The chances are that you have neither understanding nor sympathy for men
such as Edwin Reardon and Harold Biffen. They merely provoke you.
They seem to you inert, flabby, weakly envious, foolishly obstinate,
impiously mutinous, and many other things. You are made angrily
contemptuous by their failure to get on; why don’t they bestir
themselves, push and bustle, welcome kicks so long as halfpence follow,
make place in the world’s eye--in short, take a leaf from the book of Mr
Jasper Milvain?
But try to imagine a personality wholly unfitted for the rough and
tumble of the world’s labour-market. From the familiar point of view
these men were worthless; view them in possible relation to a humane
order of Society, and they are admirable citizens. Nothing is easier
than to condemn a type of character which is unequal to the coarse
demands of life as it suits the average man. These two were richly
endowed with the kindly and the imaginative virtues; if fate threw them
amid incongruous circumstances, is their endowment of less value? You
scorn their passivity; but it was their nature and their merit to be
passive.
Gifted with independent means, each of them would have taken quite
a different aspect in your eyes. The sum of their faults was their
inability to earn money; but, indeed, that inability does not call for
unmingled disdain.
It was very weak of Harold Biffen to come so near perishing of hunger as
he did in the days when he was completing his novel. But he would have
vastly preferred to eat and be satisfied had any method of obtaining
food presented itself to him. He did not starve for the pleasure of the
thing, I assure you. Pupils were difficult to get just now, and writing
that he had sent to magazines had returned upon his hands. He pawned
such of his possessions as he could spare, and he reduced his meals to
the minimum. Nor was he uncheerful in his cold garret and with his empty
stomach, for ‘Mr Bailey, Grocer,’ drew steadily to an end.
He worked very slowly. The book would make perhaps two volumes of
ordinary novel size, but he had laboured over it for many months,
patiently, affectionately, scrupulously. Each sentence was as good as
he could make it, harmonious to the ear, with words of precious meaning
skilfully set. Before sitting down to a chapter he planned it minutely
in his mind; then he wrote a rough draft of it; then he elaborated the
thing phrase by phrase. He had no thought of whether such toil would be
recompensed in coin of the realm; nay, it was his conviction that, if
with difficulty published, it could scarcely bring him money. The work
must be significant, that was all he cared for. And he had no society of
admiring friends to encourage him. Reardon understood the merit of the
workmanship, but frankly owned that the book was repulsive to him.
To the public it would be worse than repulsive--tedious, utterly
uninteresting. No matter; it drew to its end.
The day of its completion was made memorable by an event decidedly more
exciting, even to the author.
At eight o’clock in the evening there remained half a page to be
written. Biffen had already worked about nine hours, and on breaking
off to appease his hunger he doubted whether to finish to-night or to
postpone the last lines till tomorrow. The discovery that only a small
crust of bread lay in the cupboard decided him to write no more; he
would have to go out to purchase a loaf and that was disturbance.
But stay; had he enough money? He searched his pockets. Two pence and
two farthings; no more.
You are probably not aware that at bakers’ shops in the poor quarters
the price of the half-quartern loaf varies sometimes from week to week.
At present, as Biffen knew, it was twopence three-farthings, a
common figure. But Harold did not possess three farthings, only two.
Reflecting, he remembered to have passed yesterday a shop where the
bread was marked twopence halfpenny; it was a shop in a very obscure
little street off Hampstead Road, some distance from Clipstone Street.
Thither he must repair. He had only his hat and a muffler to put on, for
again he was wearing his overcoat in default of the under one, and his
ragged umbrella to take from the corner; so he went forth.
To his delight the twopence halfpenny announcement was still in the
baker’s window. He obtained a loaf wrapped it in the piece of paper he
had brought--small bakers decline to supply paper for this purpose--and
strode joyously homeward again.
Having eaten, he looked longingly at his manuscript. But half a page
more. Should he not finish it to-night? The temptation was irresistible.
He sat down, wrought with unusual speed, and at half-past ten wrote with
magnificent flourish ‘The End.’
His fire was out and he had neither coals nor wood. But his feet were
frozen into lifelessness. Impossible to go to bed like this; he must
take another turn in the streets. It would suit his humour to ramble a
while. Had it not been so late he would have gone to see Reardon, who
expected the communication of this glorious news.
So again he locked his door. Half-way downstairs he stumbled over
something or somebody in the dark.
‘Who is that?’ he cried.
The answer was a loud snore. Biffen went to the bottom of the house and
called to the landlady.
‘Mrs Willoughby! Who is asleep on the stairs?’
‘Why, I ‘spect it’s Mr Briggs,’ replied the woman, indulgently. ‘Don’t
you mind him, Mr Biffen. There’s no ‘arm: he’s only had a little too
much. I’ll go up an’ make him go to bed as soon as I’ve got my ‘ands
clean.’
‘The necessity for waiting till then isn’t obvious,’ remarked the
realist with a chuckle, and went his way.
He walked at a sharp pace for more than an hour, and about midnight drew
near to his own quarter again. He had just turned up by the Middlesex
Hospital, and was at no great distance from Clipstone Street, when a
yell and scamper caught his attention; a group of loafing blackguards on
the opposite side of the way had suddenly broken up, and as they rushed
off he heard the word ‘Fire!’ This was too common an occurrence to
disturb his equanimity; he wondered absently in which street the fire
might be, but trudged on without a thought of making investigation.
Repeated yells and rushes, however, assailed his apathy. Two women came
tearing by him, and he shouted to them: ‘Where is it?’
‘In Clipstone Street, they say,’ one screamed back.
He could no longer be unconcerned. If in his own street the
conflagration might be in the very house he inhabited, and in that
case---- He set off at a run. Ahead of him was a thickening throng, its
position indicating the entrance to Clipstone Street. Soon he found his
progress retarded; he had to dodge this way and that, to force progress,
to guard himself against overthrows by the torrent of ruffiandom which
always breaks forth at the cry of fire. He could now smell the smoke,
and all at once a black volume of it, bursting from upper windows,
alarmed his sight. At once he was aware that, if not his own dwelling,
it must be one of those on either side that was in flames. As yet no
engine had arrived, and straggling policemen were only just beginning to
make their way to the scene of uproar. By dint of violent effort Biffen
moved forward yard by yard. A tongue of flame which suddenly illumined
the fronts of the houses put an end to his doubt.
‘Let me get past!’ he shouted to the gaping and swaying mass of people
in front of him. ‘I live there! I must go upstairs to save something!’
His educated accent moved attention. Repeating the demand again and
again he succeeded in getting forward, and at length was near enough
to see that people were dragging articles of furniture out on to the
pavement.
‘That you, Mr Biffen?’ cried someone to him.
He recognised the face of a fellow-lodger.
‘Is it possible to get up to my room?’ broke frantically from his lips.
‘You’ll never get up there. It’s that--Briggs’--the epithet was
alliterative--‘’as upset his lamp, and I ‘ope he’ll--well get roasted to
death.’
Biffen leaped on to the threshold, and crashed against Mrs Willoughby,
the landlady, who was carrying a huge bundle of household linen.
‘I told you to look after that drunken brute;’ he said to her. ‘Can I
get upstairs?’
‘What do I care whether you can or not!’ the woman shrieked. ‘My God!
And all them new chairs as I bought--!’
He heard no more, but bounded over a confusion of obstacles, and in a
moment was on the landing of the first storey. Here he encountered a
man who had not lost his head, a stalwart mechanic engaged in slipping
clothes on to two little children.
‘If somebody don’t drag that fellow Briggs down he’ll be dead,’ observed
the man. ‘He’s layin’ outside his door. I pulled him out, but I can’t do
no more for him.’
Smoke grew thick on the staircase. Burning was as yet confined to that
front room on the second floor tenanted by Briggs the disastrous, but
in all likelihood the ceiling was ablaze, and if so it would be all but
impossible for Biffen to gain his own chamber, which was at the back on
the floor above. No one was making an attempt to extinguish the fire;
personal safety and the rescue of their possessions alone occupied the
thoughts of such people as were still in the house. Desperate with the
dread of losing his manuscript, his toil, his one hope, the realist
scarcely stayed to listen to a warning that the fumes were impassable;
with head bent he rushed up to the next landing. There lay Briggs,
perchance already stifled, and through the open door Biffen had a
horrible vision of furnace fury. To go yet higher would have been
madness but for one encouragement: he knew that on his own storey was a
ladder giving access to a trap-door, by which he might issue on to the
roof, whence escape to the adjacent houses would be practicable. Again a
leap forward!
In fact, not two minutes elapsed from his commencing the ascent of the
stairs to the moment when, all but fainting, he thrust the key into his
door and fell forward into purer air. Fell, for he was on his knees, and
had begun to suffer from a sense of failing power, a sick whirling of
the brain, a terror of hideous death. His manuscript was on the table,
where he had left it after regarding and handling it with joyful
self-congratulation; though it was pitch dark in the room, he could at
once lay his hand on the heap of paper. Now he had it; now it was jammed
tight under his left arm; now he was out again on the landing, in smoke
more deadly than ever.
He said to himself: ‘If I cannot instantly break out by the trap-door
it’s all over with me.’ That the exit would open to a vigorous thrust
he knew, having amused himself not long ago by going on to the roof. He
touched the ladder, sprang upwards, and felt the trap above him. But he
could not push it back. ‘I’m a dead man,’ flashed across his mind, ‘and
all for the sake of “Mr Bailey, Grocer.”’ A frenzied effort, the last of
which his muscles were capable, and the door yielded. His head was now
through the aperture, and though the smoke swept up about him, that gasp
of cold air gave him strength to throw himself on the flat portion of
the roof that he had reached.
So for a minute or two he lay. Then he was able to stand, to survey
his position, and to walk along by the parapet. He looked down upon the
surging and shouting crowd in Clipstone Street, but could see it only at
intervals, owing to the smoke that rolled from the front windows below
him.
What he had now to do he understood perfectly. This roof was divided
from those on either hand by a stack of chimneys; to get round the end
of these stacks was impossible, or at all events too dangerous a feat
unless it were the last resource, but by climbing to the apex of the
slates he would be able to reach the chimney-pots, to drag himself up
to them, and somehow to tumble over on to the safer side. To this
undertaking he forthwith addressed himself. Without difficulty he
reached the ridge; standing on it he found that only by stretching his
arm to the utmost could he grip the top of a chimney-pot. Had he the
strength necessary to raise himself by such a hold? And suppose the pot
broke?
His life was still in danger; the increasing volumes of smoke warned him
that in a few minutes the uppermost storey might be in flames. He
took off his overcoat to allow himself more freedom of action; the
manuscript, now an encumbrance, must precede him over the chimney-stack,
and there was only one way of effecting that. With care he stowed
the papers into the pockets of the coat; then he rolled the garment
together, tied it up in its own sleeves, took a deliberate aim--and the
bundle was for the present in safety.
Now for the gymnastic endeavour. Standing on tiptoe, he clutched the
rim of the chimney-pot, and strove to raise himself. The hold was firm
enough, but his arms were far too puny to perform such work, even
when death would be the penalty of failure. Too long he had lived on
insufficient food and sat over the debilitating desk. He swung this way
and that, trying to throw one of his knees as high as the top of the
brickwork, but there was no chance of his succeeding. Dropping on to the
slates, he sat there in perturbation.
He must cry for help. In front it was scarcely possible to stand by the
parapet, owing to the black clouds of smoke, now mingled with sparks;
perchance he might attract the notice of some person either in the yards
behind or at the back windows of other houses. The night was so obscure
that he could not hope to be seen; voice alone must be depended upon,
and there was no certainty that it would be heard far enough. Though he
stood in his shirt-sleeves in a bitter wind no sense of cold affected
him; his face was beaded with perspiration drawn forth by his futile
struggle to climb. He let himself slide down the rear slope, and,
holding by the end of the chimney brickwork, looked into the yards. At
the same instant a face appeared to him--that of a man who was trying to
obtain a glimpse of this roof from that of the next house by thrusting
out his head beyond the block of chimneys.
‘Hollo!’ cried the stranger. ‘What are you doing there?’
‘Trying to escape, of course. Help me to get on to your roof.’
‘By God! I expected to see the fire coming through already. Are you
the--as upset his lamp an’ fired the bloomin’ ‘ouse?’
‘Not I! He’s lying drunk on the stairs; dead by this time.’
‘By God! I wouldn’t have helped you if you’d been him. How are you
coming round? Blest if I see! You’ll break your bloomin’ neck if you try
this corner. You’ll have to come over the chimneys; wait till I get a
ladder.’
‘And a rope,’ shouted Biffen.
The man disappeared for five minutes. To Biffen it seemed half an hour;
he felt, or imagined he felt, the slates getting hot beneath him, and
the smoke was again catching his breath. But at length there was a shout
from the top of the chimney-stack. The rescuer had seated himself on one
of the pots, and was about to lower on Biffen’s side a ladder which had
enabled him to ascend from the other. Biffen planted the lowest rung
very carefully on the ridge of the roof, climbed as lightly as possible,
got a footing between two pots; the ladder was then pulled over, and
both men descended in safety.
‘Have you seen a coat lying about here?’ was Biffen’s first question. ‘I
threw mine over.’
‘What did you do that for?’
‘There are some valuable papers in the pockets.’
They searched in vain; on neither side of the roof was the coat
discoverable.
‘You must have pitched it into the street,’ said the man.
This was a terrible blow; Biffen forgot his rescue from destruction
in lament for the loss of his manuscript. He would have pursued the
fruitless search, but his companion, who feared that the fire might
spread to adjoining houses, insisted on his passing through the
trap-door and descending the stairs.’If the coat fell into the street,’
Biffen said, when they were down on the ground floor, ‘of course it’s
lost; it would be stolen at once. But may not it have fallen into your
back yard?’
He was standing in the midst of a cluster of alarmed people, who stared
at him in astonishment, for the reek through which he had fought his way
had given him the aspect of a sweep. His suggestion prompted someone to
run into the yard, with the result that a muddy bundle was brought in
and exhibited to him.
‘Is this your coat, Mister?’
‘Heaven be thanked! That’s it! There are valuable papers in the
pockets.’
He unrolled the garment, felt to make sure that ‘Mr Bailey’ was safe,
and finally put it on.
‘Will anyone here let me sit down in a room and give me a drink of
water?’ he asked, feeling now as if he must drop with exhaustion.
The man who had rescued him performed this further kindness, and for
half an hour, whilst tumult indescribable raged about him, Biffen sat
recovering his strength. By that time the firemen were hard at work, but
one floor of the burning house had already fallen through, and it was
probable that nothing but the shell would be saved. After giving a full
account of himself to the people among whom he had come, Harold declared
his intention of departing; his need of repose was imperative, and he
could not hope for it in this proximity to the fire. As he had no money,
his only course was to inquire for a room at some house in the immediate
neighbourhood, where the people would receive him in a charitable
spirit.
With the aid of the police he passed to where the crowd was thinner, and
came out into Cleveland Street. Here most of the house-doors were open,
and he made several applications for hospitality, but either his story
was doubted or his grimy appearance predisposed people against him. At
length, when again his strength was all but at an end, he made appeal to
a policeman.
‘Surely you can tell,’ he protested, after explaining his position,
‘that I don’t want to cheat anybody. I shall have money to-morrow. If
no one will take me in you must haul me on some charge to the
police-station; I shall have to lie down on the pavement in a minute.’
The officer recognised a man who was standing half-dressed on a
threshold close by; he stepped up to him and made representations
which were successful. In a few minutes Biffen took possession of an
underground room furnished as a bedchamber, which he agreed to rent for
a week. His landlord was not ungracious, and went so far as to supply
him with warm water, that he might in a measure cleanse himself. This
operation rapidly performed, the hapless author flung himself into bed,
and before long was fast asleep.
When he went upstairs about nine o’clock in the morning he discovered
that his host kept an oil-shop.
‘Lost everything, have you?’ asked the man sympathetically.
‘Everything, except the clothes I wear and some papers that I managed to
save. All my books burnt!’
Biffen shook his head dolorously.
‘Your account-books!’ cried the dealer in oil. ‘Dear, dear!--and what
might your business be?’
The author corrected this misapprehension. In the end he was invited to
break his fast, which he did right willingly. Then, with assurances
that he would return before nightfall, he left the house. His steps were
naturally first directed to Clipstone Street; the familiar abode was a
gruesome ruin, still smoking. Neighbours informed him that Mr Briggs’s
body had been brought forth in a horrible condition; but this was the
only loss of life that had happened.
Thence he struck eastward, and at eleven came to Manville Street,
Islington. He found Reardon by the fireside, looking very ill, and
speaking with hoarseness.
‘Another cold?’
‘It looks like it. I wish you would take the trouble to go and buy me
some vermin-killer. That would suit my case.’
‘Then what would suit mine? Behold me, undeniably a philosopher; in the
literal sense of the words omnia _mea mecum porto_.’
He recounted his adventures, and with such humorous vivacity that when
he ceased the two laughed together as if nothing more amusing had ever
been heard.
‘Ah, but my books, my books!’ exclaimed Biffen, with a genuine groan.
‘And all my notes! At one fell swoop! If I didn’t laugh, old friend, I
should sit down and cry; indeed I should. All my classics, with years of
scribbling in the margins! How am I to buy them again?’
‘You rescued “Mr Bailey.” He must repay you.’
Biffen had already laid the manuscript on the table; it was dirty and
crumpled, but not to such an extent as to render copying necessary.
Lovingly he smoothed the pages and set them in order, then he wrapped
the whole in a piece of brown paper which Reardon supplied, and wrote
upon it the address of a firm of publishers.
‘Have you note-paper? I’ll write to them; impossible to call in my
present guise.’
Indeed his attire was more like that of a bankrupt costermonger than of
a man of letters. Collar he had none, for the griminess of that he wore
last night had necessitated its being thrown aside; round his throat
was a dirty handkerchief. His coat had been brushed, but its recent
experiences had brought it one stage nearer to that dissolution which
must very soon be its fate. His grey trousers were now black, and his
boots looked as if they had not been cleaned for weeks.
‘Shall I say anything about the character of the book?’ he asked,
seating himself with pen and paper. ‘Shall I hint that it deals with the
ignobly decent?’
‘Better let them form their own judgment,’ replied Reardon, in his
hoarse voice.
‘Then I’ll just say that I submit to them a novel of modern life, the
scope of which is in some degree indicated by its title. Pity they can’t
know how nearly it became a holocaust, and that I risked my life to save
it. If they’re good enough to accept it I’ll tell them the story. And
now, Reardon, I’m ashamed of myself, but can you without inconvenience
lend me ten shillings?’
‘Easily.’
‘I must write to two pupils, to inform them of my change of
address--from garret to cellar. And I must ask help from my prosperous
brother. He gives it me unreluctantly, I know, but I am always loth to
apply to him. May I use your paper for these purposes?’
The brother of whom he spoke was employed in a house of business at
Liverpool; the two had not met for years, but they corresponded,
and were on terms such as Harold indicated. When he had finished his
letters, and had received the half-sovereign from Reardon, he went his
way to deposit the brown-paper parcel at the publishers’. The clerk who
received it from his hands probably thought that the author might have
chosen a more respectable messenger.
Two days later, early in the evening, the friends were again enjoying
each other’s company in Reardon’s room. Both were invalids, for Biffen
had of course caught a cold from his exposure in shirt-sleeves on the
roof, and he was suffering from the shock to his nerves; but the thought
that his novel was safe in the hands of publishers gave him energy to
resist these influences. The absence of the pipe, for neither had any
palate for tobacco at present, was the only external peculiarity of
this meeting. There seemed no reason why they should not meet frequently
before the parting which would come at Christmas; but Reardon was in a
mood of profound sadness, and several times spoke as if already he were
bidding his friend farewell.
‘I find it difficult to think,’ he said, ‘that you will always struggle
on in such an existence as this. To every man of mettle there does come
an opportunity, and it surely is time for yours to present itself. I
have a superstitious faith in “Mr Bailey.” If he leads you to triumph,
don’t altogether forget me.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense.’
‘What ages it seems since that day when I saw you in the library at
Hastings, and heard you ask in vain for my book! And how grateful I was
to you! I wonder whether any mortal ever asks for my books nowadays?
Some day, when I am well established at Croydon, you shall go to
Mudie’s, and make inquiry if my novels ever by any chance leave the
shelves, and then you shall give me a true and faithful report of the
answer you get. “He is quite forgotten,” the attendant will say; be sure
of it.’
‘I think not.’
‘To have had even a small reputation, and to have outlived it, is a
sort of anticipation of death. The man Edwin Reardon, whose name was
sometimes spoken in a tone of interest, is really and actually dead. And
what remains of me is resigned to that. I have an odd fancy that it will
make death itself easier; it is as if only half of me had now to die.’
Biffen tried to give a lighter turn to the gloomy subject.
‘Thinking of my fiery adventure,’ he said, in his tone of dry
deliberation, ‘I find it vastly amusing to picture you as a witness at
the inquest if I had been choked and consumed. No doubt it would have
been made known that I rushed upstairs to save some particular piece of
property--several people heard me say so--and you alone would be able to
conjecture what this was. Imagine the gaping wonderment of the coroner’s
jury! The Daily Telegraph would have made a leader out of me. “This poor
man was so strangely deluded as to the value of a novel in manuscript,
which it appears he had just completed, that he positively sacrificed
his life in the endeavour to rescue it from the flames.” And
the Saturday would have had a column of sneering jocosity on the
irrepressibly sanguine temperament of authors. At all events, I should
have had my day of fame.’
‘But what an ignoble death it would have been!’ he pursued. ‘Perishing
in the garret of a lodging-house which caught fire by the overturning of
a drunkard’s lamp! One would like to end otherwise.’
‘Where would you wish to die?’ asked Reardon, musingly.
‘At home,’ replied the other, with pathetic emphasis. ‘I have never had
a home since I was a boy, and am never likely to have one. But to die at
home is an unreasoning hope I still cherish.’
‘If you had never come to London, what would you have now been?’
‘Almost certainly a schoolmaster in some small town. And one might be
worse off than that, you know.’
‘Yes, one might live peaceably enough in such a position. And I--I
should be in an estate-agent’s office, earning a sufficient salary, and
most likely married to some unambitious country girl.
I should have lived an intelligible life, instead of only trying to
live, aiming at modes of life beyond my reach. My mistake was that of
numberless men nowadays. Because I was conscious of brains, I thought
that the only place for me was London. It’s easy enough to understand
this common delusion. We form our ideas of London from old literature;
we think of London as if it were still the one centre of intellectual
life; we think and talk like Chatterton. But the truth is that
intellectual men in our day do their best to keep away from London--when
once they know the place. There are libraries everywhere; papers and
magazines reach the north of Scotland as soon as they reach Brompton;
it’s only on rare occasions, for special kinds of work, that one is
bound to live in London. And as for recreation, why, now that no English
theatre exists, what is there in London that you can’t enjoy in almost
any part of England? At all events, a yearly visit of a week would be
quite sufficient for all the special features of the town. London is
only a huge shop, with an hotel on the upper storeys. To be sure, if you
make it your artistic subject, that’s a different thing. But neither you
nor I would do that by deliberate choice.’
‘I think not.’
‘It’s a huge misfortune, this will-o’-the-wisp attraction exercised
by London on young men of brains. They come here to be degraded, or to
perish, when their true sphere is a life of peaceful remoteness. The
type of man capable of success in London is more or less callous and
cynical. If I had the training of boys, I would teach them to think of
London as the last place where life can be lived worthily.’
‘And the place where you are most likely to die in squalid
wretchedness.’
‘The one happy result of my experiences,’ said Reardon, ‘is that they
have cured me of ambition. What a miserable fellow I should be if I were
still possessed with the desire to make a name! I can’t even recall
very clearly that state of mind. My strongest desire now is for peaceful
obscurity. I am tired out; I want to rest for the remainder of my life.’
‘You won’t have much rest at Croydon.’
‘Oh, it isn’t impossible. My time will be wholly occupied in a round of
all but mechanical duties, and I think that will be the best medicine
for my mind. I shall read very little, and that only in the classics.
I don’t say that I shall always be content in such a position; in a few
years perhaps something pleasanter will offer. But in the meantime
it will do very well. Then there is our expedition to Greece to look
forward to. I am quite in earnest about that. The year after next, if we
are both alive, assuredly we go.’
‘The year after next.’ Biffen smiled dubiously.
‘I have demonstrated to you mathematically that it is possible.’
‘You have; but so are a great many other things that one does not dare
to hope for.’
Someone knocked at the door, opened it, and said:
‘Here’s a telegram for you, Mr Reardon.’
The friends looked at each other, as if some fear had entered the minds
of both. Reardon opened the despatch. It was from his wife, and ran
thus:
‘Willie is ill of diphtheria. Please come to us at once. I am staying
with Mrs Carter, at her mother’s, at Brighton.’
The full address was given.
‘You hadn’t heard of her going there?’ said Biffen, when he had read the
lines.
‘No. I haven’t seen Carter for several days, or perhaps he would
have told me. Brighton, at this time of year? But I believe there’s
a fashionable “season” about now, isn’t there? I suppose that would
account for it.’
He spoke in a slighting tone, but showed increasing agitation.
‘Of course you will go?’
‘I must. Though I’m in no condition for making a journey.’
His friend examined him anxiously.
‘Are you feverish at all this evening?’
Reardon held out a hand that the other might feel his pulse. The beat
was rapid to begin with, and had been heightened since the arrival of
the telegram.
‘But go I must. The poor little fellow has no great place in my heart,
but, when Amy sends for me, I must go. Perhaps things are at the worst.’
‘When is there a train? Have you a time table?’
Biffen was despatched to the nearest shop to purchase one, and in the
meanwhile Reardon packed a few necessaries in a small travelling-bag,
ancient and worn, but the object of his affection because it had
accompanied him on his wanderings in the South. When Harold returned,
his appearance excited Reardon’s astonishment--he was white from head to
foot.
‘Snow?’
‘It must have been falling heavily for an hour or more.’
‘Can’t be helped; I must go.’
The nearest station for departure was London Bridge, and the next train
left at 7.20. By Reardon’s watch it was now about five minutes to seven.
‘I don’t know whether it’s possible,’ he said, in confused hurry, ‘but I
must try. There isn’t another train till ten past nine. Come with me to
the station, Biffen.’
Both were ready. They rushed from the house, and sped through the soft,
steady fall of snowflakes into Upper Street. Here they were several
minutes before they found a disengaged cab. Questioning the driver,
they learnt what they would have known very well already but for their
excitement: impossible to get to London Bridge Station in a quarter of
an hour.
‘Better to go on, all the same,’ was Reardon’s opinion. ‘If the snow
gets deep I shall perhaps not be able to have a cab at all. But you had
better not come; I forgot that you are as much out of sorts as I am.’
‘How can you wait a couple of hours alone? In with you!’
‘Diphtheria is pretty sure to be fatal to a child of that age, isn’t
it?’ Reardon asked when they were speeding along City Road.
‘I’m afraid there’s much danger.’
‘Why did she send?’
‘What an absurd question! You seem to have got into a thoroughly morbid
state of mind about her. Do be human, and put away your obstinate
folly.’
‘In my position you would have acted precisely as I have done. I have
had no choice.’
‘I might; but we have both of us too little practicality. The art
of living is the art of compromise. We have no right to foster
sensibilities, and conduct ourselves as if the world allowed of ideal
relations; it leads to misery for others as well as ourselves. Genial
coarseness is what it behoves men like you and me to cultivate. Your
reply to your wife’s last letter was preposterous. You ought to have
gone to her of your own accord as soon as ever you heard she was
rich; she would have thanked you for such common-sense disregard of
delicacies. Let there be an end of this nonsense, I implore you!’
Reardon stared through the glass at the snow that fell thicker and
thicker.
‘What are we--you and I?’ pursued the other. ‘We have no belief in
immortality; we are convinced that this life is all; we know that human
happiness is the origin and end of all moral considerations. What
right have we to make ourselves and others miserable for the sake of an
obstinate idealism? It is our duty to make the best of circumstances.
Why will you go cutting your loaf with a razor when you have a
serviceable bread-knife?’
Still Reardon did not speak. The cab rolled on almost silently.
‘You love your wife, and this summons she sends is proof that her
thought turns to you as soon as she is in distress.’
‘Perhaps she only thought it her duty to let the child’s father know--’
‘Perhaps--perhaps--perhaps!’ cried Biffen, contemptuously. ‘There goes
the razor again! Take the plain, human construction of what happens. Ask
yourself what the vulgar man would do, and do likewise; that’s the only
safe rule for you.’
They were both hoarse with too much talking, and for the last half of
the drive neither spoke.
At the railway-station they ate and drank together, but with poor
pretence of appetite. As long as possible they kept within the warmed
rooms. Reardon was pale, and had anxious, restless eyes; he could not
remain seated, though when he had walked about for a few minutes the
trembling of his limbs obliged him to sink down. It was an unutterable
relief to both when the moment of the train’s starting approached.
They clasped hands warmly, and exchanged a few last requests and
promises.
‘Forgive my plain speech, old fellow,’ said Biffen. ‘Go and be happy!’
Then he stood alone on the platform, watching the red light on the last
carriage as the train whirled away into darkness and storm.