HE COMES
It was the evening of one of the most perfect days in an Indian summer
of notable loveliness. In this refulgent weather, to quote Emerson, who
knew well what he spoke of, "it was a luxury to draw the breath of
life." Free equally from the enervating heat and insects of high summer,
and the numbing rigour of the Eastern winter, the days passed in
dignified procession, calm and temperate, roseate with the blazing
foliage of autumn, and gay with geraniums and marigolds. On our modest
pergola there still clung a few ruby-coloured grapes, though the leaves
were scattered, and in the beds about our verandah blue cornflowers and
yellow nasturtiums enamelled the untidy carpet of coarse grasses that
were trying to choke them. Not far away, down by the Episcopal Church,
men were playing tennis in flannels on the courts of yellow, hard-packed
sand. The intense blue of an Italian sky lent a factitious transparency
to the atmosphere, and the tiny irregular shadows that indicated the
colossal architecture of New York seemed to float like bubbles in an
azure bowl. Across the street, a vacant plot of land, neglected because
of imperfect title, was cut diagonally by a footpath leading down to
Broad Street, where, out of sight but not of hearing, trolley-cars
between Newark and Paterson thundered at uncertain intervals.
It was our custom, as we sat on our verandah during these afternoons, to
watch the gradual appearance of familiar figures upon this path. We knew
that a few moments after the whistle of the five-twenty had sounded at
the grade-crossing down in the valley, certain neighbours who commuted
to New York would infallibly rise into view on this path. There was
Eckhardt, who lived at five hundred and nine, and spent the day on the
fourteenth floor of the Flatiron Building. There was Williams,
immaculate of costume, who designed automobile bodies and had an office
on Broadway. There was Wederslen, the art-critic of the _New York Daily
News_, a man whom all three of us held in peculiar abhorrence because he
persisted in ignoring Mac's etchings. There was Arber, rather short of
stature and rather long of lip, an Irishman who, miraculous to state,
admired Burns. There was Confield, an Indianian from Logansport, who had
been to Europe on a vacation tour (_No. 67 Series C., Inclusive Fare
$450_) and invariably carried a grip plastered with hotel labels to
prove it. We had met these men at tennis and at the Field Club, and in
our English way esteemed them. They would come up, head-first, so to
speak, out of the valley, revealing themselves step by step until they
reached the street, when they would acknowledge our salutations by a
lift of the hat and a wave of the evening paper, and pass on to their
homes. They generally came, too, in the order in which I have given
them. Eckhardt was always first, for he did not smoke, and the
smoking-cars on the Erie Road were generally behind. And Confield, of
course, was likely to be last, for he had his bag.
It was so on the day of which I speak. The deep bay of the locomotive
came up on the still autumn air, and a cloud of dazzling white vapour
rose like a balloon above the trees and drifted slowly into thin curls
and feathers against the blue sky. It was, even in this trifling detail,
a homelike landscape, for Bill had told us how, from the square hall
window of High Wigborough, you could see the white puffs of invisible
trains on the lonely little loopline from Wivenhoe to Brightlingsea.
A few moments, and one by one, and in the case of Wederslen and Williams
arm-in-arm, our neighbours hove into view out of the valley, saluted and
passed. We noted the unusually friendly attitude of the two. What was
Williams up to? we wondered. We knew that Williams, the ignoble designer
of _tonneaux_, laboured under the delusion that he could paint. Of
course he could not paint--we were all agreed upon that--but he had
shown us various compositions done during vacation time--blood-red
boulders and glass-green seas. Was it possible that he was convincing
Wederslen that he could paint? We shuddered for Art as we thought of it.
Their wives were not friendly, though, so Bill asserted. We placed our
hopes for Art on that.
For some moments after they were gone, and Confield with his bag had
passed from view down the forest path, we tried to contemplate with
stoical indifference the prospect of seeing Williams hailed by the
servile and blandiloquent Wederslen as a genius. Had he not said of
Hooker that "he was likely, at no distant date, to be seen in all the
collections of note? His rare skill with the burin, his delicate feeling
for nature----" and so on. Of course we all esteemed Hooker and were
glad to see him make good; but really, as Bill remarked, "A man who said
Hooker had a feeling for nature would say anything." It was like
speaking of Antony Van Dyck's feeling for nature. Hooker's Dutch gardens
and Italian ornamental waters, his cypresses like black spearheads, his
eighteenth-century precisians with their flowered waistcoats and high
insteps, were as far from nature as they could conveniently get. So much
for Wederslen. We might have pursued the subject indefinitely had not
our attention been drawn abruptly to the path.
He came uncertainly, this new figure, pausing when he was only half
revealed, as though in doubt of his direction. He wore a Derby hat, and
we saw over his arm a rubber mackintosh. Making up an obviously
unsettled mind, he abjured the path and struck straight across towards
us, with the evident intention of inquiring the way.
There are many conceits by which men may assert their individuality in
dress, even in these days of stereotyped cut. They may adhere by habit
or desire to the uniform of their class, they may preserve their
anonymity even to a cuff-link, yet in some occult way we are apprised of
their personal fancy; we see a last-remaining vestige of that high
courage that made their ancestors clothe themselves in original and
astonishing vestments. And it is this fortuitous difference, this tiny
leak, one might say, of their personality, that stamps them finally as
belonging to an immense mediocrity. It is this subtle and microscopic
change, a sixteenth of an inch in the height of a collar, a line in the
pattern of a scarf, a hair's breadth in the disposition of a crease,
that the psychologists of the market-place call distinction, and labour
industriously to supply.
But the man who now crossed the street and stood before us bore neither
in his apparel nor in his lineaments a single detail by which he could
be remembered. In everything, from his black medium-toed boots to his
Derby hat of untarnished respectability, from his recently-shaven chin
to his steady grey-blue eyes, he betrayed not the slightest caprice
which would enable an observer to distinguish him from a particular
type. It was as though he had been conscious of all this and had even
sought to avoid the most trivial peculiarities. In height, in feature,
in dress, he was so ordinary that he became extraordinary. His intention
to be unnoticed was so obvious that it predicated, in my own mind at
least, a character and possibly an occupation out of the common run.
"Can you tell me," he began in a voice that gave no hint of emotion,
"can you tell me if this is Van Diemen's Avenue?"
"Yes," we said all together, studying him the while. "Yes, this is Van
Diemen's Avenue."
"Thanks," he replied, and withdrew his foot from our bottom step.
It seemed as though he was about to depart and leave us guessing, when
he spoke again.
"Perhaps you know the house I want," he said. "Carville's the name. I,"
he added as if in an afterthought, "am Mr. Carville." And he looked at
us gravely, apparently unaware of the turmoil of curiosity which he had
aroused.
Some one--I think it was Mac--pointed to the next house.
"That's it," we managed to say.
For a moment his eyes rested upon it casually.
"Thanks," he said again, and then, "Much obliged." He stepped back to
the sidewalk and walked along to the house. None of us can recall
exactly what happened when he approached his door, for we were all
looking away across the valley, hastily rearranging our chaotic
impressions. It is to be presumed that he knocked and was admitted. When
we glanced round a few moments later he was gone.
"Great Scott!" murmured Mac, and looked at us in the growing dusk. Bill
rose to get dinner.
Throughout the meal we refrained from any comment. Now that he had
materialized, there was no reason, in the nature of things, why we
should bother our heads any more about him. In the most natural way he
had appeared and innocently demolished the photo-play romances we had
constructed about him. It was a warning to us to avoid nonsense, in
future, when discussing our neighbours. Miss Fraenkel had fared no
better. Evidently he was not "held" for something with which his wife
had "got away." We were all ridiculously wrong and ought to be ashamed
of ourselves. And so we were; avoiding mention of him, and devoting our
attention to the fish, for it was Friday, and we kept it religiously.
But as I drank my coffee and listened to that exquisitely mournful
_barcarolle_ from the _Tales of Hoffmann_, the whole episode took on a
different aspect. I perceived, as Schopenhauer had perceived a hundred
years before me, that our first judgment upon a man or principle is
probably the most correct. I saw that I had been carried away by logic
and numbers and had discounted my first impression. From the angle at
which I now regarded Mr. Carville I could see that, after all, his case
presented certain details which we could not as yet account for.
Unfamiliar as I was with the life of the sea, I felt instinctively that
men who had their business in great waters would bear upon their persons
indications of their calling, some sign which would catch one's
imagination and assist one to visualize their collective existence. But
Mr. Carville had nothing. I passed in mental review the details of his
appearance, his blue serge suit, his dark green tie, his greying
moustache, clipped short in a fashion that might be American, English,
French or German. His voice had been quiet and deferential, but by no
means genteel; nor had it any hint of the roystering joviality of a
sailor. More than anything else his gait, in its sedate unobtrusiveness,
seemed to me utterly at variance with the rolling swagger which we
conventionally associate with seamen.
Grant, however, I said to myself, that he looks a truth-telling man.
Grant that he is, as his children said, at sea. Surely there is
something romantic in this quiet-eyed man being married to such a woman
as Mrs. Carville! Surely a man whose children bear names so bright on
the rolls of fame must have something in him worthy of admiration! As
the _barcarolle_ swelled and died away, I felt this conviction growing
within me. I felt certain that so far from demolishing the real mystery,
Mr. Carville had only brought it into focus. We had not seen it before.
And it promised to be a mystery on a higher plane than the rather sordid
affair we had been postulating.
I decided to sleep on my conclusions, however, before broaching the
matter to my friends, and having some work to finish for the morning's
mail, I went back to my desk. For three hours or so I worked steadily,
page after page slipping to the floor as I finished them. My friends did
not disturb me, and when I ascended to the studio for a "crack" before
retiring, I found the big room in darkness. So! I mused and descended. A
brilliant moon threw a dense black shadow in front of the house. The
porch was in gloom, but the street was nearly as bright as day. I stood
on the verandah for a few minutes, filling a pipe and looking across at
the Metropolitan light where it shone serenely on the horizon. As I
struck a match I became aware of a figure moving slowly in front of the
Carville house, up and down the gravel walk that ran below their
verandah. I threw away my match and stepped down into the moonlight,
intending to stroll up and down for a while on the flags of the
sidewalk. I often find that if I retire immediately from a burst of
writing I am unable to sleep for several hours. The pendulum of the mind
should be brought to rest quietly and without shock.
I was not surprised when the figure in the shadow stepped out into the
moonlight as I approached. What startled me was the undoubted
resemblance to myself in figure and mass. We were both small men.
Perhaps there was a shade more shoulder-breadth on his side than mine,
but there was the same slight droop, the same negligible tendency to
stoutness. As I turned the matter over in my mind we came face to face.
"Good evening," we said simultaneously. He waved his pipe, a corn cob,
towards the east. "New York!" he remarked, and we stood side by side for
a moment in silence. The simple observation seemed to me to imply a
susceptibility to the sublimity of the prospect that we had not
discovered to any extent among our other neighbours. To them,
apparently, New York was no more than London is to Hampstead; they had
the suburban sentiment in an acute form. Nevertheless I was somewhat at
a loss to continue our conversation. It seemed foolish to neglect such a
heaven-directed opportunity to meet this man on his own ground and
obtain some light upon his career. How should I begin? Should I say to
him, "Look here, it is very nice, no doubt; but we, your neighbours, are
simply crazy to know who and what you are?" That might strike him in
various ways. He might take offence, and one could not blame him. He
might see humour in it, and a proof of the contemptible meanness of
human nature. I decided that I lacked courage to blurt out my desire
that way. He was so very much like myself that I could not rid myself of
the notion that he might prefer a milder way of approach. And as I
sorted out my stock of diplomacy he spoke of the matter himself.
"You are a seaman, I understand?" I remarked. He gave me a quick glance.
"I go to sea," he replied, "if that is what you mean. Yes, in the legal
phrase of the Board of Trade, I'm a seaman, and my number is _Three nine
five, eight nine three_." He laughed shortly and continued to look out
towards New York.
"A picturesque life," I hazarded, regretting my total ignorance of it.
Again he looked at me and laughed.
"You think so?" he queried. "You think so?"
"I speak from book knowledge only," I said. "It is usually described in
those terms." We began to walk to and fro.
"Well," he admitted unexpectedly, "and so it is. I don't doubt that to
anyone just looking at it, you understand, it is as you say,
'picturesque,' But when you have a number like _Three nine five, eight
nine three_, you have another view of it."
"You have been for a long voyage?"
"Oh no," he said; "Mediterranean and back, that's all."
I began to realize something of the man from this. I had no knowledge of
the sea, but I certainly had a mind trained by years of observation and
reflection to deduce certain definite data affecting human nature. And I
realized dimly that a man who regarded a run round the Mediterranean and
back across the Atlantic as a trivial episode scarcely worthy of
mention, might have views on literature and art radically at variance
with my own.
"I should have thought," I remarked, "that you would have made your home
there rather than here."
"There's some who do," he said. "Lots of the Anchor Line men do. But
personally I'd rather be here."
"It is very like England," I agreed, as he broke in.
"Sure," he said. "I was just thinking as I came up the hill. I come from
Hertfordshire myself. Very like the Northern Heights."
"We always think," I answered, "that it is like Essex."
He pondered for a moment, enjoying his pipe.
"Well, it is," he decided. "You mean looking over Staten Island to the
sea? Yes, only they're busier here than along Mersea Flats, eh? Oh yes,
I used to know that part when I was a boy. There isn't much between
Chipping Barnet and Hamford Water that I didn't know in those days."
"You will go back some day?" I said as we turned. A change came over
his face, and he put his hand to his chin.
"No," he said. "I'll never go back there. I'm here"--he waved his
pipe--"for keeps."
I looked at him in astonishment.
"Why?" I said, a little indignantly. "Are you not an Englishman?"
For a moment he did not reply to the blunt question, but looked down at
the flags. His feet were cased in red velvet slippers, I noticed, and
they struck me as quite indescribably bizarre in the moonlight. His
hesitation was too ominous, heavy with unimaginable complexities. His
voice was muffled when he spoke.
"No," he said. "I'm--an alien."
At first I was impressed by the tone more than the words. It was
mournful, with a streak of satisfaction in his condition that I felt was
assumed.
"You mean," I said at last, "that you intend to take out papers?"
He looked at me queerly.
"How long would it take," he inquired with a smile, "to put in five
years' residence, when I'm in the country about three days every two
months? No, I don't think I'll bother about papers. When I say I'm here
for keeps, I mean those belonging to me."
"There is a question I would like to ask you," I said, tentatively.
"I shall be very glad to answer it if I can," he replied.
"It refers to your little boys."
"Why," he broke in, "they haven't been annoying you, have they? I hope
they haven't done that!"
"Not at all. I merely had a curiosity to know why they bear such unusual
names."
He smiled.
"They told you their names, did they?"
"They were good enough to commend me for the way I played Indian," I
explained, and he gave me another of his quick comprehensive glances.
"It's rather a long story you've asked for," he said.
"I am interested in stories," I put in.
"Beppo said you made pictures," he mused.
"In words," I added.
He paused again. It seemed to be a part of his mode of thinking, this
occasional parenthesis of silence. It was almost as though the man were
leading me down a vast and dimly-lit corridor, laying his hand at times
on various doors, and then withdrawing it, from some mysterious motive,
and continuing upon his way.
"An author?" he said, half to himself. "Ah!"
It was borne in upon me that neither a wide experience in common
everyday psychology, nor even an exhaustive knowledge of sea-life could
adequately cope with the bewildering emotions implicit in that "Ah!" In
its way it was the most remarkable thing he had said.
"Yes, if you like," I replied. "I am professionally interested in
stories."
He felt in his pocket for matches and as the flame spurted before his
face I saw the corners of his mouth betrayed a pucker of amusement. I
suddenly felt the absurdity of my position. I had been led to expose
myself to ridicule. I might have expected it after the behaviour of his
children.
For a moment I was warm!
"You see," he said, looking at his watch, "it's this way. I'm not a very
good hand at yarns, but if you like I'll step along to-morrow some time
and have a talk. I don't go back to the ship till Sunday night."
"We shall be charmed," I said. "Come in to tea."
"All right," he answered. "I will. It must be nearly eight bells, I
should think, twelve o'clock."
I pointed to the Metropolitan Light, glowing a deep red. He regarded it
with interest.
"Think o' that!" he said, absently. "Just think o' that. Eight bells!"
He roused himself. "Well, good-night to you, sir. I must turn in. I
always sleep best in the Middle Watch."
And he laughed as though at some flash of memory and made his way into
the darkened house.