A LAST WALK.
Mark turned in from Chancery Lane under the old gateway, and went to
one of the staircase doorways with the old curly eighteenth-century
numerals cut on the centre stone of the arch and painted black. The
days of these picturesque old dark-red buildings, with their
small-paned dusty windows, their turrets and angles, and other little
architectural surprises and inconveniences, are already numbered. Soon
the sharp outline of their old gables and chimneys will cut the sky no
longer; but some unpractical persons will be found who, although (or
it may be _because_) they did not occupy them, will see them fall with
a pang, and remember them with a kindly regret.
A gas jet was glimmering here and there behind the slits of dusty
glass in the turret staircase as Mark came in, although it was
scarcely dusk in the outer world; for Old Square is generally a little
in advance in this respect. He passed the door laden with names and
shining black plates announcing removals, till he came to an entrance
on the second floor, where one of the names on a dingy ledge above the
door was 'Mr. Vincent Holroyd.'
If Mark had been hitherto a failure, Vincent Holroyd could not be
pronounced a success. He had been, certainly, more distinguished at
college; but after taking his degree, reading for the Bar, and being
called, three years had passed in forced inactivity--not, perhaps, an
altogether unprecedented circumstance in a young barrister's career,
but with the unpleasant probability, in his case, of a continued
brieflessness. A dry and reserved manner, due to a secret shyness, had
kept away many whose friendship might have been useful to him; and,
though he was aware of this, he could not overcome the feeling; he was
a lonely man, and had become enamoured of his loneliness. Of the
interest popularly believed to be indispensable to a barrister he
could command none, and, with more than the average amount of ability,
the opportunity for displaying it was denied him; so that when he was
suddenly called upon to leave England for an indefinite time, he was
able to abandon prospects that were not brilliant without any
particular reluctance.
Mark found him tying up his few books and effects in the one chamber
which he had sub-rented, a little panelled room looking out on
Chancery Lane, and painted the pea-green colour which, with a sickly
buff, seem set apart for professional decoration.
His face, which was dark and somewhat plain, with large, strong
features, had a pleasant look on it as he turned to meet Mark. 'I'm
glad you could come,' he said. 'I thought we'd walk back together for
the last time. I shall be ready in one minute. I'm only getting my law
books together.'
'You're not going to take them out to Ceylon with you, then?'
'Not now. Brandon--my landlord, you know--will let me keep them here
till I send for them. I've just seen him. Shall we go now?'
They passed out through the dingy, gas-lit clerk's room, and Holroyd
stopped for a minute to speak to the clerk, a mild, pale man, who was
neatly copying out an opinion at the foot of a case. 'Good-bye,
Tucker,' he said, 'I don't suppose I shall see you again for some
time.'
'Good-bye, Mr. 'Olroyd, sir. Very sorry to lose you. I hope you'll
have a pleasant voy'ge, and get on over there, sir, better than you've
done 'ere, sir.'
The clerk spoke with a queer mixture of patronage and deference: the
deference was his ordinary manner with his employer in chief, a
successful Chancery junior, and the patronage was caused by a pitying
contempt he felt for a young man who had not got on.
'That 'Olroyd'll never do anything at the Bar,' he used to say when
comparing notes with his friend the clerk to the opposite set of
chambers. 'He's got no push, and he's got no manner, and there ain't
nobody at his back. What he ever come to the Bar for at all, _I_ don't
know!'
There were some directions to be given as to letters and papers, which
the mild clerk received with as much gravity as though he were not
inwardly thinking, 'I'd eat all the papers as ever come in for _you_,
and want dinner after 'em.' And then Holroyd left his chambers for the
last time, and he and Mark went down the rickety winding stair, and
out under the colonnade of the Vice-Chancellors' courts, at the closed
doors of which a few clerks and reporters were copying down the cause
list for the next day.
They struck across Lincoln's Inn Fields and Long Acre, towards
Piccadilly and Hyde Park. It was by no means a typical November
afternoon: the sky was a delicate blue and the air mild, with just
enough of autumn keenness in it to remind one, not unpleasantly, of
the real time of year.
'Well,' said Holroyd, rather sadly, 'you and I won't walk together
like this again for a long time.'
'I suppose not,' said Mark, with a regret that sounded a little
formal, for their approaching separation did not, as a matter of fact,
make him particularly unhappy.
Holroyd had always cared for him much more than he had cared for
Holroyd, for whom Mark's friendship had been a matter of circumstance
rather than deliberate preference. They had been quartered in the same
lodgings at Cambridge, and had afterwards 'kept' on the same staircase
in college, which had led to a more or less daily companionship, a
sort of intimacy that is not always strong enough to bear
transplantation to town.
Holroyd had taken care that it should survive their college days; for
he had an odd liking for Mark, in spite of a tolerably clear insight
into his character. Mark had a way of inspiring friendships without
much effort on his part, and this undemonstrative, self-contained man
felt an affection for him which was stronger than he ever allowed
himself to show.
Mark, for his part, had begun to feel an increasing constraint in the
company of a friend who had an unpleasantly keen eye for his weak
points, and with whom he was always conscious of a certain inferiority
which, as he could discover no reason for it, galled his vanity the
more.
His careless tone wounded Holroyd, who had hoped for some warmer
response; and they walked on in silence until they turned into Hyde
Park and crossed to Rotten Row, when Mark said, 'By the way, Vincent,
wasn't there something you wanted to speak to me about?'
'I wanted to ask a favour of you; it won't give you much trouble,'
said Holroyd.
'Oh, in that case, if it's anything I _can_ do, you know--but what is
it?'
'Well,' said Holroyd, 'the fact is--I never told a soul till now--but
I've written a book.'
'Never mind, old boy,' said Mark, with a light laugh; for the
confession, or perhaps a certain embarrassment with which it was made,
seemed to put Holroyd more on a level with himself. 'So have lots of
fellows, and no one thinks any the worse of them--unless they print
it. Is it a law book?'
'Not exactly,' said Holroyd; 'it's a romance.'
'A romance!' cried Mark. 'You!'
'Yes,' said Holroyd, 'I. I've always been something of a dreamer, and
I amused myself by putting one of my dreams down on paper. I wasn't
disturbed.'
'You've been called though, haven't you?'
'I never got up,' said Holroyd, with a rather melancholy grimace. 'I
began well enough. I used to come up to chambers by ten and leave at
half-past six, after noting up reports and text-books all day; but no
solicitor seemed struck by my industry. Then I sat in court and took
down judgments most elaborately, but no leader ever asked _me_ to take
notes for him, and I never got a chance of suggesting anything to the
court as _amicus curiæ_, for both the Vice-Chancellors seemed able to
get along pretty well without me. Then I got tired of that, and
somehow this book got into my head, and I couldn't rest till I'd got
it out again. It's finished now, and I'm lonely again.'
'And you want me to run my eye over it and lick it into shape a
little?' asked Mark.
'Not quite that,' said Holroyd; 'it must stand as it is. What I'm
going to ask you is this: I don't know any fellow I would care to ask
but yourself. I want it published. I shall be out of England, probably
with plenty of other matters to occupy me for some time. I want you to
look after the manuscript for me while I'm away. Do you mind taking
the trouble?'
'Not a bit, old fellow,' said Mark, 'no trouble in the world; only
tying up the parcel each time, sending it off again. Well, I didn't
mean that; but it's no trouble, really.'
'I dare say you won't be called upon to see it through the press,'
said Holroyd; 'but if such a thing as an acceptance should happen, I
should like you to make all the arrangements. You've had some
experience in these things, and I haven't, and I shall be away too.'
'I'll do the best I can,' said Mark. 'What sort of a book is it?'
'It's a romance, as I said,' said Holroyd. 'I don't know that I can
describe it more exactly: it----'
'Oh, it doesn't matter,' interrupted Mark. 'I can read it some time.
What have you called it?'
'"Glamour,"' said Holroyd, still with a sensitive shrinking at having
to reveal what had long been a cherished secret.
'It isn't a society novel, I suppose?'
'No,' said Holroyd. 'I'm not much of a society man; I go out very
little.'
'But you ought to, you know: you'll find people very glad to see you
if you only cultivate them.'
There was something, however, in Mark's manner of saying this that
suggested a consciousness that this might be a purely personal
experience.
'Shall I?' said Holroyd. 'I don't know. People are kind enough, but
they can only be really glad to see any one who is able to amuse them
or interest them, and that's natural enough. I can't flatter myself
that I'm particularly interesting or amusing; any way, it's too late
to think about that now.'
'You won't be able to do the hermit much over in Ceylon, will you?'
'I don't know. My father's plantation is in rather a remote part of
the island. I don't think he has ever been very intimate with the
other planters near him, and as I left the place when I was a child I
have fewer friends there than here even. But there will be plenty to
do if I am to learn the business, as he seems to wish.'
'Did he never think of having you over before?'
'He wanted me to come over and practise at the Colombo Bar, but that
was soon after I was called, and I preferred to try my fortune in
England first. I was the second son, you see, and while my brother
John was alive I was left pretty well to my own devices. I went, as
you know, to Colombo in my second Long, but only for a few weeks of
course, and my father and I didn't get on together somehow. But he's
ill now, and poor John died of dysentery, and he's alone, so even if I
had had any practice to leave I could hardly refuse to go out to him.
As it is, as far as that is concerned, I have nothing to keep me.'
They were walking down Rotten Row as Holroyd said this, with the dull
leaden surface of the Serpentine on their right, and away to the left,
across the tan and the grey sward, the Cavalry Barracks, with their
long narrow rows of gleaming windows. Up the long convex surface of
the Row a faint white mist was crawling, and a solitary,
spectral-looking horseman was cantering noiselessly out of it towards
them. The evening had almost begun; the sky had changed to a delicate
green tint, merged towards the west in a dusky crocus, against which
the Memorial spire stood out sharp and black; from South Kensington
came the sound of a church bell calling for some evening service.
'Doesn't that bell remind you somehow of Cambridge days?' said Mark.
'I could almost fancy we were walking up again from the boats, and
that was the chapel bell ringing.'
'I wish we were,' said Holroyd with a sigh: 'they were good old times,
and they will never come back.'
'You're very low, old fellow,' said Mark, 'for a man going back to his
native country.'
'Ah, but I don't feel as if it was my native country, you see. I've
lived here so long. And no one knows me out there except my poor old
father, and we're almost strangers. I'm leaving the few people I care
for behind me.'
'Oh, it will be all right,' said Mark, with the comfortable view one
takes of another's future; 'you'll get on well enough. We shall have
you a rich coffee planter, or a Deputy Judge Advocate, in no time.
_Any_ fellow has a chance out there. And you'll soon make friends in a
place like that.'
'I like my friends ready-made, I think,' said Holroyd; 'but one must
make the best of it, I suppose.'
They had come to the end of the Row; the gates of Kensington Gardens
were locked, and behind the bars a policeman was watching them
suspiciously, as if he suspected they might attempt a forcible entry.
'Well,' said Mark, stopping, 'I suppose you turn off here?' Holroyd
would have been willing to go on with him as far as Kensington had
Mark proposed it, but he gave no sign of desiring this, so his
friend's pride kept him silent too.
'One word more about the--the book,' he said. 'I may put your name and
address on the title-page, then? It goes off to Chilton and Fladgate
to-night.'
'Oh yes, of course,' said Mark, 'put whatever you like.'
'I've not given them my real name, and, if anything comes of it, I
should like that kept a secret.'
'Just as you please; but why?'
'If I keep on at the Bar, a novel, whether it's a success or not, is
not the best bait for briefs,' said Holroyd; 'and besides, if I am to
get a slating, I'd rather have it under an _alias_, don't you see? So
the only name on the title-page is "Vincent Beauchamp."'
'Very well,' said Mark, 'none shall know till you choose to tell them,
and, if anything has to be done about the book, I'll see to it with
pleasure, and write to you when it's settled. So you can make your
mind easy about _that_.'
'Thanks,' said Holroyd; 'and now, good-bye, Mark.'
There was real feeling in his voice, and Mark himself caught something
of it as he took the hand Vincent held out.
'Good-bye, old boy,' he said. 'Take care of yourself--pleasant voyage
and good luck. You're no letter-writer, I know, but you'll drop me a
line now and then, I hope. What's the name of the ship you go out in?'
'The "Mangalore." She leaves the Docks to-morrow. Good-bye for the
present, Mark. We shall see one another again, I hope. Don't forget
all about me before that.'
'No, no,' said Mark; 'we've been friends too long for that.'
One more good-bye, a momentary English awkwardness in getting away
from one another, and they parted, Holroyd walking towards Bayswater
across the bridge, and Mark making for Queen's Gate and Kensington.
Mark looked after his friend's tall strong figure for a moment before
it disappeared in the dark. 'Well, I've seen the last of him,' he
thought. 'Poor old Holroyd! to think of his having written a
book--he's one of those unlucky beggars who never make a hit at
anything. I expect I shall have some trouble about it by-and-by.'
Holroyd walked on with a heavier heart. 'He won't miss me,' he told
himself. 'Will Mabel say good-bye like that?'