‘O WORLD, HOW APT THE POOR ARE TO BE PROUD!’
Lucius thought much of his friend after that frank confession at the
Cosmopolitan. Geoffrey had dined none the less well because of his
passion. He had eaten oysters, and bisque soup, and stewed calves’ head
with truffles, and mutton, and wild duck, with the appetite that had
been educated in an American pine-forest; had drunk Château d’Yquem,
and Chambertin, and wound up with curaçoa, and had waxed merry to
riotousness as the evening grew late,—Lucius taking but a moderate
share in the revel, yet enjoying it. Was it not a glimpse of a new
life, after the Shadrack-road, where pleasure had a universal flavour
of gin-and-water?
They parted after midnight with warm protestations of friendship. They
were to see each other again. Geoffrey was to look his friend up in the
Shadrack district as soon as his engagements permitted. But wherever
_she_ went, he would follow her, were it to that possible continent or
archipelago at the southern pole.
So Lucius went back to the region of many spars and much rigging, and
solaced his lonely evenings with the pensive strains of his violin,
and pondered long and gravely upon that wondrous mystery of love which
could befool even so healthy a nature as that of honest, open-hearted,
plain-spoken Geoffrey Hossack. Love allied with music! ‘Yes,’ he
thought, as he sighed over the long-drawn chords of an adagio, ‘_that_
is the fatal witchcraft.’
Anon came February, season of sleet and east winds, the month in which
winter—after seeming, towards the end of January, to have grown genial
and temperate, with even faint whispers of coming spring—generally
undergoes a serious relapse, and plunges anew into hyperborean
darkness, fog, tempest, snow. Lucius had passed the old house in the
Shadrack-road almost every day since November (even when it lay out of
his beat he contrived to walk that way), but had seen no more sign of
human life about that dismal mansion than if it had been in Chancery;
not even the old woman in a bonnet—not even a baker’s barrow delivering
the daily loaf—not so much as a postman. He might almost have beguiled
himself into the belief that the whole experience of that November
evening—the old man—the pale poetic-looking girl—the marvellous
collection of art treasures seen by the flickering light of a single
candle—were the mere phantasmagoria of an overworked brain, a waking
dream, the inchoate vision of a disordered fancy.
He went twice every Sunday to a church that stood midway between his
own house and the once regal mansion; a new church of the Pugin-Gothic
order, with open seats, a painted window, other windows which awaited
the piety of the congregation to be also painted, and a very young
incumbent of the advanced type, deeply read in the lives of the saints,
and given to early services. This temple was so small that Lucius
fancied he could scarcely have failed to see Miss Sivewright were she
a worshipper there. Sunday after Sunday, during the hymns, ancient and
modern, he looked with anxious gaze round the fane, hoping to see that
one interesting face among the crowd of uninteresting faces. Four out
of five of the congregation were women, but Lucille Sivewright was not
one of them. He began to resign himself to the dreary truth that they
two were doomed never to meet again.
Hope, in its last agony, was suddenly recalled to new life. He came
home from his daily drudgery one evening, thoroughly tired, even a
little disheartened; ‘discouraged,’ as the American lady described
herself, when she confessed to poisoning eight of her relations, simply
because she began to regard them as encumbrances, and feared that, if
permitted to live, they might reduce her to poverty. On this particular
evening the star of science—that grand and ever-sustaining idea that he
was to sow the seed of some new truth in the broad field of scientific
progress—waxed paler than usual, and Lucius also was discouraged. He
came home bodily and mentally tired. He had been tramping to and fro
all day under a drizzling rain, and in a leaden atmosphere laden with
London smoke.
Even in that shabby ill-built domicile which he called home, sorry
comfort awaited him. His ancient serving-woman, Mrs. Babb, had let
the parlour fire go out. The kettle, which, singing on the hob above
a cheerful blaze, seemed almost a sentient thing, now leaned on one
side disconsolately against a craggy heap of black coal, like a vessel
aground upon a coral reef. The tray of tea-things—the neat white cloth
indicative of chop or steak—adorned not his small round table. Mrs.
Babb, absorbed in the feminine delights of a weekly cleaning, had
suffered herself to become unconscious of the lapse of time.
He gave the loose, ill-hung bell-wire an angry jerk, flung himself
into his accustomed arm-chair, and stretched out his hand haphazard in
search of a book. Plato, Montaigne, Sterne, any philosopher who should
teach him how to hear the petty stings of the scorpion—daily life.
But before his hand touched the volumes, its motion was arrested. He
beheld something more interesting than Plato, since in all probability
it concerned himself, namely, a letter, at a corner of the mantelpiece,
just on a level with his eye. Egotism triumphed over philosophy. The
letter, were it even a bill, was more vital to him for the moment than
all the wisdom of Socrates.
He snatched the envelope, which was directed in a rugged uncompromising
caligraphy, unfamiliar to him. He tore it open eagerly, and looked at
the signature, ‘Homer Sivewright.’
‘Dear Sir,—When you obliged me with your assistance the other day, I
believe I made some profane remark about your profession, which you
took in good part. One forgives such gibes from a testy old man. You
told me that when I found myself ill, my thoughts would naturally tend
towards Savile-row. There you were wrong. I do find something out of
gear in my constitution—possibly liver—or perhaps general break-up.
But instead of thinking of the high-flyers of the West-end, with their
big fees and pompous pretensions, I think of you.
‘I told you the other night that I liked your face. This is not all.
My housekeeper, who has kindred in this district, informs me that you
have worked some marvellous cure upon her husband’s brother’s second
cousin’s wife’s sister. The relationship is remote, but the rumour
of your skill has reached my servant. Will you come this way at your
convenience? Don’t come out of your way on purpose to see me. My
means, as I informed you, and as you might see for yourself in all my
surroundings, are scanty, and I can afford to pay very little more
than the poorest among your patients. I state the case thus plainly
that there may be no future disagreement.—Truly yours,
‘HOMER SIVEWRIGHT.’
‘Is the old man a miser; or an enthusiast, who has sacrificed himself
and his granddaughter to his love of art? Equally hard upon the
granddaughter in either case,’ reflected Lucius, trying to contemplate
the business in the chilly light of common sense, wondering at and
half-ashamed of the sudden delight which had moved him when he found
that Mr. Sivewright’s letter was nothing less than a passport to
Lucille Sivewright’s home.
‘I’ll go the instant I’ve dined,’ he said to himself, giving another
tug at the loose bell-wire. ‘Yet who knows whether the old churl will
let me see his interesting granddaughter? Perhaps he’ll put me on a
strictly professional footing; have me shown up to his den by that old
woman, and shown down again without so much as a glimpse of Lucille’s
pensive face. Yet he can hardly pay me badly and treat me badly too.
I’ll ask permission to attend him as a friend; and then perhaps he’ll
melt a little, and admit me to his hearth. I like the look of that
old wainscoted room, with its bare floor and clean-swept hearth, and
handful of bright fire. It seemed to breathe the poetry of poverty.’
Mrs. Babb came clattering in with the tea-things and chop all together,
profuse in apologies for having forgotten to wind up the kitchen clock,
and thus become oblivious as to time.
‘On a clear day I can see the clock at the public round the corner by
stretching my head out of the back-attic window,’ she said; ‘but being
thick to-day I couldn’t, and I must have been an hour behind ever since
dinner. And the fire gone out too!’
The fire was quickly lighted; the kettle carried off to boil
down-stairs; but Lucius didn’t wait for his tea. That gentle decoction,
which was, in a general way, the very support of his life, to-night
was almost indifferent to him. He ate his chop, ran up to his narrow
dressing-room, where the weekly cleansing process had left a healthy
odour of mottled soap and a refreshing dampness, washed away the smoke
and grime of the day with much cold water, changed all his garments,
lest he should carry the taint of fever-dens whither he was going, and
went forth as gaily as to a festival.
‘Am I as great a fool as dear old Geoffrey?’ he asked himself during
that rapid walk. ‘No; at least I know something of my goddess. I could
read the story of her patient self-sacrificing life even in that one
hour. Besides, I am by no means in love with her. I am only interested.’
It was a new feeling for him to approach the gate with the certainty of
admission. He tugged resolutely at the iron ring, and heard the rusty
wires creak their objection to such disturbance. Then came a shuffling
slipshod step across the barren forecourt, which, with different
tenants, might have been a garden. This footstep announced the old
woman in the bonnet, who seemed to him the twin sister of his own
housekeeper, so closely do old women in that sphere of life resemble
each other—like babies. She mumbled something, and admitted him to the
sacred precincts. The same half-light glimmered in the hall as when
he had seen it first; the whole treasury of art wrapped in shadow.
The same brighter glow streamed from the panelled parlour as the old
woman opened the door and announced ‘Dr. Davory.’ Homer Sivewright
was sitting in his high-backed arm-chair by the hearth, getting all
the heat he could out of the contracted fire. His granddaughter sat
opposite him, knitting with four needles, which flashed like electric
wires under the guidance of the soft white hands. The tea-tray—with its
quaint old teapot in buff and black Wedgewood—adorned the table.
‘I thought you’d come,’ said the old man, ‘though my letter was not
very inviting, if you cultivate wealthy patients.’
‘I do not,’ answered Lucius, taking the chair indicated to him, after
receiving a stately foreign curtsy from Miss Sivewright, an unfamiliar
recognition which seemed to place him at an ineffable distance. ‘I was
very glad to get your note, and to respond to it promptly. I shall be
still more glad if you will place my medical services upon a friendly
footing. At your age a man requires the constant attendance of a doctor
who knows his constitution. There may be very little treatment wanted,
only the supervision of an experienced eye. Let me be your friend as
well as your medical adviser, and drop in whenever I am wanted, without
question of payment.’
The old man shot a keen glance from his cold gray eyes; eyes which
looked as if they had been in the habit of prying into men’s thoughts.
‘Why should you be so generous?’ he asked; ‘I have no claim upon you,
not even that hollow pretence which the world calls friendship. You
have nothing to gain from me. My will, disposing of my collection—which
is all I have to bequeath—was made ten years ago; and nothing would
ever tempt me to alter it by so much as a ten-pound legacy. You see
there’s nothing to be gained by showing me kindness.’
‘Grandfather!’ remonstrated the girl, in her low serious voice.
‘I am sorry you should impute to me any such sordid motive,’ said
Lucius quietly. ‘My reason for offering my services gratis is plain and
above board. There is no fireside at this end of the town at which I
care to sit, no society congenial to me. I spend all my evenings alone,
generally in hard study, sometimes with the books I love, or with my
violin for my companion. This kind of life suits me well enough on
the whole. Yet there are intervals of depression in which I feel its
exceeding loneliness. No man is all-sufficient to himself. Give me the
privilege of spending an evening here now and then—I will not wear out
my welcome—and let me watch your case as a labour of love. You say that
the recompense you can offer me will be small. Better for both your
dignity and mine that there should be none at all.’
‘You speak fair,’ answered Sivewright, ‘but that’s a common
qualification. I have a granddaughter there whom you may imagine to
be my heiress. If she is, she is heiress only to my collection; and
even my judgment may be mistaken as to the value of that. In any case,
consider her disposed of—put her put of the question.’
‘Grandfather!’ remonstrated the girl again, this time blushing
indignantly.
‘Better to speak plainly, Lucille.’
‘Since you cannot see me in any character except that of a
fortune-hunter, sir,’ said Lucius, rising, ‘we had better put an end to
the discussion. There are plenty of medical men in this neighbourhood.
You can find an adviser among them. I wish you good-evening.’
‘Stop,’ exclaimed Sivewright, as the surgeon walked straight to the
door, wounded inexpressibly, ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. But you
offered me your friendship, and it was best you should know upon what
footing I could accept the offer. You now know that I have no money to
leave any one—don’t suppose me a miser because I live poorly; that’s a
common error—and that my granddaughter is disposed of. Knowing this, do
you still offer me your professional services for nothing? do you still
wish for a place beside my hearth?’
‘I do,’ said the young man eagerly, and with one swift involuntary
glance at Lucille, who sat motionless, except for the dexterous hands
that plied those shining wires. He thought of the humiliation of
Hercules, and how well it would have pleased him to sit at her feet and
hold the worsted that she wound.
‘So be it then; you are henceforth free of this house. My door, which
so seldom opens to a stranger, shall offer no barrier to you. If you
discover circumstances in our lives that puzzle you, do not trouble
yourself to wonder about them. You will know all in good time. Be a
brother to Lucille.’ She held out her hand to the visitor frankly at
these words. He took it far more shyly than it was given. ‘And be a
son,’ with a long regretful sigh, ‘if you can, to me. I told you the
other day that I liked your voice, that I liked your face. I will go
farther to-night and say, I like you.’
‘Thank you,’ answered Lucius gravely, ‘that is just what I want. I
doubt if I have a near relation in the world, and I know but one man
whom I count my friend. Friendship with me, therefore, means something
very real. It is not a hackneyed sentiment, worn threadbare by long
usage. But now that we have arranged things pleasantly, let us have our
medical inspection.’
‘Not to-night,’ said Mr. Sivewright. ‘Come to me to-morrow, if you can
spare me the time. My symptoms are not of a pressing kind. I only feel
the wheels of life somewhat clogged; the mainspring weaker than it used
to be. Let us give to-night to friendship.’
‘Willingly,’ answered Lucius. ‘I will be with you at ten o’clock
to-morrow morning.’
He drew his chair nearer to the hearth, feeling that he was now really
admitted to the charmed circle. To most young men it would have been
far from an attractive house; for him it possessed an almost mysterious
fascination. Indeed, it was perhaps the element of mystery which made
Lucille Sivewright so interesting in his eyes. He had seen plenty of
women who were as pretty—some who were more beautiful—but not one who
had ever filled his thoughts as she did.
‘Pour out the tea, child,’ said Mr. Sivewright, and that fragrant
beverage was dispensed by Lucille’s white hands. It was one of the few
details of housekeeping in which the old man permitted extravagance.
The tea was of the choicest, brewed without stint, and the small
antique silver jug, adorned with elaborate _repoussé_ work, contained
cream. Lucius thought he had never tasted anything so exquisite as that
cup of tea. They sat round the fire, and the old man talked well and
freely—talked of the struggles of his youth, his art-worship, those
wonderful strokes of fortune to which the dealer in bric-à-brac is
ever liable—talked of everything connected with his career, except his
domestic life. On that one subject he was dumb.
Lucius thought of the castaway, the son who was of no more account to
his father than one of the wooden images in the crowded storehouse
across the hall. What had been his crime? Perhaps never to have
been loved at all. This old man’s nature seemed of a hard-grained
wood, which could scarcely put forth tender shoots and blossoms of
affection—a man who would consider his son his natural enemy.
‘You spoke of your violin some time ago,’ Lucille said, by and
by, in a pause of the conversation. Mr. Sivewright, having talked
about himself to his heart’s content, leaned back in his chair and
contemplated the fire. ‘Do you really play? I am so fond of the violin.’
‘Are you, indeed?’ cried Lucius, enraptured. ‘I’ll bring it some night,
and—’
‘Don’t!’ ejaculated the old man decisively. ‘I am something of
Chesterfield’s opinion, that fiddling is beneath a gentleman. If I hear
you scraping catgut I shall lose all confidence in your medicines.’
‘Then you shall not hear me,’ said Lucius, with perfect good humour. He
was determined to make friends with this grim old bric-à-brac dealer
if he could, just as one resolves to overcome the prejudices of an
unfriendly dog, believing that beneath his superficial savagery there
must be a substratum of nobility. ‘I only thought a little quiet music
might amuse Miss Sivewright, since she says she is fond of the violin.’
‘She doesn’t know what she is fond of,’ replied Sivewright testily;
‘she is full of fancies and whims, and likes everything that I abhor.
There, no tears, child,’ as those dark gentle eyes filled; ‘you know I
hate those most of all.’
Lucius came to the rescue, and began to talk with renewed vivacity,
thus covering Lucille’s confusion. He spoke of himself, giving all
those details of his childhood and youth, the knowledge of which
between new acquaintances at once establishes the familiarity that is
half-way towards friendship.
He left early, fearful of outstaying his welcome; left with a sense
of perfect content in this quiet domestic evening, although the old
man had certainly not gone out of his way to conciliate his visitor.
Lucille had talked very little, but even her silence had been
interesting to Lucius. It seemed to him the indication, not of dulness,
but of a gentle melancholy; a mind overshadowed by some olden sorrow,
and perhaps depressed by the solitude of that dreary mansion. He was
not satisfied with a continental curtsy at parting, but offered Lucille
his hand, which she took as frankly as if she had fully accepted him in
the character of an adopted brother.