There was something strange, a dream-like want of reality, about my
final departure from England, after five-and-twenty years of working
life in London. I am not likely to forget any incident of it; but yet
the whole experience, both at the time and now, seemed (and seems) to
be shrouded in a kind of mist, a by no means disagreeable haze of
unreality, which in a measure numbed all my senses. More than ever
before I seemed to be, not so much living through an experience, as
observing it from a detached standpoint.
Investigation of my resources showed that I had accumulated some means
during the past dozen years of simple living and incessant work, not
ill-paid. I had just upon two thousand pounds invested, and between
one and two hundred pounds lying to my credit at call, I told myself
that living alone and simply in the bush, a hundred pounds in the year
would easily cover all my expenses. That I had anything like twenty
years of life before me was a supposition which I could not entertain
for one moment. And, therefore, I told myself again and again, with
curious insistence, there really was no reason why I need ever again
work for money, or waste one moment over petty anxiety regarding ways
and means. That was a very great boon, I told myself; the greatest of
all boons, and better fortune than in recent years I had dared to hope
would be mine. And, puzzled by the coldness with which my inner mind
responded to these assurances, I would reiterate them, watching my
mind the while, and almost angered by the absence of elation and
enthusiasm which I observed there.
'You have not properly realised as yet what it means, my friend,' I
murmured to myself as I walked slowly through city alley-ways, after
booking my passage to Sydney in a steam ship of perhaps seven times
the tonnage of the old _Ariadne_ of my boyhood's journey to Australia.
'But it is the biggest thing you have ever known. You will begin to
realise it presently. You are free. Do you hear? An absolutely free
man. You need never write another line unless you wish it, and then
you may write precisely what you think, no more, no less. You are
going right away from this howling cockpit, and never need set foot in
it again. You are going to a beautiful climate, a free life in the
open, with no vestige of sham or pretence about it, and long, secure
leisure to reflect, to think, to muse, to read, to do precisely what
you desire to do, and nothing else. You are free--free! Do you hear,
you tired hack? Too tired to prick your ears, eh? Ah, well, wait till
you've been a week or two at sea!'
Very quietly I addressed my sluggish and jaded self in this wise. Yet
more than one hurried walker in the city ways looked curiously at me,
as I passed along, with a wondering scrutiny which amused me a good
deal. 'Too tired to prick your ears.' The suggestion came from the
contemptuously self-commiserating thought that I was rather like a
worn-out 'bus horse, to whom some benevolent minor Providence was
offering the freedom of a fine grazing paddock. 'You're too much
galled and spavined, you poor devil, to be moved by verbal assurances.
Wait till you scent the breezy upland, and your feet feel the turf.
You'll know better what it all means then.'
I had entertained vague notions of a little farewell feast which I
would give to Heron, and, possibly, to one or two other friends. But
from the reality of such convivial enterprise I shrank, when the time
came, preferring to adopt, even to Heron, the attitude of a traveller
who would presently return. And when, as the event proved, I found
myself the guest of honour at a dinner presided over by Arncliffe, my
embarrassment pierced through all sense of unreality and caused me
acute discomfort.
It is odd that I, who always have been foolishly sensitive to blame
(from professed critics and others), should shrink so painfully from
spoken praise or formal tribute of any kind. It makes my skin hot even
to recall the one or two such episodes I have faced. The wretched
inability to think where to dispose of one's hands and gaze during the
genial delivery of after-dinner encomiums; the distressing difficulty
of replying! Upon the whole, I think I was better at receiving
punishment. But it is true, the latter one received in privacy, and
was under no obligation to answer; since replying to printed
criticisms was never a folly I indulged.
On the eve of my departure from London I did a curious and perhaps
foolish thing, on the spur of a moment's impulse. I hailed a cab, and
drove to Cynthia's house in Sloane Street. Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Barthrop
were at home, and alone, the servant told me; and in another few
moments I was shaking hands with them. Naturally, they called my visit
an unexpected pleasure. It was, in fact, not a very pleasurable
quarter of an hour for either one of us. For years I had known nothing
of their interests, or they of mine. Our talk was necessarily shallow,
and I dare say Cynthia, no less than her husband, was glad when I rose
to take my leave. The sweet, clear candour of her face had given
place, I thought, to something not wholly unlike querulousness. But, I
had one glance from her eyes, as she took my hand, which seemed to me
to say:
'God speed! I understand.'
It may have meant nothing, but I like to think it meant understanding.
From Cynthia's house I went on to Heron's lodging, for I had a horror
of being 'seen off,' and wished to bid my friend good-bye in his own
rooms. Our talk was constrained, I remember. The stress of my
uprooting affected me far more than I knew at the time. Heron regarded
my going with grave disapproval as a crazy step. He regretted it, too;
and such feelings always tended to exaggerate his tendency to
taciturnity, or to a harsh, sardonic vein in speech.
As his way was in such a matter, Heron calmly ignored my stipulation
about being 'seen off,' and he was standing beside the curb when I
stepped out of my cab at Fenchurch Street Station next morning. There
was nearly half an hour to spare, we found, before the boat train
started.
'The correct thing would be a stirrup-cup,' growled Heron.
'The very thing,' I said; conversation in such a place, and in such
circumstances, proving quite impossible for me. By an odd chance I
recalled my first experiences upon arrival at this same mean and
dolorous station, more than twenty years previously. 'We will go to
the house in which the "genelmun orduder bawth,"' I said, and led
Heron across into the Blue Boar.
The forced jocularity of these occasions is apt to be a pitifully
wooden business, and I suppose it was a relief to us both when my
train began slowly to move.
'By the way--I had forgotten,' said Heron, very gruffly. 'Take this
trifle with you-- May be of some use. Good-bye! Look me up as soon as
you get back. I give you a year--or nearly.'
He waved his hand jerkily, and was gone. He had given me the silver
cigarette-case which he had used for all the years of our
acquaintance. It bore his initials in one corner, and under these I
now saw engraved: 'To N. F., 1890-1910.' I do not recall any small
incident that impressed me more than this.
I still moved through a mist. The voices of my travelling companions
seemed oddly small and remote. I felt as though encased and insulated,
in some curious way, from the everyday life about me. And this mood
possessed me all through that day. Through all the customary bustle of
an ocean liner's departure, I moved slowly, silently, aloofly, as a
somnambulist. It was a singular outsetting, this start upon my 'way
out.'