When Septimus had seen Emmy admitted to the Ravenswood Hotel, he stood on
the gloomy pavement outside wondering what he should do. Then it occurred
to him that he belonged to a club--a grave, decorous place where the gay
pop of a champagne cork had been known to produce a scandalized silence in
the luncheon-room, and where serious-minded members congregated to scowl at
one another's unworthiness from behind newspapers. A hansom conveyed him
thither. In the hall he struggled over two telegrams which had caused him
most complicated thought during his drive. The problem was to ease Zora's
mind and to obtain a change of raiment without disclosing the whereabouts
of either Emmy or himself. This he had found no easy matter, diplomacy
being the art of speaking the truth with intent to deceive, and so finely
separated from sheer lying as to cause grave distress to Septimus's candid
soul. At last, after much wasting of telegraph forms, he decided on the
following:
To Zora: "Emmy safe in London. So am I. Don't worry. Devotedly, Septimus."
To Wiggleswick: "Bring clothes and railway carriage diagrams secretly to
Club."
Having dispatched these, he went into the coffee-room and ordered
breakfast. The waiters served him in horrified silence. A gaunt member,
breakfasting a few tables off, asked for the name of the debauchee, and
resolved to write to the Committee. Never in the club's history had a
member breakfasted in dress clothes--and in such disreputably disheveled
dress clothes! Such dissolute mohocks were a stumbling-block and an
offense, and the gaunt member, who had prided himself on going by clockwork
all his life, felt his machinery in some way dislocated by the spectacle.
But Septimus ate his food unconcernedly, and afterwards, mounting to the
library, threw himself into a chair before the fire and slept the sleep of
the depraved till Wiggleswick arrived with his clothes. Then, having
effected an outward semblance of decency, he went to the Ravenswood Hotel.
Wiggleswick he sent back to Nunsmere.
Emmy entered the prim drawing-room where he had been waiting for her, the
picture of pretty flower-like misery, her delicate cheeks white, a hunted
look in her baby eyes. A great pang of pity went through the man, hurting
him physically. She gave him a limp hand, and sat down on a saddle-bag
sofa, while he stood hesitatingly before her, balancing himself first on
one leg and then on the other.
"Have you had anything to eat?"
Emmy nodded.
"Have you slept?"
"That's a thing I shall never do again," she said querulously. "How can you
ask?"
"If you don't sleep, you'll get ill and die," said Septimus.
"So much the better," she replied.
"I wish I could help you. I do wish I could help you."
"No one can help me. Least of all you. What could a man do in any case?
And, as for you, my poor Septimus, you want as much taking care of as I
do."
The depreciatory tone did not sting him as it would have done another man,
for he knew his incapacity. He had also gone through the memory of Moses's
rod the night before.
"I wonder whether Wiggleswick could be of any use?" he said, more
brightly.
Emmy laughed dismally. Wiggleswick! To no other mind but Septimus's could
such a suggestion present itself.
"Then what's to be done?"
"I don't know," said Emmy.
They looked at each other blankly, two children face to face with one of
the most terrible of modern social problems, aghast at their powerlessness
to grapple with it. It is a situation which wrings the souls of the strong
with an agony worse than death. It crushes the weak, or drives them mad,
and often brings them, fragile wisps of human semblance, into the criminal
dock. Shame, disgrace, social pariahdom; unutterable pain to dear ones; an
ever-gaping wound in fierce family pride; a stain on two generations; an
incurable malady of a once blithe spirit; woe, disaster, and ruin--such is
the punishment awarded by men and women to her who disobeys the social law
and, perhaps with equal lack of volition, obeys the law physiological. The
latter is generally considered the greater crime.
These things passed through Septimus's mind. His ignorance of the ways of
what is, after all, an indifferent, self-centered world exaggerated them.
"You know what it means?" he said tonelessly.
"If I didn't, should I be here?"
He made one last effort to persuade her to take Zora into her confidence.
His nature abhorred deceit, to say nothing of the High Treason he was
committing; a rudiment of common sense also told him that Zora was Emmy's
natural helper and protector. But Emmy had the obstinacy of a weak nature.
She would die rather than Zora should know. Zora would never understand,
would never forgive her. The disgrace would kill her mother.
"If you love Zora, as you say you do, you would want to save her pain,"
said Emmy finally.
So Septimus was convinced. But once more, what was to be done?
"You had better go away, my poor Septimus," she said, bending forward
listlessly, her hands in her lap. "You see you're not a bit of use now. If
you had been a different sort of man--like anyone else--one who could have
helped me--I shouldn't have told you anything about it. I'll send for my
old dresser at the theater. I must have a woman, you see. So you had better
go away."
Septimus walked up and down the room deep in thought. A spinster-looking
lady in a cheap blouse and skirt, an inmate of the caravanserai, put her
head through the door and, with a disapproving sniff at the occupants,
retired. At length Septimus broke the silence:
"You said last night that you believed God sent me to you. I believe so
too. So I'm not going to leave you."
"But what can you do?" asked Emmy, ending the sentence on a hysterical note
which brought tears and a fit of sobbing. She buried her head in her arms
on the sofa-end, and her young shoulders shook convulsively. She was an odd
mixture of bravado and baby helplessness. To leave her to fight her
terrible battle with the aid only of a theater dresser was an
impossibility. Septimus looked at her with mournful eyes, hating his
futility. Of what use was he to any God-created being? Another man, strong
and capable, any vital, deep-chested fellow that was passing along
Southampton Row at that moment, would have known how to take her cares on
his broad shoulders and ordain, with kind imperiousness, a course of
action. But he--he could only clutch his fingers nervously and shuffle with
his feet, which of itself must irritate a woman with nerves on edge. He
could do nothing. He could suggest nothing save that he should follow her
about like a sympathetic spaniel. It was maddening. He walked to the window
and looked out into the unexhilarating street, all that was man in him in
revolt against his ineffectuality.
Suddenly came the flash of inspiration, swift, illuminating, such as
happened sometimes when the idea of a world-upsetting invention burst upon
him with bewildering clearness; but this time more radiant, more intense
than he had ever known before; it was almost an ecstasy. He passed both
hands feverishly through his hair till it could stand no higher.
"I have it!" he cried; and Archimedes could not have uttered his famous
word with a greater thrill.
"Emmy, I have it!"
He stood before her gibbering with inspiration. At his cry she raised a
tear-stained face and regarded him amazedly.
"You have what?"
"The solution. It is so simple, so easy. Why shouldn't we have run away
together?"
"We did," said Emmy.
"But really--to get married."
"Married?"
She started bolt upright on the sofa, the feminine ever on the defensive.
"Yes," said Septimus quickly. "Don't you see? If you will go through the
form of marriage with me--oh, just the form, you know--and we both
disappear abroad somewhere for a year--I in one place and you in another,
if you like--then we can come back to Zora, nominally married, and--and--"
"And what?" asked Emmy, stonily.
"And then you can say you can't live with me any longer. You couldn't stand
me. I don't think any woman could. Only Wiggleswick could put up with my
ways."
Emmy passed her hands across her eyes. She was somewhat dazed.
"You would give me your name--and shield me--just like that!" Her voice
quavered.
"It isn't much to give. It's so short," he remarked absently. "I've always
thought it such a silly name."
"You would tie yourself for life to a girl who has disgraced herself, just
for the sake of shielding her?"
"Why, it's done every day," said Septimus.
"Is it? Oh, God! You poor innocent!" and she broke down again.
"There, there," said Septimus kindly, patting her shoulder. "It's all
settled, isn't it? We can get married by special license--quite soon. I've
read of it in books. Perhaps the Hall Porter can tell me where to get one.
Hall Porters know everything. Then we can write to Zora and tell her it was
a runaway match. It's the easiest thing in the world. I'll go and see after
it now."
He left her prostrate on the sofa, her heart stone cold, her body lapped in
flame from feet to hair. It was not given to him to know her agony of
humiliation, her agony of temptation. He had but followed the message which
his simple faith took to be divine. The trivial name of Dix would be the
instrument wherewith the deliverance of Emmy from the House of Bondage
should be effected. He went out cheerily, stared for a moment at the Hall
Porter, vaguely associating him with the matter in hand, but forgetting
exactly why, and strode into the street, feeling greatly uplifted. The
broad-shouldered men who jostled him as he pursued his absent-minded and
therefore devious course no longer appeared potential champions to be
greatly envied. He felt that he was one of them, and blessed them as they
jostled him, taking their rough manners as a sign of kinship. The life of
Holborn swallowed him. He felt glad who once hated the dismaying bustle.
His heart sang for joy. Something had been given him to do for the sake of
the woman he loved. What more can a man do than lay down his life for a
friend? Perhaps he can do a little more for a loved woman: marry somebody
else.
Deep down in his heart he loved Zora. Deep down in his heart, too, dwelt
the idiot hope that the miracle of miracles might one day happen. He loved
the hope with a mother's passionate love for a deformed and imbecile child,
knowing it unfit to live among the other healthy hopes of his conceiving.
At any rate, he was free to bring her his daily tale of worship, to glean a
look of kindness from her clear eyes. This was his happiness. For her sake
he would sacrifice it. For Zora's sake he would marry Emmy. The heart of
Septimus was that of a Knight-Errant confident in the righteousness of his
quest. The certainty had come all at once in the flash of inspiration.
Besides, was he not carrying out Zora's wish? He remembered her words. It
would be the greatest pleasure he could give her--to become her brother,
her real brother. She would approve. And beyond all that, deep down also in
his heart he knew it was the only way, the wise, simple, Heaven-directed
way.
The practical, broad-shouldered, common-sense children of this world would
have weighed many things one against the other. They would have taken into
account sentimentally, morally, pharisaically, or cynically, according to
their various attitudes towards life, the relations between Emmy and
Mordaunt Prince which had led to this tragic situation. But for Septimus
her sin scarcely existed. When a man is touched by an angel's feather he
takes an angel's view of mortal frailties.
He danced his jostled way up Holborn till the City Temple loomed through
the brown air. It struck a chord of association. He halted on the edge of
the curb and regarded it across the road, with a forefinger held up before
his nose as if to assist memory. It was a church. People were apt to be
married in churches. Sometimes by special license. That was it! A special
license. He had come out to get one. But where were they to be obtained? In
a properly civilized country, doubtless they would be sold in shops, like
boots and hair-brushes, or even in post-offices, like dog licenses. But
Septimus, aware of the deficiencies of an incomplete social organization,
could do no better than look wistfully up and down the stream of traffic,
as it roared and flashed and lumbered past. A policeman stopped beside him.
He appeared so lost, he met the man's eyes with a gaze so questioning, that
the policeman paused.
"Want to go anywhere, sir?"
"Yes," said Septimus. "I want to go where I can get a special license to be
married."
"Don't you know?"
"No. You see," said Septimus confidentially, "marriage has been out of my
line. But perhaps you have been married, and might be able to tell me."
"Look here, sir," said the policeman, eyeing him kindly, but officially.
"Take my advice, sir; don't think of getting married. You go home to your
friends."
The policeman nodded knowingly and stalked away, leaving Septimus perplexed
by his utterance. Was he a Socrates of a constable with a Xantippe at home,
or did he regard him as a mild lunatic at large? Either solution was
discouraging. He turned and walked back down Holborn somewhat dejected.
Somewhere in London the air was thick with special licenses, but who would
direct his steps to the desired spot? On passing Gray's Inn one of his
brilliant ideas occurred to him. The Inn suggested law; the law,
solicitors, who knew even more about licenses than Hall Porters and
Policemen. A man he once knew had left him one day after lunch to consult
his solicitors in Gray's Inn. He entered the low, gloomy gateway and
accosted the porter.
"Are there any solicitors living in the Inn?"
"Not so many as there was. They're mostly architects. But still there's
heaps."
"Will you kindly direct me to one?"
The man gave him two or three addresses, and he went comforted across the
square to the east wing, whose Georgian mass merged without skyline into
the fuliginous vapor which Londoners call the sky. The lights behind the
blindless windows illuminated interiors and showed men bending over desks
and drawing-boards, some near the windows with their faces sharply cut in
profile. Septimus wondered vaguely whether any one of those visible would
be his solicitor.
A member of the first firm he sought happened to be disengaged, a
benevolent young man wearing gold spectacles, who received his request for
guidance with sympathetic interest and unfolded to him the divers methods
whereby British subjects could get married all over the world, including
the High Seas on board one of His Majesty's ships of the Mercantile Marine.
Solicitors are generally bursting with irrelevant information. When,
however, he elicited the fact that one of the parties had a flat in London
which would technically prove the fifteen days' residence, he opened his
eyes.
"But, my dear sir, unless you are bent on a religious ceremony, why not get
married at once before the registrar of the Chelsea district? There are two
ways of getting married before the registrar--one by certificate and one by
license. By license you can get married after the expiration of one whole
day next after the day of the entry of the notice of marriage. That is to
say, if you give notice to-morrow you can get married not the next day, but
the day after. In this way you save the heavy special license fee. How does
it strike you?"
It struck Septimus as a remarkable suggestion, and he admired the lawyer
exceedingly.
"I suppose it's really a good and proper marriage?" he asked.
The benevolent young man reassured him; it would take all the majesty of
the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty division of the High Court of Justice to
dissolve it. Septimus agreed that in these circumstances it must be a
capital marriage. Then the solicitor offered to see the whole matter
through and get him married in the course of a day or two. After which he
dismissed him with a professional blessing which cheered Septimus all the
way to the Ravenswood Hotel.