_Wherein, the Barber letting the Cat out of the Bag, we give Chase_
In the gathering darkness of his dingy little room over the southern
gate of New Inn sat Noll Baddlesmere in his shirt-sleeves, cudgelling
his wandering wits for epigrams and the dramatic situation; yet though
the dun walls did not distract his attention with the restlessness of
over-abundant gaieties, nor the sedate quietude nor the narrow view
from his grimy windows strain his nerves--indeed, he could scarce hear
the turmoil of the traffic in the great Strand hard by--he was unable
to settle down to hard work, nor could he rid himself of the fret of
his thoughts.
For hours he had thus striven to banish his loneliness, but our
deceptions fail at last even to deceive ourselves. His instincts were
bent on finding Betty; and the gloom of the dying day, though it
thwarted his eyesight and raised disturbing ghosts of thought, held the
whisper of the fact that he had come near to the flying glimpse of her.
It was as though her skirts had rustled across his dreams in the ornate
halls of the Malahides, flipped into a baffling doorway, and vanished
into mocking silence--yet but a door between. He fretted that he could
find no slightest trace of her.
He flung down his pen; arose from his desk in the dusky gloom; dressed
for the street; and strolled out of his rooms aimlessly into the grey
of the evening that held the old quadrangle in a smoky stillness.
In the vexed traffic of the Strand he suddenly bethought him of Devlin;
and straightway turned his steps towards the barber’s.
As he reached the corner of the street where Devlin plied the scissors,
he saw Myre hail a hansom and drive off in it.
Noll, entering the barber’s room, was greeted by the little cockney
Irishman with frantic delight; and Noll himself was glad to step back
across the threshold into his old world.
He gave up his hat to the dandified little man and sat down in the
barber’s chair before the mirror, the little man fussing about him the
while.
“Devlin,” said he, lying back in the chair, “I saw Mr. Myre leaving
this place----”
Devlin flung a large white pinafore round the youth and tied it at the
back of his neck.
“That’s so, sir,” said Devlin. He tucked some white towels under his
chin. “And faith, it’s quite the great man he is now.”
“Hoho!” said Noll--“affluent and well-to-do, eh? I suppose he has quite
divorced himself from Art, then!”
“What’s that?” screamed Devlin, stopping his lathering. “Mr. Myre
divorced from Art!” He went to the door to see that it was carefully
closed. “Whisht, sir; it’s a fine hairy libel-action ye’ll be wadin’ in
at the police courts, Mr. Noll, if ye don’t hold a restraint on ye.”
“But my good Devlin--he always swore that reward and affluence destroy
the artist!”
Devlin laughed; and got back to his lathering:
“Ah, Mr. Noll, it’s your old self, it is--findin’ flaws in the Irish
logic of him.” He chose a razor. “By the book, I remember well the day
Mr. Lovegood pulled the leg of the great man here. Ye’ll remember it,
maybe. No?” He held Noll’s chin with damp fingers and began to shave:
“Well, says Mr. Myre, says he, it’s death and to the devil with art
when the artist works for money and reward, says he. That’s so, says
Mr. Lovegood, for I always thought meself, says Lovegood, down in the
great resoundin’ belly of him, says he: I always thought meself, says
he, that Willie Shakespeare would have turned out less indifferent
poetry, says he, if he hadn’t been trying to fill the stalls in his old
Globe Theatre all the time, says he, and makin’ eight thousand a year,
present reckoning, out of the damned blank poetry of him, says he....
Mr. Myre he licked his lips, wid a black sullen look on him, like a dog
that’s been robbed of his bone. And, by the powers, the most simple law
officer of the Crown could have foretold that Mr. Myre was going to
have a sudden engagement in the city thin and there from the wan smile
that came over the head of him. But----”
He concentrated his whole attention for a while on the upper lip of
Noll, and having shaved it, he added:
“But it’s the black mental gloom that got a holt of the great man that
day.”
“Oh?” asked Noll.
“That’s so,” said the barber. “Oh, yes.... And ye didn’t hear tell of
it, sir?... Mother of God, it was the talk of the sivin continents....
Ah, begod, sure it’s a damned penny-whistle this Fame, anny way. Ah,
sir; it was a great fall that, mind ye. He took it like Julius Cæsar
with the Opposition takin’ hacks out of him under Pompey’s pillar--just
wid a wan dignified look on him.... Oh, yes; he’s a great man. If
stickin’ to it, and the divil’s own confidence in one’s own greatness,
and industry, and strong opinions and histrionic adultery can make
genius, that man’s a barrel of it----”
He was drying Noll’s face, and removing the shaving-cloths from about
his chin when the cling of the door-bell gave warning that someone had
entered the outer shop--footsteps came towards the room.
“Whisht!” said the barber, “here’s Mr. Cartel Maungy.”
“Who?”
“Whisht! I’ll tell ye when he’s gone, Mr. Noll. Sure, the paper’s lyin’
about there somewheres--and I’ll have done with the gintleman in three
minutes forty-five seconds.”
Noll nodded, and betook himself to a seat, suspecting some mystery that
the barber would divulge after his own quaint fashion, which brooked no
hurrying--to end in some fantastic nothingness or a good story.
The door opened, and there entered, sedate and old-aired, a handsome
dandified little old gentleman.
The barber, with gorgeous bow and diffident formality, relieved the
silent man of his hat and cane, and leading him to a seat, soon had
him swathed to the chin in cloths, and was shaving the soap-lathered
ascetic face that gazed at the ceiling meditatively.
The shaving being done, and the swathings of many white cloths removed
from about his chin and shoulders, the courtly figure arose from the
chair, and being given his hat and cane by the even more elaborate
barber, he withdrew from the room.
“Who’s that?” asked Noll.
“Well, sir; he’s a kind of Frenchified poet av the name of Cartel de
Maungy.... The gintlemen call him The Man of Pallid Ideals,” said the
barber. “The gintlemen were saying only last night that he’s been a bit
of a literary genius in his time in the minor poet line; but Misther
Myre he says the man’s but an Inkstain on the Carpet of Time. Oh, but
it’s a trenchant tongue Misther Myre’s got on him when he gets handlin’
the comparisons against literary reputations----”
“Yes, yes, Devlin--never mind Mr. Myre. About this man of pallid
ideals----”
The barber lowered his voice to the confidential:
“Ah, now that’s a mighty queer story, Mr. Noll. It’s the victim of the
grand passion that man is; Vanus rest his soul. Victim? begod!--he’s
the hero of a romance that’s kept a holt of him since his chin began
the need of shavin’--and that’s as long as your grandfather or mine
can remimber the seasons. That man has just played on the music of his
little love-affair until he’s clean pulled the cat-gut out of the old
fiddle--plucked at the shtrings of the old melody until he’s torn the
bowels out of the old harpsichord of Romance.... Sure, my father shaved
him before me, and remembered the day it got about that the girl’s
father swore he’d have no damned Frenchified poetaster for son-in-law.
And the little gintleman’s been lovin’ the girl ever since, until
there’s only the memory of them both left to each other. He might have
married the little lady this forty years--the divil a soul to prevent
it--but----”
He shrugged his shoulders, and gave up the tangle.
“Well?” asked Noll.
“Well, he goes and walks before her doorway every evenin’, as the
twilight falls, and sometimes they take a stroll together. And--by the
same token! she lives in the same house where Miss Betty lodges----”
Noll rose to his feet.
“Where?”
The barber was startled.
Noll strode up to him:
“Where does Miss Betty live?” he asked, hoarsely.
The little barber gazed at him:
“It isn’t ghosts ye are seeing, Mr. Noll?” he asked.
Noll put his hand on the other’s shoulder:
“Quick, man--where is the house?”
“Ah, now--Mr. Noll--ye’re pullin’ the innocent leg of me,” he said,
laughing.
Noll pulled himself together. He strode to the door.
“Quick, Devlin--for God’s sake! Which way does--the--the man of pallid
ideals usually go?” he asked roughly.
The barber followed him to the street, and standing in the lamp-lit
dusk he pointed out the way:
“Up there, till ye reach that turn by the red pillar-box, then sharp
to the right--then straight on till ye---- Begad, he’s off like a
policeman down the kitchen steps when the area belle’s a-ringing----”
He stood gaping at the vanishing figure of the youth who strode up the
street.
The little man’s jaw dropped.
“Oh, murder!”
He scratched his poll aghast:
“Mother of God!” said he--“of coorse! Victoria May Alice told
me--there’s been a misunderstandin’--or maybe even a partin’--or some
heathen tom-noddy----”
He walked into his shop soberly.
“Mike Devlin,” said he--and he rubbed his chin ruefully: “ye’ve put
your great damn foot slap into the big drum of the farcical tragedy.”
Noll strode out. In the glimmering grey of the hustling world he
tramped; but the hush was alive with whispers--and the blood was
jumping in him.
He caught sight at last of the distant back of the Man of Pallid Ideals.
He turned, after some walking, into one of those silent streets that
give off the noisy thoroughfare of the roaring city, and by the
silence he knew that he was in a street where lodgings are. At once he
slackened pace, for, a hundred strides before him, walked slowly the
slender Man of Pallid Ideals, who at last halted, stood a little while
looking up at a window across the street, sighed, and passed brooding
into the twilight beyond.
Not so Noll.
He marked the halting-place, paced the distance, and swung round
towards the house opposite.
In the topmost window was a light; and Noll knew that by that light was
Betty sitting--that the light was on her nut-brown hair--kissing her
cheek----
He strode straight across the road, and rang the bell.
When the maid opened the door, Noll said:
“I wish to see Miss Betty Modeyne at once, please--lead the way to her
rooms.”
The maid, used to the unquestioning obedience of orders, when
given with authority, led the way upstairs, regardless of all the
proprieties, careless of etiquette....
Arrived at the topmost landing, she threw open the door:
“A visitor to see you, miss,” cried she, wheezy at the high climb;
admitted the handsome youth; and forthwith took herself off, descending
to her household furbishings and area gossip.
Betty, rising from her chair, set aside some needlework, and turned to
greet. She saw the youth standing before the closed door, his back to
it.
She put her white hands upon her bosom.
“Noll!” she whispered; and a glad smile of wonder was in her eyes; and
the red blood flushed her cheek and lip.
Noll went to her and put his arms about her, and kissed her upon the
mouth. And he said never a word.