The Great Victorian Age was laid to rest.
The great pageant of mortality had wound along the officially-appointed
route, under the cold grey sky, an apparently endless, slowly-marching
column of Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry of the Line, progressing pace
by pace between the immovable barriers of great-coated soldiers, and the
surging, restless sea of black-clad men and women pent up on either hand
behind them. The long rolling of muffled drums, and the dull boom of
cannon; the baring of men's heads; the wail of the Funeral March, the
flash of suddenly whitened faces turned one way to greet Her as She
passed, borne to Her rest upon a gun-carriage, as fitting an aged warrior
Queen; drawn to her wedded couch within the tomb by the willing, faithful
hands of her sons of the twin Services, who shall forget, that heard and
witnessed?
Who shall forget?
The Royal Standard draped across the satin-white, gold-fringed pall, where
on rich crimson cushions rested the Three Emblems of Sovereignty. The
dignified, kingly figure of a man, no longer young, bowed with sorrow
under the Imperial heritage, preceding the splendid sombre company of
crowned heads; the blaze of uniforms and orders, the clank of sword and
bridle, the potent ring of steel on steel, the sumptuously-trapped,
shining horses pacing slowly, drawing the mourning-carriages of State,
their closed windows, frosted with chilly fog, yielding scant glimpses of
well-known faces. One most beloved, most lovely, and no less so in sorrow
than in joy. "_Did you see her?_" the women asked of one another, as the
pageant passed and vanished, and one good soul, all breathless from the
crush, gasped as she straightened her battered bonnet and twitched her
trodden skirt: "There never was a better than the blessed soul that's
gone, but there couldn't be a sweeter nor a beautifuller Queen than the
one she leaves behind her!"
The last wail of the Funeral March having died away into silence, the last
cannon-shot gone booming out, down came the foggy dusk on bereaved London.
A chill rime settled on the swaying laurel wreaths, and on the folds of
the fluttering purple draperies at the close of the dismal day. The shops
were shut, and many of the restaurants, but the windows of the Clubs
gleamed radiantly down Piccadilly, and every refreshment-bar and
public-house was thronged to bursting. Noon changed to evening, and
evening lengthened into night, and the pavements began to be crowded. The
Flesh Bazaar was being held in Piccadilly, and all up Regent Street and
all down the Haymarket the chaffering went on for bodies and for souls.
A deadly physical and mental lassitude weighed on Saxham. His soul was
sick with the long, hopeless struggle. He would end it. He would die, and
take away the shadow from Lynette's pure life, and leave her free. His
will devised to her everything he possessed, leaving her untrammelled. Let
her learn to love once more, let her marry a better man, and be happy in
her husband and her children....
* * * * *
He turned in at one of the chemist's shops. One or two gaudily-dressed,
haggard women were at the distant end of the counter, in conference with
an assistant. Saxham spoke to the chemist, a grey-whiskered, fatherly
individual, who listened, bending his sleek bald head. The chemist bowed,
but as he had not the honour of knowing his customer, would the gentleman
oblige by signing the poison-book, in compliance with Schedule F of the
Pharmacy Act, 1868?
Saxham nodded. The chemist produced the register, and opened it on the
counter before Saxham, and supplied him with pen and ink. Then he found
that he had business at the other end of the shop, and when he returned he
smartly closed the book, without even satisfying himself whether the
client had written down his name and address, or merely pretended to. Then
he filled a two-ounce vial with the fragrant, deadly acid, and put on a
yellow label that named the poison, but not the vendor, and stoppered and
capsuled, and sealed, and made it into a neat little parcel, and Saxham
paid, and put the parcel in his inner breast-pocket, and turned to leave
the shop.
It was crowded now; the roaring business of the little hours was in full
swing. The three assistants ran about like busy ants; the chemist joined
his merry men at the game of making money, serving alcoholic liquors,
mixing pick-me-ups, dispensing little bottles of tabloids and little boxes
of jujubes, taking cash and giving change.
The crush was terrific. Saxham, his hat pulled low over his broad brows,
his great chest stemming the tide of humanity that incessantly rolled over
the threshold, was slowly making his way to the door, when he felt the
arresting touch of a hand upon his arm.
The owner of the hand belonged, as ninety per cent. of the women in the
place belonged, to Francois Villon's liberal sisterhood. Something in the
pale square face and massive shoulders had attracted her vagrant fancy.
She had quitted her companions--two gaily-dressed, be-rouged women and a
blue-eyed, yellow-haired, moustached young German, whose stripy tweeds,
vociferously-patterned linen, necktie of too obvious pattern, and
high-crowned bowler hat, advertised the Berlin tailor and haberdasher and
hatter at their customer's expense, as Saxham went by. Now she looked up
into the strange, sorrowful eyes that were shaded by his tilted hat-brim,
and twined her thin hands caressingly about his arm, asking:
"Why do you look so queer, dear? Is anything wrong?--excuse me asking--or
is it the Funeral has given you the blue hump? It did me! I've not felt
so bad since mother----" She broke off. Then as a shrill peal of laughter
from one of her female companions followed a comment made by the
other--"One of those ..."--she jerked her chin contemptuously, tossing an
unprintable epithet in the direction of her lady friends--"says you're
ugly. I don't think so. I like your face!" Her own was cruelly, terribly
young, even under the white cream of zinc, the rouge, and the rice-powder.
"Were you looking for a friend, dear?" she asked tightening the clasp of
her thin, feverish hands.
"Yes," said Saxham, with a curious smile that made no illumination in his
sombre face. "For Death! There is no better friend than Death, my child,
either for you or me!"
Gently he unloosed the burning hands that clutched him, and turned and
pushed his way out through the noisy, raving, chaffering,
patchouli-scented crowd, and was gone, swallowed up in the roaring torrent
of humanity that foamed down Piccadilly, leaving her frozen and stricken
and staring.