of banded robbers is at work to blackmail, bully, and despoil the
peaceable citizens of London. The law is powerless to touch them,
their operations are so cunning and are ordered on so mean a scale.
Therefore it would seem to behove every stalwart private individual to
make war upon them openly; and I am proud to affirm that a good measure
of success has attended my own puny efforts. It is quite possible that
in the course of these labors I may happen upon a retired champion who
chooses to eke out a well-deserved leisure in a manner so unsavory,
but in the meantime I deal out a dozen broken noses a year to this
banditti.”
“You are an enigma, indeed,” said the young man. “You professed just
now to accept the things that are, that your last intention is to
effect any sort of social reform; yet look what you do. Again, you
profess to be a connoisseur in men of promise, yet with your eyes open
you reject the most authentic specimen that has ever swum into your
ken. Further, you deride every form of ‘greatness,’ and despise every
manifestation of the force that it is your daily business to employ.”
“I am an enigma, right enough,” said the solicitor; “yet, for that
matter, so are we all. Who shall explain himself? Who shall attempt
it? I preach one thing in all sincerity, yet with an equal sincerity
I practise another. Nature designed the lymphatic Samuel Whitcomb to
be the most consistent man alive, yet see, my friend, how malleable he
is, how mobile, how entirely at the mercy of the caprices that whirl
about in himself. It gives me an indescribable pleasure to thrash
hansom cabmen; my being craves for that form of relaxation; it is its
conception of true physical and intellectual enjoyment.”
“Did I not understand you to say,” asked the astonished young man,
“that these Promethean labors were undertaken in the service of
society?”
“Do not believe me,” said the solicitor, with his rich laugh floating
melodiously into the chill night air. “I would deceive others with that
pleasant figment, but I do not impose on myself. It is a sheer animal
impulse, which I am powerless to withstand, that causes me to break the
noses of this banditti.”
“Well, sir,” said Northcote, “I will wish you good night. It has been
a real pleasure to have met you. The enchanting complexity of your
personal character will beguile me during my long walk home. As for
the brief that I hold, unless a whim should cause you to obtain a
postponement of the trial, you will find it in my custody at the Old
Bailey on Friday morning.”
“Not so fast, my friend,” said Mr. Whitcomb, as Northcote turned on his
heel. “You had better come in and have a drink before you start. It
will be a dreadfully cold and wearisome tramp back to town through this
slush in the small hours of the morning.”
“My own foible is to walk the streets at night,” said Northcote. “That
is the only taste of real freedom one enjoys in a city. It is only
during the middle of the night in a place like London that one can
think one’s own thoughts and breathe God’s air. But as we do not appear
quite to have settled this momentous business of the brief, which may
mean so much more to society at large than you can imagine, I will
enter your domain and drink one glass of your whiskey.”
The solicitor led the way thereto, unlocked the front door with a
latch-key, and Northcote found himself in the interior of a modern
dwelling-house. It was furnished with perfect taste, fitted with every
luxury. The heavy mats on the floors muffled the sounds of his feet;
the warmed air that assailed his nostrils was seductive and delicate
after the bitter inclemency from which he had taken refuge. Numerous
objects of vertu were scattered in every nook, and the walls were lined
with pictures that astonished him beyond measure.
“Why, that is a Whistler--one of the two or three!” he exclaimed, as
he passed in the hall an unpretentious-looking portrait.
“I got it years ago for a song, before they began to be bought,” said
Mr. Whitcomb modestly.
“And what is that stuck over the stairs? From this distance it looks
suspiciously like a Velasquez. But surely that is in the Prado?”
“Aren’t you confounding it with the companion picture?”
“I had no idea we had this in England.”
“We have many things in England which fortunately are not matters of
common knowledge. Every year they are becoming rarer, owing to that
scourge of nations, the press. If you value my regard, you will forget
that you have noticed it.”
“Did you get that also before they began to be bought?”
“There is rather a strange story attaching to that picture.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Northcote, with an anticipatory eagerness; “that is
where pictures are so unlike women--they are worthless if they have no
history.”
“Possess your soul in patience, my friend,” said the solicitor, with
his rich chuckle; “the history of the lady in the blue dress is not
going to be told.”
“I must get a bit nearer,” said the young man, with shining eyes, “Eh,
she’s authentic! You should be a proud man to keep that little lady
under your own roof.”
“As proud,” said the solicitor, in his unctuous voice, “as any other
Goth of a householder in his snug suburban residence. Conceive the
feelings of the Huns when they overran Rome.”
“Or the mob,” said the young man, “when they sacked the Tuileries.”
“Is she not precious, the little girl in the blue frock?”
At the sound of soft accents, Northcote, a little startled, swung round
to confront a lady. She had come upon him noiselessly, and was standing
at his side.
“Hullo, Angel!” said Mr. Whitcomb, bestowing a kiss upon her; “this is
late for you. Allow me to present Mr. Northcote, England’s future Lord
Chancellor.”
Northcote found himself to be holding the hand of a singularly
beautiful woman. All that art can devise to enhance the sure, strong,
and original groundwork of nature was displayed about her, chastely
yet abundantly. Diamonds were strewn in the flounces of her gown;
three tight bands of pearls clasped her throat; her shoulders gleamed;
her hair had the evanescent hues of the fleeciest silk--each tress
was the fruit of cunning and labor. Yet through every curve of her
gorgeous fairness there peeped forth an almost quaint simplicity. Her
eyes were bright; her features, each of which seemed to add a personal
brilliancy to her expression, had a lustre at once naïve and opulent,
as becomes one who accepts greedily all the thousand and one glittering
and delightful minutiæ that money adds to life; who has both hands
outstretched to receive them; who carries them joyously, like a child,
to her bosom; who presses them to her lips.
“His name is Northcote,” said the solicitor, patting her white arm.
“From the window of his garret in Fleet Street he surveys the universe
with the haughtiest eyes imaginable.”
“How clever of him,” said the lady, in a little melodious accent.
“Those eyes of his know everything,” said the solicitor. “Before them
human nature unveils the whole of its mysteries. They range over the
stars in their courses, and he himself is familiar with spirits. They
have already promised to enable him to conquer the world.”
“He must be what they call a favorite of fortune,” said the lady, with
engaging laughter. “He must be clever.”
“Yes; he confesses it.”
“He is young,” said the lady, with a tender little sigh.
She half-turned to meet the eyes of the young man, and looked straight
into their sombre depths. Her own had a steadiness that was not at all
imperious--they were not even faintly insolent; the candor of their
inquiry was not so much as tinged with encounter. An infant staring
with its ruthless curiosity into the human soul could have hardly dealt
less in implication. Yet the act itself seemed to acquire for the young
man the nature of a feat so meaningless, yet so charged with meaning
did it appear. Only the support of a confident personal beauty rendered
it possible; yet it was nothing at all, not even a comment, nor the
formation of an opinion, hardly the faint awakening of an interest; all
the same the blood had invaded Northcote’s ears.
“You mustn’t look at him so long,” said Mr. Whitcomb, laughing. “You
are making him shy.”
“Pray look at me as long as you please,” said Northcote, who had
recovered already his self-possession. “And if you do really succeed in
making me shy, it may be shown to you one day as not the least of your
works.”
Her laughter rang out pure and clear like the tinkling of steel.
“Yes, he is clever,” she said, “although he is so young. I am so
pleased. I am sure to like you, Mr. Northcote; I like all men who are
clever.”
“Is it that you have so little to fear?”
Northcote was now returning her frank look of inquiry with a gaze of
equal candor.
“Yes, there is truth in that,” she said sagely.
“Are not the powerful among us the most vulnerable to your sex?” said
Northcote gently.
“Yes, that is true also,” she exclaimed, in a sort of glee. “Why has it
not occurred to one before?”
“If you speak much with this gentleman,” said Mr. Whitcomb, “he will
tell you a large number of things that you will be surprised to think
have not occurred to you before.”
“He looks like that,” said the lady, betraying a dimple. “I hope you
don’t mind my looking so much at your face, Mr. Northcote. It is one of
those fascinating faces that seem to give a new meaning to old ideas.”
“Yes, you are very well matched,” said Mr. Whitcomb cheerfully; “and
doubtless you will find a great deal to say to one another. But it
will not be to-night, madam. Are you aware it is a quarter to two? Now
suppose you play us a bit of a tune while we take a much-needed drink,
and then I shall send you to bed.”
The lady led the way to a drawing-room. Luxury and taste appeared
there to have been carried to their highest point. Northcote, whose
delicately poised sensibilities vibrated to the simplest of external
things, was fain to believe that paradise itself could not have shaped
a bolder contrast to that bleak squalor which he had been doomed to
inhabit year after year. Somewhere apart in the sanctuary of the
spirit, the home of so many complex and marvellous things, were chords
responsive to the challenge of the beautiful. They could thrill before
the manifestation of its power, even in that which was exterior,
material, unmeaning. These cushioned enchantments, this bright bower,
with so exquisite an occupant casting slim jewelled fingers across a
wonderful instrument, sent a shock of intoxication into his blood.
At the same instant he was conscious of a stab of shame. It was the
flesh, the draperies, the trappings to which his pulses responded; it
was not the magical secret which was contained in the miniatures upon
the walls, in the passionate delicacy of the cadences which sobbed
themselves out liquidly under the siren’s touch of this beautiful woman.
He stood in front of the cosy fire, glass in hand. A soft warmth
overspread his being. His eyes glanced from the white shoulders of
the enchantress to the thousand and one hues which were blended so
cunningly in the carpets and tapestries. The subtle playings of light
and shadow, the mellow effects of the atmosphere, the softness of the
music, began to assail his senses with indescribable pangs. He feasted
his eyes, his ears, his nostrils; they rewarded him with gladness. His
heart beat violently.
“These rare kinds of genius, are they not barbarous?” he said, when the
siren had ceased to cast her fingers.
“It is like children lisping,” she said, half-turning her head, with a
smile that curved her mouth entrancingly.
“Yes,” said the young man, “poetry, romance, imagination are primitive;
they belong to the childhood of nations, to the dawn of new worlds.
What a divine inspiration these sweet-voiced children of nature who are
bought out of due time, these unhappy Poles, Germans, and Frenchmen
bring to their despair. Instead of sitting down in black coats to make
their music into beef and mutton, they should be tripping through the
glades piping to the birds, the trees, the bright air.”
“This is a mad fellow, my angel,” said Mr. Whitcomb indulgently, “but
if you are gentle with him you may find him amusing.”
“Mr. Northcote will amuse me enormously,” said the lady, with a demure
glance.
“Is it thus you rebuke his madness?” the young man asked.
“On the contrary, I don’t think I have ever seen a sanity that is quite
so perfect.”
“Drop it,” said the solicitor, roguishly pinching her ear. “Beware of
dangerous turnings, my son. She is quite prepared to play George Sand
to anybody’s Alfred de Musset. She even does it to the greengrocer when
he comes round with his barrow. I understand they discourse divinely
together upon the subject of cabbages.”
“But Witty is too much the man of the world to be jealous about it,”
she purred.
“If Pussy hasn’t the opportunity to sharpen her claws on a sofa or an
ottoman, she doesn’t mind a wicker-work chair.”
“Witty, darling,” said the lady, “I hate to find rudeness keeping
company with real distinction of mind.”
“Upon my word,” expostulated Northcote, seeking to measure her depth,
“I consider that rebuke to be much prettier than the one bestowed upon
me.”
“When, Mr. Northcote, did I rebuke you?”
“Did you not say I should amuse you enormously?”
“Is not that the only compliment a woman has the power to pay nowadays?”
“Yes, Noodle,” said Mr. Whitcomb, laughing; “but don’t you see how
young he is, and therefore how serious? Who would call ‘enormously
amusing’ a fitting compliment for one of the seven champions of
Christendom? This is a devil of a fellow.”
“I can roar you like any sucking dove,” said the young man.
“How it would thrill one to hear you do it!” said the lady, enfolding
him with large eyes.
“He is a man of destiny,” said Mr. Whitcomb; “he carries a genie in his
pocket.”
“Oh!” said the lady, with clasped hands.
“One of these fine mornings he will stand the world on its head.”
“O-o-o-o-h!” said the lady.
“And having done that,” said Northcote, “this amazing fellow will dig
a hole in the universe for to bury the moon.”
“I would that all men had ambition,” said the lady, looking down at
her shoe. “If Witty had only a little of that precious salt which
forms a sediment at the bottom of every fine action he would be one’s
beau-ideal of a hero, a Christian, and a philosopher.”
“Minx!” exclaimed the solicitor. “If it were not for my ambition I
should never rise from my bed.”
“So this wonderful Mr. Whitcomb has no ambition!” said Northcote. “You
see I have found his character so complex, that in my capacity of an
amateur of the human mind I am picking it out, here a little, there a
little, piece by piece.”
“You must give him no marks for ambition,” said the lady. “But since
when did you become acquainted with him not to have found out that?”
“Since this evening at ten.”
“Ah, then, you are absolved. He will certainly baffle you at first.”
“He is wholly incomprehensible to me. He is a man of moods who oughtn’t
to have any.”
The lady clapped her hands in a little ripple of glee.
“How right,” she cried. “In a dozen little words you have shown me the
nothingness of my own knowledge.”
“Of course he has, Vapid One,” said Mr. Whitcomb. “Have I not told you
he carries a genie in his pocket?”
“Then that is why his eyes are so deep and bright,” said the lady,
turning to peruse Northcote again with an unfathomable coquetry; “and
would you not say, Witty, that the genie is in some sort responsible
for his mouth?”
“Is this public laying of one another upon the dissecting-table a
new parlor-game that has been brought into vogue by the long winter
evenings, may I ask?” said Mr. Whitcomb, concealing a yawn.
“Pray do not be insolent, Witty. The proper study of mankind is Man.”
“In the words of Pope,” said the solicitor, turning to replenish his
glass.
“You can see how Mr. Whitcomb baffles me,” said Northcote, who did not
propose to lose the opportunity of following up his clue.
“Is it his attitude to hansom cabmen that makes him so dark?”
“That is contributory. But it is mainly because he has come before me
in the guise of a waverer that I stand so much at fault. If one knows
anything about anything one would be prepared to affirm that nature had
designed Samuel Whitcomb to know his own mind.”
“He does as a rule. I have never known him waver in anything; but then,
of course, it is only quite recently that he has begun to associate
with dangerous persons who keep a genie.”
“Do you suggest that he is susceptible to such a thing as a genie?
Would it have a malign influence upon him, do you suppose?”
“I would suggest it to be likely in the highest degree.”
“Now, look here, my young friends,” interposed the solicitor at this
point, with a broad good humor, “Samuel Whitcomb does not propose to
play the part of the corpse at the lecture on anatomy.”
“You will help yourself to another drink like a good boy,” said the
lady severely; “and you will please to say nothing until we have dealt
with your ‘case.’ Your character need not fear the lancet and bistoury
of true science. Tell me, Mr. Northcote, wherein he is a waverer.”
“I am rejoiced to hear you put that question,” said the young man, with
a gesture of triumph he did not try to conceal, “for now it is that I
unfold my tale.”
XII
THE FAITH OF A SIREN
“At about ten o’clock this evening,” Northcote began, “as I was
kneeling in front of the fire--there was not any fire, by the way, as
it costs too much to afford one sometimes--in my miserable dwelling
at the top of Shepherd’s Inn, the oldest and most moribund of all the
buildings in Fleet Street, who should come climbing up to the topmost
story of the rickety and unwholesome stairs, under which the rats have
made their home for many generations, but Mr. Whitcomb. And what do you
suppose was his business?”
“He wished to buy one of your pictures.”
“Ah, no, I am not a painter.”
“I thought there was a chance of it, since they say all very good
painters are so poor. But perhaps you are a little too fierce, although
I am told these impressionists are terrible men.”
“The painting of pictures is one of the few things I have not
attempted,” said the young man, consenting to this interruption that he
might sit for his own portrait.
“Well, I should not say you are a writer of fiction. They are so tame.
Besides they are all nearly as rich as solicitors.”
“Why not a poet?”
“Why not? although your fierceness would make you a dramatic, not a
lyric one. Still it is impossible for you to be a poet, because I am
sure that Witty would never have climbed up all those stairs to your
miserable garret--I feel sure it is a garret with a sloping roof with a
hole in it--”
“There is a pool under the hole which has been caused by the
percolation of water--”
“On to the atrocious bare boards, its occupant being much too poor to
afford a carpet. Yes, Witty would never have climbed up to your garret
if you had been a poet. Or stay, he might, had you been Mrs. Felicia
Hemans. As you are a seeker of documentary evidence, he has been known
to recite her poems, at the request of the rector of this parish, to a
Sunday-school party.”
“Base woman,” said the solicitor, with an air of injury; “I claim to be
an admirer of the poet Longfellow.”
“Never, Witty, in your heart; it is merely your fatal craving to be
respectable in all things. But in the matter of poetry you must be
content to remain outside. You would never have climbed those rickety
stairs to that cold garret to see John Keats.”
“Well, now, Featherhead, did I not tell you at the first that our young
friend was England’s future Lord Chancellor?”
“I will never believe that; I will never believe that his destiny is
the law. His eye has amazing flashes; and is there not a beautiful
eloquence burning in his mouth? I cannot think of him as rich Witty,
and successful Witty, and smug Witty, like you atrocious lawyers. He is
one who would be an overthrower of dynasties, a saviour of societies.”
“You are letting your tongue wag, Noodle. If you talk so much it will
take the young man until daybreak to unfold his story.”
“I am an advocate,” said Northcote.
“An advocate,” said the lady softly; “yes, I think you may be that. One
no more associates an advocate with the law than one associates a poet
with a publisher.”
“You would say,” said Northcote, “that it is the function of an
advocate to draw his sword for the truth, for progress, for justice,
for every human amenity?”
“I would, indeed. Why, if one thinks about it, surely it is nobler to
be an advocate than to be a poet or a soldier. One might say it was the
highest calling in the world.”
“Then let us say it,” said the young man, “for I verily believe it to
be so.”
“And what, pray, was Witty’s business with this advocate?”
“They are going to hang a woman; and Mr. Whitcomb, who to his infinite
complexities and many-sidedness as a citizen of the world adds a leaven
of the finest humanitarian principles, has undertaken to save the poor
creature from a fate so pitiful.”
“To hang a woman!” said the lady, drawing in her breath with a sharp
sound. “Is it still possible to hang a woman at this time of day?”
“Perfectly,” said the young man. “They do it in every Christian
country.”
“Then the world has need for an advocate,” said the lady, with horror
in her eyes. “It is necessary that we should have yet another champion
for our sex in Christendom. Yes, this was he whom Witty came to seek
in that garret at the top of all those rickety stairs.”
“He came to seek, and found no less a person,” said Northcote. “And
having found this authentic champion of your sex, he gave him a mandate
to plead on behalf of this unfortunate creature, the least happy of all
its members.”
“What a moment of high inspiration for us and for him,” said the lady,
with a glance of tenderness.
“It was even as you say. But I would have you mark what follows.
Scarcely has he bestowed these high plenary powers upon one whom he has
ventured to select from among all the great multitude to champion your
sex in the name of humanity, than for a whim he withdraws his mandate.”
“Impossible; it would be an outrage upon us.”
“Yes; unconditionally and peremptorily he withdraws his mandate.”
“Impossible; they will do the poor creature to death.”
“Yes, they will do her to death. He who has been called to the office
of averting her doom has decreed that she must walk to embrace it
without a friend to plead her cause before humanity.”
“Surely this cannot be; society itself must protest.”
“One expects it; yet things are as they are.”
The beautiful creature turned to the solicitor with an almost royal air.
“What, sir, can you find to say in your defence?”
Mr. Whitcomb gave a short laugh.
“I yield,” said he.
“You restore the mandate?”
“Yes, yes, yes! My blood be on my own head, but so it must be. It is
beyond flesh and blood to withstand such a pair. You, madam, are a
sorceress; and this fellow is the devil.”
“I am content to be a sorceress in the cause of my unfortunate sex,”
cried the lady; and turning to Northcote added gravely: “And is it not
high time that we acquired a devil for our advocate?”
Northcote, who from the moment of her first appearance had foreseen a
victory, took her hand to his lips impulsively, with an expression of
gratitude.
“I hope this will be all right,” said the solicitor, viewing his
surrender with a rueful smile. “You see it is the first time in my life
that a foreboding has overtaken me in the midst of action. Whether it
is the importance of the case, the obscurity of the advocate, or a
certain flamboyancy in his bearing which is so repugnant to an English
common lawyer, I cannot tell; but let me confess that I have already
a premonition that I have been guilty of a mistake. And I will go
farther,” said Mr. Whitcomb, with a wry laugh; “I even see ruin, blue
ruin for all concerned, hidden in this irresolute act. Sharp little
shivers go down my spine.”
“It is no more than the reaction,” said Northcote, “which attends our
highest resolves. Is it not in such moments that a man truly measures
himself? It must have been at the fall of the barometer that Samson was
shorn of his locks.”
“Is there not always a woman in these cases?” said the lady. “This
unfortunate creature whom our advocate is to deliver from the gallows,
may she not be a Delilah of some kind?”
XIII
BE BOLD, WARY, FEAR NOT
At these words, lightly spoken, Northcote grew conscious of an
indescribable sensation which he had never experienced before.
“If it were one’s custom,” he said, with a laugh as wry as the
solicitor’s, “ever to heed the note of prophecy, one might discern it
in your words. But I will not do so. Since that dark hour in which I
summoned the genie, have I not adopted as my device, ‘Be bold, wary,
fear not’?”
“Now you come to mention it,” said the solicitor, “it may be this talk
of the genie that has filled me with these forebodings.”