Only one of the trees from which Cedar Lodge derives its name was still
standing. This lonely giant, sombre exile from Libanus, overshadowed
all that remained of the formerly extensive garden and sensibly
darkened the back of the house. Its foliage, spread like a deep pile
carpet upon the wide horizontal branches, was worn and sparse, showing
small promise of self-renewal. Yet though starved by the exhausted
soil, and clogged by soots from innumerable chimneys, it remained
majestic, finely decorative as some tree of metal, of age-old bronze
roughened by a greenness of deep-eating rust. From the first moment of
his acquaintance with Cedar Lodge it had been to Dominic Iglesias an
object of attraction, even of sympathy. For he recognised in it
something stoical, an unmoved dignity and lofty indifference to the
sordid commonplace of its surroundings. It made no concessions to
adverse circumstances, but remained proudly itself, owning for sole
comrade the Wind--that most mysterious of all created things, unseen,
untamed, mateless, incalculable. The wind gave it voice, gave it even a
measure of mobility, as it swept through the labyrinth of dry
unfruitful branches and awoke a husky music telling of far-distant
times and places, making a shuddering and stirring as of the resurgence
of long-forgotten hope and passion.
When Dominic entered into residence at Cedar Lodge, a pair of stout
mauve-brown wood-pigeons--migrants from the pleasant elms of Holland
Park--had haunted the tree. But they being, for all their dolorous
cooings, birds of a lusty, not to say truculent, habit, grew weary of
its persistent solemnity of aspect. So, at least, Dominic judged. He
had been an interested spectator of the love-makings, quarrels, and
reconciliations of these comely neighbours from his bedroom window
daily while dressing. But one fine spring morning he saw them fly away
and never saw them fly back again. Clearly they had removed themselves
to less solemn quarters, leaving the great tree, save for fugitive
visitations from its comrade the wind, to solitary meditation within
the borders of its narrow prison-place.
Besides presenting in itself an object altogether majestical, the cedar
performed a practical office whereby it earned Iglesias' gratitude. For
its dark interposing bulk effectually shut off the view of an
aggressively new rawly red steam laundry, with shiny slate roofs and a
huge smoke-belching chimney to it, which, to the convulsive disgust of
the gentility of the eastern side of Trimmer's Green, had had the
unpardonable impertinence to get itself erected in an adjacent street.
It followed that when, one wet evening, yellow-headed little Mr. Farge
had advised himself to speak slightingly of the cedar tree, Iglesias
was prepared to defend it, if necessary, with some warmth.
The conversation had ranged round the subject of the hour, namely, the
possibility--as yet in the estimation of most persons an incredible
one--of war with the Boer Republics, when the young man indulged in a
playful aside addressed to Miss Hart, at whose right hand he was seated.
"If I could find fault with anything belonging to the lady at the head
of the table," he said, "it would be the gloomy old party looking in at
these back windows."
"What, the dear old cedar tree! Never, Mr. Farge!" protested Eliza.
"Yes, it would, though," he insisted, "when, as tonight, it is drip,
drip, dripping all over the shop. No touch of Sunny Jim about him, is
these now, Bert?"--this to the devoted Worthington sitting immediately
opposite to him on Miss Hart's left.
"Truly there is not, if I may venture so far," the other young
gentleman responded, playing up obediently. "And if anything could give
me and Charlie a fit of the blues, I believe that old fellow would in
rainy weather."
"Makes you think of the cemetery, does it not now, Bert?"
"You have hit it. Paddington--not the station though, Charlie, just
starting for a cosey little trip with your best girl up the river."
"For shame, Mr. Worthington," Eliza protested again, giggling.
"Suggestive of the end of all week-ends, in short," de Courcy Smyth,
who contrary to his custom was present at dinner that evening, put in
snarlingly. "One last trip up the River of Death for you, with a ticket
marked not transferrable, eh, Farge? Then an oblong hole in the reeking
blue clay, silence and worms."
His tone was spiteful to the point of commanding attention. A hush fell
on the company, broken only by the drifting sob of the rain through the
branches of the great cedar. Mr. Farge went perceptibly pale. Mrs.
Porcher sighed and turned her fine eyes up to the ceiling. Iglesias
looked curiously at the speaker. Eliza Hart was the first to find voice.
"Pray, Mr. Smyth," she said, "don't be so very unpleasant. You're
enough to give one the goose-skin all over."
"I am sorry I have offended," he answered sullenly. "But I beg leave to
call attention to the fact that I did not start this subject. I was
rather interested in the previous discussion, which gave an opportunity
of intelligent conversation not habitual among us. Farge is responsible
for the interruption, and for the cemeteries, and consequently for my
comment. Still, I am sorry I have offended."
He shifted his position, glancing uneasily first at his hostess, and
then at Dominic Iglesias, who sat opposite him in the place of honour
at that lady's right hand.
"You have not offended, Mr. Smyth," Mrs. Porcher declared graciously.
"And no doubt it is well for us all to be reminded of death and burial
at times. Though some of us hardly need reminding"--again she sighed.
"We carry the thought of them about with us always." And she turned her
fine eyes languidly upon Mr. Iglesias.
"My poor sweet Peachie," the kind-hearted Eliza murmured, under her
breath.
"But at meals, perhaps, a lighter vein is more suitable, Mr. Smyth,"
Mrs. Porcher continued. "At table the thought of death does seem rather
disheartening, does it not? But about our poor old cedar tree now, Mr.
Farge? You were not seriously proposing to have it removed?"
"Well, strictly between ourselves, I am really half afraid I actually
was."
"You forget it sheltered my childhood. It is associated with all my
past."
"Can a rosebud have a past?" Farge cried, coming up to the surface
again with a bounce, so to speak.
Mrs. Porcher smiled, shook her head in graceful reproof, and turned
once more to Dominic.
"I think we should all like to know how you feel about it, Mr.
Iglesias," she said. "Do you wish the poor old tree removed?"
"On the contrary, I should greatly regret it's being cut down," he
answered. "It would be a loss to me personally, for I have always taken
a pleasure both in the sound and the sight of it. But that is a minor
consideration."
"You must allow me to differ from that opinion," Mrs. Porcher remarked,
with gentle emphasis. "We can never forget, can we, Eliza, who is our
oldest guest? Mr. Iglesias' opinion must ever carry weight in all which
concerns Cedar Lodge."
Here Farge and Worthington made round eyes at one another, while de
Courcy Smyth shuffled his feet under the table. He had received a
disquieting impression.
"Oh! of course, Peachie, dear," Miss Hart responded. She hugged herself
with satisfaction. "The darling looks more bonny than ever," she
reflected. "To-night what animation! What tact! She seems to have come
out so lately, since that Serena Lovegrove has been stopping over the
way. Not that there could be any rivalry between her and that poor
thread-paper of a thing!"
Dominic Iglesias, however, received his hostess' pretty speeches with a
calm which turned the current of the ardent Eliza's thoughts, causing
her to refer, mentally, to the degree of emotion which might be
predicated of monuments, mountains, stone elephants, and kindred
objects.
"You are very kind," he said. "But on grounds far more important than
those of any private sentiment the cutting down of the cedar calls for
careful consideration. I am afraid you would find it a serious loss to
the beauty of your property. What the house loses in light, it
certainly gains in distinction and interest from the presence of the
tree."
"Yes," Mrs. Porcher returned, folding her plump pink hands upon the
edge of the table and looking down modestly. "It does speak of family
perhaps."
"And in your case, dear, it speaks nothing more than the truth," Eliza
declared. "Just as well a certain gentleman should reckon with
Peachie's real position," she said to herself--"specially with that
stuck-up Serena Lovegrove cat-and-mousing about on the other side of
the Green. It does not take a Solomon to see what she's after!"
"I am afraid the verdict is given against you, Mr. Farge. The cedar
tree will remain." Mrs. Porcher rose as she spoke.
The young man playfully rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, feigning
tears. Then a scrimmage ensued between him and Worthington as to which
should reach the dining-room door first and throw it open before the
ladies. At this exhibition of high spirits de Courcy Smyth groaned
audibly, while Mrs. Porcher, linking her arm within that of Miss Hart,
lingered.
"You will join our little circle in the drawing-room to-night, will you
not, Mr. Iglesias?" she pleaded.
Again the young men made round eyes at one another. De Courcy Smyth had
come forward. He stood close to Iglesias and, before the latter could
answer, spoke hurriedly:
"Can you give me ten minutes in private? I don't want to press myself
upon you, but this is imperative."
Iglesias proceeded to excuse himself to his hostess, thereby causing
Miss Hart to refer mentally to monuments and mountains once again.
"Thank you," Smyth gasped. His face was twitching and he swayed a
little, steadying himself with one hand on the corner of the
dinner-table.
"I loathe asking," he continued, "I loathe pressing my society upon
you, since you do not seek it. It has taken days for me to make up my
mind to this; but it is necessary. And, after all, you made the
original offer yourself."
"I am quite ready to listen, and to renew any offer which I may have
made," Iglesias answered quietly.
"We can't talk here, though," Smyth said. "That blundering ass of a
waiter will be coming in directly; and whatever he overhears is sure to
go the round of the house. All servants are spies."
"We can go up to my sitting-room and talk there," Iglesias replied.
Yet he was conscious of making the proposal with reluctance, pity
struggling against repulsion. For not only was the man's appearance
very unkempt, but his manner and bearing were eloquent of a certain
desperation. Of anything approaching physical fear Dominic Iglesias was
happily incapable. But his sitting-room had always been a peaceful
place, refuge alike from the strain and monotony of his working life.
It held relics, moreover, wholly dear to him, and to introduce into it
this inharmonious and, in a sense, degraded presence savoured of
desecration. Therefore, not without foreboding, as of one who risks the
sacrifice of earnestly cherished security, he ushered his guest into
the quiet room.
The gas, the small heart-shaped flames of which showed white against
the dying daylight coming in through the windows, was turned low in the
bracket-lamps on either side the high mantelpiece. Dominic Iglesias
moved across and drew down the blinds, catching sight as he did
so--between the tossing foliage of the balsam-poplars which glistened
in the driving wet--of the unwinking gaselier in the Lovegroves'
dining-room, on the other side of the Green. He remembered that he
ought to have called on Mrs. Lovegrove and Miss Serena, and that he had
been guilty of a lapse of etiquette in not having done so. But he
reflected poor Miss Serena was a person whose existence it seemed so
curiously difficult to bear actively in mind. Then he grew penitent, as
having added discourtesy to discourtesy in permitting himself this
reflection. He came back from the window, turned up the lights, drew
forward an armchair and motioned Smyth to be seated; fetched a
cut-glass spirit decanter, tumblers, and a syphon of soda from the
sideboard and set them at his guest's elbow.
"Pray help yourself," he said. "And here, will you not smoke while we
talk?"
Smyth's pale, prominent eyes had followed these preparations for his
comfort with avidity, but now, the handsome character of his
surroundings being fully disclosed to him, he was filled with
uncontrollable envy. Silently he filled his glass, by no means stinting
the amount of alcohol, gulped down half the contents of the tumbler,
paused a moment, leaning his elbow on the table, and said:
"We were treated to a public exhibition of feminine cajolery in your
direction, Mr. Iglesias, at the end of dinner. It occurs to me we might
have been spared that. I have never had the honour of penetrating into
your apartments before; but the aspect of them is quite sufficient
indication as to who is the favoured member of Mrs. Porcher's
establishment."
Dominic had remained standing. Hospitality demanded that he should do
all in his power to secure his guest's material comfort; but there, in
his opinion, immediate obligation ceased. In thus remaining standing he
had a quaint sense of safeguarding the sanctities of the place. The
man's tone was curiously offensive. Involuntarily Mr. Iglesias' back
stiffened a little.
"I took these rooms unfurnished," he said. And then added: "May I ask
what your business with me may be?"
Smyth had recourse to his tumbler again. His hand shook so that his
teeth chattered against the edge of the glass.
"I am a fool," he said sullenly. "But my nerves are all to pieces. I
cannot control myself. I have come here to ask a favour of you, and yet
some devil prompts me to insult you. I hate you because I am driven to
make use of you. And this room, in its sober luxury, emphasises the
indignity of the position, offering as it does so glaring a contrast to
my own quarters--here under the same roof, only one flight of stairs
above--that I can hardly endure it. Life is hideously unjust. For what
have you done--you, a mere Canaanite, hewer of wood and drawer of water
to some grossly Philistine firm of city bankers--to deserve this
immunity from anxiety and distress; while I, with my superior culture,
my ambition and talents, am condemned to that beastly squeaking
wire-wove mattress upstairs, and a job-lot of furniture which some
previous German waiter has ejected in disgust from his bedroom in the
basement? But there--I beg your pardon. I ought to be accustomed to
injustice. I have served a long enough apprenticeship to it.
Only--partly, thanks to you, I own that--I have seemed to see the
dawning of hope again--hope of success, hope of recognition, hope of
revenge; and just on that account it becomes intolerable to run one's
head against this paralysing, stultifying dead wall of poverty and
debt."--He bowed himself together, and his voice broke.--"I owe Mrs.
Porcher money for my miserable bedsitting-room and my board, and I am
so horribly afraid she will turn me out. The place is detestable;
unworthy of me--of course it is--but I am accustomed to it. And I am
not myself. I am terrified at the prospect of any change. In short, I
am worn out. And they see that, those beasts of editors. The _Evening
Dally Bulletin_ has given me my _congé_. I have lost the last of my
hack-work. It was miserable work, wholly beneath a man of my capacity;
still it brought me in a pittance. Now it is gone. Practically I am a
pauper, and I owe money in this house."
"I am sorry, very sorry," Iglesias said. "You should have spoken
sooner. I could not force myself into your confidence; but, believe me,
I have not been unmindful of my engagement. I have merely waited for
you to speak."
His manner was gentle, yet he remained standing, still possessed by an
instinct to thus safeguard the sanctities of the place. He paused,
giving the other man time to recover a measure of composure: then he
asked kindly, anxious to conduct the conversation into a happier
channel: "Meanwhile, how is the play advancing? Well, I hope--so that
you find solace and satisfaction in the prosecution of it."
Smyth moved uneasily, looking up furtively at his questioner.
"Oh! it is grand," he said, "unquestionable it is grand. You need have
no anxiety under that head. Pray understand that anything that you may
do for me in the interim, before the play is produced, is simply an
investment. You need not be in the least alarmed. You will see all your
money back--see it doubled, certainly doubled, probably trebled."
"I was not thinking of investments," Iglesias put in quietly.
"But I am," Smyth asserted. "Naturally I am. You do not suppose that I
should accept, still less ask, you help, unless I was certain that in
the end I should prove to be conferring, rather than incurring, a
favour? You humiliate me by assuming this attitude of disinterested
generosity. Let me warn you it does not ring true. Moreover, in
assuming it you do not treat me as an equal; and that I resent. It is
mean to take advantage of my sorrows and my poverty, and exalt yourself
thus at my expense. Of course I understand your point of view. From
your associations and occupations you must inevitably worship the god
of wealth. One cannot expect anything else from a business man. You
gauge every one's intellectual capacity by his power of making money.
Well, wait then--just wait; and when that play appears, see if I do not
compel you to rate my intellectual capacity very highly. For there are
thousands in that play, I tell you--tens of thousands. It is only in
the interim that I am reduced to this detestable position of
dependence. I know the worth of my work, if----"
But Iglesias' patience was beginning to wear rather thin. He interposed
calmly, yet with authority.
"Pardon me," he said, "but it is irrelevant to discuss my attitude of
mind or my past occupations. It will be more agreeable for us, both now
and in the future, to treat any matters that arise between us as
impersonally as possible. Therefore, I will ask you to tell me, simply
and clearly, how much you require to clear you from immediate
difficulty; and I will tell you, in return, whether I am in a position
to meet your wishes or not."
For a moment Smyth sat silent, his hands working nervously along the
arms of the chair.
"You understand it is merely a temporary accommodation?"
"Yes," Iglesias answered. "I understand. And consequently it is
superfluous to indulge in further discussion."
"You want to get rid of me," Smyth snarled. "Everyone wants to get rid
of me; I am unwelcome. The poor and unsuccessful always are so, I
suppose. But some day the tables will be turned--if I can only last."
And Dominic Iglesias found himself called upon to rally all his
humanity, all his faith in merciful dealing and the reward which goes
along with it. For it was hard to give, hard to befriend, so thankless
and ungracious a being. Yet, having put his hand to the plough, he
refused to look back. He had inherited a strain of fanaticism which
took the form of unswerving loyalty to his own word once given. So he
spoke gravely and kindly, as one speaks to the sick who are beyond the
obligation of showing courtesy for very suffering. And truly, as he
reminded himself, this man was grievously sick; not only physically
from insufficient food, but morally from disappointment and that most
fruitful source of disease, inordinate and unsatisfied vanity.
"I do not wish to get rid of you; I merely wish to take the shortest
and simplest way to relieve you of your more pressing anxieties, and so
enable you to give yourself unreservedly to your work. Want may be a
wholesome spur to effort at times; but it is difficult to suppose any
really sane and well-proportioned work of art can be produced without a
sense of security and of leisure."
"How do you come to know that? It is not your province," Smyth said
sharply.
Mr. Iglesias permitted himself to smile and raise his shoulders
slightly.
"I come of a race which, in the past, has given evidence of no small
literary and artistic ability. The experience of former generations
affects the thought of their descendants, I imagine, and illuminates
it, even when these are not gifted individually with any executive
talent."
For some minutes Smyth sat staring moodily in front of him. At last he
rose slowly from his chair.
"I am an ass," he said, "a jealous, suspicious, ungrateful ass. It is
more than ever hateful to me to ask a favour of you, just because you
are forbearing and generous. I wish to goodness I could do without you
help; but I can't. So let me have twenty-five pounds. Less would not be
of use to me. I should only have to draw on you again, and I do not
care to do that. Look here, can I have it in notes?"
"Yes," said Mr. Iglesias.
"I prefer it so. There might have been difficulties in cashing a
cheque. Moreover, it is unpleasant to me that your name, that any name,
should appear. It is only fair to save my self-respect as far as you
can."
Then, as Dominic put the notes into his hand, he added, and his voice
was aggressive again and quarrelsome in tone: "I don't apologise. I
don't explain. I do not even thank you. Why should I, since I simply
take it as a temporary accommodation until my play is finished--my
great play, which is going--I swear before God it is going--not only to
cancel this paltry debt, but a far more important one, the debt I owe
to my own genius, and justify me once and forever in the eyes of the
whole English-speaking world."
With that he shambled out of the room, letting the handle of the door
slip so that it banged noisily behind him.
For a while Dominic Iglesias remained standing before the fireplace. He
was sad at heart. He had given generously, lavishly, out of proportion,
as most persons reckon charitable givings, to his means. But, though
the act was in itself good, he was sensible of no responsive warmth, no
glow of satisfaction. The transaction left him cold; left him, indeed,
a prey to disgust. Not only were the man's faults evident, but they
were of so unpleasant a nature as to neutralise all gladness in
relieving his distress. Mechanically Iglesias straightened the chair
which his guest had so lately occupied, put away tumbler and spirit
decanter, pulled up the blind and opened one of the tall narrow
windows, set the door giving access to his bed-chamber wide, and opened
a window there, too, so creating a draught right through the apartment
from end to end. He desired to clean it both of a physical and a moral
atmosphere which were displeasing to him. And, in so doing, he let in,
not only the roar of London, borne in a fierce crescendo on the breath
of the wind, but a strange multitudinous rustling from the sombre
foliage and stiff branches of the lonely cedar tree. Two limbs,
crossing, sawed upon one another as the wind took them, uttering at
intervals a long-drawn complaint--not weakly, but rather with virility,
as of a strong man chained and groaning against his fetters.
The sound affected Dominic Iglesias deeply, begetting in him an almost
hopeless sense of isolation. The vapid talk at dinner, poor little Mrs.
Porcher's misplaced advances--the fact of which it appeared to him
equally idle to deny and fatuous to admit--the dreary scene with his
unhappy fellow-lodger, the good deed done which just now appeared
fruitless--all these contributed to make the complaint of the exiled
cedar's tormented branches an echo of the complaint of his own heart.
For a long while he listened to these voices of the night, the great
city, the great tree, the wind and the wet; and listening, by degrees
he rallied his patience in that he humbled himself.
"After all, I have been little else but self-seeking," he said, half
aloud. "For I gave not to the man, but to myself. I clutched at a
personal reward, if not of spoken gratitude yet of subjective content.
It has not come. I suppose I did not deserve it."
And then, somehow, his thoughts turned to that other human creature
who, though in a very different fashion to de Courcy Smyth the
unsavoury, had claimed his help. He thought not of her over-red lips,
but of her wise eyes; not of her irrepressible effervescence and
patter, but of her serious moments and of the honesty and courage which
at such moments appeared to animate her. About a fortnight ago he had
called at the little flower-bedecked house on the confines of Barnes
Common, but had obtained no response to his ringing. He supposed she
was engaged, or possibly away. With a certain proud modesty he had
abstained from renewing his visit. But now, listening to the roar of
London and the complaint of the cedar tree, he turned to the thought of
her as to something of promise, of possible comfort, of equal
friendship, in which there should be not only help given, but help
received.