A DISCLOSURE
_The Unknown Critic to Robin Adair_
"THE TERRACE,
"_June 8th_.
"Here, Robin Adair, is a night-stock from below my terrace. I enclose
it while it is white and fragrant. It will reach you brown and
shrivelled; but, as you say, less shrivelled than my letter would
have been--in fact, as it now is. It lies on the terrace beside me,
a little heap of grey powdered ashes. This flower is its resurrected
form. It is slighter, subtler, more fragrant than that letter. I began
to re-read it, but did not get far; it was too serious, Robin Adair.
"I am, as the above will have told you, writing from my terrace in the
cool of the evening. A lamp in the window of my morning-room affords
me light. The sky is grey-blue, and away in the west, Venus, who is an
evening star at the moment, is shining calm and peaceful.
"I had a concert on this very terrace yesterday afternoon. A so-called
vagabond piped to me, wearing shabby clothes and a peacock feather in
his hat...."
Peter laid down the letter a moment. His brain was whirling. Not
even on the receipt of the first letter from his Lady had it whirled
with such rapidity. Here, then, was the explanation. Of course, he
had known her before. He had had glimpses of her mind, her soul, her
delicate fanciful imaginings. She had embodied suddenly before him, and
unconsciously his soul had recognized her, though reason had urged to
the contrary. It was incredible, marvellous! In actual everyday life
such things did not happen. Yet here was the proof thereof, finely,
clearly traced with black ink on a sheet of bluish note-paper.
He picked up the letter again, and began to read further.
"It was a wonderful concert. Music has never before so stirred, so
moved me. Picture to yourself an ordinary penny whistle, from which
divine music was produced. He told a life-story in his piping, yet
fragmentary sentences alone reached me. It was as if I were reading a
book in a language of which I knew but a few words. Can you understand?
"What there was in the first part of his theme, I know not; but he,
that strolling player, had suffered. Part of his theme beat and
struggled for liberty like a caged bird, or like an imprisoned mind--a
fettered expression. And when the expression, the liberty came--that
was what hurt--it was smashed, broken. Can you picture a caged
skylark, longing, pining for liberty, then seeing the cage door open,
and flying forth into the sunlight, its throat bursting with rapture,
only to find itself seized by some ruthless hand, wings torn from its
body? Yet the bird was not dead; there was the horror. It lay still,
bleeding, apparently lifeless, then lifted its head. Maimed though it
was, it would still sing; and its song should be no complaint, but one
to encourage and cheer all other injured things. I could have wept for
the pluck, the courage of the little creature. And after a time it
began to grow wings--little young wings that carried it just above the
earth into the open it loved. It was only a little way, but it meant
such a lot to that skylark. It was here, at the end, that the music
spoke most directly to my heart. The song the partially healed skylark
sang seemed to be sung for me alone, and yet here the translation of
the words most failed me.
"The man is an artist. I wish he would play for me again. Yet I dare
no more ask him now than I would dare ask Sarasate to come to my
terrace and play.
"He--this piper--is living on the outskirts of the village, in a
cottage reputed to be haunted. Doubtless he has charmed and soothed
the restless spirits by his piping. This is a great deal to write to
you regarding an unknown strolling player--though he is not strolling
now--but the man himself is unusual, while his music is superb. He
struck me as one of gentle birth. His speech was educated, and his
whole appearance, in spite of his shabby clothes, refined. I am sure
he has a story--one, Robin Adair, that might be worthy of your pen.
"My companion--a dear, but very old-fashioned--resented his behaviour.
She thought he did not treat me with sufficient respect, mainly
because he did not jump at the proposal of playing to me again. I did
suggest I should like to hear him; but to send for him again, to send
a footman to fetch him as I did before, would be impossible. I hope
Burton delivered my message nicely. I worded it courteously, at all
events.
"How goes your Wanderer, and are his thoughts progressing? That you
should dedicate those thoughts to me pleases me immensely. I think it
an honour that you should care to do so.
"I am glad you did not burn my letter. I am glad you cared enough
about it--poor dull thing though it was--to refuse to do so. I did not
mean to say this to you, yet I have.
"Good-night."
_Peter (alias Robin Adair) to the Unknown Critic, whom he now knows
to be the Lady Anne Garland_
"_June 10th._
"DEAR LADY,--I am in a contrary frame of mind to-night. I want to
write to you, yet am in no mood to do so.
"I have met your vagabond piper, and know him more intimately than you
might suppose. He is an impostor, though a harmless one, I grant. His
music is not bad, but I doubt his playing to you again. The fellow has
a good conceit of himself.
"After all, I find I cannot write to-night. Thank you for the flower.
"ROBIN ADAIR."
_The Unknown Critic to Robin Adair_
"THE TERRACE,
"_June 18th_.
"Why are you so hard on my Piper? I do not believe he is an impostor.
And as for his music being not bad! Robin Adair, are you one 'who has
no music in him, and is not moved by concord of sweet sounds,' or
in what way has this man vexed you? The latter I believe to be the
solution, Robin Adair, and it is not worthy of you. But I will not
write more of him. I have not seen him again, and the villagers speak
of him with bated breath as a friend of the Evil One. If he were of
my faith, I would ask Father Lestrange, a kindly man, to call at the
cottage. But as he never hears Mass he is evidently of another way
of thinking, and might regard the visit as an intrusion. And for some
reason he desires solitude. One dare not therefore intrude. I feel,
however, that he is lonely, and have had, perhaps foolishly, a desire
to lessen that loneliness.
"The country is very peaceful after London, and I am revelling in my
flowers, more especially my roses. They are adoring this unwavering
sunshine and the warm nights. The gardeners keep their roots well
watered, so they--the roses--do not suffer from thirst.
"I had a letter from a friend of mine the other day, a woman with
a surplus of relations all eager and willing to offer good advice
and to point out various neat and narrow little paths in which she
should walk and from which her soul recoils. After remarking on their
latest suggestions, she writes succinctly: 'The patience of Job was
over-estimated. His relations died.'
"Why are some people so sure that their plan is the right one, and why
cannot they allow others to go their own way, provided, of course, the
way does not run strictly counter to the law? In that case, of course,
there might be complications.
"Am I being very unoriginal when I lament the little originality there
is in the world, or, at all events, in that portion of it which I
know? And what little there is, is so frequently mere eccentricity. I
believe some people would call it original to discard one's clothes
and walk down Bond Street in war-paint and feathers, though certainly
there would be a large majority who would call it merely indecent, and
in that case the majority would doubtless be right. I believe I am in
a discontented mood this afternoon. There is a discord somewhere in my
harmonies.
"Are you in a better mood for recording the thoughts of your Wanderer
than for writing to me? I hope so. I am looking forward to reading
them. I want something to soothe me. In spite of the peace that lies
around me--the quiet peace of Nature--I am restless.
"Write to me, Robin Adair; tell me of your Wanderer."
_Robin Adair to his one time Unknown Critic, or Peter the Piper to the
Lady Anne Garland_
"_June 20th._
"DEAR LADY,--I was churlish when I last wrote. I know more of your
Piper than you suppose. Do not write to me of him, I beg.
"As for my Wanderer, he has escaped me. I intended to keep him
entirely to the fields and lanes, but he is off now to a hilltop. He
has caught a glimpse of a star, and thinks to gain a closer vision
of it from the hill. Poor fool! What will the height of an ant-heap
advantage him? There are millions of miles between him and the star.
On the hill he will be restless and miserable that he is no nearer.
Why could he not keep his eyes to the attainable?--the wayside
flowers, the green leaves of the hedges, all that which is common
property to prince and peasant alike.
"Long ago in his past--I told you he had a past which he had thrown
behind him--he cut himself off from communion with his fellow-men. He
did not realize at the moment how complete the severance would be;
yet, if he had, I believe he would have acted as he did. There seemed
then nothing else that he could do; even now there appears to him
nothing else. Maybe he made a great mistake. If he did, he did not
suffer alone, there were others who suffered too; there's the rub. He
did not realize that they would suffer. His optimism in human nature
was too great. Now he realizes that there are only the fields and
roads for him, only the companionship of birds, beasts, and flowers,
to whom his past is unknown and can never be disclosed. His wings were
torn from him like the wings of that skylark of which your vagabond
Piper piped. True, he, too, grew new wings with which he could rise
just far enough above the earth to see the star. But he can never
reach it, and, unlike your skylark, he cannot sing cheerfully. Perhaps
before he saw the star he might have done so, but now his song lacks
buoyancy.
"I fancy I shall have to leave him for a while gazing disconsolately
at his star, and start a new book. He has endowed me with too much of
his present mood, and who will care to hear the pinings of a wanderer
for the unattainable? I might bring him from the hilltop, blot out
the star from the sky. I have, indeed, already tried to do so, but
my Wanderer has moped and sulked. That is the worst of these fiction
people. You feed them with your heart's blood, you give them life of
your life that they may move as living creatures and not as mere
puppets pulled by strings, and suddenly they escape you. The path
you have carefully chosen, in which they are to tread, is refused by
them. 'It is the way you have chosen,' they will cry, 'not the way we
choose!' And if you protest that their path will be of little interest
to the public, they sulk, insisting that, interest or no interest, it
is the true path. I will leave this flesh and blood creature on the
hilltop. If he bewails the distance of his star from him, I will not
record his wailings. I will fashion a puppet, and merely a puppet, and
from first to last chapter I will pull the strings myself.
"Therefore I fear that the thoughts of my Wanderer will never be
printed to soothe you, nor, I fear, can I be of much use in the
matter. I told you he had endowed me with his thoughts. I might be the
man himself. He has obsessed me. I tell myself that I will look at his
star and worship it from afar, thankful for its benign rays. But his
restlessness is upon me. I want to get near it, though I recognize the
futility of my desire. I am a fool.
"May I take your friend, with her many relations, as the puppet for
my next story? I will pull the strings deftly, and she shall dance
away from them or frolic on their mangled corpses. Which think you she
would prefer?
"I find that again my mood for letter-writing is not of the most
cheerful.
"Good-night.
"ROBIN ADAIR."
_The Unknown Critic to Robin Adair, or the Lady Anne Garland to Peter
the Piper_
"THE TERRACE,
"_June 27th_.
"DEAR ROBIN ADAIR,--What is it, I wonder, that has disturbed us both?
Some small and unpleasant breeze has ruffled the surface of our mind's
lake. Yet your course seems clear. Since your Wanderer desires his
star, let him attain it. Let him build a ladder of moonbeams and climb
up to it, or if he is too much flesh and blood, too material, for such
a feat, let the star descend to him. Are there not falling stars?
"Since writing last I have had a letter from a friend of mine. She is
not well, and is feeling lonely. I go to town next Thursday to stay
with her for three weeks, till her sister-in-law can come and join
her. Perhaps when I return I shall have regained my old calm. At all
events, the stir, the movement of London will serve to shake me out of
this mood, which I cannot define, but which is foreign to my nature.
"I wish the vagabond Piper would give me another concert before I go,
but I dare not ask him."