He took several long walks by himself beyond the gates of the park
and through the neighbouring country—walks during which, committed as
he was to reflexion on the general “rumness” of his destiny, he had
still a delighted attention to spare for the green dimness of leafy
lanes, the attraction of meadow-paths that led from stile to stile and
seemed a clue to some pastoral happiness, some secret of the fields;
the hedges thick with flowers, bewilderingly common, for which he knew
no names, the picture-making power of thatched cottages, the mystery
and sweetness of blue distances, the bloom of rural complexions, the
quaintness of little girls bobbing curtsies by waysides (a sort of
homage he had never prefigured); the soft sense of the turf under feet
that had never ached but from paving-stones. One morning as he had his
face turned homeward after a long stroll he heard behind him the sound
of a horse’s hoofs and, looking back, perceived a gentleman who would
presently pass him advancing up the road which led to the lodge-gates
of Medley. He went his way and as the horse overtook him noticed that
the rider slackened pace. Then he turned again and recognised in this
personage his occasional florid friend Captain Sholto. The Captain
pulled up alongside of him, saluting him with a smile and a movement
of the whip-handle. Hyacinth stared with surprise, not having heard
from the Princess that she was expecting him. He gathered, however, in
a moment that she was not; and meanwhile he received an impression on
Sholto’s part of riding-gear that was “knowing”—of gaiters and spurs
and a hunting-crop and a curious waistcoat; perceiving this to be a
phase of the Captain’s varied nature that he had not yet had occasion
to observe. He struck him as very high in the air, perched on his big
lean chestnut, and Hyacinth noticed that if the horse was heated the
rider was cool.
“Good-morning, my dear fellow. I thought I should find you here!”
the Captain exclaimed. “It’s a good job I’ve met you this way without
having to go to the house.”
“Who gave you reason to think I was here?” Hyacinth asked; partly
occupied with the appositeness of this inquiry and partly thinking,
as his eyes wandered over his handsome friend bestriding so handsome
a beast, what a jolly thing it would be to know how to ride. He had
already, during the few days he had been at Medley, had time to observe
that the knowledge of luxury and the wider range of sensation begot in
him a taste for still bolder pleasures.
“Why, I knew the Princess was capable of asking you,” Sholto said; “and
I learned at the ‘Sun and Moon’ that you had not been there for a long
time. I knew furthermore that as a general thing you go there a good
deal, don’t you? So I put this and that together and judged you were
out of town.”
This was very clear and straightforward and might have satisfied
just exactions save for that irritating reference to the Princess’s
being “capable of asking him.” He knew as well as the Captain that
it had been tremendously eccentric in her to do so, but somehow a
transformation had lately taken place in him which made it unpleasant
he should receive that view from another, and particularly from a
gentleman of whom at a certain juncture several months before he had
had strong grounds for thinking unfavourably. He had not seen Sholto
since the evening when a queer combination of circumstances caused him
to sit more queerly still and listen to comic songs in the company of
Millicent Henning and this admirer. The Captain had not concealed his
admiration; Hyacinth had his own ideas about his taking that line in
order to look more innocent. When he accompanied Millicent that evening
to her lodgings (they parted with Sholto on coming out of the Pavilion)
the situation was tense between the young lady and her childhood’s
friend. She let him have it, as she said; she gave him a dressing
which she evidently intended should be memorable for having suspected
her, for having insulted her before one of the military. The tone
she took and the magnificent audacity with which she took it reduced
him to an odd, gratified helplessness; he watched her at last with
something of the excitement with which he would have watched a clever
but uncultivated actress while she worked herself into a passion that
he believed to be fictitious. He gave more credence to his jealousy
and to the whole air of the case than to her loud rebuttals, enlivened
though these were by tremendous head-tossings and skirt-shakings. But
he felt baffled and outfaced, and had recourse to sarcasms which after
all proved no more than her high gibes; seeking a final solution in one
of those beastly little French shrugs, as Millicent called them, with
which she had already denounced him for interlarding his conversation.
The air was never cleared, though the subject of their dispute was
afterwards dropped, Hyacinth promising himself to watch his playmate as
he had never done before. She let him know, as may well be supposed,
that she had her eye on _him_, and it must be confessed that as
regards the exercise of a right of supervision he had felt himself at a
disadvantage ever since the night at the theatre. It scantly mattered
that she had pushed him into the Princess’s box (for she herself had
not been jealous beforehand; she had wanted too much to know what such
a person could be “up to,” desiring perhaps to borrow a hint) and it
signified as little also that his relations with the great lady were
all for the sake of suffering humanity. The atmosphere, however these
things might be, was full of thunder for many weeks, and of what
importance was the quarter from which the flash and the explosion
should proceed? Hyacinth was a good deal surprised to find he could
care whether Millicent deceived him or not, and even tried to persuade
himself that he didn’t; but it was as if he yet felt between them a
personal affinity deeper than any difference, so that it would torment
him more never to see her at all than to see her go into tantrums in
order to cover her tracks. An inner sense told him that her mingled
beauty and grossness, her vulgar vitality, the spirit of contradiction
yet at the same time of attachment that was in her, had ended by
making her indispensable to him. She bored as much as she irritated;
but if she was full of excruciating taste she was also full of life,
and her rustlings and chatterings, her wonderful stories, her bad
grammar and good health, her insatiable thirst, her shrewd perceptions
and grotesque opinions, her blunders and her felicities, were now all
part of the familiar human sound of his little world. He could say to
himself that she made up to him far more than he to her, and it helped
him a little to believe, though the logic was but lame, that she was
not “larking” at his expense. If she were really in with a swell he
didn’t see why she wished to retain a bookbinder. Of late, it must
be added, he had ceased to devote much consideration to Millicent’s
ambiguities; for although he was lingering on at Medley for the sake
of suffering humanity he was quite aware that to say so (should she
ask him for a reason) would have almost as low a value as some of the
girl’s own speeches. As regards Sholto he was in the awkward position
of having let him off, as it were, by accepting his hospitality, his
bounty; thus he couldn’t quarrel with him save on a fresh pretext.
This pretext the Captain had apparently been careful not to give, and
Millicent had told him after the triple encounter in the street that
he had driven him out of England, the poor gentleman he insulted by
his vulgar insinuations even more (why ‘even more’ Hyacinth hardly
could think) than he outraged herself. When he asked her what she knew
about the Captain’s movements she made no scruple to announce to him
that the latter had come to her great shop to make a little purchase
(it was a pair of silk braces, if she remembered rightly, and she
acknowledged unreservedly the thinness of the pretext) and had asked
her with much concern whether his gifted young friend (that’s what
he called him—Hyacinth could see he meant well) was still in a huff.
Millicent had replied that she was afraid he was—the more shame to him;
and then the Captain had declared it didn’t matter, as he himself was
on the point of leaving England for several weeks (Hyacinth—he called
him Hyacinth this time—couldn’t have ideas about a man in a foreign
country, could he?) and hoped that by the time he returned the little
cloud would have blown over. Sholto had added that she had better
tell him frankly—recommending her at the same time to be gentle with
their morbid friend—about his visit to the shop. Their candour, their
humane precautions, were all very well; but after this, two or three
evenings, Hyacinth passed and repassed the Captain’s chambers in Queen
Anne Street to see if there were signs at the window of his being in
London. Darkness in fact prevailed and he was forced to comfort himself
a little when, at last making up his mind to ring at the door and
inquire, as a test, for the occupant, he was informed by the superior
valet whose acquaintance he had already made and whose air of wearing
a jacket left behind by his master confirmed the statement, that the
gentleman in question was at Monte Carlo.
“Have you still got your back up a little?” the Captain now demanded
without rancour; and in a moment he had swung a long leg over the
saddle and dismounted, walking beside his young friend and leading his
horse by the bridle. Hyacinth pretended not to know what he meant, for
it came over him that after all, even if he had not condoned at the
time the Captain’s suspected treachery, he was in no position, sitting
at the feet of the Princess, to sound the note of jealousy in relation
to another woman. He reflected that the Princess had originally been
in a manner Sholto’s property, and if he did _en fin de compte_ wish
to quarrel with him about Millicent he would have to cease to appear
to poach on the Captain’s preserves. It now occurred to him for the
first time that the latter might have intended a practical exchange;
though it must be added that the Princess, who on a couple of occasions
had alluded slightingly to her military friend, had given him no sign
of recognising this gentleman’s claim. Sholto let him know at present
that he was staying at Bonchester, seven miles off; he had come down
from London and put up at the inn. That morning he had ridden over on a
hired horse (Hyacinth had supposed this steed to be a very fine animal,
but Sholto spoke of it as an infernal screw); he had felt a sudden
prompting to see how his young friend was coming on.
“I’m coming on very well, thank you,” said Hyacinth with some
shortness, not knowing exactly what business it was of the Captain’s.
“Of course you understand my interest in you, don’t you? I’m
responsible for you—I put you forward.”
“There are a great many things in the world I don’t understand, but
I think the thing I understand least is your interest in me. Why
the devil——?” And Hyacinth paused, breathless with the force of his
inquiry. Then he went on: “If I were you I shouldn’t care tuppence for
the sort of person I happen to be.”
“That proves how different my nature is from yours! But I don’t
believe it, my dear boy; you’re too generous for that.” Sholto’s
imperturbability always appeared to grow with the irritation it
produced, and it was proof even against the just resentment excited by
his deficiency of tact. That deficiency was marked when he went on to
say: “I wanted to see you here with my own eyes. I wanted to see how
it looked, your domesticated state—and it _is_ a rum sight! Of course
you know what I mean, though you’re always trying to make a fellow
explain. I don’t explain well in any sense, and that’s why I go in only
for clever people who can do without it. It’s very grand, her having
brought you down.”
“Grand, no doubt, but hardly surprising, considering that, as you say,
I was put forward by you.”
“Oh that’s a great thing for me, but it doesn’t make any difference to
her!” Sholto returned. “She may care for certain things for themselves,
but it will never signify a jot to her what I may have thought about
them. One good turn deserves another. I wish you’d put _me_ forward!”
“I don’t understand you and I don’t think I want to,” said Hyacinth as
his companion strolled beside him.
The latter put a hand on his arm, stopping him, and they stood face to
face a moment. “I say, my dear Robinson, you’re not spoiled already, at
the end of a week—how long is it? It isn’t possible you’re jealous!”
“Jealous of whom?” asked Hyacinth, whose measure of the allusion was,
amid the strangeness of everything, imperfect.
Sholto looked at him a moment; then with a laugh: “I don’t mean Miss
Henning.” Hyacinth turned away and the Captain resumed his walk, now
taking the young man’s arm and passing his own through the bridle of
the horse. “The courage of it, the insolence, the _crânerie_! There
isn’t another woman in Europe who could carry it off.”
Hyacinth was silent a little; after which he remarked: “This is
nothing, here. You should have seen me the other day over at Broome, at
Lady Marchant’s.”
“Gad, did she take you there? I’d have given ten pounds to see it.
There’s no one like her!” cried the Captain gaily, enthusiastically.
“There’s no one like me, I think—for going.”
“Why, didn’t you enjoy it?”
“Too much—too much. Such excesses are dangerous.”
“Oh. I’ll back you,” said the Captain; then checking their pace, “Is
there any chance of our meeting her?” he asked. “I won’t go into the
park.”
“You won’t go to the house?” Hyacinth demanded in wonder.
“Oh dear no, not while you’re there.”
“Well, I shall ask the Princess about you, and so have done with it
once for all.”
“Lucky little beggar, with your fireside talks!” the Captain lamented.
“Where does she sit now in the evening? She won’t tell you anything
except that I’m a beastly nuisance; but even if she were willing to
take the trouble to throw some light on me it wouldn’t be of much use,
because she doesn’t understand me herself.”
“You’re the only thing in the world then of which that can be said,”
Hyacinth returned.
“I daresay I am, and I’m rather proud of it. So far as the head’s
concerned the Princess is all there. I told you when I presented
you that she was the cleverest woman in Europe, and that’s still my
opinion. But there are some mysteries you can’t see into unless you
happen to have a little decent human feeling, what’s commonly called
a bit of heart. The Princess isn’t troubled with that sort of thing,
though doubtless just now you may think it her strong point. One of
these days you’ll see. I don’t care a rap myself about her quantity
of heart. She has hurt me already so much that she can’t hurt me any
more, and my interest in her is quite independent of it. To watch her,
to adore her, to see her lead her life and act out her extraordinary
nature, all the while she pays me no more attention than if I were the
postman’s knock several doors on, that’s absolutely the only thing that
appeals to me. It doesn’t do me a scrap of good, but all the same it’s
my principal occupation. You may believe me or not—it doesn’t in the
least matter; but I’m the most disinterested human being alive. She’ll
tell you one’s the biggest kind of donkey, and so of course one is. But
that isn’t all.”
It was Hyacinth who stopped this time, arrested by something new and
natural in the tone of his companion, a simplicity of emotion he had
not hitherto associated with him. He stood there a moment looking up
at him and thinking again what improbable confidences it decidedly
appeared to be his lot to receive from gentlefolk. To what quality
in himself were they a tribute? The honour was one he could easily
dispense with; though as he scrutinised Sholto he found something in
his odd light eyes—a sort of wasted flatness of fidelity—which made of
an accepted relation with him a less fantastic adventure. “Please go
on,” he said in a moment.
“Well, what I mentioned just now is my real and only motive in
anything. The rest’s the mere gabble of the juggler to cover up his
trick and help himself do it.”
“What do you mean by the rest?” asked Hyacinth, thinking of Millicent
Henning.
“Oh all the straw one chews to cheat one’s appetite; all the rot one
dabbles in because it may lead to something which it never does lead
to; all the beastly buncombe (you know) that you and I have heard
together in Bloomsbury and that I myself have poured out, damme, with
an assurance worthy of a better cause. Don’t you remember what I’ve
said to you—all as my own opinion—about the impending change of the
relations of class with class? Impending collapse of the crust of the
earth! I believe those on top of the heap are better than those under
it, that they mean to stay there, and that if they’re not a pack of
poltroons they will.”
“You don’t care for the social question then?” Hyacinth inquired with
an aspect of the blankness of which he was conscious.
“I only took it up because she did. It hasn’t helped me,” Sholto
smiled. “My dear Robinson,” he went on, “there’s only one thing I care
for in life: to have a look at that woman when I can—and when I can’t
to approach her in the sort of way I’m doing now.”
“It’s a very funny sort of way.”
“Indeed it is; but if it’s good enough for me it ought to be good
enough for you. What I want you to do is this—to induce her to ask me
over to dine.”
“To induce her——?” Hyacinth echoed.
“Tell her I’m staying at Bonchester and it would be an act of common
humanity.”
They proceeded till they reached the gates and in a moment Hyacinth
said: “You took up the social question then because she did. But do you
happen to know why _she_ took it up?”
“Ah my dear fellow, you must worry that out for yourself. I found you
the place, but I can’t do your work for you!”
“I see—I see. But perhaps you’ll tell me this: if you had free access
to her a year ago, taking her to the theatre and that sort of thing,
why shouldn’t you have it now?”
This time Sholto’s yellow eyes were strange again. “_You_ have it now,
my dear chap, but I’m afraid it doesn’t follow that you’ll have it a
year hence. She was tired of me then, and of course she’s still more
tired of me now, for the simple reason that I’m more tiresome. She has
sent me to Coventry and I want to come out for a few hours. See how
awfully decent I am—I won’t pass the gates.”
“I’ll tell her I met you,” said Hyacinth. Then, irrelevantly, he added:
“Is that what you mean by her having no heart?”
“Her treating me as she treats me? Oh dear no. Her treating _you_!”
This had a portentous sound, but it didn’t prevent Hyacinth from
turning round with his visitor—for it was the greatest part of the
oddity of the present meeting that the hope of a little conversation
with him, if accident were favourable, had been the motive not only of
Sholto’s riding over to Medley but of his coming down to stay, in the
neighbourhood, at a musty inn in a dull market-town—it didn’t prevent
him, I say, from bearing the Captain company for a mile on his backward
way. Our young man pursued this particular topic little further, but
he discovered still another reason or two for admiring the light, free
action with which his companion had unmasked himself, as well as the
nature of his interest in the revolutionary idea, after he had asked
him abruptly what he had had in his head when he travelled over that
evening, the summer before—and he didn’t appear to have come back as
often as he promised—to Paul Muniment’s place in Camberwell. What was
he looking for, whom was he looking for there?
“I was looking for anything that would turn up, that might take her
fancy. Don’t you understand that I’m always looking? There was a time
when I went in immensely for illuminated missals, and another when I
collected horrible ghost-stories (she wanted to cultivate a belief in
ghosts) all for her. The day I saw she was turning her attention to
the rising democracy I began to collect little democrats. That’s how I
collected you.”
“Muniment made you out exactly then. And what did you find to your
purpose in Audley Court?”
“Well, I think the little woman with the popping eyes—she reminded me
of a bedridden grasshopper—will do. And I made a note of the other one,
the old virgin with the high nose, the aristocratic sister of mercy.
I’m keeping them in reserve for my next propitiatory offering.”
Hyacinth had a pause. “And Muniment himself—can’t you do anything with
him?”
“Oh my dear fellow, after you he’s poor!”
“That’s the first stupid thing you’ve said. But it doesn’t matter, for
he dislikes the Princess—what he knows of her—too much ever to consent
to see her.”
“That’s his line, is it? Then he’ll do!” Sholto cried.