Hyacinth hurried down and got out of the house, but he had not the
least intention of losing sight of Schinkel. The odd behaviour of the
Poupins was a surprise and annoyance, and he had wished to shake
himself free from it. He was candidly astonished at the alarm they were
so good as to feel for him, for he had never perceived that they had
gone round to the hope that the note he had signed (as it were) to
Hoffendahl would not be presented. What had he said, what had he done,
after all, to give them the right to fasten on him the charge of
apostasy? He had always been a free critic of everything, and it was
natural that, on certain occasions, in the little parlour in Lisson
Grove, he should have spoken in accordance with that freedom; but it
was only with the Princess that he had permitted himself really to rail
at the democracy and given the full measure of his scepticism. He would
have thought it indelicate to express contempt for the opinions of his
old foreign friends, to whom associations that made them venerable were
attached; and, moreover, for Hyacinth, a change of heart was, in the
nature of things, much more an occasion for a hush of publicity and a
kind of retrospective reserve; it couldn’t prompt one to aggression or
jubilation. When one had but lately discovered what could be said on
the opposite side one didn’t want to boast of one’s sharpness—not even
when one’s new convictions cast shadows that looked like the ghosts of
the old.
Hyacinth lingered in the street, a certain distance from the house,
watching for Schinkel’s exit and prepared to remain there if necessary
till the dawn of another day. He had said to his friends, just before,
that the manner in which the communication they looked so askance at
should reach him was none of his business—it might reach him as it
could. This was true enough in theory, but in fact his desire was
overwhelming to know what Madame Poupin had meant by her allusion to a
letter, destined for him, in Schinkel’s possession—an allusion
confirmed by Schinkel’s own virtual acknowledgment. It was indeed this
eagerness that had driven him out of the house, for he had reason to
believe that the German would not fail him, and it galled his suspense
to see the foolish Poupins try to interpose, to divert the missive from
its course. He waited and waited, in the faith that Schinkel was
dealing with them in his slow, categorical Teutonic way, and only
objurgated the cabinet-maker for having in the first place paltered
with his sacred trust. Why hadn’t he come straight to him—whatever the
mysterious document was—instead of talking it over with French
featherheads? Passers were rare, at this hour, in Lisson Grove, and
lights were mainly extinguished; there was nothing to look at but the
vista of the low black houses, the dim, interspaced street-lamps, the
prowling cats who darted occasionally across the road, and the
terrible, mysterious, far-off stars, which appeared to him more than
ever to see everything and to tell nothing. A policeman creaked along
on the opposite side of the way, looking across at him as he passed,
and stood for some minutes on the corner, as if to keep an eye on him.
Hyacinth had leisure to reflect that the day was perhaps not far off
when a policeman might have his eye on him for a very good reason—might
walk up and down, pass and repass, as he mounted guard over him.
It seemed horribly long before Schinkel came out of the house, but it
was probably only half an hour. In the stillness of the street he heard
Poupin let his visitor out, and at the sound he stepped back into the
recess of a doorway on the same side, so that, in looking out, the
Frenchman should not see him waiting. There was another delay, for the
two stood talking together interminably and in a low tone on the
doorstep. At last, however, Poupin went in again, and then Schinkel
came down the street towards Hyacinth, who had calculated that he would
proceed in that direction, it being, as Hyacinth happened to know, that
of his own lodging. After he had heard Poupin go in he stopped and
looked up and down; it was evidently his idea that Hyacinth would be
waiting for him. Our hero stepped out of the shallow recess in which he
had been flattening himself, and came straight to him, and the two men
stood there face to face, in the dusky, empty, sordid street.
“You didn’t let them have the letter?”
“Oh no, I retained it,” said Schinkel, with his eyes more than ever
like invisible points.
“Then hadn’t you better give it to me?”
“We will talk of that—we will talk.” Schinkel made no motion to satisfy
his friend; he had his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and his
appearance was characterised by an exasperating assumption that they
had the whole night before them. He was intolerably methodical.
“Why should we talk? Haven’t you talked enough with those people, all
the evening? What have they to say about it? What right have you to
detain a letter that belongs to me?”
“_Erlauben Sie_: I will light my pipe,” the German remarked. And he
proceeded to this business, methodically, while Hyacinth’s pale,
excited face showed in the glow of the match that he ignited on the
rusty railing beside them. “It is not yours unless I have given it to
you,” Schinkel went on, as they walked along. “Be patient, and I will
tell you,” he added, passing his hand into his companion’s arm. “Your
way, not so? We will go down toward the Park.” Hyacinth tried to be
patient, and he listened with interest when Schinkel said, “She tried
to take it; she attacked me with her hands. But that was not what I
went for, to give it up.”
“Is she mad? I don’t recognise them,” Hyacinth murmured.
“No, but they lofe you.”
“Why, then, do they try to disgrace me?”
“They think it is no disgrace, if you have changed.”
“That’s very well for her; but it’s pitiful for him, and I declare it
surprises me.”
“Oh, he came round, and he helped me to resist. He pulled his wife off.
It was the first shock,” said Schinkel.
“You oughtn’t to have shocked them, my dear fellow,” Hyacinth replied.
“I was shocked myself—I couldn’t help it.”
“Lord, how shaky you all are!”
“You take it well. I am very sorry. But it is a fine chance,” Schinkel
went on, smoking away. His pipe, for the moment, seemed to absorb him,
so that after a silence Hyacinth resumed—
“Be so good as to reflect that all this while I don’t in the least
understand what you are talking about.”
“Well, it was this morning, early,” said the German. “You know in my
country we don’t lie in bed late, and what they do in my country I try
to do everywhere. I think it is good enough. In winter I get up, of
course, long before the sun, and in summer I get up almost at the same
time. I should see the fine spectacle of the sunrise, if in London you
could see. The first thing I do of a Sunday is to smoke a pipe at my
window, which is at the front, you remember, and looks into a little
dirty street. At that hour there is nothing to see there—you English
are so slow to leave the bed. Not much, however, at any time; it is not
important, my little street. But my first pipe is the one I enjoy most.
I want nothing else when I have that pleasure. I look out at the new,
fresh light—though in London it is not very fresh—and I think it is the
beginning of another day. I wonder what such a day will bring; whether
it will bring anything good to us poor devils. But I have seen a great
many pass, and nothing has come. This morning, however, brought
something—something, at least, to you. On the other side of the way I
saw a young man, who stood just opposite to my house, looking up at my
window. He looked at me straight, without any ceremony, and I smoked my
pipe and looked at him. I wondered what he wanted, but he made no sign
and spoke no word. He was a very nice young man; he had an umbrella,
and he wore spectacles. We remained that way, face to face, perhaps for
a quarter of an hour, and at last he took out his watch—he had a watch,
too—and held it in his hand, just glancing at it every few minutes, as
if to let me know that he would rather not give me the whole day. Then
it came over me that he wanted to speak to me! You would have guessed
that before, but we good Germans are slow. When we understand, however,
we act; so I nodded to him, to let him know I would come down. I put on
my coat and my shoes, for I was only in my shirt and stockings (though
of course I had on my trousers), and I went down into the street. When
he saw me come he walked slowly away, but at the end of a little
distance he waited for me. When I came near him I saw that he was a
very nice young man indeed—very young, with a very pleasant, friendly
face. He was also very neat, and he had gloves, and his umbrella was of
silk. I liked him very much. He said I should come round the corner, so
we went round the corner together. I thought there would be some one
there waiting for us; but there was nothing—only the closed shops and
the early light and a little spring mist which told that the day would
be fine. I didn’t know what he wanted; perhaps it was some of our
business—that’s what I first thought—and perhaps it was only a little
game. So I was very careful; I didn’t ask him to come into the house.
Yet I told him that he must excuse me for not understanding more
quickly that he wished to speak with me; and when I said that, he said
it was not of consequence—he would have waited there, for the chance to
see me all day. I told him I was glad I had spared him that, at least,
and we had some very polite conversation. He _was_ a very nice young
man. But what he wanted was simply to put a letter in my hand; as he
said himself, he was only a kind of private postman. He gave me the
letter—it was not addressed; and when I had taken it I asked him how he
knew, and if he wouldn’t be sorry if it should turn out that I was not
the man for whom the letter was meant. But I didn’t give him a start;
he told me he knew all it was necessary for him to know—he knew exactly
what to do and how to do it. I think he is a valuable member. I asked
him if the letter required an answer, and he told me he had nothing to
do with that; he was only to put it in my hand. He recommended me to
wait till I had gone into the house again to read it. We had a little
more talk—always very polite; and he mentioned that he had come so
early because he thought I might go out, if he delayed, and because,
also, he had a great deal to do and had to take his time when he could.
It is true that he looked as if he had plenty to do—as if he was in
some very good occupation. I should tell you that he spoke to me always
in English, but he is not English; he sounded his words like some kind
of foreigner. I suppose he is not German, or he would have spoken to me
in German. But there are so many, of all countries! I said if he had so
much to do I wouldn’t keep him; I would go to my room and open my
letter. He said it wasn’t important; and then I asked him if he
wouldn’t come into my room, also, and rest. I told him it wasn’t very
handsome, my room—because he looked like a young man who would have,
for himself, a very neat lodging. Then I found he meant it wasn’t
important that we should talk any more, and he went away without even
offering to shake hands. I don’t know if he had other letters to give,
but he went away, as I have said, like a postman on his rounds, without
giving me any more information.”
It took Schinkel a long time to unfold this story—his calm and
conscientious thoroughness made no allowance for any painful acuteness
of curiosity that Hyacinth might feel. He went from step to step, and
treated his different points with friendly explicitness, as if each
would have exactly the same interest for his companion. The latter made
no attempt to hurry him, and indeed he listened, now, with a kind of
intense patience; for he _was_ interested, and, moreover, it was clear
to him that he was safe with Schinkel; the German would satisfy him in
time—wouldn’t worry him with attaching conditions to their transaction,
in spite of the mistake he had made in going for guidance to Lisson
Grove. Hyacinth learned in due course that on returning to his
apartment and opening the little packet of which he had been put into
possession, Mr Schinkel had found himself confronted with two separate
articles: one a sealed letter superscribed with our young man’s name,
the other a sheet of paper containing in three lines a request that
within two days of receiving it he would hand the letter to the ‘young
Robinson’. The three lines in question were signed D. H., and the
letter was addressed in the same hand. Schinkel professed that he
already knew the writing; it was that of Diedrich Hoffendahl. “Good,
good,” he said, exerting a soothing pressure upon Hyacinth’s arm. “I
will walk with you to your door, and I will give it to you there;
unless you like better that I should keep it till to-morrow morning, so
that you may have a quiet sleep—I mean in case it might contain
anything that will be disagreeable to you. But it is probably nothing;
it is probably only a word to say that you need think no more about
your engagement.”
“Why should it be that?” Hyacinth asked.
“Probably he has heard that you repent.”
“That I repent?” Hyacinth stopped him short; they had just reached the
top of Park Lane. “To whom have I given a right to say that?”
“Ah well, if you haven’t, so much the better. It may be, then, for some
other reason.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Schinkel,” Hyacinth returned, as they walked along.
And in a moment he went on, “What the devil did you go and tattle to
the Poupins for?”
“Because I thought they would like to know. Besides, I felt my
responsibility; I thought I should carry it better if they knew it. And
then, I’m like them—I lofe you.”
Hyacinth made no answer to this profession; he asked the next instant,
“Why didn’t your young man bring the letter directly to me?”
“Ah, I didn’t ask him that! The reason was probably not complicated,
but simple—that those who wrote it knew my address and didn’t know
yours. And wasn’t I one of your guarantors?”
“Yes, but not the principal one. The principal one was Muniment. Why
was the letter not sent to me through him?”
“My dear Robinson, you want to know too many things. Depend upon it,
there are always good reasons. I should have liked it better if it had
been Muniment. But if they didn’t send to him—” Schinkel interrupted
himself; the remainder of his sentence was lost in a cloud of smoke.
“Well, if they didn’t send to him,”—Hyacinth persisted.
“You’re a great friend of his—how can I tell you?”
At this Hyacinth looked up at his companion askance, and caught an odd
glance, accompanied with a smile, which the mild, circumspect German
directed toward him. “If it’s anything against him, my being his friend
makes me just the man to hear it. I can defend him.”
“Well, it’s a possibility that they are not satisfied.”
“How do you mean it—not satisfied?”
“How shall I say it?—that they don’t trust him.”
“Don’t trust him? And yet they trust me!”
“Ah, my boy, depend upon it, there are reasons,” Schinkel replied; and
in a moment he added, “They know everything—everything. Oh, they go
straight!”
The pair pursued the rest of their course for the most part in silence,
Hyacinth being considerably struck with something that dropped from his
companion in answer to a question he asked as to what Eustache Poupin
had said when Schinkel, that evening, first told him what he had come
to see him about. “_Il vaut du galme—il vaut du galme_:” that was the
German’s version of the Frenchman’s words; and Hyacinth repeated them
over to himself several times, almost with the same accent. They had a
certain soothing effect. In fact the good Schinkel was soothing
altogether, as our hero felt when they stopped at last at the door of
his lodging in Westminster and stood there face to face, while Hyacinth
waited—waited. The sharpness of his impatience had passed away, and he
watched without irritation the loving manner in which the German shook
the ashes out of his big pipe and laid it to rest in its coffin. It was
only after he had gone through this business with his usual attention
to every detail of it that he said, “_Also_, now for the letter,” and,
putting his hand inside of his waistcoat, drew forth the important
document. It passed instantly into Hyacinth’s grasp, and our young man
transferred it to his own pocket without looking at it. He thought he
saw a shade of disappointment in Schinkel’s ugly, kindly face, at this
indication that he should have no present knowledge of its contents;
but he liked that better than his pretending to say again that it was
nothing—that it was only a release. Schinkel had now the good sense, or
the good taste, not to repeat that remark, and as the letter pressed
against his heart Hyacinth felt still more distinctly that it was
something—that it was a command. What Schinkel did say, in a moment,
was: “Now that you have got it, I am very glad. It is more comfortable
for me.”
“I should think so!” Hyacinth exclaimed. “If you hadn’t done your job
you would have paid for it.”
Schinkel hesitated a moment while he lingered; then, as Hyacinth turned
away, putting in his door-key, he replied, “And if you don’t do yours,
so will you.”
“Yes, as you say, _they_ go straight! Good-night.” And our young man
let himself in.
The passage and staircase were never lighted, and the lodgers either
groped their way bedward with the infallibility of practice or scraped
the wall with a casual match which, in the milder gloom of day, was
visible in a hundred rich streaks. Hyacinth’s room was on the second
floor, behind, and as he approached it he was startled by seeing a
light proceed from the crevice under the door, the imperfect fitting of
which was in this manner vividly illustrated. He stopped and considered
this mysterious brightness, and his first impulse was to connect it
with the incident just ushered in by Schinkel; for what could anything
that touched him now be but a part of the same business? It was natural
that some punctual emissary should be awaiting him. Then it occurred to
him that when he went out to call on Lady Aurora, after tea, he had
simply left a tallow candle burning, and that it showed a cynical
spirit on the part of his landlady, who could be so close-fisted for
herself, not to have gone in and put it out. Lastly, it came over him
that he had had a visitor, in his absence, and that the visitor had
taken possession of his apartment till his return, seeking sources of
comfort, as was perfectly just. When he opened the door he found that
this last prevision was the right one, though his visitor was not one
of the figures that had risen before him. Mr Vetch sat there, beside
the little table at which Hyacinth did his writing, with his head
resting on his hand and his eyes bent on the floor. He looked up when
Hyacinth appeared, and said, “Oh, I didn’t hear you; you are very
quiet.”
“I come in softly, when I’m late, for the sake of the house—though I am
bound to say I am the only lodger who has that refinement. Besides, you
have been asleep,” Hyacinth said.
“No, I have not been asleep,” returned the old man. “I don’t sleep much
nowadays.”
“Then you have been plunged in meditation.”
“Yes, I have been thinking.” Then Mr Vetch explained that the woman of
the house wouldn’t let him come in, at first, till he had given proper
assurances that his intentions were pure and that he was moreover the
oldest friend Mr Robinson had in the world. He had been there for an
hour; he thought he might find him, coming so late.
Hyacinth answered that he was very glad he had waited and that he was
delighted to see him, and expressed regret that he hadn’t known in
advance of his visit, so that he might have something to offer him. He
sat down on his bed, vaguely expectant; he wondered what special
purpose had brought the fiddler so far at that unnatural hour. But he
only spoke the truth in saying that he was glad to see him. Hyacinth
had come upstairs in a tremor of desire to be alone with the revelation
that he carried in his pocket, yet the sight of Anastasius Vetch gave
him a sudden relief by postponing solitude. The place where he had put
his letter seemed to throb against his side, yet he was thankful to his
old friend for forcing him still to leave it so. “I have been looking
at your books,” the fiddler said; “you have two or three exquisite
specimens of your own. Oh yes, I recognise your work when I see it;
there are always certain little finer touches. You have a manner, like
a master. With such a talent, such a taste, your future leaves nothing
to be desired. You will make a fortune and become a great celebrity.”
Mr Vetch sat forward, to sketch this vision; he rested his hands on his
knees and looked very hard at his young friend, as if to challenge him
to dispute his flattering views. The effect of what Hyacinth saw in his
face was to give him immediately the idea that the fiddler knew
something, though it was impossible to guess how he could know it. The
Poupins, for instance, had had no time to communicate with him, even
granting that they were capable of that baseness; an unwarrantable
supposition, in spite of Hyacinth’s having seen them, less than an hour
before, fall so much below their own standard. With this suspicion
there rushed into Hyacinth’s mind an intense determination to dissemble
before his visitor to the last; he might imagine what he liked, but he
should not have a grain of satisfaction—or rather he should have that
of being led to believe, if possible, that his suspicions were
positively vain and idle. Hyacinth rested his eyes on the books that Mr
Vetch had taken down from the shelf, and admitted that they were very
pretty work and that so long as one didn’t become blind or maimed the
ability to produce that sort of thing was a legitimate source of
confidence. Then suddenly, as they continued simply to look at each
other, the pressure of the old man’s curiosity, the expression of his
probing, beseeching eyes, which had become strange and tragic in these
latter times and completely changed their character, grew so
intolerable that to defend himself Hyacinth took the aggressive and
asked him boldly whether it were simply to look at his work, of which
he had half a dozen specimens in Lomax Place, that he had made a
nocturnal pilgrimage. “My dear old friend, you have something on your
mind—some fantastic fear, some extremely erroneous _idée fixe_. Why has
it taken you to-night, in particular? Whatever it is, it has brought
you here, at an unnatural hour, you don’t know why. I ought of course
to be thankful to anything that brings you here; and so I am, in so far
as that it makes me happy. But I can’t like it if it makes _you_
miserable. You’re like a nervous mother whose baby’s in bed upstairs;
she goes up every five minutes to see if he’s all right—if he isn’t
uncovered or hasn’t tumbled out of bed. Dear Mr Vetch, don’t, don’t
worry; the blanket’s up to my chin, and I haven’t tumbled yet.”
Hyacinth heard himself say these things as if he were listening to
another person; the impudence of them, under the circumstances, seemed
to him, somehow, so rare. But he believed himself to be on the edge of
an episode in which impudence, evidently, must play a considerable
part, and he might as well try his hand at it without delay. The way
the old man gazed at him might have indicated that he too was able to
take the measure of his perversity—that he knew he was false as he sat
there declaring that there was nothing the matter, while a brand-new
revolutionary commission burned in his pocket. But in a moment Mr Vetch
said, very mildly, as if he had really been reassured, “It’s wonderful
how you read my thoughts. I don’t trust you; I think there are beastly
possibilities. It’s not true, at any rate, that I come to look at you
every five minutes. You don’t know how often I have resisted my
fears—how I have forced myself to let you alone.”
“You had better let me come and live with you, as I proposed after
Pinnie’s death. Then you will have me always under your eyes,” said
Hyacinth, smiling.
The old man got up eagerly, and, as Hyacinth did the same, laid his
hands upon his shoulders, holding him close. “Will you now, really, my
boy? Will you come to-night?”
“To-night, Mr Vetch?”
“To-night has worried me more than any other, I don’t know why. After
my tea I had my pipe and a glass, but I couldn’t keep quiet; I was
very, very bad. I got to thinking of Pinnie—she seemed to be in the
room. I felt as if I could put out my hand and touch her. If I believed
in ghosts I should believe I had seen her. She wasn’t there for
nothing; she was there to add her fears to mine—to talk to me about
you. I tried to hush her up, but it was no use—she drove me out of the
house. About ten o’clock I took my hat and stick and came down here.
You may judge whether I thought it important, as I took a cab.”
“Ah, why do you spend your money so foolishly?” asked Hyacinth, in a
tone of the most affectionate remonstrance.
“Will you come to-night?” said the old man, for all rejoinder, holding
him still.
“Surely, it would be simpler for you to stay here. I see perfectly that
you are ill and nervous. You can take the bed, and I’ll spend the night
in the chair.”
The fiddler thought a moment. “No, you’ll hate me if I subject you to
such discomfort as that; and that’s just what I don’t want.”
“It won’t be a bit different in your room; there, as here, I shall have
to sleep in a chair.”
“I’ll get another room; we shall be close together,” the fiddler went
on.
“Do you mean you’ll get another room at this hour of the night, with
your little house stuffed full and your people all in bed? My poor
Anastasius, you are very bad; your reason totters on its throne,” said
Hyacinth, humorously and indulgently.
“Very good, we’ll get a room to-morrow. I’ll move into another house,
where there are two, side by side.” Hyacinth’s tone was evidently
soothing to him.
“_Comme vous y allez!_” the young man continued. “Excuse me if I remind
you that in case of my leaving this place I have to give a fortnight’s
notice.”
“Ah, you’re backing out!” the old man exclaimed, dropping his hands.
“Pinnie wouldn’t have said that,” Hyacinth returned. “If you are
acting, if you are speaking, at the prompting of her pure spirit, you
had better act and speak exactly as she would have done. She would have
believed me.”
“Believed you? Believed what? What is there to believe? If you’ll make
me a promise, I will believe that.”
“I’ll make you any promise you like,” said Hyacinth.
“Oh, any promise I like—that isn’t what I want! I want just one very
particular little pledge; and that is really what I came here for
to-night. It came over me that I’ve been an ass, all this time, never
to have demanded it of you before. Give it to me now, and I will go
home quietly and leave you in peace.” Hyacinth, assenting in advance,
requested again that he would formulate his demand, and then the old
man said, “Well, promise me that you will never, under any
circumstances whatever, do anything.”
“Do anything?”
“Anything that those people expect of you.”
“Those people?” Hyacinth repeated.
“Ah, don’t torment me with pretending not to understand!” the old man
begged. “You know the people I mean. I can’t call them by their names,
because I don’t know them. But you do, and they know you.”
Hyacinth had no desire to torment Mr Vetch, but he was capable of
reflecting that to enter into his thought too easily would be
tantamount to betraying himself. “I suppose I know the people you have
in mind,” he said, in a moment; “but I’m afraid I don’t grasp the idea
of the promise.”
“Don’t they want to make use of you?”
“I see what you mean,” said Hyacinth. “You think they want me to touch
off some train for them. Well, if that’s what troubles you, you may
sleep sound. I shall never do any of their work.”
A radiant light came into the fiddler’s face, and he stared, as if this
assurance were too fair for nature. “Do you take your oath on that?
Never anything, anything, anything?”
“Never anything at all.”
“Will you swear it to me by the memory of that good woman of whom we
have been speaking and whom we both loved?”
“My dear old Pinnie’s memory? Willingly.”
The old man sank down in his chair and buried his face in his hands;
the next moment his companion heard him sobbing. Ten minutes later he
was content to take his departure, and Hyacinth went out with him to
look for another cab. They found an ancient four-wheeler stationed
languidly at a crossing of the ways, and before Mr Vetch got into it he
asked his young friend to kiss him. That young friend watched the
vehicle get itself into motion and rattle away; he saw it turn a
neighbouring corner. Then he approached the nearest gas-lamp and drew
from his breast-pocket the letter that Schinkel had given him.