was repeated. Once more I seemed to have left the grocery. I was
standing on a balcony, my hat in my hand, and below me in the street
there was a surging mass of people. As far as my sight could reach
I could see eager, excited faces upturned. I was just concluding a
speech, and, as before, was in the middle of a sentence.
“... not derogatory to the national sense--(cheers)--of what is the
fittest, the truest, and the best way--(renewed applause)--of proving
to those who at one time may have thought otherwise, that, in spite
of all preconceived opinions, which, if they are not praiseworthy--and
I do not say they are so--yet may with some show of justice--(hear,
hear)--be asserted to have had their origin in a sentiment felt by
humanity at large, and more especially by the English-speaking races,
and to which we to-night, with the generosity of the conquerors
towards the conquered--(loud cheers)--can well afford to extend our
fullest indulgence. It is not only in the family but in a man’s public
capacity; not only by the fireside, but also beneath that fiercer light
that beats upon the high offices of this nation--(loud and prolonged
cheering)--not only with the....”
I would have given anything to have gone on a little further. I do not
even know what my politics were, although I am inclined to form an
opinion from internal evidences in my speech. But I never in all my
life felt such a delightful sense of exhilaration, triumph, and power.
When I came to, I found myself seated on the floor of the grocery,
perspiring profusely.
“Oh, that was good,” I exclaimed, “very good!” I picked myself up, and
inquired eagerly what the price was, and how it was sold.
“It is expensive,” said Mr. Joseph, solemnly, “very expensive; and we
sell it in bursts.”
I did not like to ask for further details. I expected that Mr. Joseph
would give me a reasonable amount of credit, and with the literary fame
that I intended to buy I thought that I should soon be able to pay
for everything. But I thought it wise to order only two bursts of the
“Political Success.”
“Mr. Joseph,” I said, “I hardly know what to order next. I should
like to have a price-list, and a week to think it over. I never bought
anything abstract before. At present I’ve got only some ‘Disinterested
Love’ and some ‘Political Success’; do you think you could let me have
some Literary Fame, Musical Ability, Personal Charm, Popularity, and
Contentment?”
“It’s a large order,” said Mr. Joseph, “but we will do our best to
execute it. James, will you see about those articles?”
“I will,” said James.
“And when shall I have them?”
There was no answer.
“I should like to know when I can have them,” I continued. “I don’t
want to hurry you. Any time in the course of a year would do. I can
give you a reference if you like. The master of St. Cecilia’s knows all
about me. But as I did not imagine I was coming here to-night, I have
brought hardly any money with me. However, if you would not object to
taking two pounds on account----”
I pulled out my two sovereigns, and laid them on the counter. As I did
so I looked up. I had ceased to be capable of surprise, or I think
I should have been surprised. Before me, on the other side of the
counter, stood a young girl. Perhaps I should more accurately describe
her as a young angel, except that she had no wings or halo. She was
dressed in some loose, white garment, which looked like the apotheosis
of a night-gown. I could not say within a year or two how old she was,
but she seemed to be on the verge of womanhood. Her figure was tall and
slight. Her small white hands were clasped before her. Her face was,
perhaps, a little wan and pale, but full of the most spiritual beauty.
The expression upon it was one of sweet, calm seriousness. Her eyes
seemed to be looking sadly at something far off. Her hair was long and
dark, and fell loosely about her shoulders. I gazed at her a long time
before I could speak.
“Mr. Joseph?” I stammered out, questioningly.
“Joseph and James,” she said, in a low musical voice, “have gone
downstairs to feed Joseph’s body. They sent me up here to wait on you.
What are these?”
She took up the two sovereigns I had placed on the counter.
“A mere trifle,” I said. “I thought that, perhaps, it would be better
to pay a trifle on account. If I had known that I was coming here, I
would have brought more--I would, indeed.”
“Will you please put them away?” she said, slowly. “They have no value.
I will tell you about it soon. I have known you for a long time--known
you so well.”
I was entranced by her beauty, and could hardly find words to speak,
but I muttered the usual commonplaces. It was very stupid of me, but I
did not seem to recall her face. I did not even remember her name.
“No,” she replied, “you have never seen me before. You will know my
name one day, but not yet. I have watched you for years, and sometimes
I have been with you. I am glad that you came here to-night, for I have
often wished to speak with you.”
It is possible that I may have looked a little incredulous, for
she fixed her eyes full upon mine, leaning across the counter, and
whispered something to me. I do not see that I am called upon to write
down what she said. It was quite personal and private. If I did record
it, it would probably be misunderstood. But it answered its purpose.
It made me feel that she knew me indeed, that here I had no impression
to make and none to mar. There was no longer any barrier of reserve
between us.
“And at last you have come to me,” she said. “No one can overhear us;
we are quite alone.”
My cheeks were flushed and my voice trembled. “You do not talk,” I
said, “as the women I met on earth, nor as Joseph and James did. No
earthly woman that I know would have whispered to me the things that
you did.”
“You are not angry with me for it?” she said.
I loved her for it, but I could not tell her so. For a moment or two I
gazed at her in a kind of rapture. “You are very beautiful,” I said at
last.
“Yes; but that is not of any real consequence here. Here the body is
always beautiful, because the spirit never spoils it. Would that I
could alter your nature and make it like ours! But they told me that
you would look at me as on your earth a man looks at a woman. I do not
understand that. I do not know your way--ah, do not look at me so.”
“I cannot help it; you draw my eyes towards you.”
“Do not say that!” she cried, in a distressed voice. “Do not think
of it. I can think, and speak, and love when I am not in the body. I
almost wish that I had not come to you like this. If I had been only a
voice I should still have desired you.”
Like most people of a shy disposition, I have an occasional access
of boldness. “Do you mean that you do not understand the kind of
attraction that a woman has for a man? Do you not know what flushed
cheeks, and longing looks, and trembling voice mean? And yet I could
believe that the earthly love would be possible to you.”
“The lower is always possible for the higher,” she said. “But that is
not what I want. I long to-night to teach you the other love. But now
that I am face to face with you I have no words. There are none in any
language that will tell you. I want names for things of which you know
nothing--things which with men and women of your world do not exist. I
should feel no shame in speaking to you of it, for there is no shame in
our love. Your love is full of shame. That was why at first I whispered
to you. That was why I told you that no one could hear us. It was for
your sake, not mine.” She stopped and sighed.
“Why do you sigh?” I asked.
“Because I cannot say what I want.”
“Try,” I said.
“No, it is no use now. What have you been buying?”
I gave her a list of my purchases, and she went over them, as it seemed
to me, a little sadly. “You have not bought the best things,” she said.
“But they will cost you all that you have here, one gardenia and a
sprig of maidenhair.”
“Is that flower really worth more than the two sovereigns that I
offered you?”
“Yes, we have none here, and flowers are the only purity on your earth.”
“But this will die in an hour.”
“No,” she said, “it would have died there, but here it will never die.”
As I laid it on the counter I noticed that even the maidenhair was
quite fresh.
“If I had only known,” I said, “I would have loaded my cab with
flowers. Can I not come back again?”
“No--never.”
“Then let me change the things that I have bought. They seemed high and
noble, especially the White Love.”
“Yes, you shall change them. You did not value the Love because it was
noble, but because it made you feel noble.”
“And what shall I buy for myself?”
“Nothing. If you had kept the goods that you ordered, you would have
made a little flutter on an indescribably small portion of a rather
insignificant world. You would have been called the great poet, the
eminent statesman, and it would not have helped you any further--it
would not have raised you any higher. Your nature would still have
been bounded on the earth by earthly possibilities. No, you shall buy
nothing for yourself. There is only one step that you can take that
will bring you nearer me. There is only one thing that you can do that
has a real value.”
“You mean self-denial,” I said. “I will obey you. I surrender all that
I had bought. You shall give me instead the best thing for some one
else--for whom?”
“For your own father.”
I bent my head in shame. It was a subject of which I could hardly bear
to speak; but she with great tenderness, laying one of her little hands
softly and caressingly on mine, dropped her voice almost to a whisper.
“Yes, for your father. My poor boy, there are no secrets between you
and me. There is to be no shame between you and me. I know all. In
the same asylum where your grandfather died your father now lies. His
reason is gone. A horrible darkness has come over his mind. He lies
there moaning and----”
“Stop!” I cried. “For pity’s sake say no more. You are right. Give me
the best thing for him.”
“It shall be so,” she said. “And now the end of your time here grows
near. But you have taken the first step. You and I have advanced a
little further towards the sacred unity of the new love. Come, let us
go and look down at the stars, and I will tell you about them.”
She came round to my side of the counter, and we passed through the
door together. Her bare feet trod lightly on the crystal blocks with
which the street was paved. I gazed at her in an ecstasy of adoration.
The cab was still standing there, and the horse looked round at us. He
grinned horribly, showing his yellow fangs.
“Oh my! ain’t it sweet!” he called out.
“You vulgar beast!” I said to him angrily, “if you say another word,
I’ll take that whip and simply flay you.”
“You needn’t distress yourself,” he answered, “because you’ll be asleep
in two minutes.”
I saw that she had taken no notice of the unmannerly animal. She had
crossed the street, and was leaning over the low stone wall, with her
beautiful head supported on one hand; I saw that my most dignified
course was to follow her, and I did so.
“Yes,” she said, pointing downwards with her finger, “those are
the other worlds. They were put there to be a heating and lighting
apparatus for the most insignificant of them--at least that is the
prevalent creed, for the most insignificant. Do not believe it. On each
one there is life, and for each one there is a purpose; all are part
of one scheme that----”
The horse was quite right. At this point, I rested my head on my arms
as I leaned over the parapet, and went fast asleep. I can never forgive
myself for it, but I was powerless to prevent it. I do not know how
long I slept, but I woke suddenly. She was no longer leaning over the
parapet; she stood on the pathway, gazing upwards, with a strange light
in her eyes. Of course she was in the middle of a sentence. That was
only part of the generally unsatisfactory nature of everything.
“----would get new experiences, new data. You would think and imagine
new things. You would know what the new love means. I can only speak to
you as a woman to a man, but I do not look at you as a woman would. She
would see only a poor little schoolmaster, not very beautiful, rather
sleepy-headed, in a dress-suit much too tight for him. I too can see
that. But I see also a life that long ago came out into the darkness
hand-in-hand with mine. Had you been placed in this world, you would
have known as I know; but I came here, and you were sent elsewhere. Out
of the same clay the potter makes two vessels, one to honour and one to
dishonour.”
“And that is extremely unjust,” I said.
“It would be quite impossible for you to think otherwise; but you are
wrong. You will soon know that you are wrong.”
“When?” I asked.
“On the day that you know my name, when the earthly love that you feel
for me is changed to the new love of which it is the shadow, when we
come back together, you and I, out of the darkness into the light.”
“Where is the light?”
“Look upwards. There are no more stars, and above all seems dark. And
the darkness flows on like a river, on and on. But the river will run
dry at the last, the darkness will have passed at the last, and then we
shall enter into the light.”
“And now,” said the voice of the unconscionable cab-horse behind us, “I
will ask you to join with me in singing the last hymn on the paper.”
“What on earth,” I exclaimed testily, “is the point of making that
perfectly idiotic remark?”
“Mere absent-mindedness,” the brute answered. “I thought from the
general style of the conversation that I was at some missionary
meeting. That’s all.”
“At any rate,” I said, “you need not interrupt a--a lady.”
“Lady! S’help me! That high-toned, female grocer’s assistant, a lady!”
The beast positively shrieked with laughter. “Get into the cab, you
little fool, and let’s get home. There’s no place like home.”
I sprang at the cab, seized the whip, and determined to take my
revenge. But I never got it. The agile beast waltzed round and round
with amazing rapidity in the middle of the street. I struck out wildly;
but though I occasionally hit the cab, I never succeeded in hitting the
horse. All this time the cabman remained motionless. Suddenly the brute
stopped, and backed the cab right into me. I fell down on the pavement
by the low wall. I picked myself up and gazed around.
She was no longer there.
I staggered across the road. The lights were out in the grocery. I
tried the door, but it was locked. I shook it, and called loudly, but
no answer came. Once more I turned savagely on the horse, but at the
first stroke the whip broke in my hands.
“Now then,” he yelled, “you little fool, get into the cab, and let’s
enter into the Light!”
For a moment I stood there helpless. I felt weak and sick with my fall.
Then I flung down the broken whip, and got into the cab, which started
instantly at full speed. I buried my face in my hands, and burst into
tears.
When, after a moment, I looked up again, there was the roar of the
London streets about me, and we were within a hundred yards of my
lodgings. The cab stopped at them, and I got out. It was evident that
the cabman knew nothing about what had happened; he looked cheery,
comfortable, and commonplace. I saw that there would be no use in
speaking to him about it. I merely paid him three times his proper
fare, to compensate him for the loss of his whip, which, by the way, he
did not seem to have noticed.
I was very tired, and soon went off to sleep. I had lost fame, and
I had gained for my father a return to sanity. It was worth the
sacrifice. He should come to London, and live with me. It was years
since I had been able to speak to him. Then slumber interrupted my
thoughts.
As soon as I woke in the morning I sprang from my bed, and took up my
dress-coat. No, it was no dream. The gardenia and maidenhair were gone,
and my father had regained his reason. Would that I could see her once
more, and thank her.
There came a tap at my door.
“All right, Mrs. Smith,” I cried. “I’m getting up.”
“There’s a telegram for you, sir.”
It was pushed under the door. I opened it. It was from the doctor at
the asylum where my father was placed, and it read as follows:--
“Your father died suddenly early this morning. Please come at once.”
There have been no further developments, and I do not know what to do.
I feel that I must see her, and ask her. I cannot understand. And,
alas! I cannot get to her.
* * * * *
Since writing the above, I have had a letter from my Principal.
He wants my resignation. He says something about “strangeness of
manner--medical advice--real kindness to me--hope for recovery.” Mrs.
Smith has asked me, with tears in her eyes, to leave my apartments.
She says that I have been most regular in my payments, and in every
way showed myself to be a perfect gentleman; but the other lodgers are
frightened of me, and I frighten her sometimes. She can feel for me,
because she had a cousin who once went off like that; but would I mind
going?
Well, I have resigned my post, and to-night I leave my lodgings. I am
very lonely.
“BILL.”
_THE STORY OF A BOY WHOM THE GODS LOVED._
Bill came slowly up the steps from a basement flat in Pond Buildings,
crossed the pavement, and sat down on the kerb-stone in the sunshine,
with his feet in a delightful puddle. He was reflecting.
“All that fuss about a dead byeby!” he said to himself.
He was quite a little boy, with a dirty face, gipsy eyes, and a love
for animals. He had slept the deep sleep of childhood the night before,
and had heard nothing of what was happening. In the early morning,
however, he had been enlightened by his father--a weak man, with a
shuffling gait, who tried to do right and generally failed.
“Bill, cummere. Larst night there were a byeby come to be your sister
if she’d grow’d. But she didn’t live more’n hour. An’ that’s why your
awnt’s ’ere, an’ mind yer do whort she tells yer, an’ don’t go inter
the other room, an’ don’t do nothin’ ’cep’ whort yer told, or I’ll
break yer ’ead for yer, sure’s death, I will!”
Then Bill’s father had gone away to his work, being unable to afford
the loss of a day; and Bill’s vehement, red-haired aunt had come into
the kitchen, and shaken him, and abused him, and given him some
breakfast. Bill’s aunt was one of those unfortunate people who cannot
love one person without hating three others to make up for it. Just
at present she was loving Bill’s mother, her sister, very much, and
retained her self-respect by being very strict with Bill’s father, with
Bill himself, and with the doctor. She instructed Bill that he was not
to go to school that morning. He was to remain absolutely quiet in the
kitchen, because he might be wanted to run errands and do odd jobs. For
some time Bill had obeyed her, and then monotony tempted him to include
the little yard at the back in his definition of the kitchen. All the
basement flats in Pond Buildings have little yards at the back. Most
of the inhabitants use them as drying-grounds. In some of them there
is a dead shrub or the remains of a sanguine geranium that failed; in
all of them there are cinders and very old meat-tins. Now, when Bill
went out into the yard, he found the black cat, which he called Simon
Peter, asleep in the sun on the wall. Simon Peter did not belong to any
one; she roamed about at the back of Pond Buildings, dodged anything
that was thrown at her, and ate unspeakable things. She had formed a
melancholy and unremunerative attachment to Bill; her name had been
suggested to him by stray visits to a Sunday-school, forced on him
during a short season when his father, to use his own phrase, had got
religion. “Siming Peter,” said Bill, as he scratched her gently under
the ear, “Siming Peter, my cat, come in ’ere along o’ me and ’ave some
milk.”
It is not at all probable that Simon Peter was deceived by this. She
must have known that, with the best intentions in the world, Bill
could not do so much as this for her. Yet she blinked at him with her
lazy green eyes, and followed him from the yard into the kitchen. Bill
filled a saucer with water, and put it down on the ground before her.
“There yer are, Siming Peter,” he said; “an’ that’s better for yer nor
any milk.” Simon Peter put up her back slowly, mewed contemptuously,
and trotted out into the yard again. Bill, dashing after her, trod on
the saucer and broke it, and overturned a chair. In another moment he
was in the clutches of his fierce aunt.
“Do you want to kill your blessed mother, you devil? Didn’t I tell yer
to sit quoite? An’ a good saucer broke, with the poor dead corpse of
your byeby sister lyin’ in the next room. Go hout! You’re more nuisance
nor you’re wuth. See ’ere. Don’t you show your ugly ’ead ’ere agin
afore night. An’ when yer comes back I’ll tell your father of yer, an’
’e ’ll skin yer alive. Dinner? Not for such as you. Hout yer git.”
So Bill had been turned out, and now sat with his feet in a delightful
puddle, reflecting for a minute or two on dead babies, injustice,
puddles, and other things. It was a larger puddle, as far as Bill
could see, than any other in the street, and it was this which made
it so charming. But a puddle is of no use to any one who has not got
something to float on it. If you have something to float on it you can
imagine boats, and races, and storms, and it becomes a magnificent
playground for the imagination; otherwise the biggest puddle is simply
a puddle, and it is nothing more. So Bill started down the street to
look for something which would float, a scrap of paper or a straw. He
was stopped by a lanky unkempt girl with yellow hair, who was leaning
on a broom that was almost bald, outside an open door. She was four or
five years older than Bill, and she was very fond of him. The girls
of the wretched neighbourhood for the most part rather petted Bill;
they did so, without knowing their reason, because he was quaint, and
pretty, and little. He was rather dirty it was true, but then so were
they; and for the most part they were not so pretty.
“Bill,” said the yellow-haired girl, “why awnt yer at school? You’ll
ketch it, Bill.”
“No, I ’ont. They kep’ me, ’cos we’ve got a byeby, an’ the byeby’s
dead. Then they tunned me out for breakin’ a saucer when I was goin’
after Siming Peter what I were feedin’, an’ I ain’t to ’ave no dinner,
and I ain’t to come back afore night, and when I do come back I’m goin’
to be walloped. I wish I was dead!”
“Oh, Bill, you _are_ a bad boy; what are yer goin’ to do?”
“Play ships at that puddle. I was lookin’ for sutthin’ what ’ud do for
ships, an’ can’t find nothin’.”
“An’ what’ll yer do about dinner?”
“I ain’t goin’ to ’ave no dinner,” said Bill, solemnly, “I’m goin’ to
starve. They don’t keer. Dead byebies is what _they_ like.”
The lanky girl leaned her broom against the wall, sat down on the
doorstep, and commenced the research of a pocket; the pocket yielded
her one penny.
“Look ’ere, Bill,” she said, “you take this and git yourself sutthin’
to eat.”
Bill shook his head, and pressed his lips together. He was much moved.
“I ’ad it give me a week ago, and I sived it ’cos there warn’t nothin’
what I wanted. So you take it. I don’t want it. If yer like, yer can
give us a kiss for it.” She pressed it into his hand. “There ain’t
no other little boy I know what I’d give it to,” she added rather
inconsistently.
Bill nodded his head, and the lips grew a little tremulous. He had been
treated cruelly all the morning, and this sudden change to sympathy and
generosity was almost too much for him. He kissed the yellow-haired
girl--once timidly and then suddenly with great affection.
“Why, Bill,” she said, “I ain’t done nothin’ to ’urt yer, yer look
ommust as if yer was goin’ to cry.”
“No, I ain’t,” replied Bill, finding words with difficulty, “but--but I
’ate ev’rybody in the world ’cep’ you.”
Then he walked away with great dignity, and every nerve in his
excitable little body quivering. He felt on the whole rather more
wretched than before. The contrast made him feel both sides of it
more deeply. He had forgotten now about the beautiful puddle and his
intention to play ships. He wandered down the main street, and then
down a side street which led behind a grim, frowning church. And here
he found something which attracted his attention. It was a dirty little
shop which a small tobacconist and an almost microscopical grocer
had used successively as a last step before bankruptcy. It had then
remained for some time unoccupied. But now the whole of the window was
occupied with one great bright picture, before which a small crowd had
gathered. It represented a beautiful mermaid swimming in a beautiful
sea, accompanied by a small octopus and some boiled shrimps. Her hair
was very golden and very long; her eyes were very blue; she was very
pink and very fat. Underneath was the announcement--
THE MERMAID OF THE WESTERN PACIFIC!