THE LAMPS ARE LIT IN ARCADIA STREET
ARCADIA STREET, on a warm July evening some twelve months after that
surprising day when Mr. Daniel Meggison had waved farewell to the
Arcadia Arms for ever, looked much the same as it had ever done. Even
the children who played wonderfully with no toys on the pavement
seemed to be the same that had followed a certain Mr. Jordan Tant,
on the occasion of his first visit to the street; and there were the
same loungers (or others very like them) propping up that institution
so necessary to Arcadia Street and the immediate neighbourhood--the
Arcadia Arms.
Even in the house where Bessie had once toiled and struggled and dreamt
there was a card propped up against the window-frame, announcing that
within were rooms to let; quite as though that particular house had
been marked from the beginning for that particular purpose, and could
not change. Only in these days the house did not wear quite that air of
neatness that it had worn when Bessie Meggison had presided there.
It was growing late this July evening, and the dusk was falling, and
softening the outlines of the ugly houses, when a four-wheeled cab,
after a preliminary objection on the part of the horse to entering
the street at all, turned into Arcadia Street, and jerked and bumped
and rattled its way along, until it came to a standstill at the door
of that particular house. As the then landlady of the house afterwards
stated, "it put her all of a quiver"--cabs of any sort being rare
indeed in Arcadia Street. On the top of the cab were a couple of old
and shabby portmanteaus, and a small square wooden box; inside was
another box, and a smaller bag, and a young man. The young man got
out, and, pushing his way through the small knot of children that had
gathered to watch the proceedings, knocked quickly at the door, and
then stood waiting. The cabman knelt upon his seat, with a hand on the
foremost of the portmanteaus, and waited also.
Mrs. Laws--the landlady in question--a stout and elderly woman with a
chronic aversion to stairs--removed her eyes from the window of the
front room, and crossed the room heavily, and went to open the door.
When it was opened the young man nodded pleasantly, and indicated the
card in the window.
"You have rooms to let?" he said. "I was walking through here
yesterday, and saw the card, and thought the place might suit me."
"W'ich it's a sweet room, sir--or p'raps I should say two rooms--one
hopenin' out of the other--and cheap at any price. On the second floor,
sir--an' if you cared to walk in----"
"Thank you," said the young man. "I know the sort of rooms; I'll take
them, if the price is all right. I can't afford very much--but I dare
say we can arrange that."
It was arranged then and there--the landlady a little surprised at
the suddenness with which the young man accepted an offer that was
half a crown in advance of what the landlady would really have taken.
The luggage was brought in, with the assistance of the cabman, who
turned on each occasion as he got to the door with a box or a bag on
his shoulder to shout sternly at the horse--"Whoa!"--as though that
patient steed, apparently half asleep, had made up its mind to seize
the opportunity to run away. Then the cabman was paid, and the cab
was gone; and the young man, after declining to have any little thing
cooked for him, was left in the shabby room to himself. He shut the
door, and looked about him.
He was a tall young man, with broad shoulders, and he was rather
shabbily dressed. He presently walked through into the back room, and
looked out over those apologies for gardens common to Arcadia Street
and other places; shrugged his shoulders, and sighed a little, and
shook his head.
"Just the same as ever--nothing changed, and yet everything changed,"
he muttered. "All the spirit of Arcadia Street--all that peopled it and
made it beautiful--is gone; there's no one left to look for Fairyland
within its limits. Well--it's as good a place for a poor man to live in
as any other; and after all there are certain memories that float about
its grimy chimneys."
He was roused by a knock at the door of the other room. Believing it
to be the anxious Mrs. Laws with another appeal to the new lodger to
partake of food, he walked into that further room, and called out
somewhat impatiently--
"Come in!"
The door opened, and a man came in; nodded grimly on seeing the young
man, and closed the door again. A thick-set man, with head thrust well
forward between his shoulders, and standing now with his hands clasped
behind his back. A man called Simon Quarle.
"Well, Mr. Byfield--and what's brought you back here?" asked Quarle
suspiciously. "I heard your voice on the stairs; also I happened to be
looking out of the window when you drove up. I should have thought you
had done with Arcadia Street long ago."
Gilbert Byfield laughed, and held out his hand. "Why treat me as an
enemy still, Mr. Quarle?" he asked pleasantly. "I always rather liked
you, and we've been through some curious adventures, one way and
another. Won't you shake hands?"
"I will--when I know what new game's afoot," said Quarle. "As I told
you once, you have no place in Arcadia Street; go back to your own
world, and stop there."
Gilbert dropped on one knee beside a portmanteau, and began to unstrap
it. "As a matter of fact," he said, "I think I have more right in
Arcadia Street even than you have."
"How's that?" asked Quarle.
"Well, if I remember rightly, you have something of an income, even
if it's a small one; I am under the impression that you retired from
something or other, with just enough money to live upon."
"I did," said the other, with a nod. "I was thrifty in my young days,
and I saved up the pence."
"Well, I wasn't thrifty in my young days, and I didn't save anything.
Consequently"--Gilbert looked up at him with a whimsical smile--"I
have now no money at all, except such as I may be able to earn. All my
affairs have gone to smash, Mr. Quarle; I've come to Arcadia Street,
because in the old days I found it cheap, when I was playing a certain
game for the fun of the thing--and I may find it cheap now, when I am
playing that game in solid sober earnest. Now do you understand?"
Mr. Simon Quarle leaned forward, and peered down at this new wonder.
"You mean to tell me that you are no longer the rich Mr. Byfield we
used to know? You mean to tell me that you have got to set to work to
earn your living?" he asked.
"Yes--and with no particular qualifications for doing it," said
Gilbert. "I'm not afraid, because I think that it's really the life
for which I was fitted; idleness never really suited me. It's too long
a story to tell, but my affairs got out of order during that time I
disappeared from the world; and when I came back they went from bad to
worse. I have nothing save what I may earn--and I rather think I want
friends."
Mr. Simon Quarle stretched out a hand, and Byfield grasped it quickly.
After a moment of silence the elder man asked--"And that is the only
thing that has brought you back to Arcadia Street--eh?"
"That--and the memory of the best woman I ever met. I've had a long
year to think about her since she ran away from me--to wonder about
her. I've looked back over it all--and I've seen what I was, and what
I did, and how I strove to make her something that should please
myself only. I wanted a toy--someone to be good to, and help--someone
who would look up at me, and say how good I was, and how kind I had
been--and so forth. I didn't understand her then; I didn't know the
value of what I was striving to bend or break in my own direction. I
don't know where she is--I don't hope ever to have anything to do with
her again; because if I met her she must carry that resentment in her
heart for me always. But I'd give a good deal to call her back here, if
only for an hour--just to tell her what I think about it all. I suppose
you know nothing about her?"
"Am I likely to know anything?" snapped the other, in the old fashion.
"I came back here because I liked the place, and because she had lived
here; that's all. I can tell you about some of the others, and about
what's happened to them, if you like; I've heard vague things from time
to time."
"Do you think it likely that she has gone back to her father?" asked
Gilbert eagerly. "Because if you know where he is I might be able----"
"Mr. Daniel Meggison has done rather well for himself--and I don't
think he wants anything to do with his daughter," said Quarle, seating
himself and folding his arms. "It appears that he wandered about a bit
in Ireland, and finally drifted to Liverpool; and there he took up his
quarters in a little public-house. The public-house was owned by a
confiding widow--and Daniel Meggison was ever plausible. He married
the widow, and settled down in some sort of comfort."
"Ungrateful brute!" exclaimed Gilbert. "And the son?"
"Cast off by his father, and unable to find his sister, he really did
something for himself at last, in his own particular fashion. I think
he does a little in the way of billiard-marking, and a little in the
way of racing, and more still in the way of borrowing. He'll never
starve, you may be sure of that. The Stockers got back in due course
to Clapham, and have doubtless settled down into their own old way of
life; that exhausts my list."
"You will be interested to know, perhaps," said Gilbert in his turn,
"that Mr. Tant married Miss Ewart-Crane some months ago; I've seen very
little of him, but I believe their extraordinary adventures on a desert
island are already quite the talk in their own particular sphere.
Pringle--most wonderful of servants--is no longer a servant of mine,
but is, I believe, doing well for himself. When last I saw him he had
got in touch with the captain and crew of the lost _Blue Bird_; they
were all picked up."
Simon Quarle got to his feet, and stood for a moment thoughtfully
scratching his chin. "I suppose," he said at last slowly, without
looking at Byfield--"I suppose that if the child ever came into your
life again you'd make the same muddles--and do the same foolish things
you did before--wouldn't you? Don't frown; I'm an old man, and I was
very fond of the girl. I only ask because one likes to know the point
of view of other people. You're never likely to see her again, you
know--so that you needn't answer if you don't want to."
"If I ever found her--and she ever forgave me--I should tell her simply
and truly what I told her before--that I love her," said Gilbert. "If
she'd let me I'd work for her with a better heart than I can ever work
for myself only. Because I tell you," he finished simply--"there's no
other woman like her in all the world."
"Amen to that!" said Quarle, moving to the door. "But you're a bit
late; you're not likely to see her again, you know."
Simon Quarle, with a final nod, went out of the room, closing the door
behind him. He went thoughtfully down to his own quarters, and for a
long time paced about there, as though he had some problem in his mind
difficult of solution. More than once he stopped in his restless walk,
with his eyes upon the ground; more than once he shook his head, as
though he felt that the way to solve the problem had not been found
yet. And at last sat down in his shabby arm-chair, with his hands
clasped on his knees, to think it out afresh.
The lamplighter had drifted in from the bigger world outside, and had
lit the lamps in Arcadia Street--performing that duty in a casual
perfunctory manner, as though it didn't matter very much whether
Arcadia Street was lighted or not. The Arcadia Arms was doing a great
trade, with its doors swinging and banging every minute or two, and the
roar of the greater world outside Arcadia Street had not yet finished
for the day. Out from that greater world there drifted into Arcadia
Street a little figure that came with lagging feet--a little figure
that had come into Arcadia Street many many times through the years
that had once, as it seemed, been happily left behind. A shabbier
figure even than of old, although as neat as ever; a white-faced girl,
carrying bundles and parcels. She stopped at the door of that house
that had so recently swallowed up a new lodger, and let herself in with
a key.
"Sich goin's on since you went out," said Mrs. Laws, nodding her
head solemnly at the girl. "Cabs arrivin'--an' things bein' took
upstairs--bags an' boxes, an' bundles an' things; an' as nice a young
man as ever I set my two eyes on--though shy. An' goodness knows in
these 'ard times a extra lodger is a puffeck gift of Providence."
"I hope he won't be unreasonable," said the girl, with a little sigh.
"Some of them have such a way of ringing bells for no particular
reason--and one gets so tired sometimes. But I'm glad--for your sake,
Mrs. Laws."
Simon Quarle had been on the look out; he bent over the stair head, and
called in a hoarse whisper--
"Bessie!--Bessie!"
She looked up at him with a smile, and climbed the stairs; she thought,
as she looked at him, that he seemed strangely excited. He held her
hand for a moment as they stood together on the landing, and he patted
it softly, and seemed almost (although that, of course, was absurd) to
be chuckling. He drew her into his room, and closed the door.
"Why--what's the matter, Mr. Quarle?" asked the girl.
"Bessie Meggison--have you heard about the new lodger?" asked Simon
Quarle, holding her hand and speaking very solemnly.
"Yes--of course I've heard about him," replied Bessie wonderingly.
"Mrs. Laws told me. What does it matter?--to me it only means so many
more stairs to climb so many times a day. You forget that I'm nothing
more than a servant here."
"I try not to remember it," said Simon Quarle, gently touching her
cheek with one hand with a touch as light as that of a woman. "When
you came back here, little woman--hoping to get shelter in the old
Arcadia Street on which you had so gladly turned your back once upon a
time--you found me--didn't you?"
She nodded quickly. "And you made it all right with Mrs. Laws, so that
I might have food and shelter and a very little money in return for my
work. Why--I might have starved but for you."
"Not quite so bad as that, perhaps--but still, you were pretty low
down," said the man. "The world hasn't treated you well, my dear--but
then the world never does treat the timid ones well. You didn't fight
hard enough; you hadn't cheek enough. Only I want you to understand,
Bessie dear, that you're not the only one that has suffered."
"I know that," she said quickly. "Poor father went through a lot of
privations before he found someone to take pity on him; and dear Aubrey
must find it hard sometimes to make a living."
"I wasn't thinking about poor father or dear Aubrey," exclaimed Quarle
snappishly. "They'll get on all right for themselves. But there is
someone else, my child--someone perhaps we have not quite understood."
She tried to withdraw her hand, but he held it firmly, and patted it as
he went on speaking.
"I know, my dear--I know all about it, and I know what you feel," said
Simon Quarle. "Only in this poor strange topsy-turvy world of ours we
are all a little like children--wilful and headstrong, and always so
sure that we know what is best for us. And the great god Chance happens
along one day, and sees that we are in a bit of a muddle, and are
spoiling our lives; and shakes us up, and tumbles us about--and perhaps
sets us straight again. This one has a gilded toy, and doesn't know how
much it's worth; and so the toy is snatched away and given to another;
and this one has nothing, and gets perhaps not the gift it craved, but
something better yet. What if I told you, Bessie, that the man who
played that great game of make-believe with you had touched disaster
too, and was as poor as you are?"
"You have heard from him?" she asked quickly.
He nodded slowly. "I have heard from him--and he has been through
rather a bad time. The game of make-believe for him is ended; he has
come down to the realities. All his money is gone; he's got to work and
fight and strive, as every other man must work and fight and strive
in this world, if he's to be worthy to be called a man at all. And he
wanted to know about you, Bessie."
"Only the old whim--only the old feeling that he's sorry for me. I'm
only a little patient drudge again, in the house where he first saw me;
and even the poor old garden that I think he laughed at secretly to
himself is gone, and blotted out. You mustn't tell him where I am; I
don't want him to know."
"Did you love him, Bess?" Simon Quarle stood squarely before her, with
his hands clasped behind his back.
She hesitated for a moment, and then looked up at him, with a little
touch of colour stealing over her white face, and with a smile in
her eyes. "Yes," she said slowly--"I loved him very dearly. If he
blundered, he blundered rather finely; and I shall always think of
him as I knew him first--someone frank and friendly, coming out
of the great world, and liking me a little because I liked him.
There--there--don't talk about it; he has his own friends, I suppose,
even in his poverty. You said he was poor--didn't you?"
"Yes--very poor. Poor enough, I should think, to live in Arcadia Street
in real earnest," said Simon. "Well--I'm sorry if I've touched on
anything that has pained you; best forget it. Love's a queer business,
and I'm not sure that you're not well out of it. Let the brute starve;
it'll do him good."
"Mr. Quarle--you know I didn't mean that at all," faltered Bessie.
"You're the unkindest man I've ever met."
"Sorry you think so," said Quarle, turning upon her frowningly. "But
you needn't stop and bully me; if you remembered your duties properly
you'd know that this new lodger by this time probably requires some
attention. Go away and look after him; personally, I'm disappointed in
you."
"Oh, no, you're not," she coaxed, putting her arms about his neck.
"You always growl at me, I think, when you love me the most."
"Perhaps I do," he snapped, thrusting her away from him. "But go and
attend to the new lodger."
She climbed the stairs wearily, thinking a little of what Simon Quarle
had said--wondering why it happened that life must be always a grey and
profitless thing to some, and not to others. She knocked softly at the
door, and heard a shout from within, commanding her to enter; caught
her breath for a moment, and passed her hand across her eyes, as though
she felt that she might still be dreaming. Then, as the shout was
renewed, she opened the door, and went slowly in.
* * * * *
The stars had come out even over Arcadia Street, to help the lamps a
little; and still the two sat at the window of that room, looking out
into an Arcadia Street that was strangely beautified. So much there
was for them to say to each other--so much that had never been said
before by any man or woman in all the great world--or so at least they
thought. Only once, smiling through her tears, Bessie drew away from
him, and looked at him for a moment with the old perplexed frown.
"If you should be cheating me again!" she whispered. "If, instead of
this poor room for your home, you should really be rich, and should be
trying to steal me out of my poverty by a trick! For the love of God,
don't do that again; be fair to me--be just to me!"
"My darling, that particular game of make-believe ended a long time
ago," he said--"but a new one begins from to-night. We shall have to
work hard, you and I, to keep the wolf from the door; and we shall have
to make-believe hard to show that we like it."
"That won't be any make-believe for me, dear," she whispered.
Simon Quarle took it into his head to climb the stairs presently, and
after knocking softly in vain, to look in and see them. They came
forward a little guiltily, hand in hand, to bear his scrutiny; he shook
his head over them whimsically enough.
"Well," he growled to Gilbert--"does she believe you now?"
"I think so," said Gilbert softly.
"Little fool!" said Simon Quarle, touching the girl's cheek with rough
tenderness. He turned on his heel and walked out of the room; and his
eyes were shining.
THE END.
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* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 112, "herelf" changed to "herself" (not help herself)
Page 157, "ocasion" changed to "occasion" (occasion I think)
Page 198, "Meggson" changed to "Meggison" (Aubrey Meggison instructed)
Page 246, "posible" changed to "possible" (possible, that he)
Page 266, "though" changed to "thought" (I thought it might)
Page 290, "addel" changed to "added" (he added, with a sigh)
End of Project Gutenberg's The Cruise of the Make-Believes, by Tom Gallon