[Illustration: THE RETURN]
It was curious--that sense of dull uneasiness that came over him so
suddenly, so stealthily at first he scarcely noticed it, but with
such marked increase after a time that he presently got up and left
the theatre. His seat was on the gangway of the dress circle, and he
slipped out awkwardly in the middle of what seemed to be the best and
jolliest song of the piece. The full house was shaking with laughter;
so infectious was the gaiety that even strangers turned to one another
as much as to say: ‘Now, isn’t _that_ funny--?’
It was curious, too, the way the feeling first got into him at all,
here in the full swing or laughter, music, light-heartedness, for it
came as a vague suggestion: ‘I’ve forgotten something--something I
meant to do--something of importance. What in the world was it, now?’
And he thought hard, searching vainly through his mind; then dismissed
it as the dancing caught his attention. It came back a little later
again, during a passage of long-winded talk that bored him and set his
attention free once more, but came more strongly this time, insisting
on an answer. What could it have been that he had overlooked, left
undone, omitted to see to? It went on nibbling at the subconscious part
of him. Several times this happened, this dismissal and return, till
at last the thing declared itself more plainly--and he felt bothered,
troubled, distinctly uneasy.
He was wanted somewhere. There was somewhere else he ought to be. That
describes it best, perhaps. Some engagement of moment had entirely
slipped his memory--an engagement that involved another person, too.
But where, what, with whom? And, at length, this vague uneasiness
amounted to positive discomfort, so that he felt unable to enjoy
the piece--and left abruptly. Like a man to whom comes suddenly the
horrible idea that the match he lit his cigarette with and flung into
the waste-paper basket on leaving was not really out--a sort of panic
distress--he jumped into a taxi-cab and hurried to his flat: to find
everything in order, of course; no smoke, no fire, no smell of burning.
But his evening was spoilt. He sat smoking in his armchair at
home--this business man of forty, practical in mind, of character
some called stolid--cursing himself for an imaginative fool. It was
now too late to go back to the theatre; the club bored him; he spent
an hour with the evening papers, dipping into books, sipping a long
cool drink; doing odds and ends about the flat; ‘I’ll go to bed early
for a change,’ he laughed, but really all the time fighting--yes,
deliberately fighting--this strange attack of uneasiness that so
insidiously grew upwards, outwards from the buried depths of him that
sought so strenuously to deny it. It never occurred to him that he was
ill. He was _not_ ill. His health was thunderingly good. He was robust
as a coal-heaver.
The flat was roomy, high up on the top floor, yet in a busy part of
town, so that the roar of traffic mounted round it like a sea. Through
the open windows came the fresh night air of June. He had never
noticed before how sweet the London night air could be, and that not
all the smoke and dust could smother a certain touch of wild fragrance
that tinctured it with perfume--yes, almost perfume--as of the country.
He swallowed a draught of it as he stood there, staring out across the
tangled world of roofs and chimney-pots. He saw the procession of the
clouds; he saw the stars; he saw the moonlight falling in a shower of
silver spears upon the slates and wires and steeples. And something in
him quickened--something that had never stirred before.
He turned with a horrid start, for the uneasiness had of a sudden
leaped within him like an animal. There was some one in the flat.
Instantly, with action, even this slight action, the fancy vanished;
but, all the same, he switched on the electric lights and made a
search. For it seemed to him that some one had crept up close behind
him while he stood there watching the Night--some one, moreover,
whose silent presence fingered with unerring touch both this new
thing that had quickened in his heart and that sense of original deep
uneasiness. He was amazed at himself, angry; indignant that he could
be thus foolishly upset over nothing, yet at the same time profoundly
distressed at this vehement growth of a new thing in his well-ordered
personality. Growth? He dismissed the word the moment it occurred to
him. But it had occurred to him. It stayed. While he searched the
empty flat, the long passages, the gloomy bedroom at the end, the
little hall where he kept his overcoats and golf sticks--it stayed.
Growth! It was oddly disquieting. Growth, to him, involved--though he
neither acknowledged nor recognised the truth perhaps--some kind of
undesirable changeableness, instability, unbalance.
Yet, singular as it all was, he realised that the uneasiness and the
sudden appreciation of Beauty that was so new to him had both entered
by the same door into his being. When he came back to the front room he
noticed that he was perspiring. There were little drops of moisture on
his forehead. And down his spine ran positively chills--little, faint
quivers of cold. He was shivering.
He lit his big meerschaum pipe, and left the lights all burning. The
feeling that there was something he had overlooked, forgotten, left
undone, had vanished. Whatever the original cause of this absurd
uneasiness might be--he called it absurd on purpose, because he now
realised in the depths of him that it was really more vital than he
cared about--it was much nearer to discovery than before. It dodged
about just below the threshold of discovery. It was as close as that.
Any moment he would know what it was: he would remember. Yes, he would
_remember_. Meanwhile, he was in the right place. No desire to go
elsewhere afflicted him, as in the theatre. Here was the place, here in
the flat.
And then it was, with a kind of sudden burst and rush--it seemed to him
the only way to phrase it--memory gave up her dead.
At first he only caught her peeping round the corner at him, drawing
aside a corner of an enormous curtain, as it were; striving for more
complete entrance as though the mass of it were difficult to move.
But he understood; he knew; he recognised. It was enough for that. An
entrance into his being--heart, mind, soul--was being attempted, and
the entrance, because of his stolid temperament, was difficult of
accomplishment. There was effort, strain. Something in him had first to
be opened up, widened, made soft and ready as by an operation, before
full entrance could be effected. This much he grasped, though for the
life of him he could not have put it into words. Also, he knew _who_ it
was that sought an entrance. Deliberately from himself he withheld the
name. But he knew, as surely as though Straughan stood in the room and
faced him with a knife, saying, ‘Let me in, let me in. I wish you to
know I’m here. I’m clearing a way...! You recall our promise...?’
He rose from his chair and went to the open window again, the strange
fear slowly passing. The cool air fanned his cheeks. Beauty, till
now, had scarcely ever brushed the surface of his soul. He had never
troubled his head about it. It passed him by, indifferent; and he
had ever loathed the mouthy prating of it on others’ lips. He was
practical; beauty was for dreamers, for women, for men who had means
and leisure. He had not exactly scorned it; rather it had never
touched his life, to sweeten, cheer, uplift. Artists for him were like
monks--another sex almost, useless beings who never helped the world go
round. He was for action always, work, activity, achievement--as he saw
them. He remembered Straughan vaguely--Straughan, the ever impecunious,
friend of his youth, always talking of colour, sound--mysterious,
ineffective things. He even forgot what they had quarrelled about,
if they _had_ quarrelled at all even; or why they had gone apart all
these years ago. And, certainly, he had forgotten any promise. Memory,
as yet, only peeped round the corner of that huge curtain at him,
tentatively, suggestively, yet--he was obliged to admit it--somewhat
winningly. He was conscious of this gentle, sweet seductiveness that
now replaced his fear.
And, as he stood now at the open window, peering over huge London,
Beauty came close and smote him between the eyes. She came blindingly,
with her train of stars and clouds and perfumes. Night, mysterious,
myriad-eyed, and flaming across her sea of haunted shadows, invaded his
heart and shook him with her immemorial wonder and delight. He found
no words, of course, to clothe the new, unwonted sensations. He only
knew that all his former dread, uneasiness, distress, and with them
this idea of ‘growth’ that had seemed so repugnant to him, were merged,
swept up, and gathered magnificently home into a wave or Beauty that
enveloped him. ‘See it ... and understand,’ ran a secret inner whisper
across his mind. He saw. He understood....
He went back and turned the lights out. Then he took his place again at
that open window, drinking in the night. He saw a new world; a species
of intoxication held him. He sighed ... as his thoughts blundered
for expression among words and sentences that knew him not. But the
delight was there, the wonder, the mystery. He watched, with heart
alternately tightening and expanding, the transfiguring play of moon
and shadow over the sea of buildings. He saw the dance of the hurrying
clouds, the open patches into outer space, the veiling and unveiling
of that ancient silvery face; and he caught strange whispers of the
hierophantic, sacerdotal Power that has echoed down the world since
Time began and dropped strange magic phrases into every poet’s heart
since first ‘God dawned on Chaos’--the Beauty of the Night....
A long time passed--it may have been one hour, it may have been
three--when at length he turned away and went slowly to his bedroom. A
deep peace lay over him. Something quite new and blessed had crept into
his life and thought. He could not quite understand it all. He only
knew that it uplifted. There was no longer the least sign of affliction
or distress. Even the inevitable reaction that, of course, set in could
not destroy that.
And then, as he lay in bed, nearing the borderland of sleep, suddenly
and without any obvious suggestion to bring it, he remembered another
thing. He remembered the promise. Memory got past the big curtain
for an instant, and showed her face. She looked into his eyes. It
must have been a dozen years ago when Straughan and he had made that
foolish, solemn promise that whoever died first should show himself, if
possible, to the other.
He had utterly forgotten it--till now. But Straughan had not forgotten
it. The letter came three weeks later, from India. That very evening
Straughan had died--at nine o’clock. And he had come back--in the
Beauty that he loved.