Hyacinth had hurried down and got out of the house, but without the
least intention of losing sight of Schinkel. The odd behaviour of
the Poupins was a surprise and annoyance, and he had wished to shake
himself free from it. He was candidly astonished at the alarm they
were so good as to feel for him, since he had never taken in their
having really gone round to the faith that the note he had signed to
Hoffendahl would fail to be presented. What had he said, what had he
done, after all, to give them the right to fasten on him the charge
of apostasy? He had always been a free critic of everything, and it
was natural that on certain occasions in the little parlour at Lisson
Grove he should have spoken in accordance with that freedom; but
it was with the Princess alone that he had permitted himself really
to rail at their grimy “inferiors” and give the full measure of his
scepticism. He would have thought it indelicate to express contempt for
the opinions of his old foreign friends, to whom associations that made
them venerable were attached; and, moreover, for Hyacinth a change of
heart was in the nature of things much more an occasion for a hush of
publicity and a kind of retrospective reserve: it couldn’t prompt one
to aggression or jubilation. When one had but lately discovered what
could be said on the opposite side one didn’t want to boast of one’s
sharpness—not even when one’s new convictions cast shadows that looked
like the ghosts of the old.
He lingered in the street a certain distance from the house, watching
for Schinkel’s exit and prepared to remain there if necessary till
the dawn of another day. He had said to the agitated trio just before
that the manner in which the communication they looked so askance at
should reach him was none of his business—it might reach him as it
either smoothly or clumsily could. This was true enough in theory,
but in fact his desire was overwhelming to know what Madame Poupin
had meant by her allusion to a sealed letter, destined for him, in
Schinkel’s possession—an allusion confirmed by Schinkel’s own virtual
acknowledgment. It was indeed this eagerness that had driven him
out of the house, for he had reason to believe the German wouldn’t
fail him, and it galled his suspense to see the foolish Poupins try
to interpose, to divert the missive from its course. He waited and
waited in the faith that Schinkel was dealing with them in his slow,
categorical, Germanic way, and only reprehended him for having in the
first place paltered with his sacred trust. Why hadn’t he come straight
to him—whatever the mysterious document was—instead of talking it over
with French featherheads? Passers were rare at this hour in Lisson
Grove and lights mainly extinguished; there was nothing to look at but
the vista of the low black houses, the dim interspaced street-lamps,
the prowling cats who darted occasionally across the road and the
terrible mysterious far-off stars, which appeared to him more than
ever to see everything of our helplessness and tell nothing of help. A
policeman creaked along on the opposite side of the way, looking across
at him as he passed, and stood for some minutes on the corner as to
keep an eye on him. Hyacinth had leisure to reflect that the day was
perhaps not far off when a policeman might have an eye on him for a
very good reason—might walk up and down, pass and repass as he mounted
guard on him.
It seemed horribly long before Schinkel came out of the house, but
it was probably only half an hour. In the stillness of the street he
heard Poupin let his visitor out, and at the sound he stepped back into
the recess of a doorway on the same side, so that in looking out the
Frenchman shouldn’t see him waiting. There was another delay, for the
two stood talking together interminably and without seizable sounds
on the doorstep. At last, however, Poupin went in again, and then
Schinkel came down the street toward Hyacinth, who had felt sure he
would proceed to that quarter, it being, as our young friend happened
to know, that of his habitation. After he had heard Poupin go in he
stopped and looked up and down; it was evidently his idea that Hyacinth
would be awaiting him. Our hero stepped out of the shallow recess in
which he had flattened himself, and came straight to him, and the two
men stood there face to face in the dusky, empty, sordid street.
“You didn’t let them have the letter?”
“Oh no, I retained it,” said Schinkel with his eyes more than ever like
invisible points.
“Then hadn’t you better give it to me?”
“We’ll talk of that—we’ll talk.” Schinkel made no motion to satisfy
him; having his hands in the pockets of his trousers and an appearance
marked by the exasperating assumption that they had the whole night
before them. As one of the “dangerous” he was too intolerably for
order.
“Why should we talk? Haven’t you talked enough with those people all
the evening? What have they to say about it? What right have you to
detain a letter that belongs to me?”
“_Erlauben Sie_: I’ll light my pipe,” the German simply returned. And
he proceeded to this business methodically, while Hyacinth’s pale,
excited face showed in the glow of the match that ignited on the
rusty railing beside them. “It isn’t yours unless I’ve given it you,”
Schinkel went on as they walked along. “Be patient and I’ll tell you,”
he added, passing his hand into his comrade’s arm. “Your way, not
so? We’ll go down toward the Park.” Hyacinth tried to be patient and
listened with interest when Schinkel added: “She tried to take it; she
attacked me with her hands. But that wasn’t what I went for, to give it
up.”
“Is she mad? I don’t recognise them”—and Hyacinth spoke as one
scandalised.
“No, but they lofe you.”
“Why then do they try to disgrace me?”
“They think it no disgrace if you’ve changed.”
“That’s very well for her; but it’s pitiful for him, and I declare it
surprises me.”
“Oh _he_ came round—he helped me to resist. He pulled his wife off. It
was the first shock,” said Schinkel.
“You oughtn’t to have shocked them, my dear fellow,” Hyacinth
pronounced.
“I was shocked myself—I couldn’t help it.”
“Lord, how shaky you all are!” He was more and more aware now of all
the superiority still left him to cling to.
“You take it well. I’m very sorry. But it is a fine chance,” Schinkel
went on, smoking away.
His pipe seemed for the moment to absorb him, so that after a silence
Hyacinth resumed:
“Be so good as to remember that all this while I don’t in the least
understand what you’re talking about.”
“Well, it was this morning, early,” said the German. “You know in my
country we don’t lie in bett late, and what they do in my country I
try to do everywhere. I think it’s good enough. In winter I get up
of course long before the sun, and in summer I get up almost at the
same time. I should see the fine picture of the sunrise if in London
you _could_ see. The first thing I do of a Sunday is to smoke a pipe
at my window, which is at the front, you remember, and looks into a
little dirty street. At that hour there’s nothing to see there—you
English are so slow to leave the bett. Not much, however, at any time;
it’s not important, my bad little street. But my first pipe’s the one
I enjoy most. I want nothing else when I have that pleasure. I look
out at the new fresh light—though in London it’s not very fresh—and I
think it’s the beginning of another day. I wonder what such a day will
bring—if it will bring anything good to us poor devils. But I’ve seen
a great many pass and nothing has come. This morning, _doch_, brought
something—something at least to you. On the other side of the way I
saw a young man who stood just opposite my house and looking up at my
window. He looked at me straight, without any ceremony, and I smoked my
pipe and looked at him. I wondered what he wanted, but he made no sign
and spoke no word. He was a very neat young man; he had an umbrella and
he wore spectacles. We remained that way, face to face, perhaps for a
quarter of an hour, and at last he took out his watch—he had a watch
too—and held it in his hand, just glancing at it every few minutes, as
if to let me know that he would rather not give me the whole day. Then
it came over me that he wanted to speak to me! You would have guessed
that before, but we good Germans are slow. When we understand, however,
we act; so I nodded at him to let him know I’d come down. I put on my
coat and my shoes, for I was only in my shirt and stockings—though of
course I had on my trousers—and I went down into the street. When he
saw me come he walked slowly away, but at the end of a little distance
he waited for me. When I came near him I saw him to be a very neat
young man indeed—very young and with a very nice friendly face. He
was also very clean and he had gloves, and his umbrella was of silk.
I liked him very much. He said I should come round the corner, so we
went round the corner together. I thought there would be some one
there waiting for us; but there was nothing—only the closed shops
and the early light and a little spring mist that told that the day
would be fine. I didn’t know what he wanted; perhaps it was some of
our business—that’s what I first thought—and perhaps it was only a
little game. So I was very careful; I didn’t ask him to come into the
house. Yet I told him that he must excuse me for not understanding more
quickly that he wished to speak with me; and when I said this he said
it was not of consequence—he would have waited there, for the chance to
see me, all day. I told him I was glad I had spared him that at least,
and we had some very polite conversation. He _was_ a very pleasant
young man. But what he wanted was simply to put a letter in my hand;
as he said himself he was only a good private postman. He gave me the
letter—it was not addressed; and when I had taken it I asked him how he
knew and if he wouldn’t be sorry if it should turn out that I was not
the man for whom the letter was meant. But I didn’t give him a start;
he told me he knew all it was necessary for him to know—he knew exactly
what to do and how to do it. I think he’s a valuable member. I asked
him if the letter required an answer, and he told me he had nothing to
do with that; he was only to put it in my hand. He recommended me to
wait till I had gone into the house again to read it. We had a little
more talk—always very polite; and he mentioned that he had come so
early because he thought I might go out if he delayed, and because also
he had a great deal to do and had to take his time when he could. It’s
true he looked as if he had plenty to do—as if he was in some very good
occupation. I should tell you he spoke to me always in English, but he
was not English; he sounded his words only as if he had learnt them
very well. I could see he has learnt everything very well. I suppose
he’s not German—so he’d have spoken to me in German. But there are
so many, of all countries! I said if he had so much to do I wouldn’t
keep him; I would go to my room and open my letter. He said it wasn’t
important; and then I asked him if he wouldn’t come into my room also
and rest. I told him it wasn’t very handsome, my room—because he looked
like a young man who would have for himself a very neat lodging. Then I
found he meant it wasn’t important that we should talk any more, and he
went away without even offering to shake hands. I don’t know if he had
other letters to give, but he went away, as I have said, like a good
postman on his rounds, without giving me any more information.”
It took Schinkel a long time to tell this story—his calm and
conscientious thoroughness made no allowance for any painful acuteness
of curiosity his auditor might feel. He went from step to step,
treating all his points with lucidity and as if each would have exactly
the same interest for his companion. The latter made no attempt to
hurry him, and indeed listened now with a rare intensity of patience;
for he _was_ interested and it was moreover clear to him that he was
safe with Schinkel, who would satisfy him in time—wouldn’t worry him
with attaching conditions to their business in spite of the mistake,
creditable after all to his conscience, he had made in going for
discussion to Lisson Grove. Hyacinth learned in due course that on
returning to his apartment and opening the little packet of which he
had been put into possession, Mr. Schinkel had found himself confronted
with two separate articles: one a sealed letter superscribed with our
young man’s name, the other a sheet of paper containing in three lines
a request that within two days of receiving it he would hand the letter
to the “young Robinson.” The three lines in question were signed D.
H., and the letter was addressed in the same hand. Schinkel professed
that he already knew the writing; it was the neat fist—neatest in its
very flourishes—of Diedrich Hoffendahl. “Good, good,” he said, bearing
as to soothe on Hyacinth’s arm. “I’ll walk with you to your door and
I’ll give it to you there; unless you like better I should keep it till
to-morrow morning, so that you may have a quiet sleep—I mean in case
it might contain anything that will be unpleasant to you. But it’s
probably nothing; it’s probably only a word to say you need think no
more about your undertaking.”
“Why should it be that?” Hyacinth asked.
“Probably he has heard that you’ve cooled off.”
“That I’ve cooled off?” Our hero stopped him short; they had just
reached the top of Park Lane. “To whom have I given a right to say
that?”
“Ah well, if you haven’t, so much the better. It may be then for some
other reason.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Schinkel,” Hyacinth returned as they walked along.
And in a moment he went on: “What the devil did you go and tattle to
the Poupins for?”
“Because I thought they’d like to know. Besides, I felt my
responsibility; I thought I should carry it better if they knew it. And
then I’m like them—I lofe you.”
Hyacinth made no answer to this profession; he only said the next
instant: “Why didn’t your young man bring the letter directly to me?”
“Ah I didn’t ask him that! The reason was probably not complicated, but
simple—that those who wrote it knew my address and didn’t know yours.
And wasn’t I one of your backers?”
“Yes, but not the principal one. The principal one was Paul Muniment.
Why wasn’t any communication made me through Paul Muniment?” And
this now struck him as a question that would reverberate the more one
thought of it.
“My dear Robinson, you want to know too many things. Depend on it
there are always good reasons. I should have preferred—yes—it had been
Muniment. But if they didn’t send to him——!” With which Schinkel’s
lucidity dropped and lost itself in a thick cloud of smoke.
“Well, if they didn’t send to him——?” Hyacinth persisted.
“You’re a great friend of his—how can I tell you?”
At this Hyacinth looked up at him askance and caught an ambiguous,
an evasive roll in his companion’s small, mild eye. “If it’s anything
against him my being his friend makes me just the man to hear it. I can
defend him.”
“Well, it’s a possibility they’re not satisfied.”
“How do you mean it—not satisfied?”
“How shall I say it?—that they don’t trust him.”
“Don’t trust him? And yet they trust me!”
“Ah my boy, depend upon it there are reasons,” Schinkel replied; and in
a moment he added: “They know everything—everything. They’re like the
great God of the believers: they’re searchers of hearts; and not only
of hearts, but of all a man’s life—his days, his nights, his spoken,
his unspoken words. Oh they go deep and they go straight!”
The pair pursued the rest of their course for the most part in silence,
Hyacinth being considerably struck with something that dropped from his
companion in answer to a question he asked as to what Eustache Poupin
had said when Schinkel, this evening, first told him what he had come
to see him about. “_Il vaut du galme—il vaut du galme_”: that was the
German’s version of the Frenchman’s words; and Hyacinth repeated them
over to himself several times and almost with the same accent. They
had a certain soothing effect. In fact the good Schinkel was somehow
salutary altogether, as our hero felt when they stopped at last at
the door of his lodging in Westminster and stood there face to face
while Hyacinth waited—just waited. The sharpness of his impatience
had passed away and he watched without irritation the loving manner in
which his mate shook the ashes out of the big smoked-out—so vehemently
smoked-out—pipe and laid it to rest in its coffin. It was only after he
had gone through this business with his usual attention to every detail
of it that he said “_Also_, now for the letter” and, putting his hand
inside his old waistcoat, drew forth the portentous missive. It passed
instantly into Hyacinth’s grasp, and our young man transferred it to
his own pocket without looking at it. He thought he saw disappointment
in Schinkel’s ugly, kindly face at this indication that he himself
should have no knowledge—present and relieving at least—of its
contents; but he liked that better than his pretending to attribute to
it again some silly comfortable sense. Schinkel had now the shrewdness
or the good taste not to repeat that remark, and as the letter pressed
against his heart Hyacinth felt it still more distinctly, not as a vain
balm to apprehension, but as the very penetration of a fatal knife.
What his friend did say in a moment was: “Now you’ve got it I’m very
glad. It’s easier for me.” And he effected a poor strained grin.
“I should think so!” Hyacinth exclaimed. “If you hadn’t done your job
you’d have paid for it.”
Schinkel mumbled as for accommodation while he lingered, and then as
Hyacinth turned away, putting in his door-key, brought out: “And if you
don’t do yours so will you.”
“Yes, as you say, they themselves go straight! Good-night.” And our
young man let himself in.
The passage and staircase were never lighted and the lodgers either
groped their way bedward with the infallibility of practice or scraped
the wall with a casual match the effect of which, in the milder gloom
of day, was a rude immensity of laceration. Hyacinth’s room was a
second floor back, and as he approached it he was startled by seeing a
light proceed from the crevice under the door, the imperfect fitting of
which figured to him thus as quite squalid. He stopped and considered
this new note of his crisis, his first impulse being to connect it with
the case just presented by Schinkel—since what could anything that
touched him now be but a part of the same business? It was doubtless
all in order that some second portent should now await him there. Yet
it occurred to him that when he went out to call on Lady Aurora after
tea he must simply have left a tallow candle burning, and that it
showed a cynical spirit on the part of his landlady, who could be so
close-fisted for herself, not to have gone in and put it out. Lastly
it came over him that he had had a visitor in his absence and that the
visitor had taken possession of his apartment till his return, seeking
such poor sources of comfort as were perfectly just. When he opened the
door this last prevision proved the correct one, though the figure in
occupation was not one of the possible presences that had loomed. Mr.
Vetch sat beside the little table at which Hyacinth did his writing; he
showed a weary head on a supporting hand and eyes apparently closed.
But he looked up when his young man appeared. “Oh I didn’t hear you;
you’re very quiet.”
“I come in softly when I’m late, for the sake of the house—though I’m
bound to say I’m the only lodger who has that refinement. Besides,
you’ve been asleep,” Hyacinth said.
“No, I’ve not been asleep,” the old man returned. “I don’t sleep much
nowadays.”
“Then you’ve been plunged in meditation.”
“Yes, I’ve been thinking.” With which Mr. Vetch explained that the
woman of the house had begun by refusing him admittance without proper
assurances that his intentions were pure and that he was moreover the
oldest friend Mr. Robinson had in the world. He had been there an hour;
he had thought he might find him by coming late.
Mr. Robinson was very glad he had waited and was delighted to see him
and expressed regret that he hadn’t known in advance of his visit, so
that he might have something to offer him. He sat down on the bed,
vaguely expectant; he wondered what special purpose had brought the
fiddler so far at that unnatural hour. Yet he spoke but the truth in
saying he was glad to see him. Hyacinth had come upstairs in such a
pain of desire to be alone with the revelation carried in his pocket
that the sight of a guest had given him positive relief by postponing
solitude. The place where he had put his letter seemed to throb
against his side, yet he was thankful to his old friend for forcing
him still to leave it so. “I’ve been looking at your books,” the
fiddler said; “you’ve two or three exquisite specimens of your own.
Oh yes, I recognise your work when I see it; there are always certain
little finer touches. You’ve a manner, as who should say, like one of
the masters. With such a hand and such feeling your future’s assured.
You’ll make a fortune and become famous.”
Mr. Vetch sat forward to sketch this vision; he rested his hands on
his knees and looked very hard at his young host, as if to challenge
him to dispute a statement so cheering and above all so authoritative.
The effect of what Hyacinth saw in his face was to produce immediately
the idea that the fiddler knew something, though there was no guessing
how he could know it. The Poupins, for instance, had had no time to
communicate with him, even granting them capable of that baseness—all
inconceivable in spite of Hyacinth’s having seen them, less than an
hour before, fall so much below their own standard. With this suspicion
there rushed into his mind an intense determination to dissemble
before his visitor to the last: he might imagine what he liked, but he
should have no grain of satisfaction—or rather should have only that
of being led to believe if possible that his suspicions were “rot.”
Hyacinth glanced over the books he had taken down from the shelf and
admitted that they were pleasing efforts and that so long as one didn’t
become blind or maimed the ability to produce that sort of thing was
a legitimate source of confidence. Then suddenly, as they continued
simply to look at each other, the pressure of the old man’s curiosity,
the expression of his probing, beseeching eyes, which had become
strange and tragic in these latter times and completely changed their
character, grew so intolerable that to defend himself our hero took the
aggressive and asked him boldly if it were simply to look at his work,
of which he had half-a-dozen specimens in Lomax Place, that he had made
a nocturnal pilgrimage. “My dear old friend, you’ve something on your
mind—some fantastic fear, some extremely erroneous _idée fixe_. Why has
it taken you to-night in particular? Whatever it is it has brought you
here at an unnatural hour under some impulse you don’t or can’t name.
I ought of course to be thankful to anything that brings you here; and
so I am in so far as that it makes me happy. But I can’t like it if it
makes _you_ miserable. You’re like a nervous mother whose baby’s in bed
upstairs; she goes up every five minutes to see if he’s all right—if
he isn’t uncovered or hasn’t tumbled out of bed. Dear Mr. Vetch, don’t,
don’t worry; the blanket’s up to my chin and I haven’t tumbled yet.”
He heard himself say these things as if he were listening to another
person; the impudence of them in the grim conditions seemed to him
somehow so rare. But he believed himself to be on the edge of a form
of action in which impudence evidently must play a considerable part,
and he might as well try his hand at it without delay. The way the
old man looked out might have indicated that he too was able to take
the measure of his perversity—judged him false to sit there declaring
there was nothing the matter while a brand-new revolutionary commission
burned in his pocket. But in a moment Mr. Vetch said very mildly and
as if he had really been reassured: “It’s wonderful how you read my
thoughts. I don’t trust you; I think there are beastly possibilities.
It’s not true at any rate that I come to look at you every five
minutes. You don’t know how often I’ve resisted my fears—how I’ve
forced myself to let you alone.”
“You had better let me come and live with you as I proposed after
Pinnie’s death. Then you’ll have me always under your eyes,” Hyacinth
smiled.
The old man got up eagerly and, as Hyacinth did the same, laid firm
hands on his shoulders, holding him close. “Will you now really, my
boy? Will you come to-night?”
“To-night, Mr. Vetch?”
“To-night has worried me more than any other, I don’t know why. After
my tea I had my pipe and a glass, but I couldn’t keep quiet; I was
very, very bad. I got to thinking of Pinnie—she seemed to be in the
room. I felt as if I could put out my hand and touch her. If I believed
in ghosts, in signs or messages from the dead, I should believe I had
seen her. She wasn’t there for nothing; she was there to add her fears
to mine—to talk to me about you. I tried to hush her up, but it was no
use—she drove me out of the house. About ten o’clock I took my hat and
stick and came down here. You may judge if I thought it important—I
took a cab.”
“Ah why do you spend your money so foolishly?” Hyacinth asked in a tone
of the most affectionate remonstrance.
“Will you come to-night?” said his companion for rejoinder, holding him
still.
“Surely it would be simpler for you to stay here. I see perfectly
you’re ill and nervous. You can take the bed and I’ll spend the night
in the chair.”
The fiddler thought a moment. “No, you’ll hate me if I subject you to
such discomfort as that; and that’s just what I don’t want.”
“It won’t be a bit different in your room. There as here I shall have
to sleep in a chair.”
“I’ll get another room. We shall be close together,” the fiddler went
on.
“Do you mean you’ll get another room at this hour of the night, with
your little house stuffed full and your people all in bed? My poor
Anastasius, you’re very bad; your reason totters on its throne,” said
Hyacinth with excellent gaiety.
“Very good, we’ll get a room to-morrow. I’ll move into another house
where there are two side by side.” His “boy’s” tone was evidently
soothing to him.
“_Comme vous y allez!_” the young man continued. “Excuse me if I remind
you that in case of my leaving this place I’ve to give a fortnight’s
notice.”
“Ah you’re backing out!” Mr. Vetch lamented, dropping his hands.
“Pinnie wouldn’t have said that,” Hyacinth returned. “If you’re acting,
if you’re speaking, at the behest of her pure spirit, you had better
act and speak exactly as she’d have done. She’d have believed me.”
“Believed you? Believed what? What’s there to believe? If you’ll make
me a promise I’ll believe that.”
“I’ll make you any promise you like,” said Hyacinth.
“Oh any promise I like—that isn’t what I want! I want just one
very particular little proof—and that’s really what I came here for
to-night. It came over me that I’ve been an ass all this time never
to have got it out of you before. Give it to me now and I’ll go home
quietly and leave you in peace.” Hyacinth, assenting in advance,
requested again that he would formulate his demand, and then Mr. Vetch
said: “Well, make me a promise—on your honour and as from the man
you are, God help you, to the man I am—that you’ll never, under any
circumstances whatever, ‘do’ anything.”
“‘Do’ anything——?”
“Anything those people expect of you.”
“Those people?” Hyacinth repeated.
“Ah don’t torment me—worried as I already am—with pretending not to
understand!” the old man wailed. “You know the people I mean. I can’t
call them by their names, because I don’t know their names. But you do,
and they know _you_.”
Hyacinth had no desire to torment him, but he was capable of reflecting
that to enter into his thought too easily would be tantamount to
betraying himself. “I suppose I know the people you’ve in mind,”
he said in a moment; “but I’m afraid I don’t grasp the need of such
solemnities.”
“Don’t they want to make use of you?”
“I see what you mean,” said Hyacinth. “You think they want me to touch
off some train for them. Well, if that’s what troubles you, you may
sleep sound. I shall never do any of their work.”
A radiant light came into the fiddler’s face; he stared as if this
assurance were too fair for nature. “Do you take your oath to that?
Never anything, anything, anything?”
“Never anything at all.”
“Will you swear it to me by the memory of that good woman of whom we’ve
been speaking and whom we both loved?”
“My dear old Pinnie’s memory? Willingly.”
Mr. Vetch sank down in his chair and buried his face in his hands; the
next moment his companion heard him sobbing. Ten minutes later he was
content to take his departure and Hyacinth went out with him to look
for another cab. They found an ancient four-wheeler stationed languidly
at a crossing of the ways, and before he got into it he asked his young
friend to kiss him. The young friend did so with a fine accolade and in
the frank foreign manner, on both cheeks, and then watched the vehicle
get itself into motion and rattle away. He saw it turn a neighbouring
corner and then approached the nearest gas-lamp to draw from his
breast-pocket the sealed letter Schinkel had given him.