About the middle of a May afternoon, seven years later, a young man
turned out of the Strand into a quiet street in the neighbourhood of
Covent Garden and began looking about him as if endeavouring to locate
the whereabouts of some particular place. Catching sight of the name
_William Robertson_ on a neighbouring window, with the word _Publisher_
underneath it, he turned into the door of the establishment thus
designated, and encountering an office-boy who was busily engaged in
reading a comic journal inside a small pen labelled ‘Inquiries,’ he
asked with great politeness if Mr. Robertson was at that moment
disengaged. The office-boy in his own good time condescended to examine
the personal appearance of the inquirer, and having assured himself that
the gentleman was worthy his attention he asked in sharp tones if he had
an appointment with Mr. Robertson. To this the stranger replied that he
believed he was expected by Mr. Robertson during the afternoon, but not
at any particular hour, and produced a card from which the office-boy
learned that he was confronting the Viscount Saxonstowe. He forthwith
disappeared into some inner region and came back a moment later with a
young gentleman who cultivated long hair and an æsthetic style of
necktie, and bowed Lord Saxonstowe through various doors into a pleasant
ante-room, where he accommodated his lordship with a chair and the
_Times_, and informed him that Mr. Robertson would be at liberty in a
few moments. Lord Saxonstowe remarked that he was in no hurry at all,
and would wait Mr. Robertson’s convenience. The young gentleman with the
luxuriant locks replied politely that he was quite sure Mr. Robertson
would not keep his lordship waiting long, and added that they were
experiencing quite summer-like weather. Lord Saxonstowe agreed to this
proposition, and opened the _Times_. His host or keeper for the time
being seated himself at a desk, one half of which was shared by a lady
typist who had affected great interest in her work since Lord
Saxonstowe’s entrance, and who now stole surreptitious glances at him as
he scanned the newspaper. The clerk scribbled a line or two on a scrap
of paper and passed it across to her. She untwisted it and read: ‘_This
is the chap that did that tremendous exploration in the North of Asia: a
real live lord, you know._’ She scribbled an answering line: ‘_Of course
I know--do you think I didn’t recognise the name?_’ and passed it over
with a show of indignation. The clerk indited another epistle: ‘_Don’t
look as if he’d seen much of anything, does he?_’ The girl perused this,
scribbled back: ‘_His eyes and moustache are real jam!_’ and fell to
work at her machine again. The clerk sighed, caressed a few sprouts on
his top-lip, and remarking to his own soul that these toffs always catch
the girls’ eyes, fell to doing nothing in a practised way.
Viscount Saxonstowe, quite unconscious of the interest he was exciting,
stared about him after a time and began to wonder if the two young
people at the desk usually worked with closed windows. The atmosphere
was heavy, and there was a concentrated smell of paper, and ink, and
paste. He thought of the wind-swept plains and steppes on which he had
spent long months--he had gone through some stiff experiences there, but
he confessed to himself that he would prefer a bitter cold night in
winter in similar solitudes to a summer’s day in that ante-room. His own
healthy tan and the clearness of his eyes, his alert look and the easy
swing with which he walked, would never have been developed amidst such
surroundings, and the consciousness of his own rude health made him feel
sorry for the two white slaves before him. He felt that if he could have
his own way he would cut the young gentleman’s hair, put him into a
flannel shirt and trot him round; as for the young lady, he would
certainly send her into the country for a holiday. And while he thus
indulged his fancies a door opened and he heard voices, and two men
stepped into the ante-room.
He instinctively recognised one as the publisher whom he had come to
see; at the other, a much younger man, he found himself staring with
some sense of recognition which was as yet vague and unformed. He felt
sure that he had met him before, and under some unusual circumstances,
but he could not remember the occasion, nor assure his mind that the
face on which he looked was really familiar--it was more suggestive of
something that had been familiar than familiar in itself. He concluded
that he must have seen a photograph of it in some illustrated paper; the
man was in all likelihood a popular author. Saxonstowe carefully looked
him over as he stood exchanging a last word with the publisher on the
threshold of the latter’s room. He noted the gracefulness of the slim
figure in the perfectly fashioned clothes, and again he became conscious
that his memory was being stirred. The man under observation was
swinging a light walking-cane as he chatted; he made a sudden movement
with it to emphasise a point, and Saxonstowe’s memory cleared itself.
His thoughts flew back ten years: he saw two boys, one the very image of
incarnate Wrath, the other an equally faithful impersonation of
Amazement, facing each other in an antique hall, with rapiers in hand
and a sense of battle writ large upon their faces and figures.
‘And I can’t remember the chap’s name!’ he thought. ‘But this is he.’
He looked at his old antagonist more closely, and with a keener
interest. Lucian was now twenty-five; he had developed into a tall,
well-knit man of graceful and sinuous figure; he was dressed with great
care and with strict attention to the height of the prevalent fashion,
but with a close study of his own particular requirements; his
appearance was distinguished and notable, and Saxonstowe, little given
to sentiment as regards manly beauty, confessed to himself that the face
on which he looked might have been moulded by Nature from a canvas or
marble of the Renaissance. It was a face for which some women would
forget everything,--Saxonstowe, with this thought half-formed in his
mind, caught sight of the anæemic typist, who, oblivious of anything
else in the room, had fixed all her attention on Lucian. Her hands
rested, motionless, on the keys of the machine before her; her head was
slightly tilted back, her eyes shone, her lips were slightly parted; a
faint flush of colour had stolen into her cheeks, and for the moment she
was a pretty girl. Saxonstowe smiled--it seemed to him that he had been
privileged to peep into the secret chamber of a girlish soul. ‘She would
give something to kiss his hand,’ he thought.
Lucian turned away from the publisher with a nod; his eye caught
Saxonstowe’s and held it. A puzzled look came into his face; he paused
and involuntarily stretched out his hand, staring at Saxonstowe
searchingly. Saxonstowe smiled and gave his hand in return.
‘We have met somewhere,’ said Lucian wonderingly, ‘I cannot think
where.’
‘Nor can I remember your name,’ answered Saxonstowe. ‘But--we met in the
Stone Hall at Simonstower.’
Lucian’s face lighted with the smile which had become famous for its
sweetness.
‘And with rapiers!’ he exclaimed. ‘I remember--I remember! You are
Dickie--Dickie Feversham.’ He began to laugh. ‘How quaint that scene
was!’ he said. ‘I have often thought that it had the very essence of the
dramatic in it. Let me see--what did we fight about? Was it Haidee? How
amusing--because Haidee and I are married.’
‘That,’ said Saxonstowe, ‘seems a happy ending to the affair. But I
think it ended happily at the time. And even yet I cannot remember your
name.’
Mr. Robertson stepped forward before Lucian could reply. He introduced
the young men to each other in due form. Then Saxonstowe knew that his
old enemy was one of the great literary lions of the day; and Lucian
recognised Saxonstowe as the mighty traveller of whose deeds most people
were talking. They looked at each other with interest, and Mr. Robertson
felt a glow of pride when he remembered that his was the only imprint
which had ever appeared on a title-page of Lucian Damerel’s, and that he
was shortly to publish the two massive volumes in which Viscount
Saxonstowe had given to the world an account of his wondrous wanderings.
He rubbed his hands as he regarded these two splendid young men; it did
him good to be near them.
Lucian was worshipping Saxonstowe with the guileless adoration of a
child that looks on a man who has seen great things and done great
things. It was a trick of his: he had once been known to stand
motionless for an hour, gazing in silence at a man who had performed a
deed of desperate valour, had suffered the loss of his legs in doing it,
and had been obliged to exhibit himself with a placard round his neck in
order to scrape a living together. Lucian was now conjuring up a vision
of the steppes and plains over which Saxonstowe had travelled with his
life in his hands.
‘When will you dine with us?’ he said, suddenly bursting into speech.
‘To-night--to-morrow?--the day after--when? Come before everybody snaps
you up--you will have no peace for your soul or rest for your body after
your book is out.’
‘Then I shall run away to certain regions where one can easily find
both,’ answered Saxonstowe laughingly. ‘I assure you I have no intention
of wasting either body or soul in London.’
Then they arranged that the new lion was to dine with Mr. and Mrs.
Lucian Damerel on the following day, and Lucian departed, while
Saxonstowe followed Mr. Robertson into his private room.
‘Your lordship has met Mr. Damerel before?’ said the publisher, who had
something of a liking for gossip about his pet authors.
‘Once,’ answered Saxonstowe. ‘We were boys at the time. I had no idea
that he was the poet of whose work I have heard so much since coming
home.’
‘He has had an extraordinarily successful career,’ said Mr. Robertson,
glancing complacently at a little row of thin volumes bound in dark
green cloth which figured in a miniature book-case above his desk. ‘I
have published all his work--he leaped into fame with his first book,
which I produced when he was at Oxford, and since then he has held a
recognised place. Yes, one may say that Damerel is one of fortune’s
spoiled darlings--everything that he has done has turned out a great
success. He has the grand manner in poetry. I don’t know whether your
lordship has read his great tragedy, _Domitia_, which was staged so
magnificently at the Athenæum, and proved the sensation of the year?’
‘I am afraid,’ replied Saxonstowe, ‘that I have had few opportunities of
reading anything at all for the past five years. I think Mr. Damerel’s
first volume had just appeared when I left England, and books, you know,
are not easily obtainable in the wilds of Central Asia. Now that I have
better chances, I must not neglect them.’
‘You have a great treat in store, my lord,’ said the publisher. He
nodded his head several times, as if to emphasise the remark. ‘Yes,’ he
continued, ‘Damerel has certainly been favoured by fortune. Everything
has conspired to increase the sum of his fame. His romantic marriage, of
course, was a great advertisement.’
‘An advertisement!’
‘I mean, of course, from my standpoint,’ said Mr. Robertson hastily. ‘He
ran away with a very beautiful girl who was on the very eve of
contracting a most advantageous marriage from a worldly point of view,
and the affair was much talked about. There was a great rush on
Damerel’s books during the next few weeks--it is wonderful how a little
sensation like that helps the sale of a book. I remember that Lord
Pintleford published a novel with me some years ago which we could not
sell at all. He shot his coachman in a fit of anger--that sold the book
like hot cakes.’
‘I trust the unfortunate coachman was not seriously injured,’ said
Saxonstowe, who was much amused by these revelations. ‘It is, I confess,
an unusual method of advertising a book, and one which I should not care
to adopt.’
‘Oh, we can spare your lordship the trouble!’ said Mr. Robertson.
‘There’ll be no need to employ any unusual methods in making your
lordship’s book known. I have already subscribed two large editions of
it.’
With this gratifying announcement Mr. Robertson plunged into the
business which had brought Lord Saxonstowe to his office, and for that
time no more was said of Lucian Damerel and his great fame. But that
night Saxonstowe dined with his aunt, Lady Firmanence, a childless widow
who lived on past scandals and present gossip, and chancing to remark
that he had encountered Lucian and renewed a very small acquaintance
with him, was greeted with a sniff which plainly indicated that Lady
Firmanence had something to say.
‘And where, pray, did you meet Lucian Damerel at any time?’ she
inquired. ‘He was unknown, or just beginning to be known, when you left
England.’
‘It is ten years since I met him,’ answered Saxonstowe. ‘It was when I
was staying at Saxonstowe with my uncle. I met Damerel at Simonstower,
and the circumstances were rather amusing.’
He gave an account of the duel, which afforded Lady Firmanence much
amusement, and he showed her the scar on his hand, and laughed as he
related the story of Lucian’s terrible earnestness.
‘But I have never forgotten,’ he concluded, ‘how readily and sincerely
he asked my forgiveness when he found that he had been in the wrong--it
rather knocked me over, you know, because I didn’t quite understand that
he really felt the thing--we were both such boys, and the girl was a
child.’
‘Oh, Lucian Damerel has good feeling,’ said Lady Firmanence. ‘You
wouldn’t understand the Italian strain in him. But it is amusing that
you should have fought over Haidee Brinklow, who is now Mrs. Lucian. I’m
glad he married her, and that you didn’t.’
‘Considering that I am to dine with Mr. and Mrs. Lucian Damerel
to-morrow,’ said Saxonstowe, ‘it is a bit odd that I don’t know any more
of them than this. She, I remember, was some connection of Lord
Simonstower’s; but who is he?’
‘Lucian Damerel? Oh, he was the son of Cyprian Damerel, an Italian
artist who married the daughter of one of Simonstower’s tenants.
Simonstower was at all times greatly interested in him, and it has
always been my firm impression that it was he who sent the boy to
Oxford. At any rate, when he died, which was just before Lucian Damerel
came of age, Simonstower left him ten thousand pounds.’
‘That was good,’ said Saxonstowe.
‘I don’t know,’ said Lady Firmanence. ‘It has always seemed to me from
what I have seen of him--and I keep my eyes open on most things--that it
would have been far better for that young man if fortune had dealt him a
few sound kicks instead of so many halfpence. Depend upon it,
Saxonstowe, it’s a bad thing for a man, and especially for a man of that
temperament, to be pampered too much. Now, Lucian Damerel has been
pampered all his life--I know a good deal about him, because I was
constantly down at Saxonstowe during the last two or three years of your
uncle’s life, and Saxonstowe, as you may remember, is close to
Simonstower. I know how Lucian was petted and pampered by his own
people, and by the parson and his daughter, and by the old lord. His way
has always been made smooth for him--it would have done him good to find
a few rough places here and there. He had far too much flattery poured
upon him when his success came, and he has got used to expecting it,
though indeed,’ concluded the old lady, laughing, ‘Heaven knows I’m
wrong in saying “got used,” for Damerel’s one of the sort who take all
the riches and luxuries of the world as their just due.’
‘He seemed to me to be very simple and unaffected,’ said Saxonstowe.
Lady Firmanence nodded the ribbons of her cap.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘he’s sadly too simple, and I wish--for I can’t help
liking him--that he was as affected as some of those young upstarts who
cultivate long hair and velvet coats on the strength of a slim volume
printed on one side of the paper only. No--Lucian Damerel hasn’t a scrap
of affectation about him, and he isn’t a _poseur_. I wish he were
affected and that he would pose--I do indeed, for his own sake.’
Saxonstowe knew that his aunt was a clever woman. He held his tongue,
asking her by his eyes to explain this desire of hers, which seemed so
much at variance with her well-known love of humbug and cant.
‘Oh, of course I know you’re wondering at that!’ she said. ‘Well, the
explanation is simple enough. I wish Lucian Damerel were a _poseur_, I
wish he were affected, even to the insufferable stage, for the simple
reason that if he were these things it would show that he was alive to
the practical and business side of the matter. What is he? A writer.
He’ll have to live by writing--at the rate he and Haidee live they’ll
soon exhaust their resources--and he ought to be alive to the £ s. d. of
his trade, for it is a trade. As things are, he isn’t alive. The
difference between Lucian Damerel and some other men of equal eminence
in his own craft is just this: they are for ever in an attitude, crying
out, “Look at me--is it not wonderful that I am so clever?” Lucian, on
the other hand, seems to suggest an attitude and air of “Wouldn’t it be
curious if I weren’t?”’
‘I think,’ said Saxonstowe, ‘that there may be some affectation in
that.’
‘Affectation,’ said Lady Firmanence, ‘depends upon two things if it is
to be successful: the power to deceive cleverly, and the ability to
deceive for ever. Lucian Damerel couldn’t deceive anybody--he’s a child,
the child who believes the world to be an illimitable nursery crammed
with inexhaustible toys.’
‘You mean that he plays at life?’
‘I mean that he plays _in_ life,’ said Lady Firmanence. ‘He’s still
sporting on his mother’s breast, and he’ll go on sporting until somebody
picks him up, smacks him soundly, and throws him into a corner. Then, of
course, he will be vastly surprised to find that such treatment _could_
be meted out to him.’
‘Then let us hope that he will be able to live in his world of dreams
for ever,’ said Saxonstowe.
‘So he might, if the State were to establish an asylum for folk of his
sort,’ said Lady Firmanence. ‘But he happens to be married, and married
to Haidee Brinklow.’
‘My publisher,’ remarked Saxonstowe, ‘gloated over the romantic
circumstances of the marriage, and appeared to think that that sort of
thing was good for trade--made books sell, you know.’
‘I have no doubt that Damerel’s marriage made his books sell, and kept
_Domitia_ running at the Athenæum for at least three months longer,’
replied Lady Firmanence.
‘Were the circumstances, then, so very romantic?’
‘I dare say they appealed to the sensations, emotions, feelings, and
notions of the British public,’ said the old lady. ‘Haidee Brinklow,
after a campaign of two seasons, was about to marry a middle-aged person
who had made much money in something or other, and was prepared to
execute handsome settlements. It was all arranged when Lucian burst upon
the scene, blazing with triumph, youth, and good looks. He was the comet
of that season, and Haidee was attracted by the glitter of his tail. I
suppose he and she were madly in love with each other for quite a
month--unfortunately, during that month they committed the indiscretion
of marriage.’
‘A runaway marriage, was it not?’
‘Under the very noses of the mamma and the bridegroom-elect. There was
one happy result of the affair,’ said Lady Firmanence musingly; ‘it
drove Mrs. Brinklow off to somewhere or other on the Continent, and
there she has since remained--she took her defeat badly. Now the jilted
gentleman took it in good part--it is said that he is quite a sort of
grandpapa in the establishment, and has realised that there are
compensations even in being jilted.’
Saxonstowe meditated upon these things in silence.
‘Mrs. Damerel was a pretty girl,’ he said, after a time.
‘Mrs. Damerel is a nice little doll,’ said Lady Firmanence, ‘a very
pretty toy indeed. Give her plenty of pretty things to wear and sweets
to eat, and all the honey of life to sip at, and she’ll do well and go
far; but don’t ask her to draw cheques against a mental balance which
she never had, or you’ll get them back--dishonoured.’
‘Are there any children?’ Saxonstowe asked.
‘Only themselves,’ replied his aunt, ‘and quite plenty too, in one
house. If it were not for Millie Chilverstone, I don’t know what they
would do--she descends upon them now and then, straightens them up as
far as she can, and sets the wheels working once more. She is good to
them.’
‘And who is she? I have some sort of recollection of her name,’ said
Saxonstowe.
‘She is the daughter of the parson at Simonstower--the man who tutored
Lucian Damerel.’
‘Ah, I remember--she was the girl who came with him to the Castle that
day, and he called her Sprats. A lively, good-humoured girl, with a heap
of freckles in a very bright face,’ said Saxonstowe.
‘She is little altered,’ remarked Lady Firmanence. ‘Now, that was the
girl for Lucian Damerel! She would have taken care of his money, darned
his socks, given him plain dinners, seen that the rent was paid, and
made a man of him.’
‘Admirable qualifications,’ laughed Saxonstowe. ‘But one might
reasonably suppose that a poet of Damerel’s quality needs others--some
intellectual gifts, for example, in his helpmeet.’
‘Stuff and nonsense!’ retorted Lady Firmanence. ‘He wants a good
managing housekeeper with a keen eye for the butcher’s bill and a genius
for economy. As for intellect--pray, Saxonstowe, don’t foster the
foolish notion that poets are intellectual. Don’t you know that all
genius is lopsided? Your poet has all his brain-power in one little
cell--there may be a gold-mine there, but the rest of him is usually
weak even to childishness. And the great need of the weak man is the
strong woman.’
Saxonstowe’s silence was a delicate and flattering compliment to Lady
Firmanence’s perspicacity.