CHAPTER XII

BROCKETTS: ITS CHARACTER, AND ESPECIALLY MRS. BROCKETT

I

On the next afternoon about six o'clock, Mr. Zanti, accompanied by the

languid and shabby gentleman whom Peter had noticed before, appeared in

the shop.

“Signor Rastelli,” said Mr. Zanti, and the languid gentleman shook hands

with Peter as though he were conferring a great benefit upon him and he

hoped Peter wouldn't forget it.

“Zis,” said Mr. Zanti, “is my young friend, Peter Westcott, whom I love

as if 'e were my own son--Signor Rastelli,” he continued, turning to

Peter, “I've known him for very many years and I can only say zat ze

longer I 'ave known him ze more admirable I 'ave thought 'im.”

The gentleman took off his tall hat, stroked it, put it on again and

looked, with his languid eyes, at Peter.

“And,” continued Mr. Zanti, cheerfully, conscious perhaps that he was

carrying all the conversation on his own shoulders, “'e will take you to

a 'ouse where 'e has been for--'ow many years, Signor?”

“Ten,” said that gentleman.

“For ten years--every comfort. Zere's a little room 'e tells me where

you will be 'appy--and all your food and friendship for one pound a

week. There!” he ended triumphantly.

“Thank you very much,” said Peter, but he did not altogether like the

look of the seedily dressed gentleman, and would much rather have stayed

with Mr. Zanti.

He had packed his black bag in readiness, and now he fetched it and,

after promising to be in the shop at half-past eight the next morning,

started off with his melancholy guide.

The lamps were coming out, and a silence that often falls upon London

just before sunset had come down upon the traffic and the people.

Windows caught the departing flame, held it for an instant, and sank

into grey twilight.

“I know what you're thinking about me,” Peter's companion suddenly said

(he was walking very fast as though trying to catch something), “I know

you don't like me. I could see it at once--I never make a mistake about

those things. You were saying to yourself: 'What does that horrible,

over-dressed stranger want to come interfering with me for?'”

“Indeed, I wasn't,” said Peter, breathlessly, because the bag was so

heavy and they were walking so fast.

“Oh, yes, you were. Never mind. I'm not a popular man, and when you

know me better you'll like me still less. That's always the way I affect

people. And always with the best intentions. And you were thinking, too,

that you never saw anything less Italian than I am, and you're sure my

name's Brown or Smith, and indeed it's true that I was born in Clapham,

but my parents were Italians--refugees, you know, although I'm sure I

don't know what from--and every one calls me the Signor, and so there

you are--and I don't see how I'm to help it. But that's just me all

over--always fighting against the tide but I don't complain, I'm sure.”

All this said very rapidly and in a melancholy way as though tears were

not very far off. Then he suddenly added:

“Let me carry your bag for you.”

“No, thank you,” said Peter, laughing, “I can manage it.”

“Ah, well, you look strong,” said the Signor appreciatively. “I envy

you, I'm sure--never had a day's health myself--but I don't complain.”

By this time they had passed the British Museum and were entering into

the shadows of Bloomsbury. At this hour, when the lamps and the stars

are coming out, and the sun is going in, Bloomsbury has an air of

melancholy that is peculiarly its own. The dark grey houses stand as a

perpetual witness of those people that have found life too hard for

them and have been compelled to give in. The streets of those melancholy

squares seen beneath flickering lamp light and a wan moon protest

against all gaiety of spirit and urge resignation and a mournful

acquiescence. Bloomsbury is Life on Thirty Shillings a week without the

drama of starvation or the tragedy of the Embankment, but with all the

ignominy of making ends meet under the stern and relentless eye of a

boarding-house keeper.

But of all the sad and unhappy squares in Bloomsbury the saddest is

Bennett Square. It is shut in by all the other Bloomsbury Squares and is

further than any of them from the lights and traffic of popular streets.

There are only four lamp posts there--one at each corner--and between

these patches of light everything is darkness and desolation.

Every house in Bennett Square is a boarding-house, and No. 72 is

Brockett's.

“Mrs. Brockett is a very terrifying but lovable woman,” said the Signor

darkly, and Peter, whose spirits had sunk lower and ever lower as

he stumbled through the dark streets, felt, at the sound of this

threatening prophecy, entirely miserable.

No. 72 is certainly the grimiest of the houses in Bennett Square. It is

tall and built of that grey stone that takes the mind of the observer

back to those school precincts of his youth. It is a thin house, not

broad and fat and comfortably bulging, but rather flinging a spiteful

glance at the house that squeezed it in on either side. It is like a

soured, elderly caustic old maid, unhappy in its own experiences and

determined to make every one else unhappy in theirs. Peter, of course,

did not see these things, because it was very dark, but he wished he had

not come.

The Signor had a key of his own and Peter was soon inside a hall that

smelt of oilcloth and the cooking of beef; the gas was burning, but

the only things that really benefited from its light were a long row of

mournful black coats that hung against the wall.

Peter sneezed, and was suddenly conscious of an enormous woman whom he

knew by instinct to be Mrs. Brockett. She was truly enormous--she stood

facing him like some avenging Fate. She had the body of a man--flat,

straight, broad. Her black hair, carefully parted down the middle, was

brushed back and bound into hard black coils low down over the neck. She

stood there, looking down on them, her arms akimbo, her legs apart. Her

eyes were black and deep set, her cheek bones very prominent, her nose

thin and sharp; her black dress caught in a little at the waist, fell

otherwise in straight folds to her feet. There was a faint moustache

on her upper lip, her hands, with long white slender fingers, were

beautiful, lying straight by her side, against the stuff of her dress.

“Well?” she said--and her voice was deep like a man's. “Good evening,

Signor.”

“Good evening, Madame.” He took off his hat and gave her a deep bow.

“This is the young gentleman, Mr. Westcott, of whom I spoke to you this

morning.”

“Well--how are you, Mr. Westcott?” Her words were sharply clipped and

had the resonance of coins as they rang in the air.

“Quite well, thank you,” said Peter, and he noticed, in spite of his

dismay at her appearance, that the clasp of her hand was strong and

friendly.

“Florence will show you your room, Mr. Westcott. It is a pound a

week including your meals and attendance and the use of the general

sitting-room. If you do not like it you must tell me and we will wish

one another good evening. If you do like it I shall do my best to make

you comfortable.”

Peter found afterwards that this was her invariable manner of addressing

a new-comer. It could scarcely be called a warm welcome. She turned and

called, “Florence!” and a maid-servant, diminutive in size but spotless

in appearance, suddenly appeared from nowhere at all, as it seemed to

Peter.

He followed this girl up many flights of stairs. On every side of him

were doors and, once and again, gas flared above him. It was all very

cold, and gusts of wind passed up and down, whisking in and out of the

oilcloth, and Peter thought that he had never seen so many closed doors

in his life.

At last they came to an end of the stairs and there with a skylight

covering the passage outside was his room. It was certainly small and

the window looked out on a dismal little piece of garden far below and a

great number of roofs and chimneys and at last a high dome rising like a

black cloud in the farther distance. It was spotlessly clean.

“I think it will do very well, thank you,” said Peter and he put down

his black bag.

“Do you?” said the maid. “There's a bell,” she said, pointing, “and the

meal's at seving sharp.” She disappeared.

He spent the time, very cheerfully, taking the things out of the

black bag and arranging them. He had suddenly, as was natural in him,

forgotten the dismal approach to the house, the overwhelming appearance

of Mrs. Brockett, his recent loneliness. Here, at last, was a little

spot that he could, for a time, at any rate, call his own. He could

come, at any time of the evening and shut his door, and be alone here,

master of everything that he surveyed. Perhaps--and the thought sent the

blood to his cheeks--it was here that he would write! He looked about

the room lovingly. It was quite bare except for the bed, the washing

stand and a chair, and there was no fire-place. But he arranged the

books, David Copperfield, Don Quixote, Henry Lessingham, The Roads, The

Downs, on the window sill, and the little faded photograph of his mother

on the ledge above the washing basin. He had scarcely finished doing

these things when there was a tap on his door. He opened it, and found

the Signor, no longer in a tail-coat, but in a short, faded blue jacket

that made him look shabbier than ever.

“Excuse--not intruding, I hope?” He looked gloomily round the room.

“Everything all right?”

“Very nice,” said Peter.

“Ah, you'll like it at first--but never mind. Wonderful woman, Mrs.

Brockett. I expect you were alarmed just now.”

“I was, a little,” admitted Peter.

“Ah, well, we all are at first. But you'll get over that, you'll love

her--every one loves her. By the way,” he pushed his hand through his

hair, “what I came about was to tell you that we all foregather--as

you might say--in the sitting-room before dinner--yes--and I'd like to

introduce you to my wife, the Signora--not Italian, you know--but

you'll like her better than me--every one's agreed that hers is a nicer

character.”

Peter, trembling a little at the thought of more strangers, followed the

Signer downstairs and found, in the middle of one of the dark landings,

looking as though she had been left there by some one and completely

forgotten, a little wisp of a woman with bright yellow hair and a straw

coloured dress, and this was the Signora. This lady shook hands with

him in a frightened tearful way and made choking noises all the way

downstairs, and this distressed Peter very much until he discovered that

she had a passion for cough drops, which she kept in her pocket in a

little tin box and sucked perpetually. The Signor drove his wife

and Peter before him into the sitting-room. This was a very

brightly-coloured room with any number of brilliant purple vases on the

mantelpiece, a pink wall-paper, a great number of shining pictures in

the most splendid gilt frames, and in the middle of the room a bright

green settee with red cushions on it. On this settee, which was round,

with a space in the middle of it, like a circus, several persons were

seated, but there was apparently no conversation. They all looked up at

the opening of the door, and Peter was so dazzled by the bright colour

of the room that it was some time before he could collect his thoughts.

But the Signor beckoned to him, and he followed.

“Allow me, Mrs. Monogue,” said the Signor, “to introduce to you Mr.

Peter Westcott.” The lady in question was stout, red-faced, and muffled

in shawls. She extended him a haughty finger.

There followed then Miss Norah Monogue, a girl with a pleasant smile and

untidy hair, Miss Dall, a lady with a very stiff back, a face like an

interrogation mark, because her eyebrows went up in a point and a very

tight black dress, Mr. Herbert Crumley, and Mr. Peter Crumley, two

short, thin gentlemen with wizened and anxious faces (they were

obviously brothers, because they were exactly alike), and Mrs. and

Mr. Tressiter, two pleasant-faced, cheerful people, who sat very close

together as though they were cold.

All these people shook hands agreeably with Peter, but made no remarks,

and he stood awkwardly looking at the purple vases and wishing that

something would happen.

Something _did_ happen. The door was very softly and slowly opened, and

a little woman came hurrying in. She had white hair, and glasses were

dangling on the end of her nose, and she wore a very old and shabby

black silk dress. She looked round with an agitated air.

“I don't know why it is,” she said, with a little chirrup, like a

bird's, “but I'm _always_ late--always!”

Then she did an amazing thing. She walked to the green settee and sat

down between Miss Dall, the lady with the tight dress, and Mrs. Monogue.

She then took out of one pocket an orange and out of another a piece of

newspaper.

“I must have my orange, you know,” she said, looking gaily round on

every one.

She spread the newspaper on her knee, and then peeled the orange very

slowly and with great care. The silence was maintained--no one spoke.

Then suddenly the Signor darted forward: “Oh, Mrs. Lazarus I must

introduce you to Madame's new guest, Mr. Westcott.”

“How do you do?” the old lady chirruped. “Oh! but my fingers are all

over orange--never mind, we'll smile at one another. I hope you'll like

the place, I'm sure. I always have an orange before dinner. They've got

used to me, you know. We've all got our little habits.”

Peter did not know what to say, and was wondering whether he ought to

relieve the old lady of her orange peel (at which she was gazing rather

helplessly), when a bell rang and Florence appeared at the door.

“Dinner!” she said, laconically.

A procession was formed, Mrs. Monogue, with her shawls sweeping behind

her, sailed in front, and Peter brought up the rear. Mrs. Lazarus put

the orange peel into the newspaper and placed it all carefully in her

pocket.

Mrs. Brockett was sitting, more like a soldier than ever, at the head of

the table. Mutton was in front of her, and there seemed to be nothing on

the table cloth but cruets and three dusty and melancholic palms. Peter

found that he was sitting between Mrs. Lazarus and Miss Dall, and that

he was not expected to talk. It was apparent indeed that the regularity

with which every one met every one at this hour of the day, during

months and months of the year negatived any polite necessity of

cordiality or genial spirits. When any one spoke it was crossly and in

considerable irritation, and although the food was consumed with great

eagerness on everybody's part, the faces of the company were obviously

anxious to express the fact that the food was worse than ever, and they

wouldn't stand it another minute. They all did stand it, however, and

Peter thought that they were all, secretly, rather happy and contented.

During most of the meal no one spoke to him, and as he was very hungry

this did not matter. Opposite him, all down the side of the room, were

dusty grey pillars, and between these pillars heavy dark green

curtains were hanging. This had the effect of muffling and crushing

the conversation and quite forbidding anybody to be cheerful in any

circumstances. Mrs. Lazarus indeed chirruped along comfortably and

happily for the most part to herself--as, for instance, “I am orangy,

but then I was late and couldn't finish it. Dear me, it's mutton again.

I really must tell Madame about it and there's nothing so nice as beef

and Yorkshire pudding, is there? Dear me, would you mind, young man,

just asking Dear Miss Dall to pass the salt spoon. She's left that

behind. I _have_ the salt-cellar, thank you.”

She also hummed to herself at times and made her bread into little hard

pellets, which she flicked across the table with her thumb at no one

in particular and in sheer absence of mind. The two Mr. Crumleys were

sitting opposite to her, and they accepted the little charge of shot

with all the placid equanimity bred of ancient custom.

Peter noticed other things. He noticed that Mrs. Monogue was an

exceedingly ill-tempered and selfish woman, and that she bullied the

pleasant girl with the untidy hair throughout the meal, and that the

girl took it all in the easiest possible way. He noticed that Mrs.

Brockett dealt with each of her company in turn--one remark apiece, and

always in that stern, deep voice with the strangely beautiful musical

note in it. To himself she said: “Well, Mr. Westcott, I'm pleased, I'm

sure, that everything is to your satisfaction,” and listened gravely to

his assurance. To Miss Dall: “Well, Miss Ball, I looked at the book

you lent me and couldn't find any sense in it, I'm afraid.” To Mrs.

Tressiter: “I had little Minnie with me for half an hour this evening,

and I'm sure a better behaved child never breathed” ... and so on.

Once Miss Dall turned upon him sharply with: “I suppose you never go and

hear the Rev. Mr. M. J. Valdwell?” and Peter had to confess ignorance.

“Really! Well, it 'ud do you young men a world of good.”

He assured her that he would go.

“I will lend you a volume of his sermons if you would care to read

them.”

Peter said that he would be delighted. The meal was soon over, and every

one returned to the sitting-room. They sat about in a desolate way, and

Peter discovered afterwards that Mrs. Brockett liked every one to be

there together for half an hour to encourage friendly relations. That

object could scarcely be said to be achieved, because there was very

little conversation and many anxious glances were flung at the clocks.

Mrs. Brockett, however, sat sternly in a chair and sewed, and no one

ventured to leave the room.

One pleasant thing happened. Peter was standing by the window turning

over some fashion papers of an ancient date, when he saw that Miss

Monogue was at his elbow. Now that she was close to him he observed that

she looked thin and delicate; her dress was worn and old-fashioned,

she looked as though she ought to be wrapped up warmly and taken care

of--but her eyes were large and soft and grey, and although her wrists

looked strangely white and sharp through her black dress her hands were

beautiful. Her voice was soft with an Irish brogue lingering pleasantly

amongst her words:

“I hope that you will like being here.”

“I'm sure I shall,” he said, smiling. He felt grateful to her for

talking to him.

“You're very fortunate to have come to Mrs. Brockett's straight away.

You mayn't think so now, because Mrs. Brockett is alarming at first, and

we none of us--” she looked round her with a little laugh--“can strike

the on-looker as very cheerful company. But really Madame has a heart of

gold--you'll find that out in time. She's had a terribly hard time of it

herself, and I believe it's a great struggle to keep things going now.

But she's helped all kinds of people in her time.”

Peter looked, with new eyes, at the lady so sternly sewing.

“You don't know,” Miss Monogue went on in her soft, pleasant voice, “how

horrible these boarding-houses can be. Mother and I have tried a good

many. But here people stay for ever--a pretty good testimony to it, I

think ... and then, you know, she never lets any one stay here if she

doesn't like them--so that prevents scoundrels. There've been one or

two, but she's always found them out ... and I believe she keeps old

Mrs. Lazarus quite free of charge.”

She paused, and then she added:

“And there's no one here who hasn't found life pretty hard. That gives

us a kind of freemasonry, you know. The Tressiters, for instance, they

have three children, and he has been out of work for months--sometimes

there's such a frightened look in her eyes ... but you mustn't think

that we're melancholy here,” she went on more happily. “We get a lot of

happiness out of it all.”

He looked at her, and remembering Mrs. Monogue at dinner and seeing

now how delicate the girl looked, thought that she must have a very

considerable amount of pluck on her own account.

“And you?” she said. “Have you only just come up to London?”

“Yes,” he answered, “I'm in a bookseller's shop--a second-hand

bookseller's. I've only been in London a few days--it's all very

exciting for me--and a little confusing at present.”

“I'm sure you'll get on,” she said. “You look so strong and confident

and happy. I envy you your strength--one can do so much if one's got

that.”

He felt almost ashamed of his rough suit, his ragged build. “Well, I've

always been in the country,” he said, a little apologetically. “I expect

London will change that.”

Then there came across the room Mrs. Monogue's sharp voice. “Norah!

Norah! I want you.”

She left him.

That night in his little room, he looked from his window at the sea

of black roofs that stretched into the sky and found in their ultimate

distance the wonderful sweep of stars that domed them; a great moon,

full-rounded, dull gold, staring like a huge eye, above them. His heart

was full. A God there must be somewhere to have given him all this

splendour--a splendour surely for him to work upon. He felt as a

craftsman feels, when some new and wonderful tools have been given to

him; as a woman feels the child in her womb, stirring mysteriously,

moving her to deep and glad thankfulness, so now, with the night wind

blowing about him, and all London lying, dark and motionless, below him,

he felt the first stirring of his power. This was his to work with,

this was his to praise and glorify and make beautiful--now crude and

formless--a seed dark and without form or colour--one day to make one

more flower in that garden that God has given his servants to work in.

He did not, at this instant, doubt that some God was there, crying to

him, and that he must answer. Of that moon, of those stars, of that

mighty city, he would make one little stone that might be added to that

Eternal Temple of Beauty....

He turned from his window and thought of other things. He thought of his

father and Scaw House, of the windy day when his mother was buried, of

Mr. Zanti and Stephen's letter, of Herr Gottfried and his blue slippers,

of this house and its people, of the friendly girl and her grey eyes ...

finally, for a little, of himself--of his temper and his ambitions and

his selfishness. Here, indeed, suddenly jumping out at him, was the

truth.

He felt, as he got into bed, that he would have to change a great deal

if he were to write that great book that he thought of: “Little Peter

Westcott,” London seemed to say, “there's lots to be done to you first

before you're worth anything ... I'll batter at you.”

Well, let it, he thought, sleepily. There was nothing that he would like

better. He tumbled into sleep, with London after him, and Fame in front

of him, and a soft and resonant murmur, as of a slumbering giant, rising

to his open window.

BOOK II -- THE BOOKSHOP

CHAPTER I

“REUBEN HALLARD”

I

There is a story in an early volume of Henry Galleon's about a man who

caught--as he may have caught other sicknesses in his time--the

disease of the Terror of London. Eating his breakfast cheerfully in his

luxurious chambers in Mayfair, in the act of pouring his coffee out of

his handsome silver coffee-pot, he paused. It was the very slightest

thing that held his attention--the noise of the rumbling of the traffic

down Piccadilly--but he was startled and, on that morning, he left his

breakfast unfinished. He had, of course, heard that rumbling traffic

on many other occasions--it may be said to have been the musical

accompaniment to his breakfast for many years past. But on this morning

it was different; as one has a headache before scarlet fever so did this

young man hear the rumble of the traffic down Piccadilly. He listened to

it very attentively, and it was, he told himself, very like the noise

of some huge animal breathing in its sleep. There was a regularity, a

monotony about it ... and also perhaps a sense of great force, quiescent

now and held in restraint. He was a very normal, well-balanced young man

and thoughts of this kind were unlike him.

Then he heard other things--the trees rustling in the park, bells

ringing on every side of him, builders knocking and hammering, windows

rattling, doors opening and shutting. In the Club one evening he

confided in a friend. “I say, it's damned funny--but what would you say

to this old place being alive, taking on a regular existence of its

own, don't you know? You might draw it--a great beast like some old

alligator, all curled up, with its teeth and things--making a noise a

bit as it moves about ... and then, one day when it's got us nicely all

on top of it, down it will bring us all, houses and the rest. Damned

funny idea, what? Do for a cartoon-fellow or some one--”

The disease developed; he had it very badly, but at first his friends

did not know. He lay awake at night hearing things--one heard much more

at night--sometimes he fancied that the ground shook under his feet--but

most terrible of all was it when there was perfect silence. The traffic

ceased, the trees and windows and doors were still ... the Creature

was listening. Sometimes he read in papers that buildings had suddenly

collapsed. He smiled to himself. “When we are all nicely gathered

together,” he said, “when there are enough people ... then--”

His friends said that he had a nervous breakdown; they sent him to a

rest-cure. He came back. The Creature was fascinating--he was terrified,

but he could not leave it.

He knew more and more about it; he knew now what it was like, and he

saw its eyes and he sometimes could picture its grey scaly back with

churches and theatres and government buildings and the little houses of

Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones perched upon it--and the noises that it made

now were so many and so threatening that he never slept at all. Then

he began to run, shouting, down Piccadilly, so they put him--very

reluctantly--into a nice Private Asylum, and there he died, screaming.

This story is a prologue to Peter's life in London.... The story struck

his fancy; he thought of it sometimes.

II

On a late stormy afternoon in November, 1895, Peter finished his book,

“Reuben Hallard.” It had been raining all day, and now the windows

were blurred and the sea of shining roofs that stretched into the mist

emphasised the dark and gloom of the heavy overhanging sky.

Peter's little room was very cold, but his body was burning--he was in

a state of overpowering excitement; his hands trembled so that he

could scarcely hold his pen ... “So died Reuben Hallard, a fool and a

gentleman”--and then “Finis” with a hard straight line underneath it....

He had been working at it for three years, and he had been in London

seven.

He walked up and down his little room, he was so hot that he flung

up his window and leaned out and let the rain, that was coming down

fiercely now, lash his face. Mud! London was full of mud. He could

see it, he fancied, gathering in thick brown layers upon the pavement,

shining and glistening as it mounted, slipping in streams into the

gutter, sweeping about the foundations of the houses, climbing perhaps,

one day, to the very windows. That was London. And yet he loved it,

London and its dirt and darkness. Had he not written “Reuben Hallard”

here! Had the place not taken him into its arms, given him books and

leisure out of its hospitality, treated him kindly during these years

so that they had fled like an instant of time, and here he was, Peter

Westcott, aged twenty-five, with a book written, four friends made,

and the best health possible to man. The book was “Reuben Hallard,”

the friends were Mrs. Brockett, Mr. Zanti, Herr Gottfried, and Norah

Monogue, and for his health one had only to look at him!

“So died Reuben Hallard, a fool and a gentleman!” His excitement was

tremendous; his cheeks were flaming, his eyes glittering, his heart

beating. Here was a book written!--so many pages covered with so much

writing, his claim to be somebody, to have done something, justified

and, most wonderful of all, live, exciting people created by him, Peter

Westcott. He did not think now of publication, of money, of fame--only,

after sharing for three years in the trials and adventures of dear,

beloved souls, now, suddenly, he emerged cold, breathless ... alone ...

into the world again.

Exciting! Why, furiously, of course. He could have sung and shouted

and walked, right over the tops of the roofs, with the rain beating and

cooling his body, out into the mist of the horizon. _His_ book, “Reuben

Hallard!” London was swimming in thick brown mud, and the four lamps

coming out in Bennett Square in a dim, sickly fashion and he, Peter

Westcott, had written a book....

The Signor--the same Signor, some seven years older, a little shabbier,

but nevertheless the same Signor--came to summon him to supper.

“I have finished it!”

“What! The book?”

“Yes!”

Their voices were awed whispers. The whole house had during the last

three years shared in the fortunes of the book. Peter had come to dinner

with a cloud upon his brow--the book therefore has gone badly--even Mrs.

Brockett is disturbed and Mrs. Lazarus is less chirpy than usual. Peter

comes to dinner with a smile--the book therefore has gone well and even

Mrs. Monogue is a little less selfish than ordinary. The Signor now

gazed round the little room as though he might find there the secret of

so great an achievement. On Peter's dressing-table the manuscript was

piled--“You'll miss it,” the Signor said, gloomily. “You'll miss it very

much--you're bound to. You'll have to get it typewritten, and that'll

cost money.”

“Never mind, it's done,” said Peter, shaking his head as a dog shakes

himself when he leaves the water. “There they are, those people--and now

I'm going to wash.”

He stripped to the waist, and the Signor watched his broad back and

strong arms with a sigh for his own feeble proportions. He wondered how

it was that being in a stuffy bookshop for seven years had done Peter

no harm, he wondered how he could keep the back of his neck so brown as

that in London and his cheeks as healthy a colour and his eyes as clear.

“I'm amazingly unpleasant to look at,” the Signor said at last. “I often

wonder why my wife married me. I'm not surprised that every one finds me

uninteresting. I am uninteresting.”

“Well, you are not uninteresting to me, I can tell you,” said Peter.

He had put on a soft white shirt, a black tie, and a black coat and

trousers, the last of these a little shiny perhaps in places, but neat

and well brushed, and you would really not guess when you saw him, that

he only possessed two suits in the wide world.

“_I_ think you're absorbing,” Peter said, a little patronisingly

perhaps.

“Ah, that proves nothing,” the Signer retorted. “You only care for fools

and children--Mrs. Brockett always says so.”

They went downstairs--Peter was, of course, not hungry at all, but the

conventions had to be observed. In the sitting-room, round about the

green settee, the company was waiting as it had waited seven years ago;

there were one or two unimportant additions and Mrs. Monogue had died

the year before and Mrs. Lazarus was now very old and trembling, but in

effect there was very little change.

“He has finished it,” the Signor announced in a wondering whisper. A

little buzz rose, filled the air for a moment and then sank into silence

again. Mrs. Lazarus was without her orange because she had to wear

mittens now, and that made peeling the thing difficult. “I'm sure,” she

said, in a voice like that of a very excited cricket, “that Mr. Westcott

will feel better after he's had something to eat. _I_ always do.”

This remark left conversation at a standstill. The rain drove against

the panes, the mud rose ever higher against the walls, and dinner was

announced. Mrs. Brockett made her remarks to each member of the company

in turn as usual. To Peter she said:

“I hear that you have finished your book, Mr. Westcott. We shall all

watch eagerly for its appearance, I'm sure.”

He felt his excitement slipping away from him as the moments passed.

Suddenly he was tired. Instead of elation there was wonder, doubt. What

if, after all, the book should be very bad? During all these years in

London he had thought of it, during all these years he had known that it

was going to succeed. What, if now he should discover suddenly that it

was bad?... Could he endure it? The people of his book seemed now

to stand very far away from him--they were unreal--he could remember

scenes, things that they had said and done, absurd, ignorant things.

He began to feel panic. Why should he imagine that he was able to write?

Of course it was all crude, worthless stuff. He looked at the dingy

white pillars and heavy green curtains with a kind of despair ... of

course it was all bad. He had been hypnotised by the thing for the time

being. Then he caught Norah Monogue's eyes and smiled. He would show it

to her, and she would tell him what it was worth.

Poor Mrs. Tressiter's baby had died last week and now, suddenly, she

burst out crying and had to leave the room. There was a little twitter

of sympathy. How good they all were to one another, these people,

stupid and odd perhaps in some ways, but so brave for themselves and

so generous to one another. It was no mean gathering of souls that Mrs.

Brockett's dingy gas illuminated.

Every now and again the heavy curtains blew forward in the wind and

the gas flared. There was no conversation, and the wind could be heard

driving the rain past the windows.

III

Peter, that evening, took the manuscript of “Reuben Hallard” into

Miss Monogue's room. Since her mother died Norah Monogue had had a bed

sitting-room to herself. The bed was hidden by a high screen, the wall

paper was a dark green, and low bookshelves, painted white, ran round

the room. There were no pictures (she always said that until she could

have good ones she wouldn't have any at all). There were some brown pots

and vases on the shelves and a writing-table with a typewriter by the

window.

When Peter came in, Norah Monogue was sitting in a low chair over a

rather miserable fire; a little pool of light above her head came from

two candles on the mantelpiece--otherwise the room was in darkness.

“Shall I turn on the gas?” she said, when she saw who it was.

“No, leave it as it is, I like it.” He sat down in a chair near her and

put a pile of manuscript on the floor beside him. “I've brought it for

you to read,” he said, “I'm frightened about it. I suddenly think it

is the most rotten thing that ever was written.” He had become very

intimate with her during these seven years. At first he had admired her

because she behaved so splendidly to her abominable mother--then she had

obviously been interested in him, had talked about the things that he

was reading and his life at the bookshop. They had speedily become the

very best of friends, and she understood friendship he thought in the

right way--as though she had herself been a man. And yet she was with

that completely feminine, a woman who had known struggle from the

beginning and would know it to the end; but her personality--humorous,

pathetic, understanding--was felt in her presence so strongly that no

one ever forgot her after meeting her. Some one once said of her, “She's

the nicest ugly woman to look at I've ever seen.”

She cared immensely about her appearance. She saved, through blood and

tears, to buy clothes and then always bought the wrong ones. She had

perfect taste about everything except herself, and as soon as it touched

her it was villainous. She was untidy; her hair--streaked already with

grey--was never in its place; her dress was generally undone at the

back, her gloves had holes.

Her mother's death had left her some fifty pounds a year and she earned

another fifty pounds by typewriting. Untidy in everything else, in her

work she was scrupulously neat. She had had a story taken by _The Green

Volume_. Her friends belonged (as indeed just at this time so many

people belonged) to the Cult of the Lily, repeated the witticisms of

Oscar Wilde and treasured the art of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley. Miss Monogue

believed in the movement and rejected the affectations. In 1895, when

the reaction began, she defended her old giants, but looked forward

eagerly to new ones. She worked too hard to have very many friends, and

Peter saved her from hours of loneliness. To him she was the last word

in Criticism, in Literature. He would have liked to have fashioned

“Reuben Hallard” after the manner of _The Green Volume_, but now thought

sadly that it was as unlike that manner as possible; that is why he was

afraid to bring it to her.

“You won't like it,” he said. “I thought for a moment I had done

something fine when I finished it this afternoon, but now I know that

it's bad. It's all rough and crude. It's terribly disappointing.”

“That's all right,” she answered quietly. “We won't say any more about

it until I have read it--then we'll talk.”

They were silent for a little. He was feeling unhappy and, curiously

enough, frightened. He would have liked to jump up suddenly and shout,

“Well, what's going to happen now?”--not only to Norah Monogue, but to

London, to all the world. The work at the book had, during these years,

upheld him with a sense of purpose and aim. Now, feeling that that work

was bad, his aim seemed wasted, his purpose gone. Here were seven years

gone and he had done nothing--seen nothing, become nothing. What was his

future to be? Where was he to go? What to do? He had reasoned blindly

to himself during these years, that “Reuben Hallard” would make his

fortune--now that seemed the very last thing it would do.

“I knew what you're feeling,” she said, “now that the book's done,

you're wondering what's coming next.”

“It's more than that. I've been in London seven years. Instead of

writing a novel that no one will want to read I might have been getting

my foot in. I might at any rate have been learning London, finding my

way about. Why,” he went on, excitedly, “do you know that, except for

a walk or two and going into the gallery at Covent Garden once or twice

and the Proms sometimes and meeting some people at Herr Gottfried's once

or twice I've spent the whole of my seven years between here and the

bookshop--”

“You mustn't worry about that. It was quite the right thing to do. You

must remember that there are two ways of learning things. First through

all that every one has written, then through all that every one is

doing. Up to now you've been studying the first of those two. Now you're

ready to take part in all the hurly-burly, and you will. London will

fling you into it as soon as you're ready, you can be sure.”

“I've been awfully happy all this time,” he went on, reflectively.

“Too happy I expect. I never thought about anything except reading and

writing the book, and talking to you and Gottfried. Now things will

begin I suppose.”

“What kind of things?”

“Oh, well, it isn't likely that I'm going to be let alone for ever. I've

never told you, have I, about my life before I came up to London?”

She hesitated a little before she answered. “No, you've never told me

anything. I could see, of course, that it hadn't been easy.”

“How could you see that?”

“Well, it hadn't been easy for either of us. That made us friends. And

then you don't look like a person who would take things easily--ever.

Tell me about your early life before you came here,” Norah Monogue said.

She watched his face as he told her. She had found him exceedingly good

company during the seven years that she had known him. They had slipped

into their friendship so easily and so naturally that she had never

taken herself to task about it in any way; it existed as a very

delightful accompaniment to the day's worries and disappointments. She

suddenly realised now with a little surprised shock how bitterly she

would miss it all were it to cease. In the darkened room, with the storm

blowing outside, she felt her loneliness with an acute wave of emotion

and self-pity that was very unlike her. If Peter were to go, she felt,

she could scarcely endure to live on in the dreary building.

Part of his charm from the beginning had been that he was so

astoundingly young, part of his interest that he could be, at times, so

amazingly old. She felt that she herself could be equal neither to his

youth nor his age. She was herself so ordinary a person, but watching

him made the most fascinating occupation, and speculating over his

future made the most wonderful dreams. That he was a personality, that

he might do anything, she had always believed, but there had, until now,

been no proof of it in any work that he had done ... he had had nothing

to show ... now at last there lay there, with her in the room, the

evidence of her belief--his book.

But the book seemed now, at this moment, of small account and, as

she watched him, with the candle-light and the last flicker of the

fire-light upon his face, she saw that he had forgotten her and was back

again, soul and spirit, amongst the things of which he was speaking.

His voice was low and monotonous, his eyes staring straight in front of

him, his hands, spread on his knees, gripped the cloth of his trousers.

She would not admit to herself that she was frightened, but her heart

was beating very fast and it was as though some stranger were with her

in the room. It may have been the effect of the candlelight, blowing

now in the wind that came through the cracks in the window panes, but it

seemed to her that Peter's face was changed. His face had lines that

had not been there before, his mouth was thinner and harder and his eyes

were old and tired ... she had never seen the man before, that was her

impression.

But she had never known anything so vivid. Quietly, as though he were

reciting the story to himself and were not sure whether he were telling

it aloud or no, he began. As he continued she could see the place as

though it was there with her in the room, the little Inn that ran out

into the water, the high-cobbled street, the sea road, the grim stone

house standing back amongst its belt of trees, the Grey Hill, the coast,

the fields ... and then the story--the night of the fight, the beating,

the school-days, that day with his mother (here he gave her actual

dialogue as though there was no word of it that he had forgotten),

the funeral--and then at last, gradually, climbing to its climax

breathlessly, the relation of father and son, its hatred, then its

degradation, and last of all that ludicrous scene in the early morning

... he told her everything.

When he had finished, there was a long silence between them: the fire

was out and the room very cold. The storm had fallen now in a fury about

the house, and the rain lashed the windows and then fell in gurgling

stuttering torrents through the pipes and along the leads. Miss Monogue

could not move; the scene, the place, the incidents were slowly fading

away, and the room slowly coming back again. The face opposite her,

also, gradually seemed to drop, as though it had been a mask, the

expression that it had worn. Peter Westcott, the Peter that she knew,

sat before her again; she could have believed as she looked at him, that

the impressions of the last half-hour had been entirely false. And yet

the things that he had told her were not altogether a surprise; she had

not known him for seven years without seeing signs of some other

temper and spirit--controlled indeed, but nevertheless there, and very

different from the pleasant, happy Peter who played with the Tressiter

children and dared to chaff Mrs. Brockett.

“You've paid me a great compliment, telling me this,” she said at last.

“Remember we're friends; you've proved that we are by coming like this

to-night. I shan't forget it. At any rate,” she added, softly, “it's all

right now, Peter--it's all over now.”

“Over! No, indeed,” he answered her. “Do you suppose that one can grow

up like that and then shake it off? Sometimes I think ... I'm afraid

...” he stopped, abruptly biting his lips. “Oh, well,” he went on

suddenly in a brighter tone, “there's no need to bother you with all

that. It's nothing. I'm a bit done up over this book, I expect. But

that's really why I told you that little piece of autobiography--because

it will help you to understand the book. The book's come out of all

that, and you mightn't have believed that it was me at all--unless I'd

told you these things.”

He stood facing her and a sudden awkwardness came over both of them.

The fire was dead (save for one red coal), and the windows rattled like

pistol-shots. He was feeling perhaps that he had told her too much, and

the reserve of his age, the fear of being indiscreet, had come upon

him. And with her there was the difficulty of not knowing exactly what

comfort it was that he wanted, or whether, indeed, any kind of comfort

would not be an insult to him. And, with all that awkwardness, there was

also a knowledge that they had never been so near together before,

an intimacy had been established that night that would never again be

broken.

Into their silence there came a knock on the door. When Miss Monogue

opened it the stern figure of Mrs. Brockett confronted her.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Monogue, but is Mr. Westcott here?”

Peter stepped forward.

“Oh, I'm sure I'm sorry to have to disturb you, Mr. Westcott, but

there's a man outside on the steps who insists on seeing you.”

“Seeing me?”

“Yes--he won't come in or go away. He won't move until he's seen you.

Very obstinate I'm sure--and such a night! Rather late, too--”

Mrs. Brockett was obviously displeased. Her tall black figure was drawn

up outside the door, as a sentry might guard Buckingham Palace. There

was a confusion of regality, displeasure, and grim humour in her

attitude. But Peter was a favourite of hers. With a hurried goodnight

to Miss Monogue he left the two women standing on the stairs and went to

the hall-door.

When he opened it the wind was blowing up the steps so furiously that it

flung him back into the hall again. Outside in the square the world was

a wild tempestuous black, only, a little to the right, the feeble glow

of the lamp blew hither and thither in the wind. The rain had stopped

but all the pipes and funnels of the city were roaring with water. The

noise was that of a thousand chattering voices, and very faintly through

the tumult the bells of St. Matthews in Euston Square tinkled the hour.

On the steps a figure was standing bending beneath the wind. The light

from the hall shone out on to the black slabs of stone, bright with the

shining rain, but his cape covered the man's head. Nevertheless Peter

knew at once who it was.

“Stephen,” he said, quietly.

The hall door was flung to with a crash; the wind hurled Peter against

Stephen's body.

“At last! Oh, Stephen! Why didn't you come before?”

“I couldn't, Master Peter. I oughtn't to of come now, but I 'ad to see

yer face a minute. Not more than a minute though--”

“But you must come in now, and get dry things on at once. I'll see Mrs.

Brockett, she'll get you a room. I'm not going to let you go now that--”

“No, Master Peter, I can't stop. I mustn't. I 'aven't been so far away

all this time as you might have thought. But I mustn't see yer unless I

can be of use to yer. And that's what I've come about.”

He pressed close up to Peter, held both his hands in his and said: “Look

'ere, Peter boy, yer may be wanting me soon--no, I can't say more than

that. But I want yer--to be on the look-out. Down there at the bookshop

be ready, and then if any sort o' thing should 'appen down along--why

I'm there, d'ye see? I'll be with yer when you want me--”

“Well, but Stephen, what do you mean? What _could_ happen? Anyhow you

mustn't go now, like this. I won't let you go--”

“Ah, but I must now--I must. Maybe we shall be meeting soon enough. Only

I'm there, boy, if yer wants me. And--keep yer eye open--”

In an instant that warm pressure of the hand was gone; the darker black

of Stephen's body no longer silhouetted against the lighter black of the

night sky.

Still in Peter's nose there was that scent of wet clothes and the deep,

husky voice was in his ears. But, save for the faint yellow flickering

lamp, struggling against the tempest, he was alone in the square.

The rain had begun to fall again.

CHAPTER II

THE MAN ON THE LION

I

After the storm, the Fog.

It came, a yellow, shrouded witch down upon the town, clinging, choking,

writhing, and bringing in its train a thousand mysteries, a thousand

visions. It was many years since so dense and cruel a fog had startled

London--in his seven years' experience of the place Peter had known

nothing like it, and his mind flew back to that afternoon of his

arrival, seven years before, and it seemed to him that he was now moving

straight on from that point and that there had been no intervening

period at all. The Signer saw in a fog as a cat sees in the dark, and he

led Peter to the bookshop without hesitation. He saw a good many other

things beside his immediate direction and became comparatively cheerful

and happy.

“It is such a good thing that people can't see me,” he said. “It

relieves one of a lot of responsibility if one's plain to look at--one

can act more freely.” Certainly the Signor acted with very considerable

freedom, darting off suddenly into the fog, apparently with the

intention of speaking to some one, and leaving Peter perfectly helpless

and then suddenly darting back again, catching Peter in tow and tugging

him forward once more.

To the bookshop itself the fog made very little difference. There

were always the gas-jets burning over the two dark corners and the top

shelves even in the brightest of weather, were mistily shrouded by dust

and distance. The fog indeed seemed to bring the books out and, whilst

the world outside was so dark, the little shop flickered away under the

gas-jets with little spasmodic leaps into light and colour when the door

opened and blew the quivering flame.

It was not of the books that Peter was thinking this morning. He sat

at a little desk in one dark corner under one of the gas-jets, and Herr

Gottfried, huddled up as usual, with his hair sticking out above the

desk like a mop, sat under the other; an old brass clock, perched on a

heap of books, ticked away the minutes. Otherwise there was silence save

when a customer entered, bringing with him a trail of fog, or some one

who was not a customer passed solemnly, seriously through to the rooms

beyond. The shop was, of course, full of fog, and the books seemed to

form into lines and rows and curves in and out amongst the shelves of

their own accord.

Peter meanwhile was most intently thinking. He knew as though he had

seen it written down in large black letters in front of him, that a

period was shortly to be put to his present occupation, but he could not

have said how it was that he knew. The finishing of his book left the

way clear for a number of things to attack his mind. Here in this misty

shop he was beset with questions. Why was he here at all? Had he during

these seven years been of such value, that the shop could not get on

without him?... To that second question he must certainly answer, no.

Why then had Mr. Zanti kept him all this time? Surely because Mr. Zanti

was fond of him. Yes, that undoubtedly was a part of the reason. The

relationship, all this time, had grown very strong and it was only now,

when he set himself seriously to think about it, that he realised how

glad he always was when Mr. Zanti returned from his travels and how

happy he had been when it had been possible for them to spend an

afternoon together. Yes, Mr. Zanti was attached to him; he had often

said that he looked upon him as a son, and sometimes it seemed to Peter

that the strange man was about to make some declaration, something that

would clear the air, and explain the world--but he never did.

Peter had discovered strangely little about him. He knew now that Mr.

Zanti's connection with the bookshop was of the very slenderest, that

that was indeed entirely Herr Gottfried's affair, and that it was used

by the large and smiling gentleman as a cloak and a covering. As a cloak

and a covering to what? Well, at any rate, to some large and complicated

game that a great number of gentlemen were engaged in playing. Peter

knew a good many of them now by sight--untidy, dirty, many, foreigners

most, all it seemed to Peter, with an air of attempting something that

they could never hope to accomplish. Anything that they might do he was

quite sure that they would bungle and, with the hearts of children, the

dirty tatters of foreign countries, and the imaginations of exuberant

story-tellers, he could see them go, ignorantly, to dreadful

catastrophes.

Peter was even conscious that the shop was tolerantly watched by

inspectors, detectives, and policemen, and that it was all too

childish--whatever it was--for any one to take it in the least

seriously. But nevertheless there were elements of very real danger in

all those blundering mysteries that had been going on now for so many

years, and it was at any rate of the greatest importance to Peter,

because he earned his living by it, because of his love for Stephen and

his affection for Mr. Zanti, and because if once anything were to happen

his one resting-place in this wild sea of London would be swept away and

he would be utterly resourceless and destitute.

This last fact bit him, as he sat there in the shop, with sudden and

acute sharpness. What a fool he had been, all this time, to let things

slide! He should have been making connections, having irons in the fire,

bustling about--how could he have sat down thus happily and easily for

seven years, as though such a condition of things could continue for

ever? He had had wild ideas of “Reuben Hallard” making his fortune!...

that showed his ignorance of the world. Let him begin to bustle. He

would not lose another moment. There were two things for him now to do,

to beard editors (those mythical creatures!) in their caves and to find

out where Stephen lived ... both these things as soon as possible.

In the afternoon the fog became of an impenetrable thickness, and beyond

the shop it seemed that there was pandemonium. Some fire, blazing at

some street corner, flared as though it were the beating heart of all

that darkness, and the cries of men and the slow, clumsy passing of the

traffic filled the bookshop with sound.

No customers came; Herr Gottfried worked away at his desk, the brass

clock ticked, Peter sat listening, waiting.

Herr Gottfried broke the silence once with: “Peter, my friend, at

ten o'clock to-night there will be a little music in my room. Herr

Dettzolter and his 'cello--a little Brahms--if the fog is not too much

for you.”

Peter accepted. He loved the low-roofed attic, the clouds of tobacco,

the dark corner where he sat and listened to Herr Gottfried's friends

(German exiles like Herr Gottfried playing their beloved music). It was

his only luxury.

Once two men whom Peter knew very well by sight came into the shop. They

were, he believed, Russians--one of them was called Oblotzky--a tall,

bearded fierce-looking creature who could speak no English.

Then suddenly, just as Peter was thinking of finding his way home to the

boarding-house, Mr. Zanti appeared. He had been away for the last

two months, but there he was, his huge body filling the shop, the fog

circling his beard like a halo, beaming, calm, and unflustered as though

he had just come from the next street.

“Damned fog,” he said, and then he went and put his hand on Peter's

shoulder and looked down at him smiling.

“Well, 'ow goes the shop?” he said.

“Oh, well enough,” said Peter.

“What 'ave you been doing, boy? Finished the book?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, good. You'll be ze great man, Peter.” He looked down at him proudly

as a father might look upon his son.

“Ze damnedest fog--” he began, then suddenly he stopped and Peter

felt his hand on his shoulder tighten. “Ze damnedest--” Mr. Zanti said

slowly.

Peter looked up into his face. He was listening. Herr Gottfried,

standing in the middle of the shop, was also listening.

For a moment there was an intense breathless silence. The noise from the

street seemed also, for the instant, to be hushed.

Very slowly, very quietly, Mr. Zanti went to the street door and opened

it. A cloud of yellow fog blew into the shop.

“Ze damnedest fog ...” repeated Mr. Zanti, still very slowly, as though

he were thinking.

“Any one been?” he said at last to Herr Gottfried.

“Oblotzky.”

Mr. Zanti, after flinging a strange, half-affectionate, half-inquisitive

look at Peter, went through into the room beyond.

“What ...” said Peter.

“Often enough,” interrupted Herr Gottfried, shuffling back to his seat,

“young boys want to know--too much ... often enough.”

II

The Tressiter children, of whom there were eight, loved Peter with a

devotion that was in fact idolatry. They loved him because he understood

them so completely and from Anne Susan, aged one and a half, to Rupert

Bernard, aged nine, there was no member of the family who did not repose

complete trust and confidence in Peter's opinions, and rejoice in his

wonderful grasp of the things in the world that really mattered. Other

persons might be seen shifting, slowly and laboriously, their estimates

and standards in order to bring them into line with the youthful

Tressiter estimates and standards.... Peter had his ready without any

shifting.

First of all the family did Robin Tressiter, aged four, adore Peter. He

was a fat, round child with brown eyes and brown hair, and an immense

and overwhelming interest in the world and everything contained therein.

He was a silent child, with a delightful fat chuckle when really amused

and pleased, and he never cried. His interest in the world led him into

strange and terrible catastrophes, and Mrs. Tressiter was always far

too busy and too helpless to be of any real assistance. On this foggy

afternoon, Peter, arriving at Brockett's after much difficulty and

hesitation, found Robin Tressiter, on Miss Monogue's landing, with his

head fastened between the railings that overlooked the hall below.

He was stuck very fast indeed, but appeared to be perfectly

unperturbed--only every now and again he kicked a little with his legs.

“I've sticked my neck in these silly things,” he said, when he saw

Peter. “You must pull at me.”

Peter tried to wriggle the child through, but he found that he must

have some one to help him. Urging Robin not to move he knocked at Miss

Monogue's door. She opened it, and he stepped back with an apology when

he saw that some one else was there.

“It's a friend of mine,” Norah Monogue said, “Come in and be introduced,

Peter.”

“It's only,” Peter explained, “that young Robin has got his head stuck

in the banisters and I want some one to help me--”

Between them they pulled the boy through to safety. He chuckled.

“I'll do it again,” he said.

“I'd rather you didn't,” said Peter.

“Then I won't,” said Robin. “I did it 'cause Rupert said I

couldn't--Rupert's silly ass.”

“You mustn't call your brother names or I won't come and see you in

bed.”

“You will come?” said Robin, very earnestly.

“I will,” said Peter, “to-night, if you don't call your brother names.”

“I think,” said Robin, reflectively, “that now I will hunt for the lion

and the tigers on the stairs--”

“Bring him into my room until his bedtime,” said Miss Monogue, laughing.

“It's safer. Mrs. Tressiter is busy and has quite enough children in

with her already.”

So Peter brought Robin into Miss Norah Monogue's room and was

introduced, at once, to Clare Elizabeth Rossiter--so easily and simply

do the furious events of life occur.

She was standing with her back to the window, and the light from Miss

Monogue's candles fell on her black dress and her red-gold hair. As he

came towards her he knew at once that she was the little girl who had

talked to him on a hill-top one Good Friday afternoon. He could almost

hear her now as she spoke to Crumpet--the candle-light glow was dim

and sacred in the foggy room; the colour of her hair was filled more

wonderfully with light and fire. Her hands were so delicate and fine as

they moved against her black dress that they seemed to have some harmony

of their own like a piece of music or a running stream. She wore blue

feathers in her black hat. She did not know him at all when he came

forward, but she smiled down at Robin, who was clinging on to Peter's

trousers.

“This is a friend of mine, Mr. Westcott,” Miss Monogue said.

She turned gravely and met him. They shook hands and then she sat down;

suddenly she bent down and took Robin into her lap. He sat there sucking

his thumb, and taking every now and again a sudden look at her hair and

the light that the candles made on it, but he was very silent and quiet

which was unlike him because he generally hated strangers.

Peter sat down and was filled with embarrassment; his heart also was

beating very quickly.

“I have met you before,” he said suddenly. “You don't remember.”

“No--I'm afraid--”

“You had once, a great many years ago, a dog called Crumpet. Once in

Cornwall ... one Good Friday, he tumbled into a lime-pit. A boy--”

“Why, of course,” she broke in, “I remember you perfectly. Why of all

the things! Norah, do you realise? Your friend and I have known each

other for eight years. Isn't the world a small place! Why I remember

perfectly now!”

She turned and talked to Norah Monogue, and whilst she talked he took

her in. Although now she was grown up she was still strangely like that

little girl in Cornwall. He realised that now, as he looked at her,

he had still something of the same feeling about her as he had had

then--that she was some one to be cared for, protected, something

fragile that the world might break if she were not guarded.

She was porcelain but without anything of Meredith's “rogue.” Because

Peter was strong and burly the contrast of her appealing fragility

attracted him all the more. Had she not been so perfectly proportioned

her size would have been a defect; but now it was simple that her

delicacy of colour and feature demanded that slightness and slenderness

of build. Her hair was of so burning a red-gold that its colour gave her

precisely the setting that she required. She seemed, as she sat there,

a little helpless, and Peter fancied that she was wishing him to

understand that she wanted friends who should assist her in rather a

rough-and-tumble world. Just as she had once appealed to him to save

Crumpet, so now she seemed to appeal for some far greater assistance.

Ah! how he could protect her! Peter thought.

Something in Peter's steady gaze seemed suddenly to surprise her. She

stopped--the colour mounted into her cheeks--she bent down over the boy.

They were both of them supremely conscious of one another. There was a

moment.... Then, as men feel, when some music that has held them ceases,

they came, with a sense of breathlessness, back to Norah Monogue and her

dim room.

Peter was conscious that Robin had watched them both. He almost, Peter

thought, chuckled to himself, in his fat solemn way.

“Miss Rossiter,” Norah Monogue said--and her voice seemed a long way

away--“has just come back from Germany and has brought some wonderful

photographs with her. She was going to show them to me when you came

in--”

“Let me see them too, please,” said Peter.

Robin was put on to the floor and he went slowly and with ceremony to an

old brown china Toby that had his place on a little shelf by the door.

This Toby--his name was Nathaniel--was an old friend of Robin's. Robin

sat on the floor in a corner and told Nathaniel the things about the

world that he had noticed. Every now and again he paused for Nathaniel's

reply; he was always waiting for him to speak, and the continued silence

of a now ancient acquaintance had not shaken Robin's faith.... Robin

forgot the rest of the company.

“Photographs?” said Peter.

“Yes. Germany. I have just been there.” She looked up at him eagerly and

then opened a portfolio that she had behind her chair and began to show

them.

He bent gravely forward feeling that all of this was pretence of the

most absurd kind and that she also knew that it was.

But they were very beautiful photographs--the most beautiful that he had

ever seen, and as each, in its turn, was shown for a moment his eyes

met hers and his mouth almost against his will, smiled. His hand too was

very near the silk of her dress. If he moved it a very little more

then they would touch. He felt that if that happened the room would

immediately burst into flame, the air was so charged with the breathless

tension; but he watched the little space of air between his fingers and

the black silk and his hand did not move.

They were all very silent as she turned the photographs over and there

were no sounds but the sharp crackling of the fire as it burst into

little spurts of flame, the noise that her hand made on the silk of her

dress as she turned each picture and the little mutterings of Robin in

his corner as he talked to his Toby.

Peter had never seen anything like this photography. The man had used

his medium as delicately as though he had drawn every line. Things stood

out--castles, a hill, trees, running water, a shining road--and behind

them there was darkness and mystery.

Suddenly Peter cried out:

“Oh! that!” he said. It was the photograph of a great statue standing

on a hill that overlooked a river. That was all that could be seen--the

background was dark and vague, it was the statue of a man who rode a

lion. The lion was of enormous size and struggling to be free, but the

man, naked, with his utmost energy, his back set, his arms stiff, had

it in control, but only just in control ... his face was terrible in the

agony of his struggle and that struggle had lasted for a great period

of time ... but at length, when all but defeated, he had mastered his

beast.

“Ah that!” Miss Rossiter held it up that Norah Monogue might see it

better. “That is on a hill outside a little town in Bavaria. They put it

up to a Herr Drexter who had done something, saved their town from riot

I think. It's a fine thing, isn't it, and I think it so clever of them

to have made him middle-aged with all the marks of the struggle about

him--those scars, his face--so that you can see that it's all been

tremendous--”

Peter spoke very slowly--“I'd give anything to see that!” he said.

“Well, it's in Bavaria; I wonder that it isn't better known. But funnily

enough the people that were with me at the time didn't like it; it was

only afterwards, when I showed them the photograph that they saw that

there might have been ... aren't people funny?” she ended abruptly,

appealing to him with a kind of freemasonry against the world.

But, still bending his brows upon it he said insistently--

“Tell me more about it--the place--everything--”

“There isn't really anything to tell; it's only a very ordinary, very

beautiful, little German town. There are many orchards and this forest

at the back of it and the river running through it--little cobbled

streets and bridges over the river. And then, outside, this great statue

on the hill--”

“Ah, but it's wonderful, that man's face--I'd like to go to that town--”

He felt perhaps that he was taking it all too seriously for he turned

round and said laughing: “The boy's daft on lions--Robin, come and look

at this lion--here's an animal for you.”

The boy put down the Toby and walked slowly and solemnly toward them. He

climbed on to Peter's knee and looked at the photograph: “Oh! it _is_ a

lion!” he said at last, rubbing his fat finger on the surface of it to

see of what material it was made. “Oh! for me!” he said at last in a

shrill, excited voice and clutching on to it with one hand. “For me--to

hang over my bed.”

“No, old man,” Peter answered, “it belongs to the lady here. She must

take it away with her.”

“Oh! but _I_ want it!” his eyes began to fill with tears.

Miss Rossiter bent down and kissed him. He looked at her distrustfully.

“I know now I'm not to have it,” he said at last, eyeing her, “or you

wouldn't have kissed me.”

“Come on,” said Peter, afraid of a scene, “the lady will show you the

lion another day--meantime I think bed is the thing.”

He mounted the boy on to his shoulder and turned round to Miss Rossiter

to say “Good-bye.” The photograph lay on the table between them--“I

shan't forget that,” he said.

“Oh! but you must come and see us one day. My mother will be delighted.

There are a lot more photographs at home. You must bring him out one

day, Norah,” she said turning to Miss Monogue.

If he had been a primitive member of society in the Stone Age he would

at this point, have placed Robin carefully on the floor and have picked

Miss Rossiter up and she should never again have left his care.

As it was he said, “I shall be delighted to come one day.”

“We will talk about Cornwall--”

“And Germany.”

His hand was burning hot when he gave it her--he knew that she was

looking at his eyes.

He was abruptly conscious of Miss Monogue's voice behind him.

“I've read a quarter of the book, Peter.”

He wondered as he turned to her how it could be possible to regard two

women so differently. To be so sternly critical of one--her hair

that was nearly down, a little ink on her thumb, her blouse that was

unbuttoned--and of the other to see her all in a glory so that her whole

body, for colour and light and beautiful silence, had no equal amongst

the possessions of the earth or the wonders of heaven. Here there was a

button undone, there there was a flaming fire.

“I won't say anything,” Miss Monogue said, “until I've read more, but

it's going to be extraordinarily good I think.” What did he care about

“Reuben Hallard?” What did that matter when he had Claire Elizabeth

Rossiter in front of him.

And then he pulled himself up. It must matter. How delighted an hour ago

those words would have made him.

“Oh! you think there's something in it?” he said.

“We'll wait,” she answered, but her smile and the sparkle in her eyes

showed what she thought. What a brick she was!

He turned round back to Miss Rossiter.

“My first book,” he said laughing. “Of course we're excited--”

And then he was out of the room in a moment with Robin clutching his

hair. He did not want to look at her again ... he had so wonderful a

picture!

And as he left Robin in the heart of his family he heard him say--

“_Such_ a lion, Mother, a lady's got--with a man on it--a 'normous lion,

and the man hasn't any clothes on, and his legs are all scratched....”

CHAPTER III

ROYAL PERSONAGES ARE COMING

I

Peter, sitting obscurely in a corner of Herr Gottfried's attic on the

evening of this eventful day and listening to that string sextette that

was written by Brahms when he was nineteen years of age (and it came

straight from the heights of Olympus if any piece of music ever did),

was conscious of the eyes of Herr Lutz.

Herr Lutz was Herr Gottfried's greatest friend and was notable for three

things, his enormous size, his surpassing skill on the violoncello and

his devoted attachment to the veriest shrew of a little sharp-boned wife

that ever crossed from Germany into England. For all these things Peter

loved him, but Herr Lutz was never very actively conscious of Peter

because from the moment that he entered Herr Gottfried's attic to the

moment he left it his soul was wrapped in the music and in nothing

else whatever. To-night as usual he was absorbed and after the second

movement of the sextette had come to a most rapturous conclusion he was

violently dissatisfied and pulled them back over it again, because they

had been ragged and their enthusiasm had got the better of their time

and they were altogether disgraceful villains, but through all of this

his grey eyes were upon Peter.

Peter, watching from his dark corner even felt that the 'cello was being

played especially for his benefit and that Herr Lutz was talking all the

time to him through the medium of his instrument. It may have been that

he himself was in a state of most exalted emotion, and never until the

end of all things mortal and possibly all things eternal will he forget

that sextette by Brahms; he may perhaps have put more into Herr Lutz

than was really there, but it is certain that he was conscious of the

German's attention.

As is common to all persons of his age and condition he was amazed at

the glorified vision of everyday things. In Herr Gottfried's flat there

was a model of Beethoven in plaster of Paris, a bed, and a tin wash-hand

stand, a tiny bookshelf containing some tattered volumes of Reclame's

Universal Bibliothek, a piano and six cane-bottomed chairs covered at

the moment by the stout bodies of the six musicians--nothing here to

light the world with wonder!--and yet to-night, Peter, sitting on a

cushion in a dark corner watched the glories of Olympus; the music

of heaven was in his ear and before him, laughing at him, smiling,

vanishing only to reappear more rapturous and beautiful than ever was

the lady, the wonderful and only lady.

His cheeks were hot and his heart was beating so loudly that it was

surely no wonder that Herr Lutz had discovered his malady. The sextette

came to an end and the six musicians sat, for a moment, silent on their

chairs whilst they dragged themselves into the world that they had for

a moment forsaken. That was a great instant of silence when every one in

the room was concerned entirely with their souls and had forgotten that

they so much as had bodies at all. Then Herr Lutz gathered his huge

frame together, stuck his hand into his beard and cried aloud for drink.

Beer was provided--conversation was, for the next two hours, volcanic.

When twelve o'clock struck in the church round the corner the meeting

was broken up.

Herr Lutz said to Peter, “There is still the 'verdammte' fog. Together

we will go part of the way.”

So they went together. But on the top of the dark and crooked staircase

Herr Gottfried stopped Peter.

“Boy,” he said and he rubbed his nose with his finger as he always did

when he was nervous and embarrassed, “I shouldn't go to the shop for a

week or two if I were you.”

“Not go?” said Peter astonished.

“No--for reason why--well--who knows? The days come and they go, and

again it will be all right for you. I should rub up the Editors, I

should--”

“Rub up the Editors?” repeated Peter still confused.

“Yes--have other irons, you know--often enough other irons are handy--”

“Did Zanti tell you to say this to me?”

“No, he says nothing. It is only I--as a friend, you understand--”

“Well, thank you very much,” said Peter at last. Herr Gottfried, he

reflected, must think that he, Peter, had mints of money if he could so

lightly and on so slender a warning propose his abandoning his precious

two pounds a week. Moreover there was loyalty to Mr. Zanti to be

considered.... Anyway, what did it all mean?

“I can't go,” he said at last, “unless Zanti says something to me. But

what are they all up to?”

“Seven years,” said Herr Gottfried darkly, “has the Boy been in the

shop--of so little enquiring a mind is he.”

And he would say nothing further. Peter followed Herr Lutz' huge body

into the street. They took arms when they encountered the fog and went

stumbling along together.

“You are in lof,” said Herr Lutz, breathlessly avoiding a lamp post.

“Yes,” said Peter, “I am.”

“Ah,” said Herr Lutz giving Peter's arm a squeeze. “It is the

only thing--The--Only--Thing.... However it may be for you--bad or

ill--whether she scold or smile, it is a most blessed state.”

He spoke when under stress of emotion, in capitals with a pause before

the important word.

“It won't come to anything,” said Peter. “It can't possibly. I haven't

got anything to offer anybody--an uncertain two pounds a week.”

“You have a--Career,” said Herr Lutz solemnly, “I know--I have often

watched you. You have written a--Book. Karl Gottfried has told me. But

all that does not matter,” he went on impetuously. “It does not

matter what you get--It is--Being--in--Love--The--divine--

never--to--be--equalled--State--”

The enormous German stopped on an island in the middle of the road and

waved his arms. On every side of him through the darkness the traffic

rolled and thundered. He waved his arms and exulted because he had been

married to a shrew of a wife for thirty years. During that time she had

never given him a kind word, not a loving look, but Peter knew that out

of all the fog and obscurity that life might bring to him that Word,

sprung though it might be out of Teutonic sentiment and Heller's beer,

that word, at any rate, was true.

II

London, in the morning, recovered from the fog and prepared to receive

Foreign Personages. They were not to arrive for another week, but it was

some while since anything of the kind had occurred and London meant to

carry it out well. The newspapers were crowded with details; personal

anecdotes about the Personages abounded--a Procession was to take place,

stands began to climb into the air and the Queen and her visitors were

to have addresses presented to them at intervals during the Progress.

To Peter this all seemed supremely unimportant. At the same moment, to

confuse little things with big ones, Mrs. Lazarus suddenly decided to

die. She had been unwell for many months and her brain had been very

clouded and temper uncertain--but now suddenly she felt perfectly well,

her intelligence was as sharp and bright as it had ever been and the

doctor gave her a week at the utmost. She would like, she said, to have

seen the dear Queen ride through the streets amidst the plaudits of the

populace, but she supposed it was not to be. So with a lace cap on her

head and her nose sharp and shiny she sat up in bed, flicked

imaginary bread pellets along the counterpane, talked happily to the

boarding-house and made ready to die.

The boarding-house was immensely moved, and Peter, during these days

came back early from the bookshop in order to sit with her. He was

surprised that he cared as he did. The old lady had been for so long

a part of his daily background that he could no more believe in her

departure than he could in the sudden disappearance of the dark green

curtains and the marble pillars in the dining-room. She had had, from

the first, a great liking for Peter. He had never known how much of that

affection was an incoherent madness and he had never in any way analysed

his own feeling for her, but now he was surprised at the acute sharpness

of his regret.

On a bright evening of sunshine, about six o'clock, she died--Mrs.

Brockett, the Tressiters, Norah Monogue also were with her at the time.

Peter had been with her alone during the earlier afternoon and although

she had been very weak she had talked to him in her trembling voice (it

was like the noise that two needles knocking against one another would

make), and she had told him how she believed in him.

She made him ashamed with the things that she said about him. He had

paid her little enough attention, he thought, during these seven years.

There were so many things that he might have done. As the afternoon sun

streamed into the room and the old lady, her hands like ivory upon the

counterpane, fell into a quiet sleep he wondered--Was he bad or good?

Was he strong or weak? These things that people said, the affection that

people gave him ... he deserved none of it. Surely never were two

so opposite presences bound together in one body--he was profoundly

selfish, profoundly unselfish, loving, hard, kind, cruel, proud, humble,

generous, mean, completely possessed, entirely uncontrolled, old beyond

his years, young beyond belief--

As he sat there beside the sleeping old lady he felt a contempt of

himself that was beyond all expression, and also he felt a pride at the

things that he knew that he might do, a pride that brought the blood to

his cheeks.

The Man on the Lion? The Man under the Lion's Paw?... The years would

show. A quiet happy serenity passed over Mrs. Lazarus' face and he

called the others into the room.

Stern Mrs. Brockett was crying. Mrs. Lazarus woke for a moment and

smiled upon them all. She took Peter's hand.

“Be good to old people,” she breathed very faintly--then she closed her

eyes and so died.

Below in the street a boy was calling the evening papers. “Arrival of

the Prince and Princess of Schloss.... Arrival of the Prince and--”

They closed the windows and pulled down the blinds.

II

Thursday was to be the day of Royal Processions, and on Friday old Mrs.

Lazarus was to be buried.

To Peter, Wednesday was a day of extravagant confusion--extravagant

because it was a day on which nothing was done. Customers were not

served in the shop. Editors were not attacked in their lairs. Nothing

was done, every one hung about.

Peter could not name any one as directly responsible for this state of

things, nor could he define his own condition of mind; only he knew that

he could not leave the shop. About its doors and passages there fell all

day an air of suspense. Mr. Zanti was himself a little responsible for

this; it was so unusual for that large and smiling gentleman to waste

the day idly; and yet there he was, starting every now and again for the

door, looking into the empty yard from the windows at the back of the

house, disappearing sometimes into the rooms above, reappearing suddenly

with an air of unconcern a little too elaborately contrived.

Peter felt that Mr. Zanti had a great deal that he would like to say to

him, and once or twice he came to him and began “Oh, I say, boy,” and

then stopped with an air of confusion as though he had recollected

something, suddenly.

There was a Russian girl, too, who was about the shop, uneasily on this

day. She was thin, slight, very dark; fierce eyes and hands that seemed

to be always curving. Her name was Maria Notroska and she was engaged

to the big Russian, Oblotzky, whom Peter had seen, on other days up

and down through the shop. She spoke to no one. She knew but little

English--but she would stand for hours at the door looking out into the

street. It was a long uneasy day and Peter was glad when the evening, in

slow straight lines of golden light, came in through the black door.

The evening too seemed to bring forward a renewed hope of seeing

Stephen again--enquiries could bring nothing from either Zanti or Herr

Gottfried; they had never heard of the man, oh no!... Stephen Brant?

Stephen ...? No! Never--

That sudden springing out of the darkness had meant something however.

Peter could still feel his wet clothes and see his shining beard. Yes,

if there were any trouble Stephen would be there. What were they all

about? Peter closed the shutters of the shop that night without having

any explanation to offer. Mr. Zanti was indeed a strange man; when Peter

turned to go he stopped him with his hand on his shoulder: “Peter, boy,”

he said, whispering, “come upstairs--I have something to tell you.”

Peter was about to follow him back into the shop when suddenly the man

shook his head. “No, not to-night,” he said and almost pushed him into

the street.

Peter, looking back, saw that he was talking to the Russian girl.

But the day was not over with that. Wondering about Mr. Zanti, thinking

that the boarding-house would be gloomy now after Mrs. Lazarus' death,

recalling, above all, to himself every slightest incident of his meeting

with Miss Rossiter, Peter, crossing Oxford Street, flung his broad body

against a fat and soft one. There was nearly a collapse.

The other man and Peter grasped arms to steady themselves, and then

behold! the fat body was Bobby Galleon's. Bobby Galleon, after all these

years! But there could be no possible doubt about it. There he stood,

standing back a little from the shock, his bowler hat knocked to one

side of his head, a deprecating, apologetic smile on his dear fat face!

A man of course now, but very little altered in spite of all the years;

a little fatter perhaps, his body seemed rather shapeless--but those

same kind eyes, that large mouth and the clear straight look in all his

face that spoke him to all the world for what he was. Peter felt exactly

as though, after a long and tiring journey, he had tumbled at last into

a large arm-chair. He was excited, he waved his arms:

“Bobby, Bobby,” he cried, so loudly that two old women in bonnets,

crossing the road like a couple of hens turned to look at him.

“I'm sorry--” Bobby said vaguely, and then slowly recognition came into

his eyes.

“Peter!” he said in a voice lost in amazement, the colour flooding his

cheeks.

It was all absurdly moving; they were quite ridiculously stirred, both

of them. The lamps were coming out down Oxford Street, a pale saffron

sky outlined the dark bulk of the Church that is opposite Mudie's shop

and stands back from the street, a little as though it wondered at

all the noise and clamour, a limpid and watery blue still lingered,

wavering, in the evening sky.

They turned into an A.B.C. shop and ordered glasses of milk and they

sat and looked at one another. They had altered remarkably little and to

both of them, although the roar of the Oxford Street traffic was outside

the window, it might have been, easily enough, that a clanging bell

would soon summon them back to ink-stained desks and Latin exercises.

“Why, in heaven's name, did you ever get out of my sight so completely?

I wrote to Treliss again and again but I don't suppose anything was

forwarded.”

“They don't know where I am.”

“But why did you never write to me?”

“Why should I? I wanted to do something first--to show you-”

“What rot! Is that friendship? I call that the most selfish thing I've

ever known.” No, obviously enough, Bobby could never understand that

kind of thing. With him, once a friend always a friend, that is what

life is for. With Peter, once an adventure always an adventure--_that_

is what life is for--but as soon as a friend ceases to be an adventure,

why then--

But Bobby had not ceased to be an adventure. He was, as he sat there,

more of one than he had ever been before.

“What have you been doing all these years?”

“Been in a bookshop.”

“In a bookshop?”

“Yes, selling second-hand books.”

“What else?”

“Oh reading a lot... seeing one or two people... and some music.” Peter

was vague; what after all had he been doing?

Bobby looked at him tenderly and affectionately. “You want seeing

after--you look fierce, as you used to when you'd been having a bad time

at school. The day they all hissed you.”

“But I haven't been having a bad time. I've had a jolly good one. By the

way,” Peter leant forward, “have you seen or heard anything of Cards?”

Bobby coloured a little. “No, not for a long time. His mother died. He's

a great swell now with heaps of money, I believe. I'm not his sort a

bit.”

They drank milk and beamed upon one another. Peter wanted to tell Bobby

everything. That was one of his invaluable qualities, that one did like

telling him everything. Talking to him eagerly now, Peter wondered

how it could be that he'd ever managed to get through these many years

without him. Bobby simply existed to help his friends and that was the

kind of person that Peter had so often wanted.

But in it all--in their talking, their laughing together, their

remembering certain catchwords that they had used together, there was

nothing more remarkable than their finding each other exactly as

they had been during those years before at Dawson's. Not even Bobby's

tremendous statement could alter that.

“I'm married,” he said.

“Married?”

Bobby blushed. “Yes--two years now--got a baby. She's quite splendid!”

“Oh!” Peter was a little blank. Somehow this did remove Bobby a

little--it also made him, suddenly, strangely old.

“But it doesn't make any difference,” Bobby said, leaning forward

eagerly and putting his hand on Peter's arm--“not the least difference.

You two will simply get on famously. I've so often told her about you

and we've always been hoping that you'd turn up again--and now she'll be

simply delighted.”

But it made a difference to Peter, nevertheless. He went back a little

into his shell; Bobby with a home and a wife and a baby couldn't spare

time, of course, for ordinary friends. But even here his conscience

pricked him. Did he not know Bobby well enough to be assured that he was

as firm and solid as a rock, that nothing at all could move or change

him? And after all, was not he, Peter, wishing to be engaged and married

and the father of a family and the owner of a respectable mansion?

Clare Elizabeth Rossiter! How glorious for an instant were the thin,

sharp-faced waitresses, the little marble-topped tables, the glass

windows filled with sponge-cakes and hard-boiled eggs!

Peter came out of his shell again. “I shall just love to come and see

her,” he said.

“Well, just as soon as you can. By Jove, old man, I'll never let you go

again. Now tell me, everything--all that you have done since I saw you.”

Peter told him a great deal--not quite everything. He told him nothing,

for instance, about meeting a certain young lady on a Good Friday

afternoon and he passed over some of the Scaw House incidents as

speedily as possible.

“And since I came up to London,” he went on, “the whole of my time has

been spent either in the bookshop or the boarding-house. They're awfully

good sorts at both, but it's all very uncertain of course and instead

of writing a novel that no one will want to read I ought to have been

getting on to editors. I've a kind of feeling that the bookshop's going

to end very shortly.”

“Let me see the book,” said Bobby.

“Yes, certainly,” said Peter.

“Anyhow, we go on together from this time forth--72 Cheyne Walk is my

little house. When will you come--to-morrow?”

“Oh! To-morrow! I don't think I can. There are these Processions and

things--I think I ought to be in the shop. But I'll come very soon. This

is the name of my boarding-house--”

Bobby, as he saw his friend, broad-shouldered, swinging along, pass down

the street with the orange lamps throwing chains of light about him, was

confronted again by that old elusive spirit that he had known so well at

school. Peter liked him, Peter was glad to see him again, but there were

so many other Peters, so many doors closed against intruders.... Bobby

would always, to the end, be for Peter, outside these doors. He knew it

quite certainly, a little sadly, as he climbed on to his bus. What was

there about Peter? Something hard, fierce, wildly hostile ... a devil, a

God. Something that Bobby going quietly home to his comfortable dinner,

might watch and guard and even love but something that he could never

share.

Now, in the cool and quiet of the Chelsea Embankment as he walked to his

door, Bobby sighed a little because life was so comfortable.

CHAPTER IV

A LITTLE DUST

I

That night Peter had one of his old dreams. In all the seven years that

he had been in London the visions that had so often made his nights

at Scaw House terrible had never come to him. Now, after so long an

interval they returned.

He thought that he was once more back on the sea-road above Treliss,

that the wind was blowing in a tempest and that the sea below him was

foaming on to the rocks. He could see those rocks like sharp black

teeth, stretching up to him--a grey sky was above his head and to his

right stretched the grey and undulating moor.

Round the bend of the road, beyond the point that he could see, he

thought that Clare Rossiter was waiting for him. He must get there

before it struck eleven or something terrible would happen to him. Only

a few minutes remained to him, and only a little stretch of the thin

white road, but two things prevented his progress; first, the wind blew

so fiercely in his face that it drove him back and for every step that

he took forward, although his head was bent and his teeth set, he seemed

to lose two. Also, across the moor voices cried to him and they seemed

to him like the voices of Stephen and Bobby Galleon, and they were

pleading to him to stop; he paused to listen but the cries mingled

softly with the wind and he could hear bells from the town below the

road begin to strike eleven. The sweat was pouring from him--she was

waiting for him, and if he did not reach her all would be lost. He would

never see her again; he began to cry, to beat against the wind with his

hands. The voices grew louder, the wind more vehement, the jagged edges

of the rocks sharper in their outline; the bells were still striking,

but as, at last, breathless, a sharp terror at his heart, he turned the

corner there fell suddenly a silence. At last he was there--only a few

trees blowing a little, a little white dust curling over the road, as

though there had been no rain, and then suddenly the laughing face of

Cards, no longer now a boy, but a man, more handsome than ever, laughing

at him as he battled round the corner.

Cards shouted something to him, suddenly the road was gone and Peter was

in the water, fighting for his life. He felt all the breathless terror

of approaching death--he was sinking--black, silent water rose above

and around him. For an instant he caught once more the sight of sky and

land. Cards was still on the road and beside him was a woman whose face

Peter could not see. Cards was still laughing. Then in the darkening

light the Grey Hill was visible against the horizon and instead of the

Giant's Finger there was that figure of the rider on the lion.... The

waters closed.... Peter woke to a grey, stormy morning. The sweat was

pouring down his face, his body was burning hot and his hands were

trembling.

II

When he came down to breakfast his head was aching and heavy and Mrs.

Brockett's boiled egg and hard crackling toast were impossible. Miss

Monogue had things to tell him about the book--it was wonderful,

tremendous ... beyond everything that she had believed possible. But

strangely enough, he was scarcely interested. He was pleased of course,

but he was weighted with the sense of overhanging catastrophe. The green

bulging curtains, the row of black beads about Mrs. Brockett's thin

neck, the untidy egg-shells--everything depressed him.

“I have had a rotten night,” he said, “nightmares. I suppose I ate

something--anyhow it's a gloomy day.”

“Yes,” said Miss Monogue, pinning some of her hair in at the wrong place

and unpinning other parts of it that happened by accident to be right.

“I'm afraid it's a poor sort of day for the Procession. But Miss Black

and I are going to do our best to see it. It may clear up later.” He

had forgotten about the Procession and he wished that she would keep her

hair tidier.

He wanted to ask her whether she had seen Miss Rossiter but had not

the courage. A little misty rain made feathery noises against the

window-pane.

“Well, I must go down to the shop,” he said, finding his umbrella in the

hall.

“I think it's superb,” she said, referring back to the book. “You won't

be having to go down to the shop much longer.”

It was really surprising that he cared so little. He banged the door

behind him and did not see her eyes as she watched him go.

Processions be damned! He wished that the wet, shining street were not

so strangely like the sea-road at Treliss, and that the omnibuses at a

distance did not murmur like the sea. People, black and funereal, were

filling stands down Oxford Street; soldiers were already lining the way,

the music of bands could be heard some streets away.

He was in a thoroughly bad temper and scowled at the people who passed

him. He hated Royal Processions, he hated the bookshop, he hated all his

friends and he wished that he were dead. Here he had been seven years,

he reflected, and nothing had been done. Where was his city paved with

gold? Where his Fame, where his Glory?

He even found himself envying those old Treliss days. There at any

rate things had happened. There had been an air, a spirit. Fighting his

father--or at any rate, escaping from his father--had been something

vital. And here he was now, an ill-tempered, useless youth, earning two

pounds a week, in love with some one who was scarcely conscious of his

existence. He cursed the futility of it all.

And so fuming, he crossed the threshold of the bookshop, and, unwitting,

heedless, left for ever behind him the first period of his history.

“Programme of the Royal Procession,” a man was shouting--“Coloured

'Andkerchief with Programme of Royal Procession--”

Peter, stepping into the dark shop, was conscious of Mr. Zanti's white

face and that behind him was standing Stephen.

III

At the sight of their faces, of their motionless bodies and at the

solemn odd expression of their eyes as they looked past him into the

dark expanse of the door through which he had entered, he knew that

something was very wrong.

He had known it, plainly enough, by the fact of Stephen's presence

there, but it seemed to him that he had known it from his first

awakening that morning and that he was only waiting to change into hard

outline the misty shapelessness of his earlier fears. But, there and

then, he was to know nothing--

Stephen greeted him with a great hand-shake as though he had met him

only the day before, and Mr. Zanti with a smile gave him his accustomed

greeting. In the doorway at the other end of the shop the Russian girl

was standing, one arm on the door-post, staring, with her dark eyes,

straight through into the gloomy street.

“What are you all waiting for?” Peter said to the motionless figures.

With his words they seemed at once to spring to life. Mr. Zanti rolled

his big body casually to the door and looked down the street, Stephen,

smiling at Peter said:

“I was just passing, so I thought to myself I'd just look in,” his voice

came from his beard like the roll of the sea from a cave. “Just for

an hour, maybe. It's a long day since we've 'ad a bit of a chat, Mr.

Peter.”

Peter could not take it on that casual scale. Here was Stephen vanished

during all those years, returned now suddenly and with as little fuss

as possible, as though indeed he had only been hiding no farther than

behind the door of the shop and waiting merely to walk out when the

right moment should have arrived. If he had been no farther than that

then it was unkind of him--he might have known how badly Peter had

wanted him; if, on the other hand, he had been farther afield, then he

should show more excitement at his return.

But, Peter thought, it was impossible to recognise in the grave reserved

figure at his side that Stephen who had once given him the most glorious

evening of his life. The connection was there somewhere but many things

must have happened between those years.

“Shall we go and have luncheon together?” Peter asked.

Stephen appeared to fling a troubled look in the direction of Mr.

Zanti's broad back. He hesitated. “Well,” he said awkwardly, “I don't

rightly know. I've got to be going out for an hour or two--I can't

rightly say as I'll be back. This afternoon, maybe--”

Peter did not press it any farther. They must settle these things for

themselves, but what was the matter with them all this morning was more

than he could pretend to discover.

Stephen, still troubled, went out.

Fortunately there was this morning a good deal of work for Peter to do.

A large number of second-hand books had arrived during the day before

and they must be catalogued and arranged. Moreover there were several

customers. A young lady wanted “something about Wagner, just a

description of the plays, you know.”

“Of the Operas,” Peter corrected.

“Oh, well, the stories--that's what I want--something about two

shillings, have you? I don't think it's really worth more--but so that

one will know where one is, you know.”

She was bright and confidential. She had thought that everything would

be closed because of the Procession... _so_ lucky--

A short red-faced woman, dressed in bright colours, and carrying

innumerable little parcels wanted “Under Two Flags,” by Mrs. Henry Wood.

“It's by Ouida, Madam,” Peter told her.

“Nonsense, don't tell me. As if I didn't know.”

Peter produced the volume and showed it to her. She dropped some of her

parcels--they both went to pick them up.

Red in the face, she glared at him. “Really it's too provoking, I know

it was Mrs. Henry Wood I wanted.”

“Perhaps 'East Lynne,' or 'The Channings'--”

“Nonsense--don't tell me--it was 'Under Two Flags.'”

Finally the woman put both “Under Two Flags” and “East Lynne” into her

bag and departed. A silence fell upon the shop. Herr Gottfried was at

his desk, Mr. Zanti at the street door, the girl at the door of the

inner room, they were all motionless. Beyond the shop the murmur of the

gathering crowd was like the confused, blundering hum of bees; a band

was playing stridently in Oxford Street.

Once Peter said: “It passes about three-thirty, doesn't it? I think I'll

just go out and have a look later. It'll be fine if only the sun comes.”

Mr. Zanti turned slowly round.

“I'm afraid, boy,” he said, “you'll be wanted in ze shop. At two Herr

Gottfried must be going out for some business--zere will be no one--I am

zo zorry.”

They wanted to keep him there, that was evident. Or, at any rate, they

didn't want him to see the Procession.

“Very well,” he said cheerfully, “I'll stay. There'll be plenty more

Processions before I die.” But why, why, why? What was there that they

wanted him to avoid?

He went on arranging the piles of dusty books, the sense of weighty

expectation growing on him with every instant. The clock struck one, but

he did not go out to luncheon; the others were still motionless in their

places.

Once Herr Gottfried spoke: “The people will have been waiting a

much-more-than-necessary long time,” he said. “The police doubtless

have frightened them, but there is still room to walk in the streets and

there have been some unfortunates, since early in the morning--”

The street beyond the shop was now deserted because soldiers guarded its

approach into Oxford Street; the shop seemed to be left high and dry,

beyond the noise and confusion of the street.

Then there came into the silence a sharp sound that made Peter amongst

his books, jump to his feet: the Russian girl was crying.

She stood there, leaning her thin dark body against the side of the

door, surely the most desolate figure in the world. Her hands were about

her face, her body heaved with her sobbing and the little sad noise came

into the dusty tangled room and hung amongst the old broken books as

though they only could sympathise and give it shelter. The band in

Oxford Street was blazing with sound but it did not hide her crying.

Mr. Zanti crossed to her and spoke to her but she suddenly let her hands

fall from her face and turned upon him, furiously, wildly--“You ...” she

said, “You ...” and then as though the words choked her she turned back

into the inner room. Peter saw Mr. Zanti's face and it was puckered with

distress like a child's. It was almost laughable in its helpless dismay.

Two o'clock struck. “They'll be starting in half an hour,” Herr

Gottfried said.

“Women,” Mr. Zanti said, still looking distressfully about him, “they

are, in truth, very difficult.”

And now there was no pretence, any longer, of disguising the nervous

tension that was with them in the room. They were all waiting for

something--what it might be Peter did not know, but, with every tick of

the old brass clock, some event crept more nearly towards them.

Then Stephen came back.

He came in very quietly as though he were trying to keep the note of

agitation that he must have felt on every side of him as near the normal

as possible.

His face above his beard was grey and streaky and his breath came

rapidly as though he had been running. When he saw Mr. Zanti his hand

went up suddenly in front of his face as though he would protect himself

from the other's questioning.

“I've 'eard nothing--” he said almost sullenly and then he turned and

looked at Peter.

“Why must 'e be 'ere?” he said sharply to Zanti.

“Why not? Where else?” the other answered and the two men watched each

other with hostility across the floor.

“I wish we'd all bloomin' wull kept out of it,” Stephen murmured to

himself it seemed.

Peter's eyes were upon Mr. Zanti. That gentleman looked more like a

naughty child than ever. In his eyes there was the piteous appeal of a

small boy about to be punished for some grievous fault. In some strange

way Peter was, it appeared, his court of appeal because he glanced

towards him again and again and then looked away.

Peter could stand it no longer. He got up from the place where he was

and faced them all.

“What is it? What have you all done? What is the matter with you all?”

The Russian girl had come back. Her face was white and her hair fell

untidily about her eyes. She came forward fiercely as though she would

have answered Peter, but Mr. Zanti motioned her back with his hand.

“No, no,” he said almost imploringly, “let the boy be--what has he to

do with all this? Leave him. He has nothing to do with it. He knows

nothing.”

“But I ought to know,” Peter burst in. “Why have I been kept in the dark

all this time? What right have you--”