[In which Henry Gastonard keeps his promise to Martha Warrington.]
4, The Walk, Hampstead, N.W.,
September 21st, 1905.
Dear Martha,--I have owed you a letter for a long time, but really, my
dear cousin, a man whose honeymoon is but a fortnight old has little
time to think of the sun--and his days are brief enough.
I was sorry to hear that Arthur considers my marriage a “mere scramble
on to the banks after a wild plunge into the vortex of sin.” I hope he
was not eating new bread and butter when he uttered this masterpiece.
Marriage, I remember, was not made much of by St. Paul, and Arthur
used to be a Pauline until he met you. What he is now I have not yet
discovered. You, who have broken the box of sweet spices at his feet,
are right to complain of the holes in his socks--but as a married man
I have no sympathy with you.
This is dreadful news, too, about your hair. These new dyes are
troublesome tenants, and do not take our hair upon a repairing lease.
It really was very noble of you to dye it so bright a red for the sake
of the Pageant. And now, you say that the dye won’t come out, and that
you must return to Beldon still wearing the brand of Boadicea. Cheer
up, Martha. Have not some of the noblest women in history--chief
amongst them our Elizabeth of blessed memory--dressed auburn locks for
posterity and gloried in their possessions? For my part, had I known
of the fact when writing my skit, “The People of the Pageant,” I would
have mentioned it to your lasting honour. The little book appears to
be getting about--I had no idea that such a trifle could interest so
many.
But concerning more serious things. I am living, as you wished me to
live, in a box of a cottage upon Hampstead Heath. The place is pretty
enough, and now that we are married I am putting some comfort into it.
This is only to be done secretly and by stealth. Chairs, which were
not there yesternight, are discovered at breakfast time. A new piano
dropped from the heavens, so to speak, and has notes that play. I have
bought a splendid brass bed, and the men rigged it up while Mimi was
out shopping. She suspects me, but says little. I have not told her in
the very word that I am poor; but I have led her to that belief, and
her devotion is the consequence.
Would it be foolish to tell you, Martha, that I am not wholly happy in
spite of all this? The vaguest fears afflict me. I know not from day
to day what evil is to overtake me, and yet I am conscious of evil.
Perchance it is but the aftermath of golden days, lived in a sunshine
I had never hoped to see. Perhaps it is but a lover’s humour--I cannot
say, and yet it is as real as any thought that ever dwelt with me.
You must know that old Paddy O’Connell, the wild Irishman with the
thunderous voice and the jet black locks and the magnificent figure,
remains, good friend that he is, in London to “see me through it,”
whatever that may mean. He is lodged at the Jack Straw Castle Inn, on
the very summit of the Heath here, and he is with us the best part of
the day, and often the best part of the night. As Mimi refuses
(because of my poverty) to engage a servant, and is at once
housekeeper, cook and general servant to the establishment, I welcome
Paddy as valet in ordinary, and do not refuse him. At the brushing of
a coat or the carrying of a coal-hod he is immense; while his choice
of wines and cigars is not to be questioned. For the rest, he has a
new scheme of money-making ready for me every day. His last was as
wild as his first--it would do cousin Arthur good to hear of it.
Paddy thought he had discovered a new furnace and retort for the
making of gas. He wished to put a thousand into the thing and for me
to work it in his interest. The invention, it appears, was run by a
sharp American, who had the machine set up in a mews near
Baker-street, and invited us there to witness his experiments. I went
by appointment, and, of course, Paddy accompanied me. Apparently, the
inventor made gas out of anything you like. He had a small furnace and
a retort with a meter attached. I don’t know much about the business,
but I have a pair of eyes in my head, and I used them carefully while
we witnessed the first experiments. Certainly they were wonderful. The
inventor lighted a fire with a little bundle of sticks and then put
all sorts of things into the furnace--bits of paper, bits of cloth,
rubbish from dust-bins; and all the time the meter showed that gas was
being made. He declared to us on his word of honour that he could make
gas “out of dead cats” if he chose. I went away puzzled, but Paddy was
enchanted.
“See here,” says he, “is it a fortune to ye or is it not?”
“My dear Paddy,” said I, “fortunes do not come quite so kindly--I want
to think a bit.”
“Think be hanged!” says he, “’tis thinking ye have been for five years
or more. Will ye starve or make gas?”
“Gas,” said I, “does not generally starve, Paddy. There’s a lot of it
about in London.”
“To the devil with it, Harry. Will ye take the man’s offer or leave
it?”
“I’ll tell you to-morrow, Paddy, when we have seen him again.”
He was very angry at this, and would not come to lunch with me. Of
course, I told Mimi all about it, and asked her opinion. She knows
less about gas than I do; but she has a wonderful little head of her
own, and her wisdom often puts me to shame.
“People cannot make gas out of rubbish, Harry. I am sure of it. Did
you light the fire yourself, or did he?”
“Oh, he did, Mimi.”
“Very well; take some wood to-morrow and offer to light it for him.”
I told her that I would do so, and we changed the subject with a
laugh. She had made a wonderful omelet, but had put sugar instead of
salt into it, and I had to confess that a savoury omelet made with
sugar was a delicacy to captivate the heart of Brillat Savarin. The
afternoon we spent in the lanes on our bicycles, and at night a
mollified Paddy came to dine with us and made no reference to the gas,
though I observed that he took but a moderate quantity of that
commodity with his whisky.
Ten o’clock had been the hour fixed for our second visit to
Baker-street, and we were there, as the Americans say, on time. I
don’t know whether the inventor took the matter as already settled,
but he wore a fine frock-coat and had a pretty white rose in his
buttonhole. The usual preliminaries being over, he told me that he
proposed to make gas out of a box of child’s bricks, an old volume of
illustrated newspapers, and a woman’s discarded shawl. I listened
patiently, and did not interfere until the moment he was about to
light the fire; when I stepped forward and produced the bundle of
sticks with which Mimi had provided me.
“Look here,” said I, “if you expect me to put any money into this, I
must light the fire to-day.”
Well, Martha, if a thunderbolt had hit him the man could not have
looked more surprised. And yet his _sang-froid_ did not desert him; he
pretended to acquiesce with the best of good grace.
“It is immaterial to me,” he said; “you will find the furnace a little
damp--so many queer things get into it. By all means try, and I will
get a pair of bellows to help you.”
He was out of the room in a jiffy, and we heard him running down the
stairs. For my part I made no attempt whatever to light his fire.
“Paddy,” said I, “he will return with those bellows on the kalends of
March. I’ll give you fifty pounds if he comes back to-day.”
Paddy would not hear of it.
“What!” cried he, “d’ye mean to say we have met with a swindler?”
“Undoubtedly, and a very impudent one.”
“I’ll never believe it. Ye do the man an injustice; ’tis a lie, I
say!”
“Very well, Paddy; send out for some lunch and the morning newspapers.
We can soon prove it one way or the other.”
Poor man, he was in a fearful state, for there is no more trusting
soul in all Ireland to-day than Paddy O’Connell. I need not tell you,
Martha, that the man never came back. The secret of his furnace was
the secret of the bundle of sticks with which he lighted his fire.
These were chemically prepared, and generated the gas which caused the
meter to register.
And so, alas, poor Paddy! There was no more sorrowful man in Hampstead
than my good friend that night. If he made no actual reference to the
evanescent subject of gas, I observed that he took plain water with
his whisky and uttered certain pious aphorisms concerning the
wickedness of this world in general and of its merchants in
particular. Forty-eight hours afterwards he had another scheme
prepared. I am to set up in London as an art connoisseur--to advise
the dealers concerning old pictures and the public concerning new
ones. This, he says, will bring me a decent income, at any rate, and
assure me the friendship of millionaires.
“And who knows,” he asks me triumphantly, “that one of ’em won’t take
a fancy to you and make you a partner in his affairs? ’Tis a thing
that has happened, and not so wonderful. Ye have Mimi to keep, and ye
may have the children. Will ye be sitting idle while she starves,
Harry? Shame on ye for the thought.”
To which I can make no response, Martha. Idleness has caught me in its
iron grip, and I am spellbound. The sunny days pass so swiftly. There
is a crown of tousled hair upon my pillow when I wake; I see the one
face in all the world that should be there when I go to my sleep at
night. Mimi herself appears to live in a kind of wonderland. Sometimes
she dreams through long spells of silence; there are other hours when
the old life stirs in her blood and all the riot and merriment of the
Butte must claim her. Again and again I have spoken to her of her
childhood, but can awaken no new memories. A wood, and a lonely road,
and a woman’s terrible face--such are her impressions. To speak of
them is to recall those phantoms of fear which have haunted me from
the beginning and are not unknown to her. I repeat that they may be
the creations of happiness itself, for what is left for me to desire
but this possession of all that I have sought--this peace which
passeth understanding?
Convey, I beg of you, to cousin Arthur such impressions of my
affection as will suit his mood. His sermon on the “Damnable Errors of
Modernism” I should have thought a little advanced for the simple
fisherfolk at Lowestoft. As for the holiday-makers, they must be hard
put to it sometimes to discover something new--so I suppose they went
in. The main thing is, did you play to capacity; I mean, in ordinary
parlance, had you a good collection?
It would be cruel to hear that the damnable heresies aforesaid were
assessed by Lowestoft at a sum of seven-and-six sterling--the amount
in the plate upon the last occasion when it was put before--Your
affectionate Cousin,
Harry.