On Sunday it is Cruikshank's custom to rest from his labors in the
garden. The custom is not one of hypocrisy. He does it, not that he
may be seen of others, but, as I fully believe, because there is a
depth of religious sentiment within him, which one would never suspect.
This does not absolutely deter him from those little attentions to
his flowers and his rose trees which no gardener, however religious
his scruples may be, would ever describe as work. That knife with the
handle of horn is for ever within reach in the pocket of his coat--a
little tangle of bass is always ready to hand should a drooping plant
or an overweighted stem demand it, and with these little accessories
before the fact, he wanders up and down his garden paths, his mind in
such spirit of contentment as I would give my forty years of idleness
to possess.
"It's the number seven I like," he says. "I like the idea of an
omnipotent power moulding a massive world, hammering and chiselling it,
never allowing it a moment of stillness in which to set, keeping it
always moving, always in the making for six mighty ages and then, upon
the seventh, with tired hands, leaving it to its well-earned rest. The
Sabbath in its relation to dogma means very little indeed. It's what
it means in its relation to work that I like. It can't honor God that,
for one day in the week we do nothing. What honors Him is the work we
have done in the six which makes the seventh of necessity a day of
rest."
And as he says all this, Bellwattle watches him with admiring eyes. I
think she marvels a little at his accurate use of the big words. She
would like herself to be able to say--omnipotent--and to say it as he
does in the right place. Wherefore when he has finished, she turns to
me with a gentle expression that expects my approval.
"I think he's quite right, don't you?" she asks.
Whereupon I bend my head and Cruikshank moves away down the herbaceous
border, with an end of bass sticking out of the corner of his pocket.
"What does the Rector say about these opinions?" I asked her one Sunday.
"I don't think he understands them," she replied. "Cruikshank did say
something about it once and the Rector jumped down his throat. 'My
dear Townshend,' he said, 'if everybody held your views, we shouldn't
be able to keep a church open. Everybody would be doing just what they
like on Sundays.'"
"And what did Cruikshank say?"
"He asked him whether he thought it was better to make them do the
things they didn't like."
"And the Rector?"
"He never said another word. He went straight back to the--what do you
call it?--the Rectory or the Victory?"
"In this case," said I, "not being the victor, you call it the Rectory."
"Well, that's where he went," said she.
My last Sunday in Ballysheen was no different to the rest, no different
unless I count as an integral part of it the news that was brought to
us that day.
Every moment since our meeting with Clarissa's lover on the cliffs, I
had been working my mind to arrive at some understanding of his coming
to Ballysheen. From the look in Bellwattle's face as we passed him,
I felt assured that she knew who it was and, instinctive though her
knowledge must have been, I could not but feel she had some ground for
her belief. It was no difficult step from such assumption to connect
her knowledge with that visit which she had paid to the Miss Fennells'
house. Had she then seen Clarissa? Had Clarissa told her he was coming?
But if she had known so surely as that, why was her face so white? The
sight of him had startled her. Why should it, if she had known?
I determined that Sunday afternoon to make an end of mystery and
question her myself.
In the morning it had been raining--those sudden intermittent showers
which April lends to May, when the great clouds roll up the blue
highways like the dust of a vast army on its march. From the window in
his little study whose walls are lined with books that talk of gardens
the great gardeners have made, Cruikshank watched each shower with the
happy delight of a child. Then, as the rain drops began their gentle
kettle-drumming on the pane, he would look round.
"This is fine--we wanted this badly."
"It'll make tea out of doors impossible," said Bellwattle.
But Cruikshank shook his head.
"It'll have cleared off by lunch-time," he replied. And he was right.
As we sat down to lunch, the bright white sun, looking as though the
passage of those clouds had burnished it, rolled out into the strip of
blue which so anxiously I had been stitching into Dutchmen's trousers
all the morning. When the meal was over, we walked out into the garden.
There is such color in Ireland after rain, as you will never see in any
other country in the world. Blues, purples and greens, deep as the dyes
they knew of in Tyre and Sidon, spread far away into every distance
that your eyes can find. Across the Bay of Ballysheen, as we stood
there then, the purple cliffs of Helvic Head sank nobly down into a sea
of emerald. On the far horizon rose the misty mountains, blue as the
light of moonstones in the sun.
"And this is what I am going to leave behind," said I.
Cruikshank laid a hand affectionately on my shoulder.
"You've only to say the word and I'll get Tierney to go up to the
cottage in the hollow to-morrow morning."
I shook my head and tried to laugh. It was so like his goodness, and
seemed so impossible to me then. So he turned away and strolled down by
the beds where by now his Lady Grizels and his Young Lord Nelsons are
no longer babies together in their kindergarten, but young women and
young men with all the summer of life stretched out before them.
"So you've really made up your mind?" said Bellwattle.
"I'm afraid so," I replied. "I don't think you know what it is to be
alone." I waited then to get a pause, and after it I turned to her
suddenly and said, "Did you know who that man was we passed yesterday?"
"No," she replied, nervously. "Who?"
"Clarissa's lover--the man she's going to marry."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
"How do you know she's going to marry him?"
"For that matter," said I, "what do you know about it at all?"
It was then she told me everything. For this had been the meaning of
her visit to Clarissa. It seems on that day when I had returned from
the cliffs, that my failure had been written in my face. She assured me
she had read it there. And so, when I announced that I must bring my
visit to a close, she made certain in her mind of all that had taken
place. But it is not only that a woman has instincts in these matters;
she acts upon them.
"Upon a slender thread like that," said I, "you go to see Clarissa?"
"Why not? I knew I was right."
"You knew you were right? Without asking me for proof of it?"
"Proof doesn't help," she replied. "It doesn't make things any more
real."
And in that one sentence I received a clearer view into the subtle
reasoning of a woman's intuition; for reasoning there is in it, an
unconscious reasoning from impressions rather than facts, whereby she
needs no proof and shuns the sharp edges of a fact lest they should
destroy the sensitive surface of her mind.
"So you go straight to Clarissa?" said I.
"It's never any good saying anything to a man," she answered. "I could
hear in your voice, when you said you were going back to London, that
you had made up your mind. Talking won't do any good to a man when he's
got as far as that. I went to Clarissa."
"Where you found that all your suppositions had been wrong. You found
that I had never met her before. You found that I am not in love
with her. You found that she hates the very sight of me. Weren't you
surprised?"
"Not a bit," said she.
Now what is the good of one illuminating sentence against an answer so
complex and incomprehensible as this? As surely as a woman gives you
the key to her nature, so surely will you find the barrel of it stuffed
with wax. She had learnt that she was wrong on every point and she was
not surprised.
"You expected, then, to have all your beliefs dashed to the ground?" I
said. "You knew, when you thought I was in love, that you would find
you were mistaken?"
"No, I didn't."
"Then why no surprise to find you were--all at sea?"
"But I didn't find that. I didn't find I was mistaken. I found I was
right. One thing did surprise me--I must admit that. I thought you must
have met her before. But I quite expected to find that you were in love
with her and that she hated you. So why should I be surprised?"
"My God!" said I, "can't you talk seriously about a matter like this?
You know the truth now--you know just how much of a fool I've been. Why
go on talking about my being in love with Clarissa? It's ridiculous.
I'm not a romantic little boy. You must know how useless it would be
for me to let myself drift into an affection for any woman. Women take
no violent fancies for me. I don't blame 'em. So for Heaven's sake,
when I go and make a fool of myself on a woman's behalf, don't imagine
that I'm in love with her. What did you do? When you found everything
as you say you'd expected it--what did you do?"
She sat down on the seat beneath the nut trees and she motioned to me
to sit beside her.
"I gave her my advice," said she.
"What was that?"
"I believed that every word you'd said about him was true."
"More than true," said I.
"So I told her what to do. I told her to write to him."
"Saying what?"
"Saying that she could not wait for him any longer; that if he did not
come and marry her at once, she would go straight back to Dominica."
"My God!" said I, "and he's come!"
"I know, but that doesn't mean he is going to marry her."
At that moment I felt almost contemptuous of her intelligence. I knew
what folly she had done.
"When a man is after a woman's money," said I, "he's said good-bye to
the faintest sense of honor. He'll marry her right enough. She wrote,
of course?"
"She said she would."
"Did she say anything about me?"
"Nothing at first."
"But she said something?"
"Yes--she wanted to know why you had come all that way to tell her what
you did."
"Well--"
"I told her it was because you were different to every other man I had
ever met except one."
"Who?"
"Cruikshank."
"What do you mean?"
"What I say. I believe Cruikshank would have done the same before he
married me."
I laughed--bitterly.
"There's no more resemblance between Cruikshank and me," said I, "than
between a Chinee and a Red Indian. We're at opposite poles. At the
'varsity he was mathematics, I was classics. There's the difference in
a nutshell."
"We won't argue it," she replied. "I know what I mean and that's what I
told her. She asked me if you had not done it out of spite."
"What did you say then?"
"I just took her little face in my hands and I kissed her--she is so
pretty to kiss."
And then Bellwattle paused.
"Yes--yes--" said I--that pause frightened me. I wanted her to finish
her sentence.
"I kissed her," she repeated, "and I told her that when she was a
little older she'd know that there are only three things that make a
man move out of a spot where he's comfortable."
"You're a clever--" and then I stopped. I remembered how the word
"woman" had silenced her once before. "Go on," said I; "what are they?"
"Work--fresh air--adventure."
Now there is a lot of sense in that. I know a man who would have said,
"Wine--women and horses." And not only would he have thought it sounded
well, but he would have believed it to be true.
"Did you convince her?" I asked.
"I don't know. One never can know. A woman's convictions are things
that grow in the dark. She never knows whether they have blossomed
until she suddenly has to take them out in the light. I told her that
you were the best friend she could possibly have. I told her where you
lived in London--that you lived all alone with your dog--I told her--"
"Good Lord! You didn't tell her I was in love with her!"
"No--of course, I didn't. Because you're not."
"What then?"
"I told her that if she ever was in trouble she was to go to you."
"You think she will go to London then?"
"No."
"Then why did you say that?"
"To show her that I expected she would. I don't know women who do what
you expect them to."
I was just about to laugh at that, when the gate upon the drive opened,
and through the golden hedge of barberry we saw the Miss Fennells walk
up towards the house.
"What have they come for?" I asked.
"They often come on Sunday afternoons," she replied, easily. "They
won't stay long--you needn't be afraid. They have to drink five other
cups of tea at five other different houses."
A moment later came the tea with the Miss Fennells demurely following.
"It almost looks as if they'd brought it with them," said I.
They came on chance, they said, but the tea belied them. I saw
Cruikshank raise his head, like the guardian of a herd, as he caught
the sound of their voices, then on tip-toe he crept through an opening
in the hedge that gives access to a path leading to the farmyard. I
suppose he had tea with the farmer. He never appeared again till they
had gone.
It was as they rose to leave that Miss Teresa held out her hand, and
said: "I wish you could have met our nephew, Mr. Bellairs. It would be
so nice for you to know each other in London. I would have told him to
look you up there, but I didn't know your address."
I thanked Heaven from the bottom of my heart that she did not. It would
be difficult to know the best thing to do with that young man if he
came round to Mount Street.
"Where does he live in London?" I asked, politely.
She gave me the address of his rooms in Chelsea, and I made a mental
note of it.
"He's gone already, then?" said I, with a wild hope rising in me.
"Oh, yes--he went yesterday with Miss Fawdry. They're to be married
from my sister's house in London directly they get over."
There may have been more said than that before they actually departed.
I cannot recall a word of it, for after that I knew my failure was
complete. She had gone to learn the bitter lesson of forgetfulness, and
I was powerless to help her now.
"You needn't come to the gate," whispered Bellwattle in my ear; so when
I had shaken hands with them I sat down again on the seat under the nut
trees trying to see one faint glimmer of hope where there was none.
It was then, as ever he does when life is offering me of its blackest,
that Dandy came and, sitting down at my feet, stared, full of
comprehension, into my face.
"Well, old fella," said I, "she's gone. It's all over. It was never
suggested--where all these things are arranged--it was never suggested
that I should help a woman in distress. They won't take it from
me--they don't think I'm quite capable of telling the truth because I'm
so damned ugly."
Why he did it then I cannot for the life of me understand; but he
repeated a trick that I had taught him when he was a wild, young puppy
all energy and no manners--a trick he had never taken to because it
hurt his dignity. When he found that he could get all he wanted in
life without it he gave it up. I had not seen him do it for two years
or more; but he did it then.
"I'm so damned ugly," I repeated.
Whereupon he sat up on his hind paws and begged.
BOOK II
CHAPTER I
Summer and autumn both have come, both have gone. It is nearly two
months since I saw the last leaf fall from the plane tree beneath
which I sit so often in the Park, whose canopy of foliage is the roof
of one of my little theatres. I cannot remember ever having realized
the passing of a season so actually as I did that day when this poor,
dead, shrivelled thing, which once had worn its glossy green, came
fluttering down into the mud. I watched it as it circled and twisted.
It was like the feeble flight of one of those tired butterflies which
have hibernated in some sheltered place until the first treacherous day
of sunshine has brought them forth to buffet and destroy them. It was
so much at the mercy of the faintest wind that blew. As it lay there in
the mud, I looked above me at the blackened branches. It had been the
last leaf to fall. Both summer and autumn had gone. A few minutes later
there passed by one who, unthinkingly, crushed it beneath his foot, and
with that it reverted to the dust once more from which originally it
had come--into which inevitably it was destined to return.
I remembered then that I got up from my seat and walked slowly from the
Park. As I passed out of the gates and turned towards Piccadilly, they
were beginning to light up in the windows of the clubs. I chose the
opposite pavement, looking up into the different windows as I went by.
Every one of them offered the same picture--men of ease and leisure,
reading their evening papers over cups of tea. I wondered what would
be their replies if, into each room, I had walked announcing that I
had just seen the last leaf fall from the plane trees in the Park. In
my mind's eye I could see them, one and all, looking at me in disgust
for bringing such news, then burying themselves again in their papers,
goading their minds to forgetfulness by reading the latest report of
whatever sensation the moment had to offer them.
"Perhaps I'm the only man in London," I said to myself, "who knows
that this is the very last day of autumn"; and then, as I thought
shudderingly of the long winter and the lightless fogs before us, I
suddenly remembered Bellwattle's words:
"There is no winter."
What a philosophy to be able to believe that.
But now the real tragedy had come to me. It was not that I was unable
to believe there is no winter; it had come to me by this that I could
not but remember there was. That little trick of forgetfulness, whereby
you close the eyes of all consciousness, turning your night into day,
the cunning of that had gone from me since I had been in Ireland. My
supper-room, with its bright lights and its suggestive music, had no
longer in its finger-bowls the waters of Lethe. I could only remember
that it was winter outside, that people were cold and hungry, that in
the hidden places of this great city there were those who had neither
fire nor food to warm them.
How I lived through those two months since that last leaf fell from my
plane tree I scarcely know. Depression came regularly to me every day,
as though I had entered her into my service. She slipped into the room
with Moxon and Dandy in the morning when they brought me my tea and
then, while it grew lukewarm in the pot, I would lie staring out of the
window into the grey light of the ill-weaned morning, thinking of that
day when with such hope in my heart I had set out to meet Clarissa,
when with such bitter knowledge of my folly I had returned.
Now, however, it is January. The days truly seem no longer, though we
have passed that shortest day in December, when Hope, like a freshening
bud, begins to swell again. I have not felt it swelling within me, yet
I do my best to drive depression away.
I have bought window-boxes for all my windows, and this morning went
down with Dandy to Covent Garden to purchase bulbs for the early
spring. Snowdrops and crocuses they tell me are the first to flower.
As if I did not know! Though possibly they were quite right to say it.
There may be many here who are so sadly ignorant.
I asked the man who stands under that awning, where all the little
boxes of tiny seedlings are ranged, tier upon tier, I asked him at what
time of the year should I sow sweet peas.
I had a sudden fancy to see my own Lady Grizel in their bright green
pinafores, growing up with their Young Lord Nelsons in a kindergarten
of my own making.
"I suppose they ought to be sown soon?" I asked.
"'Ave yer got a light?" he asked.
"As much as there is these days," said I.
Then we stared at each other, for by his look I felt I had not
understood, and by my words he made certain I had not.
Presently he tried me again.
"'Ave yer got a light?"
"Now what do you mean?" said I. "I've got boxes outside my window.
There's as much light there as you'll get anywhere."
His look was not contemptuous, but it hurt me as if it were.
"A light," said he, slowly, "is a large box with lights to it--like a
small green'ouse it is, for to force plants in. Open the lights in the
daytime and they gets all the air they want. Close 'em at night and
they don't get no frosts."
I understood at once; but had he said frames, I think I should have
known sooner.
"Well, of course, I haven't got any," said I. "If I had I should have
no place to put them in. I've just got a few window-boxes--that's all."
I think he did look at me contemptuously then. If he had had the seeds
of sweet peas to sell he might have been more considerate, but dealing
in no other plants save bulbs, he lost nothing by setting me to rights.
"'Ave yer ever tried growin' sweet peas in London?" he asked, "growin'
'em in winder-boxes?"
"If I had," said I, "should I come and ask you when to plant them?"
He took no notice of my excellent reasoning. The smile of pity for my
ignorance still lingered in his face.
"Well, you try," he continued. "See if yer can get 'em a foot 'igh--an'
if there's a blossom on 'em, bring it ter me an' I'll give yer sixpence
for it as a curiosity."
"You shouldn't throw your money about like that," said I. "It's
extravagant of you. But I hope I shouldn't take advantage of it. You
may see my blossom of sweet pea. In fact, I'll bring it down to you;
but I wouldn't deprive you of your sixpence for the world."
At that he got cross. I was annoyed myself. It is one thing to be made
aware of your ignorance and quite another to have it thrown back in
your face. He knew by the tone in my voice that he had irritated me,
thereby losing a possible customer. No doubt it was that which first
ruffled his temper. He liked me no less for my chaffing allusions to
his sixpence, and in a desperate effort to get even with me, he looked
me up and down, assessing the possible value of my clothes. They were
not my best, but probably he did not know that.
"Yer're very 'igh and mighty--aren't yer?" said he. "Sixpence is nuffin
to you, is it? Why I could buy you up and not feel the weight of it
gone out of me pocket."
"I'm sure you could," I replied. "I don't doubt that for a moment. But
you must remember there's a little difference between us. I'm not for
sale. You are."
Then, when I asked him if there was another place in the market where I
could buy bulbs, he was too red in the face to answer me.
I suppose in a way I got the best of it. I had the last word, which is
the victor's perquisite in these matters. But it left a strange feeling
of dissatisfaction in my mind. For however much to the point my retort
may have been, he knew more about flowers and gardens than I did, and
since I have been to Ballysheen I have come to judge of people by their
knowledge and love of the treasures that the earth brings forth. For
all my smartness, I counted him a cleverer man than myself.
But it was not that only which made me heavy of heart as I walked away
to find another seedsman; it was the information I had been given by
my friend of the generous purse. I could not grow sweet peas in my
window-boxes. For that matter, could I grow anything but a few bulbs,
which for one year at least will blossom anywhere, since they feed
upon themselves? And I had visions of eschscholtzias, cornflowers,
asters, gypsophila--the Lord knows what--all names that I had heard
Cruikshank make such frequent and easy use of--names which Bellwattle
loved for ever to be rolling on her tongue. All these, then, I supposed
would be denied me.
"Dandy," said I, as we walked down King Street from the Garden, "when
God made the world, I don't believe He meant there to be any cities, or
why did he begin with a garden? Surely a city, sterile and fruitless
like this, can't be an advancement on a garden?"
It occurred to me then that I was taking a very extreme point of view;
a point of view without any suggestion of that logic for which I so
often pride myself. Of course, there must be cities, just as there must
be workshops in a world where work is to be done. But they go home
from workshops. Nobody lives in a workshop. Why don't they go home,
then, from cities? It is a sort of thing that Bellwattle would say, as
when she asked why they could not cover up a field of corn to protect
it from the rats. But I know what I mean. When once you have cast
your bread upon the waters of a great city you never do go home. The
workshop is your fate then as long as you live. Telephones, telegraphs,
all throw out their clutching tentacles, dragging you back into the
vortex whenever you try to escape. There is no escape. You steal away
towards home; but these ghostly arms stretch forth and you are sucked
back into the heart of it once more, back to the city where the flowers
will not blossom--the city of oblivion.
I wonder how many men start their lives with a vision that one day they
will win their garden of remembrance? I wonder how long it takes them
before they join in that crowd of men and women whose eyes ache and
whose feet are tired as they hasten to forget?
CHAPTER II
It was as I passed out of King Street that I bethought me of my club;
of the hall-porter there who bears a reputation for rose-growing.
He has a strange natural ugliness of features which has often drawn
me to converse with him as I come in or go out of the building. Our
discussions are none of them very weighty or worthy of record. I remark
upon the weather while I wait for him to get my letters; in return he
tells me of his troubles with the new messenger whose medals speak well
for the mightiness of his chest but, as the hall-porter assures me, say
nothing in recommendation of his intelligence.
How the knowledge of this amiable hobby of rose-growing came to be
known of him by the members is more than I can understand. He has never
mentioned it to me, and I should have thought that such an observation
as "A bad time for the roses" would have been an excellent reply to
some of my meteorological remarks.
He has, however, never expressed himself in that way so I took his
reputation on trust, walked straight into the club and asked for my
letters.
"Nothing this morning, sir," said he. He did not even look in the
little pigeon-hole marked B. This threw me back at once upon my own
resources.
"What sort of a spring do you think we're going to have?" I inquired.
He peered out of the tiny window of his hall-porter's house, from which
he could just see two square feet of sky.
"It's difficult to say, sir," said he.
It must have been.
"Do you think your roses will do well this year?" I went on.
He took off his glasses and looked at me. All the precise expression
of the hall-porter had suddenly slipped from him. I could detect in
his eyes a similar look to that which I see always in the eyes of
Cruikshank when he is at work in his garden. Can this be the effect
of just one word--roses? Will it in one moment convert a man from a
machine into a human being with just that light of Nature in his eyes
as plucks him there and then from the confusion of the crowd?
"How did you know I went in for roses, sir?" he asked.
I said that I had heard some one of the members mention the fact and it
had interested me.
"I suppose you live in the country?" I added.
He shook his head, wiped his glasses--seemingly to no purpose, since he
did not put them on again--and pushed aside some things upon his desk
that were not the least in the way.
"I used to, sir; last year I did. I'd a little place at Loughton in
Essex, not far from the Forest--Epping. It was quite the country there.
I'd a nice bit of garden and a friend of mine living next door had a
sort of nursery--a green-house and some ground--and he used to give me
plants he didn't want. But it was too far away comin' up here in the
winter early of a morning. So I got nearer London."
"You didn't give up your garden," I exclaimed, "just because it was a
little difficult to get up to Town?"
"Well, it didn't agree with the wife," he admitted. "She felt lonely
down there with me up here all day long. Besides, she has a taste for
the theatres and seein' the shops, so we moved up to Fulham. It's much
handier, but, of course, I haven't got a garden, not to speak of, now."
"How much?"
"About the size of this small hall, sir. But roses won't grow there.
I've tried, giving 'em all the manure I could get; but they don't take
to Fulham. It's easy enough to get manure in London, sir; there's
plenty of that in the streets. It's the soil that's wanting."
"That's the truest description of a city I ever heard," said I. And
then I asked his advice about my window-boxes. He took an immense
interest in them; even brought out a seedman's catalogue from his desk
and went so thoroughly into the subject as made me in time imagine
that we were dealing with acres instead of inches.
So now I have bought all my bulbs. It was a great day when they were
planted. With a table fork which Moxon obtained from the housekeeper's
kitchen we prepared our beds, and all the while stood Dandy with his
fore-paws on the window-sill watching the operation with breathless
interest.
As I put them in, covering the mould over their little brown bodies, I
looked up occasionally at Moxon, who stood by with his mouth wide open.
"Marvellous thing, isn't it, Moxon?" said I, "to think that these
little bulbs are going to bring up yellows and blues and pinks, all the
colors of the rainbow, just out of themselves?"
"I was thinking that, sir," said he, "though I don't know as it's any
more wonderful than a woman having babies."
That remark is characteristic of Moxon, who has sentiment to his
finger-tips and imagines that he never shows a sign of it.
"My God!" said I. "You don't mean to compare the two! One's a
catastrophe--it'll be a very different matter when these crocuses and
tulips are delivered of their flowers."
I saw the look in his face then as when a man is on the verge of being
a traitor to himself. I had only to press the matter a little further
and he would be abusing the wonderful functions of maternity in order
to maintain his own pathetic sense of dignity. I pressed it further
without any delay.
"You don't mean to say you'd like your wife to have babies?" I said,
as I laid one of the little brown snowdrop bulbs under the mould and,
after the manner of Cruikshank, tucked the clothes well over its head.
"You wouldn't talk of it as a splendid event for her, would you?"
I could see him thinking how wonderful it would be if he had a wife;
how still more wonderful it would be if she gave him a baby of his very
own.
"I thought you knew I was not married, sir," he said, presently.
"I was speaking hypothetically," said I.
"Indeed, sir, I was not aware of that."
Hypothetically was undoubtedly beyond him. Therefore, "I was supposing
that you were," I added for his benefit. "And if you were, you wouldn't
care to have to wheel a baby out in a pram, would you?"
"God forbid," said he, most fervently.
I turned my face from him as I planted another bulb. It would not have
done at all if he had seen my smile.
"Now you see," said I, "how odious your comparison was. You wouldn't be
ashamed to be seen out with one of these snowdrops in your button-hole?"
"Oh, no, sir."
"But you exclaim 'God forbid' when I suggest that you might have to
wheel your baby out in a perambulator."
This treachery to himself was more than Moxon could bear. He laid down
the bag of snowdrop bulbs, leaving Dandy and me to finish the business
by ourselves.
It is more than a week now since they were planted, and almost every
day I see a fresh little green nose thrusting its way out of the mould.
At first the joy of these discoveries was spoilt in a great measure by
Moxon, who, when he came up with my tea in the morning, would announce
the arrival of another crocus or another snowdrop with that same
suppressed excitement as if he were telling me of an addition to the
household.
"All right--all right, Moxon," I said testily, one morning. "I only
want you to valet me, you needn't look after my garden."
That must have been a very early morning temper, or I should have
laughed at the ridiculousness of calling a few window-boxes a garden.
The fact of the matter is, I was jealous and, as I lay drinking my
tea, I came to the conclusion that I was behaving like a dog in my own
manger. The next morning, therefore, when Moxon came in with the tray,
I asked him whether there had been a frost.
"Just slightly, sir," said he.
"Have they suffered at all?" I asked quickly.
"Have what suffered, sir?"
"The crocuses."
"Not that I know of, sir. I didn't look."
Of course I deserved it; but it is the things which one deserves that
are so annoying. I determined not to be done, so the next morning
before Moxon's arrival, I slipped on a dressing-gown and hurried softly
downstairs. It was just as I expected. There was Moxon, bending over
one of the window-boxes and, with a gentle finger, raking away the
mould in places to see if he could find any more crocuses shooting up
their tender green.
"Put that mould back, Moxon," I said severely. At the unexpected sound
of my voice, I thought the poor man would have fallen out of the window
into the area below. "What are you doing?" I added.
"Just making it a little tidy, sir. That was all."
I let it go at that. I knew he would never transgress in such a fashion
again. I believe, moreover, that it is always best to leave a shred of
dignity with those whom you would admonish. It is by that single shred
they still cling to you. Deprive them of it and the only dignity left
them is to go out of your sight altogether.
Thus it was, with my snowdrops, my crocuses and my hyacinths that I
fought my battle with depression through those last months of winter,
till I should see the first hopeful light of spring. Twice every
week also, I rose betimes in the morning and with Dandy was out to
Covent Garden before the market closed at nine. It was Moxon who first
informed me that I could get flowers cheaper that way. Accordingly
when I had proved the truth of it, I filled my rooms with them.
"How did you happen to know about this?" I asked him when one fine
morning I had returned with an armful of daffodils.
"I go there sometimes myself, sir," he replied; "my mother's a fancy
for those sort of things, and though I don't 'old with petting women up
with flowers, I send them to her occasionally because she's an invalid."
"It's bound to spoil a woman if you send her flowers?" I said solemnly.
"Bound to," he agreed.
I handed him a bunch of daffodils.
"Smell those," said I.
He buried his face in them and breathed as though he were drawing into
his lungs the very first breath of spring.
"Send a bunch of them to your sister," I added casually; "it'll cheer
her up if she's still taking to religion."
His face lit up with a wonderful smile of gratitude.
"It's very good of you, sir,--I can't afford daffodils yet--not till
they're a bit cheaper. Amy will be pleased."
How easy it is to spoil women, thought I.
Oh--but that morning when they brought the first daffodils into market.
You knew then you had been waiting for them so long, as on some dreary,
lonely road you stand, long waiting for the mistress of your heart.
The moments pass by and still she does not come. But you know in your
spirit that she cannot fail. When last you met, she gave her promise
and, sooner would you believe the heavens might fall, than that her
promise should be broken. But suddenly you hear her. The faint distant
sound of her little feet comes tapping softly along the road into your
ears. For that first instant your heart stops its beating that you
might hear aright. Then nearer she comes and nearer.... Another moment
and you can dimly discern her figure against a darkening belt of trees.
The footsteps quicken, for by this time she has seen you too. At last
she is close within your arms, and her cheek, so cool and damp with the
dew that it has gathered, is laid against your cheek.
It is somehow like this that the daffodils are brought one frosty
morning to those who wait for them in Covent Garden.
So you come of a sudden into a golden glory. A man holds out a bunch
before you and says:
"Nice and fresh, sir; only picked a few hours ago."
Only picked a few hours ago! You plunge your face in them as into cold
water, and they too are cool and damp like the cheeks of your little
mistress. Like her they have come at last to your long and patient
waiting.
CHAPTER III
I can bear no longer these futile speculations of my mind. For months
past I have tried to keep them under subjection, but it is impossible
to do so any more. I must have word of Clarissa. Is she happy? Have I
misjudged that young man? Perhaps that evening when I saw him in the
restaurant was only a momentary lapse of conduct. Maybe I have done him
an injury and she is happy after all.
But no matter how often I put these questions to myself, they return
again unanswered. I have an obstinate belief that she could not be
happy with him. Sometimes I think it is this uncertainty about Clarissa
which is inducing in me a mood, a conviction--the conviction that I
have about run the length of my tether and there is but little left for
me but to snap it and have done with the business altogether.
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that a man should earn his meal
before he eats it, deserve his sleep before he takes it and, above
all, justify his existence that he may live. Now I find myself putting
the question to my mind twenty times a day--how in the name of Heaven
do I justify mine? It is unanswerable, or, rather, I can swear it
too well. I do not justify it at all. Had I been of any service to
Clarissa, it might have seemed different. But through my interference,
I was only the means of spurring her destiny to its end. Certainly
Bellwattle intervened, but that was all on my account. Had I not gone
to Ballysheen, she would never have persuaded that poor child to rush
so recklessly to meet her fate.
Once or twice I have written to Bellwattle, making inquiries. But I
hear nothing that can be of much account. She tells me in letters
wonderfully misspelt, but in words that are indeed graphic to me, how
the roses are doing, of the baskets full of sweet peas that she picked
every morning all through the summer. Yet of Clarissa, she gives me no
report, except that the Miss Fennells say how they receive letters from
her, telling them of her excitements in London and how happy she is in
her new life.
I misdoubt these letters in the bottom of my heart. They do not ring
true. So at last I have made up my mind to take a definite course of
action. I am going to the house in Chelsea, the address of which was
given me by Miss Teresa that Sunday afternoon before I left Ballysheen.
If by this step I gain no definite news of her, then I shall hazard one
final chance. I shall go and call upon Mrs. Farringdon, that married
sister of the Miss Fennells whose address Bellwattle has discovered for
me. If from her I can elicit nothing, then--it will be, as Peter Pan so
wisely says, "a great adventure."
Having thought all this out, quite calmly and collectedly, I called
Dandy.
"What'll be done with you, old man?" I asked.
He wagged his tail, but when he found that that was not the right
answer he frowned.
"I think I know what we shall have to do with you," I continued.
"There's a lady in Ireland who'd give her eyes to get you. That's where
you'll go. You always were a success with ladies, weren't you?"
I thought he would have wagged his tail at that, but he still frowned
as though he caught the note beneath my voice, that note, I suppose,
of final despair, when a man knows that it is all but up with him. For
so it had happened to me, as I had warned that little child it would
happen to her. The spirit in me was broken. I felt the suspicion in
every thought that I was done for.
It is when one comes to a conclusion as definite as this that one can
throw into the voice a spurious tone of cheerfulness, which is the
final admission of defeat.
I rose then from my chair with a laugh and called out to Dandy that we
were setting off for Chelsea. But instead of leaping about me in his
dancing way, as he does whenever he hears we are going out for a walk,
he crept after me, close at my heels, and all the gaiety was gone out
of him. I determined then that if the worst should happen, if I could
get no news of Clarissa, I would send him over to Bellwattle. She
would take care of him for his own sake--perhaps for his master's, too.
It was a shabby little street in Chelsea--two rows of houses on either
side, with only the number on the lintels to differentiate between
them. A strange mixture of apprehension and excitement possessed me
as I approached the door. What if I should find her there? What could
I say if I did? What does a man say after an absence of some months
to the woman who has prayed God that she will never see him again? I
expect he leaves the matter as much to chance as I did.
After a moment's hesitation while these thoughts were passing through
my mind, I rang the bell and waited, my heart hammering wildly in all
my pulses, till I heard the sound of footsteps on the other side of the
door. Directly it reached me I felt quiet and ready for whatever should
come to pass.
When the door was opened, there confronted me an elderly woman. She was
stout, wearing a close-fitting blouse of some black material closely
covered with white spots which long had lost their whiteness. There was
the unmistakable lodging-house look about her which is quite different
in London to any other place in England. In a moment she had taken
me in. Quite wrongly, perhaps, but to her own satisfaction. My coat
and hat she had priced before I had had time to open my mouth. They
were priced by her standard, which I have no doubt was the pawn-shop,
and probably from that point she was right to within a penny. There
was that look in her, too, of suspicion. I felt it in the very way
she opened the door. There had been the sense of expectation without
greeting, and for one instant that expression of doubt as if she were
not quite sure whether I were the person she expected to see. Directly
I saw her, I knew my search there was hopeless.
"Does Mrs. Fennell live here?" I inquired.
She shook her head, still appraising me with her eyes.
"How long is it since she left?"
"She never lived here."
There seemed to be a certain cautiousness in this, so I persisted with
my questions.
"But Mr. Fennell lived here?" said I.
"Yes--he did."
"How long is it since he left?"
"May I arsk why yer want ter know?" she inquired.
"I have private reasons," I replied.
Her eyes took a sudden smallness into them. I can explain the
expression in no other way.
"Does he owe _you_ money?" she asked.
"No."
"He does me."
"I'm sorry to hear it," said I.
"'Cos you think I won't get it--eh?"
"I don't know anything about that."
"Well--I don't think I will. I've got a boy of mine what's in a
solicitor's office to write him a letter, but he don't take no notice
of it."
"Where did you send it to?" I asked, without any of the eagerness that
I felt so strongly mine.
"To a club where he stays sometimes."
"What's the name of it?"
"The Lyric. Who told you he was married?"
I replied that I had heard so.
"God help the girl," she muttered; whereupon apologizing for the
trouble I had given her I walked away. The name of God in her throat,
and applied in such a case, sickened me. Directly I saw a taxi I hailed
it. Dandy and I jumped in.
"The Lyric Club," said I.
It was just the club to which I should have expected him to belong. I
had often heard of its members and their habits. They were a dissolute
lot, composed of those impecunious young men who manage to subsist
in some marvellous way upon their debts, maintaining an appearance
of affluence by superficiality of manner and a certain smart way of
dressing themselves, which will continue to deceive tradesmen as long
as the world goes round. Their main object in life is to obtain money,
and that without working for it. Wherefore they have a thousand little
irons in the fire. Here they know some young man who has written a
play; there they know some young man with money who is fool enough to
put it on, and between the two they manage to derive some pecuniary
benefit out of other people's brains which enables them to make their
way, backing horses and playing cards for the next month or so.
Young Fennell must have been clearly eligible for such membership. I
could have conceived no more fitting reputation for him than to say
that he belonged to the Lyric Club.
The hall-porter was almost asleep when I entered. To my inquiries as
to whether Mr. Fennell were in the club, he slowly opened his eyes and
beckoned to a page-boy.
"Is Mr. Fennell in the club?" he asked.
"No, sir."
"Has he been in lately?" I inquired.
The hall-porter shook his head.
"Has he been in lately?" I inquired.
"I said no, didn't I?"
"You wagged your head," said I. "I thought you might be going to sleep
again."
"If you had to keep the hours I do, sir--" he began.
I begged his pardon. I imagine it is no easy job to be hall-porter at
that club.
"When did he come in last?"
He repeated my question to the page-boy, who informed him that it was
about five days before. Then the hall-porter looked at me as though to
say, "You heard what he said?"
I had heard and I left the club. There was now left my last hope of
finding her. With a bitter feeling of despair weighing heavily on me I
got back into the taxi, giving the address in Phillimore Gardens, where
Mrs. Farringdon lived.
It was no time in the morning, I know, to be paying calls. But what man
in such a case considers that? The fever of pursuing my mission to its
ultimate end was a furnace burning in me. I could no more have waited
the few hours that would have given the odor of etiquette to my visit,
than I could have flown to Phillimore Gardens. It had come to be in my
mind that I must know then and at once. All contemplation of delay was
impossible. As we drove out to Kensington, Dandy jumped upon the seat
beside me and, pushing up closely to my side pressed his nose against
my arm. His brown eyes as they looked up at me were full of questions.
"What are we doing this for?" he asked. "Why are we tearing about in
motors? Is anything the matter?"
"We're trying to find somebody," said I. "Somebody who--oh--what's it
matter?"
"But why do we want to find her so much," he insisted, "if it doesn't
matter?"
At that, suddenly, I realized something. I became aware of the fact
that the questions I found in Dandy's eyes were only an expression of
the thoughts harboring in my own mind. It was not he who asked them; it
was I who asked myself. In that curly black head of his were probably
no other ideas than memories of battles long past, of moments of the
chase when he was bounding over the heather on those cliffs in Ireland.
Or maybe it was only the affection of a dog for the man who treats him
well. But all that searching interrogation was nothing more nor less
than what I wanted to know myself.
It was I who asked myself why we should need so much to find her.
Therefore, when I came upon this startling discovery, it brought me
to the understanding of what I had not dared permit myself to realize
before. I needed so much to find her because I needed her so much
myself. I, who had talked so easily about the folly of plunging myself
in love, was by now bitterly its slave. And so, as I came to review
the events of the past months, I was made conscious that Bellwattle
had spoken the truth from the very first. Indeed, I had known nothing
of it till now. For when you begin by falling in love with a gown of
canary-colored satin, it takes you some time before you come to be
aware of it. And nothing less than this was what happened to me. The
loneliness of that child in Ireland had drawn me to her. And now that I
had seen her, even only those two times, I felt in the deepest heart of
me that I was the man to make her happy.
This is the true conceit of love I suppose, that I who am so disfigured
should for one moment imagine such a thing. As I looked at myself in
the mirror which the taxi provided, I, too, was amazed that such a
thought could enter my head. But it was the truth. There was no getting
away from it, and as such it must be suffered with what courage I could
muster to bear it.
If only I could find her and hear from her own lips that she was happy,
I knew that I should be content. Married or unmarried, surely it made
but little difference to me. She had prayed God she would never see
me again. If once I might hear from her that she had found her place
again in the sun, then, as far as I was concerned, her prayer should be
answered, I would never see her again.
By this time we had reached the number in Phillimore Gardens. The taxi
pulled up when, telling Dandy to stay there quietly till I returned, I
hurried up the steps and rang the bell.
"Is Mrs. Farringdon in?" I inquired of the maid.
She said she was, whereupon, having taken my card, I was shown into
just such a drawing-room as I should have imagined the Miss Fennells
furnishing, with taste acquired by a visit to London. I had begun
counting the cushions and photographs when the good lady came in. She
is Miss Teresa over again, with just that difference of expression
which marriage makes to the confidence in a woman's eyes. For if you
are a woman, I believe, and reach the age which poor Miss Teresa has
attained, there comes into your eyes, whether you will it or not, the
look of watching for some phantom thing which never rides the seas
upon your actual horizon. You know it is there, because you hope it
is there. Maybe it is the disappointed spirit of maternity which has
waited so long upon the road that its eyes are tired of watching.
With just the look of confidence in place of this Mrs. Farringdon
was a repetition of Miss Teresa. She bowed to me stiffly as she came
into the room, half closing the door with that unconscious sense of
self-protection which is natural to the less prepossessing of her sex.
"Mr. Bellairs?" said she, and she referred in the proper way to my
card, which she held scrupulously in her fingers.
"I met your sisters in Ireland," said I, without delay. "I was staying
with Mr. and Mrs. Townshend at Ballysheen. I met there also a Miss
Fawdry, who was living with your sisters. I must apologize for calling
on you at this time in the morning; but I want to know where she is to
be found. She was married from your house, I believe."
For a moment she stood there shaking her head backwards and forwards,
as though I had come to the wrong house altogether; as though she was
not Mrs. Farringdon, and had never heard of Miss Fawdry in her life
before.
"Miss Fawdry has gone back to the West Indies," said she.
"Gone back!" I exclaimed. And at that moment I could not know whether
I was glad or sorry. "Gone back," I repeated. "When? Why? Wasn't she
married here from your house?"
"Oh, dear me, no."
"But your nephew left Ballysheen with her to marry her here in London."
"My nephew does many peculiar things," she replied, tartly, "that do
not come to my hearing. Indeed, I did hear about this. My sisters told
me that he was bringing her over. But when he came to see me, he told
me that they had decided not to be married, and that Miss Fawdry had
gone back to--Dominica, I think it was."
"Your nephew's a--rascal," I exclaimed. "Where does he live? I'll
horsewhip him within an inch of his life."
She became so nervous then at my sudden burst of anger that she retired
quickly to the door and called for Fred.
"I beg your pardon," said I. "I have no right, I know, to come as a
stranger to your house and tell you what perhaps you already know about
your nephew. I'm sorry."
But she took no notice. She stood there at the door, waiting for the
arrival of Fred, who was no other than Mr. Farringdon himself. To him
she hurriedly explained everything. He was a meek little man, and he
listened to it all with a wary eye upon me.
"What's this mean, sir?" said he, and his voice was brave and his
attitude was great.
"I have already explained," said I. "Moreover I have apologized, too. I
understand that your nephew has not married Miss Fawdry."
"Yes--yes--that is so," he replied.
"Now can you tell me where he lives?"
"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't. He lets me know nothing about his
movements except when he is in need of money. As that apparently has
not been the case for some time, we have not heard of him for the past
six months. I'm sorry I can't tell you where he lives."
"But, my dear, he says he'd horsewhip him if he knew," said Mrs.
Farringdon, in consternation.
"That's why I'm sorry," said the little man.
With a sudden instinct I held out my hand. He shook it warmly, and
there I left him to such mercy as his wife should feel inclined to
offer him. From the glance in her eyes I doubt if there were a great
deal of it.
Dandy's face was peering round the corner of the taxi door as I came
out. I told the man to drive home. Then I got inside, closed the door
and sat down beside him.
"Well?" he asked. "Well--did you find her?"
I shook my head at him.
"She's gone," said I. "We shall never see her again. They've answered
that prayer of hers. She said she'd ask God."
"Well?" said Dandy.
"That's all," said I.
CHAPTER IV
The first snowdrop blossomed in my window-boxes this morning. Its
small, white face looked so timid as it stared at me out of the fog. I
felt almost sorry for its loneliness, only that I admired it so much
for its bravery. It must need some courage to be the first flower of
the year--a pioneer into unknown kingdoms. I know so many people who
would sooner lie abed than be the first to get up on such a morning as
this.
I found it for myself, but knew well I was not the first to discover
it. Moxon was waiting about in the room when I came down to breakfast,
doing nothing in that feverishly-occupied way which betokens subterfuge
of some kind or another. I could see quite plainly what he was up to
and, in such cases as these, I hate to disappoint people. He wanted me
to draw his attention to the snowdrop, since, for his dignity's sake,
he could not be supposed to have seen it himself. Now, to have taken no
notice of it would have been cruel, yet I was sorely tempted to it. I
wanted to observe to what straits of ingenuity he would be put before
dire necessity compelled him to leave the room.
In such a pass as this I meet the devil of temptation half way. I
succumb to him so far as to see the little play performed almost to the
fall of the curtain then, in the nick of time, I surrender my advantage
to spite the devil and please myself.
Moxon had placed a vase of daffodils in five different positions about
the room and, compelled at last to be satisfied with them, he was about
to leave me to myself. At that moment I strolled casually to the window
and, at the very door, he paused.
"Oh, here's our first snowdrop in blossom," said I.
I think he liked my calling it "ours." A big smile spread across
his face, and he came over to my side with such speed as he might,
consistent with a proper respect for my confidence.
"Wonderful where they get the white from out of that dirty mould," said
he. From the ready way he announced it, I felt sure that he had had
that sentence in his mind all the time, that he had thought it would
please me to know he did think of such things. He had probably been
harboring it in his head since seven o'clock in the morning. Whether
that is so or not, it did please me. It is just the thing I always
marvel at myself.
"But don't call it dirty mould," said I. "There's hardly a thing I know
so clean as a ploughed field in spring, when the earth has just been
turned after a long winter."
No doubt it was I who was considering my dignity now. No matter how
right a schoolboy may be in his answer, the master always corrects him,
sets him right in a phrase or some insignificant fact. I was doing much
the same with Moxon. All these little tricks are the efforts of the
superior human being for the maintenance of dignity. I know a man who
every evening of his life partakes of a glass of milk for his health's
sake. One night his dog fell foul of it and consumed it all. But it was
not for punishment alone that he stole two of the dog's biscuits in
return. What can be more undignified than having your evening's milk
stolen by your dog! What, then, can more perfectly regain your dignity
than stealing two of his biscuits and calling it the adjustment of
punishment to the crime? If Moxon could not openly admit that he had
seen the snowdrop before, I could not entirely agree with him. It cut
both ways.
"Of course, I didn't mean dirty in that sense, sir," he replied. "Only
that it makes my hands what I should call not quite clean."
"When you tidy up, you mean?" said I.
"Well"--I had caught him in that trap--"yes, sir--when I--tidy up."
This all sounds very ridiculous, I admit. Two men wrangling about the
bloom of a snowdrop do not present an object for much respect! But when
you come to think of it, it is just of such incidents as these that
life is composed, with here and there some real event falling heavily
into the peaceful rippling of the stream. It may fall upon a gravel
bottom, when the broken water catches in a thousand points of light the
glorious reflection of the sun. It may fall where there is sleeping mud
which, disturbed, sullies all the clearness of the stream. Then only
Time, who not alone heals but cleanses, shall sweep the ugliness of it
away.
Men and women are just as human whether it be over a field of snowdrops
or a field of turnips. I would sooner it were snowdrops myself.
For this is life as it seems to me--a crowd of undignified little
creatures, pathetically, humorously, in all loveableness, trying to
assume a dignity which they do not possess; only in great moments
proving the nobility of their creation, when, by the sudden force of
circumstance, they are, willy-nilly, driven to be themselves.
I little imagined as I amused myself by these thoughts with Moxon
standing by, staring down with me at the timid blossom of that little
snowdrop, that I for one was upon the eve of such an event as would
force me by its circumstance to some definite course of action. Yet
that very night I came to know of Clarissa--know of her in such a way
as I had rather hear of any misfortune beside.
Ever since that day when I had heard from Mrs. Farringdon that she had
returned unmarried to Dominica, I had striven with my conscience to
know whether I were glad or not.
"I shall never see her again," said I.
"She's found the happiness you urged her to," replied my conscience.
"Did I really urge her to that?" I asked.
So much of a head as my conscience possesses, it nodded, and nodded
vigorously.
"But did I mean it?" said I.
This is the only way with one's conscience, to silence it. Drive it
into a corner of perplexity, when even truthfulness can be of no avail.
"Did I mean it?" I repeated, and my conscience could say nothing.
"In the back of my mind," I continued, pressing my advantage to its
uttermost, "was there not some hope that I might win her for myself?
Why should I be glad then that she had gone?"
And the upshot of it all was that I neither knew whether I was glad or
sorry. For this is the selfishness of that great unselfishness of love,
that we will give the whole world, our life if necessary, to the woman
whom we worship, but the giving must be ours.
Yet that night I knew well enough whether I were glad or not, for
that night, trying in vain to find the waters of forgetfulness in the
finger-bowls on my supper-room table, I saw Clarissa herself.
It was all a lie! She had never returned to Dominica; and as I pieced
together the story from what I had been told, from what I saw before me
then, I grew sick at heart with a nameless apprehension.
Young Fennell was with her; there was also another man--a member
no doubt of the Lyric Club--and the same woman to whom the story of
Clarissa had been told that night almost a year before, when first
there had been sown in my mind the seed of my adventure.
For some long minutes I was too amazed to do anything but watch them
unperceived. Two bottles of champagne stood on the table, and one
by one the five courses of the supper were placed before them. They
all ate and drank as though it were the one essential meal of their
day--all of them except Clarissa, who nibbled at her bread like a
little mouse, only sipping from her glass lest they should fill it
up again too soon. But in the laughing and the talking she was no
exception to the rest. To all the popular tunes of the day they rapped
with their forks in applause upon the table. It was just that type of
_partie carrée_ I had seen so often in those rooms; so often wondered
at for the hollowness of the enjoyment it suggested. They would--had
I not known them--have been just such a company of players as I am
accustomed to watch in this one particular theatre of mine. But, being
Clarissa, it was no play to me then. Every time she laughed, I felt it
buffet in my face. Every time when with the others she tapped her fork
upon the table, she might have been driving the prongs of it into my
flesh. That she could find laughter with such men and women! That she
could applaud that loathsome music, which only sensualizes the minds
of those that hear it! All these thoughts burnt hot inside me, and yet
I could do no more than stay and watch it to the end.
There was, moreover, in my mind the determination that I still had
some questions to ask that young man before I let him out of my sight
again. With that intention, therefore, I sat quietly in my seat. I had
settled with myself that I would speak to him when they were all going
out--contrive that he should remain behind, since, if there should be
words between us, as was most likely, it should not in any way disgrace
Clarissa.
In the first few moments I had thought it strange for it to be
here that I should meet Clarissa again. But there was not so much
strangeness in it after all. A man always returns to his old haunts. It
is the instinct of the animal for its lair, the salmon for its pool.
But though he had seen me there before, he little expected to see me
there again.
It was with no little satisfaction that I noted his first glance of
recognition and the look of consternation that followed it. He waited
just a moment, thinking, doubtless, to hide from me the fact that he
had seen me; then, leaning across the table, he whispered something
into Clarissa's ear. With that same startled expression of the
frightened bird, she looked across the room and her eyes met mine.
In that one sudden moment, I felt she was recalling every word I had
said to her that morning on the cliffs at Ballysheen. For her eyes had
no hatred in them now; only fear, the fear as when one is discovered
and is ashamed. She tried to meet my look, and though in my eyes I felt
there was showing all the affection I had so lately come to realize,
yet still she failed. In a moment she was looking away again, forcing
herself to talk to the man beside her as if the incident had passed
completely from her mind.
Presently young Fennell leaned across the table and spoke to her once
more, then rose and came down the room.
"Shall I speak to him now?" I thought. Later I wished to God I had, for
he passed out of the room and, as the time went by, I realized that he
was not coming back again. To make sure I went to the cloak-room in the
vestibule. They told me he had gone.
"Damnation!" I exclaimed. The liveried attendants stood there with
meaningless faces, powerless to help me. I was powerless to help myself.
For a while I remained there undecided, staring at the door through
which he must have passed. He had escaped me. It roused a thousand
suspicions in my mind. He feared our meeting. But why? What had
happened? I felt sick with the multitude of suggestions that came
pouring into my brain. There was only one thing to be done--to speak
with Clarissa. Once having brought my determination to that, I went
back to my table and called a waiter.
"Give me," said I, "a piece of paper and a pencil."
He brought them to me, standing by me at my direction while I
wrote. "_Dear Mrs. Fennell_," I scribbled--my hands were shaking
foolishly--"_may I have five minutes' conversation with you if you can
spare them after supper? I shall not offend you again as I did before._"
"Take this," said I, "to the lady at that table, the lady with the dark
hair, and ask for an answer. Say that I do not wish to disturb her
while she is with friends."
"I'm sorry, sir," he replied, "but we are not allowed to deliver notes."
"That be damned for a tale!" said I. "What the devil do you mean? Do
you want to suggest that I'm trying to force my acquaintance on a lady
whom I don't know?"
"I'm sorry, sir--but those are our orders. There's been some
unpleasantness on two or three occasions."
I told him to send me the head-waiter. The _maître d'hôtel_ came,
rubbing his hands. These foreigners with their genial faces and silky
ways! I always see such contempt in their cunning little eyes.
"You've seen me here pretty often," I began.
He laved his hands more obsequiously than ever as he bowed assent.
"Well--there's a lady over there at that table. She is a friend of
mine. I don't know the people with whom she is supping and, therefore,
don't wish to disturb their party. Kindly take this note over to her.
If you don't deliver it I shall be compelled to do so myself."
He took the note without a word.
For the first few moments while he was gone, I could not look in that
direction. Now I suppose I know the madness which comes to those who
love. It is madness. It is nothing less. In that short space I might
have been another being, so overwhelming was the rush of emotions that
trampled through me. In as many seconds I was prompted to the doing of
a hundred different things; yet I sat there quietly, scarcely moving,
until I raised my eyes and saw Clarissa with nervous fingers opening my
note. The other woman was looking round in my direction with curious
eyes, in which I could trace that half-puzzled look of recognition.
But not once did Clarissa turn her eyes towards me. Even when she had
finished reading it, she kept her face averted; then, giving some
message to the head-waiter, she turned to the man on her right and
began to speak as though it were in some hurried explanation. Again the
woman stared at me. The man stared, too. Only Clarissa kept her face
away. I saw her little fingers feverishly making countless pellets with
her bread.
The next moment the _maître d'hôtel_ was bending down with smooth
apologies and speaking in my ear.
"The lady is very sorry, sir--but she is afraid there must be some
mistake."
"What do you mean?" I asked quickly; but all the time I kept my eyes
upon Clarissa. "What do you mean?" I repeated.
"The lady is very sorry, sir," he said again, "but she's afraid there
must be some mistake."
A multitude of things came to my mind to be said, but not one of them
passed my lips. With such precision as I thought could scarcely be in
my nature, I took my note which he had brought back with him, tearing
it slowly and evenly into a hundred little pieces, and laid them in a
pile upon my table.
"My bill," said I.
CHAPTER V
A sparrow came and sat upon one of my window-boxes as I was at
breakfast this morning, chirping loudly for some reason or other as
though it were summer instead of one of those very early days of spring
which seem to have dropped by accident from the lap of a generous
Providence.
Possibly it was the bright yellow of the crocuses, now in bloom, which
attracted him. A day when his ancestors lived in trees instead of upon
sooty house-tops was no doubt dimly stirring in his semi-consciousness.
He almost persuaded me that his chirping was a song, so much lusty
energy did he throw into it. It was only when I came to listen
carefully that I realized there were but two notes to his compass.
Truly he made the most of them. Doubtless it was a lesson to me to make
the most of such shallow compass as is mine. If it were, I did not
learn of it. My mind had been made up for some time now and, as soon as
Moxon had cleared away, I sat down at my desk and wrote a letter:
My dear Bellwattle,--I want to make you a fitting present in gratitude
for my visit to Ballysheen. Don't attempt to ask me why I have left
it so long as this, contenting myself with the mere letter of thanks
such as one writes to any hostess. For you were not any hostess and
therefore have every justification for asking why, until now, I have
treated you so differently. Believe me, I did not think of you when
I wrote as of any guest to any hostess, nor of Cruikshank as to any
host. I have never forgotten one moment on those cliffs or in that
garden, for it seems to me, as I look back upon it, that in those few
short weeks, you made me familiar with a wonderful attitude towards
life which I would give a great deal to be able to adopt myself.
However, that, as you know, is impossible, needing as it does such
addition to the personal equation as can never enter into the sum of
my experience.
What attitude is available to me under the circumstances, I confess
myself absolutely unable to determine. I am one of those unfortunate
individuals who, even in the midst of such lively surroundings as
these, are of a solitary nature, yet loathe nothing so much as their
own company. The little bones which I have had to pick with Providence
are so dry by this--you do not know it, but I am forty-four--that
to sit alone and worry at them now would be beyond human endurance.
Occasionally in bed in the early morning or at night when I am left
alone and my man Moxon has retired, I find myself speculating upon
what niche in God's gallery of human beings I have been meant to
fill. So far as I can see there is not one. And then, in accordance
with all human nature, I try to shift the blame upon some shoulders
other than my own. Circumstance, that my mother should have died
when she did--my father, that he has never brought me up to any
profession--then last of all, inevitably myself, that I have taken
advantage of the allowance he is making me, spending my money upon
easy travelling all over the world which is an education in its way,
but fits no man for the real exigencies of life. He could learn more
in a cobbler's shop in the Mile End Road. There is as much wisdom as
cure in the washing in Jordan. The thing to one's hand is no doubt the
thing for one's grasp.
This is mere preliminary, just to show you that I shall never come
into occupation of Cruikshank's little cottage in the hollow. Imagine
Providence and myself sitting there alone of the long winter nights
with a few dry bones upon the table between us! I could not bear such
company as that. No--if I am to cut a niche for myself anywhere, it
must be in that room in God's gallery, where, as I heard a man say the
other day, you will find the _hoi polloi_. I will give you the whole
of his sentence, for Cruikshank's benefit if not for yours. He was
describing the disadvantages of a new club.
"What I'm afraid will happen," he said, "is this. You'll get all the
_hoi polloi_ there. There'll be nothing _recherché_ about it at all.
Plebeian--that's what it'll be and, if there's one thing I hate more
than another it is that jarring sound of the _vox populi_."
Show this to Cruikshank and he will explain why he is amused. This man
had evidently travelled for his education.
I hope this letter is not too egotistical, a hope based doubtless
upon the fact that I know it is. And in a sense, I mean it to be. I
entertain a foolish desire that you should appreciate my point of
view, so that if at any time you might hear news of me of one sort or
another you would be able to apply this confession as a key to the
understanding of what you had heard.
And now, after all this preamble, I come to the real reason of my
letter, the statement with which I began. I want you to accept a gift
in token of my gratitude for all your kindness to me in Ballysheen. I
want you to take care of Dandy as your own.
Since those few weeks in Ireland, I have fancied that he has missed
the country most terribly, the walks upon those glorious cliffs he
had with you, the rambles with both of us when the whole breadth
of the earth was his, full of romance, full of adventure, full of
rabbits--those hundreds of rabbits you saw that morning, when I saw
but two. But most of all, I imagine that he misses that playground
of his--your garden--for I remember the very first morning before
breakfast, after you had taken him out for a walk, he came to me
and, in his own manner, told me what he thought of it all. He raced
a dozen times round one of your beds at an angle of forty-five. If
you don't know what I mean by an angle of forty-five, ask Cruikshank.
He will explain it to you by means of trigonometry which I know will
please you.
That, at any rate, was the expression of all he felt about the country
on his first morning in Ballysheen. Remember, it was round the beds
he raced--not over them. His interest in flowers is too great for him
ever to destroy them. I know this by the way he watched me when I
planted the snowdrops and crocuses in my window-boxes. I say this to
reassure you.
So far as his habits are concerned, I don't think I can tell you
anything but what you do not know already. We give him two meals of
dog's biscuits every day. He does not like them broken up on a plate,
preferring rather to have them thrown to him whole. But Moxon, who I
am sending with him for safe conduct, will explain all this.
Write as soon as you can and let me know that he has arrived safely.
Tell me, moreover, if you will, that you are not inconvenienced by
this unexpected arrival in your family.
God bless you. I add this, not only because I like the phrase, but
because I believe in its efficaciousness for those who merit it.
Lastly, give my love to Cruikshank and tell him that when he sets to
the making of his new garden in the hollow, he must fill it with sweet
peas. I wanted to grow them in my window-boxes, but was told it was
out of the question.
Good-bye--Yours A.H. BELLAIRS.
As soon as I had sealed the letter and addressed it, I sent for Moxon.
"I've got a commission and a journey for you, Moxon," said I, when he
came in. He bent his head, saying nothing until he had heard what it
was.
"I want you to take Dandy," I continued, "and leave him in the care of
Mrs. Townshend in Ballysheen. Can you get what few things you'll need
ready in time to catch the night train to Fishguard this evening?"
For a while he stood there and looked at me as though I had said not
one single word which he was capable of understanding. His jaw did not
exactly drop, but there was all that expression about his face as if it
might at any moment.
"Don't you follow me?" said I.