The two books _New Guinea Revisited_ and _A Further Investigation_
give the three years narrative of Dyke’s exploratory work in the
mountains, with his study of the various native races, and his
adventures among the lesser islands. These matters, as his father
said, belong to history; and there is also historical record of
his having been at home, or very near home, in the year 1908.
It was in this year that the lingering quarrel between him and
Saint-Bertin, the French explorer, found its culmination in a
duel “_à outrance_,” which took place somewhere on the outskirts
of Paris. Saint-Bertin was the challenger and in regard to the
combat itself there were many stories afloat in both countries;
the accepted English version being that four shots were exchanged
and that Dyke fired his two straight into the air, although he had
received a scrape on the thigh from the enemy’s first round. The
Frenchmen were undecided whether to take this as a further insult
or a _beau geste_, until, as it was alleged, Dyke said the whole
thing was damned nonsense and he would continue to shoot at the
sky all the afternoon, since, however much he disliked Monsieur
de Saint-Bertin personally, he refused to risk injuring France by
incapacitating one of her bravest sons. If indeed he said anything
of the sort, one may suppose that he did so in his grandest manner,
with a Spanish bow or two and with all sincerity of spirit. For,
whatever accusations might be justly levelled against Anthony Dyke
for arrogance or overbearingness, no one could charge him with a
lack of magnanimity. At any rate his late foe was satisfied by his
demeanour--a satisfaction proved by Saint-Bertin’s dedicating his
next book to Dyke.
Emmie was satisfied too, when the packet arrived at the flat,
forwarded by Dyke’s publishers, and she read the dedication:
“I offer myself the signal honour”--all in the most beautiful
French--“of inscribing on this page the name of a good comrade,
a courteous gentleman, a knight who has wandered from the age
of chivalry to teach in this epoch of low ambitions and sordid
concurrences the lesson that men may be rivals, and yet friends,
of different fatherland but one brotherhood, united to death and
beyond it by mutual admiration, esteem, respect, homage”; and so
on and so forth. Miss Verinder, thrilling to the lavish praise of
her knight errant, liked the beginning of the inscription better
than the end. It seemed to her that the Frenchman, winding up, put
himself too much on a level with Dyke.
She was doing more and more for him. All his correspondence was
sent to her by the bank or the publishers and she dealt with it
as best she could. Among these business people she was known as
his authorised representative, his “attorney.” She had long ago
bought a tin deed box for the safe keeping of his papers, and in
course of time she bought another of the same shape and size. These
boxes stood in her bedroom, disguised by brocade covers that she
had made and embroidered with her own patient hands; and she was
never happier than when they were pulled forward from the wall,
uncovered, showing the white letters of the name on the shining
black enamel--“Anthony Dyke, Esq., C.M.G., etc., etc.” On her
knees before them, tidying their always tidy contents, docketing
and stringing the various packets, she had wonderful sensations of
power and importance--as if she had been rearranging Dyke’s life
itself instead of its scribbled records, setting it in order for
him, making it easier and more comfortable.
Amongst the neatly folded packets there was one with the label,
“Mrs. Anthony Dyke”; and to this Emmie added every six months a
receipted account from the asylum in the midlands--Upperslade Park,
as they called it. The sight of that address on the stamped piece
of paper always gave her a little shock of pain or discomfort;
she hated that particular bundle in the box, and used to shrink
involuntarily from the task of opening it and retying it. Her hands
grew slow as she touched it, and she lapsed into a waking dream
while she thought of the great irrevocable fact, and of what his
life, their life, might have been if the fact had not been there.
Since his banking account came entirely into her charge and duty
compelled her to examine the passbook with close attention, she had
made the discovery that another person beyond herself was taking
liberties. As well as subscribing rather large sums anonymously to
the funds of those various expeditions and thereby to a certain
extent “dipping her capital,” as her old friend and adviser, the
late Mr. Williams, would have described it, she had also paid
smaller sums directly to Anthony’s account at the bank. She began
this practise in fear and trembling. But Anthony never detected
that he was being thus mysteriously aided. He never counted his
money, knowing always that he had not enough, and devoting always
every penny he possessed to the needs of a work insufficiently
supported by the State and the people. Now she discovered that old
Mr. Dyke also fed balances or reduced overdrafts from time to time
by unacknowledged contributions.
Her own father was now dead, but in old Dyke she had found another
father--a father who understood her. There was nothing that she
need keep back from him, nothing that she might not discuss with
him. She knew the house called Endells better than she had known
her home in Prince’s Gate, and felt more truly at home there.
Everything about it was old, settled, full of time-honoured repose;
when she and Louisa arrived upon a visit, the old servants, the
old walls, the dear quaint old furniture itself welcomed them.
Neighbours thought she was a relative of the house; the people of
the village smiled at her, and remembered her as somehow belonging
to Endells although not regularly living there. She might have
lived there, had she wished, in all the time of Anthony’s absences,
but she continued to be merely a frequent visitor. And not once did
she go there with the son and future owner of the house. A delicacy
that all three felt but never spoke of debarred her from that joy.
The precious days that Anthony gave to Endells were lost to her
entirely.
At the side of the house there was a bit of walled garden where
she used to sit with Mr. Dyke. The ground sloped down slightly, so
that the tops of the side walls were not horizontal but slanting,
and you looked upward to the house with its modest terrace, broad
eaves, and latticed windows; sheltered from the wind, the little
place was such a sun-trap that you could sit there even on winter
days. But it was prettiest and most delightful in early summer. If
Emmie, walking along the ugly Brompton Road, cared to shut her eyes
and think of it, she could always see it--those flint walls with
the odd pent-house roof to protect the blossoming peach trees, the
borders of bright flowers, the trim grass path and stone steps;
dark green ilex trees against a blue sky, and a glimpse of one of
the old servants moving to and fro behind the open casements. Over
her head the sweet sea breeze was blowing, bees were humming in
the fragrant lavender, and perhaps the bells of the church began
to sound behind the pointed gables and huge chimney stacks at the
end of the house. Seeing and feeling it thus imaginatively, she had
a consciousness always of comfort and rest; the kindly friendly
little spot of earth had sunshine in it that filled and warmed her
heart. Its walls were buttresses against which she could lean when
she felt her weakness and longed for supporting strength.
Here, during her last visit, she had unburdened her mind of the
distress caused by the treatment of Dyke in newspapers and reviews.
As his publicity agent as well as his man of business, she was
pained by a change of tone that she found it difficult to define;
it was not that press writers--at any rate those of the better
sort--were ever disrespectful, but they were too often oblivious.
Mr. Dyke, sitting beside her on the garden bench, patted her hand
and told her not to fret.
The fact was there had come to Anthony Dyke what comes to all
who have built a reputation by startling the public, as soon as
they cease to startle. Moreover, people were busy saying about
others all that for so long they had said about him. The many new
names demanded loud-voiced recognition--Nansen, Jackson, Scott,
Shackleton, and others.
Reeling off the new names, writers merely touched on the old
names in parentheses--“nor must we forget the pioneer work done
by Anthony Dyke”--or “such men as Bruce, de Gerlache, and Dyke.”
They spoke of him as “the veteran explorer”; “still active, unless
we are mistaken,” and so on. One hateful rag, using the newly
introduced phrase, even spoke of him as “a back number.” And
several times the list-makers forgot him altogether; his name was
omitted from their roll of honour. Then Emmie, with her facile pen,
was compelled herself to write “A Correction,” indignantly asking
for space to point out that Mr. Anthony Dyke by piercing the vale
of mystery in the year 1888 had opened the southern path which
all others had since then followed; or that it appeared strangely
ungrateful when speaking of Antarctic explorers not to mention that
Mr. Anthony Dyke had held the Farthest South record for fourteen
years.
But his father said all this was of no consequence. It was an
experience through which the greatest men invariably passed.
Matters would right themselves. And he reminded Emmie of the
splendid solidification of Anthony’s earlier work, of the
proof during recent years of all that had aroused question or
doubt--those pigmies, the sacred remains, everything. Each year
the foundations of his fame were being rendered firmer by the
continually enhancing value of his discoveries, and the edifice
raised thereon would stand lofty and secure ages after all these
scribbling worms had returned to the dust from which they came.
“Dear Mr. Dyke,” said Emmie, “you are always so wise. You always
are able to make me see things again in their proper proportions.
Yes, I remember what Tony once said. Justice is done in the end.”
They were fond of each other, these two, bound close by their
fondness for that other one. The friendly village folk liked to see
them in church together using the same hymn-book; or on the cliff
path, the old gentleman leaning on the lady’s arm.
He was glad of this assistance sometimes; for he had not borne
out that promise of the man who will never grow older. After his
seventy-third birthday he began to age rapidly; and although he
still preserved an outward aspect of alertness and carried his thin
frame erectly, he had become frail. His walks were restricted; at
each visit Emmie noticed a diminution of their range. A certain
bench on the cliff path that they used to pass swingingly was
now his farthest goal, and he was glad to sit and rest before
turning homeward. They sat there one Sunday morning, high above
the many-coloured sea and the dark rocks, and he spoke to her of
religion.
“Emmie dear, it is good of you to go to church with me.”
“I love it,” she said. And this was true.
“Tell me,” he said. “Was it Anthony who took your religious faith
from you?”
“Oh, Mr. Dyke!” She gave a little cry of surprise and distress. “Of
course not. Tony and I haven’t discussed sacred matters for ever so
long.”
“But you don’t believe--I mean, as we church people--do you, dear?”
Emmie made a fluttering movement of her gloved hands, then folded
them on her lap, and with puckered brows looked across the sea to
the faint silver line of the horizon. “It would be wicked of me to
pretend. I’ll tell you what I believe.” But what did she believe?
It was not easy to say, although she spoke with absolute sincerity.
She told him that all her faith in the orthodox Christian doctrine
had gone from her so gradually--and she must add so easily--that
she scarce knew how it went or when it was gone finally. She
thought--now that she considered it--that association with a mind
as bold as his son’s had perhaps had its part in rendering her old
submissive faith impossible. But the loss of orthodoxy had not made
her a materialist--oh, far from that. She firmly believed in some
supreme and beneficent force that ruled the spiritual universe.
That, she thought, was his son’s belief also. And she wound up with
words to the effect that it would be most terrible to her if she
might not go on hoping there would be some kind of after life in
which she and Anthony could clasp impalpable hands and exchange the
phantom equivalent of kisses.
“I see--I understand,” said Mr. Dyke gently; and he got up from
the bench. “Perhaps very few people could say more nowadays. I
don’t know. I never judge. It is all a mystery--but I am too old to
change, myself. Shall we toddle back to our roast beef? If we’re
late Hannah will scold us again. Thank you, dear”; and he took her
arm.
He said he was old, and he looked old; she noticed then, more
clearly than before, the uncertain footsteps, the violent yet
feeble effort, the moving fragility of age.
Why should she be surprised? Time was standing still for nobody.
The blondness of comfortable Mrs. Bell of Queen’s Gate had gone.
She had lost that appearance of an expensive court card, she had
been shuffled from the pack or had become a queen dowager; she was
out of breath when she got to the top of Emmie’s steep staircase,
and she went regularly to Homburg or Harrogate for the waters. When
she gave parties her fine big rooms were thronged with another
generation, who asked leave to push the valuable furniture on one
side in order to dance, and then didn’t dance, but romped in a
thing they called “the Boston.”
Wherever Emmie turned her large mild eyes, she could see the
changes wrought by unstationary time. It was becoming dangerous
to cross the Brompton Road because of the buzzing motor cars,
which travelled faster than the motor ’buses. The tube railway
had been opened. Men were flying in the air and going in boats
below the surface of the water; members of the female aristocracy
were dining in low necks at the Carlton Hotel; Mr. Lloyd George
was a responsible cabinet minister. What would Mr. Verinder have
thought and said? In Exhibition Road one met well-to-do young men
smoking pipes, wearing preposterous knickerbockers, and carrying
golf clubs; young ladies rode astride past the windows of Prince’s
Gate; only the will of Queen Alexandra kept mechanically propelled
traffic out of Hyde Park itself.
* * * * *
In the golden summer of 1909 she had the wanderer with her for a
long while.
She knew that he was coming, but had not been prepared for his
actual advent. It was after luncheon, the room full of sunlight,
and she sat in a corner busily typewriting; with a tray of papers
on a table at her elbow and slips of printers’ proofs lying on the
floor by her feet. Louisa shouted in the passage, and when Emmie
heard his voice she jumped up, knocking down the tray and its
papers as she did so. She nearly sent the typewriting machine after
the tray as she sprang forward to meet him at the opened door. Then
something brought her to a dead stop.
He was grey. His beautiful dark hair had lost its black
lustrousness; it was the dull colour of a grey silk dress. She gave
a little shiver, and then took his hand and looked into his face as
if not noticing any difference.
“Emmie! Let me look at you.”
As always, he held her arms apart before drawing her to him,
studied her with adoring eyes; and she knew without the possibility
of doubt that he could not or would not see the slightest change in
her. So far as she was concerned, she need never fear the years or
their marks; always he would see not what she was really, but the
girl that she had once been.
Soon they laughed together at the new colour of his hair, and Emmie
said it was an improvement. It gave him greater dignity. He would
look very handsome in the portrait that a famous artist was going
to paint. Truly the grey hair did not make him look any older;
although now fifty-one he was wonderfully, almost incredibly young;
sometimes making her and Louisa feel, as they had felt long ago,
that they were hiding in the flat an overgrown schoolboy and not
a middle-aged public character. He chaffed and teased Louisa; he
took the parrot out of its cage and could not get it back again;
he spent one whole day in teaching the new white cat to jump from
between his knees over his clasped hands.
He was cheerful and gay; yet beneath the high spirits Emmie
detected his occasional sadness. After running down to Devonshire
for a few days he returned to her; and never had he been so
entirely sweet or more absolutely devoted; and yet, nevertheless,
she understood that he was restless in mind and, except for the
comfort of their love, unhappy. It would pass--as all signs of
weakness passed from him--but she knew that he was feeling the
smart of disappointment. It was more than his own failure in the
fourth cruise, it was the knowledge that his province had been
invaded. That ocean which he had come to consider as belonging
to Anthony Dyke had been attacked by so many others. The hidden
mystery of its continent was imminently threatened not by him,
Dyke, but by the new men.
He was still generous in his praise, trying hard to conceal the
touch of bitterness caused by personal considerations. “Nansen is
a splendid fellow. Take it from me, Emmie, he deserves all that is
said of him--and they have made a deuce of a fuss, haven’t they?
He has been lucky, of course--devilish lucky. Mark my words; the
North Pole will be reached”; and walking about the room, he paused
to make a widely magnanimous gesture, as though giving away the
North Pole. After all, the North Pole was nothing to him; he had
never marked it down; anybody might have it--that is, anybody who
deserved it. “They are wonderful people, the Norwegians, Emmie.
I suppose you know they are fitting out the Fram for a third
voyage. Yes, Roald Amundsen will be in command--topping chap,
Amundsen--he’ll get there.” Then she saw him wince as he went on to
speak again of things relating to the other Pole, the South Pole,
_his_ Pole. “That was a tremendous performance of Shackleton’s,
Emmie. Great. Lucky beggar, Shackleton. Scott too. I take off my
hat to Scott.” And he sighed. “Scott ought to be invincible--sent
out as they mean to send him--with all that money behind him.
You remember what Sir Clements Markham said about Antarctic
exploration--he wanted a hundred and fifty thousand pounds to send
a man in proper style.” Then, after looking ruefully at Emmie,
he laughed and snapped his fingers. “Poor old Dyke never scraped
together a tenth part of that sum, did he?”
When she suggested that they should hire a motor-car, cross the
channel, and go for a tour in Brittany, he eagerly embraced her
idea, vowing that it was an inspiration. Those three weeks on
wheels were idyllic--rest in motion, quiet introspective joy with a
changing outward panorama of pleasant images. He seemed perfectly
happy, scarcely once mentioning the South Pole; and she, watching
him as a mother watches a son who has been crossed in love, hoped
that he was not secretly grieving.
As soon as they were back in London he grew restless. He would sit
looking at her, pretending to listen to her, and then suddenly go
and ask Louisa to see if the coast was clear, because he wanted a
walk. He walked by himself on these occasions, fast and furiously,
“blowing off steam,” as he explained to Emmie. At other times
he would stand by the window, with his hands in his pockets,
motionless for an hour and more, staring down through the foliage
of the plane tree as if trying to look through the whole globe and
see what was happening down there at the antipodes.
The news had come of the Japanese Antarctic expedition; the
newspapers were always talking of Captain Scott’s preparations;
there were vague rumours of other carefully planned attacks. It
seemed that all the world was “chipping in,” and that poor old
Dyke’s white garden was to have its ice flowers snatched, as if by
marauding gangs of mischievous children.
There was talk also, well maintained, of Amundsen and the Fram; and
again Emmie observed that Dyke could speak of the gallant Norwegian
without wincing. Amundsen--topping fellow--was for the North. More
power to him. Only, confound these Japanese, and the rest of them,
southward bound.
Beyond the restlessness there was irritability. Often he was
irritable with his Emmie, rudely impatient at least once when she
was not quick enough to grasp the point of intricate explanations
concerning the various plans of these other adventurers; and he
snapped at faithful Louisa--a thing he had never done till now.
Miss Verinder bore with him, showed always an infinite patience.
She could interpret all his emotions; even if she got muddled now
and then in latitudes and longitudes. He was suffering in its
acutest form the nostalgic longing that is felt by the disabled
fox-hunting squire when he has to lie in bed and listen to the
huntsman’s voice and horn while hounds are drawing the home
coverts. “Oh, damn the doctor. Get my boots, and saddle any old
crock that’s left in the stable. I’m going.”
He began to tell her of what he would do if he “made a bid for it”
himself, at this eleventh hour. “Do you follow me, Emmie? There
are more ways of killing a dog than by choking him with butter.”
He said that if he could put his hands on so small a sum as ten
thousand pounds, he would join the race--even now. “Listen, Emmie.
These are my notions of a chance to get ahead of them all--even
now.” She listened meekly and attentively to his interminable
harangues; she watched him as he paced to and fro, still talking,
quite late at night sometimes, long after they ought to have been
asleep; and she never blinked an eye. Nor did she demur, unless
conscience obliged her to question his too sanguine calculations.
Then at last he said some words that wounded her most dreadfully.
“Upon my soul, Emmie, you seem as if you could never understand
anything.”
She uttered one of her faint little cries; but he went on, not
seeing that he had caused her pain. He went on until, pausing for
breath, he noticed that her lips were quivering, while her hands
agitated themselves queerly; and she said in a strained voice that
she knew very well how she failed him for want of intelligence, but
she was always trying to improve herself.
“_You_ fail me, what!” He gave a roar as of a stricken beast,
and dropped on his knees, with his arms round her, imploring
forgiveness. “My darling little Emmie--my guardian angel. Oh, I
ought to be kicked from here to Penzance. I didn’t mean it. On my
honour I never meant it. Yet, clumsy lout that I am, I said it.
Forgive me, oh, forgive me.”
And she, stroking his bowed head, her face shining, said that it
was “quite all right”; never could she really doubt his indulgence
towards her, his loving kindness.
But it was long before she was able to comfort him or make him
forget the offence of which he had been guilty; remaining on his
knees he continued to apologise.
“Emmie, you’re such an angel--you can make allowances and find
excuses. It’s only that I am so cursedly miserable about all this.
If you think, it is devilish bad luck, isn’t it? To be kicked up
to the equator as I’ve been--to be cooked in that damned Turkish
bath of a New Guinea--to be kept there these years--how many?--with
the very colour bleached out of my hair and the marrow grilling to
nothing in my bones--while your Newnesses and your Harmsworths,
your admirals and cabinet ministers, your lords and fine ladies,
have all been putting their heads together and opening their purse
strings--yes, and your kings and mikados too--to fit out and give
carte blanche to any one who has the cheek to tell ’em he knows the
way to the South Pole! And I’m not as young as I used to be, Emmie.
I don’t feel it myself, but the others say it; they throw it in my
face. I’d show them, if I had the chance--now. In another ten years
it may be too late and I may be really done for then.”
A few days after this she told him that the balance of his banking
account would very soon amount to half the sum he had mentioned; he
could rely on there being five thousand pounds to his credit. He
would scarcely believe it possible. Had the money fallen out of the
sky? She said that the cheap editions of his books had been selling
marvellously well, and reminded him that royalties for six months
were due from the publishers.
He asked no more questions. He was frowningly absorbed, he rumpled
his grey hair and cogitated; then he laughed gaily. “Five
thousand! It’s a nucleus. If only I could add to it somehow.”
It was of course futile for him to think of taking the hat round
here in England; the public had thrown their very last threepenny
bits into the hats of those other beggars. Then suddenly he said
he would try America. “Emmie, there’s a fellow out there who
believes in me--a prince of good fellows--I stayed with him at his
house on Long Island--lovely place, like Hampton Court Palace on a
small scale--and he’s rolling in money. What the devil’s his name?
Porter? Potter? James--yes, James L. Porter! That’s it. By Jove,
I’ll see if I can touch him.”
Immediately he cabled to Mr. Porter of New York, asking him to
put up five thousand pounds. He made the message as eloquent as
possible, not sparing words or considering rates, and he grinned
while he read it with mock emphasis to Emmie. He was a schoolboy
again, full of life and impudence; the gun-running Dyke of ancient
days. “Now, old girl, if my pal’s a sportsman--as I think he
is--he’ll do it.”
He despatched his cablegram early in the morning and fidgeted all
day, calculating the difference of time between London and New
York, walking about the rooms of the flat.
At six in the evening the reply came. Mr. James L. Porter had
cabled the money.
Dyke was almost delirious. He kissed Louisa on both cheeks,
he waltzed with Miss Verinder, he executed a _pas seul_ and
made the cat do a record jump. Then he sang pæans in honour
of the Yanks--those sportsmen over the pond--with a chorus of
disparagement for the citizens of his native land. “Is there an
Englishman alive who would have sent that answer? They don’t waste
time _talking_ over there, they do. What was it Tennyson said? Our
old England will go down in twaddle--or was it babble?--at last.
And I scarcely knew the fellow. Any obligation was on my side, not
his. He entertained me royally. Bravo, Porter. What’s the matter
with James L. P.? _He’s_ all right.”
At once he sketched his plan. There could be no difficulty in
collecting staunch comrades; he knew dozens of likely men. Of
course everything must be done cheaply. He would go to Greenland
at once to get dogs; he would buy a whaler, fit her out as best he
could, and go down light--a scratch lot, certainly. “But with luck,
Emmie”; and his eyes flashed. “Get there before Captain Scott, eh?
Why not?”
They went out to dinner, after he had sent a dozen telegrams, and
he was on fire with happy excitement.
“I shall write to Scott and tell him I’m chipping in. That’s only
common courtesy. Although, hang it, no one asks _my_ permission
when _they_ chip in.”
* * * * *
He had gone. She knew that the thing was hopeless, and yet she
hoped. The letters that he sent her were not reassuring; with his
scratch lot he would run dreadful risks and have no real chance of
success, but still she went on hoping. It is too hard merely to
wait and not to hope at all.
Although her financial position would have been described by the
late Mr. Verinder as distinctly unsound and she was drifting from
the smooth waters of safe investment towards the maelstrom of
sheer speculation, she sometimes blamed herself for not having
encroached on her already reduced capital to a greater extent.
It was horrible to her to think for a moment or two that if she
and J. L. Porter had given him more money, his perils might have
been less and his prospects brighter. But, no, if she had put her
contribution at a higher figure than five thousand pounds it would
have aroused his suspicion, and then he would have refused to take
anything at all. Moreover, as she consoled herself by reflecting,
it would not have been _right_ to give him more; she _must_ think
of the future; she _must_ be decently provided against the day
when his travels would be over. When that day came he would not of
course have a shilling of his own; for whatever he possessed or
earned or inherited he would certainly spend on his work before he
ceased working. Then, if they were both poor, what would happen to
them?
The time passed very slowly. Although he wrote to her she had lost
touch with him; after the beginning of 1910 no exchange of letters
was possible. In March he had begun to work his way southwards,
and later he wrote to her from South American ports. She sent all
her letters to Tasmania. At Hobart, as he said, he would do a lot
of refitting and much valuable time would be consumed. His letters
showed that he was happy and hopeful; and she too hoped.
Then in September of this year strange news burst upon the world
and threw her into a state of white-hot indignation. Amundsen with
the Fram had arrived at Madeira; instead of going north Amundsen
was going south. He was going to the Antarctic. It seemed to Miss
Verinder, quite unreasonably, a piece of dreadful treachery. This
commander, all the while that his preparations are being made
has permitted every civilized country to suppose that his aim
is northward; he sails amid their good wishes; people stand with
their eyes turned northward, thinking of him, peering after him.
And suddenly they are told to turn round and look the other way. He
has gone in the opposite direction, secretly stealing a march on
innocent trustful rivals.[1]
Miss Verinder held forth on the subject at an afternoon party given
by Mrs. Bell in Queen’s Gate that same day. It was a quiet informal
party, because people still wore mourning for King Edward and many
of Mrs. Bell’s acquaintance had not yet returned to London. Emmie,
standing by the buffet and being assisted to tea and cake by two
attentive clergymen, looked very nice in her black dress, with a
large picture hat, and some ermine round her slim neck. Unusually
animated, a spot of wrathful pink on each cheek, she spoke in
scathing terms, and almost choked once as she bit the rather dry
cake. Indeed she was throbbing with anger, although her voice,
while it emitted bitterness, was still modulated and gentle of
tone. She said in effect that it was disgraceful of Mr. Amundsen to
chip. Captain Scott must be utterly disgusted.
“Who is Captain Scott?” asked Mrs. Bell. “Do I know him, Emmeline?”
Other ladies gathered round, telling each other that Miss Verinder
was speaking of the South Pole and all these explorers. “She is
always so well informed.”
And Emmie, firm and explanatory, said that such a “chip-in” as
Amundsen’s simply isn’t done. She knew as a fact that in such cases
warning was always given. And continuing, she boldly named the
name. It was not only Captain Scott who would be upset, there were
the Japanese to think of--and the private expedition that was being
conducted by Mr. Anthony Dyke.
“Oh, yes,” said somebody. “Dyke. Yes, to be sure. Dyke’s one of the
most famous of them all, isn’t he?”
Mrs. Bell had moved on and was talking to a middle-aged couple who
had just arrived at the party; but if she had heard Dyke’s name
mentioned, it would scarcely have aroused any recollection of the
annoyance and trouble that he had once caused. That old scandal was
so completely dead that the most vindictive enemy could not now
have revived it, and nothing perhaps better proved the esteem in
which Miss Verinder was held by all these people than Mrs. Bell’s
manner when presently introducing two of them to her. They were the
late arrivals, a Mr. and Mrs. Parker, of Ennismore Gardens. They
themselves had craved the introduction, and they said their nurse
had told them of the very charming way in which Miss Verinder had
spoken one morning to their little girl Mildred on her pony outside
the front door. They thanked Miss Verinder for her kindness.
Miss Verinder said she deserved no thanks; she was very fond of
children; and she thought their daughter such an intelligent,
pretty little thing.
“Well, she really is,” said Mrs. Parker, enormously gratified; and
she and Mr. Parker together related that the child was good as
well as attractive; a quite extraordinarily obedient child--“so
different from her brothers”--seeming to take the sweetest kind of
pleasure in doing exactly as she was bid.
Miss Verinder said that was very nice indeed, and then she rather
startled both Parkers by asking, “What will you do with her when
she is grown up? I suppose you mean to give her some sort of
profession?”
“Oh, come,” said Mr. Parker, with a foolish chuckle, “I shouldn’t
have expected you of all people, Miss Verinder, to say that.”
“No,” said Mrs. Parker. “Surely _you’re_ not modern? You don’t
believe in letting girls leave home, and make careers for
themselves, and all that?”
“No, no, Miss Verinder is not serious,” said Mr. Parker, smiling
and nodding his head. “In spite of all the talk nowadays,
the best career for young ladies is just what it always
was--_marriage_! Unless, of course,” he added hastily, “a young
lady, to the surprise of her friends and admirers, declines--ah,
refuses--herself deciding that she prefers--possessing the
cultivated and informed type of mind that does not seek--or perhaps
I should say, does not brook--domestic ties”; and he embarrassed
himself badly in his efforts to convey the polite opinion that,
although Miss Verinder was an old maid, she might have married
many, many times had she wished to do so. Then he wound up in
regard to his own daughter by indicating that when Mildred was old
enough, say, in ten years time, he would select for her a suitable
husband, somebody that her parents both trusted and liked, and the
docile, obedient Mildred would take him and say thank-you.
“It has been such a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” said Mrs.
Parker; “and we should be so very glad if you would visit us.
Ennismore Gardens, you know.”
Miss Verinder, in a somewhat absent-minded style, said she would be
pleased to avail herself of this invitation some time or other.
“_Any_ time,” said Mrs. Parker. “Of course, we know how much you
are sought after.”
The year 1911 was the longest that Emmie had as yet experienced.
The last of Dyke’s letters told her that he expected to cross the
Antarctic Circle in January, and then the immense silence began.
She spent a couple of months at least at Endells with his father,
who had been ill; and she and the old man encouraged each other to
hope for almost impossible things. Notwithstanding insufficiency
of preparation, unsuitability of vessel, doubtful allegiance of
subordinates, “Why should not Tony pull it off this time?” Heavily
handicapped, yes, but with such inexhaustible power in him himself.
Emmie, hoping more and more, was ready to abandon painfully
acquired knowledge, and to believe that only luck was needed.
All luck really. The luck must turn in his favour--he had always
said so. Moreover, who should venture to assign any limit to the
probable in the case of such a man? He was so miraculous.
Having no literary work on hand, she went about among her
neighbours much more than in the past. She liked and sympathised
with the youthful generation. She listened to music with Mrs. Bell,
and was always ready to join a bridge table even at the shortest
notice. She played the game accurately and boldly; and one evening,
when she dined at the Parkers and the young people prevailed on Mr.
Parker to countenance poker, she astonished everybody by her manner
of sharing in this more reckless amusement. There was a gentle
inscrutability about Miss Verinder at poker that proved deadly to
ardent and excited adolescence. One of the young men, cleaned out,
stood dolefully behind her chair and afterwards reported that he
saw her do a bluff big enough to lift the roof. He said it had
given him palpitations of the heart to watch her.
But all these slight interests, the concerts, the cards, the
tea-parties, as it were dancing and flickering on the surface of
her existence, were as nothing; the true Miss Verinder was far
otherwise engaged. The world of Parkers and Bells, and tradesmen
and cabdrivers, never once met her. Or if for a moment anyone
caught a glimpse of her, she had flown away next moment and was
back with her wandering man. So that one may truly say of her that
often, as she passed along the broad smooth pavement round the
corner into Prince Consort Road, she was in reality breathlessly
clambering over hummocks of ice; or that when in the quiet flat she
put down a saucer of milk for Bijou the cat, that small useless
creature had swelled for her into the largest kind of Weddell seal.
* * * * *
The silence remained unbroken, over Christmas and on into the new
year of 1912. One morning in March, Mrs. Bell asked her to come to
tea next day, the eighth of the month. It was a date that Emmie
never afterwards forgot.
She said she was sorry; she had an engagement.
“Oh, what a pity. I’m expecting the Alderleys and I wanted you to
know them. Can’t you come in afterwards?”
“No, I’m afraid not,” said Miss Verinder. “I’m going out of town
to-morrow for the whole day.”
“How annoying! Well then, the day after?”
“Yes, I shall be delighted.”
“Good,” said Mrs. Bell. “I shall put off the Alderleys. Hope you’ll
have an enjoyable day.”
Miss Verinder’s engagement was to visit a certain town in the
Midlands, and truly she looked forward to it with no pleasurable
anticipations, but rather with a sinking of the heart. She was
going to Upperslade Park only because she felt that it was her duty
to go there. The asylum authorities had sent a very troublesome
letter to Dyke, and she as his representative must attend to it
properly. They asked for a large increase of the annual payment,
on the ground of the enhancement of cost of everything since the
time long ago when the bargain was made. They said that a bargain
was a bargain, and they “would not go back on it”; but they could
not possibly continue to maintain Mrs. Dyke as well as in the
past, giving her the greatest comfort, the best food, and the
closest attendance, at a dead loss. If, then, it was impossible to
adopt their suggestion, they would go on taking care of her quite
adequately, but much less luxuriously. There was a possibility,
of course, that her health would suffer from the deprivation
of comforts to which she had grown accustomed. Farther, they
pointed out that although the asylum was to some extent a public
institution enjoying an endowment, they had no power to devote a
penny of these funds to the benefit of the private paying patients.
Emmie travelled by the North-Western Railway, and it was one of
those days with which March can surprise and disgust even those
who remember the evil notoriety of the month. Dark skies, rain,
and wind travelled with her all the way. She drove through the
ugly town, seeing nothing but wet pavements and tramcars; through
outskirts of factories and smoking chimneys, and on to a broad
long road skirted on either side by villas and gardens. Her
cabman stopped at an iron gateway in a high brick wall. This was
Upperslade Park. A man came out of a lodge and spoke to her at the
cab window. Then he unlocked the gate, and the cab drove in.
Beneath leafless dripping trees, across wide lawns, she saw the
place itself vaguely, a mass of buildings with wet slate roofs
and towers that stretched and sprawled gigantic. It was like a
workhouse, a gaol, like anything sinister and dark that depresses
the mind, at the mere sight of it, with painful associations and
impotent regrets.
She was received by a doctor in an office that opened from a large
and totally bare hall, and she said that she wished to have her
interview with the patient before entering into any discussion of
business matters.
“All right,” said the doctor. “Yes, she’ll have had her dinner”;
and he called for an attendant. “I’ll tell Dr. Wenham that you’d
like a chat with him afterwards.”
Emmie was ushered then to a waiting-room or parlour, where, they
said, Mrs. Dyke would presently be sent to her. It was a lofty
room, with high windows through which one had a view of the driving
rain, the sodden lawns, and a broad smoke-stained gravel path. Some
of those unreadable richly-bound books that used to be displayed
years ago in hotel sitting-rooms lay on highly-polished circular
tables. Instead of a fireplace there was a large white earthenware
stove. Some horsehair and walnut chairs stood in a row against one
wall, and on each side of the stove there was a straight-backed
early-Victorian sofa covered with faded green rep.
Emmie waited for what seemed a long time. She was looking out of a
window when the patient and a woman nurse entered the room.
“How do you do, Mrs. Dyke?” And they shook hands.
Immediately after this conventional greeting, Mrs. Dyke seated
herself on one of the rep-covered sofas and laid upon her knees a
largish Bible that she had been carrying under her arm. Emmie went
and sat beside her on the sofa. She was a little middle-aged woman,
dressed very neatly in a blue serge gown of no particular fashion;
her hair, parted in the middle, was drawn to the back of the head
and there rolled into a compact ball; her manner was precise and
formal, and she spoke in measured tones, as if weighing her words
and attaching importance, even finality, to some of them. It seemed
to Emmie that only her eyes were insane. Their colour was brown,
with little specks of amber, and they had the sort of shining
intensity that is to be observed in the eyes of children during
high fever. Then Emmie noticed that there was something strange
about her hands. The left one, the one with the wedding ring, had
marks of severe wounds on the knuckles, and it appeared to be
stiffened. Emmie thought at once--with a queer feeling of already
having heard of this--that it had been banged through a window pane
during a fit of violence.
“Insufficient organisation and want of method is usually to blame,”
Mrs. Dyke was saying, in her precise way. She had begun talking
as soon as she sat down, as if resuming a conversation with Emmie
that had just been interrupted. “Then praying time is naturally
forgotten. Prayers get omitted at the appointed moment, and one
rarely if ever squares the account and gets the tally right. But
in this book,” and she softly patted the Bible, “all such things
are noted. Did I say _this_ book? Pardon me--in a very much larger
book, kept by the recording angel, who neither sleeps nor accepts
drugs to make him sleep.”
The nurse was standing at a little distance, smiling
good-naturedly; and she now asked Emmie if she should remain or go
outside the door.
Emmie said she would like to be left alone with Mrs. Dyke.
“All right,” said the nurse, and she nodded significantly. “I shall
be just outside the door--and I’ll leave it ajar. Call, if you want
me, Miss Verinder.”
“Nurse Gale,” said Mrs. Dyke, quietly but authoritatively, “keep an
eye on the clock. Don’t let the proper moment slip by.”
“Oh, do drop your rubbish,” said the nurse, laughing
good-humouredly, as she went out into the corridor.
Mrs. Dyke continued to speak of religious matters, until, in a
pause, Emmie tried to change the subject.
“Now shall we talk a little about yourself? I want to know if you
are comfortable here.”
Mrs. Dyke, after a meditative silence, said, “No, I’m always
hungry.”
Emmie, shocked and pained, asked: “Don’t they give you enough to
eat?”
“Too much,” said Mrs. Dyke mysteriously. “But I daren’t eat it.
They want to poison me”; and she added after another pause that,
having defeated this plot for a considerable number of years, she
hoped still to get the better of them.
Then it was as if of a sudden she had been moved by some strange
glimmer of intelligence or intuition with regard to Emmie. She
looked at her searchingly with a changed expression in the eyes,
and shrinking from her on the sofa, spoke loudly. “Are you an enemy
or a friend?”
“A friend,” said Emmie.
“Of course she is,” said the nurse briskly. At the sound of the
raised voice she had immediately come into the room. “And a very
kind friend, too--to have come all the way from London to see you.”
“Who is it that has done me a great wrong?” said Mrs. Dyke, still
scrutinising Emmie. “Aunt Janet told me. Is it you? Have you
wronged me?”
“Oh, what stuff and nonsense,” said the nurse. “Wronged you indeed!
That’s the silly way she goes on.”
Emmie, perturbed but brave, got Nurse Gale to leave them alone
once more. Then she took the injured hand and very gently held it
between both her hands.
“Mrs. Dyke, don’t fear me; don’t suspect me of evil intentions. I
mean well.”
“So be it,” said Mrs. Dyke, drawing nearer on the sofa and allowing
her stiff cold hand to lie passive and imprisoned. “In the fullest
confidence.” That evanescent aspect of normality had gone; she
looked at Emmie with mad eyes, and spoke in a tone that was
vibratingly intense. “I want my husband--dead or alive. If he is
dead, I wish the body embalmed and put in a glass case. If he is
alive--send him to the devil and choke him. Look here. A stitch
in time saves nine. I put my husband in the bed--a colossal bed
that I had built to hold him. Room for five or six other people--of
ordinary size. So it’s quite absurd to pretend that there wasn’t
room in it for me. Very well. When I woke he wasn’t there. I hunted
for him high and low. He was under the bed laughing at me, or up
the chimney. ‘Be calm,’ they all said. ‘That is the watchword
henceforth--Be calm.’ ‘Well, I am calm, Aunt Janet,’ I said. ‘Could
anyone be calmer? I am quite reasonable and obeying orders. But I
simply say I want my husband.’
“But not a bit--they dragged me into the carriage. They flogged
those poor horses--” And suddenly her manner changed to a sort of
exalted fervour. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to
the Holy Ghost. Awake--throw off the chains. For on that day there
shall be a great light shining from the high mountains. I am the
resurrection and the life. Whoso believeth in Me--If you don’t
mind, I’ll say my prayers. I forgot them again”; and she sank to
her knees and laid her face upon the seat of the sofa. “Please ask
them not to disturb me.” And she began to murmur monotonously.
Miss Verinder waited a little while, and then went to the door and
beckoned the nurse. She asked her not to disturb Mrs. Dyke.
“But she’ll go on like that till midnight.”
“As a favour to me. Give her a quarter of an hour.” Emmie tipped
the nurse. “You promise, don’t you?”
Emmie, wrung with pity, stood at the door looking back into the
room. That was the last sight and sound--the poor creature kneeling
in the unchanged attitude and the toneless murmur of the prayer.
Miss Verinder during her interview with the head of the asylum was
very business-like. She arranged to pay what was necessary now
and whatever might be necessary in the future, should a further
increase be required.
Thus oddly she began to contribute to the comfort and maintenance
of the unhappy soul whose place in the outer world she had taken.
She had not hesitated to answer the call. Nor did there for a
moment pass through her mind even the vaguely formulated thought
that she was taking every possible means to keep Mrs. Dyke
alive, when the death of Mrs. Dyke might have relieved her of an
embarrassment which, although it had grown slight, still existed.
She was very tired when she reached Euston about seven in the
evening, and, since she was alone and without luggage, the porters
neglected her in the scramble on the arrival platform, and she was
unable to get a cab. Advised to try for one on the departure side,
she went through a subway, up into the great hall among hurrying
people; and suddenly heard two men saying words that made her heart
leap and sent the blood rushing to her head. Hastily turning, she
moved towards the bookstall; and there in bright strong light, she
saw the same words that she had just heard. All round the front of
the stall they were repeated in enormous lettering, on the bills of
the evening papers; for to-night no other item of news was worth
displaying--“South Pole Reached”; “Discovery of South Pole”; “South
Pole.”
In those few moments, while she bought a paper and opened it, she
believed that it was her man. Her man--the blood beat at her
temples, her lungs were full of fire, and a wild passionate joy
possessed her. It seemed as if the station walls were falling,
the lofty roof bursting open and floating away; vistas showed
themselves, filled with vast pressing throngs; triumphant music
swelled in her ears, and the voice of whole nations shouting echoed
and re-echoed the loved name. Dyke, Dyke, Dyke! He had done it.
Nothing could stop him, he had beaten them all--her man. She held
the paper high to read the message.
It was Amundsen.
She refolded the paper and looked at the large clock above the
door. Ten minutes past seven. When she got safely into her bedroom
at the flat the pretty little Sèvres clock on the chimney-piece
showed that it was now twenty minutes to eleven; and, except that
she had been walking, she never knew why it had taken her so long
to get home from Euston.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Louisa, helping to put her to
bed. And she spoke again, in the grumblingly affectionate tone that
trusted faithful old servants often permit to themselves. “You
don’t take proper care. You overdo it--and then you make yourself
ill, like this.”
“I am quite all right,” said Emmie. “But I have had a rather
agitating day”; and she turned her face to the wall.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] NOTE. Readers will of course understand that the author is
not accusing this great traveller, nor hinting the faintest
disparagement of his quietly matured plans. Miss Verinder’s
indignation is logically baseless. It is merely the characteristic
of her extreme partisanship.