IX

He stood on the kerb plunged in misery, looking after her as long as she

remained in sight; but almost instantly with her disappearance he felt

the heaviness lift a little from his spirit. She had given him his

liberty; true, there was a sense in which he had never parted with it,

but now was no time for splitting hairs; he was free to act, and all was

clear ahead. Swiftly the sense of lightness grew on him: it became a

positive rejoicing in his liberty; and before he was halfway home he had

decided what must be done next.

The vicar of the parish in which his dwelling was situated lived within

ten minutes of the square. To his house Oleron turned his steps. It was

necessary that he should have all the information he could get about this

old house with the insurance marks and the sloping "To Let" boards, and

the vicar was the person most likely to be able to furnish it. This last

preliminary out of the way, and--aha! Oleron chuckled--things might be

expected to happen!

But he gained less information than he had hoped for. The house, the

vicar said, was old--but there needed no vicar to tell Oleron that; it

was reputed (Oleron pricked up his ears) to be haunted--but there were

few old houses about which some such rumour did not circulate among the

ignorant; and the deplorable lack of Faith of the modern world, the vicar

thought, did not tend to dissipate these superstitions. For the rest,

his manner was the soothing manner of one who prefers not to make

statements without knowing how they will be taken by his hearer. Oleron

smiled as he perceived this.

"You may leave my nerves out of the question," he said. "How long has the

place been empty?"

"A dozen years, I should say," the vicar replied.

"And the last tenant--did you know him--or her?" Oleron was conscious of

a tingling of his nerves as he offered the vicar the alternative of sex.

"Him," said the vicar. "A man. If I remember rightly, his name was

Madley; an artist. He was a great recluse; seldom went out of the place,

and--" the vicar hesitated and then broke into a little gush of candour

"--and since you appear to have come for this information, and since it

is better that the truth should be told than that garbled versions should

get about, I don't mind saying that this man Madley died there, under

somewhat unusual circumstances. It was ascertained at the post-mortem

that there was not a particle of food in his stomach, although he was

found to be not without money. And his frame was simply worn out. Suicide

was spoken of, but you'll agree with me that deliberate starvation is, to

say the least, an uncommon form of suicide. An open verdict was

returned."

"Ah!" said Oleron.... "Does there happen to be any comprehensive history

of this parish?"

"No; partial ones only. I myself am not guiltless of having made a number

of notes on its purely ecclesiastical history, its registers and so

forth, which I shall be happy to show you if you would care to see them;

but it is a large parish, I have only one curate, and my leisure, as you

will readily understand ..."

The extent of the parish and the scantiness of the vicar's leisure

occupied the remainder of the interview, and Oleron thanked the vicar,

took his leave, and walked slowly home.

He walked slowly for a reason, twice turning away from the house within a

stone's-throw of the gate and taking another turn of twenty minutes or

so. He had a very ticklish piece of work now before him; it required the

greatest mental concentration; it was nothing less than to bring his

mind, if he might, into such a state of unpreoccupation and receptivity

that he should see the place as he had seen it on that morning when,

his removal accomplished, he had sat down to begin the sixteenth chapter

of the first _Romilly_.

For, could he recapture that first impression, he now hoped for far more

from it. Formerly, he had carried no end of mental lumber. Before the

influence of the place had been able to find him out at all, it had had

the inertia of those dreary chapters to overcome. No results had shown.

The process had been one of slow saturation, charging, filling up to a

brim. But now he was light, unburdened, rid at last both of that

_Romilly_ and of her prototype. Now for the new unknown, coy, jealous,

bewitching, Beckoning Fair!...

At half-past two of the afternoon he put his key into the Yale lock,

entered, and closed the door behind him....

His fantastic attempt was instantly and astonishingly successful. He

could have shouted with triumph as he entered the room; it was as if he

had _escaped_ into it. Once more, as in the days when his writing had had

a daily freshness and wonder and promise for him, he was conscious of

that new ease and mastery and exhilaration and release. The air of the

place seemed to hold more oxygen; as if his own specific gravity had

changed, his very tread seemed less ponderable. The flowers in the bowls,

the fair proportions of the meadowsweet-coloured panels and mouldings,

the polished floor, and the lofty and faintly starred ceiling, fairly

laughed their welcome. Oleron actually laughed back, and spoke aloud.

"Oh, you're pretty, pretty!" he flattered it.

Then he lay down on his couch.

He spent that afternoon as a convalescent who expected a dear visitor

might have spent it--in a delicious vacancy, smiling now and then as

if in his sleep, and ever lifting drowsy and contented eyes to his

alluring surroundings. He lay thus until darkness came, and, with

darkness, the nocturnal noises of the old house....

But if he waited for any specific happening, he waited in vain.

He waited similarly in vain on the morrow, maintaining, though with less

ease, that sensitised-plate-like condition of his mind. Nothing occurred

to give it an impression. Whatever it was which he so patiently wooed, it

seemed to be both shy and exacting.

Then on the third day he thought he understood. A look of gentle drollery

and cunning came into his eyes, and he chuckled.

"Oho, oho!... Well, if the wind sits in _that_ quarter we must see what

else there is to be done. What is there, now?... No, I won't send for

Elsie; we don't need a wheel to break the butterfly on; we won't go to

those lengths, my butterfly...."

He was standing musing, thumbing his lean jaw, looking aslant; suddenly

he crossed to his hall, took down his hat, and went out.

"My lady is coquettish, is she? Well, we'll see what a little neglect

will do," he chuckled as he went down the stairs.

He sought a railway station, got into a train, and spent the rest of the

day in the country. Oh, yes: Oleron thought _he_ was the man to deal with

Fair Ones who beckoned, and invited, and then took refuge in shyness and

hanging back!

He did not return until after eleven that night.

"_Now_, my Fair Beckoner!" he murmured as he walked along the alley and

felt in his pocket for his keys....

Inside his flat, he was perfectly composed, perfectly deliberate,

exceedingly careful not to give himself away. As if to intimate that he

intended to retire immediately, he lighted only a single candle; and as

he set out with it on his nightly round he affected to yawn. He went

first into his kitchen. There was a full moon, and a lozenge of

moonlight, almost peacock-blue by contrast with his candle-frame, lay on

the floor. The window was uncurtained, and he could see the reflection of

the candle, and, faintly, that of his own face, as he moved about. The

door of the powder-closet stood a little ajar, and he closed it before

sitting down to remove his boots on the chair with the cushion made of

the folded harp-bag. From the kitchen he passed to the bathroom. There,

another slant of blue moonlight cut the windowsill and lay across the

pipes on the wall. He visited his seldom-used study, and stood for a

moment gazing at the silvered roofs across the square. Then, walking

straight through his sitting-room, his stockinged feet making no noise,

he entered his bedroom and put the candle on the chest of drawers. His

face all this time wore no expression save that of tiredness. He had

never been wilier nor more alert.

His small bedroom fireplace was opposite the chest of drawers on which

the mirror stood, and his bed and the window occupied the remaining

sides of the room. Oleron drew down his blind, took off his coat, and

then stooped to get his slippers from under the bed.

He could have given no reason for the conviction, but that the

manifestation that for two days had been withheld was close at hand he

never for an instant doubted. Nor, though he could not form the faintest

guess of the shape it might take, did he experience fear. Startling or

surprising it might be; he was prepared for that; but that was all; his

scale of sensation had become depressed. His hand moved this way and that

under the bed in search of his slippers....

But for all his caution and method and preparedness, his heart all at

once gave a leap and a pause that was almost horrid. His hand had found

the slippers, but he was still on his knees; save for this circumstance

he would have fallen. The bed was a low one; the groping for the slippers

accounted for the turn of his head to one side; and he was careful to

keep the attitude until he had partly recovered his self-possession. When

presently he rose there was a drop of blood on his lower lip where he had

caught at it with his teeth, and his watch had jerked out of the pocket

of his waistcoat and was dangling at the end of its short leather

guard....

Then, before the watch had ceased its little oscillation, he was himself

again.

In the middle of his mantelpiece there stood a picture, a portrait of his

grandmother; he placed himself before this picture, so that he could see

in the glass of it the steady flame of the candle that burned behind him

on the chest of drawers. He could see also in the picture-glass the

little glancings of light from the bevels and facets of the objects about

the mirror and candle. But he could see more. These twinklings and

reflections and re-reflections did not change their position; but there

was one gleam that had motion. It was fainter than the rest, and it moved

up and down through the air. It was the reflection of the candle on

Oleron's black vulcanite comb, and each of its downward movements was

accompanied by a silky and crackling rustle.

Oleron, watching what went on in the glass of his grandmother's portrait,

continued to play his part. He felt for his dangling watch and began

slowly to wind it up. Then, for a moment ceasing to watch, he began to

empty his trousers pockets and to place methodically in a little row on

the mantelpiece the pennies and halfpennies he took from them. The

sweeping, minutely electric noise filled the whole bedroom, and had

Oleron altered his point of observation he could have brought the dim

gleam of the moving comb so into position that it would almost have

outlined his grandmother's head.

Any other head of which it might have been following the outline was

invisible.

Oleron finished the emptying of his pockets; then, under cover of another

simulated yawn, not so much summoning his resolution as overmastered by

an exhorbitant curiosity, he swung suddenly round. That which was being

combed was still not to be seen, but the comb did not stop. It had

altered its angle a little, and had moved a little to the left. It was

passing, in fairly regular sweeps, from a point rather more than five

feet from the ground, in a direction roughly vertical, to another point a

few inches below the level of the chest of drawers.

Oleron continued to act to admiration. He walked to his little washstand

in the corner, poured out water, and began to wash his hands. He removed

his waistcoat, and continued his preparations for bed. The combing did

not cease, and he stood for a moment in thought. Again his eyes twinkled.

The next was very cunning--

"Hm!... _I think I'll read for a quarter of an hour_," he said aloud....

He passed out of the room.

He was away a couple of minutes; when he returned again the room was

suddenly quiet. He glanced at the chest of drawers; the comb lay still,

between the collar he had removed and a pair of gloves. Without

hesitation Oleron put out his hand and picked it up. It was an ordinary

eighteenpenny comb, taken from a card in a chemist's shop, of a substance

of a definite specific gravity, and no more capable of rebellion against

the Laws by which it existed than are the worlds that keep their orbits

through the void. Oleron put it down again; then he glanced at the bundle

of papers he held in his hand. What he had gone to fetch had been the

fifteen chapters of the original _Romilly_.

"Hm!" he muttered as he threw the manuscript into a chair.... "As I

thought.... She's just blindly, ragingly, murderously jealous."

* * * * *

On the night after that, and on the following night, and for many nights

and days, so many that he began to be uncertain about the count of them,

Oleron, courting, cajoling, neglecting, threatening, beseeching, eaten

out with unappeased curiosity and regardless that his life was becoming

one consuming passion and desire, continued his search for the unknown

co-numerator of his abode.

X

As time went on, it came to pass that few except the postman mounted

Oleron's stairs; and since men who do not write letters receive few, even

the postman's tread became so infrequent that it was not heard more than

once or twice a week. There came a letter from Oleron's publishers,

asking when they might expect to receive the manuscript of his new book;

he delayed for some days to answer it, and finally forgot it. A second

letter came, which also he failed to answer. He received no third.

The weather grew bright and warm. The privet bushes among the

chopper-like notice-boards flowered, and in the streets where Oleron did

his shopping the baskets of flower-women lined the kerbs. Oleron

purchased flowers daily; his room clamoured for flowers, fresh and

continually renewed; and Oleron did not stint its demands. Nevertheless,

the necessity for going out to buy them began to irk him more and more,

and it was with a greater and ever greater sense of relief that he

returned home again. He began to be conscious that again his scale of

sensation had suffered a subtle change--a change that was not restoration

to its former capacity, but an extension and enlarging that once more

included terror. It admitted it in an entirely new form. _Lux orco,

tenebrae Jovi_. The name of this terror was agoraphobia. Oleron had begun

to dread air and space and the horror that might pounce upon the

unguarded back.

Presently he so contrived it that his food and flowers were delivered

daily at his door. He rubbed his hands when he had hit upon this

expedient. That was better! Now he could please himself whether he went

out or not....

Quickly he was confirmed in his choice. It became his pleasure to remain

immured.

But he was not happy--or, if he was, his happiness took an extraordinary

turn. He fretted discontentedly, could sometimes have wept for mere

weakness and misery; and yet he was dimly conscious that he would not

have exchanged his sadness for all the noisy mirth of the world outside.

And speaking of noise: noise, much noise, now caused him the acutest

discomfort. It was hardly more to be endured than that new-born fear that

kept him, on the increasingly rare occasions when he did go out, sidling

close to walls and feeling friendly railings with his hand. He moved from

room to room softly and in slippers, and sometimes stood for many seconds

closing a door so gently that not a sound broke the stillness that was in

itself a delight. Sunday now became an intolerable day to him, for, since

the coming of the fine weather, there had begun to assemble in the square

under his windows each Sunday morning certain members of the sect to

which the long-nosed Barrett adhered. These came with a great drum and

large brass-bellied instruments; men and women uplifted anguished voices,

struggling with their God; and Barrett himself, with upraised face and

closed eyes and working brows, prayed that the sound of his voice might

penetrate the ears of all unbelievers--as it certainly did Oleron's. One

day, in the middle of one of these rhapsodies, Oleron sprang to his blind

and pulled it down, and heard as he did so his own name made the subject

of a fresh torrent of outpouring.

And sometimes, but not as expecting a reply, Oleron stood still and

called softly. Once or twice he called "Romilly!" and then waited; but

more often his whispering did not take the shape of a name.

There was one spot in particular of his abode that he began to haunt with

increasing persistency. This was just within the opening of his bedroom

door. He had discovered one day that by opening every door in his place

(always excepting the outer one, which he only opened unwillingly) and by

placing himself on this particular spot, he could actually see to a

greater or less extent into each of his five rooms without changing his

position. He could see the whole of his sitting-room, all of his bedroom

except the part hidden by the open door, and glimpses of his kitchen,

bathroom, and of his rarely used study. He was often in this place,

breathless and with his finger on his lip. One day, as he stood there, he

suddenly found himself wondering whether this Madley, of whom the vicar

had spoken, had ever discovered the strategic importance of the bedroom

entry.

Light, moreover, now caused him greater disquietude than did darkness.

Direct sunlight, of which, as the sun passed daily round the house, each

of his rooms had now its share, was like a flame in his brain; and even

diffused light was a dull and numbing ache. He began, at successive hours

of the day, one after another, to lower his crimson blinds. He made short

and daring excursions in order to do this; but he was ever careful to

leave his retreat open, in case he should have sudden need of it.

Presently this lowering of the blinds had become a daily methodical

exercise, and his rooms, when he had been his round, had the blood-red

half-light of a photographer's darkroom.

One day, as he drew down the blind of his little study and backed in good

order out of the room again, he broke into a soft laugh.

"_That_ bilks Mr. Barrett!" he said; and the baffling of Barrett

continued to afford him mirth for an hour.

But on another day, soon after, he had a fright that left him trembling

also for an hour. He had seized the cord to darken the window over the

seat in which he had found the harp-bag, and was standing with his back

well protected in the embrasure, when he thought he saw the tail of a

black-and-white check skirt disappear round the corner of the house. He

could not be sure--had he run to the window of the other wall, which was

blinded, the skirt must have been already past--but he was _almost_ sure

that it was Elsie. He listened in an agony of suspense for her tread on

the stairs....

But no tread came, and after three or four minutes he drew a long breath

of relief.

"By Jove, but that would have compromised me horribly!" he muttered....

And he continued to mutter from time to time, "Horribly

compromising ... _no_ woman would stand that ... not _any_ kind of

woman ... oh, compromising in the extreme!"

Yet he was not happy. He could not have assigned the cause of the fits of

quiet weeping which took him sometimes; they came and went, like the

fitful illumination of the clouds that travelled over the square; and

perhaps, after all, if he was not happy, he was not unhappy. Before

he could be unhappy something must have been withdrawn, and nothing had

yet been withdrawn from him, for nothing had been granted. He was waiting

for that granting, in that flower-laden, frightfully enticing apartment

of his, with the pith-white walls tinged and subdued by the crimson

blinds to a blood-like gloom.

He paid no heed to it that his stock of money was running perilously low,

nor that he had ceased to work. Ceased to work? He had not ceased to

work. They knew very little about it who supposed that Oleron had ceased

to work! He was in truth only now beginning to work. He was preparing

such a work ... such a work ... such a Mistress was a-making in the

gestation of his Art ... let him but get this period of probation and

poignant waiting over and men should see.... How _should_ men know her,

this Fair One of Oleron's, until Oleron himself knew her? Lovely radiant

creations are not thrown off like How-d'ye-do's. The men to whom it is

committed to father them must weep wretched tears, as Oleron did, must

swell with vain presumptuous hopes, as Oleron did, must pursue, as Oleron

pursued, the capricious, fair, mocking, slippery, eager Spirit that, ever

eluding, ever sees to it that the chase does not slacken. Let Oleron but

hunt this Huntress a little longer... he would have her sparkling

and panting in his arms yet.... Oh no: they were very far from the truth

who supposed that Oleron had ceased to work!

And if all else was falling away from Oleron, gladly he was letting it

go. So do we all when our Fair Ones beckon. Quite at the beginning we

wink, and promise ourselves that we will put Her Ladyship through her

paces, neglect her for a day, turn her own jealous wiles against her,

flout and ignore her when she comes wheedling; perhaps there lurks within

us all the time a heartless sprite who is never fooled; but in the end

all falls away. She beckons, beckons, and all goes....

And so Oleron kept his strategic post within the frame of his bedroom

door, and watched, and waited, and smiled, with his finger on his

lips.... It was his duteous service, his worship, his troth-plighting,

all that he had ever known of Love. And when he found himself, as he now

and then did, hating the dead man Madley, and wishing that he had never

lived, he felt that that, too, was an acceptable service....

But, as he thus prepared himself, as it were, for a Marriage, and moped

and chafed more and more that the Bride made no sign, he made a discovery

that he ought to have made weeks before.

It was through a thought of the dead Madley that he made it. Since that

night when he had thought in his greenness that a little studied neglect

would bring the lovely Beckoner to her knees, and had made use of her own

jealousy to banish her, he had not set eyes on those fifteen discarded

chapters of _Romilly_. He had thrown them back into the window-seat,

forgotten their very existence. But his own jealousy of Madley put him in

mind of hers of her jilted rival of flesh and blood, and he remembered

them.... Fool that he had been! Had he, then, expected his Desire to

manifest herself while there still existed the evidence of his divided

allegiance? What, and she with a passion so fierce and centred that it

had not hesitated at the destruction, twice attempted, of her rival? Fool

that he had been!...

But if _that_ was all the pledge and sacrifice she required she should

have it--ah, yes, and quickly!

He took the manuscript from the window-seat, and brought it to the fire.

He kept his fire always burning now; the warmth brought out the last

vestige of odour of the flowers with which his room was banked. He did

not know what time it was; long since he had allowed his clock to run

down--it had seemed a foolish measurer of time in regard to the

stupendous things that were happening to Oleron; but he knew it was late.

He took the _Romilly_ manuscript and knelt before the fire.

But he had not finished removing the fastening that held the sheets

together before he suddenly gave a start, turned his head over his

shoulder, and listened intently. The sound he had heard had not been

loud--it had been, indeed, no more than a tap, twice or thrice

repeated--but it had filled Oleron with alarm. His face grew dark as

it came again.

He heard a voice outside on his landing.

"Paul!... Paul!..."

It was Elsie's voice.

"Paul!... I know you're in... I want to see you...."

He cursed her under his breath, but kept perfectly still. He did not

intend to admit her.

"Paul!... You're in trouble.... I believe you're in danger... at least

come to the door!..."

Oleron smothered a low laugh. It somehow amused him that she, in such

danger herself, should talk to him of _his_ danger!... Well, if she was,

serve her right; she knew, or said she knew, all about it....

"Paul!... Paul!..."

"_Paul!... Paul!_..." He mimicked her under his breath.

"Oh, Paul, it's _horrible_!..."

Horrible, was it? thought Oleron. Then let her get away....

"I only want to help you, Paul.... I didn't promise not to come if you

needed me...."

He was impervious to the pitiful sob that interrupted the low cry. The

devil take the woman! Should he shout to her to go away and not come

back? No: let her call and knock and sob. She had a gift for sobbing; she

mustn't think her sobs would move him. They irritated him, so that he set

his teeth and shook his fist at her, but that was all. Let her sob.

"_Paul!... Paul!_..."

With his teeth hard set, he dropped the first page of _Romilly_ into the

fire. Then he began to drop the rest in, sheet by sheet.

For many minutes the calling behind his door continued; then suddenly it

ceased. He heard the sound of feet slowly descending the stairs. He

listened for the noise of a fall or a cry or the crash of a piece of the

handrail of the upper landing; but none of these things came. She was

spared. Apparently her rival suffered her to crawl abject and beaten

away. Oleron heard the passing of her steps under his window; then she

was gone.

He dropped the last page into the fire, and then, with a low laugh rose.

He looked fondly round his room.

"Lucky to get away like that," he remarked. "She wouldn't have got away

if I'd given her as much as a word or a look! What devils these women

are!... But no; I oughtn't to say that; one of 'em showed

forbearance...."

Who showed forbearance? And what was forborne? Ah, Oleron

knew!... Contempt, no doubt, had been at the bottom of it, but that

didn't matter: the pestering creature had been allowed to go unharmed.

Yes, she was lucky; Oleron hoped she knew it....

And now, now, now for his reward!

Oleron crossed the room. All his doors were open; his eyes shone as he

placed himself within that of his bedroom.

Fool that he had been, not to think of destroying the manuscript

sooner!...

* * * * *

How, in a houseful of shadows, should he know his own Shadow? How, in a

houseful of noises, distinguish the summons he felt to be at hand? Ah,

trust him! He would know! The place was full of a jugglery of dim lights.

The blind at his elbow that allowed the light of a street lamp to

struggle vaguely through--the glimpse of greeny blue moonlight seen

through the distant kitchen door--the sulky glow of the fire under the

black ashes of the burnt manuscript--the glimmering of the tulips and the

moon-daisies and narcissi in the bowls and jugs and jars--these did not

so trick and bewilder his eyes that he would not know his Own! It was he,

not she, who had been delaying the shadowy Bridal; he hung his head for a

moment in mute acknowledgment; then he bent his eyes on the deceiving,

puzzling gloom again. He would have called her name had he known it--but

now he would not ask her to share even a name with the other....

His own face, within the frame of the door, glimmered white as the

narcissi in the darkness....

A shadow, light as fleece, seemed to take shape in the kitchen (the time

had been when Oleron would have said that a cloud had passed over the

unseen moon). The low illumination on the blind at his elbow grew dimmer

(the time had been when Oleron would have concluded that the lamplighter

going his rounds had turned low the flame of the lamp). The fire settled,

letting down the black and charred papers; a flower fell from a bowl,

and lay indistinct upon the floor; all was still; and then a stray

draught moved through the old house, passing before Oleron's face....

Suddenly, inclining his head, he withdrew a little from the door-jamb.

The wandering draught caused the door to move a little on its hinges.

Oleron trembled violently, stood for a moment longer, and then, putting

his hand out to the knob, softly drew the door to, sat down on the

nearest chair, and waited, as a man might await the calling of his name

that should summon him to some weighty, high and privy Audience....