But as he neared the mist-wreathed cliffs of Dover McTaggart's
patriotism was put to the test by the captious weather and the
hopeless, sea-sick crowd around him. Rain and hail and distant thunder
were his portion, a choppy sea and a boat packed with a draggled party
from the Polytechnic, returning home.
He said to himself he had never seen his countrymen to worse advantage.
Beside them, Mario, chilled to the bone but still cheerful, inured to
the motion by many a past yachting trip, looked a perfect aristocrat
from his well-poised head to his slender feet.
A woman, their neighbour on the boat, lost her hat, then her rug,
wailing aloud, and Mario, at his master's nod, retrieved them
imperturbably from the skittish antics of the wind.
The sufferer never even thanked him, but clutched her belongings with a
glance full of mistrust, recognizing a foreigner--or, in other words--a
doubtful character!
At last they bumped against the pier; ropes whirled out, gangways
creaked; a mad herd of humans crushed after porters, charging with
hoisted bags.
The train looked absurdly small. McTaggart thought the station shrunk
and his first English cup of tea was cold and strong, in a leaking pot.
Even the fields, as they left the Downs, seemed to have dwindled to
half their size. The rain lashed against the glass. Between the
streams trickling down he began to catch green vistas of hops with
their quaint, peaked oast-houses like the caps worn by hob-goblins from
the pages of a fairy book.
Rochester!--under leaden skies, smoky, blurred. The train rocked on,
the shorter gauge oddly aggressive in the low-built, narrow carriage.
Then, at last, Charing Cross; the endless wait for the luggage and the
final crowning disenchantment--no taxis!--due to "the strike."
After a dismal half hour a "runner" returned with a four wheeler and
they both got in, hampered by baggage, neither of them in the best of
tempers.
Mario was plainly aghast. "This--London?" he seemed to say.
"Yes--confound it!" thought McTaggart. He began to wish he had stayed
abroad.
They crawled along, past Trafalgar Square and its dripping lions, past
Hampton's, then, before the block of carriages outside the Carlton,
swerved to the right.
Half way up the Haymarket hill McTaggart thrust his head out and
shouted.
"Hi! Cabby--stop a minute." His face brightened as he spoke. He
opened the door and splashed across the muddy pavement into a shop with
a quaint old fashioned bow-window and asked for a box of cigarettes.
"Good evening, sir." The man smiled across the counter with an air of
pleased recognition. "We haven't seen you lately, sir." Here was his
first welcome home.
"I've been abroad for eighteen months. I'll take a cigarette now." He
lighted it with an English match, free from sulphur, and picked up the
box.
"You can put it down to the old address." He drew in the fragrant
smoke with joy. "Good-night--I'll take these matches." His hand
closed on them lovingly. He retraced his steps and dived once more
into the stuffy, waiting cab.
"Well--that's one thing you can't beat--our baccy," he said to himself
as they jolted round against the curb into the full glare of the Circus.
The wet streets mirrored back the thousand lights from above ...
McTaggart felt, suddenly, something grip him by the throat.
_London_! The magic of the word rushed up like a warm tide, round his
heart, into his head.
"Good old London!"--he caught his breath.
"Mario!"--he touched the man. "Look out, quick! it's Piccadilly."
A burly policeman waved them on.
"Now, then--Hurry up!--four-wheeler."
Dodging like a human eel between the buses, a ragged boy slipped past
and paused at the window, his shrill voice raised in a cry:
"Star!--'h _Ev'ning News_--Speshul! 'Ere you are, sir--h'all the
winners..." jerked the paper into the cab, and was off, clutching
McTaggart's penny.
Like a silver ribbon streaked with light, Piccadilly stretched ahead,
buses skidding, and near at hand rang the gay tootle of a horn.
Then, into the congested space, rattling harness, clanking bits, a
private coach, with four bays, wet and shining, splashed with froth,
picked its way like a dainty dame, disdainful of the lesser traffic.
Mario's dark face brightened. He loved horses and knew their points.
This was a picture after his heart, dissipating his sense of gloom.
For he could not see with McTaggart's eyes. At his master's quick,
impulsive cry, he had peered out eagerly, pleased by the word
"Piccadilly" with its familiar foreign ring.
He saw a small open space, between a square and a circle, with shops
and lights and a feeble statue--like a lost infant--in the centre.
He stared at it with inward contempt.
"Not half as fine," he said to himself, "as the fountain in our Sienese
palace! And as for the rest of the 'piazza' ... why, there isn't a
single public building--not even a decent Church! And the rain ... Is
this the English summer? No wonder it's a cold race!"
He looked covertly at his master, amazed by his obvious touch of
excitement.
For McTaggart was taking a deep breath of the foggy air that reeked
with petrol.
"It's good to be back again," he thought; "I wonder if Bethune will be
there? I sent him a wire, but he's such a beggar for work, one never
knows. By Jove, I must see about a car--useful during the present
strike..." He peered out at the Berkeley steps where a lady in evening
dress, her light wrap drawn about her, filmy skirts wound close,
crossed, dainty, over the pavement beside her attendant cavalier.
They turned into a side street, splashing and lumbering along, until,
at last, they halted before the old familiar, narrow house.
The door was open. McTaggart ran up the steep stairs like a boy.
"Hullo! Mrs. Frost--how are you? Yes, I'm back. Rather late. Hope
you got my letter all right?"
"Yessir. Your rooms are ready." The sour faced woman was actually
smiling.
"My man's below--but he can't speak English--Will you see to him and
pay the cab? _Hullo_! there you are, old man."
He was shaking hands wildly with Bethune.
"Steady on--what a grip! Confound you, you've broken my wrist..."
Bethune's honest face was beaming. He dealt him a playful blow on the
chest.
"Hard as a rock!--you do look fit. I prepared to receive a languid
foreigner. Come inside, Monsieur le Marquis..."
"Oh--shut up! You ... dear old fool!"
McTaggart glanced around at his rooms, the worn carpet and furniture
that had seen service in College days--each scratch and dent a memory.
Above the glass, still littered with cards and photographs, there hung
an oar and underneath, on either side, stood a pair of battered silver
cups.
He drew a deep sigh of content.
"Get me a drink--there's a dear chap! Hullo--that window's still
smashed. What a rag it was! d'you remember that night?" For the
topmost pane of glass was cracked from side to side beneath the blind.
"Let's look at you"--he took the glass that Bethune filled for him and
drank. "That's good. Why!--the 'Round Man's' growing a figure..."
Bethune scowled.
"Shut up! I got in whiskey--thought you'd want it. Here's luck----"
he tossed it off--"What are you going to do about dinner? It's getting
pretty late, you know."
"Yes--we had a rotten crossing--the boat an hour over time. Have you
dined yourself--no?--that's right. I thought we'd go down to
Simpson's. I feel like a good cut off the joint..."
Bethune laughed. "The illustrious Marquis is tired of his native
macaroni?"
"A bottle of beer--and some Welsh rabbit"--the other ran on, ignoring
the taunt. "I'm fed up with Chianti."
He stopped on the word with a little start.
For the first time for many weeks a memory returned to him of his visit
to Harley Street and the problem of his "double" heart.
What was it he had laughingly said? (How long ago that day seemed ...
The era of Fantine and Cydonia.)
Yes--"porridge" it was, and "Chianti!"
He glanced up at the mantelpiece as Bethune, hearing steps outside,
trundled away to give instructions to the bewildered Mario.
"No change?" he heard him say. "All right--I'll see to it."
A face smiled down at McTaggart out of a tarnished silver frame.
Cydonia in a big black hat, white furs around her throat--with her
childish mouth and wide eyes. He took it down and gazed at it.
Cydonia!--the girl he had loved.
Deliberately he placed the verb in the past tense. For it was true.
Nothing of his passion remained, but a mild, wondering affection!
Absence and time had achieved the cure. _One_ broken heart at least
was mended! And Fantine...? At the name he felt a sudden stab of
regret.
How strange were life and life's emotions! Although her picture was
destroyed--(he had done it in anger that fatal night) her image rose
clear in his mind.
Of the two women he missed her most--in the flood-tide of his return.
Her stronger personality, the power of wit and imagination that blent
with her careless scorn of men, her nameless, utterly feminine charm,
had survived that other disillusion.
He put Cydonia's portrait back quickly as Bethune re-entered the room.
Then, conscious that his hasty action had not escaped his friend's
eyes, in an indifferent voice, he asked:
"Ever hear anything of the Cadells?"
"Yes--no!" Bethune turned to the sideboard, horribly at a loss. He
coughed, then started with a plunge to get his unwelcome news over.
"Met 'Jinks' the other day--remember 'Jinks' of Trinity?--got his blue
for Rugger--Well, he knows Miss Cadell--that was."
"What?" McTaggart's voice was sharp.
Bethune, fidgeting with the syphon, his back turned to his friend,
received a sudden baptism, stinging and cold, of soda water.
"Oh, damn!--now I've spilled it. Yes, that's it--She's married, you
know. A chap called Euan Flemming--an M.P. for ... God knows where!"
"Well--I'm blessed!" McTaggart laughed; a little sourly, truth to
tell. Despite the conclusion arrived at earlier he felt somewhat taken
aback.
"Cheer up," he addressed the broad shoulders of his still perturbed
friend. "You mixed the news with soda water but I could have stood it
neat."
Bethune wheeled round, his face red. "I'm jolly glad--I've been
funking it." He met McTaggart's amused eyes and beamed all over his
honest face.
"That's over," said McTaggart--"long ago. What about dinner?--I'll
just go and have a wash and be with you--if you're ready."
"I should think I am!--half famished--I've been down at Brooklands with
a new car. Hurry up!"
He dropped into a chair as McTaggart called through the folding doors.
"D'you ever see Jill now? It's a bad business about her mother."
"I was there yesterday--to inquire. They let her out at the end of the
week--but she's been awfully ill since. It was pretty nearly touch and
go..."
There came a sound of splashing water; then McTaggart's voice again:
"I'm glad she's home at any rate. What's become of the priceless
Stephen?"
"Dont's ask me. I bar the chap. D'you remember old Charlie Mason?
Well, he managed at last to get a billet with Hensley and Benton, the
big wine people. He dropped in to see me, last night, full of trouble.
It seems that Somerfield had let him in for a big order for himself and
several pals of his. And now they say they can't stump up--it sounds
like a regular plant! Awfully hard lines on Charlie--the firm have
given him the sack."
"You don't say so. Bad luck! I always thought Stephen a wrong 'un.
How's Jill herself?"
A pause.
"Oh--all right," but Bethune frowned. "Jolly plucky about it all. I
fancy they're rather in low water. It's between ourselves, you
understand. But she's left College for good now and it seems to me
she's taken on most of the house work at home. They only keep one
servant."
"What a shame!" came from McTaggart, busily brushing back his hair.
"It's a thousand pities her mother gives up all her time to Suffrage
work. She might consider her family. I can't understand the
attraction. Seems to me it's like drink--when a woman really takes to
it there's no earthly stopping her!"
"I quite agree," said Bethune, "I'm sorry for Jill. And the boy, too,"
he added somewhat hastily. His pale face was slightly flushed. "You
ready?"
He picked up his hat as his friend reappeared. "It's stopped
raining----" he glanced at the window. "We've had an awfully wet
season--nothing like it since the Flood. I nearly started a motor
boat--cheap trips in Piccadilly!"
They clattered downstairs together and out on to the shining pavement.
"We'd better take a bus, I suppose," said McTaggart--"how long has this
strike been on?"
"About a fortnight----" Bethune laughed. "I expect you're glad to get
back to England?"
But the other answered seriously. "Well--I _am_. It's an odd
thing----" he sniffed up the air, damp and smoky, and smiled to
himself, his eyes bright. "But there's something about London, you
know..."
He left the sentence incomplete