastern towns. Within their arching +portals, however, you discover more sacred and sunless courts, and +the dark verdure soothing and cooling to bookish eyes. The grey-green +quadrangles stand for ever open with a trustful hospitality. The seat of +the humanities is stronger in her own good manners than in a marshalled +host of wardens and beadles. Directly after our arrival my friend and +I wandered forth in the luminous early dusk. We reached the bridge +that under-spans the walls of Magdalen and saw the eight-spired tower, +delicately fluted and embossed, rise in temperate beauty--the perfect +prose of Gothic--wooing the eyes to the sky that was slowly drained +of day. We entered the low monkish doorway and stood in the dim little +court that nestles beneath the tower, where the swallows niche more +lovingly in the tangled ivy than elsewhere in Oxford, and passed into +the quiet cloister and studied the small sculptured monsters on the +entablature of the arcade. I rejoiced in every one of my unhappy +friend's responsive vibrations, even while feeling that they might as +direfully multiply as those that had preceded them. I may say that from +this time forward I found it difficult to distinguish in his company +between the riot of fancy and the labour of thought, or to fix the +balance between what he saw and what he imagined. He had already begun +playfully to exchange his identity for that of the earlier Clement +Searle, and he now delivered himself almost wholly in the character of +his old-time kinsman. + +"THIS was my college, you know," he would almost anywhere break out, +applying the words wherever we stood--"the sweetest and noblest in +the whole place. How often have I strolled in this cloister with my +intimates of the other world! They are all dead and buried, but many a +young fellow as we meet him, dark or fair, tall or short, reminds me of +the past age and the early attachment. Even as we stand here, they say, +the whole thing feels about its massive base the murmurs of the tide of +time; some of the foundation-stones are loosened, some of the breaches +will have to be repaired. Mine was the old unregenerate Oxford, the home +of rank abuses, of distinctions and privileges the most delicious and +invidious. What cared I, who was a perfect gentleman and with my pockets +full of money? I had an allowance of a thousand a year." + +It was at once plain to me that he had lost the little that remained of +his direct grasp on life and was unequal to any effort of seeing things +in their order. He read my apprehension in my eyes and took pains to +assure me I was right. "I'm going straight down hill. Thank heaven it's +an easy slope, coated with English turf and with an English churchyard +at the foot." The hysterical emotion produced by our late dire +misadventure had given place to an unruffled calm in which the scene +about us was reflected as in an old-fashioned mirror. We took an +afternoon walk through Christ-Church meadow and at the river-bank +procured a boat which I pulled down the stream to Iffley and to the +slanting woods of Nuneham--the sweetest flattest reediest stream-side +landscape that could be desired. Here of course we encountered the +scattered phalanx of the young, the happy generation, clad in white +flannel and blue, muscular fair-haired magnificent fresh, whether +floated down the current by idle punts and lounging in friendly couples +when not in a singleness that nursed ambitions, or straining together +in rhythmic crews and hoarsely exhorted from the near bank. When to the +exhibition of so much of the clearest joy of wind and limb we added the +great sense of perfumed protection shed by all the enclosed lawns and +groves and bowers, we felt that to be young in such scholastic shades +must be a double, an infinite blessing. As my companion found himself +less and less able to walk we repaired in turn to a series of gardens +and spent long hours sitting in their greenest places. They struck us as +the fairest things in England and the ripest and sweetest fruit of the +English system. Locked in their antique verdure, guarded, as in the case +of New College, by gentle battlements of silver-grey, outshouldering the +matted leafage of undisseverable plants, filled with nightingales and +memories, a sort of chorus of tradition; with vaguely-generous youths +sprawling bookishly on the turf as if to spare it the injury of +their boot-heels, and with the great conservative college countenance +appealing gravely from the restless outer world, they seem places to +lie down on the grass in for ever, in the happy faith that life is all +a green old English garden and time an endless summer afternoon. This +charmed seclusion was especially grateful to my friend, and his sense of +it reached its climax, I remember, on one of the last of such occasions +and while we sat in fascinated flanerie over against the sturdy back of +Saint John's. The wide discreetly-windowed wall here perhaps broods upon +the lawn with a more effective air of property than elsewhere. Searle +dropped into fitful talk and spun his humour into golden figures. Any +passing undergraduate was a peg to hang a fable, every feature of the +place a pretext for more embroidery. + +"Isn't it all a delightful lie?" he wanted to know. "Mightn't one fancy +this the very central point of the world's heart, where all the echoes +of the general life arrive but to falter and die? Doesn't one feel the +air just thick with arrested voices? It's well there should be such +places, shaped in the interest of factitious needs, invented to minister +to the book-begotten longing for a medium in which one may dream unwaked +and believe unconfuted; to foster the sweet illusion that all's well in +a world where so much is so damnable, all right and rounded, smooth and +fair, in this sphere of the rough and ragged, the pitiful unachieved +especially, and the dreadful uncommenced. The world's made--work's over. +Now for leisure! England's safe--now for Theocritus and Horace, for +lawn and sky! What a sense it all gives one of the composite life of +the country and of the essential furniture of its luckier minds! Thank +heaven they had the wit to send me here in the other time. I'm not much +visibly the braver perhaps, but think how I'm the happier! The misty +spires and towers, seen far off on the level, have been all these years +one of the constant things of memory. Seriously, what do the spires and +towers do for these people? Are they wiser, gentler, finer, cleverer? +My diminished dignity reverts in any case at moments to the naked +background of our own education, the deadly dry air in which we gasp for +impressions and comparisons. I assent to it all with a sort of desperate +calmness; I accept it with a dogged pride. We're nursed at the opposite +pole. Naked come we into a naked world. There's a certain grandeur +in the lack of decorations, a certain heroic strain in that young +imagination of ours which finds nothing made to its hands, which has to +invent its own traditions and raise high into our morning-air, with +a ringing hammer and nails, the castles in which we dwell. Noblesse +oblige--Oxford must damnably do so. What a horrible thing not to rise +to such examples! If you pay the pious debt to the last farthing of +interest you may go through life with her blessing; but if you let it +stand unhonoured you're a worse barbarian than we! But for the better or +worse, in a myriad private hearts, think how she must be loved! How the +youthful sentiment of mankind seems visibly to brood upon her! Think of +the young lives now taking colour in her cloisters and halls. Think of +the centuries' tale of dead lads--dead alike with the end of the young +days to which these haunts were a present world, and the close of +the larger lives which the general mother-scene has dropped into less +bottomless traps. What are those two young fellows kicking their heels +over on the grass there? One of them has the Saturday Review; the +other--upon my soul--the other has Artemus Ward! Where do they live, +how do they live, to what end do they live? Miserable boys! How can they +read Artemus Ward under those windows of Elizabeth? What do you think +loveliest in all Oxford? The poetry of certain windows. Do you see that +one yonder, the second of those lesser bays, with the broken cornice +and the lattice? That used to be the window of my bosom friend a hundred +years ago. Remind me to tell you the story of that broken cornice. Don't +pretend it's not a common thing to have one's bosom friend at another +college. Pray was I committed to common things? He was a charming +fellow. By the way, he was a good deal like you. Of course his cocked +hat, his long hair in a black ribbon, his cinnamon velvet suit and his +flowered waistcoat made a difference. We gentlemen used to wear swords." + +There was really the touch of grace in my poor friend's divagations--the +disheartened dandy had so positively turned rhapsodist and seer. I +was particularly struck with his having laid aside the diffidence and +self-consciousness of the first days of our acquaintance. He had become +by this time a disembodied observer and critic; the shell of sense, +growing daily thinner and more transparent, transmitted the tremor of +his quickened spirit. He seemed to pick up acquaintances, in the course +of our contemplations, merely by putting out his hand. If I left him for +ten minutes I was sure to find him on my return in earnest conversation +with some affable wandering scholar. Several young men with whom he had +thus established relations invited him to their rooms and entertained +him, as I gathered, with rather rash hospitality. For myself, I chose +not to be present at these symposia; I shrank partly from being held +in any degree responsible for his extravagance, partly from the pang of +seeing him yield to champagne and an admiring circle. He reported such +adventures with less keen a complacency than I had supposed he might +use, but a certain method in his madness, a certain dignity in his +desire to fraternise, appeared to save him from mischance. If they +didn't think him a harmless lunatic they certainly thought him a +celebrity of the Occident. Two things, however, grew evident--that he +drank deeper than was good for him and that the flagrant freshness of +his young patrons rather interfered with his predetermined sense of the +element of finer romance. At the same time it completed his knowledge +of the place. Making the acquaintance of several tutors and fellows, +he dined in hall in half a dozen colleges, alluding afterwards to these +banquets with religious unction. One evening after a participation +indiscreetly prolonged he came back to the hotel in a cab, accompanied +by a friendly undergraduate and a physician and looking deadly pale. He +had swooned away on leaving table and remained so rigidly unconscious +as much to agitate his banqueters. The following twenty-four hours he of +course spent in bed, but on the third day declared himself strong enough +to begin afresh. On his reaching the street his strength once more +forsook him, so that I insisted on his returning to his room. He +besought me with tears in his eyes not to shut him up. "It's my last +chance--I want to go back for an hour to that garden of Saint John's. +Let me eat and drink--to-morrow I die." It seemed to me possible that +with a Bath-chair the expedition might be accomplished. The hotel, it +appeared, possessed such a convenience, which was immediately produced. +It became necessary hereupon that we should have a person to propel the +chair. As there was no one on the spot at liberty I was about to perform +the office; but just as my patient had got seated and wrapped--he now +had a perpetual chill--an elderly man emerged from a lurking-place near +the door and, with a formal salute, offered to wait upon the gentleman. +We assented, and he proceeded solemnly to trundle the chair before him. +I recognised him as a vague personage whom I had observed to lounge +shyly about the doors of the hotels, at intervals during our stay, with +a depressed air of wanting employment and a poor semblance of finding +it. He had once indeed in a half-hearted way proposed himself as an +amateur cicerone for a tour through the colleges; and I now, as I +looked at him, remembered with a pang that I had too curtly declined his +ministrations. Since then his shyness, apparently, had grown less or +his misery greater, for it was with a strange grim avidity that he +now attached himself to our service. He was a pitiful image of shabby +gentility and the dinginess of "reduced circumstances." He would +have been, I suppose, some fifty years of age; but his pale haggard +unwholesome visage, his plaintive drooping carriage and the irremediable +disarray of his apparel seemed to add to the burden of his days and +tribulations. His eyes were weak and bloodshot, his bold nose was sadly +compromised, and his reddish beard, largely streaked with grey, bristled +under a month's neglect of the razor. In all this rusty forlornness +lurked a visible assurance of our friend's having known better days. +Obviously he was the victim of some fatal depreciation in the market +value of pure gentility. There had been something terribly affecting in +the way he substituted for the attempt to touch the greasy rim of his +antiquated hat some such bow as one man of the world might make another. +Exchanging a few words with him as we went I was struck with the +decorum of his accent. His fine whole voice should have been congruously +cracked. + +"Take me by some long roundabout way," said Searle, "so that I may see +as many college-walls as possible." + +"You know," I asked of our attendant, "all these wonderful ins and +outs?" + +"I ought to, sir," he said, after a moment, with pregnant gravity. And +as we were passing one of the colleges, "That used to be my place," he +added. + +At these words Searle desired him to stop and come round within sight. +"You say that's YOUR college?" + +"The place might deny me, sir; but heaven forbid I should seem to take +it ill of her. If you'll allow me to wheel you into the quad I'll show +you my windows of thirty years ago." + +Searle sat staring, his huge pale eyes, which now left nothing else +worth mentioning in his wasted face, filled with wonder and pity. "If +you'll be so kind," he said with great deference. But just as this +perverted product of a liberal education was about to propel him across +the threshold of the court he turned about, disengaged the mercenary +hands, with one of his own, from the back of the chair, drew their owner +alongside and turned to me. "While we're here, my dear fellow," he said, +"be so good as to perform this service. You understand?" I gave our +companion a glance of intelligence and we resumed our way. The latter +showed us his window of the better time, where a rosy youth in a scarlet +smoking-fez now puffed a cigarette at the open casement. Thence we +proceeded into the small garden, the smallest, I believe, and certainly +the sweetest, of all the planted places of Oxford. I pushed the chair +along to a bench on the lawn, turned it round, toward the front of +the college and sat down by it on the grass. Our attendant shifted +mournfully from one foot to the other, his patron eyeing him +open-mouthed. At length Searle broke out: "God bless my soul, sir, you +don't suppose I expect you to stand! There's an empty bench." + +"Thank you," said our friend, who bent his joints to sit. + +"You English are really fabulous! I don't know whether I most admire or +most abominate you! Now tell me: who are you? what are you? what brought +you to this?" + +The poor fellow blushed up to his eyes, took off his hat and wiped his +forehead with an indescribable fabric drawn from his pocket. "My name's +Rawson, sir. Beyond that it's a long story." + +"I ask out of sympathy," said Searle. "I've a fellow-feeling. If you're +a poor devil I'm a poor devil as well." + +"I'm the poorer devil of the two," said the stranger with an assurance +for once presumptuous. + +"Possibly. I suppose an English poor devil's the poorest of all +poor devils. And then you've fallen from a height. From a gentleman +commoner--is that what they called you?--to a propeller of Bath-chairs. +Good heavens, man, the fall's enough to kill you!" + +"I didn't take it all at once, sir. I dropped a bit one time and a bit +another." + +"That's me, that's me!" cried Searle with all his seriousness. + +"And now," said our friend, "I believe I can't drop any further." + +"My dear fellow"--and Searle clasped his hand and shook it--"I too am at +the very bottom of the hole." + +Mr. Rawson lifted his eyebrows. "Well, sir, there's a difference between +sitting in such a pleasant convenience and just trudging behind it!" + +"Yes--there's a shade. But I'm at my last gasp, Mr. Rawson." + +"I'm at my last penny, sir." + +"Literally, Mr. Rawson?" + +Mr. Rawson shook his head with large loose bitterness. "I've almost come +to the point of drinking my beer and buttoning my coat figuratively; but +I don't talk in figures." + +Fearing the conversation might appear to achieve something like gaiety +at the expense of Mr. Rawson's troubles, I took the liberty of asking +him, with all consideration, how he made a living. + +"I don't make a living," he answered with tearful eyes; "I can't make +a living. I've a wife and three children--and all starving, sir. You +wouldn't believe what I've come to. I sent my wife to her mother's, who +can ill afford to keep her, and came to Oxford a week ago, thinking I +might pick up a few half-crowns by showing people about the colleges. +But it's no use. I haven't the assurance. I don't look decent. They +want a nice little old man with black gloves and a clean shirt and a +silver-headed stick. What do I look as if I knew about Oxford, sir?" + +"Mercy on us," cried Searle, "why didn't you speak to us before?" + +"I wanted to; half a dozen times I've been on the point of it. I knew +you were Americans." + +"And Americans are rich!" cried Searle, laughing. "My dear Mr. Rawson, +American as I am I'm living on charity." + +"And I'm exactly not, sir! There it is. I'm dying for the lack of that +same. You say you're a pauper, but it takes an American pauper to go +bowling about in a Bath-chair. America's an easy country." + +"Ah me!" groaned Searle. "Have I come to the most delicious corner of +the ancient world to hear the praise of Yankeeland?" + +"Delicious corners are very well, and so is the ancient world," said Mr. +Rawson; "but one may sit here hungry and shabby, so long as one isn't +too shabby, as well as elsewhere. You'll not persuade me that it's not +an easier thing to keep afloat yonder than here. I wish _I_ were in +Yankeeland, that's all!" he added with feeble force. Then brooding for +a moment on his wrongs: "Have you a bloated brother? or you, sir? It +matters little to you. But it has mattered to me with a vengeance! +Shabby as I sit here I can boast that advantage--as he his five thousand +a year. Being but a twelvemonth my elder he swaggers while I go thus. +There's old England for you! A very pretty place for HIM!" + +"Poor old England!" said Searle softly. + +"Has your brother never helped you?" I asked. + +"A five-pound note now and then! Oh I don't say there haven't been times +when I haven't inspired an irresistible sympathy. I've not been what I +should. I married dreadfully out of the way. But the devil of it is that +he started fair and I started foul; with the tastes, the desires, the +needs, the sensibilities of a gentleman--and not another blessed 'tip.' +I can't afford to live in England." + +"THIS poor gentleman fancied a couple of months ago that he couldn't +afford to live in America," I fondly explained. + +"I'd 'swap'--do you call it?--chances with him!" And Mr. Rawson looked +quaintly rueful over his freedom of speech. + +Searle sat supported there with his eyes closed and his face twitching +for violent emotion, and then of a sudden had a glare of gravity. "My +friend, you're a dead failure! Be judged! Don't talk about 'swapping.' +Don't talk about chances. Don't talk about fair starts and false starts. +I'm at that point myself that I've a right to speak. It lies neither +in one's chance nor one's start to make one a success; nor in anything +one's brother--however bloated--can do or can undo. It lies in one's +character. You and I, sir, have HAD no character--that's very plain. +We've been weak, sir; as weak as water. Here we are for it--sitting +staring in each other's faces and reading our weakness in each other's +eyes. We're of no importance whatever, Mr. Rawson!" + +Mr. Rawson received this sally with a countenance in which abject +submission to the particular affirmed truth struggled with the +comparative propriety of his general rebellion against fate. In the +course of a minute a due self-respect yielded to the warm comfortable +sense of his being relieved of the cares of an attitude. "Go on, sir, go +on," he said. "It's wholesome doctrine." And he wiped his eyes with what +seemed his sole remnant of linen. + +"Dear, dear," sighed Searle, "I've made you cry! Well, we speak as from +man to man. I should be glad to think you had felt for a moment the +side-light of that great undarkening of the spirit which precedes--which +precedes the grand illumination of death." + +Mr. Rawson sat silent a little, his eyes fixed on the ground and his +well-cut nose but the more deeply dyed by his agitation. Then at last +looking up: "You're a very good-natured man, sir, and you'll never +persuade me you don't come of a kindly race. Say what you please about a +chance; when a man's fifty--degraded, penniless, a husband and father--a +chance to get on his legs again is not to be despised. Something tells +me that my luck may be in your country--which has brought luck to so +many. I can come on the parish here of course, but I don't want to come +on the parish. Hang it, sir, I want to hold up my head. I see thirty +years of life before me yet. If only by God's help I could have a real +change of air! It's a fixed idea of mine. I've had it for the last ten +years. It's not that I'm a low radical. Oh I've no vulgar opinions. Old +England's good enough for me, but I'm not good enough for old England. +I'm a shabby man that wants to get out of a room full of staring +gentlefolk. I'm for ever put to the blush. It's a perfect agony of +spirit; everything reminds me of my younger and better self. The thing +for me would be a cooling cleansing plunge into the unknowing and the +unknown! I lie awake thinking of it." + +Searle closed his eyes, shivering with a long-drawn tremor which I +hardly knew whether to take for an expression of physical or of mental +pain. In a moment I saw it was neither. "Oh my country, my country, +my country!" he murmured in a broken voice; and then sat for some time +abstracted and lost. I signalled our companion that it was time we +should bring our small session to a close, and he, without hesitating, +possessed himself of the handle of the Bath-chair and pushed it before +him. We had got halfway home before Searle spoke or moved. Suddenly +in the High Street, as we passed a chop-house from whose open doors we +caught a waft of old-fashioned cookery and other restorative elements, +he motioned us to halt. "This is my last five pounds"--and he drew a +note from his pocket-book. "Do me the favour, Mr. Rawson, to accept +it. Go in there and order the best dinner they can give you. Call for a +bottle of Burgundy and drink it to my eternal rest!" + +Mr. Rawson stiffened himself up and received the gift with fingers +momentarily irresponsive. But Mr. Rawson had the nerves of a gentleman. +I measured the spasm with which his poor dispossessed hand closed upon +the crisp paper, I observed his empurpled nostril convulsive under the +other solicitation. He crushed the crackling note in his palm with a +passionate pressure and jerked a spasmodic bow. "I shall not do you the +wrong, sir, of anything but the best!" The next moment the door swung +behind him. + +Searle sank again into his apathy, and on reaching the hotel I helped +him to get to bed. For the rest of the day he lay without motion or +sound and beyond reach of any appeal. The doctor, whom I had constantly +in attendance, was sure his end was near. He expressed great surprise +that he should have lasted so long; he must have been living for a +month on the very dregs of his strength. Toward evening, as I sat by his +bedside in the deepening dusk, he roused himself with a purpose I had +vaguely felt gathering beneath his stupor. "My cousin, my cousin," he +said confusedly. "Is she here?" It was the first time he had spoken of +Miss Searle since our retreat from her brother's house, and he continued +to ramble. "I was to have married her. What a dream! That day was like +a string of verses--rhymed hours. But the last verse is bad measure. +What's the rhyme to 'love'? ABOVE! Was she a simple woman, a kind sweet +woman? Or have I only dreamed it? She had the healing gift; her touch +would have cured my madness. I want you to do something. Write three +lines, three words: 'Good-bye; remember me; be happy.'" And then after +a long pause: "It's strange a person in my state should have a wish. Why +should one eat one's breakfast the day one's hanged? What a creature +is man! What a farce is life! Here I lie, worn down to a mere throbbing +fever-point; I breathe and nothing more, and yet I DESIRE! My desire +lives. If I could see her! Help me out with it and let me die." + +Half an hour later, at a venture, I dispatched by post a note to Miss +Searle: "Your cousin is rapidly sinking. He asks to see you." I was +conscious of a certain want of consideration in this act, since it would +bring her great trouble and yet no power to face the trouble; but out +of her distress I fondly hoped a sufficient force might be born. On the +following day my friend's exhaustion had become so great that I began +to fear his intelligence altogether broken up. But toward evening he +briefly rallied, to maunder about many things, confounding in a sinister +jumble the memories of the past weeks and those of bygone years. "By the +way," he said suddenly, "I've made no will. I haven't much to bequeath. +Yet I have something." He had been playing listlessly with a large +signet-ring on his left hand, which he now tried to draw off. "I leave +you this"--working it round and round vainly--"if you can get it off. +What enormous knuckles! There must be such knuckles in the mummies of +the Pharaohs. Well, when I'm gone--! No, I leave you something more +precious than gold--the sense of a great kindness. But I've a little +gold left. Bring me those trinkets." I placed on the bed before him +several articles of jewellery, relics of early foppery: his watch +and chain, of great value, a locket and seal, some odds and ends +of goldsmith's work. He trifled with them feebly for some moments, +murmuring various names and dates associated with them. At last, looking +up with clearer interest, "What has become," he asked, "of Mr. Rawson?" + +"You want to see him?" + +"How much are these things worth?" he went on without heeding me. "How +much would they bring?" And he weighed them in his weak hands. "They're +pretty heavy. Some hundred or so? Oh I'm richer than I thought! +Rawson--Rawson--you want to get out of this awful England?" + +I stepped to the door and requested the servant whom I kept in constant +attendance in our adjacent sitting-room to send and ascertain if Mr. +Rawson were on the premises. He returned in a few moments, introducing +our dismal friend. Mr. Rawson was pale even to his nose and derived from +his unaffectedly concerned state an air of some distinction. I led him +up to the bed. In Searle's eyes, as they fell on him, there shone for a +moment the light of a human message. + +"Lord have mercy!" gasped Mr. Rawson. + +"My friend," said Searle, "there's to be one American the less--so let +there be at the same time one the more. At the worst you'll be as good a +one as I. Foolish me! Take these battered relics; you can sell them; let +them help you on your way. They're gifts and mementoes, but this is a +better use. Heaven speed you! May America be kind to you. Be kind, at +the last, to your own country!" + +"Really this is too much; I can't," the poor man protested, almost +scared and with tears in his eyes. "Do come round and get well and I'll +stop here. I'll stay with you and wait on you." + +"No, I'm booked for my journey, you for yours. I hope you don't mind the +voyage." + +Mr. Rawson exhaled a groan of helpless gratitude, appealing piteously +from so strange a windfall. "It's like the angel of the Lord who bids +people in the Bible to rise and flee!" + +Searle had sunk back upon his pillow, quite used up; I led Mr. Rawson +back into the sitting-room, where in three words I proposed to him +a rough valuation of our friend's trinkets. He assented with perfect +good-breeding; they passed into my possession and a second bank-note +into his. + +From the collapse into which this wondrous exercise of his imagination +had plunged him my charge then gave few signs of being likely to emerge. +He breathed, as he had said, and nothing more. The twilight deepened; I +lighted the night-lamp. The doctor sat silent and official at the foot +of the bed; I resumed my constant place near the head. Suddenly our +patient opened his eyes wide. "She'll not come," he murmured. "Amen! +she's an English sister." Five minutes passed; he started forward. +"She's come, she's here!" he confidently quavered. His words conveyed to +my mind so absolute an assurance that I lightly rose and passed into the +sitting-room. At the same moment, through the opposite door, the +servant introduced a lady. A lady, I say; for an instant she was simply +such--tall pale dressed in deep mourning. The next instant I had uttered +her name--"Miss Searle!" She looked ten years older. + +She met me with both hands extended and an immense question in her +face. "He has just announced you," I said. And then with a fuller +consciousness of the change in her dress and countenance: "What has +happened?" + +"Oh death, death!" she wailed. "You and I are left." + +There came to me with her words a sickening shock, the sense of poetic +justice somehow cheated, defeated. "Your brother?" I panted. + +She laid her hand on my arm and I felt its pressure deepen as she spoke. +"He was thrown from his horse in the park. He died on the spot. Six days +have passed. Six months!" + +She accepted my support and a moment later we had entered the room and +approached the bedside, from which the doctor withdrew. Searle opened +his eyes and looked at her from head to foot. Suddenly he seemed to make +out her mourning. "Already!" he cried audibly and with a smile, as I +felt, of pleasure. + +She dropped on her knees and took his hand. "Not for you, cousin," she +whispered. "For my poor brother." + +He started, in all his deathly longitude, as with a galvanic shock. +"Dead! HE dead! Life itself!" And then after a moment and with a slight +rising inflexion: "You're free?" + +"Free, cousin. Too sadly free. And now--NOW--with what use for freedom?" + +He looked steadily into her eyes, dark in the heavy shadow of her musty +mourning-veil. "For me wear colours!" + +In a moment more death had come, the doctor had silently attested it, +and she had burst into sobs. + +We buried him in the little churchyard in which he had expressed the +wish to lie; beneath one of the blackest and widest of English yews and +the little tower than which none in all England has a softer and hoarier +grey. A year has passed; Miss Searle, I believe, has begun to wear +colours. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Passionate Pilgrim, by Henry James + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PASSIONATE PILGRIM *** + +***** This file should be named 8080.txt or 8080.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/0/8/8080/ + +Produced by Eve Sobol + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: A Passionate Pilgrim + +Author: Henry James + +Release Date: May, 2005 [EBook #8080] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on June 12, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PASSIONATE PILGRIM *** + + + + +Produced by Eve Sobol + + + + +A PASSIONATE PILGRIM + + +HENRY JAMES + + + +I + +Intending to sail for America in the early part of June, I +determined to spend the interval of six weeks in England, to +which country my mind's eye only had as yet been introduced. I +had formed in Italy and France a resolute preference for old +inns, considering that what they sometimes cost the ungratified +body they repay the delighted mind. On my arrival in London, +therefore, I lodged at a certain antique hostelry, much to the +east of Temple Bar, deep in the quarter that I had inevitably +figured as the Johnsonian. Here, on the first evening of my stay, +I descended to the little coffee-room and bespoke my dinner of +the genius of "attendance" in the person of the solitary waiter. +No sooner had I crossed the threshold of this retreat than I felt +I had cut a golden-ripe crop of English "impressions." The +coffee-room of the Red Lion, like so many other places and things +I was destined to see in the motherland, seemed to have been +waiting for long years, with just that sturdy sufferance of time +written on its visage, for me to come and extract the romantic +essence of it. + +The latent preparedness of the American mind even for the most +characteristic features of English life was a matter I meanwhile +failed to get to the bottom of. The roots of it are indeed so +deeply buried in the soil of our early culture that, without some +great upheaval of feeling, we are at a loss to say exactly when +and where and how it begins. It makes an American's enjoyment of +England an emotion more searching than anything Continental. I +had seen the coffee-room of the Red Lion years ago, at home--at +Saragossa Illinois--in books, in visions, in dreams, in Dickens, +in Smollett, in Boswell. It was small and subdivided into six +narrow compartments by a series of perpendicular screens of +mahogany, something higher than a man's stature, furnished on +either side with a meagre uncushioned ledge, denominated in +ancient Britain a seat. In each of these rigid receptacles was a +narrow table--a table expected under stress to accommodate no +less than four pairs of active British elbows. High pressure +indeed had passed away from the Red Lion for ever. It now knew +only that of memories and ghosts and atmosphere. Round the room +there marched, breast-high, a magnificent panelling of mahogany, +so dark with time and so polished with unremitted friction that +by gazing a while into its lucid blackness I made out the dim +reflexion of a party of wigged gentlemen in knee-breeches just +arrived from York by the coach. On the dark yellow walls, coated +by the fumes of English coal, of English mutton, of Scotch +whiskey, were a dozen melancholy prints, sallow-toned with age-- +the Derby favourite of the year 1807, the Bank of England, her +Majesty the Queen. On the floor was a Turkey carpet--as old as +the mahogany almost, as the Bank of England, as the Queen--into +which the waiter had in his lonely revolutions trodden so many +massive soot-flakes and drops of overflowing beer that the +glowing looms of Smyrna would certainly not have recognised it. +To say that I ordered my dinner of this archaic type would be +altogether to misrepresent the process owing to which, having +dreamed of lamb and spinach and a salade de saison, I sat down in +penitence to a mutton-chop and a rice pudding. Bracing my feet +against the cross-beam of my little oaken table, I opposed to the +mahogany partition behind me the vigorous dorsal resistance that +must have expressed the old-English idea of repose. The sturdy +screen refused even to creak, but my poor Yankee joints made up +the deficiency. + +While I was waiting there for my chop there came into the room a +person whom, after I had looked at him a moment, I supposed to be +a fellow lodger and probably the only one. He seemed, like +myself, to have submitted to proposals for dinner; the table on +the other side of my partition had been prepared to receive him. +He walked up to the fire, exposed his back to it and, after +consulting his watch, looked directly out of the window and +indirectly at me. He was a man of something less than middle age +and more than middle stature, though indeed you would have called +him neither young nor tall. He was chiefly remarkable for his +emphasised leanness. His hair, very thin on the summit of his +head, was dark short and fine. His eye was of a pale turbid grey, +unsuited, perhaps, to his dark hair and well-drawn brows, but not +altogether out of harmony with his colourless bilious complexion. +His nose was aquiline and delicate; beneath it his moustache +languished much rather than bristled. His mouth and chin were +negative, or at the most provisional; not vulgar, doubtless, but +ineffectually refined. A cold fatal gentlemanly weakness was +expressed indeed in his attenuated person. His eye was restless +and deprecating; his whole physiognomy, his manner of shifting +his weight from foot to foot, the spiritless droop of his head, +told of exhausted intentions, of a will relaxed. His dress was +neat and "toned down"--he might have been in mourning. I made up +my mind on three points: he was a bachelor, he was out of health, +he was not indigenous to the soil. The waiter approached him, and +they conversed in accents barely audible. I heard the words +"claret," "sherry" with a tentative inflexion, and finally "beer" +with its last letter changed to "ah." Perhaps he was a Russian in +reduced circumstances; he reminded me slightly of certain +sceptical cosmopolite Russians whom I had met on the Continent. +While in my extravagant way I followed this train--for you see I +was interested--there appeared a short brisk man with reddish- +brown hair, with a vulgar nose, a sharp blue eye and a red beard +confined to his lower jaw and chin. My putative Russian, still in +possession of the rug, let his mild gaze stray over the dingy +ornaments of the room. The other drew near, and his umbrella +dealt a playful poke at the concave melancholy waistcoat. "A +penny ha'penny for your thoughts!" + +My friend, as I call him, uttered an exclamation, stared, then +laid his two hands on the other's shoulders. The latter looked +round at me keenly, compassing me in a momentary glance. I read +in its own vague light that this was a transatlantic eyebeam; and +with such confidence that I hardly needed to see its owner, as he +prepared, with his companion, to seat himself at the table +adjoining my own, take from his overcoat-pocket three New York +newspapers and lay them beside his plate. As my neighbours +proceeded to dine I felt the crumbs of their conversation +scattered pretty freely abroad. I could hear almost all they +said, without straining to catch it, over the top of the +partition that divided us. Occasionally their voices dropped to +recovery of discretion, but the mystery pieced itself together as +if on purpose to entertain me. Their speech was pitched in the +key that may in English air be called alien in spite of a few +coincidences. The voices were American, however, with a +difference; and I had no hesitation in assigning the softer and +clearer sound to the pale thin gentleman, whom I decidedly +preferred to his comrade. The latter began to question him about +his voyage. + +"Horrible, horrible! I was deadly sick from the hour we left New +York." + +"Well, you do look considerably reduced," said the second-comer. + +"Reduced! I've been on the verge of the grave. I haven't slept +six hours for three weeks." This was said with great gravity. + +"Well, I've made the voyage for the last time." + +"The plague you have! You mean to locate here permanently?" + +"Oh it won't be so very permanent!" + +There was a pause; after which: "You're the same merry old boy, +Searle. Going to give up the ghost to-morrow, eh?" + +"I almost wish I were." + +"You're not so sweet on England then? I've heard people say at +home that you dress and talk and act like an Englishman. But I +know these people here and I know you. You're not one of this +crowd, Clement Searle, not you. You'll go under here, sir; you'll +go under as sure as my name's Simmons." + +Following this I heard a sudden clatter as of the drop of a knife +and fork. "Well, you're a delicate sort of creature, if it IS +your ugly name! I've been wandering about all day in this +accursed city, ready to cry with homesickness and heartsickness +and every possible sort of sickness, and thinking, in the absence +of anything better, of meeting you here this evening and of your +uttering some sound of cheer and comfort and giving me some +glimmer of hope. Go under? Ain't I under now? I can't do more +than get under the ground!" + +Mr. Simmons's superior brightness appeared to flicker a moment in +this gust of despair, but the next it was burning steady again. +"DON'T 'cry,' Searle," I heard him say. "Remember the waiter. +I've grown Englishman enough for that. For heaven's sake don't +let's have any nerves. Nerves won't do anything for you here. +It's best to come to the point. Tell me in three words what you +expect of me." + +I heard another movement, as if poor Searle had collapsed in his +chair. "Upon my word, sir, you're quite inconceivable. You never +got my letter?" + +"Yes, I got your letter. I was never sorrier to get anything in +my life." + +At this declaration Mr. Searle rattled out an oath, which it was +well perhaps that I but partially heard. "Abijah Simmons," he +then cried, "what demon of perversity possesses you? Are you +going to betray me here in a foreign land, to turn out a false +friend, a heartless rogue?" + +"Go on, sir," said sturdy Simmons. "Pour it all out. I'll wait +till you've done. Your beer's lovely," he observed independently +to the waiter. "I'll have some more." + +"For God's sake explain yourself!" his companion appealed. + +There was a pause, at the end of which I heard Mr. Simmons set +down his empty tankard with emphasis. "You poor morbid mooning +man," he resumed, "I don't want to say anything to make you feel +sore. I regularly pity you. But you must allow that you've acted +more like a confirmed crank than a member of our best society-- +in which every one's so sensible." + +Mr. Searle seemed to have made an effort to compose himself. "Be +so good as to tell me then what was the meaning of your letter." + +"Well, you had got on MY nerves, if you want to know, when I +wrote it. It came of my always wishing so to please folks. I had +much better have let you alone. To tell you the plain truth I +never was so horrified in my life as when I found that on the +strength of my few kind words you had come out here to seek your +fortune." + +"What then did you expect me to do?" + +"I expected you to wait patiently till I had made further +enquiries and had written you again." + +"And you've made further enquiries now?" + +"Enquiries! I've committed assaults." + +"And you find I've no claim?" + +"No claim that one of THESE big bugs will look at. It struck me +at first that you had rather a neat little case. I confess the +look of it took hold of me--" + +"Thanks to your liking so to please folks!" Mr. Simmons appeared +for a moment at odds with something; it proved to be with his +liquor. "I rather think your beer's too good to be true," he said +to the waiter. "I guess I'll take water. Come, old man," he +resumed, "don't challenge me to the arts of debate, or you'll +have me right down on you, and then you WILL feel me. My native +sweetness, as I say, was part of it. The idea that if I put the +thing through it would be a very pretty feather in my cap and a +very pretty penny in my purse was part of it. And the +satisfaction of seeing a horrid low American walk right into an +old English estate was a good deal of it. Upon my word, Searle, +when I think of it I wish with all my heart that, extravagant +vain man as you are, I COULD, for the charm of it, put you +through! I should hardly care what you did with the blamed place +when you got it. I could leave you alone to turn it into Yankee +notions--into ducks and drakes as they call 'em here. I should +like to see you tearing round over it and kicking up its sacred +dust in their very faces!" + +"You don't know me one little bit," said Mr. Searle, rather +shirking, I thought, the burden of this tribute and for all +response to the ambiguity of the compliment. + +"I should be very glad to think I didn't, sir. I've been to no +small amount of personal inconvenience for you. I've pushed my +way right up to the headspring. I've got the best opinion that's +to be had. The best opinion that's to be had just gives you one +leer over its spectacles. I guess that look will fix you if you +ever get it straight. I've been able to tap, indirectly," Mr. +Simmons went on, "the solicitor of your usurping cousin, and he +evidently knows something to be in the wind. It seems your elder +brother twenty years ago put out a feeler. So you're not to have +the glory of even making them sit up." + +"I never made any one sit up," I heard Mr. Searle plead. "I +shouldn't begin at this time of day. I should approach the +subject like a gentleman." + +"Well, if you want very much to do something like a gentleman +you've got a capital chance. Take your disappointment like a +gentleman." + +I had finished my dinner and had become keenly interested in poor +Mr. Searle's unencouraging--or unencouraged--claim; so interested +that I at last hated to hear his trouble reflected in his voice +without being able--all respectfully!--to follow it in his face. +I left my place, went over to the fire, took up the evening paper +and established a post of observation behind it. + +His cold counsellor was in the act of choosing a soft chop from +the dish--an act accompanied by a great deal of prying and poking +with that gentleman's own fork. My disillusioned compatriot had +pushed away his plate; he sat with his elbows on the table, +gloomily nursing his head with his hands. His companion watched +him and then seemed to wonder--to do Mr. Simmons justice--how he +could least ungracefully give him up. "I say, Searle,"--and for +my benefit, I think, taking me for a native ingenuous enough to +be dazzled by his wit, he lifted his voice a little and gave it +an ironical ring--"in this country it's the inestimable privilege +of a loyal citizen, under whatsoever stress of pleasure or of +pain, to make a point of eating his dinner." + +Mr. Searle gave his plate another push. "Anything may happen now. +I don't care a straw." + +"You ought to care. Have another chop and you WILL care. Have +some better tipple. Take my advice!" Mr. Simmons went on. + +My friend--I adopt that name for him--gazed from between his two +hands coldly before him. "I've had enough of your advice." + +"A little more," said Simmons mildly; "I shan't trouble you +again. What do you mean to do?" + +"Nothing." + +"Oh come!" + +"Nothing, nothing, nothing!" + +"Nothing but starve. How about meeting expenses?" + +"Why do you ask?" said my friend. "You don't care." + +"My dear fellow, if you want to make me offer you twenty pounds +you set most clumsily about it. You said just now I don't know +you," Mr. Simmons went on. "Possibly. Come back with me then," he +said kindly enough, "and let's improve our acquaintance." + +"I won't go back. I shall never go back." + +"Never?" + +"Never." + +Mr. Simmons thought it shrewdly over. "Well, you ARE sick!" he +exclaimed presently. "All I can say is that if you're working out +a plan for cold poison, or for any other act of desperation, you +had better give it right up. You can't get a dose of the +commonest kind of cold poison for nothing, you know. Look here, +Searle"--and the worthy man made what struck me as a very decent +appeal. "If you'll consent to return home with me by the steamer +of the twenty-third I'll pay your passage down. More than that, +I'll pay for your beer." + +My poor gentleman met it. "I believe I never made up my mind to +anything before, but I think it's made up now. I shall stay here +till I take my departure for a newer world than any patched-up +newness of ours. It's an odd feeling--I rather like it! What +should I do at home?" + +"You said just now you were homesick." + +"I meant I was sick for a home. Don't I belong here? Haven't I +longed to get here all my life? Haven't I counted the months and +the years till I should be able to 'go' as we say? And now that +I've 'gone,' that is that I've come, must I just back out? No, +no, I'll move on. I'm much obliged to you for your offer. I've +enough money for the present. I've about my person some forty +pounds' worth of British gold, and the same amount, say, of the +toughness of the heaven-sent idiot. They'll see me through +together! After they're gone I shall lay my head in some English +churchyard, beside some ivied tower, beneath an old gnarled black +yew." + +I had so far distinctly followed the dialogue; but at this point +the landlord entered and, begging my pardon, would suggest that +number 12, a most superior apartment, having now been vacated, it +would give him pleasure if I would look in. I declined to look +in, but agreed for number 12 at a venture and gave myself again, +with dissimulation, to my friends. They had got up; Simmons had +put on his overcoat; he stood polishing his rusty black hat with +his napkin. "Do you mean to go down to the place?" he asked. + +"Possibly. I've thought of it so often that I should like to see +it." + +"Shall you call on Mr. Searle?" + +"Heaven forbid!" + +"Something has just occurred to me," Simmons pursued with a grin +that made his upper lip look more than ever denuded by the razor +and jerked the ugly ornament of his chin into the air. "There's a +certain Miss Searle, the old man's sister." + +"Well?" my gentleman quavered. + +"Well, sir!--you talk of moving on. You might move on the +damsel." + +Mr. Searle frowned in silence and his companion gave him a tap on +the stomach. "Line those ribs a bit first!" He blushed crimson; +his eyes filled with tears. "You ARE a coarse brute," he said. +The scene quite harrowed me, but I was prevented from seeing it +through by the reappearance of the landlord on behalf of number +12. He represented to me that I ought in justice to him to come +and see how tidy they HAD made it. Half an hour afterwards I was +rattling along in a hansom toward Covent Garden, where I heard +Madame Bosio in The Barber of Seville. On my return from the +opera I went into the coffee-room; it had occurred to me I might +catch there another glimpse of Mr. Searle. I was not +disappointed. I found him seated before the fire with his head +sunk on his breast: he slept, dreaming perhaps of Abijah Simmons. +I watched him for some moments. His closed eyes, in the dim +lamplight, looked even more helpless and resigned, and I seemed +to see the fine grain of his nature in his unconscious mask. They +say fortune comes while we sleep, and, standing there, I felt +really tender enough--though otherwise most unqualified--to be +poor Mr. Searle's fortune. As I walked away I noted in one of the +little prandial pews I have described the melancholy waiter, +whose whiskered chin also reposed on the bulge of his shirt- +front. I lingered a moment beside the old inn-yard in which, upon +a time, the coaches and post-chaises found space to turn and +disgorge. Above the dusky shaft of the enclosing galleries, where +lounging lodgers and crumpled chambermaids and all the +picturesque domesticity of a rattling tavern must have leaned on +their elbows for many a year, I made out the far-off lurid +twinkle of the London constellations. At the foot of the stairs, +enshrined in the glittering niche of her well-appointed bar, the +landlady sat napping like some solemn idol amid votive brass and +plate. + +The next morning, not finding the subject of my benevolent +curiosity in the coffee-room, I learned from the waiter that he +had ordered breakfast in bed. Into this asylum I was not yet +prepared to pursue him. I spent the morning in the streets, +partly under pressure of business, but catching all kinds of +romantic impressions by the way. To the searching American eye +there is no tint of association with which the great grimy face +of London doesn't flush. As the afternoon approached, however, I +began to yearn for some site more gracefully classic than what +surrounded me, and, thinking over the excursions recommended to +the ingenuous stranger, decided to take the train to Hampton +Court. The day was the more propitious that it yielded just that +dim subaqueous light which sleeps so fondly upon the English +landscape. + +At the end of an hour I found myself wandering through the +apartments of the great palace. They follow each other in +infinite succession, with no great variety of interest or aspect, +but with persistent pomp and a fine specific effect. They are +exactly of their various times. You pass from painted and +panelled bedchambers and closets, anterooms, drawing-rooms, +council-rooms, through king's suite, queen's suite, prince's +suite, until you feel yourself move through the appointed hours +and stages of some rigid monarchical day. On one side are the old +monumental upholsteries, the big cold tarnished beds and +canopies, with the circumference of disapparelled royalty +symbolised by a gilded balustrade, and the great carved and +yawning chimney-places where dukes-in-waiting may have warmed +their weary heels; on the other, in deep recesses, rise the +immense windows, the framed and draped embrasures where the +sovereign whispered and favourites smiled, looking out on +terraced gardens and misty park. The brown walls are dimly +illumined by innumerable portraits of courtiers and captains, +more especially with various members of the Batavian entourage of +William of Orange, the restorer of the palace; with good store +too of the lily-bosomed models of Lely and Kneller. The whole +tone of this processional interior is singularly stale and sad. +The tints of all things have both faded and darkened--you taste +the chill of the place as you walk from room to room. It was +still early in the day and in the season, and I flattered myself +that I was the only visitor. This complacency, however, dropped +at sight of a person standing motionless before a simpering +countess of Sir Peter Lely's creation. On hearing my footstep +this victim of an evaporated spell turned his head and I +recognised my fellow lodger of the Red Lion. I was apparently +recognised as well; he looked as if he could scarce wait for me +to be kind to him, and in fact didn't wait. Seeing I had a +catalogue he asked the name of the portrait. On my satisfying him +he appealed, rather timidly, as to my opinion of the lady. + +"Well," said I, not quite timidly enough perhaps, "I confess she +strikes me as no great matter." + +He remained silent and was evidently a little abashed. As we +strolled away he stole a sidelong glance of farewell at his +leering shepherdess. To speak with him face to face was to feel +keenly that he was no less interesting than infirm. We talked of +our inn, of London, of the palace; he uttered his mind freely, +but seemed to struggle with a weight of depression. It was an +honest mind enough, with no great cultivation but with a certain +natural love of excellent things. I foresaw that I should find +him quite to the manner born--to ours; full of glimpses and +responses, of deserts and desolations. His perceptions would be +fine and his opinions pathetic; I should moreover take refuge +from his sense of proportion in his sense of humour, and then +refuge from THAT, ah me!--in what? On my telling him that I was a +fellow citizen he stopped short, deeply touched, and, silently +passing his arm into my own, suffered me to lead him through the +other apartments and down into the gardens. A large gravelled +platform stretches itself before the basement of the palace, +taking the afternoon sun. Parts of the great structure are +reserved for private use and habitation, occupied by state- +pensioners, reduced gentlewomen in receipt of the Queen's bounty +and other deserving persons. Many of the apartments have their +dependent gardens, and here and there, between the verdure-coated +walls, you catch a glimpse of these somewhat stuffy bowers. My +companion and I measured more than once this long expanse, +looking down on the floral figures of the rest of the affair and +on the stoutly-woven tapestry of creeping plants that muffle the +foundations of the huge red pile. I thought of the various images +of old-world gentility which, early and late, must have strolled +in front of it and felt the protection and security of the place. +We peeped through an antique grating into one of the mossy cages +and saw an old lady with a black mantilla on her head, a decanter +of water in one hand and a crutch in the other, come forth, +followed by three little dogs and a cat, to sprinkle a plant. She +would probably have had an opinion on the virtue of Queen +Caroline. Feeling these things together made us quickly, made us +extraordinarily, intimate. My companion seemed to ache with his +impression; he scowled, all gently, as if it gave him pain. I +proposed at last that we should dine somewhere on the spot and +take a late train to town. We made our way out of the gardens +into the adjoining village, where we entered an inn which I +pronounced, very sincerely, exactly what we wanted. Mr. Searle +had approached our board as shyly as if it had been a cold bath; +but, gradually warming to his work, he declared at the end of +half an hour that for the first time in a month he enjoyed his +victuals. + +"I'm afraid you're rather out of health," I risked. + +"Yes, sir--I'm an incurable." + +The little village of Hampton Court stands clustered about the +entrance of Bushey Park, and after we had dined we lounged along +into the celebrated avenue of horse-chestnuts. There is a rare +emotion, familiar to every intelligent traveller, in which the +mind seems to swallow the sum total of its impressions at a gulp. +You take in the whole place, whatever it be. You feel England, +you feel Italy, and the sensation involves for the moment a kind +of thrill. I had known it from time to time in Italy and had +opened my soul to it as to the spirit of the Lord. Since my +landing in England I had been waiting for it to arrive. A bottle +of tolerable Burgundy, at dinner, had perhaps unlocked to it the +gates of sense; it arrived now with irresistible force. Just the +scene around me was the England of one's early reveries. Over +against us, amid the ripeness of its gardens, the dark red +residence, with its formal facings and its vacant windows, seemed +to make the past definite and massive; the little village, +nestling between park and palace, around a patch of turfy common, +with its taverns of figurative names, its ivy-towered church, its +mossy roofs, looked like the property of a feudal lord. It was in +this dark composite light that I had read the British classics; +it was this mild moist air that had blown from the pages of the +poets; while I seemed to feel the buried generations in the dense +and elastic sod. And that I must have testified in some form or +other to what I have called my thrill I gather, remembering it, +from a remark of my companion's. + +"You've the advantage over me in coming to all this with an +educated eye. You already know what old things can be. I've never +known it but by report. I've always fancied I should like it. In +a small way at home, of course, I did try to stand by my idea of +it. I must be a conservative by nature. People at home used to +call me a cockney and a fribble. But it wasn't true," he went on; +"if it had been I should have made my way over here long ago: +before--before--" He paused, and his head dropped sadly on his +breast. + +The bottle of Burgundy had loosened his tongue; I had but to +choose my time for learning his story. Something told me that I +had gained his confidence and that, so far as attention and +attitude might go, I was "in" for responsibilities. But somehow I +didn't dread them. "Before you lost your health," I suggested. + +"Before I lost my health," he answered. "And my property--the +little I had. And my ambition. And any power to take myself +seriously." + +"Come!" I cried. "You shall recover everything. This tonic +English climate will wind you up in a month. And THEN see how +you'll take yourself--and how I shall take you!" + +"Oh," he gratefully smiled, "I may turn to dust in your hands! I +should like," he presently pursued, "to be an old genteel +pensioner, lodged over there in the palace and spending my days +in maundering about these vistas. I should go every morning, at +the hour when it gets the sun, into that long gallery where all +those pretty women of Lely's are hung--I know you despise them!-- +and stroll up and down and say something kind to them. Poor +precious forsaken creatures! So flattered and courted in their +day, so neglected now! Offering up their shoulders and ringlets +and smiles to that musty deadly silence!" + +I laid my hand on my friend's shoulder. "Oh sir, you're all +right!" + +Just at this moment there came cantering down the shallow glade +of the avenue a young girl on a fine black horse--one of those +little budding gentlewomen, perfectly mounted and equipped, who +form to alien eyes one of the prettiest incidents of English +scenery. She had distanced her servant and, as she came abreast +of us, turned slightly in her saddle and glanced back at him. In +the movement she dropped the hunting-crop with which she was +armed; whereupon she reined up and looked shyly at us and at the +implement. "This is something better than a Lely," I said. Searle +hastened forward, picked up the crop and, with a particular +courtesy that became him, handed it back to the rider. Fluttered +and blushing she reached forward, took it with a quick sweet +sound, and the next moment was bounding over the quiet turf. +Searle stood watching her; the servant, as he passed us, touched +his hat. When my friend turned toward me again I saw that he too +was blushing. "Oh sir, you're all right," I repeated. + +At a short distance from where we had stopped was an old stone +bench. We went and sat down on it and, as the sun began to sink, +watched the light mist powder itself with gold. "We ought to be +thinking of the train back to London, I suppose," I at last said. + +"Oh hang the train!" sighed my companion. + +"Willingly. There could be no better spot than this to feel the +English evening stand still." So we lingered, and the twilight +hung about us, strangely clear in spite of the thickness of the +air. As we sat there came into view an apparition unmistakeable +from afar as an immemorial vagrant--the disowned, in his own rich +way, of all the English ages. As he approached us he slackened +pace and finally halted, touching his cap. He was a man of middle +age, clad in a greasy bonnet with false-looking ear-locks +depending from its sides. Round his neck was a grimy red scarf, +tucked into his waistcoat; his coat and trousers had a remote +affinity with those of a reduced hostler. In one hand he had a +stick; on his arm he bore a tattered basket, with a handful of +withered vegetables at the bottom. His face was pale haggard and +degraded beyond description--as base as a counterfeit coin, yet +as modelled somehow as a tragic mask. He too, like everything +else, had a history. From what height had he fallen, from what +depth had he risen? He was the perfect symbol of generated +constituted baseness; and I felt before him in presence of a +great artist or actor. + +"For God's sake, gentlemen," he said in the raucous tone of +weather-beaten poverty, the tone of chronic sore-throat +exacerbated by perpetual gin, "for God's sake, gentlemen, have +pity on a poor fern-collector!"--turning up his stale daisies. +"Food hasn't passed my lips, gentlemen, for the last three days." +We gaped at him and at each other, and to our imagination his +appeal had almost the force of a command. "I wonder if half-a- +crown would help?" I privately wailed. And our fasting botanist +went limping away through the park with the grace of controlled +stupefaction still further enriching his outline. + +"I feel as if I had seen my Doppelganger" said Searle. "He +reminds me of myself. What am I but a mere figure in the +landscape, a wandering minstrel or picker of daisies?" + +"What are you 'anyway,' my friend?" I thereupon took occasion to +ask. "Who are you? kindly tell me." + +The colour rose again to his pale face and I feared I had +offended him. He poked a moment at the sod with the point of his +umbrella before answering. "Who am I?" he said at last. "My name +is Clement Searle. I was born in New York, and that's the +beginning and the end of me." + +"Ah not the end!" I made bold to plead. + +"Then it's because I HAVE no end--any more than an ill-written +book. I just stop anywhere; which means I'm a failure," the poor +man all lucidly and unreservedly pursued: "a failure, as hopeless +and helpless, sir, as any that ever swallowed up the slender +investments of the widow and the orphan. I don't pay five cents +on the dollar. What I might have been--once!--there's nothing +left to show. I was rotten before I was ripe. To begin with, +certainly, I wasn't a fountain of wisdom. All the more reason for +a definite channel--for having a little character and purpose. +But I hadn't even a little. I had nothing but nice tastes, as +they call them, and fine sympathies and sentiments. Take a turn +through New York to-day and you'll find the tattered remnants of +these things dangling on every bush and fluttering in every +breeze; the men to whom I lent money, the women to whom I made +love, the friends I trusted, the follies I invented, the +poisonous fumes of pleasure amid which nothing was worth a +thought but the manhood they stifled! It was my fault that I +believed in pleasure here below. I believe in it still, but as I +believe in the immortality of the soul. The soul is immortal, +certainly--if you've got one; but most people haven't. Pleasure +would be right if it were pleasure straight through; but it never +is. My taste was to be the best in the world; well, perhaps it +was. I had a little money; it went the way of my little wit. Here +in my pocket I have the scant dregs of it. I should tell you I +was the biggest kind of ass. Just now that description would +flatter me; it would assume there's something left of me. But the +ghost of a donkey--what's that? I think," he went on with a +charming turn and as if striking off his real explanation, "I +should have been all right in a world arranged on different +lines. Before heaven, sir--whoever you are--I'm in practice so +absurdly tender-hearted that I can afford to say it: I entered +upon life a perfect gentleman. I had the love of old forms and +pleasant rites, and I found them nowhere--found a world all hard +lines and harsh lights, without shade, without composition, as +they say of pictures, without the lovely mystery of colour. To +furnish colour I melted down the very substance of my own soul. I +went about with my brush, touching up and toning down; a very +pretty chiaroscuro you'll find in my track! Sitting here in this +old park, in this old country, I feel that I hover on the misty +verge of what might have been! I should have been born here and +not there; here my makeshift distinctions would have found things +they'd have been true of. How it was I never got free is more +than I can say. It might have cut the knot, but the knot was too +tight. I was always out of health or in debt or somehow +desperately dangling. Besides, I had a horror of the great black +sickening sea. A year ago I was reminded of the existence of an +old claim to an English estate, which has danced before the eyes +of my family, at odd moments, any time these eighty years. I +confess it's a bit of a muddle and a tangle, and am by no means +sure that to this hour I've got the hang of it. You look as if +you had a clear head: some other time, if you consent, we'll have +a go at it, such as it is, together. Poverty was staring me in +the face; I sat down and tried to commit the 'points' of our case +to memory, as I used to get nine-times-nine by heart as a boy. I +dreamed of it for six months, half-expecting to wake up some fine +morning and hear through a latticed casement the cawing of an +English rookery. A couple of months ago there came out to England +on business of his own a man who once got me out of a dreadful +mess (not that I had hurt anyone but myself), a legal +practitioner in our courts, a very rough diamond, but with a +great deal of FLAIR, as they say in New York. It was with him +yesterday you saw me dining. He undertook, as he called it, to +'nose round' and see if anything could be made of our +questionable but possible show. The matter had never seriously +been taken up. A month later I got a letter from Simmons assuring +me that it seemed a very good show indeed and that he should be +greatly surprised if I were unable to do something. This was the +greatest push I had ever got in my life; I took a deliberate +step, for the first time; I sailed for England. I've been here +three days: they've seemed three months. After keeping me waiting +for thirty-six hours my legal adviser makes his appearance last +night and states to me, with his mouth full of mutton, that I +haven't a leg to stand on, that my claim is moonshine, and that I +must do penance and take a ticket for six more days of purgatory +with his presence thrown in. My friend, my friend--shall I say I +was disappointed? I'm already resigned. I didn't really believe I +had any case. I felt in my deeper consciousness that it was the +crowning illusion of a life of illusions. Well, it was a pretty +one. Poor legal adviser!--I forgive him with all my heart. But +for him I shouldn't be sitting in this place, in this air, under +these impressions. This is a world I could have got on with +beautifully. There's an immense charm in its having been kept for +the last. After it nothing else would have been tolerable. I +shall now have a month of it, I hope, which won't be long enough +for it to "go back on me. There's one thing!"--and here, +pausing, he laid his hand on mine; I rose and stood before him-- +"I wish it were possible you should be with me to the end." + +"I promise you to leave you only when you kick me downstairs." +But I suggested my terms. "It must be on condition of your +omitting from your conversation this intolerable flavour of +mortality. I know nothing of 'ends.' I'm all for beginnings." + +He kept on me his sad weak eyes. Then with a faint smile: "Don't +cut down a man you find hanging. He has had a reason for it. I'm +bankrupt." + +"Oh health's money!" I said. "Get well, and the rest will take +care of itself. I'm interested in your questionable claim--it's +the question that's the charm; and pretenders, to anything big +enough, have always been, for me, an attractive class. Only their +first duty's to be gallant." + +"Their first duty's to understand their own points and to know +their own mind," he returned with hopeless lucidity. "Don't ask +me to climb our family tree now," he added; "I fear I haven't the +head for it. I'll try some day--if it will bear my weight; or +yours added to mine. There's no doubt, however, that we, as they +say, go back. But I know nothing of business. If I were to take +the matter in hand I should break in two the poor little silken +thread from which everything hangs. In a better world than this I +think I should be listened to. But the wind doesn't set to ideal +justice. There's no doubt that a hundred years ago we suffered a +palpable wrong. Yet we made no appeal at the time, and the dust +of a century now lies heaped upon our silence. Let it rest!" + +"What then," I asked, "is the estimated value of your interest?" + +"We were instructed from the first to accept a compromise. +Compared with the whole property our ideas have been small. We +were once advised in the sense of a hundred and thirty thousand +dollars. Why a hundred and thirty I'm sure I don't know. Don't +beguile me into figures." + +"Allow me one more question," I said. "Who's actually in +possession?" + +"A certain Mr. Richard Searle. I know nothing about him." + +"He's in some way related to you?" + +"Our great-grandfathers were half-brothers. What does that make +us?" + +"Twentieth cousins, say. And where does your twentieth cousin +live?" + +"At a place called Lackley--in Middleshire." + +I thought it over. "Well, suppose we look up Lackley in +Middleshire!" + +He got straight up. "Go and see it?" + +"Go and see it." + +"Well," he said, "with you I'll go anywhere." + +On our return to town we determined to spend three days there +together and then proceed to our errand. We were as conscious one +as the other of that deeper mystic appeal made by London to those +superstitious pilgrims who feel it the mother-city of their race, +the distributing heart of their traditional life. Certain +characteristics of the dusky Babylon, certain aspects, phases, +features, "say" more to the American spiritual ear than anything +else in Europe. The influence of these things on Searle it +charmed me to note. His observation I soon saw to be, as I +pronounced it to him, searching and caressing. His almost morbid +appetite for any over-scoring of time, well-nigh extinct from +long inanition, threw the flush of its revival into his face and +his talk. + + + +II + +We looked out the topography of Middleshire in a county-guide, +which spoke highly, as the phrase is, of Lackley Park, and took +up our abode, our journey ended, at a wayside inn where, in the +days of leisure, the coach must have stopped for luncheon and +burnished pewters of rustic ale been handed up as straight as +possible to outsiders athirst with the sense of speed. We stopped +here for mere gaping joy of its steep-thatched roof, its latticed +windows, its hospitable porch, and allowed a couple of days to +elapse in vague undirected strolls and sweet sentimental +observance of the land before approaching the particular business +that had drawn us on. The region I allude to is a compendium of +the general physiognomy of England. The noble friendliness of the +scenery, its latent old-friendliness, the way we scarcely knew +whether we were looking at it for the first or the last time, +made it arrest us at every step. The countryside, in the full +warm rains of the last of April, had burst into sudden perfect +spring. The dark walls of the hedgerows had turned into blooming +screens, the sodden verdure of lawn and meadow been washed over +with a lighter brush. We went forth without loss of time for a +long walk on the great grassy hills, smooth arrested central +billows of some primitive upheaval, from the summits of which you +find half England unrolled at your feet. A dozen broad counties, +within the scope of your vision, commingle their green +exhalations. Closely beneath us lay the dark rich hedgy flats and +the copse-chequered slopes, white with the blossom of apples. At +widely opposite points of the expanse two great towers of +cathedrals rose sharply out of a reddish blur of habitation, +taking the mild English light. + +We gave an irrepressible attention to this same solar reserve, +and found in it only a refinement of art. The sky never was empty +and never idle; the clouds were continually at play for our +benefit. Over against us, from our station on the hills, we saw +them piled and dissolved, condensed and shifted, blotting the +blue with sullen rain-spots, stretching, breeze-fretted, into +dappled fields of grey, bursting into an explosion of light or +melting into a drizzle of silver. We made our way along the +rounded ridge of the downs and reached, by a descent, through +slanting angular fields, green to cottage-doors, a russet village +that beckoned us from the heart of the maze in which the hedges +wrapped it up. Close beside it, I admit, the roaring train +bounces out of a hole in the hills; yet there broods upon this +charming hamlet an old-time quietude that makes a violation of +confidence of naming it so far away. We struck through a narrow +lane, a green lane, dim with its barriers of hawthorn; it led us +to a superb old farmhouse, now rather rudely jostled by the +multiplied roads and by-ways that have reduced its ancient +appanage. It stands there in stubborn picturesqueness, doggedly +submitting to be pointed out and sketched. It is a wonderful +image of the domiciliary conditions of the past--cruelly +complete; with bended beams and joists, beneath the burden of +gables, that seem to ache and groan with memories and regrets. +The short low windows, where lead and glass combine equally to +create an inward gloom, retain their opacity as a part of the +primitive idea of defence. Such an old house provokes on the part +of an American a luxury of respect. So propped and patched, so +tinkered with clumsy tenderness, clustered so richly about its +central English sturdiness, its oaken vertebrations, so humanised +with ages of use and touches of beneficent affection, it seemed +to offer to our grateful eyes a small rude symbol of the great +English social order. Passing out upon the highroad, we came to +the common browsing-patch, the "village-green" of the tales of +our youth. Nothing was absent: the shaggy mouse-coloured donkey, +nosing the turf with his mild and huge proboscis, the geese, the +old woman--THE old woman, in person, with her red cloak and her +black bonnet, frilled about the face and double-frilled beside +her decent placid cheeks--the towering ploughman with his white +smock-frock puckered on chest and back, his short corduroys, his +mighty calves, his big red rural face. We greeted these things as +children greet the loved pictures in a storybook lost and mourned +and found again. We recognised them as one recognises the +handwriting on letter-backs. Beside the road we saw a ploughboy +straddle whistling on a stile, and he had the merit of being not +only a ploughboy but a Gainsborough. Beyond the stile, across the +level velvet of a meadow, a footpath wandered like a streak drawn +by a finger over a surface of fine plush. We followed it from +field to field and from stile to stile; it was all adorably the +way to church. At the church we finally arrived, lost in its +rook-haunted churchyard, hidden from the workday world by the +broad stillness of pastures--a grey, grey tower, a huge black +yew, a cluster of village-graves with crooked headstones and +protrusions that had settled and sunk. The place seemed so to +ache with consecration that my sensitive companion gave way to +the force of it. + +"You must bury me here, you know"--he caught at my arm. "It's the +first place of worship I've seen in my life. How it makes a +Sunday where it stands!" + +It took the Church, we agreed, to make churches, but we had the +sense the next day of seeing still better why. We walked over +some seven miles, to the nearer of the two neighbouring seats of +that lesson; and all through such a mist of local colour that we +felt ourselves a pair of Smollett's pedestrian heroes faring +tavernward for a night of adventures. As we neared the provincial +city we saw the steepled mass of the cathedral, long and high, +rise far into the cloud-freckled blue; and as we got closer +stopped on a bridge and looked down at the reflexion of the solid +minster in a yellow stream. Going further yet we entered the +russet town--where surely Miss Austen's heroines, in chariots and +curricles, must often have come a-shopping for their sandals and +mittens; we lounged in the grassed and gravelled precinct and +gazed insatiably at that most soul-soothing sight, the waning +wasting afternoon light, the visible ether that feels the voices +of the chimes cling far aloft to the quiet sides of the +cathedral-tower; saw it linger and nestle and abide, as it loves +to do on all perpendicular spaces, converting them irresistibly +into registers and dials; tasted too, as deeply, of the peculiar +stillness of this place of priests; saw a rosy English lad come +forth and lock the door of the old foundation-school that +dovetailed with cloister and choir, and carry his big responsible +key into one of the quiet canonical houses: and then stood musing +together on the effect on one's mind of having in one's boyhood +gone and come through cathedral-shades as a King's scholar, and +yet kept ruddy with much cricket in misty river meadows. On the +third morning we betook ourselves to Lackley, having learned that +parts of the "grounds" were open to visitors, and that indeed on +application the house was sometimes shown. + +Within the range of these numerous acres the declining spurs of +the hills continued to undulate and subside. A long avenue wound +and circled from the outermost gate through an untrimmed +woodland, whence you glanced at further slopes and glades and +copses and bosky recesses--at everything except the limits of the +place. It was as free and untended as I had found a few of the +large loose villas of old Italy, and I was still never to see the +angular fact of English landlordism muffle itself in so many +concessions. The weather had just become perfect; it was one of +the dozen exquisite days of the English year--days stamped with a +purity unknown in climates where fine weather is cheap. It was as +if the mellow brightness, as tender as that of the primroses +which starred the dark waysides like petals wind-scattered +over beds of moss, had been meted out to us by the cubic foot-- +distilled from an alchemist's crucible. From this pastoral +abundance we moved upon the more composed scene, the park proper +--passed through a second lodge-gate, with weather-worn gilding +on its twisted bars, to the smooth slopes where the great trees +stood singly and the tame deer browsed along the bed of a +woodland stream. Here before us rose the gabled grey front of the +Tudor-time, developed and terraced and gardened to some later +loss, as we were afterwards to know, of type. + +"Here you can wander all day," I said to Searle, "like an exiled +prince who has come back on tiptoe and hovers about the dominion +of the usurper." + +"To think of 'others' having hugged this all these years!" he +answered. "I know what I am, but what might I have been? What do +such places make of a man?" + +"I dare say he gets stupidly used to them," I said. "But I dare +say too, even then, that when you scratch the mere owner you find +the perfect lover." + +"What a perfect scene and background it forms!" my friend, +however, had meanwhile gone on. "What legends, what histories it +knows! My heart really breaks with all I seem to guess. There's +Tennyson's Talking Oak! What summer days one could spend here! +How I could lounge the rest of my life away on this turf of the +middle ages! Haven't I some maiden-cousin in that old hall, or +grange, or court--what in the name of enchantment do you call the +thing?--who would give me kind leave?" And then he turned almost +fiercely upon me. "Why did you bring me here? Why did you drag me +into this distraction of vain regrets?" + +At this moment there passed within call a decent lad who had +emerged from the gardens and who might have been an underling in +the stables. I hailed him and put the question of our possible +admittance to the house. He answered that the master was away +from home, but that he thought it probable the housekeeper would +consent to do the honours. I passed my arm into Searle's. "Come," +I said; "drain the cup, bitter-sweet though it be. We must go +in." We hastened slowly and approached the fine front. The house +was one of the happiest fruits of its freshly-feeling era, a +multitudinous cluster of fair gables and intricate chimneys, +brave projections and quiet recesses, brown old surfaces +weathered to silver and mottled roofs that testified not to +seasons but to centuries. Two broad terraces commanded the wooded +horizon. Our appeal was answered by a butler who condescended to +our weakness. He renewed the assertion that Mr. Searle was away +from home, but he would himself lay our case before the +housekeeper. We would be so good, however, as to give him our +cards. This request, following so directly on the assertion that +Mr. Searle was absent, was rather resented by my companion. +"Surely not for the housekeeper." + +The butler gave a diplomatic cough. "Miss Searle is at home, +sir." + +"Yours alone will have to serve," said my friend. I took out a +card and pencil and wrote beneath my name NEW YORK. As I stood +with the pencil poised a temptation entered into it. Without in +the least considering proprieties or results I let my implement +yield--I added above my name that of Mr. Clement Searle. What +would come of it? + +Before many minutes the housekeeper waited upon us--a fresh rosy +little old woman in a clean dowdy cap and a scanty sprigged gown; +a quaint careful person, but accessible to the tribute of our +pleasure, to say nothing of any other. She had the accent of the +country, but the manners of the house. Under her guidance we +passed through a dozen apartments, duly stocked with old +pictures, old tapestry, old carvings, old armour, with a hundred +ornaments and treasures. The pictures were especially valuable. +The two Vandykes, the trio of rosy Rubenses, the sole and sombre +Rembrandt, glowed with conscious authenticity. A Claude, a +Murillo, a Greuze, a couple of Gainsboroughs, hung there with +high complacency. Searle strolled about, scarcely speaking, pale +and grave, with bloodshot eyes and lips compressed. He uttered no +comment on what we saw--he asked but a question or two. Missing +him at last from my side I retraced my steps and found him in a +room we had just left, on a faded old ottoman and with his elbows +on his knees and his face buried in his hands. Before him, ranged +on a great credence, was a magnificent collection of old Italian +majolica; plates of every shape, with their glaze of happy +colour, jugs and vases nobly bellied and embossed. There seemed +to rise before me, as I looked, a sudden vision of the young +English gentleman who, eighty years ago, had travelled by slow +stages to Italy and been waited on at his inn by persuasive +toymen. "What is it, my dear man?" I asked. "Are you unwell?" + +He uncovered his haggard face and showed me the flush of a +consciousness sharper, I think, to myself than to him. "A memory +of the past! There comes back to me a china vase that used to +stand on the parlour mantel-shelf when I was a boy, with a +portrait of General Jackson painted on one side and a bunch of +flowers on the other. How long do you suppose that majolica has +been in the family?" + +"A long time probably. It was brought hither in the last century, +into old, old England, out of old, old Italy, by some +contemporary dandy with a taste for foreign gimcracks. Here it +has stood for a hundred years, keeping its clear firm hues in +this quiet light that has never sought to advertise it." + +Searle sprang to his feet. "I say, for mercy's sake, take me +away! I can't stand this sort of thing. Before I know it I shall +do something scandalous. I shall steal some of their infernal +crockery. I shall proclaim my identity and assert my rights. I +shall go blubbering to Miss Searle and ask her in pity's name to +'put me up.'" + +If he could ever have been said to threaten complications he +rather visibly did so now. I began to regret my officious +presentation of his name and prepared without delay to lead him +out of the house. We overtook the housekeeper in the last room of +the series, a small unused boudoir over whose chimney-piece hung +a portrait of a young man in a powdered wig and a brocaded +waistcoat. I was struck with his resemblance to my companion +while our guide introduced him. "This is Mr. Clement Searle, Mr. +Searle's great-uncle, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. He died young, poor +gentleman; he perished at sea, going to America." + +"He was the young buck who brought the majolica out of Italy," I +supplemented. + +"Indeed, sir, I believe he did," said the housekeeper without +wonder. + +"He's the image of you, my dear Searle," I further observed. + +"He's remarkably like the gentleman, saving his presence," said +the housekeeper. + +My friend stood staring. "Clement Searle--at sea--going to +America--?" he broke out. Then with some sharpness to our old +woman: "Why the devil did he go to America?" + +"Why indeed, sir? You may well ask. I believe he had kinsfolk +there. It was for them to come to him." + +Searle broke into a laugh. "It was for them to come to him! Well, +well," he said, fixing his eyes on our guide, "they've come to +him at last!" + +She blushed like a wrinkled rose-leaf. "Indeed, sir, I verily +believe you're one of US!" + +"My name's the name of that beautiful youth," Searle went on. +"Dear kinsman I'm happy to meet you! And what do you think of +this?" he pursued as he grasped me by the arm. "I have an idea. +He perished at sea. His spirit came ashore and wandered about in +misery till it got another incarnation--in this poor trunk!" And +he tapped his hollow chest. "Here it has rattled about these +forty years, beating its wings against its rickety cage, begging +to be taken home again. And I never knew what was the matter with +me! Now at last the bruised spirit can escape!" + +Our old lady gaped at a breadth of appreciation--if not at the +disclosure of a connexion--beyond her. The scene was really +embarrassing, and my confusion increased as we became aware of +another presence. A lady had appeared in the doorway and the +housekeeper dropped just audibly: "Miss Searle!" My first +impression of Miss Searle was that she was neither young nor +beautiful. She stood without confidence on the threshold, pale, +trying to smile and twirling my card in her fingers. I +immediately bowed. Searle stared at her as if one of the pictures +had stepped out of its frame. + +"If I'm not mistaken one of you gentlemen is Mr. Clement Searle," +the lady adventured. + +"My friend's Mr. Clement Searle," I took upon myself to reply. +"Allow me to add that I alone am responsible for your having +received his name." + +"I should have been sorry not to--not to see him," said Miss +Searle, beginning to blush. "Your being from America has led me-- +perhaps to intrude!" + +"The intrusion, madam, has been on our part. And with just that +excuse--that we come from so far away." + +Miss Searle, while I spoke, had fixed her eyes on my friend as he +stood silent beneath Sir Joshua's portrait. The housekeeper, +agitated and mystified, fairly let herself go. "Heaven preserve +us, Miss! It's your great-uncle's picture come to life." + +"I'm not mistaken then," said Miss Searle--"we must be distantly +related." She had the air of the shyest of women, for whom it was +almost anguish to make an advance without help. Searle eyed her +with gentle wonder from head to foot, and I could easily read his +thoughts. This then was his maiden-cousin, prospective mistress +of these hereditary treasures. She was of some thirty-five years +of age, taller than was then common and perhaps stouter than is +now enjoined. She had small kind grey eyes, a considerable +quantity of very light-brown hair and a smiling well-formed +mouth. She was dressed in a lustreless black satin gown with a +short train. Disposed about her neck was a blue handkerchief, and +over this handkerchief, in many convolutions, a string of amber +beads. Her appearance was singular; she was large yet somehow +vague, mature yet undeveloped. Her manner of addressing us spoke +of all sorts of deep diffidences. Searle, I think, had prefigured +to himself some proud cold beauty of five-and-twenty; he was +relieved at finding the lady timid and not obtrusively fair. He +at once had an excellent tone. + +"We're distant cousins, I believe. I'm happy to claim a +relationship which you're so good as to remember. I hadn't +counted on your knowing anything about me." + +"Perhaps I've done wrong." And Miss Searle blushed and smiled +anew. "But I've always known of there being people of our blood +in America, and have often wondered and asked about them--without +ever learning much. To-day, when this card was brought me and I +understood a Clement Searle to be under our roof as a stranger, I +felt I ought to do something. But, you know, I hardly knew what. +My brother's in London. I've done what I think he would have +done. Welcome as a cousin." And with a resolution that ceased to +be awkward she put out her hand. + +"I'm welcome indeed if he would have done it half so graciously!" +Again Searle, taking her hand, acquitted himself beautifully. + +"You've seen what there is, I think," Miss Searle went on. +"Perhaps now you'll have luncheon." We followed her into a small +breakfast-room where a deep bay window opened on the mossy flags +of a terrace. Here, for some moments, she remained dumb and +abashed, as if resting from a measurable effort. Searle too had +ceased to overflow, so that I had to relieve the silence. It was +of course easy to descant on the beauties of park and mansion, +and as I did so I observed our hostess. She had no arts, no +impulses nor graces--scarce even any manners; she was queerly, +almost frowsily dressed; yet she pleased me well. She had an +antique sweetness, a homely fragrance of old traditions. To be so +simple, among those complicated treasures, so pampered and yet so +fresh, so modest and yet so placid, told of just the spacious +leisure in which Searle and I had imagined human life to be +steeped in such places as that. This figure was to the Sleeping +Beauty in the Wood what a fact is to a fairy-tale, an +interpretation to a myth. We, on our side, were to our hostess +subjects of a curiosity not cunningly veiled. + +"I should like so to go abroad!" she exclaimed suddenly, as if +she meant us to take the speech for an expression of interest in +ourselves. + +"Have you never been?" one of us asked. + +"Only once. Three years ago my brother took me to Switzerland. We +thought it extremely beautiful. Except for that journey I've +always lived here. I was born in this house. It's a dear old +place indeed, and I know it well. Sometimes one wants a change." +And on my asking her how she spent her time and what society she +saw, "Of course it's very quiet," she went on, proceeding by +short steps and simple statements, in the manner of a person +called upon for the first time to analyse to that extent her +situation. "We see very few people. I don't think there are many +nice ones hereabouts. At least we don't know them. Our own +family's very small. My brother cares for nothing but riding and +books. He had a great sorrow ten years ago. He lost his wife and +his only son, a dear little boy, who of course would have had +everything. Do you know that that makes me the heir, as they've +done something--I don't quite know what--to the entail? Poor old +me! Since his loss my brother has preferred to be quite alone. +I'm sorry he's away. But you must wait till he comes back. I +expect him in a day or two." She talked more and more, as if our +very strangeness led her on, about her circumstances, her +solitude, her bad eyes, so that she couldn't read, her flowers, +her ferns, her dogs, and the vicar, recently presented to the +living by her brother and warranted quite safe, who had lately +begun to light his altar candles; pausing every now and then to +gasp in self-surprise, yet, in the quaintest way in the world, +keeping up her story as if it were a slow rather awkward old-time +dance, a difficult pas seul in which she would have been better +with more practice, but of which she must complete the figure. Of +all the old things I had seen in England this exhibited mind of +Miss Searle's seemed to me the oldest, the most handed down and +taken for granted; fenced and protected as it was by convention +and precedent and usage, thoroughly acquainted with its +subordinate place. I felt as if I were talking with the heroine +of a last-century novel. As she talked she rested her dull eyes +on her kinsman with wondering kindness. At last she put it to +him: "Did you mean to go away without asking for us?" + +"I had thought it over, Miss Searle, and had determined not to +trouble you. You've shown me how unfriendly I should have been." + +"But you knew of the place being ours, and of our relationship?" + +"Just so. It was because of these things that I came down here-- +because of them almost that I came to England. I've always liked +to think of them," said my companion. + +"You merely wished to look then? We don't pretend to be much to +look at." + +He waited; her words were too strange. "You don't know what you +are, Miss Searle." + +"You like the old place then?" + +Searle looked at her again in silence. "If I could only tell +you!" he said at last. + +"Do tell me. You must come and stay with us." + +It moved him to an oddity of mirth. "Take care, take care--I +should surprise you! I'm afraid I should bore you. I should never +leave you." + +"Oh you'd get homesick--for your real home!" + +At this he was still more amused. "By the way, tell Miss Searle +about our real home," he said to me. And he stepped, through the +window, out upon the terrace, followed by two beautiful dogs, a +setter and a young stag-hound who from the moment we came in had +established the fondest relation with him. Miss Searle looked at +him, while he went, as if she vaguely yearned over him; it began +to be plain that she was interested in her exotic cousin. I +suddenly recalled the last words I had heard spoken by my +friend's adviser in London and which, in a very crude form, had +reference to his making a match with this lady. If only Miss +Searle could be induced to think of that, and if one had but the +tact to put it in a light to her! Something assured me that her +heart was virgin-soil, that the flower of romantic affection had +never bloomed there. If I might just sow the seed! There seemed +to shape itself within her the perfect image of one of the +patient wives of old. + +"He has lost his heart to England," I said. "He ought to have +been born here." + +"And yet he doesn't look in the least an Englishman," she still +rather guardedly prosed. + +"Oh it isn't his looks, poor fellow." + +"Of course looks aren't everything. I never talked with a +foreigner before; but he talks as I have fancied foreigners." + +"Yes, he's foreign enough." + +"Is he married?" + +"His wife's dead and he's all alone in the world." + +"Has he much property?" + +"None to speak of." + +"But he has means to travel." + +I meditated. "He has not expected to travel far," I said at last. +"You know, he's in very poor health." + +"Poor gentleman! So I supposed." + +"But there's more of him to go on with than he thinks. He came +here because he wanted to see your place before he dies." + +"Dear me--kind man!" And I imagined in the quiet eyes the hint of +a possible tear. "And he was going away without my seeing him?" + +"He's very modest, you see." + +"He's very much the gentleman." + +I couldn't but smile. "He's ALL--" + +At this moment we heard on the terrace a loud harsh cry. "It's +the great peacock!" said Miss Searle, stepping to the window and +passing out while I followed her. Below us, leaning on the +parapet, stood our appreciative friend with his arm round the +neck of the setter. Before him on the grand walk strutted the +familiar fowl of gardens--a splendid specimen--with ruffled neck +and expanded tail. The other dog had apparently indulged in a +momentary attempt to abash the gorgeous biped, but at Searle's +summons had bounded back to the terrace and leaped upon the +ledge, where he now stood licking his new friend's face. The +scene had a beautiful old-time air: the peacock flaunting in the +foreground like the genius of stately places; the broad terrace, +which flattered an innate taste of mine for all deserted walks +where people may have sat after heavy dinners to drink coffee in +old Sevres and where the stiff brocade of women's dresses may +have rustled over grass or gravel; and far around us, with one +leafy circle melting into another, the timbered acres of the +park. "The very beasts have made him welcome," I noted as we +rejoined our companion. + +"The peacock has done for you, Mr. Searle," said his cousin, +"what he does only for very great people. A year ago there came +here a great person--a grand old lady--to see my brother. I don't +think that since then he has spread his tail as wide for any one +else--not by a dozen feathers." + +"It's not alone the peacock," said Searle. "Just now there came +slipping across my path a little green lizard, the first I ever +saw, the lizard of literature! And if you've a ghost, broad +daylight though it be, I expect to see him here. Do you know the +annals of your house, Miss Searle?" + +"Oh dear, no! You must ask my brother for all those things." + +"You ought to have a collection of legends and traditions. You +ought to have loves and murders and mysteries by the roomful. I +shall be ashamed of you if you haven't." + +"Oh Mr. Searle! We've always been a very well-behaved family," +she quite seriously pleaded. "Nothing out of the way has ever +happened, I think." + +"Nothing out of the way? Oh that won't do! We've managed better +than that in America. Why I myself!"--and he looked at her +ruefully enough, but enjoying too his idea that he might embody +the social scandal or point to the darkest drama of the Searles. +"Suppose I should turn out a better Searle than you--better than +you nursed here in romance and extravagance? Come, don't +disappoint me. You've some history among you all, you've some +poetry, you've some accumulation of legend. I've been famished +all my days for these things. Don't you understand? Ah you can't +understand! Tell me," he rambled on, "something tremendous. When +I think of what must have happened here; of the lovers who must +have strolled on this terrace and wandered under the beeches, of +all the figures and passions and purposes that must have haunted +these walls! When I think of the births and deaths, the joys and +sufferings, the young hopes and the old regrets, the rich +experience of life--!" He faltered a moment with the increase of +his agitation. His humour of dismay at a threat of the +commonplace in the history he felt about him had turned to a +deeper reaction. I began to fear however that he was really +losing his head. He went on with a wilder play. "To see it all +called up there before me, if the Devil alone could do it I'd +make a bargain with the Devil! Ah Miss Searle," he cried, "I'm a +most unhappy man!" + +"Oh dear, oh dear!" she almost wailed while I turned half away. + +"Look at that window, that dear little window!" I turned back to +see him point to a small protruding oriel, above us, relieved +against the purple brickwork, framed in chiselled stone and +curtained with ivy. + +"It's my little room," she said. + +"Of course it's a woman's room. Think of all the dear faces--all +of them so mild and yet so proud--that have looked out of that +lattice, and of all the old-time women's lives whose principal +view of the world has been this quiet park! Every one of them was +a cousin of mine. And you, dear lady, you're one of them yet." +With which he marched toward her and took her large white hand. +She surrendered it, blushing to her eyes and pressing her other +hand to her breast. "You're a woman of the past. You're nobly +simple. It has been a romance to see you. It doesn't matter what +I say to you. You didn't know me yesterday, you'll not know me +to-morrow. Let me to-day do a mad sweet thing. Let me imagine in +you the spirit of all the dead women who have trod the terrace- +flags that lie here like sepulchral tablets in the pavement of a +church. Let me say I delight in you!"--he raised her hand to his +lips. She gently withdrew it and for a moment averted her face. +Meeting her eyes the next instant I saw the tears had come. The +Sleeping Beauty was awake. + +There followed an embarrassed pause. An issue was suddenly +presented by the appearance of the butler bearing a letter. "A +telegram, Miss," he announced. + +"Oh what shall I do?" cried Miss Searle. "I can't open a +telegram. Cousin, help me." + +Searle took the missive, opened it and read aloud: "I shall be +home to dinner. Keep the American." + + + +III + +"KEEP the American!" Miss Searle, in compliance with the +injunction conveyed in her brother's telegram (with something +certainly of telegraphic curtness), lost no time in expressing +the pleasure it would give her that our friend should remain. +"Really you must," she said; and forthwith repaired to the house- +keeper to give orders for the preparation of a room. + +"But how in the world did he know of my being here?" my companion +put to me. + +I answered that he had probably heard from his solicitor of the +other's visit. "Mr. Simmons and that gentleman must have had +another interview since your arrival in England. Simmons, for +reasons of his own, has made known to him your journey to this +neighbourhood, and Mr. Searle, learning this, has immediately +taken for granted that you've formally presented yourself to his +sister. He's hospitably inclined and wishes her to do the proper +thing by you. There may even," I went on, "be more in it than +that. I've my little theory that he's the very phoenix of +usurpers, that he has been very much struck with what the experts +have had to say for you, and that he wishes to have the +originality of making over to you your share--so limited after +all--of the estate." + +"I give it up!" my friend mused. "Come what come will!" + +"You, of course," said Miss Searle, reappearing and turning to +me, "are included in my brother's invitation. I've told them to +see about a room for you. Your luggage shall immediately be sent +for." + +It was arranged that I in person should be driven over to our +little inn and that I should return with our effects in time to +meet Mr. Searle at dinner. On my arrival several hours later I +was immediately conducted to my room. The servant pointed out to +me that it communicated by a door and a private passage with that +of my fellow visitor. I made my way along this passage--a low +narrow corridor with a broad latticed casement through which +there streamed upon a series of grotesquely sculptured oaken +closets and cupboards the vivid animating glow of the western sun +--knocked at his door and, getting no answer, opened it. In an +armchair by the open window sat my friend asleep, his arms and +legs relaxed and head dropped on his breast. It was a great +relief to see him rest thus from his rhapsodies, and I watched +him for some moments before waking him. There was a faint glow of +colour in his cheek and a light expressive parting of his lips, +something nearer to ease and peace than I had yet seen in him. It +was almost happiness, it was almost health. I laid my hand on his +arm and gently shook it. He opened his eyes, gazed at me a +moment, vaguely recognised me, then closed them again. "Let me +dream, let me dream!" + +"What are you dreaming about?" + +A moment passed before his answer came. "About a tall woman in a +quaint black dress, with yellow hair and a sweet, sweet smile, +and a soft low delicious voice! I'm in love with her." + +"It's better to see her than to dream about her," I said. "Get up +and dress; then we'll go down to dinner and meet her." + +"Dinner--dinner--?" And he gradually opened his eyes again. "Yes, +upon my word I shall dine!" + +"Oh you're all right!" I declared for the twentieth time as he +rose to his feet. "You'll live to bury Mr. Simmons." He told me +he had spent the hours of my absence with Miss Searle--they had +strolled together half over the place. "You must be very +intimate," I smiled. + +"She's intimate with ME. Goodness knows what rigmarole I've +treated her to!" They had parted an hour ago; since when, he +believed, her brother had arrived. + +The slow-fading twilight was still in the great drawing-room when +we came down. The housekeeper had told us this apartment was +rarely used, there being others, smaller and more convenient, for +the same needs. It seemed now, however, to be occupied in my +comrade's honour. At the furthest end, rising to the roof like a +royal tomb in a cathedral, was a great chimney-piece of chiselled +white marble, yellowed by time, in which a light fire was +crackling. Before the fire stood a small short man, with his +hands behind him; near him was Miss Searle, so transformed by her +dress that at first I scarcely knew her. There was in our +entrance and reception something remarkably chilling and solemn. +We moved in silence up the long room; Mr. Searle advanced slowly, +a dozen steps, to meet us; his sister stood motionless. I was +conscious of her masking her visage with a large white tinselled +fan, and that her eyes, grave and enlarged, watched us intently +over the top of it. The master of Lackley grasped in silence the +proffered hand of his kinsman and eyed him from head to foot, +suppressing, I noted, a start of surprise at his resemblance to +Sir Joshua's portrait. "This is a happy day." And then turning to +me with an odd little sharp stare: "My cousin's friend is my +friend." Miss Searle lowered her fan. + +The first thing that struck me in Mr. Searle's appearance was his +very limited stature, which was less by half a head than that of +his sister. The second was the preternatural redness of his hair +and beard. They intermingled over his ears and surrounded his +head like a huge lurid nimbus. His face was pale and attenuated, +the face of a scholar, a dilettante, a comparer of points and +texts, a man who lives in a library bending over books and prints +and medals. At a distance it might have passed for smooth and +rather blankly composed; but on a nearer view it revealed a +number of wrinkles, sharply etched and scratched, of a singularly +aged and refined effect. It was the complexion of a man of sixty. +His nose was arched and delicate, identical almost with the nose +of my friend. His eyes, large and deep-set, had a kind of auburn +glow, the suggestion of a keen metal red-hot--or, more plainly, +were full of temper and spirit. Imagine this physiognomy--grave +and solemn, grotesquely solemn, in spite of the bushy brightness +which made a sort of frame for it--set in motion by a queer, +quick, defiant, perfunctory, preoccupied smile, and you will have +an imperfect notion of the remarkable presence of our host; +something better worth seeing and knowing, I perceived as I quite +breathlessly took him in, than anything we had yet encountered. +How thoroughly I had entered into sympathy with my poor picked-up +friend, and how effectually I had associated my sensibilities +with his own, I had not suspected till, within the short five +minutes before the signal for dinner, I became aware, without his +giving me the least hint, of his placing himself on the +defensive. To neither of us was Mr. Searle sympathetic. I might +have guessed from her attitude that his sister entered into our +thoughts. A marked change had been wrought in her since the +morning; during the hour, indeed--as I read in the light of the +wondering glance he cast at her--that had elapsed since her +parting with her cousin. She had not yet recovered from some +great agitation. Her face was pale and she had clearly been +crying. These notes of trouble gave her a new and quite perverse +dignity, which was further enhanced by something complimentary +and commemorative in her dress. + +Whether it was taste or whether it was accident I know not; but +the amiable creature, as she stood there half in the cool +twilight, half in the arrested glow of the fire as it spent +itself in the vastness of its marble cave, was a figure for a +painter. She was habited in some faded splendour of sea-green +crape and silk, a piece of millinery which, though it must have +witnessed a number of dull dinners, preserved still a festive +air. Over her white shoulders she wore an ancient web of the most +precious and venerable lace and about her rounded throat a single +series of large pearls. I went in with her to dinner, and Mr. +Searle, following with my friend, took his arm, as the latter +afterwards told me, and pretended jocosely to conduct him. As +dinner proceeded the feeling grew within me that a drama had +begun to be played in which the three persons before me were +actors--each of a really arduous part. The character allotted to +my friend, however, was certainly the least easy to represent +with effect, though I overflowed with the desire that he should +acquit himself to his honour. I seemed to see him urge his faded +faculties to take their cue and perform. The poor fellow tried to +do himself credit more seriously than ever in his old best days. +With Miss Searle, credulous passive and pitying, he had finally +flung aside all vanity and propriety and shown the bottom of his +fantastic heart. But with our host there might be no talking of +nonsense nor taking of liberties; there and then, if ever, sat a +consummate conservative, breathing the fumes of hereditary +privilege and security. For an hour, accordingly, I saw my poor +protege attempt, all in pain, to meet a new decorum. He set +himself the task of appearing very American, in order that his +appreciation of everything Mr. Searle represented might seem +purely disinterested. What his kinsman had expected him to be I +know not; but I made Mr. Searle out as annoyed, in spite of his +exaggerated urbanity, at finding him so harmless. Our host was +not the man to show his hand, but I think his best card had been +a certain implicit confidence that so provincial a parasite would +hardly have good manners. + +He led the conversation to the country we had left; rather as if +a leash had been attached to the collar of some lumpish and half- +domesticated animal the tendency of whose movements had to be +recognised. He spoke of it indeed as of some fabled planet, alien +to the British orbit, lately proclaimed to have the admixture of +atmospheric gases required to support animal life, but not, save +under cover of a liberal afterthought, to be admitted into one's +regular conception of things. I, for my part, felt nothing but +regret that the spheric smoothness of his universe should be +disfigured by the extrusion even of such inconsiderable particles +as ourselves. + +"I knew in a general way of our having somehow ramified over +there," Mr. Searle mentioned; "but had scarcely followed it more +than you pretend to pick up the fruit your long-armed pear tree +may drop, on the other side of your wall, in your neighbour's +garden. There was a man I knew at Cambridge, a very odd fellow, a +decent fellow too; he and I were rather cronies; I think he +afterwards went to the Middle States. They'll be, I suppose, +about the Mississippi? At all events, there was that great-uncle +of mine whom Sir Joshua painted. He went to America, but he never +got there. He was lost at sea. You look enough like him to make +one fancy he DID get there and that you've kept him alive by one +of those beastly processes--I think you have 'em over there: what +do you call it, 'putting up' things? If you're he you've not done +a wise thing to show yourself here. He left a bad name behind +him. There's a ghost who comes sobbing about the house every +now and then, the ghost of one to whom he did a wrong." + +"Oh mercy ON us!" cried Miss Searle in simple horror. + +"Of course YOU know nothing of such things," he rather dryly +allowed. "You're too sound a sleeper to hear the sobbing of +ghosts." + +"I'm sure I should like immensely to hear the sobbing of a +ghost," said my friend, the light of his previous eagerness +playing up into his eyes. "Why does it sob? I feel as if that +were what we've come above all to learn." + +Mr. Searle eyed his audience a moment gaugingly; he held the +balance as to measure his resources. He wished to do justice to +his theme. With the long finger-nails of his left hand nervously +playing against the tinkling crystal of his wineglass and his +conscious eyes betraying that, small and strange as he sat there, +he knew himself, to his pleasure and advantage, remarkably +impressive, he dropped into our untutored minds the sombre legend +of his house. "Mr. Clement Searle, from all I gather, was a young +man of great talents but a weak disposition. His mother was left +a widow early in life, with two sons, of whom he was the elder +and the more promising. She educated him with the greatest +affection and care. Of course when he came to manhood she wished +him to marry well. His means were quite sufficient to enable him +to overlook the want of money in his wife; and Mrs. Searle +selected a young lady who possessed, as she conceived, every good +gift save a fortune--a fine proud handsome girl, the daughter of +an old friend, an old lover I suspect, of her own. Clement, +however, as it appeared, had either chosen otherwise or was as +yet unprepared to choose. The young lady opened upon him in vain +the battery of her attractions; in vain his mother urged her +cause. Clement remained cold, insensible, inflexible. Mrs. Searle +had a character which appears to have gone out of fashion in my +family nowadays; she was a great manager, a maitresse-femme. A +proud passionate imperious woman, she had had immense cares and +ever so many law-suits; they had sharpened her temper and her +will. She suspected that her son's affections had another object, +and this object she began to hate. Irritated by his stubborn +defiance of her wishes she persisted in her purpose. The more she +watched him the more she was convinced he loved in secret. If he +loved in secret of course he loved beneath him. He went about the +place all sombre and sullen and brooding. At last, with the +rashness of an angry woman, she threatened to bring the young +lady of her choice--who, by the way, seems to have been no +shrinking blossom--to stay in the house. A stormy scene was the +result. He threatened that if she did so he would leave the +country and sail for America. She probably disbelieved him; she +knew him to be weak, but she overrated his weakness. At all +events the rejected one arrived and Clement Searle departed. On a +dark December day he took ship at Southampton. The two women, +desperate with rage and sorrow, sat alone in this big house, +mingling their tears and imprecations. A fortnight later, on +Christmas Eve, in the midst of a great snowstorm long famous in +the country, something happened that quickened their bitterness. +A young woman, battered and chilled by the storm, gained entrance +to the house and, making her way into the presence of the +mistress and her guest, poured out her tale. She was a poor +curate's daughter out of some little hole in Gloucestershire. +Clement Searle had loved her--loved her all too well! She had +been turned out in wrath from her father's house; his mother at +least might pity her--if not for herself then for the child she +was soon to bring forth. Hut the poor girl had been a second time +too trustful. The women, in scorn, in horror, with blows +possibly, drove her forth again into the storm. In the storm she +wandered and in the deep snow she died. Her lover, as you know, +perished in that hard winter weather at sea; the news came to his +mother late, but soon enough. We're haunted by the curate's +daughter!" + +Mr. Searle retailed this anecdote with infinite taste and point, +the happiest art; when he ceased there was a pause of some +moments. "Ah well we may be!" Miss Searle then mournfully +murmured. + +Searle blazed up into enthusiasm. "Of course, you know"--with +which he began to blush violently--"I should be sorry to claim +any identity with the poor devil my faithless namesake. But I +should be immensely gratified if the young lady's spirit, +deceived by my resemblance, were to mistake me for her cruel +lover. She's welcome to the comfort of it. What one can do in the +case I shall be glad to do. But can a ghost haunt a ghost? I AM a +ghost!" + +Mr. Searle stared a moment and then had a subtle sneer. "I could +almost believe you are!" + +"Oh brother--and cousin!" cried Miss Searle with the gentlest yet +most appealing dignity. "How can you talk so horribly?" +The horrible talk, however, evidently possessed a potent magic +for my friend; and his imagination, checked a while by the +influence of his kinsman, began again to lead him a dance. From +this moment he ceased to steer his frail bark, to care what he +said or how he said it, so long as he expressed his passionate +appreciation of the scene around him. As he kept up this strain I +ceased even secretly to wish he wouldn't. I have wondered since +that I shouldn't have been annoyed by the way he reverted +constantly to himself. But a great frankness, for the time, makes +its own law and a great passion its own channel. There was +moreover an irresponsible indescribable effect of beauty in +everything his lips uttered. Free alike from adulation and from +envy, the essence of his discourse was a divine apprehension, a +romantic vision free as the flight of Ariel, of the poetry of his +companions' situation and their contrasted general +irresponsiveness. + +"How does the look of age come?" he suddenly broke out at +dessert. "Does it come of itself, unobserved, unrecorded, +unmeasured? Or do you woo it and set baits and traps for it, and +watch it like the dawning brownness of a meerschaum pipe, and +make it fast, when it appears, just where it peeps out, and light +a votive taper beneath it and give thanks to it daily? Or do you +forbid it and fight it and resist it, and yet feel it settling +and deepening about you as irresistible as fate?" + +"What the deuce is the man talking about?" said the smile of our +host. + +"I found a little grey hair this morning," Miss Searle +incoherently prosed. + +"Well then I hope you paid it every respect!" cried her visitor. + +"I looked at it for a long time in my hand-glass," she answered +with more presence of mind. + +"Miss Searle can for many years to come afford to be amused at +grey hairs," I interposed in the hope of some greater ease. +It had its effect. "Ten years from last Thursday I shall be +forty-four," she almost comfortably smiled. + +"Well, that's just what I am," said Searle. "If I had only come +here ten years ago! I should have had more time to enjoy the +feast, but I should have had less appetite. I needed first to get +famished." + +"Oh why did you wait for that?" his entertainer asked. "To think +of these ten years that we might have been enjoying you!" At the +vision of which waste and loss Mr. Searle had a fine shrill +laugh. + +"Well," my friend explained, "I always had a notion--a stupid +vulgar notion if there ever was one--that to come abroad properly +one had to have a pot of money. My pot was too nearly empty. At +last I came with my empty pot!" + +Mr. Searle had a wait for delicacy, but he proceeded. "You're +reduced, you're--a--straitened?" + +Our companion's very breath blew away the veil. "Reduced to +nothing. Straitened to the clothes on my back!" + +"You don't say so!" said Mr. Searle with a large vague gasp. +"Well--well--well!" he added in a voice which might have meant +everything or nothing; and then, in his whimsical way, went on to +finish a glass of wine. His searching eye, as he drank, met mine, +and for a moment we each rather deeply sounded the other, to the +effect no doubt of a slight embarrassment. "And you," he said by +way of carrying this off--"how about YOUR wardrobe?" + +"Oh his!" cried my friend; "his wardrobe's immense. He could +dress up a regiment!" He had drunk more champagne--I admit that +the champagne was good--than was from any point of view to have +been desired. He was rapidly drifting beyond any tacit dissuasion +of mine. He was feverish and rash, and all attempt to direct +would now simply irritate him. As we rose from the table he +caught my troubled look. Passing his arm for a moment into mine, +"This is the great night!" he strangely and softly said; "the +night and the crisis that will settle me." + +Mr. Searle had caused the whole lower portion of the house to be +thrown open and a multitude of lights to be placed in convenient +and effective positions. Such a marshalled wealth of ancient +candlesticks and flambeaux I had never beheld. Niched against the +dusky wainscots, casting great luminous circles upon the pendent +stiffness of sombre tapestries, enhancing and completing with +admirable effect the variety and mystery of the great ancient +house, they seemed to people the wide rooms, as our little group +passed slowly from one to another, with a dim expectant presence. +We had thus, in spite of everything, a wonderful hour of it. Mr. +Searle at once assumed the part of cicerone, and--I had not +hitherto done him justice--Mr. Searle became almost agreeable. +While I lingered behind with his sister he walked in advance with +his kinsman. It was as if he had said: "Well, if you want the old +place you shall have it--so far as the impression goes!" He +spared us no thrill--I had almost said no pang--of that +experience. Carrying a tall silver candlestick in his left hand, +he raised it and lowered it and cast the light hither and +thither, upon pictures and hangings and carvings and cornices. He +knew his house to perfection. He touched upon a hundred +traditions and memories, he threw off a cloud of rich reference +to its earlier occupants. He threw off again, in his easy elegant +way, a dozen--happily lighter--anecdotes. His relative attended +with a brooding deference. Miss Searle and I meanwhile were not +wholly silent. + +"I suppose that by this time you and your cousin are almost old +friends," I remarked. + +She trifled a moment with her fan and then raised her kind small +eyes. "Old friends--yet at the same time strangely new! My +cousin, my cousin"--and her voice lingered on the word--"it seems +so strange to call him my cousin after thinking these many years +that I've no one in the world but my brother. But he's really so +very odd!" + +"It's not so much he as--well, as his situation, that deserves +that name," I tried to reason. + +"I'm so sorry for his situation. I wish I could help it in some +way. He interests me so much." She gave a sweet-sounding sigh. "I +wish I could have known him sooner--and better. He tells me he's +but the shadow of what he used to be." + +I wondered if he had been consciously practising on the +sensibilities of this gentle creature. If he had I believed he +had gained his point. But his position had in fact become to my +sense so precarious that I hardly ventured to be glad. "His +better self just now seems again to be taking shape," I said. +"It will have been a good deed on your part if you help to +restore him to all he ought to be." + +She met my idea blankly. "Dear me, what can I do?" + +"Be a friend to him. Let him like you, let him love you. I dare +say you see in him now much to pity and to wonder at. But let him +simply enjoy a while the grateful sense of your nearness and +dearness. He'll be a better and stronger man for it, and then you +can love him, you can esteem him, without restriction." + +She fairly frowned for helplessness. "It's a hard part for poor +stupid me to play!" + +Her almost infantine innocence left me no choice but to be +absolutely frank. "Did you ever play any part at all?" + +She blushed as if I had been reproaching her with her +insignificance. "Never! I think I've hardly lived." + +"You've begun to live now perhaps. You've begun to care for +something else than your old-fashioned habits. Pardon me if I +seem rather meddlesome; you know we Americans are very rough and +ready. It's a great moment. I wish you joy!" + +"I could almost believe you're laughing at me. I feel more +trouble than joy." + +"Why do you feel trouble?" + +She paused with her eyes fixed on our companions. "My cousin's +arrival's a great disturbance," she said at last. + +"You mean you did wrong in coming to meet him? In that case the +fault's mine. He had no intention of giving you the opportunity." + +"I certainly took too much on myself. But I can't find it in my +heart to regret it. I never shall regret it! I did the only thing +I COULD, heaven forgive me!" + +"Heaven bless you, Miss Searle! Is any harm to come of it? I did +the evil; let me bear the brunt!" + +She shook her head gravely. "You don't know my brother!" + +"The sooner I master the subject the better then," I said. I +couldn't help relieving myself--at least by the tone of my voice +--of the antipathy with which, decidedly, this gentleman had +inspired me. "Not perhaps that we should get on so well +together!" After which, as she turned away, "Are you VERY much +afraid of him?" I added. + +She gave me a shuddering sidelong glance. "He's looking at me!" + +He was placed with his back to us, holding a large Venetian hand- +mirror, framed in chiselled silver, which he had taken from a +shelf of antiquities, just at such an angle that he caught the +reflexion of his sister's person. It was evident that I too was +under his attention, and was resolved I wouldn't be suspected +for nothing. "Miss Searle," I said with urgency, "promise me +something." + +She turned upon me with a start and a look that seemed to beg me +to spare her. "Oh don't ask me--please don't!" It was as if she +were standing on the edge of a place where the ground had +suddenly fallen away, and had been called upon to make a leap. I +felt retreat was impossible, however, and that it was the greater +kindness to assist her to jump. + +"Promise me," I repeated. + +Still with her eyes she protested. "Oh what a dreadful day!" she +cried at last. + +"Promise me to let him speak to you alone if he should ask you-- +any wish you may suspect on your brother's part notwithstanding." +She coloured deeply. "You mean he has something so particular to +say?" + +"Something so particular!" + +"Poor cousin!" + +"Well, poor cousin! But promise me." + +"I promise," she said, and moved away across the long room and +out of the door. + +"You're in time to hear the most delightful story," Searle began +to me as I rejoined him and his host. They were standing before +an old sombre portrait of a lady in the dress of Queen Anne's +time, whose ill-painted flesh-tints showed livid, in the candle- +light, against her dark drapery and background. "This is Mrs. +Margaret Searle--a sort of Beatrix Esmond--qui se passait ses +fantaisies. She married a paltry Frenchman, a penniless fiddler, +in the teeth of her whole family. Pretty Mrs. Margaret, you must +have been a woman of courage! Upon my word, she looks like Miss +Searle! But pray go on. What came of it all?" + +Our companion watched him with an air of distaste for his +boisterous homage and of pity for his crude imagination. But he +took up the tale with an effective dryness: "I found a year ago, +in a box of very old papers, a letter from the lady in question +to a certain Cynthia Searle, her elder sister. It was dated from +Paris and dreadfully ill-spelled. It contained a most passionate +appeal for pecuniary assistance. She had just had a baby, she was +starving and dreadfully neglected by her husband--she cursed the +day she had left England. It was a most dismal production. I +never heard she found means to return." + +"So much for marrying a Frenchman!" I said sententiously. + +Our host had one of his waits. "This is the only lady of the +family who ever was taken in by an adventurer." + +"Does Miss Searle know her history?" asked my friend with a stare +at the rounded whiteness of the heroine's cheek. + +"Miss Searle knows nothing!" said our host with expression. + +"She shall know at least the tale of Mrs. Margaret," their guest +returned; and he walked rapidly away in search of her. + +Mr. Searle and I pursued our march through the lighted rooms. +"You've found a cousin with a vengeance," I doubtless awkwardly +enough laughed. + +"Ah a vengeance?" my entertainer stiffly repeated. + +"I mean that he takes as keen an interest in your annals and +possessions as yourself." + +"Oh exactly so! He tells me he's a bad invalid," he added in a +moment. "I should never have supposed it." + +"Within the past few hours he's a changed man. Your beautiful +house, your extreme kindness, have refreshed him immensely." +Mr. Searle uttered the vague ejaculation with which self- +conscious Britons so often betray the concussion of any especial +courtesy of speech. But he followed this by a sudden odd glare +and the sharp declaration: "I'm an honest man!" I was quite +prepared to assent; but he went on with a fury of frankness, as +if it were the first time in his life he had opened himself to +any one, as if the process were highly disagreeable and he were +hurrying through it as a task. "An honest man, mind you! I know +nothing about Mr. Clement Searle! I never expected to see him. He +has been to me a--a--!" And here he paused to select a word which +should vividly enough express what, for good or for ill, his +kinsman represented. "He has been to me an Amazement! I've no +doubt he's a most amiable man. You'll not deny, however, that +he's a very extraordinary sort of person. I'm sorry he's ill. I'm +sorry he's poor. He's my fiftieth cousin. Well and good. I'm an +honest man. He shall not have it to say that he wasn't received +at my house." + +"He too, thank heaven, is an honest man!" I smiled. + +"Why the devil then," cried Mr. Searle, turning almost fiercely +on me, "has he put forward this underhand claim to my property?" + +The question, quite ringing out, flashed backward a gleam of +light upon the demeanour of our host and the suppressed agitation +of his sister. In an instant the jealous gentleman revealed +itself. For a moment I was so surprised and scandalised at the +directness of his attack that I lacked words to reply. As soon as +he had spoken indeed Mr. Searle appeared to feel he had been +wanting in form. "Pardon me," he began afresh, "if I speak of +this matter with heat. But I've been more disgusted than I can +say to hear, as I heard this morning from my solicitor, of the +extraordinary proceedings of Mr. Clement Searle. Gracious +goodness, sir, for what does the man take me? He pretends to the +Lord knows what fantastic admiration for my place. Let him then +show his respect for it by not taking too many liberties! Let +him, with his high-flown parade of loyalty, imagine a tithe of +what _I_ feel! I love my estate; it's my passion, my conscience, +my life! Am I to divide it up at this time of day with a beggarly +foreigner--a man without means, without appearance, without +proof, a pretender, an adventurer, a chattering mountebank? I +thought America boasted having lands for all men! Upon my soul, +sir, I've never been so shocked in my life." + +I paused for some moments before speaking, to allow his passion +fully to expend itself and to flicker up again if it chose; for +so far as I was concerned in the whole awkward matter I but +wanted to deal with him discreetly. "Your apprehensions, sir," I +said at last, "your not unnatural surprise, perhaps, at the +candour of our interest, have acted too much on your nerves. +You're attacking a man of straw, a creature of unworthy illusion; +though I'm sadly afraid you've wounded a man of spirit and +conscience. Either my friend has no valid claim on your estate, +in which case your agitation is superfluous; or he HAS a valid +claim--" + +Mr. Searle seized my arm and glared at me; his pale face paler +still with the horror of my suggestion, his great eyes of alarm +glowing and his strange red hair erect and quivering. "A valid +claim!" he shouted. "Let him try it--let him bring it into +court!" + +We had emerged into the great hall and stood facing the main +doorway. The door was open into the portico, through the stone +archway of which I saw the garden glitter in the blue light of a +full moon. As the master of the house uttered the words I have +just repeated my companion came slowly up into the porch from +without, bareheaded, bright in the outer moonlight, dark in the +shadow of the archway, and bright again in the lamplight at the +entrance of the hall. As he crossed the threshold the butler made +an appearance at the head of the staircase on our left, faltering +visibly a moment at sight of Mr. Searle; after which, noting my +friend, he gravely descended. He bore in his hand a small silver +tray. On the tray, gleaming in the light of the suspended lamp, +lay a folded note. Clement Searle came forward, staring a little +and startled, I think, by some quick nervous prevision of a +catastrophe. The butler applied the match to the train. He +advanced to my fellow visitor, all solemnly, with the offer of +his missive. Mr. Searle made a movement as if to spring forward, +but controlled himself. "Tottenham!" he called in a strident +voice. + +"Yes, sir!" said Tottenham, halting. + +"Stand where you are. For whom is that note?" + +"For Mr. Clement Searle," said the butler, staring straight +before him and dissociating himself from everything. + +"Who gave it to you?" + +"Mrs. Horridge, sir." This personage, I afterwards learned, was +our friend the housekeeper. + +"Who gave it Mrs. Horridge?" + +There was on Tottenham's part just an infinitesimal pause before +replying. + +"My dear sir," broke in Searle, his equilibrium, his ancient +ease, completely restored by the crisis, "isn't that rather my +business?" + +"What happens in my house is my business, and detestable things +seem to be happening." Our host, it was clear, now so furiously +detested them that I was afraid he would snatch the bone of +contention without more ceremony. "Bring me that thing!" he +cried; on which Tottenham stiffly moved to obey. + +"Really this is too much!" broke out my companion, affronted and +helpless. + +So indeed it struck me, and before Mr. Searle had time to take +the note I possessed myself of it. "If you've no consideration +for your sister let a stranger at least act for her." And I tore +the disputed object into a dozen pieces. + +"In the name of decency, what does this horrid business mean?" my +companion quavered. + +Mr. Searle was about to open fire on him, but at that moment our +hostess appeared on the staircase, summoned evidently by our +high-pitched contentious voices. She had exchanged her dinner- +dress for a dark wrapper, removed her ornaments and begun to +disarrange her hair, a thick tress of which escaped from the +comb. She hurried down with a pale questioning face. Feeling +distinctly that, for ourselves, immediate departure was in the +air, and divining Mr. Tottenham to be a person of a few deep- +seated instincts and of much latent energy, I seized the +opportunity to request him, sotto voce, to send a carriage to the +door without delay. "And put up our things," I added. + +Our host rushed at his sister and grabbed the white wrist that +escaped from the loose sleeve of her dress. "What was in that +note?" he quite hissed at her. + +Miss Searle looked first at its scattered fragments and then at +her cousin. "Did you read it?" + +"No, but I thank you for it!" said Searle. + +Her eyes, for an instant, communicated with his own as I think +they had never, never communicated with any other source of +meaning; then she transferred them to her brother's face, where +the sense went out of them, only to leave a dull sad patience. +But there was something even in this flat humility that seemed to +him to mock him, so that he flushed crimson with rage and spite +and flung her away. "You always were an idiot! Go to bed." + +In poor Searle's face as well the gathered serenity had been by +this time all blighted and distorted and the reflected brightness +of his happy day turned to blank confusion. "Have I been dealing +these three hours with a madman?" he woefully cried. + +"A madman, yes, if you will! A man mad with the love of his home +and the sense of its stability. I've held my tongue till now, but +you've been too much for me. Who the devil are you, and what and +why and whence?" the terrible little man continued. "From what +paradise of fools do you come that you fancy I shall make over to +you, for the asking, a part of my property and my life? I'm +forsooth, you ridiculous person, to go shares with you? Prove +your preposterous claim! There isn't THAT in it!" And he kicked +one of the bits of paper on the floor. + +Searle received this broadside gaping. Then turning away he went +and seated himself on a bench against the wall and rubbed his +forehead amazedly. I looked at my watch and listened for the +wheels of our carriage. + +But his kinsman was too launched to pull himself up. "Wasn't it +enough that you should have plotted against my rights? Need you +have come into my very house to intrigue with my sister?" + +My friend put his two hands to his face. "Oh, oh, oh!" he groaned +while Miss Searle crossed rapidly and dropped on her knees at his +side. + +"Go to bed, you fool!" shrieked her brother. + +"Dear cousin," she said, "it's cruel you're to have so to think +of us!" + +"Oh I shall think of YOU as you'd like!" He laid a hand on her +head. + +"I believe you've done nothing wrong," she brought bravely out. + +"I've done what I could," Mr. Searle went on--"but it's arrant +folly to pretend to friendship when this abomination lies between +us. You were welcome to my meat and my wine, but I wonder you +could swallow them. The sight spoiled MY appetite!" cried the +master of Lackley with a laugh. "Proceed with your trumpery case! +My people in London are instructed and prepared." + +"I shouldn't wonder if your case had improved a good deal since +you gave it up," I was moved to observe to Searle. + +"Oho! you don't feign ignorance then?" and our insane entertainer +shook his shining head at me. "It's very kind of you to give it +up! Perhaps you'll also give up my sister!" + +Searle sat staring in distress at his adversary. "Ah miserable +man--I thought we had become such beautiful friends." + +"Boh, you hypocrite!" screamed our host. + +Searle seemed not to hear him. "Am I seriously expected," he +slowly and painfully pursued, "to defend myself against the +accusation of any real indelicacy--to prove I've done nothing +underhand or impudent? Think what you please!" And he rose, with +an effort, to his feet. "I know what YOU think!" he added to Miss +Searle. + +The wheels of the carriage resounded on the gravel, and at the +same moment a footman descended with our two portmanteaux. Mr. +Tottenham followed him with our hats and coats. + +"Good God," our host broke out again, "you're not going away?"-- +an ejaculation that, after all that had happened, had the +grandest comicality. "Bless my soul," he then remarked as +artlessly, "of course you're going!" + +"It's perhaps well," said Miss Searle with a great effort, +inexpressibly touching in one for whom great efforts were visibly +new and strange, "that I should tell you what my poor little note +contained." + +"That matter of your note, madam," her brother interrupted, "you +and I will settle together!" + +"Let me imagine all sorts of kind things!" Searle beautifully +pleaded. + +"Ah too much has been imagined!" she answered simply. "It was +only a word of warning. It was to tell you to go. I knew +something painful was coming." + +He took his hat. "The pains and the pleasures of this day," he +said to his kinsman, "I shall equally never forget. Knowing you," +and he offered his hand to Miss Searle, "has been the pleasure of +pleasures. I hoped something more might have come of it." + +"A monstrous deal too much has come of it!" Mr. Searle +irrepressibly declared. + +His departing guest looked at him mildly, almost benignantly, +from head to foot, and then with closed eyes and some collapse of +strength, "I'm afraid so, I can't stand more," he went on. I gave +him my arm and we crossed the threshold. As we passed out I heard +Miss Searle break into loud weeping. + +"We shall hear from each other yet, I take it!" her brother +pursued, harassing our retreat. + +My friend stopped, turning round on him fiercely. "You very +impossible man!" he cried in his face. + +"Do you mean to say you'll not prosecute?" Mr. Searle kept it up. +"I shall force you to prosecute! I shall drag you into court, and +you shall be beaten--beaten--beaten!" Which grim reiteration +followed us on our course. + +We drove of course to the little wayside inn from which we had +departed in the morning so unencumbered, in all broad England, +either with enemies or friends. My companion, as the carriage +rolled along, seemed overwhelmed and exhausted. "What a beautiful +horrible dream!" he confusedly wailed. "What a strange awakening! +What a long long day! What a hideous scene! Poor me! Poor woman!" +When we had resumed possession of our two little neighbouring +rooms I asked him whether Miss Searle's note had been the result +of anything that had passed between them on his going to rejoin +her. "I found her on the terrace," he said, "walking restlessly +up and down in the moonlight. I was greatly excited--I hardly +know what I said. I asked her, I think, if she knew the story of +Margaret Searle. She seemed frightened and troubled, and she used +just the words her brother had used--'I know nothing.' For the +moment, somehow, I felt as a man drunk. I stood before her and +told her, with great emphasis, how poor Margaret had married a +beggarly foreigner--all in obedience to her heart and in defiance +to her family. As I talked the sheeted moonlight seemed to close +about us, so that we stood there in a dream, in a world quite +detached. She grew younger, prettier, more attractive--I found +myself talking all kinds of nonsense. Before I knew it I had gone +very far. I was taking her hand and calling her 'Margaret, dear +Margaret!' She had said it was impossible, that she could do +nothing, that she was a fool, a child, a slave. Then with a +sudden sense--it was odd how it came over me there--of the +reality of my connexion with the place, I spoke of my claim +against the estate. 'It exists,' I declared, 'but I've given it +up. Be generous! Pay me for my sacrifice.' For an instant her +face was radiant. 'If I marry you,' she asked, 'will it make +everything right?' Of that I at once assured her--in our marriage +the whole difficulty would melt away like a rain-drop in the +great sea. 'Our marriage!' she repeated in wonder; and the deep +ring of her voice seemed to wake us up and show us our folly. 'I +love you, but I shall never see you again,' she cried; and she +hurried away with her face in her hands. I walked up and down the +terrace for some moments, and then came in and met you. That's +the only witchcraft I've used!" + +The poor man was at once so roused and so shaken by the day's +events that I believed he would get little sleep. Conscious on my +own part that I shouldn't close my eyes, I but partly undressed, +stirred my fire and sat down to do some writing. I heard the +great clock in the little parlour below strike twelve, one, half- +past one. Just as the vibration of this last stroke was dying on +the air the door of communication with Searle's room was flung +open and my companion stood on the threshold, pale as a corpse, +in his nightshirt, shining like a phantom against the darkness +behind him. "Look well at me!" he intensely gasped; "touch me, +embrace me, revere me! You see a man who has seen a ghost!" + +"Gracious goodness, what do you mean?" + +"Write it down!" he went on. "There, take your pen. Put it into +dreadful words. How do I look? Am I human? Am I pale? Am I red? +Am I speaking English? A ghost, sir! Do you understand?" + +I confess there came upon me by contact a kind of supernatural +shock. I shall always feel by the whole communication of it that +I too have seen a ghost. My first movement--I can smile at it now +--was to spring to the door, close it quickly and turn the key +upon the gaping blackness from which Searle had emerged. I seized +his two hands; they were wet with perspiration. I pushed my chair +to the fire and forced him to sit down in it; then I got on my +knees and held his hands as firmly as possible. They trembled and +quivered; his eyes were fixed save that the pupil dilated and +contracted with extraordinary force. I asked no questions, but +waited there, very curious for what he would say. At last he +spoke. "I'm not frightened, but I'm--oh excited! This is life! +This is living! My nerves--my heart--my brain! They're throbbing +--don't you feel it? Do you tingle? Are you hot? Are you cold? +Hold me tight--tight--tight! I shall tremble away into waves-- +into surges--and know all the secrets of things and all the +reasons and all the mysteries!" He paused a moment and then went +on: "A woman--as clear as that candle: no, far clearer! In a blue +dress, with a black mantle on her head and a little black muff. +Young and wonderfully pretty, pale and ill; with the sadness of +all the women who ever loved and suffered pleading and accusing +in her wet-looking eyes. God knows I never did any such thing! +But she took me for my elder, for the other Clement. She came to +me here as she would have come to me there. She wrung her hands +and she spoke to me 'marry me!' she moaned; 'marry me and put an +end to my shame!' I sat up in bed, just as I sit here, looked at +her, heard her--heard her voice melt away, watched her figure +fade away. Bless us and save us! Here I be!" + +I made no attempt either to explain or to criticise this +extraordinary passage. It's enough that I yielded for the hour to +the strange force of my friend's emotion. On the whole I think my +own vision was the more interesting of the two. He beheld but the +transient irresponsible spectre--I beheld the human subject hot +from the spectral presence. Yet I soon recovered my judgement +sufficiently to be moved again to try to guard him against the +results of excitement and exposure. It was easily agreed that he +was not for the night to return to his room, and I made him +fairly comfortable in his place by my fire. Wishing above all to +preserve him from a chill I removed my bedding and wrapped him in +the blankets and counterpane. I had no nerves either for writing +or for sleep; so I put out my lights, renewed the fuel and sat +down on the opposite side of the hearth. I found it a great and +high solemnity just to watch my companion. Silent, swathed and +muffled to his chin, he sat rigid and erect with the dignity of +his adventure. For the most part his eyes were closed; though +from time to time he would open them with a steady expansion and +stare, never blinking, into the flame, as if he again beheld +without terror the image of the little woman with the muff. His +cadaverous emaciated face, his tragic wrinkles intensified by the +upward glow from the hearth, his distorted moustache, his +extraordinary gravity and a certain fantastical air as the red +light flickered over him, all re-enforced his fine likeness to +the vision-haunted knight of La Mancha when laid up after some +grand exploit. The night passed wholly without speech. Toward its +close I slept for half an hour. When I awoke the awakened birds +had begun to twitter and Searle, unperturbed, sat staring at me. +We exchanged a long look, and I felt with a pang that his +glittering eyes had tasted their last of natural sleep. "How is +it? Are you comfortable?" I nevertheless asked. + +He fixed me for a long time without replying and then spoke with +a weak extravagance and with such pauses between his words as +might have represented the slow prompting of an inner voice. "You +asked me when you first knew me what I was. 'Nothing,' I said, +'nothing of any consequence.' Nothing I've always supposed myself +to be. But I've wronged myself--I'm a great exception. I'm a +haunted man!" + +If sleep had passed out of his eyes I felt with even a deeper +pang that sanity had abandoned his spirit. From this moment I was +prepared for the worst. There were in my friend, however, such +confirmed habits of mildness that I found myself not in the least +fearing he would prove unmanageable. As morning began fully to +dawn upon us I brought our curious vigil to a close. Searle was +so enfeebled that I gave him my hands to help him out of his +chair, and he retained them for some moments after rising to his +feet, unable as he seemed to keep his balance. "Well," he said," +I've been once favoured, but don't think I shall be favoured +again. I shall soon be myself as fit to 'appear' as any of them. +I shall haunt the master of Lackley! It can only mean one thing-- +that they're getting ready for me on the other side of the +grave." + +When I touched the question of breakfast he replied that he had +his breakfast in his pocket; and he drew from his travelling-bag +a phial of morphine. He took a strong dose and went to bed. At +noon I found him on foot again, dressed, shaved, much refreshed. +"Poor fellow," he said, "you've got more than you bargained for-- +not only a man with a grievance but a man with a ghost. Well, it +won't be for long!" It had of course promptly become a question +whither we should now direct our steps. "As I've so little time," +he argued for this, "I should like to see the best, the best +alone." I answered that either for time or eternity I had always +supposed Oxford to represent the English maximum, and for Oxford +in the course of an hour we accordingly departed. + + + +IV + +Of that extraordinary place I shall not attempt to speak with any +order or indeed with any coherence. It must ever remain one of +the supreme gratifications of travel for any American aware of +the ancient pieties of race. The impression it produces, the +emotions it kindles in the mind of such a visitor, are too rich +and various to be expressed in the halting rhythm of prose. +Passing through the small oblique streets in which the long grey +battered public face of the colleges seems to watch jealously for +sounds that may break upon the stillness of study, you feel it +the most dignified and most educated of cities. Over and through +it all the great corporate fact of the University slowly throbs +after the fashion of some steady bass in a concerted piece or +that of the mediaeval mystical presence of the Empire in the old +States of Germany. The plain perpendicular of the so mildly +conventual fronts, masking blest seraglios of culture and +leisure, irritates the imagination scarce less than the harem- +walls of Eastern towns. Within their arching portals, however, +you discover more sacred and sunless courts, and the dark verdure +soothing and cooling to bookish eyes. The grey-green quadrangles +stand for ever open with a trustful hospitality. The seat of the +humanities is stronger in her own good manners than in a +marshalled host of wardens and beadles. Directly after our +arrival my friend and I wandered forth in the luminous early +dusk. We reached the bridge that under-spans the walls of +Magdalen and saw the eight-spired tower, delicately fluted and +embossed, rise in temperate beauty--the perfect prose of Gothic-- +wooing the eyes to the sky that was slowly drained of day. We +entered the low monkish doorway and stood in the dim little court +that nestles beneath the tower, where the swallows niche more +lovingly in the tangled ivy than elsewhere in Oxford, and passed +into the quiet cloister and studied the small sculptured monsters +on the entablature of the arcade. I rejoiced in every one of my +unhappy friend's responsive vibrations, even while feeling that +they might as direfully multiply as those that had preceded them. +I may say that from this time forward I found it difficult to +distinguish in his company between the riot of fancy and the +labour of thought, or to fix the balance between what he saw and +what he imagined. He had already begun playfully to exchange his +identity for that of the earlier Clement Searle, and he now +delivered himself almost wholly in the character of his old-time +kinsman. + +"THIS was my college, you know," he would almost anywhere break +out, applying the words wherever we stood--"the sweetest and +noblest in the whole place. How often have I strolled in this +cloister with my intimates of the other world! They are all dead +and buried, but many a young fellow as we meet him, dark or fair, +tall or short, reminds me of the past age and the early +attachment. Even as we stand here, they say, the whole thing +feels about its massive base the murmurs of the tide of time; +some of the foundation-stones are loosened, some of the breaches +will have to be repaired. Mine was the old unregenerate Oxford, +the home of rank abuses, of distinctions and privileges the most +delicious and invidious. What cared I, who was a perfect +gentleman and with my pockets full of money? I had an allowance +of a thousand a year." + +It was at once plain to me that he had lost the little that +remained of his direct grasp on life and was unequal to any +effort of seeing things in their order. He read my apprehension +in my eyes and took pains to assure me I was right. "I'm going +straight down hill. Thank heaven it's an easy slope, coated with +English turf and with an English churchyard at the foot." The +hysterical emotion produced by our late dire misadventure had +given place to an unruffled calm in which the scene about us was +reflected as in an old-fashioned mirror. We took an afternoon +walk through Christ-Church meadow and at the river-bank procured +a boat which I pulled down the stream to Iffley and to the +slanting woods of Nuneham--the sweetest flattest reediest stream- +side landscape that could be desired. Here of course we +encountered the scattered phalanx of the young, the happy +generation, clad in white flannel and blue, muscular fair-haired +magnificent fresh, whether floated down the current by idle punts +and lounging in friendly couples when not in a singleness that +nursed ambitions, or straining together in rhythmic crews and +hoarsely exhorted from the near bank. When to the exhibition of +so much of the clearest joy of wind and limb we added the great +sense of perfumed protection shed by all the enclosed lawns and +groves and bowers, we felt that to be young in such scholastic +shades must be a double, an infinite blessing. As my companion +found himself less and less able to walk we repaired in turn to a +series of gardens and spent long hours sitting in their greenest +places. They struck us as the fairest things in England and the +ripest and sweetest fruit of the English system. Locked in their +antique verdure, guarded, as in the case of New College, by +gentle battlements of silver-grey, outshouldering the matted +leafage of undisseverable plants, filled with nightingales and +memories, a sort of chorus of tradition; with vaguely-generous +youths sprawling bookishly on the turf as if to spare it the +injury of their boot-heels, and with the great conservative +college countenance appealing gravely from the restless outer +world, they seem places to lie down on the grass in for ever, in +the happy faith that life is all a green old English garden and +time an endless summer afternoon. This charmed seclusion was +especially grateful to my friend, and his sense of it reached its +climax, I remember, on one of the last of such occasions and +while we sat in fascinated flanerie over against the sturdy back +of Saint John's. The wide discreetly-windowed wall here perhaps +broods upon the lawn with a more effective air of property than +elsewhere. Searle dropped into fitful talk and spun his humour +into golden figures. Any passing undergraduate was a peg to hang +a fable, every feature of the place a pretext for more +embroidery. + +"Isn't it all a delightful lie?" he wanted to know. "Mightn't one +fancy this the very central point of the world's heart, where all +the echoes of the general life arrive but to falter and die? +Doesn't one feel the air just thick with arrested voices? It's +well there should be such places, shaped in the interest of +factitious needs, invented to minister to the book-begotten +longing for a medium in which one may dream unwaked and believe +unconfuted; to foster the sweet illusion that all's well in a +world where so much is so damnable, all right and rounded, smooth +and fair, in this sphere of the rough and ragged, the pitiful +unachieved especially, and the dreadful uncommenced. The world's +made--work's over. Now for leisure! England's safe--now for +Theocritus and Horace, for lawn and sky! What a sense it all +gives one of the composite life of the country and of the +essential furniture of its luckier minds! Thank heaven they had +the wit to send me here in the other time. I'm not much visibly +the braver perhaps, but think how I'm the happier! The misty +spires and towers, seen far off on the level, have been all these +years one of the constant things of memory. Seriously, what do +the spires and towers do for these people? Are they wiser, +gentler, finer, cleverer? My diminished dignity reverts in any +case at moments to the naked background of our own education, the +deadly dry air in which we gasp for impressions and comparisons. +I assent to it all with a sort of desperate calmness; I accept it +with a dogged pride. We're nursed at the opposite pole. Naked +come we into a naked world. There's a certain grandeur in the +lack of decorations, a certain heroic strain in that young +imagination of ours which finds nothing made to its hands, which +has to invent its own traditions and raise high into our morning- +air, with a ringing hammer and nails, the castles in which we +dwell. Noblesse oblige--Oxford must damnably do so. What a +horrible thing not to rise to such examples! If you pay the pious +debt to the last farthing of interest you may go through life +with her blessing; but if you let it stand unhonoured you're a +worse barbarian than we! But for the better or worse, in a myriad +private hearts, think how she must be loved! How the youthful +sentiment of mankind seems visibly to brood upon her! Think of +the young lives now taking colour in her cloisters and halls. +Think of the centuries' tale of dead lads--dead alike with the +end of the young days to which these haunts were a present world, +and the close of the larger lives which the general mother-scene +has dropped into less bottomless traps. What are those two young +fellows kicking their heels over on the grass there? One of them +has the Saturday Review; the other--upon my soul--the other has +Artemus Ward! Where do they live, how do they live, to what end +do they live? Miserable boys! How can they read Artemus Ward +under those windows of Elizabeth? What do you think loveliest in +all Oxford? The poetry of certain windows. Do you see that one +yonder, the second of those lesser bays, with the broken cornice +and the lattice? That used to be the window of my bosom friend a +hundred years ago. Remind me to tell you the story of that broken +cornice. Don't pretend it's not a common thing to have one's +bosom friend at another college. Pray was I committed to common +things? He was a charming fellow. By the way, he was a good deal +like you. Of course his cocked hat, his long hair in a black +ribbon, his cinnamon velvet suit and his flowered waistcoat made +a difference. We gentlemen used to wear swords." + +There was really the touch of grace in my poor friend's +divagations--the disheartened dandy had so positively turned +rhapsodist and seer. I was particularly struck with his having +laid aside the diffidence and self-consciousness of the first +days of our acquaintance. He had become by this time a +disembodied observer and critic; the shell of sense, growing +daily thinner and more transparent, transmitted the tremor of his +quickened spirit. He seemed to pick up acquaintances, in the +course of our contemplations, merely by putting out his hand. If +I left him for ten minutes I was sure to find him on my return in +earnest conversation with some affable wandering scholar. Several +young men with whom he had thus established relations invited him +to their rooms and entertained him, as I gathered, with rather +rash hospitality. For myself, I chose not to be present at these +symposia; I shrank partly from being held in any degree +responsible for his extravagance, partly from the pang of seeing +him yield to champagne and an admiring circle. He reported such +adventures with less keen a complacency than I had supposed he +might use, but a certain method in his madness, a certain dignity +in his desire to fraternise, appeared to save him from mischance. +If they didn't think him a harmless lunatic they certainly +thought him a celebrity of the Occident. Two things, however, +grew evident--that he drank deeper than was good for him and that +the flagrant freshness of his young patrons rather interfered +with his predetermined sense of the element of finer romance. At +the same time it completed his knowledge of the place. Making the +acquaintance of several tutors and fellows, he dined in hall in +half a dozen colleges, alluding afterwards to these banquets with +religious unction. One evening after a participation indiscreetly +prolonged he came back to the hotel in a cab, accompanied by a +friendly undergraduate and a physician and looking deadly pale. +He had swooned away on leaving table and remained so rigidly +unconscious as much to agitate his banqueters. The following +twenty-four hours he of course spent in bed, but on the third day +declared himself strong enough to begin afresh. On his reaching +the street his strength once more forsook him, so that I insisted +on his returning to his room. He besought me with tears in his +eyes not to shut him up. "It's my last chance--I want to go back +for an hour to that garden of Saint John's. Let me eat and drink +--to-morrow I die." It seemed to me possible that with a Bath- +chair the expedition might be accomplished. The hotel, it +appeared, possessed such a convenience, which was immediately +produced. It became necessary hereupon that we should have a +person to propel the chair. As there was no one on the spot at +liberty I was about to perform the office; but just as my patient +had got seated and wrapped--he now had a perpetual chill--an +elderly man emerged from a lurking-place near the door and, with +a formal salute, offered to wait upon the gentleman. We assented, +and he proceeded solemnly to trundle the chair before him. I +recognised him as a vague personage whom I had observed to lounge +shyly about the doors of the hotels, at intervals during our +stay, with a depressed air of wanting employment and a poor +semblance of finding it. He had once indeed in a half-hearted way +proposed himself as an amateur cicerone for a tour through the +colleges; and I now, as I looked at him, remembered with a pang +that I had too curtly declined his ministrations. Since then his +shyness, apparently, had grown less or his misery greater, for it +was with a strange grim avidity that he now attached himself to +our service. He was a pitiful image of shabby gentility and the +dinginess of "reduced circumstances." He would have been, I +suppose, some fifty years of age; but his pale haggard +unwholesome visage, his plaintive drooping carriage and the +irremediable disarray of his apparel seemed to add to the burden +of his days and tribulations. His eyes were weak and bloodshot, +his bold nose was sadly compromised, and his reddish beard, +largely streaked with grey, bristled under a month's neglect of +the razor. In all this rusty forlornness lurked a visible +assurance of our friend's having known better days. Obviously he +was the victim of some fatal depreciation in the market value of +pure gentility. There had been something terribly affecting in +the way he substituted for the attempt to touch the greasy rim of +his antiquated hat some such bow as one man of the world might +make another. Exchanging a few words with him as we went I was +struck with the decorum of his accent. His fine whole voice +should have been congruously cracked. + +"Take me by some long roundabout way," said Searle, "so that I +may see as many college-walls as possible." + +"You know," I asked of our attendant, "all these wonderful ins +and outs?" + +"I ought to, sir," he said, after a moment, with pregnant +gravity. And as we were passing one of the colleges, "That used +to be my place," he added. + +At these words Searle desired him to stop and come round within +sight. "You say that's YOUR college?" + +"The place might deny me, sir; but heaven forbid I should seem to +take it ill of her. If you'll allow me to wheel you into the quad +I'll show you my windows of thirty years ago." + +Searle sat staring, his huge pale eyes, which now left nothing +else worth mentioning in his wasted face, filled with wonder and +pity. "If you'll be so kind," he said with great deference. But +just as this perverted product of a liberal education was about +to propel him across the threshold of the court he turned about, +disengaged the mercenary hands, with one of his own, from the +back of the chair, drew their owner alongside and turned to me. +"While we're here, my dear fellow," he said, "be so good as to +perform this service. You understand?" I gave our companion a +glance of intelligence and we resumed our way. The latter showed +us his window of the better time, where a rosy youth in a scarlet +smoking-fez now puffed a cigarette at the open casement. Thence +we proceeded into the small garden, the smallest, I believe, and +certainly the sweetest, of all the planted places of Oxford. I +pushed the chair along to a bench on the lawn, turned it round, +toward the front of the college and sat down by it on the grass. +Our attendant shifted mournfully from one foot to the other, his +patron eyeing him open-mouthed. At length Searle broke out: "God +bless my soul, sir, you don't suppose I expect you to stand! +There's an empty bench." + +"Thank you," said our friend, who bent his joints to sit. + +"You English are really fabulous! I don't know whether I most +admire or most abominate you! Now tell me: who are you? what are +you? what brought you to this?" + +The poor fellow blushed up to his eyes, took off his hat and +wiped his forehead with an indescribable fabric drawn from his +pocket. "My name's Rawson, sir. Beyond that it's a long story." + +"I ask out of sympathy," said Searle. "I've a fellow-feeling. If +you're a poor devil I'm a poor devil as well." + +"I'm the poorer devil of the two," said the stranger with an +assurance for once presumptuous. + +"Possibly. I suppose an English poor devil's the poorest of all +poor devils. And then you've fallen from a height. From a +gentleman commoner--is that what they called you?--to a propeller +of Bath-chairs. Good heavens, man, the fall's enough to kill +you!" + +"I didn't take it all at once, sir. I dropped a bit one time and +a bit another." + +"That's me, that's me!" cried Searle with all his seriousness. + +"And now," said our friend, "I believe I can't drop any further." + +"My dear fellow"--and Searle clasped his hand and shook it--"I +too am at the very bottom of the hole." + +Mr. Rawson lifted his eyebrows. "Well, sir, there's a difference +between sitting in such a pleasant convenience and just trudging +behind it!" + +"Yes--there's a shade. But I'm at my last gasp, Mr. Rawson." + +"I'm at my last penny, sir." + +"Literally, Mr. Rawson?" + +Mr. Rawson shook his head with large loose bitterness. "I've +almost come to the point of drinking my beer and buttoning my +coat figuratively; but I don't talk in figures." + +Fearing the conversation might appear to achieve something like +gaiety at the expense of Mr. Rawson's troubles, I took the +liberty of asking him, with all consideration, how he made a +living. + +"I don't make a living," he answered with tearful eyes; "I can't +make a living. I've a wife and three children--and all starving, +sir. You wouldn't believe what I've come to. I sent my wife to +her mother's, who can ill afford to keep her, and came to Oxford +a week ago, thinking I might pick up a few half-crowns by showing +people about the colleges. But it's no use. I haven't the +assurance. I don't look decent. They want a nice little old man +with black gloves and a clean shirt and a silver-headed stick. +What do I look as if I knew about Oxford, sir?" + +"Mercy on us," cried Searle, "why didn't you speak to us before?" + +"I wanted to; half a dozen times I've been on the point of it. I +knew you were Americans." + +"And Americans are rich!" cried Searle, laughing. "My dear Mr. +Rawson, American as I am I'm living on charity." + +"And I'm exactly not, sir! There it is. I'm dying for the lack of +that same. You say you're a pauper, but it takes an American +pauper to go bowling about in a Bath-chair. America's an easy +country." + +"Ah me!" groaned Searle. "Have I come to the most delicious +corner of the ancient world to hear the praise of Yankeeland?" + +"Delicious corners are very well, and so is the ancient world," +said Mr. Rawson; "but one may sit here hungry and shabby, so long +as one isn't too shabby, as well as elsewhere. You'll not +persuade me that it's not an easier thing to keep afloat yonder +than here. I wish _I_ were in Yankeeland, that's all!" he added +with feeble force. Then brooding for a moment on his wrongs: +"Have you a bloated brother? or you, sir? It matters little to +you. But it has mattered to me with a vengeance! Shabby as I sit +here I can boast that advantage--as he his five thousand a year. +Being but a twelvemonth my elder he swaggers while I go thus. +There's old England for you! A very pretty place for HIM!" + +"Poor old England!" said Searle softly. + +"Has your brother never helped you?" I asked. + +"A five-pound note now and then! Oh I don't say there haven't +been times when I haven't inspired an irresistible sympathy. I've +not been what I should. I married dreadfully out of the way. But +the devil of it is that he started fair and I started foul; with +the tastes, the desires, the needs, the sensibilities of a +gentleman--and not another blessed 'tip.' I can't afford to live +in England." + +"THIS poor gentleman fancied a couple of months ago that he +couldn't afford to live in America," I fondly explained. + +"I'd 'swap'--do you call it?--chances with him!" And Mr. Rawson +looked quaintly rueful over his freedom of speech. + +Searle sat supported there with his eyes closed and his face +twitching for violent emotion, and then of a sudden had a glare +of gravity. "My friend, you're a dead failure! Be judged! Don't +talk about 'swapping.' Don't talk about chances. Don't talk about +fair starts and false starts. I'm at that point myself that I've +a right to speak. It lies neither in one's chance nor one's start +to make one a success; nor in anything one's brother--however +bloated--can do or can undo. It lies in one's character. You and +I, sir, have HAD no character--that's very plain. We've been +weak, sir; as weak as water. Here we are for it--sitting staring +in each other's faces and reading our weakness in each other's +eyes. We're of no importance whatever, Mr. Rawson!" + +Mr. Rawson received this sally with a countenance in which abject +submission to the particular affirmed truth struggled with the +comparative propriety of his general rebellion against fate. In +the course of a minute a due self-respect yielded to the warm +comfortable sense of his being relieved of the cares of an +attitude. "Go on, sir, go on," he said. "It's wholesome +doctrine." And he wiped his eyes with what seemed his sole +remnant of linen. + +"Dear, dear," sighed Searle, "I've made you cry! Well, we speak +as from man to man. I should be glad to think you had felt for a +moment the side-light of that great undarkening of the spirit +which precedes--which precedes the grand illumination of death." + +Mr. Rawson sat silent a little, his eyes fixed on the ground and +his well-cut nose but the more deeply dyed by his agitation. Then +at last looking up: "You're a very good-natured man, sir, and +you'll never persuade me you don't come of a kindly race. Say +what you please about a chance; when a man's fifty--degraded, +penniless, a husband and father--a chance to get on his legs +again is not to be despised. Something tells me that my luck may +be in your country--which has brought luck to so many. I can come +on the parish here of course, but I don't want to come on the +parish. Hang it, sir, I want to hold up my head. I see thirty +years of life before me yet. If only by God's help I could have a +real change of air! It's a fixed idea of mine. I've had it for +the last ten years. It's not that I'm a low radical. Oh I've no +vulgar opinions. Old England's good enough for me, but I'm not +good enough for old England. I'm a shabby man that wants to get +out of a room full of staring gentlefolk. I'm for ever put to the +blush. It's a perfect agony of spirit; everything reminds me of +my younger and better self. The thing for me would be a cooling +cleansing plunge into the unknowing and the unknown! I lie awake +thinking of it." + +Searle closed his eyes, shivering with a long-drawn tremor which +I hardly knew whether to take for an expression of physical or of +mental pain. In a moment I saw it was neither. "Oh my country, my +country, my country!" he murmured in a broken voice; and then sat +for some time abstracted and lost. I signalled our companion that +it was time we should bring our small session to a close, and he, +without hesitating, possessed himself of the handle of the Bath- +chair and pushed it before him. We had got halfway home before +Searle spoke or moved. Suddenly in the High Street, as we passed +a chop-house from whose open doors we caught a waft of old- +fashioned cookery and other restorative elements, he motioned us +to halt. "This is my last five pounds"--and he drew a note from +his pocket-book. "Do me the favour, Mr. Rawson, to accept it. Go +in there and order the best dinner they can give you. Call for a +bottle of Burgundy and drink it to my eternal rest!" + +Mr. Rawson stiffened himself up and received the gift with +fingers momentarily irresponsive. But Mr. Rawson had the nerves +of a gentleman. I measured the spasm with which his poor +dispossessed hand closed upon the crisp paper, I observed his +empurpled nostril convulsive under the other solicitation. He +crushed the crackling note in his palm with a passionate pressure +and jerked a spasmodic bow. "I shall not do you the wrong, sir, +of anything but the best!" The next moment the door swung behind +him. + +Searle sank again into his apathy, and on reaching the hotel I +helped him to get to bed. For the rest of the day he lay without +motion or sound and beyond reach of any appeal. The doctor, whom +I had constantly in attendance, was sure his end was near. He +expressed great surprise that he should have lasted so long; he +must have been living for a month on the very dregs of his +strength. Toward evening, as I sat by his bedside in the +deepening dusk, he roused himself with a purpose I had vaguely +felt gathering beneath his stupor. "My cousin, my cousin," he +said confusedly. "Is she here?" It was the first time he had +spoken of Miss Searle since our retreat from her brother's house, +and he continued to ramble. "I was to have married her. What a +dream! That day was like a string of verses--rhymed hours. But +the last verse is bad measure. What's the rhyme to 'love'? ABOVE! +Was she a simple woman, a kind sweet woman? Or have I only +dreamed it? She had the healing gift; her touch would have cured +my madness. I want you to do something. Write three lines, three +words: 'Good-bye; remember me; be happy.'" And then after a long +pause: "It's strange a person in my state should have a wish. Why +should one eat one's breakfast the day one's hanged? What a +creature is man! What a farce is life! Here I lie, worn down to a +mere throbbing fever-point; I breathe and nothing more, and yet I +DESIRE! My desire lives. If I could see her! Help me out with it +and let me die." + +Half an hour later, at a venture, I dispatched by post a note to +Miss Searle: "Your cousin is rapidly sinking. He asks to see +you." I was conscious of a certain want of consideration in this +act, since it would bring her great trouble and yet no power to +face the trouble; but out of her distress I fondly hoped a +sufficient force might be born. On the following day my friend's +exhaustion had become so great that I began to fear his +intelligence altogether broken up. But toward evening he briefly +rallied, to maunder about many things, confounding in a sinister +jumble the memories of the past weeks and those of bygone years. +"By the way," he said suddenly, "I've made no will. I haven't +much to bequeath. Yet I have something." He had been playing +listlessly with a large signet-ring on his left hand, which he +now tried to draw off. "I leave you this"--working it round and +round vainly--"if you can get it off. What enormous knuckles! +There must be such knuckles in the mummies of the Pharaohs. Well, +when I'm gone--! No, I leave you something more precious than +gold--the sense of a great kindness. But I've a little gold left. +Bring me those trinkets." I placed on the bed before him several +articles of jewellery, relics of early foppery: his watch and +chain, of great value, a locket and seal, some odds and ends of +goldsmith's work. He trifled with them feebly for some moments, +murmuring various names and dates associated with them. At last, +looking up with clearer interest, "What has become," he asked, +"of Mr. Rawson?" + +"You want to see him?" + +"How much are these things worth?" he went on without heeding me. +"How much would they bring?" And he weighed them in his weak +hands. "They're pretty heavy. Some hundred or so? Oh I'm richer +than I thought! Rawson--Rawson--you want to get out of this awful +England?" + +I stepped to the door and requested the servant whom I kept in +constant attendance in our adjacent sitting-room to send and +ascertain if Mr. Rawson were on the premises. He returned in a +few moments, introducing our dismal friend. Mr. Rawson was pale +even to his nose and derived from his unaffectedly concerned +state an air of some distinction. I led him up to the bed. In +Searle's eyes, as they fell on him, there shone for a moment the +light of a human message. + +"Lord have mercy!" gasped Mr. Rawson. + +"My friend," said Searle, "there's to be one American the less-- +so let there be at the same time one the more. At the worst +you'll be as good a one as I. Foolish me! Take these battered +relics; you can sell them; let them help you on your way. They're +gifts and mementoes, but this is a better use. Heaven speed you! +May America be kind to you. Be kind, at the last, to your own +country!" + +"Really this is too much; I can't," the poor man protested, +almost scared and with tears in his eyes. "Do come round and get +well and I'll stop here. I'll stay with you and wait on you." + +"No, I'm booked for my journey, you for yours. I hope you don't +mind the voyage." + +Mr. Rawson exhaled a groan of helpless gratitude, appealing +piteously from so strange a windfall. "It's like the angel of the +Lord who bids people in the Bible to rise and flee!" + +Searle had sunk back upon his pillow, quite used up; I led Mr. +Rawson back into the sitting-room, where in three words I +proposed to him a rough valuation of our friend's trinkets. He +assented with perfect good-breeding; they passed into my +possession and a second bank-note into his. + +From the collapse into which this wondrous exercise of his +imagination had plunged him my charge then gave few signs of +being likely to emerge. He breathed, as he had said, and nothing +more. The twilight deepened; I lighted the night-lamp. The doctor +sat silent and official at the foot of the bed; I resumed my +constant place near the head. Suddenly our patient opened his +eyes wide. "She'll not come," he murmured. "Amen! she's an +English sister." Five minutes passed; he started forward. "She's +come, she's here!" he confidently quavered. His words conveyed to +my mind so absolute an assurance that I lightly rose and passed +into the sitting-room. At the same moment, through the opposite +door, the servant introduced a lady. A lady, I say; for an +instant she was simply such--tall pale dressed in deep mourning. +The next instant I had uttered her name--"Miss Searle!" She +looked ten years older. + +She met me with both hands extended and an immense question in +her face. "He has just announced you," I said. And then with a +fuller consciousness of the change in her dress and countenance: +"What has happened?" + +"Oh death, death!" she wailed. "You and I are left." + +There came to me with her words a sickening shock, the sense of +poetic justice somehow cheated, defeated. "Your brother?" I +panted. + +She laid her hand on my arm and I felt its pressure deepen as she +spoke. "He was thrown from his horse in the park. He died on the +spot. Six days have passed. Six months!" + +She accepted my support and a moment later we had entered the +room and approached the bedside, from which the doctor withdrew. +Searle opened his eyes and looked at her from head to foot. +Suddenly he seemed to make out her mourning. "Already!" he cried +audibly and with a smile, as I felt, of pleasure. + +She dropped on her knees and took his hand. "Not for you, +cousin," she whispered. "For my poor brother." + +He started, in all his deathly longitude, as with a galvanic +shock. "Dead! HE dead! Life itself!" And then after a moment and +with a slight rising inflexion: "You're free?" + +"Free, cousin. Too sadly free. And now--NOW--with what use for +freedom?" + +He looked steadily into her eyes, dark in the heavy shadow of her +musty mourning-veil. "For me wear colours!" + +In a moment more death had come, the doctor had silently attested +it, and she had burst into sobs. + +We buried him in the little churchyard in which he had expressed +the wish to lie; beneath one of the blackest and widest of +English yews and the little tower than which none in all England +has a softer and hoarier grey. A year has passed; Miss Searle, I +believe, has begun to wear colours. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Passionate Pilgrim, by Henry James + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A PASSIONATE PILGRIM *** + +This file should be named passp10.txt or passp10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, passp11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, passp10a.txt + +Produced by Eve Sobol + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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