THE MAGICIAN’S CAVE.
The address was Guildford Street, Manchester Square, a narrow, dingy,
very respectable street, with a good many public-houses in it, and
livery stables under three or four different archways, where the genteel
population round about got their ‘flys.’ The houses were tall and rather
decayed, with smoky remains of the flowers which had been kept fresh and
bright in the season lingering in their narrow little balconies, and no
small amount of cards hung up in the windows announcing lodgings to let.
It occurred to Ben as he walked listlessly through it that here was a
place which would be more suitable to his fallen fortunes than the
Albany; but the thought was inarticulate, and took no form. There was
even a similar ticket in the ground-floor window of No. 10, where Mrs.
Tracy lived, and where they were immediately admitted and conducted to
the drawing-room. Ben followed his friend mechanically into the dingy
room, with three long windows glimmering down to the faded carpet,
commanding a view of the opposite livery stable, from which one
inevitable fly was creeping slowly out under the archway. This
particular vehicle was drawn by an old white horse, and it was that spot
of white upon the dim foreground, and the white cotton gloves of the
driver, that caught Ben’s eye as he went in. He was so little interested
that he scarcely noticed anything in the room. It was a disagreeable
business. He had come listlessly because he had been asked. But though
he had heard the story of the widow’s son it had not touched him.
Perhaps he was not very tender-hearted by nature; perhaps it was because
he was absorbed in his own affairs. But certainly when he saw a tall
figure in black rise from the small room behind and make a step forward
to meet his friend, Ben woke up with a little start to realise the fact
that he was thrusting himself in, without any call, to be a spectator of
what might be a tragical scene. He stopped short and grew red with the
embarrassment of a well-bred man suddenly placed in a position where he
is one too many; and, notwithstanding Hillyard’s almost nervous glance
back at him and appeal for support, might have made his way out again
had not his course been suddenly arrested by another figure in intense
mourning, which rose from a low seat by the vacant window. It was
getting late in the afternoon, and twilight begins soon in a narrow
London street; besides which the blinds were half down, the curtains
hanging over the long narrow windows, and such light as there was
falling on the floor. For this reason the lady at the window had been
seated on a very low chair against the wall, to secure all the light she
could for the work in her hand. She rose up facing Ben as the other
faced his friend, rising slowly from the long sweep of black drapery
which had lain coiled round her on the carpet, and suddenly flashing
upon the young man, out of the shadows, with such a face as he had never
in all his life seen before. She gave him a hurried glance from head to
foot, taking in every detail of his appearance, and settling in a second
what manner of man he was; and then she pointed to a chair, with a soft
murmur of invitation to him to seat himself. He obeyed her, not knowing
why. His brain began to whirl. The long window bound with its high,
narrow, smoky rail of balcony; the faded curtains hanging over and
darkening the room; the pale light below upon the carpet, and the figure
which sank slowly down once more with its black dress in waves on the
floor; the white hands joined with some white work between them; the
face against that dusky background,--was it true that he had never seen
them all till that moment, or had they been there waiting for him,
attending this moment all his life?
Ben Renton had been a great deal in society, and had seen beautiful
women in his day; and he knew quantities of pretty girls, and had
fancied himself a little in love with some of them also in his time.
But something, perhaps, in the surrounding made this woman different
from anything he had ever seen. She was very tall, almost as tall as
himself. She was pale, with none of that adventitious charm of colour
which often stands in the place of beauty. Her hair was dark, without
any gleams in it. The only colour about her was in her eyes, which were
blue, like a winter sky,--blue of the sweetest and purest tone, shining
out under her dark hair from her pale, beautiful face, from the shadow
and the darkness, like a bit of heaven itself. Ben sat down and looked
at her, struck dumb, in a kind of stupor. What had he to do with this
wonderfully beautiful, silent creature? Who was she? How came she here?
How did it come about that he sat by her, having no right to such an
acquaintance, struck dumb, like a man in a dream? He looked on stupidly,
and saw the other lady sink down and cover her face with her hands as
Hillyard delivered his melancholy commission. Of course it was
Hillyard’s duty to do so, and even to remain with them while the
daughter rose noiselessly and went to her mother, bending over her,
turning her beautiful pale face appealingly to the strangers, with the
blue eyes full of tears. With all this strange scene his companion had a
certain connexion by right of his errand; but why was Ben Renton there,
or what could it ever be to him?
And yet she came back to the seat by the window, and Ben, looking on,
saw the tears fall upon her white hands and white work, and met in his
turn the same wistful look. ‘Were you there too?’ she said with a little
sob. He was ashamed of himself to say no; but perhaps because her heart
was full of her dead brother she gave no sign that she thought his
presence was intrusive. She put her handkerchief to her eyes, and then
she looked into his face again. ‘It is very, very hard for poor mamma,’
she said, in the softest, lowly-whispering voice. ‘Her only son! She was
so proud of him. She always hoped he would do so well; and papa died so
long ago, and we had no one else to look to. It is so hard upon mamma!’
‘She has you,’ said Ben, wildly, feeling that some reply was looked for,
and not knowing what he said.
‘Ah! yes; but I am only a girl. I can love her, but what more can I do?’
said this celestial creature with piteous looks. Ben’s brain went round
and round. He was in some enchanted place, some magician’s castle. What
had he to do there, listening to these soft plaints, receiving those
looks which would have melted a heart of stone? In his amaze he turned
half round to his friend, who alone gave him any title to be present,
and his appeal was not in vain.
‘I came home only this morning,’ said Hillyard, ‘and, of course, the
first thing I thought of was to discharge my sad commission. My friend,
Mr. Renton, came with me, as he knows better how things go on here than
I do. If we could be of any use----’
Ben had got up and bowed in his embarrassment. He was overcome, he
thought, with pity, certainly with another and stronger sentiment. ‘If
there is anything I can do--?’ he said eagerly. As he spoke the mother
raised her head and shot him through and through with a sudden glance of
her eyes,--eyes which must once have been soft like her daughter’s, but
which had grown keen, clear, and cold, instead of soft--with a hungry
look in them. But how can you criticise a woman in such circumstances?
They might be puckered up with grief; it might be the anguish of
Rachel’s weeping that looked through them. She said, ‘It is very kind,’
looking at them both, contrasting as it were the two together; and then
with a certain abruptness, ‘What was it you were saying to me about some
Rentons, Millicent?’ she asked.
‘You know, mamma,’ said the daughter, ‘Thornycroft, where I was at
school, was close to the Manor, and Mary Westbury was always talking of
her cousins. But perhaps this gentleman----’
‘Yes; I am one of Mary Westbury’s cousins,’ said Ben, with a throb of
delight; and then he paused, thinking what else he could say to
ingratiate himself. ‘I am the eldest;--Ben,’ he added, with heightened
colour;--and mother and daughter both looked at him with an interest
which they did not attempt to disguise.
‘I have heard so often of Ben,’ said Miss Tracy, with a soft, little
laugh. The sound of his own name so softly uttered completed the young
man’s bewilderment. He forgot how soon that laugh had followed on the
tears, and how entirely the mother and daughter had both thrown
themselves into the new subject. As for Hillyard, he sat between the two
with a puzzled expression on his face. Nobody took any notice of him
after the telling of his story. His friend who had the cachet of the
latest civilisation on him, who was a Renton of Renton, the eldest son,
was a very different person from an adventurer out of the bush. Mrs.
Tracy herself came forward from the little back drawing-room where she
had been sitting, and took a chair near the new object of interest. She
was a handsome woman still for her age, and showed traces of having been
like her daughter. She had the same clear, fine features; the same dark
hair, still unchanged in colour; the same height and drooping grace of
form. But her eyes, instead of being soft and dewy, were hard and keen;
her lips were thin, and the muscles all tightened about them. Her hands
were thin and long, and looked as if they could grasp and hold fast.
‘The daughter will grow like the mother, and I’d trust neither of them,’
Hillyard said to himself; but there might be a certain spite in it, for
they showed no interest in him.
‘It is very kind of you to come,’ said the widow, leaving it undecided
whom she was addressing, but looking at Ben. ‘Though it is three months
since I first heard of my dear boy’s death, this visit brings it all
back. He was my only son; and oh! what hopes are buried with him, Mr.
Renton! I thought that it was he that would have restored us to our
natural place in the world. My Millicent was not born to live in a back
street opposite livery stables. I expected everything from her brother.
Man proposes, but God disposes. I cannot tell you what heaps of money I
spent on him getting him ready for that examination; and yet it all came
to nothing:--and now he is gone!’
‘Dear mamma, we must not strive against Providence,’ said Millicent,
putting her handkerchief lightly to her eyes.
‘No, my dear,’ said her mother; ‘but if it was to be, I might have been
spared all that waste of money,--when we are so ill able to afford it.
Providence knows best, to be sure; but still, when it was to be, it
might have been so arranged that I should have saved that. You will
think it strange of me to say so; but my thought by night and by day is,
what will my child do when I die?’
‘Dear mamma, don’t say any more,’ said Millicent again. ‘I never grudged
anything that was for poor Fitzgerald’s advantage; and I am sure,
neither did you.’
‘Not if it had been for his advantage,’ said Mrs. Tracy, gloomily; ‘but
you know how he broke down in his examination, poor fellow. I don’t
want to blame Providence,--but still I might have been spared that.’
‘Perhaps, Ben, we had better go,’ said Hillyard. ‘We are only intruding
upon painful recollections. He was heartbroken, poor fellow. He never
could forget what you had spent upon him, and that he made so little
return. Ben, I think we should go.’
‘No; he never made any return,’ said Mrs. Tracy. ‘When one spends so
much on one child without a return, one feels that one has been unjust
to the rest. We are not very lively people; but I hope you will not
hurry away. It was so very good of you to come. Millicent, ring for some
tea. I shall be very glad to see both of you if you like to come to us
sometimes of an evening. It is a very dull time of year to be in town.
My poor boy has made it impossible for me to take Millicent to the sea
this year; and if you are going to be in town, Mr. Renton, as you and
she are almost old friends, I shall be very glad to see you; and you
too, Mr. Hillyard,’ she added, turning half round to him. Hillyard
muttered ‘By Jove!’ to himself, under his breath. But as for Ben, so
suddenly and enthusiastically received into the bosom of the family, his
eyes brightened, and his face crimsoned over with pleasure.
‘I shall be in town all the rest of the year,’ he said; ‘indeed, I am
looking for rooms in this neighbourhood. I have something to do,--that
is,--I shall want to be near Manchester Square. I shall be too glad, if
you will let me, to come now and then. I must write to Mary and tell her
what her relationship has gained me,’ said Ben, with a glow of
satisfaction; while Hillyard looked on sardonic, probably because he had
been asked, ‘too,’ as Ben’s appendage, which was a curious reversal of
affairs.
‘How is dear Mary?’ said Miss Tracy; ‘and where is she just now? I dare
say going on a round of nice visits,’ she added, with a soft sigh; ‘her
circumstances are so different from ours.’
‘She was with my mother when I left home,’ said Ben, his face clouding
over. ‘She will not have many visits this year, poor girl. My mother is
very fond of her, which is a great comfort to us all just now.’
Millicent Tracy looked at him with her blue eyes, which seemed ready to
overflow with soft tears; and Ben, who had the calm consciousness,
common to great people, that everybody must ‘know what had happened,’
felt her sympathy go to his heart. But as it chanced she had not the
least idea what had happened. The ladies had not had their ‘Times’ the
day on which Mr. Renton’s death was announced, or else they had been
interrupted by visitors, or some accident had happened to the
supplement; but, anyhow, they were in ignorance of that event. It was
sufficiently clear, however, that something had come upon the Renton
family to call for sympathy, and sympathy accordingly shone sweetly out
of Millicent’s eyes. As for Mrs. Tracy, her attention was turned to more
practical matters.
‘The ground-floor here is to let,’ she said. ‘I can’t suppose it would
be good enough for you, Mr. Renton; but still, if you had any particular
reason for being in this neighbourhood,--the people of the house are
honest sort of people. There is a parlour and a bedroom, quite quiet and
respectable. And if we could be of any use----’
‘A thousand thanks,’ said Ben. He was very reluctant to leave the
paradise on which he had thus suddenly stumbled, but Hillyard, the
neglected one, had got up and stood waiting for him. ‘I shall look at
them as I go down-stairs.’
And then Millicent gave him her soft hand. ‘I have known Mary’s cousin
for years,’ she said, smiling at him, with a little blush and half
apology. It was as if an angel had apologised for entering a mortal
household unawares. Ben went down the narrow staircase dazed and giddy,
treading, not on the poor worn carpets, but on some celestial path of
flowers. He looked at the low, melancholy room below clothed in black
haircloth, and veiled with curtains of darkling red, and thought it a
bower of bliss. Something, however, restrained him from securing this
paradise while Hillyard was still with him. He whispered to the eager
landlady that he would return and settle with her, and went out into
the street a different being. It looked a different street, transfigured
somehow. The old white horse and the rusty carriage, and the man in
white cotton gloves, with his pretence at livery, stood before a house,
a little farther down; and it seemed to Ben an equipage for the gods.
Everything was changed. The only thing that troubled him was that
Hillyard took his arm once more, as if supposing he meant to be dragged
back to that wretched club.
‘It is easy to see I am not a swell like you,’ said Hillyard. ‘I never
pretended I was; but I had no idea it was written on my face so plainly
till I read it in that old woman’s eyes.’
‘She is not exactly an old woman,’ said Ben, making an effort to get
free of his companion’s arm.
‘Oh dear, no; not at all!’ said Hillyard. ‘But if the daughter is,--say
five-and-twenty----’
‘I should say eighteen,’ said Ben.
‘Oh, by Jove! that’s going too fast,’ cried his companion; ‘though I
can’t wonder, considering the dead set they made at you. That girl is
stunning, Ben; but she thinks you’re the heir of all your father’s
property, and have the Manor at your command. Mind what you’re after if
you go there again. The old woman is as crafty as an old fox, and as for
the young one----’
‘Look here, Hillyard,’ said Ben, hotly. ‘I am introduced to this family
not by you, but by my cousin Mary. If it had been you, of course you
might say what you like of your own friends; but I consider they are
Mary Westbury’s friends, and I can’t have you speak of them in such a
tone,--for my cousin’s sake.’
‘Ah! I see,’ said Hillyard, ironically. ‘But poor Tracy was my friend,
not Miss Westbury’s, and I suppose I may talk of him if I like. It was
the mother that drove him to it, Ben. Don’t you think it’s my line to
speak ill of women. I’ve a dear little mother myself, thank God; and a
little sister as sweet as a daisy,--and about as poor,’ the adventurer
added, with a sigh; ‘but I hate that kind of woman. You may growl if you
please. I do. After he broke down in his examination she never gave him
a moment’s peace. She kept writing to him for money, and upbraiding him
for having none to send her, when the poor wretch could not earn bread
for himself. That much I know;--and you heard how she spoke of him. If
you have anything to do with these two women you will come to grief.’
‘If every woman who has a good-for-nothing son or brother was to be
judged as harshly----’ said Ben, making an effort to keep his temper.
Hillyard turned round upon him with a hoarse exclamation of anger.
‘He was not a good-for-nothing, by----!’ he cried. ‘You know nothing
about him. You call a man names in his grave, poor fellow, because a
girl has got a pair of pretty blue eyes.’
‘It appears to me that our road is no longer the same,’ said Ben, with
the superiority of temper and good manners. ‘I am going to my rooms, and
you, I suppose, are going back to the club. I daresay we shall meet
there shortly, as we are the only men in town. Good morning, just now.’
And thus they parted almost as suddenly as they met. Ben went into the
Park, and composed himself with a long walk, at first with a pretence of
making his way to his rooms, as he had said. He went across almost to
the gate, and then he turned and made a circuit back again. He wanted
cheap lodgings, that was evident,--and then!--The truth was that his
mind was swept and garnished, emptied of all the traditions, and
occupations, and hopes of his previous life. All had ended for him as by
a sudden deluge, and the chambers stood open for the first inhabitant
that had force enough to enter. Was it love that had burst in like an
armed man? A certain sweet agitation took possession of his whole being.
His agitation had been bitter enough in the morning, when he took the
account of all those dead household gods of his, from which no comfort
came; or rather it had been a kind of bitter calm,--death after a
fashion. Now life had rushed back and tingled in all his veins. The
world was no more a desert, but full of unknown beauty and wonder. Since
his first step out of the familiar ways had taught him so much, what
might not his further progress reveal? Might it not be, after all, that
his deliverance from the conventional round was the opening of a new,
and fresh, and glorious existence? Would not he be as free in Guildford
Street, Manchester Square, as in the backwoods,--as undisturbed by
impertinent observation? What were the buhl cabinets and the old Dresden
in comparison with horsehair, and mahogany, and Millicent Tracy’s blue
eyes up-stairs? He tried to consider the matter calmly without reference
to those eyes, and he thought he succeeded in doing so. He reminded
himself with elaborate, almost judicial, calm that he had but two
hundred pounds a-year; that he could not afford to live at the Albany
any longer; that cheap lodgings were necessary to him, not altogether
out of reach of the world, but beyond the inspection of curious
acquaintances. Under these circumstances the adaptation to all his wants
of the ground-floor at No. 10 was almost miraculous. It was
Providential. Ben had not been in the habit of using that word as some
people do; but yet he felt that in the present remarkable circumstances
the use of it was justifiable. Something beyond ordinary chance must
have guided him in his ignorance to exactly the place he wanted. And the
machinery employed to bring about this single result had been so
elaborate and complicated. First, a suicide far off in Australia;
second, the return of an adventurer who had been sent there expressly
to make Fitzgerald Tracy’s acquaintance, and convey his dying
message;--a friendship which had been brought about by such means surely
must count for something in a man’s life.
And so by degrees Ben found himself once more approaching the street. He
knocked at the door with a curious thrill and tremor. What if he should
see her again! What if she might be passing up and down after some of
her celestial concerns! He was admitted by a dismal maid-of-all-work,
and shown in this time to the rooms which were the object of his
ambition. They were very dingy little rooms. In their original and
normal state they made a double room with folding-doors; but as arranged
for a lodger, the folding-doors had been closed and barricaded, the
front half made into a sitting-room, and the back into a bed-room. The
windows were closed, and in the sultry September evening the four mean
walls seemed to close round the inmate and stifle him. Such a thought
had half stolen across his mind when a sudden movement above thrilled
him through and through. It seemed to vibrate through the house and
through him. No need to ask any further question--undoubtedly it must
have been her step; and immediately the musty air grew sweet as summer
to foolish Ben.
The result was that he took the wretched little rooms for thirty
shillings a-week, conveying to his future landlady as he did so the
meanest possible opinion of his intellectual powers. ‘Some fool,’ she
replied to her husband, ‘as never asked no questions.’ He thought them
very cheap, poor fellow; he thought them highly economical, retired,
respectable, and exactly what he wanted. And he was rewarded, and more
than rewarded, for his promptitude. Just as he had settled with the
landlady a little creak on the stairs and rustling of ladies’ dresses
set all his pulses beating. And when he turned sharply round there were
the mother and daughter in their crape bonnets equipped for their
evening walk. They were immensely surprised at the sight of Ben; more,
perhaps, than could have been fully accounted for in conjunction with
the fact that Miss Tracy had been seated, all this time, at the window,
seeing who came and went.
‘Is it possible that Mr. Renton has come to look at the rooms?’ the
innocent Millicent said to her mother, stopping short in the narrow
little lobby.
‘I have not only come to look at them, but I have taken them,’ Ben said,
coming forward. ‘They suit me exactly.’ And there was a charming little
flutter of pleasure and surprise.
‘I never thought you could be in earnest,’ Mrs. Tracy said; ‘the rooms
are well enough, but after what you have been accustomed to,--I was just
saying to Millicent that of course it was impossible. But now I shall be
quite comfortable in my mind, knowing you are there. Living in lodgings
is very trying for ladies,’ continued the widow, lowering her voice
confidentially as she went in with Ben to give a critical look round the
sitting-room. ‘You cannot think how anxious I have been to have some one
I know here,--on Millicent’s account, Mr. Renton. The last lodger used
positively to lie in wait for my innocent child at the door.’
‘Confounded impudence!’ said Ben. ‘I hope the fellow was kicked out.’
‘Ah, we had no such champions as you,’ said Mrs. Tracy, with a dubious
smile. ‘It was after my poor boy went away on that ill-fated voyage, so
much against my will, Mr. Renton.--Yes, he has actually taken them,
Millicent,’ she went on, speaking louder as she turned round. ‘We were
just going out for our little walk. It is cool now, and there are not so
many people about. We neither of us feel equal to fashionable
promenades, Mr. Renton. We take our little walk for health’s sake in the
cool of the evening. It is all the amusement my poor child has.’
‘Don’t say so, mamma dear,’ said Millicent. ‘I am quite happy. And oh,
Mr. Renton, couldn’t you have dear Mary up for a day or two to see you?
Cousins may visit, may not they, mamma? It would be such a pleasure to
see her again.’
‘Hush, child, you don’t think what you are saying. Young ladies can’t
visit young men, you silly girl,’ said Mrs. Tracy. And Millicent
blushed and glided round to the other side of her mother, as they all
emerged into the street. Why should that mass of crape be put between
them? Ben thought. But yet he had the happiness of walking to the Park
with them, and catching, across Mrs. Tracy’s shadow now and then, a
glance of the blue eyes. They talked and amused him the whole way,
leading him to the grateful shadows of Kensington Gardens, away from all
chance of recognition by his fashionable friends, even had there been
any fashionable friends to recognise him. They would not permit him,
however, to return with them, but dismissed him under the trees. ‘I am
sure we are keeping you from dinner,’ Mrs. Tracy said, ‘and we could
only ask you to tea. But I trust you will come to us often to tea, Mr.
Renton, when you are our fellow-lodger at No. 10.’
And he went back to the Albany, not miserable and misanthropical as he
left it, but full of loving-kindness and charity to all mankind. He went
and dressed himself in honour of ‘the ladies’ whom he had just left, and
who had already taken that name in his thoughts; and was most Christian
in his treatment of Morris, promising him the best of characters and
fullest explanations of why he was leaving; and he dined at his club,
feeling that there was still light and comfort in the world. Hillyard
was there, too, in the evening, reading all the newspapers, and yawning
horribly over them. To him ‘the ladies’ had opened no paradise. With a
temper that was half angelical, notwithstanding the adventurer’s
rudeness in the morning, Ben was pitiful and compassionate to him in his
heart.