XIV

In these days it was my habit each evening to make my way as directly

as might be from the _Advocate_ office to our home of the moment.

There was, of course, always a certain measure of uncertainty in my

mind as to what might await me in our rooms; and there were many

occasions when my presence there as early as possible was highly

desirable. It was my dismal task upon more than two or three occasions

to visit police stations, and enter into bail to save my wife from

spending a night in the cells.

Naturally, in view of all these circumstances, I remained as much a

hermit as though living in Livorno Bay, so far as the social life of

my colleagues and of London generally was concerned. During all this

time social intercourse was for me confined to Fanny (who became

steadily less social in her habits and inclinations) and to occasional

meetings with Sidney Heron. Once and again a man at the office would

ask me to dine with him (regarding me as a bachelor, of course), and

always I felt bound to plead a prior engagement. One night, when Fanny

had gone early to bed, feeling wretchedly ill, and sullenly angry

because I would have no liquor of any sort on the premises, not even

the lager beer which it had been my own habit for some time past to

drink with meals, Heron sat with me in our living-room, smoking and

staring into the fire. It was late, and something had moved Heron to

stir me into giving him the outline of my early life and Australian

experiences.

'Yes, you're a queer bird,' he opined, after a long silence. 'And your

life confirms my old conviction that, broadly speaking, there are only

two kinds of human beings: those who prey--with an "e," and rarely

with an "a"--and those who are preyed upon: parasites and their hosts.

There are doubtless subdivisions in infinite variety; but I have yet

to meet the man or woman who, in essence, is not parasite or host, the

preyer or the preyed upon.'

'And I----'

'Oh, clearly, and all along the line, you're the host. Mind, I waste

no great sympathy upon you. It is quite an open point which class is

the less deserving or the better off. But in your case it is, perhaps,

rather a pity, because upon the whole I doubt if your fibre is tough

enough to sustain the part. On the other hand, you haven't half

enough--well--suction for a successful parasite; and those between are

apt to get ground up rather small. My advice to you-- But, Lord, is

there any greater folly in all this foolish world than the giving of

advice?'

'Never mind. Let's have it.'

'No, I'll not give advice. But I will state what I believe to be a

fact; and that is that you would be the better for it if you were

sedulously to cultivate a self-regarding policy of _laissez-faire_. It

may be as rotten as you please as a national policy. Our own beloved

countrymen are even now, I think, preparing for the world a most

convincing demonstration of that. But for certain individuals--you

among 'em--it has many points, and, pursued with discretion, is likely

to prove highly beneficial.'

'Ah! The let-be policy?'

Heron nodded. 'Of all creeds,' he said, 'perhaps the one that calls

for the most rigid self-control--for a certain type of man, the type

that most needs its use.'

I had lowered my voice involuntarily, though I knew that Fanny had

long since been sleeping heavily. 'Do you realise what it would mean

in my particular case, on the domestic side?' I asked.

'Well, yes; I think so.'

'Hardly, my friend. It would mean relinquishing the care of my wife to

the police.' There were no secrets between us in this matter.

'Yes, something rather like that, I suppose,' said Heron. 'And don't

you think upon the whole they may be rather better equipped for the

task?'

'My dear Heron!'

'Oh, of course, that tone's unanswerable. But lay aside the

sentimental aspect, and consider the practical logic of it. You might

as well see where you really stand, you know. It won't affect your

actions, really. You belong to the wrong division of the race. But

what are you doing to remedy your wife's case?'

I admitted I was doing nothing. I had tried in many directions,

including the clandestine administration of costly specifics, which

had merely seemed to rob poor Fanny of all appetite for food, without

in any way affecting the lamentable craving which wrecked her life.

'Precisely,' resumed Heron. 'You are doing nothing to remedy it,

because there is nothing you are in a position to do. You are merely

"standing by," as sailors say, from sentimental motives. It is

_laissez-faire_, of a sort; only, it's an infernally painful and

wearing sort for you. It reduces your life to something like her own,

without, so far as I can see, benefiting her in the least. I think the

police could do as well. In fact, in your place, I should clear out

altogether, and give Mrs. Pelly a show. But, failing that, I would at

least wash my hands, so to say. I would refuse the situation any

predominant place in my mind, join a club and use it, and-- O Lord!

what is the use of talking of absolutely hopeless things? I don't know

that I'd do anything of the sort, and I do know very well that you

won't.'

There fell another silence between us, which lasted several minutes.

And then Heron rose to his feet, knocked the ashes out of his pipe,

and said he must be going. I walked down the road with him, and paused

at its corner, where he would pick up an omnibus. The moon emerged

from behind a cloud, touching with a delicate sepia some fleecy edge

of cumuli.

'Has it ever occurred to you, my innocent, that there is anything in

England beyond the metropolitan radius?' asked Heron suddenly.

'Honest, now; have you ever been ten miles from Charing Cross since

you landed from that blessed ship?'

'Well, it does seem queer, now you mention it; but I don't believe I

have-- Except to Epping Forest, you know. I'm not sure how far that

is; but I used often to go there at one time, not lately, but----'

'Before you mortgaged your soul to the _Advocate_, eh? Though I

suppose the more serious mortgage was the one before that. Look here!

Bring your wife on Saturday, and meet me at Victoria at ten o'clock.

We'll go and have a look at Leith Hill. A tramp will do you both good.

Will you come?'

By doing a certain amount of work there on Sunday, I could always

absent myself from office on a Saturday. So I agreed to go. On the

Friday Fanny seemed unusually calm and well. I was quite excited over

the prospect of our little jaunt, and Fanny herself appeared to think

cheerfully and kindly of it. In the lodging we occupied at that time I

had a tiny bedroom of my own. I woke very early on the Saturday

morning, but when I found it was barely five o'clock turned over for

another doze. When next I woke it was to find, greatly to my

annoyance, that the hour was half-past eight; and there were several

little things I wanted to have done before starting for Victoria. I

hurried into our sitting-room before dressing, meaning to rouse Fanny,

whose room opened from it. But she was not in her bedroom, and

returning to the other room I found a note on the table.

'I am not feeling well,' the note said, 'and cannot come with you to-day.

So I shall spend the day with mother, and be back here about tea-time.'

For a moment I thought of hurrying round to Mrs. Pelly's, and seeing

if I could prevail on Fanny to change her mind. But I hated going to

that house, and, of late, I had had some experience of the futility of

trying to influence Fanny in any way during these sullen morning

hours, when she was very often possessed by a sort of lethargy, any

interference with which provoked only excessive irritation.

It was most disappointing. But-- 'Very well, then,' I muttered to

myself, 'she must stay with her mother. I can't leave Heron waiting at

Victoria.'

So I dressed and proceeded direct to the station, relying upon having

a few minutes to spare there during which to break my fast in the

refreshment-room.

Heron nodded rather grimly over my explanation of Fanny's absence, and

we were both pretty silent during the journey to Dorking. But once out

in the open, and tramping along a country road, we breathed deeper of

an air clean enough to dispel town-bred languors. I felt my spirits

rise, and we began to talk. The day was admirable, beginning with

light mists, and ripening, by the time we began our tramp, into that

mellow splendour which October does at times vouchsafe, especially in

the gloriously wooded country which lies about Leith Hill.

The foliage, the occasional scent of burning wood--always a talisman

for one who has slept in the open--glimpses of new-fallowed fields of

an exquisite rose-madder hue, bracken and heather underfoot, and

overhead blue sky sweetly diversified by snowy piles of cloud--these

and a thousand other natural delights combined to enlarge one's heart,

ease one's mind, and arouse one's dormant instinct to live, to laugh,

and to enjoy. Worries rolled back from me. I responded jovially to

Heron's grim quips, and felt more heartily alive than I had felt for

years.

Having walked swingingly for four or five hours we sat down in a

pleasant inn to a nondescript meal, at something like the

eighteenth-century dining hour; consuming large quantities of cold boiled

beef, salad, cheese, home-baked bread, and brown ale. (I had learned now

to drink beer, on such occasions as this, at all events; and did it with

a childish sense of holiday 'swagger.' Its associations with rural

life pleased me. But in the town I was annoyed to find that even half

a glass of it was apt to make my head ache villainously.) We sat and

smoked, talking lazily in the twilight; missed one train, and walked

leisurely to the next station to catch a later one.

The approach to London rather chilled and saddened me by the sharp

demand it seemed to make for the laying aside of calm reflection or

cheerful conversation, and the taking up of stern realities, practical

considerations--the hard, concrete facts of daily life. The outlines

of the huddled houses, the moving lights of thronged streets, the

Town-- It seemed to grip me by the shoulder.

'Come! Wake up from your fancies. Been laughing, joking, chatting,

drawing deep breaths, have you? Ah, well, here am I. You know me. Hear

the ring of the hurrying horses' feet on my hard ways? See the anxious

ferret faces of my workers? I am Reality. I am your master, and the

world's master. You may escape me for a day, and dream you are a free

man in the open. Grrrr!--' The train jars to a standstill. 'That may

be well enough for a dream; but I am Reality. Come! There's no time

here for reflection. Pick up your load. Get on; get on; or I'll smash

you down in my gutters, where my human wastage lies!'

That is how cities have always spoken to me as I have entered them

from the country. And yet--and yet, most of my life has been spent

within their confines. Long imprisonment makes men fear liberty, they

say. But how could a man fear the kindly country and its liberty for

reflection? And, attaining to it, how could he possibly desire return

to the noisy, crowded cells of the city? Impossible, surely, unless of

course the city offered him a living, his life; and the country--calm

and beautiful--refused it. And that perhaps is rather often the

position, for your sedentary man, at all events; your modern, who

cannot dig and is ashamed to beg--a numerous and ever increasing body.

Big Ben struck the hour of eight as we trundled past into Whitehall on

the top of an omnibus. I thought of Fanny with some self-reproach. She

would have reached the lodgings by about five, and our evening meal

hour was seven. I hoped she had not waited without her meal. I left

Heron on the 'bus, for he had farther than I to go, and hurried along

to No. 46 Kent Street--the dingy house in which we had been living now

for a month or more.

Fanny was not there, and, to my surprise, the landlady told me she had

not been in all day, save for five minutes in the early afternoon,

after which she went out carrying a parcel. I went to my bedroom for

an overcoat, as the night was chilly. I possessed two of these

garments at the time--one rather heavy and warm, the other a light

coat. Both were missing from their accustomed pegs.

'Tcha! Now what does this mean?' I growled to myself; knowing quite

well what it meant. 'And I take holidays in the country! I might have

known better.'

And with that--all the brightness of the day forgotten now--I hurried

out, bound for Howard Street and Mrs. Pelly's house.

But Mrs. Pelly had no idea as to her daughter's whereabouts. It seemed

Fanny had left her before three o'clock, intending to go home.

Then began a search of the kind which had become only too familiar

with me of late. I suppose I must have entered upon scores of such

dismal quests since my marriage. First, I visited some twenty or

thirty different 'gin-mills.' (In one of them I stayed a few minutes

to eat a piece of bread and cheese.) Then I went to two police

stations, at the two opposite ends of that locality. Finally, I

tramped back to Kent Street, thinking to find Fanny there, and

picturing in advance the condition in which I should find her. The

most I ventured to hope was that she had been able to reach her room

without assistance. But she had not been there at all.

I went out again into the street, somewhat at a loss. It was now past

ten o'clock. After some hesitation I caught a passing omnibus and

journeyed back towards Howard Street, near which stood a third police

station, which I had not before visited.

'Wait there a minute, will you?' said the officer to whom my inquiry

here was addressed. A moment later I heard his voice from an adjacent

corridor; 'Has the doctor gone?' it asked. I did not hear the answer.

But a minute or two later a tall man in a frock coat entered the room

and walked up to me. I could see the top of a stethoscope protruding

from one of his inner breast-coat pockets.

'Name of Freydon?' he said tersely.

'Yes.'

'Ah! Will you step this way, please, to my room?'

And, as we passed into an inner room, he wheeled upon me with a look

of grave sympathy in his eyes. 'I have serious news for you, Mr.

Freydon; if--if it is your wife who is here.'

Then I knew. Something in the doctor's grave eyes and meaning voice

told me. It was not really necessary for me to ask. I knew quite

certainly, and had no wish, no intention to say anything. My

subconscious self apparently was bent upon explicitness. For, next

moment, I heard my own voice, some little distance from me, saying, in

quite a low tone:

'My God! My God! My God!' And then: 'You don't mean that she is dead?'

But I knew all the time.

Then I heard the doctor speaking. His body was close to me, but his

voice, like my own, came from some distance away.

'A woman was brought here by a constable this afternoon ...

helpless ... intoxication.... Did your wife ... is she addicted to

drink?' I may have nodded. 'There was a pawnticket in the name of

Freydon.... She passed away less than an hour ago.... The condition ...

heart undoubtedly accelerated ... alcoholism ... a very short time, in

any case.... Medically, an inquest would be quite unnecessary, but....

Will you come with me, and ...'

From a long way off now these phrases trickled into my consciousness,

the sense of them somewhat blurred and interrupted by a continuous

buzzing noise in my head. We walked along dead white passages, and

down steps. We stopped at length where a man in uniform stood at a

door, which he opened for us at a sign from the doctor. Inside, a

woman was bending over a low pallet, and on the little bed was my wife

Fanny. A greyish sheet was drawn over her body to the chin. I think it

was so drawn up as we entered the room. I stared down upon Fanny's

calm, white face, in which there was now a refinement, a pathetic

dignity, a something delicate and womanly which I had not seen there

before; not even in the early days, when gentle prettiness had been

its quality.

The thought that flashed through my mind as I stood there was not the

sort of thought that would be associated with such a scene. The

buzzing noise was still going on in my head, but yet I was conscious

of a vast silence all about me; and looking down upon my wife's face,

I thought:

'Death has certainly been courteous, considerate, to poor Fanny.'