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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10922-0.txt b/10922-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a7082c1 --- /dev/null +++ b/10922-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7965 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10922 *** + +YOUNG LIVES + +BY + +RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + + +1899 + + + + +TO + +ALFRED LEE + +IN MEMORY OF ANGEL + +_September, 1898_. + + _Let thy soul strive that still the same + Be early friendship's sacred flame; + The affinities have strongest part + In youth, and draw men heart to heart: + As life wears on and finds no rest, + The individual in each breast + Is tyrannous to sunder them_. + + + + +CONTENTS + +Chapter + I. HARD YOUNG HEARTS. + II. CONCERNING THOSE "ATLANTIC LINERS" AND AN OLD DESK. + III. OF THE LOVE OF HENRY AND ESTHER. + IV. OF THE PROFESSIONS THAT CHOOSE, AND MIKE LAFLIN. + V. OF THE LOVE OF ESTHER AND MIKE, AND THE MESURIER LAW IN REGARD TO + "SWEETHEARTS". + VI. THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF HOME. + VII. A LINK WITH CIVILISATION. + VIII. A RHAPSODY OF TYRE. + IX. A PENITENTIARY OF THE MATHEMATICS. + X. THE GRASS BETWEEN THE FLAG-STONES. + XI. HUMANITY IN HIGH PLACES. + XII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS. + XIII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS AT THE THEATRE. + XIV. CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS A GENEALOGY. + XV. MERELY A HUMBLE INTERRUPTION AND ILLUSTRATION OF THE LAST. + XVI. CHAPTER FOURTEEN CONCLUDED. + XVII. DOT'S DECISION. + XVIII. MIKE AND HIS MILLION POUNDS. + XIX. ON CERTAIN ADVANTAGES OF A BACKWATER. + XX. THE MAN IN POSSESSION. + XXI. LITTLE MISS FLOWER. + XXII. MIKE'S FIRST LAURELS. + XXIII. THE MOTHER OF AN ANGEL. + XXIV. AN ANCIENT THEORY OF HEAVEN. + XXV. THE LAST CONTINUED, AFTER A BRIEF INTERVAL. + XXVI. CONCERNING THE BEST KIND OF WIFE FOR A POET. + XXVII. THE BOOK OF ANGELICA. + XXVIII. WHAT COMES OF PUBLISHING A BOOK. + XXIX. MIKE'S TURN TO MOVE. + XXX. UNCHARTERED FREEDOM. + XXXI. A PREPOSTEROUS AUNT. + XXXII. THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN IN THE BACK PARLOUR. + XXXIII. "THIS IS LONDON, THIS IS LIFE". + XXXIV. THE WITS. + XXXV. BACK TO REALITY. + XXXVI. THE OLD HOME MEANWHILE. + XXXVII. STAGE WAITS, MR. LAFLIN. +XXXVIII. ESTHER AND HENRY ONCE MORE. + XXXIX. MIKE AFAR. + XL. A LEGACY MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD. + XLI. LABORIOUS DAYS. + XLII. A HEAVIER FOOTFALL. + XLIII. STILL ANOTHER CALLER. + XLIV. THE END OF A BEGINNING. + + + + +YOUNG LIVES + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +HARD YOUNG HEARTS + +Behind the Venetian blinds of a respectable middle-class, +fifty-pound-a-year, "semi-detached," "family" house, in a respectable +middle-class road of the little north-county town of Sidon, midway +between the trees of wealth upon the hill, and the business quarters +that ended in squalor on the bank of the broad and busy river,--a house +boasting a few shabby trees of its own, in its damp little rockeried +slips of front and back gardens,--on a May evening some ten or twelve +years ago, a momentous crisis of contrasts had been reached. + +The house was still as for a battle. It was holding its breath to hear +what was going on in the front parlour, the door of which seemed to wear +an expression of being more than usually closed. A mournful half-light +fell through a little stained-glass vestibule into a hat-racked hall, on +the walls of which hung several pictures of those great steamships known +as "Atlantic liners" in big gilt frames--pictures of a significance +presently to be noted. A beautiful old eight-day clock ticked solemnly +to the flickering of the hall lamp. From below came occasionally a +furtive creaking of the kitchen stairs. The two servants were half way +up them listening. The stairs a flight above the hall also creaked at +intervals. Two young girls, respectively about fourteen and fifteen, +were craning necks out of nightdresses over the balusters in a shadowy +angle of the staircase. On the floor above them three other little girls +of gradually diminishing ages slept, unconscious of the issues being +decided between their big brother and their eldest sister on the one +side, and their father and mother on the other, in the front +parlour below. + +That parlour, a room of good size, was unostentatiously furnished with +good bourgeois mahogany. A buxom mahogany chiffonier, a large square +dining-table, a black marble clock with two dials, one being a +barometer, three large oil landscapes of exceedingly umbrageous trees +and glassy lakes, inoffensively uninteresting, more Atlantic liners, and +a large bookcase, apparently filled with serried lines of bound +magazines, and an excellent Brussels carpet of quiet pattern, were +mainly responsible for a general effect of middle-class comfort, in +which, indeed, if beauty had not been included, it had not been wilfully +violated, but merely unthought of. The young people for whom these +familiar objects meant a symbolism deep-rooted in their earliest +memories could hardly in fairness have declared anything positively +painful in that room--except perhaps those Atlantic liners; their +charges against furniture, which was unconsciously to them accumulating +memories that would some day bring tears of tenderness to their eyes, +could only have been negative. Beauty had been left out, but at least +ugliness had not been ostentatiously called in. There was no bad taste. + +In fact, whatever the individual character of each component object, +there was included in the general effect a certain indefinable dignity, +which had doubtless nothing to do with the mahogany, but was probably +one of those subtle atmospheric impressions which a room takes from the +people who habitually live in it. Had you entered that room when it was +empty, you would instinctively have felt that it was accustomed to the +occupancy of calm and refined people. There was something almost +religious in its quiet. Some one often sat there who, whatever his +commonplace disguises as a provincial man of business, however +inadequate to his powers the work life had given him to do, provincial +and humiliating as were the formulae with which narrowing conditions had +supplied him for expression of himself, was in his central being an +aristocrat,--though that was the very last word James Mesurier would +have thought of applying to himself. He was a man of business, serving +God and his employers with stern uprightness, and bringing up a large +family with something of the Puritan severity which had marked his own +early training; and, as in his own case no such allowance had been made, +making no allowance in his rigid abstract code for the diverse +temperaments of his children,--children in whom certain qualities and +needs of his own nature, dormant from his birth, were awakening, +supplemented by the fuller-fed intelligence and richer nature of the +mother, into expansive and rebellious individualities. + +It was now about eleven o'clock, and the house was thus lit and alive +half-an-hour beyond the rigorously enforced bed-time. An hour before, +James Mesurier had been peacefully engaged on the task which had been +nightly with him at this hour for twenty-five years,--the writing of his +diary, in a shorthand which he wrote with a neatness, almost a +daintiness, that always marked his use of pen and ink, and gave to his +merely commercial correspondence and his quite exquisitely kept +accounts, a certain touch of the scholar,--again an air of distinction +in excess of, and unaccounted for, by the nature of the interests which +it dignified. + +His somewhat narrow range of reading, had you followed it by his careful +markings through those bound volumes of sermons in the bookcase, bore +the same evidence of inherited and inadequately occupied refinement. His +life from boyhood had been too much of a struggle to leave him much +leisure for reading, and such as he had enjoyed had been diverted into +evangelical channels by the influence of a certain pious old lady, with +whom as a young man he had boarded, and for whose memory all his life +he cherished a reverence little short of saint-worship. + +The name of Mrs. Quiggins, whose portrait had still a conspicuous niche +among the _lares_ of the household,--a little thin silvery old +widow-lady, suggesting great sadness, much gentleness, and a little +severity,--had thus become for the family of James Mesurier a symbol of +sanctity, with which a properly accredited saint of the calendar could +certainly not, in that Protestant home, have competed. It was she who +had given him that little well-worn Bible which lay on the table with +his letters and papers, as he wrote under the lamplight, and than which +a world full of sacred relics contains none more sacred. A business-like +elastic band encircled its covers, as a precaution against pages +becoming loose with much turning; and inside you would have found +scarcely a chapter unpencilled,--texts underlined, and sermons of +special helpfulness noted by date and preacher on the margin,--the +itinerary of a devout human soul on its way through this world to +the next. + +The Bible and the sermons of a certain famous Nonconformist Divine of +the day were James Mesurier's favourite and practically his only +reading, at this time; though as a young man he had picked up a fair +education for himself, and had taken a certain interest in modern +history. For novels he had not merely disapproval, but absolutely no +taste. Once in a specially genial mood he had undertaken to try +"Ivanhoe," to please his favourite daughter,--this night in revolt +against him,--and in half-an-hour he had been surprised with laughter, +sound asleep. The sermon that would send him to sleep had never been +written, at all events by his favourite theologian, whose sermons he +read every Sunday afternoon, and annotated with that same loving +appreciation and careful pencil with which a scholar annotates some +classic; so true is it that it is we who dignify our occupations, +not they us. + +Similarly, James Mesurier presided over the destinies of a large +commercial undertaking, with the air of one who had been called rather +to direct an empire than a business. You would say as he went by, "There +goes one accustomed to rule, accustomed to be regarded with great +respect;" but that air had been his long before the authority that once +more inadequately accounted for it. + +Thus this night, as he sat writing, his handsome, rather small, +iron-grey head bent over his papers, his face somewhat French in +character, his short beard slightly pointed; distinguished, refined, +severe; he had the look of a marshal of France engrossed with +documents of state. + +The mother, who sat in an armchair by the fire, reading, was a woman of +about forty-five, with a fine blonde, aquiline face, distinctively +English, and radiating intelligence from its large sympathetic lines. +She was in some respects so different from her husband as at times to +make children precociously wise--but nevertheless, far from knowing +everything--wonder why she had ever married their father, for whom, at +that time, it would be hypocrisy to describe their attitude as one of +love. To them he was not so much a father as the policeman of home,--a +personification of stern negative decrees, a systematic thwarter of +almost everything they most cared to do. He was a sort of embodied "Thou +shalt not," only to be won into acquiescence by one influence,--that of +the mother, whose married life, as she looked back on it, seemed to +consist of little else than bringing children into the world, with a +Christian-like regularity, and interceding with the father for their +varying temperaments when there. + +Though it might have been regarded as certain beforehand, that seven +children would differ each from each other in at least as many ways, it +never seems to have occurred to the father that one inflexible system +for them all could hardly be wise or comfortable. But, indeed, like so +many parents similarly trained and circumstanced, it is questionable +whether he ever realised their possession of separate individualities +till they were pleaded for by the mother, or made, as on this evening, +surprising assertion of themselves. + +Though this system of mediation had been responsible for the only +disagreements in their married life, there had never been any long or +serious difference between husband and wife; for, in spite of natures so +different, they loved each other with that love which is given us for +the very purpose of such situations, the love that no strain can snap, +the love that reconciles all such disparities. Though Mary Mesurier had +also been brought up among Nonconformists, and though the conditions of +her youth, like her husband's, had been far from adequate to the +demands of her nature, yet her religion had been of a gentler character, +broadening instead of narrowing in its effects, and had concerned itself +less with divinity than humanity. Her home life, if humble, had been +genial and rich in love, and there had come into it generous influences +from the outer world,--books with more of the human beat in them than is +to be found in sermons; and particularly an old travelled grandfather +who had been regarded as the rolling stone of his family, but in whom, +at all events, failure and travel had developed a great gentleness and +understanding of the human creature, which in long walks and talks with +his little grand-daughter somehow passed over into her young character, +and proved the best legacy he could have left her. Through him too was +encouraged a native love of poetry, of which in her childhood her memory +acquired a stock which never failed her, and which had often cheered her +lonely hours by successive cradles. She had a fine natural gift of +recitation, and in evening hours when the home was particularly united +in some glow of visitors or birthday celebration, she would be persuaded +to recall some of those old songs and simple apologues, with such charm +that even her husband, to whom verse was naturally an incomprehensible +triviality, was visibly softened, and perhaps, deep in the sadness of +his silent nature, moved to a passing realisation of a certain something +kind and musical in life which he had strangely missed. + +This greater breadth of temperament and training enabled Mary Mesurier +to understand and make allowances for the narrower and harder nature of +her husband, whom she learnt in time rather to pity for the bleakness of +his early days, than to condemn for their effect upon his character. He +was strong, good, clever, and handsome, and exceptionally all those four +good reasons for loving him; and the intellectual sympathy, the sharing +of broader interests, which she sometimes missed in him, she had for +some three or four years come to find in her eldest son, who, to his +father's bewilderment and disappointment, had reincarnated his own +strong will, in connection with literary practices and dreams which +threatened to end in his becoming a poet, instead of the business man +expected of him, for which development that love of poetry in one +parent, and a certain love of books in both, was no doubt to some degree +guiltily responsible. + +James Mesurier, as we have said, was no judge of poetry; and, had he +been so, a reading of his son's early effusions would have made him +still more obdurate in the choice for him of a commercial career; but on +general principles he was quite sufficiently firm against any but the +most non-committing, leisure-hour flirtation with the Muse. The mother, +while agreeing with the father's main proposition of the undesirability, +nay, impossibility, of literature as a livelihood,--had not the great +and successful Sir Walter himself described it as a good walking-stick, +but a poor crutch; a stick applied, since its first application as an +image, to the shoulders of how many generations of youthful genius,--was +naturally more sympathetic towards her son's ambition, and encouraged it +to the extent of helping from her housekeeping money the formation of +his little library, even occasionally proving successful in winning sums +of money from the father for the purchase of some book specially, as the +young man would declare, necessary for his development. + +As this little library had outgrown the accommodation of the common +rooms, a daring scheme had been conceived between mother and son,--no +less than that he should have a small room set apart for himself as a +study. When first broached to the father, this scheme had met with an +absolute denial that seemed to promise no hope of further consideration; +but the mother, accepting defeat at the time, had tried again and again, +with patient dexterity at favourable moments, till at last one proud day +the little room, with its bookshelves, a cast of Dante, and a strange +picture or two, was a beautiful, significant fact--all ready for the +possible visitation of the Muse. + +In such ways had the mother negotiated the needs of all her children; +though the youth of the rest--save the eldest girl, whose music lessons +had meant a battle, and whose growing attractiveness for the boys of the +district, and one in particular, was presently to mean another--made as +yet but small demands. In one question, however, periodically fruitful +of argument, even the youngest was becoming interested,--the question of +the visits to the household of the various friends and playmates of the +children. To these, it must be admitted, James Mesurier was apt to be +hardly less of a figure of fear than to his own children; for, apart +from the fact that such inroads from without were apt to disturb his few +quiet evening hours with rollicking and laughter, he, being entirely +unsocial in his own nature, had a curious idea that the family should be +sufficient to itself, and that the desire for any form of entertainment +outside it was a sign of dissatisfaction with God's gifts of a good +home, and generally a frivolity to be discouraged. + +As a boy he had grown up without companions, and as a man had remained +lonely, till he had met in his wife the one comrade of his days. What +had been good enough for their father should be good enough for his +children, was a formula which he applied all round to their bringing up, +curiously forgetful, for a man at heart so just, of the pleasure one +would have expected it to be to make sure that the errors of his own +training were not repeated in that of his offspring. But, indeed, there +was in him constitutionally something of the Puritan suspicion of, and +aversion from, pleasure, which it had never occurred to him to consider +as the end of, or, indeed, as a considerable element of existence. Life +was somehow too serious for play, spiritually as well as materially; and +much work and a little rest was the eternal and, on the whole, salutary +lot of man. + +Such were some of the conditions among which the young Mesuriers found +themselves, and of which their impatience had become momentously +explosive this February evening. + +For some days there had been an energetic simmer of rebellion among the +four elder children against a new edict of early rising which was surely +somewhat arbitrary. Early rising was one of James Mesurier's articles of +faith; and he was always up and dressed by half-past six, though there +was no breakfast till eight, and absolutely no necessity for his rising +at that hour beyond his own desire. There was still less, indeed none at +all, for his children to rise thus early; but nevertheless he had +recently decreed that such, for the future, must be the rule. The rule +fell heaviest upon the sisters, for the elder brother had always enjoyed +a certain immunity from such edicts. His sense of justice, however, +kindled none the less at this final piece of tyranny. He blazed and +fumed indignantly on behalf of his sisters, in the sanctuary of that +little study,--a spot where the despot seldom set foot; and out of this +comparatively trivial cause had sprung a mighty resolution, which he and +she whom he proudly honoured as "sister and friend" had, after some +girding of the loins, repaired to the front parlour this evening to +communicate. + +They had entered somewhat abruptly, and stood rather dramatically by the +table on which the father was writing,--the son with dark set face, in +which could be seen both the father and mother, and the daughter, timid +and close to him, resolutely keeping back her tears, a slim young copy +of the mother. + +"Well, my dears?" said the father, looking up with a keen, rather +surprised glance, and in a tone which qualified with some severity the +"my dears." + +The son had had some exceedingly fine beginnings in his head, but they +fled ignominiously with the calm that was necessary for their successful +delivery, and he blurted at once to the point. + +"We have come to say that we are no longer comfortable at home, and have +decided to leave it." + +"Henry," exclaimed the mother, hastily, "what do you mean, how can you +be so ungrateful?" + +"Mary, my dear," interrupted the father, "please leave the matter to +me." Then turning to the son: "What is this you are saying? I'm afraid I +don't understand." + +"I mean that Esther and I have decided to leave home and live together; +because it is impossible for us to live here any longer in happiness--" + +"On what do you propose to live?" + +"My salary will be sufficient for the present." + +"Sixty pounds a year!" + +"Yes!" + +"And may I ask what is wrong with your home? You have every comfort--far +more than your mother or father were accustomed to." + +"Yes, indeed!" echoed the mother. + +"Yes, we know you are very good and kind, and mean everything for our +good; but you don't understand other needs of our natures, and you make +no allowance for our individualities--" + +"Indeed! Individualities--I should like you to have heard what my +father would have said to talk about individualities. A rope's end would +have been his answer to that--" + +"It would have been a very silly one, and no argument." + +"It would have been effective, at all events." + +"Not with me--" + +"Well, please don't bandy words with me, sir. If you," particularly +addressing his son, "wish to go--then go; but remember that once you +have left your father's roof, you leave it for ever. As for your sister, +she has no power to leave her mother and father without my consent, and +that I shall certainly withhold till she is of a proper age to know what +is best for herself--" + +"She will go then without your consent," defiantly answered the son. + +"Oh, Henry, for shame!" exclaimed Mrs. Mesurier. + +"Mother dear, I'm sorry,--we don't mean to be disrespectful or +undutiful,--but father's petty tyrannies are more than we can bear. He +objects to the friends we care for; he denies us the theatre--" + +"Most certainly, and shall continue to do so. I have never been inside a +theatre in my life; nor, with my consent, shall any child of mine enter +one of them." + +"You can evidently know little about them then, and you'd be a much +finer man if you had," flashed out the son. + +"Your sitting in judgment on your father is certainly very pretty, I +must say,"--answered the father,--"very pretty; and I can only hope that +you will not have cause to regret it some future day. But I cannot allow +you to disturb me," for, with something of a pang, Henry noticed signs +of agitation amid the severity of his parent, though the matter was too +momentous for him to allow the indulgence of pity. + +"You have been a source of much anxiety to your mother and me, a child +of many prayers;" the father continued. "Whether it is the books you +read, or the friends you associate with, that are responsible for your +strange and, to my thinking, impious opinions, I do not know; but this I +know, that your influence on your sister has not of late been for good, +and for her sake, and the sake of your young sisters, it may perhaps be +well that your influence in the home be removed--" + +"Oh, James," exclaimed the wife. + +"Mary, my dear, you must let me finish. If Henry will go, go he shall; +but if he still stays, he must learn that I am master in this house, and +that while I remain so, not he, but I shall dictate how it is to be +carried on." + +It was at this point that Esther ventured to lift the girlish tremor of +her voice. + +"But, father, if you'll forgive my saying so, I think it would be best +for another reason for us to go. There are too many of us. We haven't +room to grow. We get in each other's way. And then it would ease you; it +would be less expense--" + +"When I complain of having to support my children, it will be time to +speak of that--" + +"But you have complained," hotly interrupted the son; "you have +reproached us many a time for what we cost you for clothes and food--" + +"Yes, when you have shown yourselves ungrateful for them, as you do +to-night--" + +"Ungrateful! For what should we be grateful? That you do your bare duty +of feeding and clothing us, and even for that, expect, in my case at all +events, that I shall prove so much business capital invested for the +future. Was it we who asked to come into the world? Did you consult us, +or did you beget us for anything but your own selfish pleasure, without +a thought--" + +Henry got no further. His father had grown white, and, with terrible +anger pointed to the door. + +"Leave the room, sir," he said, "and to-morrow leave my house for ever." + +The son was not cowed. He stood with an unflinching defiance before the +father, in whom he forgot the father and saw only the tyrant. For a +moment it seemed as if some unnatural blow would be struck; but so much +of pain was spared the future memory of the scene, and saying only, "It +is true for all that," he turned and left the room. The sister followed +him in silence, and the door closed. + +Mother and father looked at each other. They had brought up children, +they had suffered and toiled for them,--that they should talk to them +like this! Mrs. Mesurier came over to her husband, and put her arm +tenderly on his shoulder. + +"Never mind, dear. I'm sure he didn't mean to talk like that. He is a +good boy at heart, but you don't understand each other." + +"Mary dear, we will talk no more of it to-night," he replied; "I will +try and put it from me. You go to bed. I will finish my diary, and be +up in a few minutes." + +When he was alone, he sat still a little while, with a great lonely pain +on his face, and almost visibly upon it too the smart of the wounded +pride of his haughty nature. Never in his life had he been spoken to +like that,--and by his own son! The pang of it was almost more than he +could bear. But presently he had so far mastered himself as to take up +his pen and continue his writing. When that was finished, he opened his +Bible and read his wonted chapter. It was just the simple twenty-third +psalm: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." It was his favourite +psalm, and always had a remarkable tranquillising effect upon him. James +Mesurier's faith in God was very great. Then he knelt down and prayed in +silence,--prayed with a great love for his disobedient children; and, +when he rose from his knees, anger and pain had been washed away from +his face, and a serenity that is not of this world was there instead. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +CONCERNING THOSE "ATLANTIC LINERS" AND +AN OLD DESK + +Of all battles in this complicated civil warfare of human life, none is +more painful than that being constantly waged from generation to +generation between young and old, and none, it would appear, more +inevitable, or indeed necessary. "The good gods sigh for the cost and +pain," and as, growing older ourselves, we become spectators of such a +conflict, with eyes able to see the real goodness and truth of both +combatants, how often must we exclaim: "Oh, just for a little touch of +sympathetic comprehension on either side!" + +And yet, after all, it is from the older generation that we have a right +to expect that. If that vaunted "experience" with which they are +accustomed to extinguish the voice of the young means anything, it +should surely include some knowledge of the needs of expanding youth, +and be prepared to meet them, not in a spirit of despotic denial, but in +that of thoughtful provision. The young cannot afford to be generous, +even if they possess the necessary insight. It would mean their losing +their battle,--a battle very necessary for them to win. + +Sometimes it would seem that a very little kindly explanation on the +part of the elder would set the younger at a point of view where greater +sympathy would be possible. The great demand of the young is for some +form of poetry in their lives and surroundings; and it is largely the +fault of the old if the poetry of one generation is almost invariably +the prose of the next. + +Those "Atlantic liners" are an illustration of my meaning. To the young +Mesuriers they were hideous chromo-lithographs in vulgar gilt frames, +arbitrary defacements of home; but undoubtedly even they would have +found a tolerant tenderness for them, had they realised that they +represented the poetry--long since renounced and put behind him--of +James Mesurier's life. He had come of a race of sea-captains, two of his +brothers had been sailors, and deep down in his heart the spirit of +romance answered, with voice fresh and young as ever, to any breath or +association of the sea. But he seldom, if ever, spoke of it, and only in +an anecdote or two was it occasionally brought to mind. Sometimes his +wife would tease him with the vanity which, on holidays by the sea, +would send him forth on blustering tempestuous nights clad in a +greatcoat of blue pilot-cloth and a sealskin cap, and tell how proud he +was on one occasion, as he stood on the wharf, at being addressed as +"captain," and asked what ship he had brought into port. Even the hard +heart of youth must soften at such a reminiscence. + +Then scattered about the house was many a prosaic bit of furniture which +was musical with memories for the parents,--memories of their first +little homes and their early struggles together. This side-board, now +relegated to the children's play-room, had once been their _pièce de +resistance_ in such and such a street, twelve years ago, before their +children had risen up and--not called them blessed. + +A few years, and the light of poetry will be upon these things for their +children too; but, meanwhile, can we blame them that they cannot accept +the poetry of their elders in exchange for that of their own which they +are impatient to make? And when that poetry is made and resident in +similar concrete objects of home--how will it seem, one wonders, to +their children? This old desk which Esther has been allowed to +appropriate, and in a secret drawer of which are already accumulating +certain love-letters and lavender, will it ever, one wonders, turn to +lumber in younger hands? For a little while she leans her sweet young +bosom against it, and writes scented letters in a girlish hand to a +little red-headed boy who has these past weeks begun to love her. Can it +be possible that the desk on which Esther once wrote to her little Mike +will ever hear itself spoken of as "this ugly old thing"? Let us +hope not. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +OF THE LOVE OF HENRY AND ESTHER + +Father and son had both meant what they said; and even the mother, for +whom it would be the cruellest wrench of all, knew that Henry was going +to leave home. Not literally on the morrow, for the following evening he +had appeared before his father to apologise for the manner--carefully +for the manner, not _the matter_,--in which he had spoken to him the +evening before, and asked for a day or two in which to make his +arrangements for departure. James Mesurier was too strong a man to be +resentful, and he accepted his son's apology with a gentleness that, as +each knew, detracted nothing from the resolution which each had come to. + +"My boy," he said, "you will never have such good friends as your father +and mother; but it is best that you go out into the world to learn it." + +There is something terribly winning and unnerving to the blackest +resolution, when the severity of the strong dissolves for a brief moment +into tenderness. The rare kind words of the stern, explain it as we +will, and unjust as the preference must surely be, one values beyond the +frequent forgivenesses of the gentle. Mary Mesurier would have laid down +her life in defence of her son's greatest fault, and James Mesurier +would as readily have court-martialled him for his smallest, and yet, +somehow, a kind word from him brought the tears to his son's eyes. + +He had no longer the heart to stimulate the rebellion of Esther, as he +felt it his duty to do; and, to her disappointment, he announced that, +on the whole, it would perhaps be best for him to go alone. + +"It would almost kill poor mother," he said; "and father means well +after all," he added. + +"I'm afraid it would break father's heart," said Esther. + +So these two young people agreed to spare their parents, though--let it +not be otherwise imagined--at a great sacrifice. The little paper on +which they had carefully worked out their housekeeping, skilfully +allotting so much for rent, butcher's meat, milk, coals, and washing, +and making "everything" come most optimistically to _£59 17s. 9d._ a +year, would be of no use now, at all events for the present. Their +little Charles and Mary Lamb dream must be laid aside--for, of course, +they had thought of Charles and Mary Lamb; and indeed, out beyond this +history of a few youthful years, their friendship was to prove itself +far from unworthy of its famous model. + +Yet at this time it was of no great antiquity; for, but a very few years +back, Henry had been a miniature tyrant too, and ruled it over his +kingdom of six sisters with all the hideous egoism of a pampered "son +and heir." Although in the very middle class of society into which Henry +Mesurier was born, the dignity of eldest son is one but very +contingently connected with tangible inheritance, it is none the less +vigorously kept up; and, no doubt, without any consciousness of +partiality, Henry Mesurier, from his childhood, had been brought up to +regard himself as a sort of young prince, for whom all the privileges of +home were, by divine right, reserved. For example, he took his meals +with his parents fully five years before any of his sisters were +allowed to do so; and for retention of this privilege, when at length +the democratic measure of its extension to his two elder sisters was +proposed, he fought with the bitterest spirit of caste. Indeed, few +oligarchs have been more wildly hated than Henry Mesurier up to the age, +say, of fourteen. That was the age of his last thrashing, and it was in +the gloomy dusk of that momentous occasion, as he lay alone with +smarting back in the twilight of an unusually early bed-time, that a +possible new view of woman--as a creature of like passions and +privileges--presented itself to him. + +His thrashing had been so unjustly severe, that even the granite little +hearts of his sisters had been softened; and Esther, managing to secrete +a cake that he loved from the tea that was lost to him, stole with it to +the top of the house, where he writhed amid lonely echoes and shadows. + +She had brought it to him awkwardly, by no means sure of its reception, +but sure in her heart that she would hate him for ever, if he missed the +meaning of the little solatium. But fortunately his back was far too +sore, and his spirit too broken to remember his pride, and he accepted +the offering with gratitude and tears. + +"Kiss me, Esther," he had said; and a wonderful thrill had gone through +the little girl at this strange softness in the mighty, while the dawn +of a wonderful pity for the lot of woman had, unconsciously, broken in +the soul of the boy. + +"Kiss me again, Esther," he had said, and, with the tears that mingled +in that kiss, an eternal friendship was baptized. + +Henry rose on the morrow a changed being. The grosser pretensions of the +male had fallen from him for ever, and there was at first something +almost awe-inspiring to his sisters in the gentle solicitude for them +and their rights and pleasures which replaced the old despotism. From +that time, Esther and he became closer and closer companions, and as +they more and more formed an oligarchy of two, a rearrangement of +parties in the little parliament of home came about, to be upset again +as Dot and Mat qualified for admission into that exclusive +little circle. + +So soon as Henry had a new dream or a new thought, he shared it with +Esther; and freely as he had received from Carlyle, or Emerson, or +Thoreau, freely he passed it on to her. For the gloomiest occasion he +had some strengthening text, and one of the last things he did before he +left home was to make for her a little book which he called "Faith for +Cloudy Days," consisting of energising and sustaining phrases from +certain great writers,--as it were, a bottle of philosophical phosphates +against seasons of spiritual cowardice or debility. There one opened and +read: "_Sudden the worst turns best to the brave_" or Thoreau's "_I have +yet to hear a single word of wisdom spoken to me by my elders,_" or +again Matthew Arnold's + + "_Tasks in hours of insight willed + May be through hours of gloom fulfilled_." + +James Mesurier knew nothing of all this; but if he had, he might have +understood that after all his children were not so far from the kingdom +of heaven. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +OF THE PROFESSIONS THAT CHOOSE, AND +MIKE LAFLIN + +However we may hint at its explanation by theories of inheritance, it +still remains curious with what unerring instinct a child of character +will from the first, and when it is so evidently ignorant of the field +of choice, select, out of all life's occupations and distinctions, one +special work it hungers to do, one special distinction that to it seems +the most desirable of earthly honours. That Mary Mesurier loved poetry, +and James Mesurier sermons, in face of the fact that so many mothers and +fathers have done the same with no such result, hardly seems adequate to +account for the peculiar glamour which, almost before he could read, +there was for Henry Mesurier in any form of print. While books were +still being read to him, there had already come into his mind, +unaccountably, as by outside suggestion, that there could be nothing so +splendid in the world as to write a book for one's self. To be either a +soldier, a sailor, an architect, or an engineer, would, doubtless, have +its fascinations as well; but to make a real printed book, with your +name in gilt letters outside, was real romance. + +At that early day, and for a long while after, the boy had no preference +for any particular kind of book. It was an entirely abstract passion for +print and paper. To have been the author of "The Iliad" or of Beeton's +"Book of Household Recipes" would have given him almost the same +exaltation of authorship; and the thrill of worship which came over him +when, one early day, a man who had actually had an article on the sugar +bounties accepted by a commercial magazine was pointed out to him in the +street, was one he never forgot; nor in after years did he ever +encounter that transfigured contributor without an involuntary +recurrence of that old feeling of awe. No subsequent acquaintance with +editorial rooms ever led him into materialistic explanations of that +enchanted piece of work--a newspaper. The editors might do their +best--and succeed surprisingly--in looking like ordinary mortals, you +might even know the leader-writers, and, with the very public, gaze +through gratings into the subterranean printing-rooms,--the mystery none +the less remained. No exposure of editorial staffs or other machinery +could destroy the sense of enchantment, as no amount of anatomy or +biology can destroy the mystery of the human miracle. + +So I suppose Nature first makes us in love with the tools we are to use, +long before we have a thought upon what we shall use them. Perhaps the +first desire of the born writer is to be a compositor. Out of the love +of mere type quickly evolves a love of mere words for their own sake; +but whether we shall make use of them as a historian, novelist, +philosopher, or poet, is a secondary consideration, a mere afterthought. +To Henry Mesurier had already come the time when the face of life began +to Wear a certain aspect, the peculiar attraction of which for himself +he longed to fix, a certain mystical importance attaching to the +commonest every-day objects and circumstances, a certain ecstatic +quality in the simplest experiences; but even so far as it had been +revealed, this dawning vision of the world seemed only to have come to +him, not so much to find expression, as to mock him with his childish +incapacity adequately to use the very tools he loved. He would hang for +hours over some scene in nature, caught in a woodland spell, like a +nympholept of old; but when he tried to put in words what he had seen, +what a poor piece of ornamental gardening the thing was! There were +trees and birds and grass, to be sure; but there was nothing of that +meaning look which they had worn, that look of being tiptoe with +revelation which is one of the most fascinating tricks of the visible +world, and which even a harsh town full of chimneys can sometimes take +on when seen in given moments and lights. And it was astonishing to see +into what lifeless imitative verse his most original and passionate +moments could be transformed. + +Still some unreasonably indulgent spirit of the air, that had evidently +not read his manuscripts, whispered him to be of good cheer: the +lifeless words would not always be lifeless, some day the birds would +sing in his verses too. This sense of failure did not, it must be said, +immediately follow composition; for, for a little while the original +expression of the thing seen reinforced with reflected significance its +pale copy. It was only some weeks after, when the written copy was left +to do all the work itself, that its foolish inadequacy was exposed. + +"However, there is one consolation, they are not worse than Keats and +Shelley wrote at the same age," he said to himself, as he looked through +a bundle of the poor things the evening before his room was to be +dismantled. "Indeed, they couldn't be," he added, with a smile. +Fortunately he was but nineteen as yet; would he venture on a like +comparison were he twenty-five? + +Yes, his little room was to be dismantled on the morrow,--this first +little private chapel of his spirit. This fair order of shelves, this +external harmony answering to an inner harmony of his spirit, were to be +broken up for ever. Often as he had sat in the folioed lamplit nook +which was, as it were, the very chancel of the little church, and gazed +in an ecstasy at the books, each with a great shining name of fame upon +its cover, it had seemed as though he had put his very soul outside him, +externalised it in this little corner of books and pictures. His soul +shivered, as one who must go houseless awhile, at the thought that +to-morrow its home would be no more. When and how would be its +reincarnation? More magnificent, maybe, but never this again. It was +sacrilege,--was it not ingratitude too? When once more the books and the +pictures began to form into a new harmony, there would be no mother's +love to help the work go on.... + +But as he mused in this no doubt sentimental fashion, the door opened +and the little red-headed Mike entered. His was a little Flibbertigibbet +of a face, already lined with the practice of mimicry; and there was in +it a very attractive blending of tenderness and humour. Mike was also +one of those whom life at the beginning had impressed with the delight +of one kind of work and no other. When a mere imp of a boy, the +heartless tormentor of a large and sententious stepmother, the despair +of schoolmasters, the most ingenious of truants, a humorous ragamuffin +invulnerable to punishment, it was already revealed to him that his +mission in life was to be the observation and reproduction of human +character, particularly in its humorous aspects. To this end Nature had +gifted him with a face that was capable of every form of transformation, +and at an early age he hastened to put it in training. All day long he +was pulling faces. As an artist will sketch everything he comes across, +so Mike would endeavour to imitate any characteristic expression or +attitude, animate or inanimate, in the world around him. Dogs, little +boys, and grotesque old men were his special delight, and of all his +elders he had, it goes without saying, a private gallery of irreverently +faithful portraits. + +In addition to his plastic face, Nature had given him a larynx which was +capable of imitating every human and inhuman sound. To squeak like a +pig, bark like a dog, low like a cow, and crow like a cock, were the +veriest juvenilia of his attainments; and he could imitate the buzzing +of a fly so cunningly that flies themselves have often been deceived. It +was this delight in imitation for its own sake, and not so much that he +had been caught by the usual allurements of the theatre, that he looked +upon the career of an actor as his natural and ultimate calling. It was +already privately whispered in the little circle that Mike would some +day go on the stage. But don't tell that as yet to old Mr. Laflin, +whatever you do. + +There was a good deal more in Mike than pulling faces, as Esther +recently, and Henry before her, had discovered. His acting was some day +to stir the hearts of audiences, because he had instincts for knowing +human nature inside as well as out, knew the secret springs of tears, as +well as the open secrets of laughter; and it was rather on this common +ground of a rich "many-veined humanity" that these two had met and +become friends, rather than on any real community of tastes and ideas. +Yet Mike loved books too, and had an excellent taste in them, though +perhaps he had hardly loved them, had not Henry and Esther loved them +first, and it is quite certain, and quite proper, that he never found a +page of any book so fascinating as the face of some lined and battered +human being. Over that writing he was never found asleep. + +There was one other literary matter on which he held a very personal and +unshakable opinion,--Henry Mesurier's future as a poet; and on this he +came just in the nick of time to cheer him this evening. + +"The next move will be to London, old fellow," he said; "and then you'll +soon see my prophecies come true. My opinion mayn't be worth much, but +you know what it is. You'll be a great writer some day, never fear." + +"Thank you, dear old boy. And you know what I think about your acting, +don't you?" + +Then it was that Esther appeared, and Henry made some transparent excuse +to leave them awhile together. + +"You dear old thing," said Esther, kissing him, "now don't stay away too +long." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +OF THE LOVE OF ESTHER AND MIKE, AND +THE MESURIER LAW IN REGARD TO +"SWEETHEARTS" + +I'm afraid Esther was little more than fourteen when she had first seen +and fallen in love with Mike. She had heard much of him from her +brother; but, for one reason or another, he had never been to the house. +One evening, however, at a concert, Henry had told her to look in a +certain direction and she would see Mike. + +"I don't suppose you'll call him good looking," he said. + +So Esther had looked round, and seen the pretty curly red hair and the +eager little wistful humorous face for the first time. + +"Why, he's got a lovely little face!" she said, blushing deeply for no +reason at all,--except perhaps that there had seemed something pleading +and shelter-seeking in that little face, something that cried out to be +"mothered," and that instantly there had welled up in her heart a great +warm wish that some day she might be that for it and more. + +And at the same instant it had occurred to the boy, that the face thus +turned to him for a moment was the loveliest face he had ever seen, the +only lovely face he would ever care to see. But with that thought, too, +had come a curious pang of hopelessness into his heart. For Esther +Mesurier was one of those girls who are the prizes of men. With all +those pretty tall fellows about her, it was unlikely indeed that she +would care for a little red-headed, face-pulling ragamuffin like him! +And yet if she never could care for him,--never, never at all, what a +lonely place the world would be! + +When, after the concert, Henry looked round to introduce Mike to his +sister, he had somehow slipped away and was nowhere to be seen. + +However, it was not long after this that Mike paid a visit to Henry's +study one evening, and, coming ostensibly to look at his books, once +more saw his sister, and spoke to her a brief introductory word. His +interest in literature became positively remarkable from this time; and +the enthusiasm with which his actor's mind reflected, and, no doubt in +all good faith, mimicked the various philosophical and literary +enthusiasms of his friend, was, though neither realised it, a sure +earnest of his future. More and more frequent visits to that study +became necessary for its gratification; and, in the course of one of +them, Mike confessed to Henry that he loved his sister, previously +piling upon himself many anticipatory terms of ignominy for daring to do +so presumptuous a thing. Henry, however, was so taken with the idea +that, in his singleness of mind, he suffered no pang of retrospective +suspicion of his friend's love for himself. Pending Esther's +decision,--and of her mind in the matter, he had something more than a +glimmering,--he welcomed Mike with gladness as a prospective +brother-in-law, and, as soon as he found an opportunity, left them alone +together, returning quite a long time afterwards--to find them +extraordinarily happy, it would appear, at his safe return. + +Esther and Mike had thus been fortunate enough to get that important +question of a mate settled quite early in life, and to be saved from +those arduous and desolating experiments in being fitted with a heart +which so many less happy people have to go through. But this happy fact +was as yet a secret beyond this strict circle of three; for, strange as +it may sound, the beautiful attraction of a girl for a boy, the +beautiful worship of a boy for a girl, were matters not even mentionable +as yet in the Mesurier household. For a child, particularly a girl, +under twenty to speak of having a "sweetheart" was an offence which had +a strong savour of disgust in it, even for Mrs. Mesurier, broad-minded +as in most matters she was. + +So far as the only decent theory of the relations of the sexes was +involuntarily explicit, by virtue of certain explosions on the subject, +it was something like this: That, at a certain age, say twenty-one, or, +for leniency, twenty, as it were on the striking of a clock, the young +girl, who previously had been profoundly and inexpressibly unconscious +that the male being existed, would suddenly sit up wide awake in an +attitude of attention to offers of marriage; and that, similarly, the +young man, who had meanwhile lived with his eyes shut and his senses +asleep, would jump up also at the striking of a clock, and, as it were, +with hilarity, say, "It is high time I chose a wife," and thereupon +begin to look about, among the streets and tennis-parties known to him, +for that impossible paragon,--a wife to satisfy both his parents. + +One or two of Henry's earliest troubles and most drastic punishments had +come of a propensity to "sweethearts," developed at an indecorously +early age, and in fact at the time of which I write he could barely +recall the name of Miss This or Miss The Other by the association of +ancient physical pangs suffered for their sake. The greatest danger to +such contraband passions was undoubtedly the post; for, in the Mesurier +household, a more than Russian censorship was exercised over the +incoming and--as far as it could be controlled--the outgoing mail. One +old morning, at family breakfast, which the subsequent events of the +evening were to fix on his mind, Henry Mesurier had grown white with +fear, as the stupid maid had handed him a fat letter addressed in a +sprawling school-girl's hand. + +"Who is your letter from, Henry?" asked the father. + +Henry blushed and boggled. + +"Pass it over to me." + +Resistance was worse than useless. As in war-time a woman will see her +husband set up against a wall and shot before her face, as a +conspirator sees the hands of the police close upon papers of the most +terrible secrecy, so did Henry watch that scented little package pass +with a sense of irrevocable loss into the cold hands of his father. The +father opened it, placed a little white enclosure by the side of his +coffee-cup for further inspection, and then read the letter--full of +"darlings" and "for evers"--with the severe attention he would have +given a business letter. Then he handed it across to the mother without +a word, but with the look one doctor gives another in discovering a new +and terrible symptom in a patient on whom they are consulting. While the +mother read, the father opened the little packet, and out rolled a tiny +plait of silky brown hair tied into a loop with a blue ribbon. + +"Disgusting!" exclaimed the father and mother, simultaneously, to each +other, as though the boy was not there. + +"I am shocked at you, Henry," said the mother. + +"I shall certainly write to the forward little girl's parents," said the +father. + +"Oh, don't do that, father," exclaimed the boy, in terror, and half +wondering if so sweet a thing could really be so criminal. + +"Don't dare to speak to me," said the father. "Leave the +breakfast-table. I will see you again this evening." + +Henry knew too well what the verb "to see" signified under the +circumstances, and the day passed in such apprehensive gloom that it was +a positive relief, when evening had at last come, to feel a walking-cane +about him, at once more snaky and more notched than any previously +applied to his stubborn young frame. Not to cry was, of course, a point +of honour; and as the infuriating absence of tears inflamed the +righteous anger of the parent, the stick splintered and broke with a +crash, in which accident Henry learned he was responsible for a +double offence. + +"I wouldn't have broken that stick for five pounds," said the father, +his interest suddenly withdrawn from his son; "it was given to me by my +old friend Tarporley," which, as can be imagined, was a mighty +satisfaction to the sad small soul, smarting, not merely from the stick, +but from the sense that life held something stupid in its injustice, in +that he was thus being mauled for the most beautiful exalted feeling +that had ever visited his young heart. + +Those dark ages of oppression were long since passed for Henry and +Esther, when Mike began to steal in of an evening to see Esther, and +they were only referred to now and again, anecdotally, as the nineteenth +century looks back at the days of the Holy Inquisition; but still it was +wise to be cautious, for an interdict against Mike's coming to the house +was quite within possibility, even in this comparatively enlightened +epoch; and that would have been even more effective than James +Mesurier's old friend Tarporley's stick of sacred memory. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF HOME + +Recalling for another moment or two the ancient affair of the heart +described in the last chapter, it may pertinently be added that James +Mesurier fulfilled his threat on that occasion, and had in fact written +to the "forward little girl's" parents. Could he have seen the rather +amused reception of his letter, he would have realised with sorrow that +an age of parental leniency, little short of degeneration, was in +certain quarters unmistakably supplanting the stern age of which he was +in a degree an anachronistic survival. That forward little girl's +parents chanced to know James Mesurier enough by sight and reputation to +respect him, while they smiled across to each other at his rather quaint +disciplinarianism. Could Henry Mesurier have seen that smile, he would +not only have felt reassured as to the fate of his little sweetheart, +but have understood that there were temperate zones of childhood, as +well as arctic, when young life waxed gaily to the sound of laughter +and other musical accompaniments. + +This revelation, however, was deferred some few years, till he became +acquainted with the merry family of which Mike Laflin was the +characteristic expression. Old Mr. Laflin was a little, jolly, +bald-headed gentleman, bubbling over with mirth, who liked to have young +people about him, and in his quips and cranks was as young as, and much +cleverer than, any of them. It almost startled Henry on his first +introduction to this family of two daughters and two brothers, where the +father was rather like a brother grown prematurely bald, and the +stepmother supplied with monumental dignity that element of solemnity +without which no properly regulated household is complete, to notice the +_camaraderie_ which prevailed amongst them all. Jokes were flying about +from one to another all the time, and the father made a point of capping +them all. This was home in a liberal sense which the word had never +meant to Henry. Doubtless, it had its own individual restrictions and +censorships; but its surface was at all events debonair, and it was +serviceable to Henry as revealing the existence of more genial social +climates than that in which he had been nurtured--though in making the +comparison with his own atmosphere, he realised that this _bonhomie_ was +nothing more important than a grace. + +Perhaps, nay, very surely, the seriousness, even the severity of, his +own training, had been among the very conditions needed to make him what +he some day hoped to be, though they had seemed so purposely inimical. +Had James Mesurier's religion been more free and easy, a matter less +personally assured and momentous, his son's almost oppressive sense of +the spiritual significance of existence had been less radiant and +constantly supporting. Life might have gained in superficial +liveableness; but it would have lost in intensity, in real importance, +and with that loss would have gone too Henry's chance of being a poet." +The poet in a golden clime was born!"--once and again, maybe, but more +often he comes from a land of iron and tears. + +It is in the nature of things that Henry should begin to appreciate the +services of his home to his development at the moment when he was +leaving it. And the mere pang of the parting from it, when one day the +hour for parting had surely come, was much more deep and complicated +than he could have dreamed. As in our bodies we become conscious of +certain vital centres, certain dependencies of relation and harmony, +only when they have suffered shock, so often in life we may go along +unconscious of the vital dependencies of our human relationships, till +the moment comes to strain or sever them. Then a thousand hidden nerves +quiver at the discovering touch of the knife. Henry's leaving home, +though it had been originally the suggestion of violent feeling, was not +to be an actual severance. His father's "leave my house for ever" had +owed something to the rhetoric of anger, and the expulsion and cutting +off which it had implied had since been so softened as practically to +have disappeared. Henry was certainly not leaving his father's house for +ever, but merely going into lodgings with a friend, with full privileges +to visit his own home as often as he chose. + +Still, he was, all the same, leaving home, and he was the first to leave +it. The mother, at all events, knew that this was the beginning of the +end, knew that, with her first-born's departure (desertion, she may have +called it), a new era had commenced for the home,--the era of +disintegration. For twenty years and more it had been all building and +building; now it would be all just pulling down again; and there was a +dreary sound as of demolition and wind-driven rain in her ears. + +Oh, tragic love of mothers! Of no love is the final loss and doom so +inevitably destined. The husband may desert the wife, but the son is +sure to desert his mother--must, for nature demands the desertion. Put +not your trust in princes--and yet put it rather in princes, oh, fond +and doting parents, than in the blue-eyed flower of childhood for which +year after year, with labours infinite, you would buy all the sunshine +of the world. + +Henry's pang at leaving home was mainly the pang of parting with his +mother. It seemed more than a mere physical parting. It was his +childhood that was parting from her for ever. When he came to see them +he would be something different,--a man, an independent being. As long +ago physically, now spiritually, the umbilical cord had been cut. + +With Esther and Dot and Mat the parting was hardly a parting, as it was +rather a promise of their all meeting together some day in a new place +of freedom, which there was a sense of his going out to prepare for +them. Their way would be his way, as the mother's could not; for theirs +was the highway of youth, which, sooner or later, they would all take +together, singing in the morning sun. + +The three younger sisters, the as yet unopened buds of the family +flower, took Henry's departure with the surface tears and the central +indifference of childhood. When a family is so large, it practically +includes two generations in itself; and these three girls were really to +prove a generation so different in characteristics from their four +elders as to demand a separate chronicle to themselves. + +Thus as Henry drove away amid his trunks from the home of his father +(genealogical poverty denies us the romantic grandiloquence of the +plural), it was his mother's farewell arms and farewell tears, and his +farewell promises to her, of which he was mainly conscious. He had +promised "to take care of himself," and particularly to beware of damp +sheets, and then he too had burst into tears. Indeed, it was generally a +tearful business, after which everybody was glad to retire into corners +to subside privately and dry themselves. + +Henry crouched in the corner of his cab with fully half his cry to +finish out; and, curiously, all the time a sad little story from an old +holiday in the country kept haunting him. It was at once a fact and a +fable concerning a happy little family of swallows, whose sudden tragedy +he had seen with his own boyish, pitying eyes. + +In a little vinery attached to an old country house which the Mesuriers +had rented for a month or so for certain successive summers, two +swallows had built their nest, and, in due course, there were three +young swallows to keep them company. It was understood that the door of +the vinery must be left open, that the parent swallows might fly to and +fro for food; but by some accident it chanced that the door was one day +closed, and the vinery not visited again for several days. When at last +the door was opened again, the sight that met young eyes was one Henry +had never forgotten. Three little starved swallows, hardly bigger than +butterflies, lay upon the floor, and from the nest above hung the long +horse-hairs with which the parents had vainly sought to anchor them +safely to the home. But still sadder details were forthcoming, when the +children, who had been wondering what had become of the parents, had +suddenly discovered their wasted bodies in the grass a yard or two away +from the vinery door. A few days ago this had been a happy, thriving +home, and now it was absolutely desolated, done away with for ever. It +needed no exceptional imagination or sympathy to conceive the agonised +longing of the parents, as they had dashed themselves again and again +upon that cruel, unyielding door, hearing the piteous cries of their +young ones within, and the anguish in which their exhausted little lives +had at last gone out. The young swallows had died for lack of food; but +the old ones had died--for love. Had some other hand brought them food, +would the young ones have missed the old ones like that? + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A LINK WITH CIVILISATION + + +On the afternoon following Henry's departure, Esther went out for a +walk, and she came presently to a pretty little house half hidden in its +big garden. A well-kept lawn, richly bathed in sunlight, flashed through +the trees; and, opening the gate and following the tree-shaded path +along one side of the house, Esther presently mounted to a small +terrace, where, as she had hoped, she came upon a dainty little lady +watering her flowers. + +"Why, Esther, it's you! How sweet of you! I was just dying to see you!" +exclaimed the little lady, turning a pretty, but somewhat worn, and +brilliantly sad face from her gardening. "Just let me finish this +thirsty bed, and then you must give me a kiss. There!" + +Then the two embraced; and as Mrs. Myrtilla Williamson held Esther at +arm's length and looked at her admiringly,-- + +"How pretty you look to-day!" she exclaimed, generously. "That new +hat's a great success. Didn't I tell you mauve was your colour? Turn +round. Yes, dear, you look charming. Where in the world, I wonder, did +you all get that grand look of yours from?--I don't mean your good looks +merely, but that look of distinction. Your father and mother have it +too; but where did _they_ get it from? You're a puzzle-family--all of +you. But wouldn't you like a cup of tea? Come in," and she led the way +indoors to a tiny, sweet-smelling boudoir on the left of the hall, of +which a dainty glimpse, with its books and water-colours and bibelots, +was to be caught from the terrace. + +Everything about Myrtilla Williamson was scrupulously, determinedly +dainty, from the flowered tea-gown about her slim, girlish figure,--her +predilection for that then novel and suspected garment was regarded as a +sure mark of a certain Parisian levity by her neighbours,--to her just a +little "precious" enunciation. In France, in the seventeenth century, +she would almost certainly have been a visitor at the Hotel Rambouillet, +and to-day she was mysteriously and disapprovingly spoken of as +"aesthetic." She had a look as if she had tripped out of a Japanese fan, +and slept at night in a pot-pourri jar. And she had brains, those good +things--brains. + +Her name was very like her life, one-half of which might be described as +Myrtilla, the other half as Williamson. She was Myrtilla during the day, +dabbling with her water-colours, her flowers, or her books; but at six +o'clock each afternoon, with the sound of aggressive masculine boots in +the hall, her life suddenly changed with a sigh to Williamson. The +Williamson half of her life was so clumsily, so grotesquely ill-matched +with the Myrtilla half that it was, and probably will always remain, a +mystery why she had ever attempted so tasteless and inconvenient an +addition,--a mystery, however, far from unique in the history of those +mysteriously stupid unhappy marriages with evident boors which refined +and charming women will, it is to be feared, go on making to the end of +the human chapter. + +It was perhaps a day hardly less interesting for Myrtilla than for the +young people themselves when she had first met Henry and Esther +Mesurier. Before, in the dull bourgeois society into which Williamson +had transplanted her from London, she had found none with whom she dared +be her natural Myrtilla. There she was expected to be Williamson to the +bone. Henry and Esther, however, were only too grateful for Myrtilla, +through whom was to come to them the revelation of some minor graces of +life for which they had the instincts, but on which they had lacked +instruction; and who, still more important, at least for Henry, was to +be their first fragile link with certain strenuous new northern writers, +translations of whom in every tongue had just then descended, Gothlike, +upon Europe, to the great energising of its various literatures. She it +was too who first handed them the fretted golden key to the enchanted +garden of the Pre-Raphaelites, and the striking head of the young Dante +in sepia, which had hung in a sort of shrine-recess in Henry's study, +had been copied for him from Rossetti's sketch by Myrtilla's own hand. + +She had, too, one of the most precious gifts for friendship, the gift of +unselfish and diligent and progressive appreciation of all a friend's +good points. She never flattered; but she never missed the smallest +opportunity for praise. She was one of those rare people who make you +feel happy in yourself, who send you away somehow dignified, profitably +raised in your own esteem; just as others have a mysterious power of +dejecting you in your proudest moments. If you had any charm, however +shy, Myrtilla Williamson would find it, and send you away with a great +gush of gratitude to her because it had been found at last. This was +perhaps the greatest charm of her clever letters; they were all about +"you,"--not, of course, that you didn't want to hear about her. But +frequently all she told you of herself was her name. Perhaps she would +write in the half-hour that remained between, say, a visit from Esther +and the arrival of Williamson, to fix in a few intimate vivid words the +charm of their afternoon together, and tell Esther in some new +gratifying way what she was to her and why and how she was it; or when +Henry had been there--even more carefully in the absence of +Williamson--to read her his new poem, she would write him a long letter +of literary criticism, just perceptibly vibrating with the emotion she +might have felt for the romantic young poet, whom she allowed to call +himself her "cavaliere servente," had she not been Williamson as well as +Myrtilla, and had she not, as she somewhat unscientifically declared, +been old enough to be his mother. + +"Well," she said, as they sipped their tea, "so Henry's really gone. He +slipped round to bid me a sort of good-bye yesterday, and told me the +whole story. On the whole, I'm glad, though I know how you'll miss each +other. But I'm sorriest for your mother. Yes, yes, I'm sorry for her. +You must try to make it up to her, dear child. I think just that, above +all things, would make me fear to be a mother. One can do without +children," and there was a certain implication in the conversational +atmosphere that children of the name of Williamson had been mercifully +spared the world; "but when once they have come into one's life, it must +be terrible to see them go out again. I should like to come round and +have a little talk with your mother. I wonder if she'd care to see me?" + +"So long as you don't come in your tea-gown," said Esther, with a laugh. + +"Cruel child!" and then with a way she had of suddenly finding +something she wanted to hear of among the interests of her friends, +"Now," she said, "tell me something about Mike. I suppose the course of +true love runs as smoothly as ever. Happy children! Give him my love +when you see him, won't you?" + +Esther told all there was to tell about Mike up-to-date, and wished she +could have repaid her friend's sympathetic interest with a request for +something similar about Williamson. But it was tacitly understood that +there was nothing further to be said on that subject, and that the news +of Myrtilla's life could hardly again take any more excitingly personal +form than the bric-a-brac excitements of art or literature,--though +indeed art and literature were, to be just to them, far more than +bric-a-brac in the life of Myrtilla Williamson. They were, indeed, it +was easy to see, a very sustaining religion for the lonely little woman +who, having no children to study, and having completed her studies of +Williamson, was driven a good deal upon the study and development of +herself. The Williamson half of the day provided her fully with +opportunities for the practice of all the philosophy she was likely to +acquire from writers ancient and modern, and for the absorption of all +the consolation history and biography was likely to afford in the +stories of women similarly circumstanced. It is to be feared that +Myrtilla not only wore tea-gowns in advance of her time, but was also +somewhat prematurely something of a "new" woman; but this was a subject +on which she really did very little to "poison" Esther's "young mind." +Esther's young mind, in common with those of her two subsequent sisters, +was little in need of "poisoning" from outside on such subjects. Indeed, +it was a curious phenomenon to observe how all these young minds, sprung +from a stock of such ancient, unquestioning faith, had, so to say, been +born "poisoned;" or, to state the matter less metaphorically, had all +been born with instincts for the most pitiless and effortless reasoning +on all subjects human and divine. + +As the hour approached when poor Myrtilla must change back to +Williamson, Esther rose to say good-bye. + +"Come again soon, dear girl; you don't know the good you do me." + +The good, dear woman was entirely done by her unwearied, sympathetic +discussion of the affairs and dreams of Esther, Mike, and Henry. + +"Oh, here is a wonderful new book I intended to talk to you about. You +can take it with you; I have finished it. Come next week and tell me +what you think of it." + +As Esther walked down the path, Myrtilla watched her, and, as she passed +out of the gate, waved her a final kiss of parting, and turned indoors. +There seemed something ever so sad about her dainty back as it +disappeared into the doorway. + +"Poor little woman!" said Esther to herself, as she looked to see the +title of the book she was carrying. It included a curious Russian name, +the correct pronunciation of which she foresaw she must ask Myrtilla on +their next meeting. It was "The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A RHAPSODY OF TYRE + + +Sidon, the stage of the moving events so far recorded, though it makes +much of possessing a separate importance, is really a cross-river +residential suburb of Tyre, the great seaport in which all the ships of +the world come to and fro. During the day Sidon is virtually emptied of +its men-folk, and is given up to perambulators and feminine activities +generally; for the men have streamed across the ferries that bridge the +sunny, boisterous river, to the docks and offices of Tyre. + +Though Tyre is not a very old city, it is not so new as to be denied a +few of those associations known as "historical." Tyre had once the +honour to be taken by Prince Rupert, and long before that its nucleus +had existed as a monk's ferry, by which travellers were rowed across the +river to the monastery and posting-house at Sidon. Sometimes of an +evening Henry and Mike would think of those far-off times as they looked +over the ferry-boat at the long lines of river lights, with their +restless heaving reflections; and sometimes they could picture to +themselves the green sloping banks of the virgin fields, and hear the +priory bell calling to them out of the darkness. But such were the +faintest of their visions; and they loved the river banks best as they +are to-day, with their Egyptian walls and swarming lights and +tangled ships. + +And whoso should think that that sordid commercial city, given up to all +the prose of trade day by day, is not a poet at heart, has never seen +her strange smile at evening when the shops are shut, and the offices +empty, and the men who know her not gone home. For then across the +crowded roofs softly comes a strange sweetness, and deep down among the +gloomy wynds of deserted warehouses, still as temples, sudden fairies of +sunset dance and dazzle, and touch the grimy walls with soft hands. In +lonely back rooms, full of desks and dust, haunted lights of evening +stand like splendid apparitions; and sometimes, if you lingered at the +top of High Street, beneath the dark old church, and the moon was out +on the left of the steeple and the sunset dying on the right, dying +beyond the tangled masts and fading from the river, you would forget you +were a city clerk, and you would wonder why the world was so beautiful, +why the moon was made of pearl, and what it was that called to you out +of yonder golden sea; and your heart would fill with a strange gladness, +and you would call back to those unearthly voices, "I am yours, yours, +all yours!" + +Thus would this town of bales and merchants, of office-desks and stools, +make poets at evening that she might stone them at noon. For, of course, +she would have forgotten it all in the morning; and it were well not to +remind her with your dreaming eyes of her last night's softness. She +will look back at you with stony misunderstanding, and her new lover +Reality will sharply box your ears. + +It is no use reminding the Exchange that it looked like a scene from +Romeo and Juliet in the moonlight. It dare not admit it. But wait +patiently till the evening. Tyre will be yours again with the sunset. +She pretends all day that it is the Mayor in the gilded coach and the +pursy merchantmen she cares for; but it is really you, a poor shabby +poet, she loves all the time, for you only does she wear her gauzy silks +at evening! + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A PENITENTIARY OF THE MATHEMATICS + + +Yes, Mike was some day to be another Kean, and Henry was to prove a +serious rival to Shakespeare; but, meanwhile, they were clerks in the +offices of Tyre. + +Of the rigours, and therefore too the truancies and humours of the lot +official, Mike was comparatively so comfortably circumstanced as to have +little knowledge. His father was the king of a little flourishing prison +of desks, and Mike was one of the heirs-apparent. Consequently, his lot, +though dull, was seldom bitter; and many mitigations of it were within +his privilege. With Henry it was different. He was a humble unit among +twenty other slaves, chained to that modern substitute for the galleys, +the desk; and, in a wicked bargain, he had contracted to give his +life-blood from nine in the morning till six in the evening, for sixty +pounds a year, with an occasional "rise," which, after thirty years' +service, might end in your having reached a proud annual three hundred +for the rest of your maimed and narrowed days. + +Henry had come to the office straight from school, at the age of +sixteen; and, though classrooms breathe an air sufficiently frigid and +suggestive of inhuman interests and unmeaning discipline, the icy air of +that office had at first almost taken his breath. The place was so +ridiculously serious! There might conceivedly be interests in the world +worthy of so abject an absorption, so bleaching an obeisance of the +individual; but Henry, with the dews of certain classics still upon him, +remembered that anything really Olympian in its importance is always +strong enough to smile. It is a lesser strength that must make the +muscular effort of severity. True dignities, as often as possible, stand +at ease. But here indeed were no true strengths and dignities,--only +prison-strengths and prison-dignities. Here the majesties, the +occupations, the offences, were alike frivolities, fantastically changed +about into solemnities. + +That first impression of abject bowed heads and chains rattled beneath +desks, was roughly correct. For all that was human in a man, this was a +prison. These men who bent over foolish papers were evidently convicts +of the most desperate character; so, at all events, you would judge when +occasionally one or other of the prison-governors, known as "partners," +passed among them with the lash of his eye. Such faint human twittering +as may have grown up amongst even these poor exiles would suddenly die +into a silence white with fear, as when the shadow of a hawk falls +across the song of smaller birds. + +No human relations are acknowledged here. Outside, you may be a husband +wonderfully beloved and tragically important; you may be a man whose +courage has be-medalled your brave breast; you may be a passionate and +subtle musician in your private hours; you may even on Sundays be a much +appreciated vessel of the divine: but all such distinctions are not +current here; here they are foreign coin, diplomas unacknowledged in +this barbarous realm of ink and steel. The more ignorant, the more +narrow, the more mean, the more unnatural, you can contrive to be, the +better will be your lot in this sad monastery of Mammon. When the door +hissed behind you, with that little patent pneumatic device, you ceased +to be a human being, and began to be--the human machine. All the +vitality you have stored within that pale body you are expected to +exhaust here,--you have sold it, don't you remember, for sixty or three +hundred pounds a year; you are not expected to have any left over for +pleasures. That will be robbery. Masters suffer much from peculation +indeed in this way; but a machine is in course of invention which shall +put an end to this, by the application of which to your heart the +task-master will know whether or not you have spent every available +heart-beat in his slavery during the day, or whether you are +endeavouring, you miserable thief, to steal home with a little remnant +of it for your children at night. + +This was the theory of the office, as Henry once heard it expressed, +with a cynicism more brief and direct from the lips of one of his +task-masters; but it must be admitted that in certain respects his +experience was extreme. There are offices which are the ears and eyes of +activities absorbingly and even romantically human. To be in a +shipping-office is not perhaps to be the rose, but it is to live near +it,--the great rose of the sea. You are, so to say, a land-sailor, a +supercargo left on shore. Your office-windows are lashed with +hurricanes; your talk is frequently of cyclones. The names of far +romantic isles are constantly on your lips, and your bills of lading are +threepenny romances in themselves. Strange produce of distant lands are +your daily concern, and the four winds meet at your counter with a +savour of tar. For all you know, a pirate may claim your attention any +minute of the day. + +Or, again, to be, say, in a corn-merchant's, a clearing-house of the +fruitful earth. There at your telephone you may hear the corn-fields +whispering to you, hear the wheat waving in the wind, and the thin +chatter of oats. Or you may sell butter and cheese in an office that +smells of farms. However removed, you are an indirect agent of the +earth, a humble go-between of the seasons and the eternal needs of man. + +Or, once more, you may be one of the thousand clerks of a great +manufacturer, and be humbly related to one of the arts or crafts that +gladden the eye or add to the comforts of man. Or even, though you may +be denied so close an association with the elements, or the arts, you +may be the pen to some subtle legal confidante of human nature. Your +office may be stored with records of human perversity and whimsicality. +You may be the witness to fantastic wills, or assist in the +administration of the estates of lunatics. At all events, you will come +within hearing of the human passions. Misers will visit you at times, +and beautiful ladies in mourning deep as their distress; and from your +desk you will catch a glimpse of the sombre pageantry of litigious man. + +Though it is true that a certain far-off flavour of these legal +excitements occasionally enlivened the business to which Henry had been +sacrificially indentured, for the most part it was an abstract +parasitical thing which had succeeded in persuading other businesses, +more directly fed from the human spring, of its obliging usefulness in +relieving them of detachable burdens. In fact, it had no activity or +interest of its own to account for, so it proposed, in default of any +such original reason for existence, to look after the accounts of +others, as a self-constituted body of financial police. For those +engaged in it, except those who had been born mentally deformed, or +those who had become unnaturally perverted by long usage, it was a sort +of penitentiary of the mathematics. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +THE GRASS BETWEEN THE FLAG-STONES + +Yes, it was a curiously unreal world; and, for the first day or two, as +Henry, bent, lonely and bewildered, over his desk, studied it furtively +with questioning eyes, it seemed to him as though he had strayed into +some asylum for the insane, where fantastic interests and mock honours +take the place of the real interests and honours of sane human beings. + +Part of the business of the firm consisted in the collection of +house-rents, frequently entailing visits from tenants and questions of +repairs. A certain Mr. Smith, a wiry little grey-headed man, with a keen +face and a decisive manner, looked after this branch; and the gusto with +which he did it was one of Henry's earliest and most instructive +amazements. House-repairs were quite evidently his poetry, and he never +seemed so happy as when passionately wrangling with a tenant on some +question of drains. The words "cesspool" and "wet-trap"--words to which +I don't pretend to attach any meaning--seemed to be particular +favourites of his. In fact, an hour seldom passed without their falling +from his lips. But Mr. Smith's great opportunity was a gale. For that +always meant an exciting harvest of dislodged chimney-pots, flying +slates, and smashed skylights, which would impart an energetic interest +to his life for days. + +Again, in Henry's department--for the office was cut into two halves, +with about ten clerks in each, the partners having, of course, their own +private offices, from which they might dart out at any moment--there was +a certain little fussy chief clerk who was obviously a person of very +mysterious importance. He was frequently away, evidently on missions of +great moment, for always on his return he would be closeted immediately +with one or other of the partners, who in turn seemed to consider him +important too, and would sometimes treat him almost like one of +themselves, actually condescending to laugh with him now and again over +some joke, evidently as mysterious as all the rest. This Mr. Perkins +seldom noticed the juniors in his department, though occasionally he +would select one of them to accompany him on one of his missions to +clients of the firm; and they would start off together, as you may see a +plumber and his apprentice sometimes in the streets,--the proud +master-plumber in front, and the little apprentice plumber behind, +carrying the lead pipe and the iron smelting-pot. + +Now, did Mr. Smith really take such a heart-interest in cesspools and +wet-traps as he appeared to do? and did Mr. Perkins really think he +mattered all that? + +These were two of the earliest questions which Henry asked himself, and +as time brought the answers to them, and kindred questions, there were +unexpected elements of comfort for the heart of the boy, longing so +desperately in that barren place for any hint of the human touch. One +day Mr. Smith startled him by mentioning Dickens, and even Charles Lamb. +It was a kindly recognition of Mesurier's rumoured interest in +literature. Henry looked at him in amazement. "Oh, you read then!" he +exclaimed. Of anything so human as reading he had suspected no one in +that office. + +Then as to the great Mr. Perkins, the time came when he was to prove +very human indeed. For, dying suddenly one day, his various work had to +pass into other hands; and, bit by bit, it began to leak out that those +missions had not been so industriously devoted to the interests of the +firm, nor been so carefully executed, as had been imagined. For Mr. +Perkins, it transpired, had been fond of his pleasures, could appreciate +wine, and liked an occasional informal holiday. So, posthumously, he +began to wear for Henry a faint halo of humanity. + +Indeed, it did not take Henry many days to realise that, as grass will +force its way even between the flag-stones in a prison-yard, no little +humanity contrived to support its existence even in this dead place. By +degrees, he realised that these apparently colourless and frigid figures +about him had each their separate individuality, engaging or otherwise; +that their interests were by no means centred on the dull pages before +them; and that, for the most part, they were very much in a like case +with himself. Although thus immured from the world of realities, they +still maintained, in vigorous activity, many healthy outdoor interests, +and were quite keen in their enthusiasm for, and remarkably instructed +in, the latest developments of horse-racing, football, and +prize-fighting. Likewise, they had retained an astonishingly fresh and +unimpaired interest in women, and still enjoyed the simple earth-born +pleasures of the glass and the pipe. + +As he understood this, Henry began to feel more at home; and, as the +characters of his associates revealed themselves, he began to see that +there were amongst them several pleasant and indeed merry fellows, and +that, after all, fortune might have thrown him into much worse company. +They, on their side, making like discoveries in him, he presently found +himself admitted to their freemasonry, and initiated into their many +secret ways of mitigating their lot, and shortening their long days. +Thus, this chill, stern world of automata, which, on first sight, looked +as if no human word or smile or jest could escape the detection of its +iron laws, revealed, when you were once inside it, an under-world of +pleasant escapes and exciting truancies, of which, as you grew +accustomed to the risks and general conditions of the life, you were +able skilfully to avail yourself. + +The main principle of these was to seem to spend twice as much time on +each task as it needed, that you might have the other half for such +private uses as were within your reach,--to elongate dinner-hours at +both ends so adroitly, and on such carefully selected propitious +occasions, that the elongation, or at least the whole extent of it, +would pass unobserved; and, in general, to gain time, any waste ends of +five minutes or quarter hours, on all possible occasions. If the reader +calls this shirking and robbery, he must. Technically, no doubt, it was; +but these clerks, without so formulating it, merely exercised the right +of all oppressed beings liberally to interpret to their own advantage, +where possible, the terms of an unjust contract which grinding economic +conditions had compelled them to make. They had been forced to promise +too much in exchange for too little, and they equalised the disparity +where they could. + +Whether they spent the time thus hoarded in a profitable fashion, is a +question of personal definition. It was usually expended in companies of +twos or threes, with a pipe and a pot of beer and much spirited talk, in +the warm corners of adjacent taverns; and, so long as you don't drink +too much, there has perhaps been invented none pleasanter than that +old-fashioned way of spending an hour. Certainly, it was the way for ale +to taste good, and a pipe to seem the most satisfying of all earthly +consolations. It was almost worth the bondage to enjoy the keen relish +of the escape. + +By degrees, though the youngest there, Henry came to be allowed a +certain leadership in these sorties of the human element. He made it his +business to stimulate these unthrifty instincts, and to fan the welcome +sparks of natural idleness; and so successfully that at times there +seemed to have entered with him into that gloomy place a certain Bacchic +influence, which now and again would prompt his comrades to such daring +clutches of animated release, that the spirit of it even pervaded the +penetralia of the senior partner's office, with the result that some +mishap of truancy would undo the genial work of months, and precipitate +upon them for a while the rigours of a ten-fold discipline. It was after +such an occasion that, in writing to James Mesurier as to the progress +of his son, old Mr. Septimus Lingard had paid Henry one of the proudest +compliments of his young days. "I fear that we shall make little of your +son Henry," he wrote. "His head seems full of literature, and he is so +idle that he is demoralising the whole office." + +It took Henry more than a year to win that testimonial; but the odds had +been so great against him that the wonder is he was ever able to win it +at all. Mr. Lingard wrote "demoralise." It was his way of saying +"humanise." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +HUMANITY IN HIGH PLACES + +One day, however, Henry was to make the still more surprising discovery, +that not only were the clerks human beings, but that one of the +partners--only one of them--was also human. He made this discovery about +the senior partner, whose old-world figure and quaint name, Septimus +Searle Lingard, had, in spite of his severity, attracted him by a +certain musty distinction. + +A stranger figure than Septimus Searle Lingard has seldom walked the +streets of any town. Though not actually much over sixty, you would have +said he must be a thousand; his abnormally long, narrow, shaven face was +so thin and gaunt and hollowed, and his tall, upright figure was so +painfully fragile, that his black broadcloth seemed almost too heavy for +the worn frame inside it. And nothing in the world else was ever so +piercingly solemn as his keen weary old eyes. With his tall silk hat, +his thin white hair, his long white face, long black frock-coat, and +black trousers, he looked for all the world like a distinguished +skeleton. Henry could never be quite sure whether he was to be classed +as a "character," or as a genuine personality. One thing was certain, +that, sometime or other, or many times, in his life he had done +something, or many things, which had won for him a respect as deep as +his solemnity of aspect; and certainly, if gravity of demeanour goes for +anything, all the owls of all the ages in collaboration could not have +produced an expression of time-honoured wisdom so convincing. Sometimes +his old lantern-jaws would emit an uncanny cackle of a laugh, and a +ghastly flicker of humour play across his parchment features; but these +only deepened the general sense of solemnity, as the hoot of a +night-bird deepens the loneliness of some desolate hollow among +the hills. + +It was this strange old ghost of a man that was to be the next to turn +human, and it came about like this. Right away at the top of the +building was a lonely room where the sun never shone, in which were +stored away the old account-books, diaries, and various +dead-and-done-with documents of the firm; and here too was deposited, +from time to time, various wreckage of the same kind from other +businesses whose last offices had been done by the firm, and whose +records were still preserved, in the unlikely event of any chance +resurrection of claim upon, or interest in, their long forgotten names. + +Here crumbled the last relics of many an ambitious enterprise,--great +ledgers, with their covers still fresh, lay like slabs, from which, if +you wiped away the dust, the gilded names of foundered companies would +flash as from gaudy tombstones; letter-books bursting with letters that +no eye would read again so long as the world lasted; yellow title-deeds +from which all the virtue had long since exhaled, and to which no +dangling of enormous seals could any longer lend a convincing air of +importance. Here everything was dead and dusty as an old shoe. The dry +bones in the valley of Askelon were as children skipping in the morning +sun compared with the dusty death that mouldered and mouldered in this +lonely locked-up room,--this catacomb of dead businesses. + +It was seldom necessary to visit this room; but occasionally Henry +would find an excuse to loiter an hour there, for there was a certain +dreary romance about the place, and the almost choking smell of old +leather seemed to promise all sorts of buried secrets. It cannot be said +that the place ever adequately gratified the sense of mystery it +excited; but, after all, to excite the sense of mystery is perhaps +better than to gratify it, and, considering its poor material, this room +was quite a clever old mysteriarch. + +One day, however, Henry came upon some writing that did greatly interest +him, though it was almost contemporary. It was old Mr. Septimus +Lingard's diary for the year preceding, which he had got hold of,--not +his private diary, but the entirely public official diary in which he +kept account of the division of his days among his various clients--for +the most part an unexciting record. But at the end of the book, on one +of the general memoranda pages, Henry noticed a square block of writing +which, to his surprise, proved to be a long quotation from a book which +the old man had been reading,--on the Immortality of the soul! + +Had old Mr. Septimus Lingard a soul too, a soul that troubled him +maybe, a soul that had its moving memories, and its immortal +aspirations? Yes, somewhere hidden in that strange legal document of a +body, there was evidently a soul. Mr. Lingard had a soul! + +But wait a moment, here was an addition of the old man's own! The +passage quoted had been of death and its possible significance, and it +was just a sigh, a fear, the old man had breathed after it: _How high +has the winding-sheet encompassed my own bosom_! + +Solemn as were the words in themselves, they seemed doubly so in that +lonely room; and Henry was glad to lock the door and return to the +comparatively living world downstairs. But from that moment old Mr. +Lingard was transfigured in his eyes. Beneath all the sternness of his +exterior, the grimness of the business interests which seemed to absorb +him, Henry had discovered the blessed human spring. And he came too to +wear a certain pathos and sanctity in Henry's eyes, as he remembered how +old a man he was, and that secretly all this time, while he seemed so +busy with this public company and another, he was quietly preparing to +die. From this moment tasks done for him came to have a certain joy in +them. For his sake, as it were, he began to understand how you might +take a pride in doing well something that, in your opinion, was not +worth doing; and one day when the old man, well satisfied with some work +he had done, patted him kindly on the back and said, "We'll make a +business man of you after all!" the tears started to his eyes, and for a +moment he almost hoped that they would. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +DAMON AND PYTHIAS + +By an odd coincidence, the night which had seen Henry and Esther +confront their father, had seen, in another household in which the young +people counted another member of their secret society of youth, a +similar but even less seemly clash between the generations. Ned Hazell +would be a poet too, and a painter as well, and perhaps a romantic +actor; but his father's tastes for his son's future lay in none of these +directions, and Ned was for the present in cotton. Now the elder Mr. +Hazell was a man of violently convivial habits, and the _bonhomie_, with +which he was accustomed to enliven bar-parlours up till eleven of an +evening, was apt to suffer a certain ungenial transformation as he +reached his own front door. There the wit would fail upon his lips, the +twinkle die out of his glance, and an unaccountable ferocity towards the +household that was waiting up for him take their place. When possible, +he would fix upon some trivial reason to give an air of plausibility to +this curious change in him; but if that were not forthcoming, he would, +it appeared, fly into a violent rage for just that very reason. + +However, on this particular night, Heaven had provided him with an +heroic occasion. His son, he discovered, was for once out later than his +father. In what haunt of vice, or low place of drinking, he was at the +moment ensnared, no one better than his father could imagine. The +opportunity was one not to be missed. The outraged parent at last +realised that he had borne with him long enough, borne long enough with +his folderols of art and nonsense; and so determined was he on the +instant that he would have no more of it, that, with a quite remarkable +energy, he had thereupon repaired to his son's room, opened the window, +and begun vigorously to throw his pretty editions, his dainty +water-colours, his drawers full of letters, his cast of the Venus of +Milo, out on to the lawn, upon which at the moment a heavy rain was +also falling. + +In the very whirlwind of his righteous vandalism his son had returned, +and, being a muscular, hot-blooded lad, had taken his father by the +throat, called him a drunken beast, and hurled him to the floor, where +he pinned him down with a knee on his chest, and might conceivably have +made an end of him, but for the interference of mother and sisters, who +succeeded at last in getting the dazed and somewhat sobered parent +to bed. + +Having raked together from the sodden _débris_ beneath his window some +disfigured remains of his poor treasures, Ned Hazell had left the house +in the early hours of the morning, in good earnest for ever. + +When he confided the excitements of the night to Henry at lunch next +day, and heard in return his friend's news, nothing could be more plain +than that they should set up lodgings together; and it was, therefore, +to the rooms of which Ned was already in possession that Henry's cab had +toppled with his various belongings, after those tearful farewells at +his father's door. Esther followed presently to help make the place +straight and dainty for the two boys, and having left them, late that +evening, with flowers in all the jars, and the curtains as they should +be, they were fairly launched on their new life together. + +In Mike Henry had a stanch friend and an admirer against all comers, and +in Henry Mike had a friend and admirer no less loyal; but their +friendship was one for which an on-looker might have found it less easy +to give reasons than for that of Henry and Ned. Mike and Henry loved +each other, it would appear, less for any correspondence in dispositions +or tastes, as just because they were Mike and Henry. Right away down in +their natures there was evidently some central affinity which operated +even in spite of surface contradictions. There was much of this +intrinsic quality in the affection of Henry and Ned also, but it was +much more to be accounted for by evident mutual sympathies. It was +largely the impassioned fellowship of two craftsmen in love with the +same art. Both had their literary ambitions; but, irrespective of those, +they both loved poetry. Yes, how they loved it! Ned was perhaps +particularly a born appreciator; and it was worth seeing how the tears +would come into his fine eyes, as his voice shook with tenderness over a +fine phrase or a noble passage. They had discovered some of the most +thrilling things in English literature together, at that impressionable +age when such things mean most to us. Together they had read Keats for +the first wonderful time; together learned Shakespeare's Sonnets by +heart; together rolled out over tavern-tables the sumptuous cadences of +De Quincey. Wonderful indeed, and never to be forgotten, were those +evenings when, the day at last over, they would leave their offices +behind them, and, while the sunset was turning the buildings of Tyre +into enchanted towers, and a clemency of release breathed upon its +streets, steal to the quiet corner of their favourite tavern; to drink +port and share their last new author, or their own latest rhymes, and +then to emerge again, with high calm hearts and eloquent eyes, beneath +the splendid stars. + +All the arts within their reach they thus shared together,--pictures, +music, theatres,--in a fine comradeship. Together they had bravoed the +great tragedians, and together hopelessly worshipped the beautiful +faces, enskied and sainted, of famous actresses. In fact, they were the +Damon and Pythias of Tyre. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +DAMON AND PYTHIAS AT THE THEATRE + + +Once, long before the beginning of this story, Damon and Pythias were +sitting in a theatre together, with the wonderful overture just +beginning to steal through their senses. + +Ah, violins, whither would you take their souls? You call to them like +the voice of one waiting by the sea, bathed in sunset. What are these +wonderful things you are whispering to their souls? You promise--ah, +what things you promise, strange voices of the string! + +Oh, sirens, have pity! Their hearts are pure, their bodies sweet as +apples. Oh, be faithful, betray them not, beautiful voices of the +wondrous world! + +The overture had succeeded. Their souls had followed it over the +footlights, and, floating in the limelight, shone there awaiting the +fulfilment of the promise. + +The play was "Pygmalion and Galatea," and at the appearance of Galatea +they knew that the overture had not lied. There, in dazzling white +flesh, was all it had promised; and when she called "Pyg-ma-lion!" how +their hearts thumped!--for they knew it was really them she was calling. + +"Pyg-ma-lion! Pyg-ma-lion!" + +It was as though Cleopatra called them from the tomb. + +Their hands met. They could hear each other's blood singing. And was not +the play itself an allegory of their coming lives? Did not Galatea +symbolise all the sleeping beauty of the world that was to awaken, warm +and fragrant, at the kiss of their youth? And somewhere, too, shrouded +in enchanted quiet, such a white white woman waited for their kiss. In a +vision they saw life like the treasure cave of the Arabian thief; and +they said to their beating hearts that they had the secret of the magic +word, that the "open Sesame" was youth. + +No fall of the curtain could hide the vision from their young eyes. It +transfigured the faces of their fellow-playgoers, crowding from the pit; +it made another stage of the embers of the sunset, a distant bridge of +silver far down the street. Then they took it with them to the tavern; +and to write of the solemn libations of that night would be to laugh or +cry. Only youth can be so radiantly ridiculous. + +They had found their own corner. Turning down the gas, the fire played +at day and night with their faces. Imagine them in one of the flashes, +solemnly raising their glasses, hands clasped across the table, earnest +gleaming eyes holding each other above it. + +"Old man, some day, somewhere, a woman like that!" + +But there was still a sequel. At home at last and in bed, how could +Damon sleep! It seemed as if he had got into a rosy sunset cloud in +mistake for his bed. The candle was out, and yet the room was full of +rolling light. + +It was no use; he must get up. So, striking a light, he was presently +deep in the composition of a fiery sonnet. It was evidently that which +had caused all the phosphorescence. But a sonnet is a mere pill-box; it +holds nothing. A mere cockle-shell,--and, oh, the raging sea it could +not hold! Besides being confessedly an art-form, duly licenced to lie, +it was apt to be misunderstood. It could not say in plain words, "Meet +me at the pier to-morrow at three in the afternoon;" it could make no +assignation nearer than the Isles of the Blest, "after life's fitful +fever." Therefore, it seemed well to add a postscript to that effect +in prose. + +But then, how was she to receive it? There was nothing to be hoped from +the post, and Damon's home in Sidon was three miles from the ferry. +Likewise, it was now nearing three in the morning. Just time to catch +the half-past three boat, run up to the theatre, a mile away, and meet +the return boat. So down, down through the creaking house, carefully, as +though he were a Jason picking his way among the coils of the sleeping +dragon; and soon he was shooting through the phantom streets, like +Mercury on a message through Hades. + +At last the river came in sight, growing slate-colour in the earliest +dawn. He could see the boat nuzzling up against the pier, and snoring in +its sleep. He said to himself that this was Styx and the fare an obolus. +As he jumped on board, with hot face and hotter heart, Charon clicked +his signal to the engines; the boat slowly snuffled itself half awake, +and shoved out into the sleepy water. + +As they crossed, the light grew, and the gas-lamps of Tyre beaconed with +fading gleam. Overhead began a restlessness in the clouds, as of a giant +drowsily shuffling off some of his bedclothes; but as yet he slept, and +only the silver bosom of his spouse, the moon, was uncovered. + +When they landed, the streets of Tyre were already light, but empty, as +though they had got up early to meet some one who had not arrived. Damon +sped through them like a sea-gull that has the harbour to itself, and +was not long in reaching the theatre. How desolate the play-bills looked +that had been so companionable but three or four hours before! And there +was her photograph! Surely it was an omen. + +"Ah, my angel! See, I am bringing you my heart in a song. 'All my heart +in this my singing!'" + +He dropped the letter into the box; but, as he turned away, momentarily +glancing up the long street, he caught sight of an approaching figure +that could hardly be mistaken. Good Heavens! it was Pythias, and he too +was carrying a letter. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS A GENEALOGY + +The egregious Miss Bashkirtseff did not greatly fascinate Esther. Her +egotism was too hard, too self-bounded, even for egotism, and there was +generally about her a lack of sympathy. Her passion for fame had +something provincial in its eagerness, and her broadest ideals seemed to +become limited by her very anxiety to compass them. Even her love of art +seemed a form of snobbery. In all these young Mesuriers there was +implicit,--partly as a bye-product of the sense of humour, and partly as +an unconscious mysticism,--a surprising instinct for allowing the +successes of this world their proper value and no more. Even Esther, who +was perhaps the most worldly of them all, and whose ambitions were +largely social, as became a bonny girl whom nature had marked out to be +popular, and on whom, some day when Mike was a great actor,--and had a +theatre of his own!--would devolve the cares of populous "at home" days, +bright after-the-performance suppers, and all the various diplomacies of +the popular wife of fame,--even Esther, however brilliant her life might +become, would never for a moment imagine that such success was a thing +worth winning, at the expense of the smallest loss to such human +realities as the affection she felt for Mike and Henry. To love some one +well and faithfully, to be one of a little circle vowed to eternal +fidelity one to the other,--such was the initial success of these young +lives; and it was to make them all their days safe from the dangers of +more meretricious successes. + +All the same, though the chief performer in Marie Bashkirtseff's +"Confessions" interested her but little, the stage on which for a little +while she had scolded and whimpered did interest her--for should it not +have been her stage too, and Henry's stage, and Dot's stage, father's +and mother's stage too? You had only to look at father to realise that +nature had really meant him for the great stage; here in Sidon, what was +he but a god in exile, bending great powers and a splendid character +upon ridiculously unimportant interests? Indeed, was not his destiny, +more or less, their destiny as a family? Henry would escape from it +through literature, and she through Mike. But what of Dot, what of Mat, +not yet to speak of "the children"? + +All she envied Marie Bashkirtseff was her opportunity. Great Goddess +Opportunity! So much had come to Marie in the cradle, and came daily to +a hundred thousand insignificant aristocratic babes, to approach which +for the Mesuriers, even ten years too late, meant convulsions of the +home, and to attain which in any satisfactory degree was probably +impossible. French, for example, and music! Why, if so disposed, Marie +Bashkirtseff might have read old French romances at ten, and to play +Chopin at an earlier age was not surprising in the opportunitied, +so-called "aristocratic" infant. Oh, why had they not been born like the +other Sidonians, whose natures and ideals had been mercifully calculated +to the meridian of Sidon! Why didn't they think the Proudfoots and the +Wilkinsons and the Wagstaffs, and other local nobody-somebodies, people +of importance, and why did they think the mayor a ludicrous upstart, +and the adjacent J.P. a sententious old idiot? Far better to have rested +content in that state of life to which God had called them. To talk +French, or to play Chopin! What did it matter? In one sense nothing, but +in another it mattered like other convenient facilities of life. To the +immortal soul it mattered nothing, but to the mortal social unit it made +life the easier, made the passage of ideas, the intercourse of +individualities, the readier, and, in general, facilitated spiritual and +intellectual, as well as social, communication. To be first-rate +in your instincts, in all your fibres, and third-rate in your +opportunities,--that was a bitter indignity of circumstance. + +This sub-conscious sense of aristocracy--it must be observed, lest it +should have been insufficiently implied--was almost humorously +dissociated in the minds of the young Mesuriers from any recorded family +distinctions. In so far as it was conscious, it was defiantly +independent of genealogy. Had the Mesuriers possessed a coat-of-arms, +James Mesurier would probably have kept it locked up as a frivolity to +be ashamed of, for it was a part of his Puritanism that such earthly +distinctions were foolishness with God; but, as a matter of fact, +between Adam and the immediate great-grandparents of the young +Mesuriers, there was a void which the Herald's office would have found a +difficulty in filling. This it never occurred to them to mind in +the least. + +It was one of Henry's deep-sunken maxims that "a distinguished product +implied a distinguished process," and that, at all events, the +genealogical process was only illustratively important. It would have +been interesting to know how they, the Mesuriers, came to be what they +were. In the dark night of their history a family portrait or two, or an +occasional reference in history, would have been an entertaining +illumination--but, such not being forthcoming, they were, documentally, +so much the less indebted to their progenitors. Yet if they had only +been able to claim some ancestor with a wig and a degree for the +humanities, or some beautiful ancestress with a romantic reputation! +One's own present is so much more interesting for developing, or even +repeating, some one else's past. And yet how much better it was to be as +they were, than as most scions of aristocratic lineage, whose present +was so often nothing and their past everything. How humiliating to be so +pathetically inadequate an outcome of such long and elaborate +preparation,--the mouse of a genealogical mountain! Yes, it was +immeasurably more satisfactory to one's self-respect to be Something out +of Nothing, than Nothing out of Everything. Here so little had made so +much; here so much had made--hardly even a lord. It was better for your +circumstances to be inadequate for you, than you to be inadequate for +your circumstances. + +Henry had amused himself one day in making a list of all their +"ancestors" to whom any sort of worldly or romantic distinction could +attach, and it ran somewhat as follows:-- + +(1) A great-grandmother on the father's side, fabled to live in some +sort of a farm-house château in Guernsey, who once a year, up till two +years ago, when she died, had sent them a hamper of apples from Channel +Island orchards. Said "château" believed by his children to descend to +James Mesurier, but the latter indifferent to the matter, and relatives +on the spot probably able to look after it. + +(2) A great-grandfather on the mother's side given to travel, a +"rolling-stone," fond of books and talk, and rich in humanity. Surviving +still in a high-nosed old silhouette. + +(3) A grand-uncle on the father's side who was one of Napoleon's guard +at St. Helena! + +(4) A grandfather on the mother's side, who used to design and engrave +little wooden blocks for patterns on calico-stuffs, and whose little box +of delicate instruments, evidently made for the tracing of lines and +flowers, was one of the few family heirlooms. + +(5) A grandmother on the father's side of whom nothing was known beyond +the beautiful fact that she was Irish. + +(6) A grandfather on the father's side who was a sea-captain, sailing +his own ship (barque "the Lucretia") to the West Indies, and who died of +yellow fever, and was buried, in the odour of romance, on the Isthmus +of Panama. + +(7) An uncle who had also been a sea-captain, and who, in rescuing a +wrecked crew from an Australian reef, was himself capsized, and after a +long swim finally eaten by a shark,--said shark being captured next day, +and found to contain his head entire, two gold rings still in his ears, +which he wore for near-sightedness, after the manner of common sailors, +and one of which, after its strange vicissitudes, had found a +resting-place in the secretaire of his brother, James Mesurier. + +Such was the only accessible "ancestry" of the Mesuriers, and it is to +be feared that the last state of the family was socially worse than the +first. James Mesurier was unapproachably its present summit, its Alpine +peak; and he was made to suffer for it no little by humble and +impecunious relatives. Still, whatever else they lacked, Henry Mesurier +loved to insist that these various connections were rich in character, +one or two of them inexhaustible in humour; and their rare and somewhat +timorous visits to the castle of their exalted relative, James Mesurier, +were occasions of much mirthful embarrassment to the young people. Here +the reader is requested to excuse a brief parenthetical chapter by way +of illustration, which, if he pleases, he may skip without any loss of +continuity in the narrative, or the least offence in the world to the +writer. This present chapter will be found continued in chapter sixteen. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +MERELY A HUMBLE INTERRUPTION AND +ILLUSTRATION OF THE LAST + +Some peaceable afternoon when Mrs. Mesurier was enjoying a little doze +on the parlour sofa, and her three elder daughters were snatching an +hour or two from housework--they had already left school--for a little +private reading, the drowsy house would suddenly be awakened by one loud +wooden knock at the door. + +"Now, whoever can that be!" the three girls would impatiently exclaim; +and presently the maid would come to Miss Esther to say that there was +an old man at the door asking for Mrs. Mesurier. + +"What's his name, Jane?" + +"He wouldn't give it, miss. He said it would be all right. Mrs. Mesurier +would know him well enough." + +"Whoever can it be? What's he like, Jane?" + +"He looks like a workman, miss,--very old, and rather dotey." + +"Who can it be? Go and ask him his name again." + +Esther would then arouse her mother; and the maid would come in to say +that at last the old man had been persuaded to confide his name as +Clegg--Samuel Clegg. + +"Tell the missus it's Samuel Clegg," the old man had said, with a +certain amusing conceit. "She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg." + +"Why!" said Mrs. Mesurier, "it's your father's poor old uncle, Mr. +Clegg. Now, girls, you mustn't run away, but try and be nice to him. +He's a simple, good, old man." + +Mrs. Mesurier was no more interested in Mr. Clegg than her daughters; +but she had a great fund of humanity, and an inexhaustible capacity for +suffering bores brilliantly. + +"Why, I never!" she would say, adapting her idiom to make the old man +feel at home, as he was presently ushered in, chuntering and triumphant; +"you don't mean to say it's Uncle Clegg. Well, we are glad to see you! I +was just having a little nap, and so you must excuse my keeping +you waiting." + +"Ay, Mary. It's right nice of you to make me so welcome. I got a bit +misdoubtful at the door, for the young maid seemed somehow a little +frightened of me; but when I told the name it was all right. 'Samuel +Clegg,' I said. 'She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg,' I said." + +"Glad indeed," murmured Mrs. Mesurier, "I should think so. Find a chair +for your uncle, Esther." + +"Ay, the name did it," chuckled the old man, who as a matter of fact was +anything but a humble old person, and to whom the bare fact of +existence, and the name of Clegg, seemed warrant enough for thinking +quite a lot of yourself. + +"I'm afraid you don't remember your old uncle," said the old man to +Esther, looking dimly round, and rather bewildered by the fine young +ladies. Actually, he was only a remote courtesy uncle, having married +their father's mother's sister. + +"Oh, of course, Uncle Clegg," said Esther, a true daughter of her +mother; "but, you see, it's a long time since we saw you." + +"And this is Dorcas. Come and kiss your uncle, Dorcas. And this is +Matilda," said Mrs. Mesurier. + +"Ay," said the old man, "and you're all growing up such fine young +ladies. Deary me, Mary, but they must make you feel old." + +"We were just going to have some tea," said Esther; "wouldn't you like a +cup, uncle?" + +"I daresay your uncle would rather have a glass of beer," said Mrs. +Mesurier. + +"Ay, you're right there, Mary," answered the old man, "right there. A +glass of beer is good enough for Samuel Clegg. A glass of beer and some +bread and cheese, as the old saying is, is good enough for a king; but +bread and cheese and water isn't fit for a beggar." + +All laughed obligingly; and the old man turned to a bulging pocket which +had evidently been on his mind from his entrance. + +"I've got a little present here from Esther," he said,--"Esther" being +the aunt after whom Mike's Esther had been named,--bringing out a little +newspaper parcel. "But I must tell you from the beginning. + +"Well, you know, Mary," he continued, "I was feeling rather low +yesterday, and Esther said to me, 'Why not take a day off to-morrow, +Samuel, and see Mary, it'll shake you up a bit, and I'll be bound she's +right glad to see you?' 'Why, lass!' I said, 'it's the very thing. See +if I don't go in the morning.' + +"So this morning," he continued, "she tidies me up--you know her +way--and sends me off. But before I started, she said, 'Here, Samuel, +you must take this, with my love, to Mary.' I've kept it wrapped up in +this drawer for thirty years, and only the other day our Mary Elizabeth +said, 'Mother, you might give me that old jug. It would look nice in our +little parlour.'" "But no!" I says, "Mary Elizabeth, if any one's to have +that jug, it's your Aunt Mary." + +"How kind of her!" murmured Mrs. Mesurier, sympathetically. + +"Yes, those were her words, Mary," said the old man, unfolding the +newspaper parcel, and revealing an ugly little jug of metallically +glistening earthenware, such as were turned out with strange pride from +certain English potteries about seventy years ago. It seemed made in +imitation of metal,--a sort of earthenware pewter; and evidently it had +been a great aesthetic treasure in the eyes of Mrs. Clegg. Mrs. Mesurier +received it accordingly. + +"How pretty," she said, "and how kind of Aunt Esther! They don't make +such things nowadays." + +"No, it's a vallyble relic," said the old man; "but you're worthy of +it, Mary. I'd rather see you have it than any of them. My word, but I'm +glad I've got it here safely. Esther would never have forgiven me.' Now, +Samuel,' she said, as I left, 'mind you get home before dark, and don't +sit on the jug, whatever you do.'" + +Meanwhile the "young ladies" were in imminent danger of convulsions; +and, at that moment, further to enhance the situation, an old lady of +the neighbourhood, who occasionally dropped in for a gossip, was +announced. She was a prim little lady, with "Cranford" curls, and a +certain old-world charm and old-world vanity about her, and very deaf. +She too was a "character" in her way, but so different from old Mr. +Clegg that the entertainment to be expected from their conjunction was +irresistible even to anticipate. + +"This is Mr. Clegg, an uncle of Mr. Mesurier," said poor Mrs. Mesurier, +by way of introduction. + +"Howd'ye do, marm?" said Mr. Clegg, without rising. + +Mrs. Turtle bowed primly. "Are you sure, my dear, I don't interrupt?" +she said to Mrs. Mesurier; "shall I not call in some other day?" + +"Oh, dear, no!" said Mrs. Mesurier. "Esther, get Mrs. Turtle a little +whisky and water." + +"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Turtle, "only the least little drop in the +world, Esther dear. My heart, you know, my dear. Even so short a walk as +this tires me out." + +Mrs. Mesurier responded sympathetically; and then, by way of making +himself pleasant, Mr. Clegg suddenly broke in with such an extraordinary +amenity of old-world gallantry that everybody's hair stood on end. + +"How old do you be?" he said, bowing to the new-comer. + +"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Turtle, putting her hand to her ear; "but +I'm slightly deaf." + +"How old do you be?" shouted the old man. + +Though not unnaturally taken aback at such an unwonted conception of +conversational intercourse, Mrs. Turtle recovered herself with +considerable humour, and, bridling, with an old-world shake of her +head, said,-- + +"What would you take me for?" + +"I should say you were seventy, if you're a day," promptly answered the +old man. + +"Oh, dear, no!" replied Mrs. Turtle, with some pique; "I was only sixty +last January." + +"Well, you carry your age badly," retorted the old man, not to be +beaten. + +"What does he say, my dear?" said the poor old lady turning to Mrs. +Mesurier. + +"You carry your age badly," shouted the determined old man; "she should +see our Esther, shouldn't she, Mary?" + +The silence here of the young people was positively electric with +suppressed laughter. Two of them escaped to explode in another room, and +Esther and her mother were left to save the situation. But on such +occasions as these Mrs. Mesurier grew positively great; and the manner +in which she contrived to "turn the conversation," and smooth over the +terrible hiatus, was a feat that admits of no worthy description. + +Presently the old man rose to go, as the clock neared five. He had +promised to be home before dark, and Esther would think him "benighted" +if he should be late. He evidently had been to America and back in that +short afternoon. + +"Well, Mary, good-bye," he said; "one never knows whether we shall meet +again. I'm getting an old man." + +"Eh, Uncle Clegg, you're worth twenty dead ones yet," said Mrs. +Mesurier, reassuringly. + +"What a strange old gentleman!" said Mrs. Turtle, somewhat bewildered, +as this family apparition left the room. + +"Good-bye, Uncle Clegg," Esther was heard singing in the hall. +"Good-bye, be careful of the steps. Good-bye. Give our love to +Aunt Esther." + +Then the door would bang, and the whole house breathe a gigantic sigh of +humorous relief. + +(This was the kind of thing girls at home had to put up with!) + +"Well, mother, did you ever see such a funny old person?" said Esther, +on her return to the parlour. + +"You mustn't laugh at him," Mrs. Mesurier would say, laughing herself; +"he's a good old man." + +"No doubt he's good enough, mother dear; but he's unmistakably funny," +Esther would reply, with a whimsical thought of the family tree. Yes, +they were a distinguished race! + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN CONCLUDED + +No, the Mesuriers had absolutely nothing to hope for from their +relations,--nothing to look back upon, less to look forward to. Most +families, however poor and even _bourgeois_, had some memories to +dignify them or some one possible contingency of pecuniary inheritance. +At the very least, they had a ghost-story in the family. You seldom read +the biographies of writers or artists without finding references, +however remote, to at least one person of some distinction or substance. +To have had even a curate for an ancestor, or a connection, would have +been something, some frail link with gentility. + +Now if, instead of being a rough old sea-captain of a trading ship, +Grandfather Mesurier had only been a charming old white-headed admiral +living in London, and glad, now and again, to welcome his little country +granddaughters to stay with him! He would probably have been very dull, +but then he would have looked distinguished, and taken one for walks in +the Park, or bought one presents in the Burlington arcade. At least old +admirals always seemed to serve this indulgent purpose in stories. At +all events, he would have been something, some possible link with an +existence of more generous opportunities. Dot and Mat would then at +least have seen a nice boy or two occasionally, and in time got married +as they deserved to be, and thus escape from this little provincial +theatre of Sidon. Who could look at Dot and think that anything short of +a miracle--a miracle like Esther's own meeting with Mike--was going to +find her a worthy mate in Sidon; and, suppose the miracle happened once +more in her case, what of Mat and all the rest? To be the wife of a +Sidonian town-councillor, at the highest,--what a fate! + +Henry and she had often discussed this inadequate outlook for their +younger sisters, quite in the manner of those whose positions of +enlargement were practically achieved. The only thing to be done was for +Henry to make haste to win a name as a writer, and Mike to make his +fortune as an actor. Then another society would be at once opened to +them all. Yes, what wonders were to take place then, particularly when +Mike had made his fortune!--for the financial prospects of the young +people were mainly centred in him. Literature seldom made much +money--except when it wasn't literature. Henry hoped to be too good a +writer to hope to make money as well. But that would be a mere detail, +when Mike was a flourishing manager; for when that had come about, had +not Henry promised him that he would not be too proud to regard him as +his patron to the extent of accepting from him an allowance of, say, a +thousand a year. No, he positively wouldn't agree to more than a +thousand; and Mike had to be content with his promising to take that. + +Meanwhile, what could girls at home do, but watch and wait and make home +as pretty as possible, and, by the aid of books and pictures, reflect as +much light from a larger world into their lives as might be. + +On Henry's going away, the three girls had promptly bespoken the +reversion of his study as a little sitting-room for themselves. Here +they concentrated their books, and some few pictures that appealed to +tastes in revolt against Atlantic liners, but not yet developed to the +appreciation of those true classics of art--to which indeed they had yet +to be introduced. Such half-way masters as Leighton, Alma-Tadema, Sant, +and Dicksee were as yet to them something of what Rossetti and +Burne-Jones, and certain old Italian masters, were soon to become. In +books, they had already learnt from Henry a truer, or at all events a +more strenuous, taste; and they would grapple manfully with Carlyle and +Browning, and presently Meredith, long before their lives had use or +understanding for such tremendous nourishment. + +One evening, as they were all three sitting cosily in Henry's study,--as +they still faithfully called it,--Esther was reading "Pride and +Prejudice" aloud, while Dot and Mat busied themselves respectively with +"macramé" work and a tea-cosy against a coming bazaar. Esther's tasks in +the house were somewhat illustrated by her part in the trio this +evening. Her energies were mainly devoted to "the higher nights" of +housekeeping, to the aesthetic activities of the home,--arranging +flowers, dusting vases and pictures, and so on,--and the lightness of +these employments was, it is to be admitted, an occasionally raised +grievance among the sisters. To Dot and Mat fell much more arduous and +manual spheres of labour. Yet all were none the less grateful for the +decorative innovations which Esther, acting on occasional hints from her +friend Myrtilla Williamson, was able to make; and if it were true that +she hardly took her fair share of bed-making and pastry-cooking, it was +equally undeniable that to her was due the introduction of Liberty silk +curtains and cushions in two or three rooms. She too--alas, for the +mistakes of young taste!--had also introduced painted tambourines, and +swathed the lamps in wonderful turbans of puffed tissue paper. Was she +to receive no credit for these services? Then it was she who had dared +to do battle with her mother's somewhat old-fashioned taste in dress; +and whenever the Mesurier sisters came out in something specially pretty +or fashionable, it was due to Esther. + +Well, on this particular evening, she was, as we have said, taking her +share in the housework by reading "Jane Austen" aloud to Dot and Mat; +when the door suddenly opened, and James Mesurier stood there, a little +aloof,--for it was seldom he entered this room, which perhaps had for +him a certain painful association of his son's rebellion. Perhaps, too, +the picture of this happy little corner of his children--a world +evidently so complete in itself, and daily developing more and more away +from the parent world in the front parlour--gave him a certain pang of +estrangement. Perhaps he too felt as he looked on them that same dreary +sense of disintegration which had overtaken the mother on Henry's +departure; and perhaps there was something of that in his voice, as, +looking at them with rather a sad smile, he said,-- + +"You look very comfortable here, children. I hope that's a profitable +book you are reading, Esther." + +"Oh, yes, father. It's 'Jane Austen,' you know." + +"Well, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I want a few words with Dorcas. +She can join you again soon." + +So Dot, wondering what was in store for her, rose and accompanied her +father to the front parlour, where Mrs. Mesurier was peacefully knitting +in the lamplight. + +"Dorcas, my dear," he said, when the door was closed, "your mother and +I have had a serious talk this evening on the subject of your joining +the church. You are now nearly sixteen, and of an age to think for +yourself in such matters; and we think it is time that you made some +profession of your faith as a Christian before the world." + +The Church James Mesurier referred to was that branch of the English +Nonconformists known as Baptists; and the profession of faith was the +curious rite of baptism by complete immersion, the importance claimed +for which by this sect is, perhaps, from a Christian point of view, made +the less disproportionate by another condition attaching to it,--the +condition that not till years of individual judgment have been reached +is one eligible for the sacred rite. With that rationalism which +religious sects are so skilful in applying to some unimportant point of +ritual, and so careful not to apply to vital questions of dogma, the +Baptists reasonably argue that to baptise an unthinking infant, and, by +an external rite which has no significance except as the symbol of an +internal decision, declare him a Christian, is nothing more than an +idolatrous mummery. Wait till the child is of age to choose for him or +herself, to understand the significance of the Christian revelation and +the nature of the profession it is called upon to make; then if, by the +grace of God, it chooses aright, let him or her be baptised. And for the +manner of that baptism, if symbols are to be made use of by the +Christian church,--and it is held wise among the Baptists to make use of +few, and those the most central,--should they not be designed as nearly +after the fashion set forth in the Bible itself as is possible? The +"Ordinance" of the Lord's Supper--as it is called amongst them--follows +the procedure of the Last Supper as recorded in the Gospels; should not, +therefore, the rite of baptism be in its details similarly faithful to +authority? Now in Scripture, as is well known, baptisms were complete +immersions, symbolic alike of the washing away of sin, and also of the +dying to this world and the resurrection to the Life eternal in +Christ Jesus. + +So much theology was bred in the bone of all the young Mesuriers; and +the youngest of them could as readily have capitulated these articles of +belief as their father, who once more briefly summarised them to-night +for the benefit of his daughter. He ended with something of a personal +appeal. It had been one of the griefs of his life that Henry and Esther +had both refused to join their father's church, though Esther always +dutifully attended it every Sunday morning; and it was thinking of them, +though without naming them, that he said,-- + +"I met Mr. Trotter yesterday,"--Mr. Trotter was the local Baptist +minister, and Dot remarked to herself that her father was able to +pronounce his name without the smallest suspicion that such a name, as +belonging to a minister of divine mysteries, was rather ludicrous, +though indeed Baptist ministers seemed always to have names like +that!--"and he asked me when some of my young ladies were going to join +the church. I confess the question made me feel a little ashamed; for, +you know, my dear, out of our large family not one of you has yet come +forward as a Christian." + +"No, father," said Dot, at last. + +"I hope, my dear, you are not going to disappoint me in this matter." + +"No indeed, father," said Dot, whose nature was pliable and +sympathetic, as well as fundamentally religious; "but I'm afraid I +haven't thought quite as much about it as I should like to, and, if you +don't mind, I should like to have a few days to think it out." + +"Of course, my dear. That is a very right feeling; for the step is a +solemn one, and should not be taken without reverent thought. You cannot +do better than to talk it over with Mr. Trotter. If you have any +difficulties, you can tell him; and I'm sure he would be delighted to +help you. Isn't it so, mother? Well, dear," he continued, "you can run +away now; but bear in mind what I have said, and I shall hope to hear +that you have made the right choice before long. Kiss me, dear." + +And so, with something of a lump in her throat, Dot returned to the +interrupted "Jane Austen." + +"Whatever did father want?" asked the two girls, looking up as she +entered the room. + +"What do you think?" said Dot. "He wants me to be baptised!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +DOT'S DECISION + +Now, in thus appealing to Dot, her father had appealed to just the one +out of all his children who was least likely to disappoint him. To Dot +and Henry had unmistakably been transmitted the largest share of their +father's spirituality. Esther was not actively religious, any more than +she was actively poetic. Hers was one of those composite, admirably +balanced natures which include most qualities and faculties, but no one +in excess of another. Such make those engaging good women of the world, +who are able to understand and sympathise with the most diverse +interests and temperaments; as it is the characteristic of a good critic +to understand all those various products of art, which it would be +impossible for him to create. Thus Esther could have delighted a saint +with her sympathetic comprehension, as she could have healed the wounds +of a sinner by her comprehensive sympathy; but it was certain she would +never be, in sufficient excess, spiritually wrought or sensually +rebellious to be one or the other. She was beautifully, buoyantly +normal, with a happy, expansive, enjoying nature, glad in the sunlight, +brave in the shadow, optimistically looking forward to blithe years of +life and love with Mike and her friends, and not feeling the necessity +of being anxious about her soul, or any other world but this. She was +not shallow; but she merely realised life more through her intelligence +than through her feelings. To have become a Baptist would have offended +her intelligence, without bringing any satisfaction to spiritual +instincts not, in any event, clamorous. + +As for Henry, it was not only activity of intelligence, but activity of +spirituality, that made it impossible for him to embrace any such narrow +creed as that proposed to him; and, for the present, that spiritual +activity found ample scope for itself in poetry. + +Dot's, however, was an intermediate case. With an intelligence active +too, she united a spirituality torturingly intense, but for which she +had no such natural creative outlet as Henry. With her loss of the old +creed,--in discarding which these three sisters had followed the lead of +their brother with a curious instinctiveness, almost, it would seem, +independent of reasoning,--her spirituality had been left somewhat +bleakly houseless, and she had often longed for some compromise by which +she could reconcile her intelligence to the acceptance of some +established home of faith, whose kindly enclosing walls should be more +genially habitable to the soul than the cold, star-lit spaces which +Henry declared to be sufficient temple. + +Perhaps Esther's commiseration of her sisters' narrow opportunities was, +so far as it related to Dot, a little unnecessary, for indeed Dot's +ambitions were not social. By nature shy and meditative, and with her +religious bias, had she been born into a Catholic family, she might not +improbably have found the world well lost in a sisterhood. The Puritan +conscience had an uncomfortable preponderance in the deep places of her +nature, and, far down in her soul, like her father, she would ask +herself if pleasure could be the end of life--was there not something +serious each of us could and ought to do, to justify his place in the +world? Were we not all under some mysterious solemn obligation to do +something, however little, in return for life? + +Mat, on the other hand, had no such scruples. She was more like Esther +in nature, with a touch of cynicism curling her dainty lip, arising, +perhaps, from an early divination that she was to lack Esther's +opportunities. Perhaps it was because she was the pessimist--the quite +cheerful pessimist--of the family, that she was by far the cleverest and +most industrious at the housework. If it was her fate to be Cinderella, +she might as well make the best of it, with a cynical endurance and +good-humour, and be Cinderella with a good grace. Probably the only +glass slipper in the family had already fallen to Esther. Never mind, +though her good looks might fade with being a good girl at home, year by +year, what did it matter, after all? Nothing mattered in the end. And +thus, out of a great indifference, Mat developed a great unselfishness; +and if you could name one special angel in the house of the Mesuriers, +she was unmistakably Mat. + +In addition to her religious promptings, Dot had lately developed a +great sympathy for her father. Standing a little aside from the conflict +between him and Henry, she was able to divine something of the feelings +of both; and she had now and again caught a look of loneliness on her +father's face that made her ready to do almost anything to please him. + +Of course the question was one for general consultation. She knew what +Henry would say. It didn't much matter anyhow, he would say, but it was +a pity. How was intellectual freedom to be won, if those who had seen +the light should thus deliberately forego it, time after time, from such +merely sentimental reasons? And when she saw Henry, that was just what +he did say. + +"But," she said, "it would make father so happy." + +"Yes, I know," he answered; "and it would be very beautiful of you. +Besides, of course, in one way it's only a matter of symbolism; but +then, on the other hand, it's symbolism hardened into dogmatism that has +done all the mischief. Do it, dear, if you like; I hardly know what to +say. As you say, it will make father happy, and I shall quite +understand." + +Dot was one of those natures that like to seek, and are liable to take, +advice; so, after seeing Henry, she thought she would see what Mr. +Trotter had to say; for, in spite of his unfortunate name, Mr. Trotter +was a gentle, cultivated mind, and was indeed somewhat incongruously, +perhaps in a mild way Jesuitically, circumstanced as a Baptist minister. +Henry and he were great friends on literary matters; and Dot and he had +had many talks, greatly helpful to her, on spiritual things. In fact, +Chrysostom Trotter was one of those numerous half-way men between the +old beliefs and their new modifications, which the continuous advance of +scientific discovery and philosophical speculation on the one hand, and +the obstinate survival of Christianity on the other, necessitate--if men +of spiritual intuitions who are not poets and artists are to earn their +living. There was nothing you could say to Chrysostom Trotter, provided +you said it reverently, that would startle him. He knew all that long +ago and far more. For, though obliged to trade in this backwater of +belief, he was in many respects a very modern mind. You were hardly +likely to know your Herbert Spencer as intimately as he, and all the +most exquisite literature of doubt was upon his shelves. Though you +might declare him superficially disingenuous, you could not, unless you +were some commonplace atheist or materialist, gainsay the honest logic +of his position. + +"You believe that the world, that life, is a spiritual mystery?" he +would say. + +"Yes." + +"You do not for a moment think that any materialistic science has +remotely approached an adequate explanation of its meaning?" + +"Certainly not." + +"You believe too that, however it comes about, and whatever it means, +there is an eternal struggle in man between what, for sake of argument, +we will call the higher and lower natures?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, then, this spiritual mystery, this struggle, are hinted at in +various media of human expression, in an ever-changing variety of human +symbols. Art chiefly concerns itself with the sexual mystery, with the +wonderful love of man and woman, in its explanation of which alone +science is so pitifully inadequate. Literature more fully concerns +itself with the mystery of man's indestructibly instinctive relation to +what we call the unseen,--that is, the Whole, the Cosmos, God, or +whatever you please to call it. But more than literature, religion has +for centuries concerned itself with these considerations, has +consciously and industriously sought to make itself the science of what +we call the soul. It has thrown its observations, just as poetry and art +have thrown their observations, into symbolic forms, of which +Christianity is incomparably the most important. You don't reject the +revelation of human love because Hero and Leander are probably creations +of the poet's fancy. Will you reject the revelation of divine love, +because it chances, for its greater efficiency in winning human hearts, +to have found expression in a similar human symbolism? Personally, I +hold that Christ actually lived, and was literally the Son of God; but, +were the human literalness of his divine story discredited, the eternal +verities of human degeneration, and a mysterious regeneration, would be +no whit disproved. Externally, Christianity may be a symbol; +essentially, it is a science of spiritual fact, as really as geology is +a science of material fact. + +"And as for its miraculous, supernatural, side,--are the laws of nature +so easy to understand that we should find such a difficulty in accepting +a few divergencies from them? He who can make laws for so vast a +universe may surely be capable of inventing a few comparatively trivial +exceptions." + +Not perhaps in so many words, but in some such spirit, would Chrysostom +Trotter argue; and it was in some such fashion that he talked in his +charmingly sympathetic way with Dorcas Mesurier, one afternoon, as she +had tea with him in a study breathing on every hand the man of letters, +rather than the minister of a somewhat antiquated sect. + +"My dear Dorcas," he said, "you know me well enough--you know me perhaps +better than your father knows me--know me well enough to believe that I +wouldn't urge you to do this thing if I didn't think it was right _for +you_--as well as for your father and me. But I know it is right, and for +this reason. You are a deeply religious nature, but you need some +outward symbol to hold on to,--you need, so to say, the magnetising +association of a religious organisation. Henry can get along very well, +as many poets have, with his birds and his sunsets and so forth; but you +need something more authoritative. It happens that the church I +represent, the church of your father, is nearest to you. You might, with +all the goodwill in the world, so far as I am concerned, embrace some +other modification of the Christian faith; but here is a church, so to +say, ready for you, familiar by long association, endeared to your +father. You believe in God, you believe in the spiritual meaning of +life, you believe that we poor human beings need something to keep our +eyes fixed upon that spiritual meaning--well, dear Dorcas," he ended, +abruptly, "what do you think?" + +"I'll do it," said Dot. + +"Good girl," said the minister; "sometimes it is a form of righteousness +to waive our doubts for those who are at once so dear and good as your +father. And don't for a moment think that it will leave you just where +you are. These outward acts are great energisers of the soul. Dear +Dorcas, I welcome you into one of God's many churches." + +So it was that Dot came to be baptised; and, to witness the ceremony, +all the Mesuriers assembled at the chapel that Sunday evening,--even +Henry, who could hardly remember when he used to sit in this +still-familiar pew, and scribble love-verses in the back of his +hymn-book during the sermon. + +To the mere mocker, the rite of baptism by immersion might well seem a +somewhat grotesque antic of sectarianism; but to any one who must needs +find sympathy for any observance into which, in whatsoever forgotten and +superseded time, has passed the prayerful enthusiasm of man, the rite +could hardly fail of a moving solemnity. As Chrysostom Trotter ordered +it, it was certainly made to yield its fullest measure of +impressiveness. To begin with, the chapel was quite a comely edifice +inside and out; and its ministerial end, with its singers' gallery +backed by great organ pipes, and fronted by a handsome pulpit, which Mr. +Trotter had dared to garnish with chrysanthemums on each side of his +Bible, had a modest, sacerdotal effect. Beneath the pulpit on ordinary +occasions stood the Communion-table; but on evenings when the rite of +baptism was prepared, this table, and a boarding on which it stood, +were removed, revealing a tiled baptistry,--that is, a tiled tank, about +eight feet long, and six wide, with steps on each side descending into +about four feet of water. + +Towards the close of the service, the minister would leave his pulpit, +and, during the singing of a hymn, would presently emerge from his +vestry in a long waterproof garment. As the hymn ended, some "sister" or +"brother" that night to be admitted into the church, would timidly join +him at the baptistry side, and together they would go down into +the water. + +Holding the hands of the new communicant, the minister, in a solemn +voice, would say, "Sister," or "Brother, on confession of your faith in +our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I baptise thee in the name of the +Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." + +Then the organ would strike up a triumphant peal, and, to the +accompaniment of its music and the mellow plashing of the water, the +sister or brother would be plunged beneath the symbolic wave. + +Great was the excitement, needless to say, in the Mesurier pew, as +little Dot at last came forth from the vestry, and, stealing down into +the water, took the minister's out-stretched hands. + +"There she is! There's Dot!" passed round the pew, and the hardest young +heart, whoever it belonged to, stopped beating, to hear the minister's +words. They seemed to come with a special personal tenderness,-- + +"Sister, on confession of your faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus +Christ, I baptise thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of +the Holy Ghost." + +Once more the organ triumphant, and the mellow splashing of the water. + +Dear little Dot, she had done it! + +"Did you see father's face?" Esther whispered to Henry. + +Yes; perhaps none of them would ever do such a beautiful thing as Dot +had done that night. At least there was one of James Mesurier's children +who had not disappointed him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +MIKE AND HIS MILLION POUNDS + + +The most exquisite compliment a man has ever paid to him is worded +something like this: "Well, dear, you certainly know how to make love;" +and this compliment is always the reward, not of passion however +sustained, or sentiment however refined, but of humour whimsically +fantasticating and balancing both. It is the gentle laugh, not +violating, but just humanising, that very solemn kiss; the quip that +just saves passion from toppling over the brink into bathos, that mark +the skilful lover. No lover will long be successful unless he is a +humourist too, and is able to keep the heart of love amused. A lover +should always be something of an actor as well; not, of course, for the +purpose of feigning what he does not feel, but so that he may the better +dramatise his sincerity! + +Mike had therefore many advantages over those merely pretty fellows +whose rivalry he had once been modest enough to fear. He was a master +of all the child's play of love; and to attempt to describe the fancies +which he found to vary the game of love, would be to run the risk of +exposing the limitations of the literary medium. No words can pull those +whimsical faces, or put on those heart-breaking pathetic expressions, +with which he loved to meet Esther after some short absence. Sometimes +he would come into the room, a little forlorn sparrow of a creature, +signifying, by a dejection in which his very clothes took part, that he +was out in the east wind of circumstance and no one in the world cared a +shabby feather for him. He would stand shivering in a corner, and look +timorously from side to side, till at last he would pretend she had +warmed him with her kisses, and generally made him welcome to the world. + +Sometimes he would come in with his collar dismally turned up, and an +old battered hat upon his head, and pretend that he hadn't had a +meal--of kisses--for a whole week; and occasionally he would come +blowing out his cheeks like a king's trumpeter, to announce that Mike +Laflin might be at any moment expected. But for the most part these +impersonations were in a minor key, as Mike had soon discovered that the +more pathetic he was, the more he was hugged and called a "weenty," +which was one of his own sad little names for himself. + +One of his "long-run" fairy-tales, as he would call them, was that each +morning as he went to business, he really started out in search of a +million pounds, which was somewhere awaiting him, and which he might +break his shins over at any moment. It might be here, it might be there, +it might come at any hour of the day. The next post might bring it. It +might be in yonder Parcel Delivery van,--nothing more probable. Or at +any moment it might fall from heaven in a parachute, or be at that +second passing through the dock-gates, wearily home from the Islands of +Sugar and Spice. You never could tell. + +"Well, Mike," said Esther, one evening, as he came in, hopping in a +pitifully wounded way, and explaining that he had been one of the three +ravens sitting on a bough which the cruel huntsman had shot through the +wing, etc., "have you found your million pounds to-day?" + +"No, not my million pounds," said Mike. "I'm told I shall find them +to-morrow." + +"Who told you?" + +"The Weenty." + +"You silly old thing! Give me a kiss. Are you a dear? Tell me, aren't +you a dear?" + +"No-p! I'm only a poor little houseless, roofless, windowless, +chimney-less, Esther-less, brainless, +out-in-the-wind-and-the-snow-and-the-rain, Mike!" + +"You're the biggest dear in the world!" + +"No, I'm not. I'm the littlest!" + +"Suppose you found your million pounds, Mike?" + +"Suppose! Didn't I tell you I'm sure of it to-morrow?" + +"Well, when you find it to-morrow, what will you do with it?" + +"I'll buy the moon." + +"The moon?" + +"Yes; as a present for Henry." + +"Wouldn't it be rather dear?" + +"Not at all. Twenty thousand would buy it any time this last hundred +years. But the worst of it is, no one wants it but the poets, and they +cannot afford it. Yet if only a poet could get hold of it, why what a +literary property it would be!" + +"You silly old thing!" + +"No! but you don't seem to realise that I'm quite serious. Think of the +money there would be for any poet who had acquired the exclusive +literary rights in the moon! Within a week I'd have it placarded all +over, 'Literary trespassers will be prosecuted!' And then I've no doubt +Henry would lend me the Man in the Moon for my Christmas pantomimes." + +"After all, it's not a bad idea," said Esther. + +"Of course it's not," said Mike; "but be careful not to mention it to +Henry just yet. I shouldn't like to disappoint him--for, of course, +before we took any final steps in the purchase, we'd have to make sure +that it wasn't, as some people think, made of green cheese." + +"But never mind about the moon. Tell us how you got on with The +Sothern." + +The Sothern was an amateur dramatic club in Tyre which took itself very +seriously, and to which Mike was seeking admission, as a first step +towards London management. He had that day passed an examination before +three of the official members, solemn and important as though they had +been the Honourable Directors of Drury Lane, and had been admitted to +membership in the club, with the promise of a small part in their +forthcoming performance. + +"Oh, that's good!" said Esther. "What were they like?" + +"Oh, they were all right,--rather humorous. They gave me 'Eugene Aram' +to read--Me reading 'Eugene Aram'!--and a scene out of 'London +Assurance,' which was, of course, better. Naturally, not one of the men +was the remotest bit like himself. One was a queer kind of Irving, +another a sad sort of Arthur Roberts, and the other was--shall we say, a +Tyrian Wyndham." + +Actors, like poets, have provincial parodists of their styles in even +greater numbers, so adoringly imitative is humanity. Some day, Mike +would have his imitators,--boys who pulled faces like his, and prided +themselves on having the Laflin wrinkles; just as it was once the +fashion for girls to look like Burne-Jones pictures, or young poets to +imitate Mr. Swinburne. + +"Yes, I've got my first part. I've got it in my pocket," said Mike. + +"Oh, really! That's splendid!" exclaimed Esther, with delight. + +"Wait till you see it," said Mike, bringing out a French's acting +edition of some forgotten comedy. "Yes; guess how many words I've got to +say! Just exactly eleven. And such words!" + +"Well, never mind, dear. It's a beginning." + +"Certainly, it's a beginning,--the very beginning of a beginning." + +"Come, let me see it, Mike. What are you supposed to be?" + +At last Mike was persuaded to confess the humble little _rôle_ for which +the eminent actors who had consented to be his colleagues had cast him. +He was to be the comic boy of a pastry-cook's man, and his distinguished +part in the action of the piece was to come in at a certain moment with +the pie that had been ordered, and, as he delivered it, he was to +remark, "That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!" + +"Oh, Mike, what a shame!" exclaimed Esther. "How absurd! Why, you're a +better actor with your little finger than any one of them with their +whole body." + +"Ah, but they don't know that yet, you see." + +"Any one could see it if they looked at your face half-a-minute." + +"I wanted to play the part of Snodgrass; but they couldn't think of +giving me that, of course. So, do you know what I pretended, to comfort +myself? I pretended I was Edward Kean waiting in the passages at Drury +Lane, with all the other fine fellows looking down at the shabby little +gloomy man from the provinces. That was conceit for you, wasn't it?" + +The pathos of this was, of course, irresistible to Esther, and Mike was +thereupon hugged and kissed as he expected. + +"Never mind," he said, "you'll see if I don't make something of the poor +little part after all." + +And, thereupon, he described what he laughingly called his "conception," +and how he proposed to dress and make up, so vividly that it was evident +that the pastry-cook's boy was already to him a personality whose +actions and interests were by no means limited to his brief appearance +on the stage, but who, though accidentally he had but few words to speak +before the audience, was a very voluble and vital little person in +scenes where the audience did not follow him. + +"Yes, you see I'll do something with it. The best of a small part," +said Mike, speaking as one of experience, "is that it gives you plenty +of opportunity for making the audience wish there was more of it." + +"From that point of view, you certainly couldn't have a finer part," +laughed Esther. + +Then for a moment Mike skipped out of the room, and presently knocked, +and, putting in a funny face, entered carrying a cushion with alacrity. + +"That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!" he fooled, throwing the +cushion into Esther's lap, where presently his little red head found +its way too. + +"How can you love such a silly little creature?" he said, looking up +into Esther's blue eyes. + +"I don't know, I'm sure," said Esther; "but I do," and, bending down, +she kissed the wistful boy's face. Was it because Esther was in a way +his mother, as well as his sweetheart, that she seemed to do all +the kissing? + +Thus was Mike's first part rehearsed and rewarded. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ON CERTAIN ADVANTAGES OF A BACKWATER + + +Though from a maritime point of view, Tyre was perhaps the chief centre +of conjunction for all the main streams of the world, from the point of +view of literature and any other art, it was an admitted backwater. Take +what art you pleased, Tyre was a dunce. Even to music, the most +persuasive of the arts, it was deaf. Surely, of all cities, it had not +been built to music. It possessed, indeed, one private-spirited +town-councillor, who insisted on presenting it with nude sculptures and +mysterious paintings which it furiously declined. If Tyre was to be +artistically great, it must certainly be with a greatness reluctantly +thrust upon it. + +Still Henry and Ned had sense enough to be glad that they had been born +there. It was from no mere recognition of an inexpensively effective +background; perhaps they hardly knew why they were glad till later on. +But, meanwhile, they instinctively laid hold of the advantages of their +limitations. Had they been London-born and Oxford-bred, they would have +been much more fashionable in their tastes; but their very isolation, +happily, saved them from the passing superstitions of fashion; and they +were thus able to enjoy the antiquities of beauty with the same +freshness of appetite as though they had been novelties. If Henry was to +meet Ned some evening with the announcement that he had a wonderful new +book to share with him, it was just as likely to be Sir Philip Sidney's +"Astrophel and Stella," as any more recent publication--though, indeed, +they contrived to keep in touch with the literary developments of the +day with a remarkable instinct, and perhaps a juster estimate of their +character and value than those who were taking part in them; for it is +seldom that one can be in the movement and at the centre as well. + +As a matter of fact, there was little that interested them, or which at +all events didn't disappoint and somewhat bewilder. The novel was +groaning under the thraldom of realism; poetry, with one or two +exceptions, was given up to bric-a-brac and metrical ingenuity. To +young men for whom French romanticism was still alive, who were still +content to see the world through the spiritual eyes of Shelley and +Keats, and who had not yet learned to belittle Carlyle, there seemed a +strange lack of generosity and, indeed, vitality in the literary ideals +of the hour. The novel particularly seemed barren and unprofitable to +them, more and more an instrument of science than a branch of +literature. Laughter had deserted it, as clearly as romance or pathos, +and more and more it was becoming the vehicle of cynical biology on the +one hand, and Unitarian theology on the other. Besides, strangest of +all, men were praised for lacking those very qualities which to these +boys had seemed essential to literature. The excellences praised were +the excellences of science, not literature. In fact, there seemed to be +but one excellence, namely, accuracy of observation; and to write a +novel with any eye to beauty of language was to err, as the writer of a +scientific treatise would err who endeavoured to add charm and grace to +the sober record of his investigations. Dull sociological analysts +reigned in the once laughing domain of Cervantes, of Fielding and +Thackeray, of Dumas and Dickens, of Hugo and Gautier and George Sand. + +Were they born too late? Were they anachronisms from the forgotten age +of romanticism, or were they just born in time to assist at the birth of +another romantic, idealistic age? Would dreams and love and beautiful +writing ever come into fashion again? Would the poet be again a creature +of passion, and the novelist once more make you laugh and cry; and would +there be essayists any more, whose pages you would mark and whose +phrases you would roll over and over again on your tongue, with delight +at some mysterious magic in the words? + +History may be held to have answered these questions since then, much in +favour of those young men, or at all events is engaged in answering +them; but, meanwhile, what a miraculous refreshment in a dry and thirsty +land was the new book Henry Mesurier had just discovered, and had +eagerly brought to share with Ned in their tavern corner one summer +evening in 1885. + +Ned was late; but when Henry had sipped a little at his port, and turned +to the new-born exquisite pages, he hardly noticed how the minutes were +going by as he read. Presently he had come to the end of the first +volume, the only one he had with him, and he raised his eyes from the +closing page with that exquisite exaltation, that beatific satisfaction +of mind and spirit,--even almost one might say of body,--which for the +lover of literature nothing in the world like a fine passage can bring. + +He turned again to the closing sentences: "_Yes; what was wanting was +the heart that would make it impossible to witness all this; and the +future would be with the forces that would beget a heart like that. His +favourite philosophy had said, Trust the eye. Strive to be right always, +regarding the concrete experience. Never falsify your impressions. And +its sanction had been at least effective here, in saying: It is what I +may not see! Surely, evil was a real thing; and the wise man wanting in +the sense of it, where not to have been, by instinctive election, on the +right side was to have failed in life_." + +The passage referred to the Roman gladiatorial shows, and to the +philosophic detachment by which Marcus Aurelius was able to see and yet +not to see them; and the whole book was the spiritual story of a young +Roman's soul, a priestlike artistic temperament, born in the haunted +twilight between the setting sun of pagan religion and philosophy and +the dawn of the Christian idea. The theme presented many fascinating +analogies to the present time; and in the hero's "sensations and ideas" +Henry found many correspondences with his own nature. In him, too, was +united that same joy in the sensuous form, that same adoration of the +spiritual mystery, the temperaments in one of artist and priest. He, +too, in a dim fashion indeed, and under conditions of culture less +favourable, had speculated and experimented in a similar manner upon the +literary art over which as yet he had acquired--how crushingly this +exquisite book taught him--such pathetically uncertain mastery. That +impassioned comradeship in books beautiful, was it not to-day Ned's and +his, as all those years before it had been that of Marius and Flavian? + +And where in the world _was_ Ned? How he would kindle at a passage like +this: "_To keep the eye clear by a sort of exquisite personal alacrity +and cleanliness, extending even to his dwelling-place; to discriminate, +ever more and more exactly, select form and colour in things from what +was less select; to meditate much on beautiful visible objects, on +objects, more especially, connected with the period of youth,--on +children at play in the morning, the trees in early spring, on young +animals, on the fashions and amusements of young men; to keep ever by +him, if it were but a single choice flower, a graceful animal or +sea-shell, as a token and representation of the whole kingdom of such +things; to avoid jealously, in his way through the world, everything +repugnant to sight; and, should any circumstance tempt him to a general +converse in the range of such objects, to disentangle himself from that +circumstance at any cost of place, money, or opportunity: such were, in +brief outline, the duties recognised, the rights demanded, in this new +formula of life_." + +And again, what gleaming single phrases, whole counsels of existence in +a dozen words! He must copy out some of them for Esther. This, for +example: "_Not pleasure, but fulness, completeness of life generally_," +or this: "_To be able to make use of the flower when the fruit, perhaps, +was useless or poisonous_" or again this: "_To be absolutely virgin +towards a direct and concrete experience_"--and there were a +hundred more. + +Then for the young craftsman what an insight into, what a compassionate, +childish remembrance of the moods and the little foolish accidents of +creation: "_His dilettanteism, his assiduous preoccupation with what +might seem but the details of mere form or manner, was, after all, bent +upon the function of bringing to the surface, sincerely and in their +integrity, certain strong personal intuitions, certain visions or +apprehensions of things as being, with important results, in this way +rather than that--apprehensions which the artistic or literary +expression was called upon to follow, with the exactness of wax or clay, +clothing the model within it. Flavian, too, with his fine, clear mastery +of the practically effective, had early laid hold of the principle, as +axiomatic in literature: That 'to know when one's self is interested, is +the first condition of interesting other people'"_ And once more: "_As +it oftenest happens also, with natures of genuinely poetic quality, +those piecemeal beginnings came suddenly to harmonious completeness +among the fortunate incidents, the physical heat and light, of one +singularly happy day_." + +And, over all, what a beauty! a beauty at once so sensuous and so +spiritual--the beauty of flowering laurel, the beauty of austerity +aflower. Here the very senses prayed. Surely this was the most +beautiful prose book ever written! It had been compared, he saw, with +Gautier's "Mademoiselle de Maupin;" but was not the beauty of that +masterpiece, in comparison with the beauty of this, as the beauty of a +leopard-skin to the beauty of a statue of Minerva, withdrawn in a +grove of ilex. + +Still Ned delayed, and, meanwhile, the third glass of port had come and +gone, and at length, reluctantly, Henry emerged from his tavern-cloister +upon the warm brilliancy of the streets. All around him the lights +beaconed, and the women called with bright eyes. But to-night there was +no temptation for him in these things. They but recalled another +exquisite quotation from his new-found treasure, which he stopped under +a lamp to fix in his memory: "_And, as the fresh, rich evening came on, +there was heard all over Rome, far above a whisper, the whole town +seeming hushed to catch it distinctly, the living, reckless call to +'play,' from the sons and daughters of foolishness to those in whom +their life was still green_--Donec virenti canities abest! Donec virenti +canities abest! _Marius could hardly doubt how Cornelius would have +taken the call. And as for himself, slight as was the burden of +positive moral obligation with which he had entered Rome, it was to no +wasteful and vagrant affections, such as these, that his Epicureanism +had committed him_." + +But what could have happened to Ned? + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE MAN IN POSSESSION + + +One morning, two or three months after Henry had left home, old Mr. +Lingard came to him as he sat bent, drearily industrious, over some +accounts, and said that he wished him in half-an-hour's time to go with +him to a new client; and presently the two set out together, Henry +wondering what it was to be, and welcoming anything that even exchanged +for a while one prison-house for another. + +"I am taking you," said the old man, as they walked along together, "to +a firm of carriers and carters whose affairs have just come into our +hands; there is a dispute arisen between the partners. We represent +certain interests, as I shall presently explain to you, and you are to +be _our_ representative,--our man in possession," and the old gentleman +laughed uncannily. + +"You never expected to be a man in possession, did you?" + +Henry thrilled with a sense of awful intimacy, thus walking and even +jesting with his august employer. + +"It may very likely be a long business," the old man continued; "and I +fear may be a little dull for you. For you must be on the spot all day +long. Your lunch will be served to you from the manager's house; I will +see to that. Actually, there will be very little for you to do, beyond +looking over the day-book and receipts for the day. The main thing is +for you to be there,--so to say, the moral effect of your +presence,"--and the old gentleman laughed again. Then, with an amused +sympathy that seemed almost exquisite to Henry, he chuckled out, looking +at him, from one corner of his eye, like a roguish skeleton-- + +"You'll be able to write as much poetry as you like. I see you've got a +book with you. Well, it will keep you awake. I don't mind that,--or even +the poetry,--so long as you don't forget the day-book." + +"Thank you, sir," said Henry, almost hysterically. + +"I suppose," the old man continued, presently, and in all he said there +was a tone of affectionate banter that quite won Henry's heart, "that +you're still as set on literature as ever. Well, well, far be it from me +to discourage you; but, my dear boy, you'll find out that we can't live +on dreams." (Henry thought, but didn't dare to say, that it was dreams +alone that made it possible to live at all.) "I suppose you think I'm a +dried-up old fellow enough. Well, well, I've had my dreams too. Yes, +I've had my dreams,"--Henry thought of what he had discovered that day +in the old man's diary,--"and I've written my verses to my lady's +eyebrow in my time too. Ah, my boy, we are all young and foolish once in +our lives!" and it was evident what a narrow and desperate escape from +being a poet the old man had had. + +They had some distance to walk, for the stables to which they were bound +were situated in an old and rather disreputable part of the town. "It's +not a nice quarter," said Mr. Lingard, "not particularly salubrious or +refined," as bad smells and dirty women began to cross their path; "but +they are nice people you've got to deal with, and the place itself is +clean and nice enough, when you once get inside." + +"Here we are," he said, presently, as they stopped short of an +old-fashioned house, set in a high red-brick wall which seemed to +enclose quite a considerable area of the district. In the wall, a yard +or two from the house, was set a low door, with a brass bell-pull at the +side which answered to Mr. Lingard's summons with a far-off clang. Soon +was heard the sound of hob-nailed boots, evidently over a paved yard, +and a big carter admitted them to the enclosure, which immediately +impressed them with its sense of country stable-yard cleanliness, and +its country smell of horses and provender. The stones of the courtyard +seemed to have been individually washed and scoured, and a small space +in front of a door evidently leading to the house was chalked over in +the prim, old-fashioned way. + +"Is Mr. Flower about?" asked Mr. Lingard; and, as he asked the question, +a handsome, broad-shouldered man of about forty-five came down the yard. +It was a massive country face, a little heavy, a little slow, but +exceptionally gentle and refined. + +"Good-morning, Mr. Lingard." + +"Good-morning, Mr. Flower. This is our representative, Mr. Mesurier, of +whom I have already spoken to you. I'm sure you will get on well +together; and I'm sure he will give you as little trouble as possible." + +Henry and Mr. Flower shook hands, and, as men sometimes do, took to each +other at once in the grasp of each other's hands, and the glances which +accompanied it. + +Then the three walked further up the yard, to the little office where +Henry was to pass the next few weeks; and as Mr. Lingard turned over +books, and explained to Henry what he was expected to do, the sound of +horses kicking their stalls, and rattling chains in their mangers, came +to him from near at hand with a delightful echo of the country. + +When Mr. Lingard had gone, Mr. Flower asked Henry if he'd care to look +at the horses. Henry sympathetically consented, though his knowledge of +horse-flesh hardly equalled his knowledge of accounts. But with the +healthy animal, in whatever form, one always feels more or less at home, +as one feels at home with the green earth, or that simple creature +the sea. + +Mr. Flower led the way to a long stable where some fifty horses +protruded brown and dappled haunches on either hand. It was all +wonderfully clean and sweet, and the cobbled pavement, the straw beds, +the hay tumbling in sweet-scented bunches into the stalls from the loft +overhead, made you forget that around this bucolic enclosure swarmed and +rotted the foulest slums of the city, garrets where coiners plied their +amateur mints, and cellars where murderers lay hidden in the dark. + +"It's like a breath of the country," said Henry, unconsciously striking +the right note. + +"You're right there," said Mr. Flower, at the same moment heartily +slapping the shining side of a big chestnut mare, after the approved +manner of men who love horses. To thus belabour a horse on its +hinder-parts would seem to be equivalent among the horse-breeding +fraternity to chucking a buxom milkmaid under the chin. + +"You're right there," he said; "and here's a good Derbyshire lass for +you," once more administering a sounding caress upon his sleek +favourite. + +The horse turned its head and whinnied softly at the attention; and it +was evident it loved the very sound of Mr. Flower's voice. + +"Have you ever been to Derbyshire?" asked Mr. Flower, presently, and +Henry immediately scented an idealism in the question. + +"No," he answered; "but I believe it's a beautiful county." + +"Beautiful's no name for it," said Mr. Flower; "it's just a garden." + +And as Henry caught a glance of his eyes, he realised that Derbyshire +was Mr. Flower's poetry,--the poetry of a countryman imprisoned in the +town,--and that when he died he just hoped to go to Derbyshire. + +"Ah, there are places there,--places like Miller's Dale, for +instance,--I'd rather take my hat off to than any bishop,"--and Henry +eagerly scented something of a thinker; "for God made them for sure, and +bishops--well--" and Mr. Flower wisely left the rest unsaid. + +Thus they made the tour of the stables; and though Henry's remarks on +the subject of slapped horse-flesh had been anything but those of an +expert, it was tacitly agreed that Mr. Flower and he had taken to each +other. Nor, as he presently found, were Mr. Flower's interests limited +to horses. + +"You're a reader, I see," he said, presently, when they had returned to +the office. "Well, I don't get much time to read nowadays; but there's +nothing I enjoy better, when I've got a pipe lit of an evening, than to +sit and listen to my little daughter reading Thackeray or +George Eliot." + +Of course Henry was interested. + +"Now there was a woman who knew country life," Mr. Flower continued. +"'Silas Marner,' or 'Adam Bede.' How wonderfully she gets at the very +heart of the people! And not only that, but the very smell of +country air." + +And Mr. Flower drew a long breath of longing for Miller's Dale. + +Henry mentally furbished up his George Eliot to reply. + +"And 'The Mill on the Floss'?" he said. + +"And 'Scenes from Clerical Life,'" said Mr. Flower. "There are some rare +strokes of nature there." + +And so they went on comparing notes, till a little blue-eyed girl of +about seventeen appeared, carrying a dainty lunch for Henry, and telling +Mr. Flower that his own lunch was ready. + +"This is my daughter of whom I spoke," said Mr. Flower. + +"She who reads Thackeray and George Eliot to you?" said the Man in +Possession; and, when they had gone, he said to himself "What a bright +little face!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +LITTLE MISS FLOWER + + +Little Miss Flower continued to bring Henry his lunch with great +punctuality each day; and each day he found himself more and more +interested in its arrival, though when it had come he ate it with no +special haste. Indeed, sometimes it almost seemed that it had served its +purpose in merely having been brought, judging by the moments of reverie +in which Henry seemed to have forgotten it, and to be thinking of +something else. + +Yes, he had soon begun to watch for that bright little face, and it was +hardly to be wondered at; for, particularly come upon against such a +background, the face had something of the surprise of an apparition. It +seemed all made of light; and when one o'clock had come, and Henry heard +the expected footsteps of his little waiting-maid, and the tinkle of the +tray she carried, coming up the yard, her entrance was as though some +one had carried a lamp into the dark office. Surely it was more like +the face of a spirit than that of a little human girl, and you would +almost have expected it to shine in the dark. When you got used to the +light of it, you realised that the radiance poured from singularly, even +disproportionately, large blue eyes, set beneath a broad white brow of +great purity, and that what at first had seemed rays of light around her +head was a mass of sunny gold-brown hair which glinted even in shadow. + +Strange indeed are the vagaries of the Spirit of Beauty! From how many +high places will she turn away, yet delight to waste herself upon a slum +like this! How fantastic the accident that had brought such a face to +flower in such a spot!--and yet hardly more fantastic, he reflected, +than that which had sown his own family haphazard where they were. Was +it the ironic fate of power to be always a god in exile, turning mean +wheels with mighty hands; and was Cinderella the fable of the eternal +lot of beauty in this capriciously ordered world? + +Yes, what chance wind, blowing all the way from Derbyshire, had set down +Mr. Flower with his little garden of girls in this uncongenial spot? +For by this Henry had made the acquaintance of the whole family: Mr. and +Mrs. Flower and four daughters in all,--all pretty girls, but not one of +the others with a face like that,--which was another puzzle. How is it +that out of one family one will be chosen by the Spirit of Beauty or +genius, and the others so unmistakably left? There could be no doubt as +to whom had been chosen here. + +One day the step coming up the yard at one o'clock seemed to be +different, and when the door opened it was another sister who had +brought his lunch that day. Her eldest sister was ill, she explained, +and in bed; and it was so for the next day, and again the next. Could it +be possible that Henry had watched so eagerly for that little face, that +he missed it so much already? + +The next morning he bought some roses on his way through town, and +begged that they might be allowed to brighten her room; and the next day +surely it was the same light little tread once more coming up the yard. +Joy! she was better again. She looked pale, he said anxiously, and +ventured to say too that he had missed her. As she blushed and looked +down, he saw that she wore one of his roses in her bosom. + +He had already begun to lend her books, which she returned, always with +some clever little criticism, often girlishly naïve, but never merely +conventional. There were brains under her bright hair. One day Henry had +run out of literature, and asked her if she could lend him a book. +Anything,--some novel he had read before; it didn't matter. Oh, yes, he +hadn't read George Eliot for ever so long. Had she "The Mill on the +Floss"? Yes, it had been a present from her father. She would bring +that. As she lingered a moment, while Henry looked at the book, his eye +fell upon a name on the title-page: "Angel Flower." + +"Is that your name, Miss Flower?" he said. + +"Yes; father wrote it there. My real name is Angelica; but they call me +Angel, for short," she answered, smiling. + +"Are you surprised?" said Henry, suddenly blushing like a girl, as +though he had never ventured on such a small gallantry before. +"Angelica! How did you come to get such a beautiful name?" + +"Father loves beautiful names, and his grandmother was called +Angelica." + +"I wonder if I might call you Angelica?" presently ventured Henry, in a +low voice. + +"Do you think you know me well enough?" said Angelica, with a little +gasp, which was really joy, in her breath. + +Henry didn't answer; but their eyes met in a long, still look. In each +heart behind the stillness was a storm of indescribable sweetness. Henry +leaned forward, his face grown very pale, and impulsively took +Angelica's hand,-- + +"I think, after all, I'd rather call you Angel," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +MIKE'S FIRST LAURELS + + +The gardens of Sidon had a curious habit of growing laurel-trees; +laurels and rhododendrons were the only wear in shrubs. Rhododendrons +one can understand. They are to the garden what mahogany is to the front +parlour,--the _bourgeoisie_ of the vegetable kingdom. But the +laurel,--what use could they have for laurel in Sidon? Possibly they +supplied it to the rest of the world,--market-gardeners, so to say, to +the Temple of Fame; it could hardly be for home consumption. Well, at +all events, it was a peculiarity fortunate for Esther's purpose, as one +morning, soon after breakfast, she went about the garden cutting the +glossiest branches of the distinguished tree. As she filled her arms +with them, she recalled with a smile the different purpose for which, +dragged at the heels of one of Henry's enthusiasms, she had gathered +them several years before. + +At that period Henry had been a mighty entomologist; and, as the late +summer came on, he and all available sisters would set out, armed with +butterfly-nets and other paraphernalia, just before twilight, to the +nearest woodland, where they would proceed to daub the trees with an +intoxicating preparation of honey and rum,--a temptation to which moths +were declared in text-books to be incapable of resistance. Then, as +night fell, Henry would light his bull's-eye, and cautiously visit the +various snares. It was a sight worth seeing to come upon those little +night-clubs of drunken and bewildered moths, hanging on to the sweetness +with tragic gluttony,--an easy prey for Henry's eager fingers, which, as +greedy of them as they of the honey, would seize and thrust them into +the lethal chamber, in the form of a cigar-box loosely filled with +bruised laurel leaves, which hung by a strap from his shoulder. + +It was for such exciting employment that Esther had once gathered laurel +leaves. And, once again, she remembered gathering them one Shakespeare's +birthday, to crown a little bust in Henry's study. The sacred head had +worn them proudly all day, and they all had a feeling that somehow +Shakespeare must know about it, and appreciate the little offering; just +as even to-day one might bring roses and myrtle, or the blood of a +maiden dove to Venus, and expect her to smile upon our affairs of +the heart. + +But it was for a dearer purpose that Esther was gathering them this +morning. That coming evening Mike was to utter his first stage-words in +public. The laurel was to crown the occasion on which Mike was to make +that memorable utterance: "That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!" + +Now while Esther was busily weaving this laurel into a wreath, Henry was +busily weaving the best words he could find into a sonnet to accompany +the wreath. When Angel duly brought him his lunch, it was finished, and +lay about on his desk in rags and tatters of composition. Angel was +going to the performance with her sisters,--for all these young people +were fond of advertising each other, and he had soon told her about +Mike,--so she was interested to hear the sonnet. Whatever other +qualities poetry may lack, the presence of generous sincerity will +always give it a certain value, to all but the merely supercilious; and +this sonnet, boyish in its touches of grandiloquence, had yet a certain +pathos of strong feeling about it. + + Not unto him alone whom loud acclaim + Declares the victor does the meed belong, + For others, standing silent in the throng, + May well be worthier of a nobler fame; + And so, dear friend, although unknown thy name + Unto the shouting herd, we would give tongue + To our deep thought, and the world's great among + By this symbolic laurel thee proclaim. + + And if, perchance, the herd shall find thee out + In coming time, and many a nobler crown + To one they love to honour gladly throw; + Wilt thou not turn thee from their eager shout, + And whisper o'er these leaves, then sere and brown: + 'Thou'rt late, O world! love knew it long ago?' + +The reader will probably agree with Angel in considering the last line +the best. But, of course, she thought the whole was wonderful. + +"How wonderful it must be to be able to write!" she said, with a look in +her face which was worth all the books ever written. + +"And how wonderful even to have something written to one like that!" + +"Surely that must have happened to you," said Henry, slyly. + +"You're only laughing at me." + +"No, I'm not. You don't know what may have been written to you. Poems +may quite well have been written to you without your having heard of +them. The poet mayn't have thought them worthy of you." + +"What nonsense! Why, I don't know any poets!" + +"Oh!" said Henry. + +"I mean, except you." + +"And how do you know that I haven't written a whole book full of poems +to you? I've known you--how long now?" + +"Two months next Monday," said Angel, with that chronological accuracy +on such matters which seems to be a special gift of women in love. Men +in love are nothing like so accurate. + +"Well, that's long enough, isn't it? And I've had nothing else to do, +you know." + +"But you don't care enough about me?" + +"You never know." + +"But tell me really, have you written something for me?" + +"Ah, you'd like to know now, wouldn't you?" + +"Of course I would. Tell me. It would make me very happy." + +"It really would?" + +"You know it would." + +"But why?" + +"It would." + +"But you couldn't care for the poetry, unless you cared for the poet?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Poetry's poetry, isn't it, whoever makes it? But what +if I did care a little for the poet?" + +"Do you mean you do, Angel?" + +"Ah, you want to know now, don't you?" + +"Tell me. Do tell me." + +"I'll tell you when you read me my poem," and as Angel prepared to run +off with a laugh, Henry called after her,-- + +"You will really? It's a bargain?" + +"Yes, it's a bargain," she called back, as she tripped off again down +the yard. + + * * * * * + +Mike's _début_ was as great a success as so small a part could make it; +and the main point about it was the excitement of knowing that this was +an actual beginning. He had made them all laugh and cry in drawing-rooms +for ever so long; but to-night he was on the stage, the real +stage--real, at all events, for him, for Mike could never be an +amateur. Esther's eyes filled with glad tears as the well-loved little +figure popped in, with a baker's paper hat on his head, and delivered +the absurd words; and if you had looked at Henry's face too, you would +have been at a loss to know which loved the little pastry-cook's +boy best. + +When Mike returned to his dressing-room, a mysterious box was awaiting +him. He opened it, and found Esther's wreath and Henry's sonnet. + +"God bless them," he said. + +No doubt it was very childish and sentimental, and old-fashioned; but +these young people certainly loved each other. + +As Mike had left the stage, Henry had turned round and smiled at some +one a few seats away. Esther had noticed him, and looked in the same +direction. + +"Who was that you bowed to, Henry?" + +"I'll tell you another time," he said; for he had a good deal to tell +her about Angel Flower. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE MOTHER OF AN ANGEL + + +The Man in Possession was becoming more and more a favourite at Mr. +Flower's. One day Mr. Flower, taking pity on his loneliness, suggested +that he might possibly prefer to have his lunch in company with them all +down at the house. Henry gladly embraced the proposal, and thus became +the daily honoured guest of a family, each member of which had some +simple human attraction for him. He had already won the heart of simple +Mrs. Flower, few and brief as had been his encounters with her, and that +heart she had several times coined in unexpected cakes and other +dainties of her own making; but when he thus became partially domiciled +with the family, she was his slave outright. There was a reason for +this, which will need, and may perhaps excuse, a few lines entirely +devoted to Mrs. Flower, who, on her own peculiar merits, deserves them. + +Perhaps to introduce Eliza Flower in this way is to take her more +seriously than any of her affectionate acquaintance were able to do. +For, somehow, people had a bad habit of laughing at Mrs. Flower, though +they admitted she was the hardest-working, best-hearted little housewife +in the world. Housewife in fact she was _in excelsis_, not to say _ad +absurdum_. No little woman who worked herself to skin-and-bone to keep +things straight, and the home comfortable, was ever a more typical +"squaw." Whatever her religious opinions, which, one may be sure, were +inflexibly orthodox, there can be no question that Mr. Flower was her +god, and, as the hymn says, heaven was her home. To serve God and Mr. +Flower were to her the same thing; and there can be little doubt that a +god who had no socks to darn, or linen to keep spotless, was a god whom +Mrs. Flower would have found it impossible to conceive. + +A more complete and delighted absorption in the physical comforts and +nourishments of the human creature than Mrs. Flower's, it would be +impossible for dreamer to imagine. Such an absolute adjustment between a +being of presumably infinite aspirations and immortal discontents and +its environment, is a happiness seldom encountered by philosophers. To +think of death for poor Mrs. Flower was to conceive a homelessness +peculiarly pathetic; unless, indeed, there are kitcheners to +superintend, beds to make, rooms to "turn out," and four +spring-cleanings a year in heaven. Of what use else was the bewildering +gift of immortality to one who was touchingly mortal in all her tastes? +Indeed, Henry used to say that Mrs. Flower was the most convincing +argument against the immortality of the soul that he had ever met. + +Yet, though it was quite evident that there was nothing in the world +else she cared so much to do, and though indeed it was equally evident +that she was one of the best-natured little creatures in the world, she +did not deny herself a certain more or less constant asperity of +reference to occupations which kept her on her feet from morning till +night, and made her the slave of the whole house, in spite of four big +idle daughters. And she with rheumatism too, so bad that she could +hardly get up and down stairs! + +Probably nothing so much as Henry's respectful sympathy for this +immemorial rheumatism had contributed to win Mrs. Flower's heart. As to +the precise amount of rheumatism from which Mrs. Flower suffered, Henry +soon realised that there seemed to be an irreverent scepticism in the +family, nothing short of heartless; for rheumatism so poignantly +expressive, so movingly dramatised, he never remembered to have met. +Mrs. Flower could not walk across the floor without grimaces of pain, or +piteous indrawings of her breath; and yet demonstrations that you might +have thought would have softened stones, left her unfeeling audience not +only unmoved, but apparently even unobservant. From sheer decency, Henry +would flute out something to show that her suffering was not lost on +him; but it is to be feared the young ones would only wink at each other +at this sign of unsophistication. + +"Oh, you unfeeling child!" Mrs. Flower would exclaim, as sometimes she +caught them exchanging comments in this way. "And your father, there, is +just as bad," she would say, impatient to provoke somebody. + +This remark would probably prompt Mr. Flower to the indulgence of a form +of matrimonial banter which was not unlike the endearments he bestowed +upon his horses, and which, when you knew that he loved the little +quaint woman with all his heart, you were able to translate into more +customary modes of affection. + +"Yes, indeed," he would say, "it's evidently time I was looking out for +some active young woman, Eliza--when you begin limping about like that. +It's a pity, but the best of us must wear out some day--" + +This superficially heartless pleasantry he would deliver with a sweeping +wink at Henry and his four girls; but Mrs. Flower would see nothing to +laugh at, for humour was not her strong point. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Ralph," she said, "before the +children. I was once young and active enough to take your fancy, anyhow. +Mr. Mesurier, won't you have a little more spinach? Do; it's fresh from +the country this morning. You mustn't mind Mr. Flower. He's fond of his +joke; and, whatever he likes to say, he'd get on pretty badly without +his old Eliza." + +"Gracious, no!" Mr. Flower would retort. "Don't flatter yourself, old +girl. I've got my eye on two or three fine young women who'll be glad +of the job, I assure you;" but this, perhaps, proving too much for poor +Mrs. Flower, whose tears were never far away, and apt to require +smelling-salts, he would change his tone in an instant and say, dropping +into his Derbyshire "thous,"-- + +"Nonsense, lass, can't thee take a bit of a joke? Come now, come. Don't +be silly. Thou knowest well enough what thou art to me, and so do the +girls. See, let's have a drive out to Livingstone Cemetery this +afternoon. Thou'rt a bit out o' sorts. It'll cheer thee up a bit." + +And so Mrs. Flower would recover, and harmony would be restored, and +nobody would wink for a quarter of an hour. Certainly it was a quaint +little mother for an Angel. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +AN ANCIENT THEORY OF HEAVEN + + +"When are you going to read me my poem?" said Angelica, one day. + +"When are you going to tell me what I asked?" replied Henry. + +"Whenever you read me my poem," retorted Angelica. + +"All right. When would you like to hear it?" + +"Now." + +"But I haven't got it with me to-day." + +"Can't you remember it?" + +"No, not to-day." + +"When will you bring it?" + +"I'll tell you what. Come with me to Woodside Meadows on Saturday +afternoon. Your father won't mind?" + +"Oh, no; father likes you." + +"I'm glad, because I'm very fond of him." + +"Yes, he's a dear; and he's got far more in him than perhaps you think, +under his country ways. If you could see him in the country, it would +make you cry. He loves it so." + +"Yes, I could tell that by the way he talked of Derbyshire the first day +we met. But you'll come on Saturday?" + +"Yes, I'll come." + + * * * * * + +Angel! Yes, it was the face of an angel; but, bright as it had seemed on +that dark background, it seemed almost brighter still as it moved by +Henry's side among the green lanes. He had never known Angel till then, +never known what primal ecstasy her nature was capable of. In the town, +her soul was like a flame in a lamp of pearl; here in the country, it +was like a star in a vase of dew. To be near trees, to touch their rough +barks, to fill one's hands with green leaves, to hear birds, to listen +to running water, to look up into the sky,--oh, this was to come +home!--and Angel's joy in these things was that of some wood-spirit who +you might expect any moment, like Undine, to slip out of your hands in +some laughing brook, or change to a shower of blossom over your head. + +"Oh, how good the country is! I wish father were here. I could eat the +grass. And I just want to take the sky in my arms." As she swept across +meadow and through woodland, with the eagerness of a child, greedily +hastening from room to room of some inexhaustible palace, her little +tense body seemed like a transparent garment fluttering round the flying +feet of her soul. + +At length she flung herself down, almost breathless, at the grassy foot +of a great tree. + +"I suppose you think I'm mad," she said. "And really I think I must be; +for why should mere green grass and blue sky and a few birds make one +so happy?" + +"Why should anything make us happy?" + +"Or sad?" + +"But now you're going to read my poem," she said, presently. + +"Yes; but something has to happen before I can read it," said Henry, +growing unaccountably serious; "for it is in the nature of a prophecy, +or at all events of an anticipation. You have to fulfil that +prophecy first." + +"It seems to me a very mysterious poem. But what have I to do?" + +"I don't know whether you can do it." + +"Well, what is it? Try me." + +"Oh, Angel, I care nothing about poems. Can't you see how I love you? +That's all poetry will ever mean to me. Just to say over and over again, +'I love Angel.' Just to find new and wonderful ways of saying that--" + +"Listen, Henry. I've loved you from the first moment I saw you that day +talking to father, and I shall love you till I die." + +"Dear, dear Angel!" + +"Henry!" + +Then Henry's arms enfolded Angel with wonderful love, and her fresh +young lips were on his, and the world faded away like a dream within +a dream. + + * * * * * + +"Now perhaps you can read me your poem," said Angel, after a while; and +she noticed a curious something different in her way of speaking to him, +as in his way of speaking to her,--something blissfully homelike, as it +were, as though they had sat like this for ever and ever, and were quite +used to it, though at the same time it remained thrillingly new. + +"It's only a silly little childish rhyme," said Henry; "some day I'll +write you far better." + +Then, coming close to Angel, he whispered,-- + + This is Angelica, + Fallen from heaven, + Fallen from heaven + Into my arms. + + Will you go back again, + Little Angelica, + Back up to heaven, + Out of my arms! + + "No," said Angelica, + "Here is my heaven, + Here is my heaven, + Here in your arms. + + "Not out of heaven, + But into my heaven, + Here have I fallen, + Here in your arms." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE LAST CONTINUED, AFTER A BRIEF INTERVAL + + +After the long happy silence which followed Henry's recitation of his +verses, Angel at length spoke,-- + +"Shall I tell _you_ something now?" she said. "I'm almost ashamed to, +for I know you'll laugh at me, and call me superstitious." + +"Go on, little child," said Henry. + +"You remember the day," said Angel, in a hushed little impressive voice, +"I first saw you in father's office?" + +Henry was able to remember it. + +"Well, that was not the first time I had seen you." + +"Really, Angel! Why didn't you tell me before? Where was it, then? In +the street, or where?" + +"No, it was much stranger than that," said Angel. "Do you believe the +future can be foretold to us?" + +"Oh, it was in a dream, you funny Angel; was that it?" said Henry, +whose rationalism at this period was the chief danger to his +imagination. + +"No, not a dream. Something stranger than that." + +"Oh, well, I give it up." + +"It was like this," Angel continued; "there's a strange old gipsy woman +who lives near us--" + +"Oh, I see, your hand--palmistry," said Henry, with a touch of gentle +impatience. + +"Henry, dear, I said you would laugh at me. I won't tell you now, if +you're going to take it in that spirit." + +Henry promptly locked up his reason for the moment, with apologies, and +professed himself open to conviction. + +"Well, mother sometimes helps this poor old woman, and, one day, when +she happened to call, Alice and Edith and I were in the kitchen helping +mother. 'God bless you, lady,' she said,--you know how they +talk,--'you've got a kind heart; and how are all the young ladies? It's +time, I'm thinking, they had their fortunes told.' 'Oh, yes,' we all +said, 'tell us our fortunes, mother,'--we always called her mother. +'I'll tell you yours, my dear,' she said, taking hold of my hand. 'Your +fortunes are too young yet, ladies,' she said to Alice and Edith; 'come +to me in a year's time and, maybe, I'll tell you all about him.'" + +"You dear!" said Henry, by way of interruption. + +"Then," continued Angel, "she took me aside, and looked at my hand; and +she told me first what had happened to me, and then what was to come. +What she told me of the past"--as if dear Angel, whose life was as yet +all future, could as yet have had any past to speak of!--"was so true, +that I couldn't help half believing in what she said of the future. Now +you're laughing again!" + +"No, indeed, I'm not," said Henry, perfectly solemn. + +"She told me that just before I was twenty, I would meet a young man +with dark hair and blue eyes, very unexpectedly,--I shall be twenty in +six weeks,--and that he would be my fate. But the strangest is yet to +come. 'Would you like to see his face?' she said. She made me a little +frightened; but, of course, I said, 'Yes,' and then she brought out of +her pocket a sort of glass egg, and told me to look in it, and tell her +what I saw. So I looked, but for a long time I could see nothing; but +suddenly there seemed to be something moving in the centre of the glass, +like clouds breaking when the sun is coming out; and presently I could +see a lamp burning on a table; and then round the lamp shelves of books +began to grow out of the mist; then I saw a picture hanging in a recess, +a bowed head with a strange sort of head-dress on it, a dark thin face, +very sad-looking--" + +"Why, that must have been my Dante!" said Henry, astonished in spite of +himself. + +The exclamation was a "score" for Angel; and she continued, with greater +confidence, "And then I seemed to see some one sitting there; but, +though I tried and tried, I couldn't catch sight of his face. I told the +old woman what I saw. 'Wait a minute,' she said, 'then try again.' So I +waited, and presently tried again. This time I hadn't so long to wait +before I saw a room again; but it was quite different, a big desk ran +along in front of a window, and there were two tall office-stools. 'Why, +it's father's office,' I said. 'Go on looking,' said the old woman, 'and +tell me what you see.' In a moment or two, I saw some one sitting on +one of the stools, first dimly and then clearer and clearer. 'Why,' I +almost cried out, for I felt more and more frightened, 'I see a young +man sitting at a desk, with a pen behind his ear.' 'Can you see him +clearly?' 'Yes,' I said; 'he's got dark curly hair and blue eyes.' +'You're sure you won't forget his face? You'd know him if you saw him +again?' 'Indeed, I would,' I said. 'All right,' said the old woman, 'you +can give me back the crystal. You keep a look out for that young +man,--you will see him some day, mark my words, and that young man will +be your fate.' + +"Now, surely, you won't deny that was strange, will you?" asked Angel, +in conclusion. "And I shall never forget the start it gave me that day +when I came in, quite unsuspecting, with your lunch-tray, and saw you +talking to father, with your pen behind your ear, and your blue eyes and +dark hair. Now, isn't it strange? How can one help being superstitious +after a thing like that?" + +"Are you quite sure it was I?" Henry asked, quizzically. "It appears to +me that any presentable young man with a pen behind his ear would have +answered nearly enough to the vision. You would hardly have been quite +sure of the colour of the eyes, would you, now, if the old woman hadn't +mentioned it first, as she looked at your hand?" + +"You are horrid!" said Angel; "I wish I hadn't told you now. But it +wasn't merely the colour of the eyes. It was the look in them." + +"Look again, and see if you haven't made a mistake. Look very +carefully," said Henry. + +"I won't," said Angel; "I think you're cruel." + +"Angel, if you'll only look, and say you are quite sure, I'll believe +every word the old woman said." + +At last Angel was persuaded to look, and to look again, and the old +woman's credit rose at each look. + +"Yes, Henry, whatever happens, I know it is true. My life is in your +hands." + +Those are solemn words for one human being to hear uttered by another; +and a shiver of new responsibility involuntarily ran through +Henry's veins. + +"May the hands be always strong and clean enough to hold so precious a +gift," he answered, gravely. + +"Are you sad, dear?" asked Angel, presently, with a sort of divination. + +"Not sad, dear, but serious," he answered. + +"Have I turned to a responsibility so soon?" + +"You strange, wise child, I believe you are a witch." + +"Oh, I was right then." + +"Right in one way, but perhaps wrong in another. Don't you know that +some responsibilities are the most dearly coveted of mortal honours? But +then we shouldn't be worthy of them, if they didn't make us feel a +little serious. Can't you imagine that to hear another say that her life +is in one's hands makes one feel just a little solemn?" + +"But isn't your life in mine, Henry?" asked Angel, simply. + +"Of course it is, dear," answered Henry. + +And then the moon began to rise through the trees, pouring enchantment +over the sleeping woods, and the meadows half-submerged in lakes +of mist. + +Angel drew close to Henry, and watched it with big eyes. + +"What a wonderful world it is! How beautiful and how sad!" she said, +half to herself. + +"Yes; there is nothing in the world so sad as beauty," answered Henry. + +"If only to-night could last forever! If only we could die now, sitting +just like this, with the moon rising yonder." + +"But we shall have many nights like this together," said Henry. + +"No; we shall never have this night again. We may have other wonderful +nights, but they will be different. This will never come again." + +Henry instinctively realised that here was a mystical side to Angel's +nature which, however it might charm him, was not to be indiscriminately +encouraged, and he tried to rally her out of her sadness, but her +feeling was too much his own for him to persist; and as the moonlight +moved in its ascension from one beautiful change to another, now woven +by branches and leaves into weird tapestries of light and darkness, now +hanging like some golden fruit from the boughs, and now uplifted like a +lamp in some window of space, they sat together, alike held by the +ancient spell; and, presently, Henry so far lost himself in it as to +quote some lines entirely in Angel's mood: + + "She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die; + And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips + Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, + Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: + Ay, in the very temple of Delight + Veiled Melancholy has her sov'ran shrine, + Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue + Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; + His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, + And be among her cloudy trophies hung." + +"What wonderful lines!" said Angel; "who wrote them? Are they your own?" + +"Ah, Angel, what would I give if they were! No, they are by John Keats. +You must let me give you his poems." + +Presently, the moonlight began to lose its lustre. It grew pale, and, as +it were, anxious; dark billows of clouds threatened to swallow up its +silver coracle, and presently the world grew suddenly black with its +submergence, the woods and meadows disappeared, and Henry and Angel +began playfully to strike matches to see each other's faces. Thus they +suddenly flared up to each other out of the darkness, like Rembrandts +seen by lightning, and then they were lost again, and were only voices +fumbling for each other in the dark. + +Yet, even so, lips and arms found each other without much difficulty, +and when they began to think of the last train, and fear they would miss +it, but waited for just one last good-night kiss under their sacred +tree, the world suddenly lit up again, for the moon had triumphed over +its enemies, and come out just in time to give them its blessing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +CONCERNING THE BEST KIND OF WIFE FOR A POET + + +We are apt sometimes to complain that so much of importance in our lives +is at the dispensation of accident, yet how often too are we compelled +to confess that some of the happiest and most fruitful circumstances of +our lives are due to the far-seeing diplomacies of chance. + +Among no set of circumstances is this more true than in the fateful +relations of men and women. While, in a blind sort of way, we may be +said to choose for ourselves the man or woman with whom we are to share +the joys and sorrows of our years, yet the choice is only superficially +ours. Frequently our brains, our antecedent plans, have no part in the +decision. The woman we choose appears at the wrong time, in the wrong +place, in an undesirable environment, with hair and eyes and general +complexion different in colour from what we had predestined for +ourselves, short when we had made up our minds for tall, and tall when +we had hoped for short. Yet, in in spite of all our preconceptions, we +choose her. This is not properly a choice in which the intelligence +confessedly submits to violence. It is the compulsion of mysterious +instincts that know better than our brains or our tastes. + +Now had she been asked beforehand, Esther might not have sketched out a +Mike as the ideal of her maiden dreams, nor indeed might Henry have +described an Angelica, any more than perhaps Mike an Esther, or Angelica +a Henry. Yet chance has only to place Esther and Mike, and Angelica and +Henry in the same room together for less than a minute of time, and they +fly into the arms of each other's souls with an instant recognition. +This is a mystery which it will take more than biology to explain. + +A young man's dreams of the woman he will some day marry are apt to be +meretricious, or at all events conventional. A young poet, especially, +is likely to err in the direction of paragons of beauty, or fame, or +romance. Perhaps he dreams of a great singer, or an illustrious beauty, +ignorant of the natural law which makes great singers and illustrious +beauties, in common with all artists, incapable of loving really any one +but themselves. Or perhaps it will be some woman of great and exquisite +culture. But chance knows that women of great and exquisite culture are +usually beings lacking in those plastic elemental qualities which a +poet, above all men, needs in the woman he shall love. Their very +culture, while it may seem to broaden, really narrows them, limits them +to a caste of mind, and, for an infinite suggestiveness, substitutes a +few finite accomplishments. + +Critics without understanding have wondered now and again at attachments +such as that of Heine for his Mathilde. Yet in some ways Mathilde was +the type of wife best suited for a poet. She was just a wondering child, +a bit of unspoiled chaos. She meant as little intellectually, and as +much spiritually, as a wave of the sea, a bird of the air, a star in +the sky. + +Another great poet always kept in his room a growing plant in a big tub +of earth, and another tub full of fresh water. With the fire going, he +used to say that he had the four elements within his four walls; and to +people unaccustomed to talk with the elements these no doubt seemed dull +and even remarkable companions,--like Heine's Mathilde. + +Now Angel, though far more than a goose intellectually, having, indeed, +a very keen and subtle mind, was only secondarily intellectual, being +primarily something far more important. You no more asked of her to be +intellectual, than you expect a spirit to be mathematical. She was just +a dream-child, thrilling with wonder and love before the strange world +in which she had been mysteriously placed,--a dream-child and an +excellent housewife in one, as full of common-sense on the one hand, as +she was filled with fairy "nonsense" on the other. She was just, in +fact, the wife for a poet. + +The interest taken in each other by Angel and the Man in Possession had +not been unobserved by Angel's family. Her sisters had teased her +considerably on the subject. + +"Why have you changed the way of wearing your hair, Angel?" they would +say, "Does Mr. Mesurier like it that way?" or, "My word! we are getting +smart and particular, now a certain gentleman has come into the +office!" or again, "How small your writing is nowadays, Angel! What have +you changed it for? I like your big old writing best; but I suppose--" +and then they would retreat to a safe distance to finish--"Mr. Mesurier +isn't of the same opinion!" + +Sometimes Esther would start in pursuit, and playful scrimmages would +ensue, the hilarious uproar of which would turn poor Mrs. +Flower's brain. + +Mrs. Flower had certainly not been unobservant, and one may perhaps +suspect that those cakes and other delicacies which she had so often +sent up the yard, had not been sent entirely without those ulterior +designs which every thoughtful mother may becomingly cherish for her +daughters. + +After Angel and Henry's excursion to the country together, Henry felt +that some official announcement of the state of his heart was demanded +of him, and lost no time in finding Mr. Flower alone for that tremulous +purpose. However, it was soon over. There were no questions of _dots_ +and marriage settlements to discuss. Genealogically, both sides were +about equally distinguished, and, socially, belonged to that large +undefined class called "respectable"--though it must not be supposed +that, when so minded, families of that "respectable" zone do not +occasionally make nice distinctions. "Do you know what you are asking +for?" once said a retired tradesman's wife in Sidon to her daughter's +suitor. "Do you know that both Katie's grandfathers were mayors?" + +But there were no traditional mayoralties to keep these two young hearts +asunder. It was understood on both sides that they had nothing to bring +but each other, and they asked nothing better. Angel was going to marry +a poet, and Henry a fairy; and not only they themselves, but the whole +family, was more than satisfied. Mr. Flower was undisguisedly pleased, +and the tears stood in his eyes as he gripped Henry's hand. + +"I've liked you," he said, "since the first time we shook hands. There +was something honest about your grip I liked, and I go a good deal by +these things. It is not many men I would trust with my little Angel; for +when you take her, you take her father's great treasure. Guard her well, +dear lad, guard her well." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE BOOK OF ANGELICA + + +The first duty of a poet's wife is to inspire him. When she ceases to do +that--but that is a consideration which need not occupy us in this +unsophisticated story. We have already seen that Angelica in this +respect early began her wifely duties towards Henry; and that little +song he read in chapter twenty-five was but one of many he had written +to her in his capacity of man in possession. + +The feminine inspirations of his early youth had been numerous, but +mediocre in quality. Even in love, as in all else, his opportunities had +been second and even third-rate. He had broken his boy's heart, time +after time, for some commonplace, little provincial miss who knew not +"the god's wonder or his woe." But, at last, in circumstances so +unforeseen, the maiden of the Lord had been revealed to him, and with +the revelation a great impulse of metrical expression had come upon the +young poet. All day long rhythms and fancies were effervescing within +him, till at length he had quite a publishable mass of verse for which, +it is to be feared, Angelica must be counted responsible. + +Of these he was busily making a surreptitious fair copy one morning, +when old Mr. Septimus Lingard suddenly visited his seclusion, with the +announcement that his task there was at an end, so that he might now +return to his regular office. Though, of course, Henry had realised that +the present happy arrangement could not go on for ever, the news brought +temporary desolation to the two young lovers. For four months their days +had been spent within a few yards of each other; and though Angel's +excursions up the yard to Henry's desk could not be many, or long, each +day, yet each was conscious that the other was near at hand. When Angel +sang at her housework, it was from the secure sense that Henry was close +by. Their separation was little more than that of a husband and wife +working in different rooms of the same house. But now their meetings +would have to be arranged out somewhere in a cold world, little +considerate of the convenience of lovers, and, for whole days of warm +proximity, they would have to exchange occasional snatched +precarious hours. + +Well, the only thing to do was for Henry to work away at their dream of +a home together--home together, however little, just four walls to love +each other in, away from the gaze of prying eyes, none daring to make +them afraid. How that home was to be compassed was far from clear in +either of their minds; but vaguely it was felt that it would be brought +about by the powerful enchantments of literature. Henry had recently had +one of Angel's poems accepted by a rather good magazine, and the trance +of joy in which for fully two hours he had sat gazing at that, his +first, proof-sheet, was hardly less rapturous than that into which he +had fallen after seeing Angel for the first time,--so dear are the +emblems of his craft to the artist, at the beginning, and still at the +end, of his career. + +So Henry had to finish the fair copy of his poems at home in his +lodgings of an evening, for so ambitious a private enterprise could not +be carried on in his own office without perilous interruptions. He was +making the copy with especial care, in the form of a real book; and when +it was made, he daintily bound it in vellum with his own hands. Then he +wrapped it lovingly in tissue paper, and kept it by him two or three +days, in readiness for Angel's birthday, on the morning of which day he +hid it in a box of flowers and sent it to Angel. The sympathetic reader +can imagine her delight, as she discovered among the flowers a dainty +little white volume, bearing the title-page, "The Book of Angelica, by +Henry Mesurier. Tyre, 1886. Edition limited to one copy." + +Now this little book presently began to enjoy a certain very carefully +limited circulation among Angel's friends. Of course they were not +allowed to take it away. They were only allowed to look at it now and +again for a few minutes, Angel anxiously standing by to see that they +did not soil her treasure. Sometimes Mr. Flower would ask Angel to show +it to one of the family friends; and thus one evening it came beneath +the eyes of a little Scotch printer who had a great love for poetry and +some taste in it. + +"The man's a genius," he said, with all that authority with which a +strong Scotch accent mysteriously endows the humblest Scot. + +"The man's a genius," he repeated; "his poems must be printed." + +Henry had already found that this was easier said than done, for he had +already tried several London publishers who professed their willingness +to publish--at his expense. This little Scotch printer, however, was to +prove more venturesome. He forthwith communicated a proposal to Henry +through the Flowers. If Henry would provide him with a list of a certain +number of friends he could rely on for subscriptions, he would take the +risk of printing an edition, and give Henry half the profits,--a +proposal as generous as it was rash. Angel communicated the offer in an +excited little letter, with the result that Mr. Leith and Henry met one +morning in the bar-parlour of "The Green Man Still," and parted an hour +or so after in a high state of friendship, and deeply pledged together +to a mutual adventure of three hundred copies of a book to be called +"The Book of Angelica," and to be printed in so dainty a fashion that +the mere outside should attract buyers. + +Mr. Leith worked under difficulties, for his business, small as it was, +was much saddled with pecuniary obligations which it but inadequately +supported. His printing of Henry's poems was really a work of sheer +idealism which none but a Scotsman, or perhaps an Irishman, would have +undertaken; and it was a work that might at any moment be interrupted by +bailiffs, empowered to carry away the presses and the very types over +which Henry loved to hang in his spare hours, trying to read in the +lines of mysteriously carved metal, his "Madrigal to Angelica singing," +or his "Sonnet on first beholding Angelica." + +Then Mr. Leith was of a convivial disposition; and Henry and he must +have spent more hours drinking to the success of the little book than +would have sufficed to print it twice over. However, the day did at last +come when it was a living, breathing reality, and when Angel and Henry +sat with tears of joy over the little new-born "Book of Angelica." Was +it not, they told each other, the little spirit-child of their love? How +wonderful it all was! How wonderful their future was going to be! + +"What does it feel like?" said Henry, playfully recalling their old +talk, "to have a book written all about one's self?" + +"It is to feel the happiest and proudest girl in the world." + +That all the other young people were hardly less happy and excited +about the little book goes without saying. Mike spent quite a large sum +in copies, and for a while employed his luncheon-hour in asking at +book-shops with a nonchalant air, as though he had barely heard of the +author, if they sold a little book called "The Book of Angelica." Mrs. +Mesurier seemed to see her faith in her boy beginning to be justified; +and when James Mesurier opened his local paper one morning, and found a +long and appreciative article on a certain "fellow-townsman," he cut it +out to paste in his diary. Perhaps the lad would prove right, after all. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +WHAT COMES OF PUBLISHING A BOOK + + +It is only just to Tyre to acknowledge that it behaved quite +sympathetically towards the young poet thus discovered in its midst. Its +newspapers reviewed him with marked kindness,--a kindness which in a few +years' time, when he had long since grown out of his baby volume, he was +obliged to set to the credit of the general goodness of human nature, +rather than to the poetic quality of his own verses. In many unexpected +quarters also he met with recognition which, if not always intelligent, +was at least gratifying. For praise, or at least some form of notice, is +breath in the nostrils of the young poet. He hungers to feel that his +personality counts for something, though it be merely to anger his +fellow-men. It was perhaps no very culpable vanity on his part to be +pleased that people began to point him out in the streets, and whisper +that that was the young poet; and that distant acquaintances seemed +more ready to smile at him than before. Now and again one of these would +stop him to say how pleased he had been to see the kind article about +him in _The Tyrian Daily Mail_, and that he intended to buy "the work" +as soon as possible. Henry smiled to himself, to hear his frail little +flower of a volume spoken of as a "work," as though it had been the +Encyclopaedia Britannica; and he rather wondered what that would-be +purchaser would make of it, as he turned over pages of which so large a +proportion was reserved for a spotless frame of margin. No doubt he +would decide that the margin had been left for the purpose of making +notes,--making notes on those abstruse rose-petals of boyish song! + +Even in far-away London,--which was as yet merely a sounding name to +these young people,--hard-worked reviewers, contemptuously disposing of +batches of new poetry in a few lines, found a kind word or two to say +for the little provincial volume; and, through one agency or another, +Mr. Leith, within six weeks of the publication, was able to announce +that the edition was exhausted and that there was something like forty +pounds profit to share between them. + +That poetry could be exchanged for real money, Henry had heard, but had +never hoped to work the miracle in his own case. It was like selling +moonlight, or Angelica's smiles. Was it not, indeed, Angelica's smiles +turned from one kind of gold into another? One more change they should +undergo, and then return to her from whom they had come. From minted +gold of the realm they should change into the gold of a ring, and thus +Angel should wear upon her finger the ornament of her own smiles. +Setting aside a small proportion of his gains to buy Esther and Mike, +Dot and Mat and his mother, a little memorial present each, he then +spent the rest on Angel's ring. Angel pretended to scold him for his +extravagance; but, as no woman can resist a ring, her remonstrance was +not convincing, and then, as Henry said, was it not their betrothal +ring, and, therefore, one of the legitimate expenses of love? + +Three other acknowledgments his poems brought him. The first was a +delightful letter from Myrtilla Williamson. How much men of talent owe +to the letters of women has never been sufficiently acknowledged, as +the debt can never be adequately repaid. Of the many branches of woman's +unselfishness, this is perhaps the most important to the world. Always +behind the flaming renown of some great soldier, statesman, or poet, +there is a woman's hand, or the hands, maybe, of many women, pouring, +unseen, the nutritive oil of praise. + +This letter Henry, in the gladness of his heart, ingenuously showed to +Angel, with the result that it provoked their first quarrel. With the +charms of a child, Angel, it now appeared, united also the faults. She +had it in her to be bitterly and unreasonably jealous. She read the +letter coldly. + +"You seem very proud of her praise," she said; "is it so very valuable?" + +"I value it a good deal, at all events," answered Henry. + +"Oh, I see!" retorted Angel; "I suppose my praise is nothing to hers." + +"Angel dear, what _do_ you mean?" + +"Oh, nothing, of course; but I'm sure you must regret caring for an +ignorant girl like me, when there are such clever, talented women in the +world as your Mrs. Williamson. I hate your learned women!" + +"Angel, I'm surprised you can talk like that. Because we love each +other, are we to have no other friends?" + +"Have as many as you like, dear. Don't think I mind. But I don't want to +see their letters." + +"Very well, Angel," answered Henry, quietly. He was making one of those +discoveries of temperament which have to be made, and have to be +accepted, in all close relationships. This was evidently one of Angel's +faults. He must try to help her with it, as he must try and let her help +him with his. + +The second was a letter, forwarded care of his printer, by one of the +London reviews which had noticed his verses. It was from a rising young +London publisher who, it appeared from an envelope enclosed, had already +tried to reach him direct at Tyre. "Henry Mesurier, Esqre, Author of +'The Book of Angelica,' Tyre," the address had run, but the post-office +of Tyre had returned it to the sender, with the words "Not known" +officially stamped upon it. + +He was as yet "not known," even in Tyre! "In another five years he shall +try again," said Henry, savagely, to himself, "and we shall see whether +it will be 'not known' then!" + +The letter expressed the writer's pleasure in the extracts he had seen +from Mr. Mesurier's book, and hoped that when his next book was ready, +he would give the writer an opportunity of publishing it. Fortune was +beginning already to smile. + +But the third acknowledgment was something more like a frown, and was, +at all events, by far the most momentous outcome of Henry's first +publication. One morning, soon after Mr. Leith had paid over to him his +twenty pounds profit, he found himself unexpectedly requested to step +into "the private office." There, at Mr. Lingard's table, he found the +three partners seated in solemn conclave, as for a court-martial. Mr. +Lingard, as senior partner, was the spokesman. + +"Mr. Mesurier," he began, "the firm has been having a very serious +consultation in regard to you, and has been obliged, very reluctantly, I +would have you believe, to come to a painful conclusion. We gladly +acknowledge that during the last few months your work has given us more +satisfaction than at one time we expected it to give. But, +unfortunately, that is not all. Your attention to your duties, we admit, +has been very satisfactory. It is not a sin of omission, but one of +commission, of which we have to complain. What we have to complain of as +business men is a matter which perhaps you will say does not concern us, +though on that point we must respectfully differ from you. Mr. Mesurier, +you have recently published a book." + +Henry drew himself up haughtily. Surely that was nothing to be ashamed +of. + +"It is quite a pretty little book," continued Mr. Lingard, with one of +his grim smiles. "It contains some quite pretty verses. Oh, yes, I have +seen it," and Henry noticed a copy of the offending little volume lying, +like a rose, among some legal papers at Mr. Lingard's left hand; "but +its excellence as poetry is not to the point here. Our difficulty is +that you are now branded so unmistakably as a poet, that it is no use +our any longer pretending to our clients that you are a clerk. So long +as you were only suspected of being a poet," and the old man smiled +again, "it did not so much matter; but now that all Tyre knows you, by +your own act and deed, as a poet, the case is different. We can no +longer, without risk of losing confidence with our clients, send an +acknowledged poet to inspect their books--though, personally, we may +have every faith in your capacity. No doubt they will be glad enough to +buy your books in the future; but they will be nervous of trusting you +with theirs at the moment." And the old man laughed heartily at his +own humour. + +"You mean, then, sir, that you will have no further need for my +services?" said Henry, looking somewhat pale; for it is one thing to +hate the means of one's livelihood, and another to exchange it for none. + +"I'm afraid, my dear lad, that that is what it comes to. We are, I hope +you will believe, exceedingly sorry to come to such a conclusion, both +for our own sakes and yours, as well as that of your father,--who is an +old and valued friend of ours; but we are able to see no other way out +of the difficulty. Of course, you will not leave us this minute; but +take what time you need to look round and arrange your future plans; and +so far as we are concerned, we shall part from you as good friends and +sincere well-wishers." + +The old man held out his hand, and Henry took it, with a grateful sense +of the friendly manner in which Mr. Lingard had performed a painful +task, and a certain recognition that, after all, a poet must be +something of a nuisance to business-men. + +When he returned to his desk, he sat for a long time thoughtful, divided +in mind between exultation that he was soon to be free to take the +adventurous highway of literature, and anxiety as to where in a month's +time his preliminary meals were to come from. + +Yet, after all, the main thing was to be free of this servitude. Out of +freedom all things might be hoped. + +Still, as Henry looked round at the familiar faces of his fellow-clerks, +and realised that in a month's time his comradeship with them would be +at an end, he was surprised to feel a certain pang of separation. Mere +custom has so great a part in our affections, that though a routine may +have been dull and distasteful, if it has any extenuating circumstances +at all, we change it with a certain irrational regret. After all, his +office-life was associated with much contraband merriment; and, +unconsciously, his associates had taken a valuable part in his training, +humanised him in certain directions, as he had humanised them in others. +They had saved him from dilettanteism, and whatever he wrote in future +would owe something warm and kindly to the years he had spent with them. + +His very desk took on a pathetic expression, as of a place that was so +soon to know him no more for ever; and Mr. Smith, wrangling over +wet-traps and cesspools at the counter, just as on the first day he had +heard him, almost moved him to tears. Perhaps in ten years' time, were +he to come back, he would find him still at his post, fervidly engaged +in the same altercations, with only a little additional greyness at the +temples to mark the lapse of time. + +And Jenkins would still be sitting in the little screened-off cupboard, +with "cashier" painted on the glass window. As three o'clock approached, +he would still be heard loudly counting his cash and shovelling the gold +into wash-leather bags, and the silver into little paper-bags marked £5 +apiece, in a wild rush to reach the bank before it closed. + +And would the same good fellows, a little more serious, because long +since married, be cracking jokes and loafing near the fire-guard, in +some rare safe hour, of the afternoon when all the partners were out, to +make a spring for the desks, as the carefully learnt tread of one or +another of those partners followed the opening of the front door. + +The very work that he hated seemed to wear an unwonted look of +tenderness. Who would keep the books he had kept--with something of his +father's neatness; who would look after the accounts of "the Rev. Thomas +Salthouse," or take charge of "Ex'ors James Shuttleworth, Esqre"? + +Of course, it was absurd--absurd, perhaps, just because it was human. +For was he not going to be free, free to fulfil his dreams, free to +follow those voices that had so often called him from beyond the sunset? +Soon he would be able to cry out to them, with literal truth, "I am +yours, yours--all yours!" And in those ten years which were to pass so +invariably for Mr. Smith, and for Jenkins and the rest, what various and +dazzling changes might be, must be, in store for him. Long before the +end of them he must have written masterpieces and become famous, and +Angel and he be long settled together in their paradise of home. + +Henry was pleased to find that his chums were to miss him no less than +he was to miss them. As an unofficial master of their pale revels, his +place would not be easy to fill; and he was much touched, when, a day or +two before the end of the month, which was the time mutually agreed upon +for Henry to look round, they intimated their desire to give a little +dinner in his honour at "The Jovial Clerks" tavern. + +Henry was nothing loth, and the evening came and went with no little +emotion and no little wine, on either side. He had bidden good-bye to +his employers in the afternoon, and Mr. Lingard had shaken his hand, and +admonished him as to his future with something of paternal affection. + +Toward the close of the dinner, Bob Cherry, who acted as chairman, rose, +with an unaccustomed blush upon his cheek, to propose the toast of the +evening. They had had the honour and pleasure, he said, to be associated +for several years past with a gentleman to whom that evening they were +to say good-bye. No better fellow had ever graced the offices of Lingard +and Fields, and his would be a real loss to the gaiety of their little +world. They understood that he was a poet; and indeed had he not already +published a charming volume with which they were all acquainted!--still +this made no difference to them. Certain high powers might object, but +they liked him none the less; and whether he was a poet or not, he was +certainly a jolly good fellow, and wherever his new career might take +him, the good wishes of his old chums would certainly follow him. The +chairman concluded his speech by requesting his acceptance of a copy of +the "Works of Lord Macaulay," as a small remembrance of the days they +had spent together. + +The toast having been seconded and drunk with resounding cordiality, +Henry responded in a speech of mingled playfulness and emotion, assuring +them, on his part, that though they might not be poets, he thought no +worse of them for that, but should always remember them as the best +fellows he had ever known. The talk then became general, and tender with +reminiscence. After all, what a lot of pleasant things those hard years +had given them to remember! So they kept the evening going, and it was +not till an early hour of the following day that this important volume +of Henry's life was finally closed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +MIKE'S TURN TO MOVE + + +While Henry had been busily engaged in winning Angelica and writing and +printing his little book, Mike's fortunes had not been idle. Meanwhile, +the Sothern Dramatic Club had given two more performances, in which his +parts had been considerable, and been played by him with such success as +to make the former pieman's apprentice one of the chief members of the +club. Mike and his friends therefore became more and more eager for him +to try his talents on the great stage. But this was an experiment not so +easy to make. + +However unknown a writer may be, he can still at least write his book in +his obscurity, and, when done, bring it to market, with a reasonable +hope of its finding a publisher; moreover, though he may remain for +years unappreciated, his writings still go on fighting for him till his +due recognition is won. He has not to find his publisher before he +begins to write. Yet it is actually such a disability under which the +unproved and often the proved actor must labour. Unless some one engages +him to act, and provides an audience for him, he has no opportunity of +showing his powers. And such opportunities are difficult to find, unless +you are a dissolute young lord, or belong to one of the traditional +theatrical families,--whose members are brought up to the stage, as the +sons of a lawyer are brought up to law. For the avenues to the stage are +blocked by perhaps more frivolous incompetents than any other +profession. Any idle girl with good looks, and any idle gentleman with +something of a good carriage, deem themselves qualified for one of the +most arduous of the arts. + +Mike's plan had been to try every considerable actor that came to Tyre, +who might possibly have a vacant place in his company; but he had tried +many in vain. While one or two were unable to see him at all, most of +them treated him with a kindness remarkable in men daily besieged by the +innumerable hopeless. They gave him good advice; they wished him well; +but already they had long lists of experienced applicants waiting their +turn for the coveted vacancy. At last, however, there came to Tyre a +famous romantic actor who was said to be more sympathetic towards the +youthful aspirant than the other heads of his profession, and as, too, +he was rumoured to be vulnerable on the side of literature, Mike and +Henry agreed to make a joint attack upon him. Mike should write a brief +note asking for an interview, and Henry should follow it up with another +letter to the same effect, and at the same time send him a copy of "The +Book of Angelica." + +The plan was carried out. Both letters and the book were sent, and the +young men awaited with impatience the result. Henry had adopted a very +lofty tone. "In granting my friend an interview," he had said, "you may +be giving his first chance to an actor of genius. Of course you may not; +but at least you will have had the satisfaction of giving to possible +genius that benefit of the doubt which we have a right to expect from +the creator of ----," and he named one of the actor's most famous rôles. + +A cordial answer came by return, enclosing two stalls for the following +evening, when, said the great actor, he would be glad to see Mr. Laflin +during or after the performance. The two young men were in their places +as the curtain rose, and it goes without saying that their enthusiasm +was unequalled in the audience. Between the third and fourth acts there +was a considerable interval, and early in the performance it had been +notified to Mike that the great actor would see him then. So when the +time came, with a whispered "good luck" from Henry, he left his place +and was led through a little mysterious iron door at the back of the +boxes, on to the stage and into the great man's dressing-room. Opening +suddenly out of the darkness at one side of the stage, it was more like +a brilliantly lighted cave hung with mirrors than a room. Mirrors and +lights and laurel wreaths with cards attached, and many photographs with +huge signatures scrawled across them, and a magnificent being reading a +book, while his dresser laced up some high boots he was to wear in the +following act,--made Mike's first impression. Then the magnificent being +looked up with a charming smile. + +"Good-evening, Mr. Laflin. I am delighted to see you. I hope you will +excuse my rising." + +He said "Mr. Laflin" with a captivating familiarity of intonation, as +though Mike was something between an old friend and a distinguished +stranger. + +"So you are thinking of joining our profession. I hope you liked the +performance. I saw you in front, or at least I thought it was you. And +your friend? I hope he will come and see me some other time. I have been +delighted with his poems." + +There is something dazzling and disconcerting to an average layman about +an actor's dressing-room, even though the dressing-room be that of an +intimate friend. He feels like a being on the confines of two worlds and +belonging to neither, awkwardly suspended 'twixt fact and fancy. The +actor for a while has laid aside his part and forgotten his wig and his +make-up. As he talks to you, he is thinking of himself merely as a +private individual; whereas his visitor cannot forget that in appearance +he is a king, or an eighteenth-century dandy, or--though you know him +well enough as a clean-shaven young man of thirty--a bowed and wrinkled +greybeard. The visitor's voice rings thin and hestitating. It cannot +strike the right pitch, and generally he does himself no sort +of justice. + +Perhaps, however, it was because Mike had been born for this world in +which now for the first time he found himself, that he suffered from +none of this embarrassment; perhaps, too, it was some half-conscious +instinct of his own gifts that made him quite self-contained in the +presence of acknowledged distinction, so self-contained that you might +have thought he had no reverence. As he had passed across the stage, he +had eyed that mysterious behind-the-scenes rather with the eye of a +future stage-manager, than of a youth all whose dreams converged at this +point, and at this moment. + +One touch of the poetry of contrast caught his eye, of which custom +would probably have made him unobservant. In an alcove of the stage, a +"scene-dock," as Mike knew already to call it, a beautiful spirit in +gauze and tights was silently rehearsing to herself a dance which she +had to perform in the next act. Softly and silently she danced, +absorbed in the evolutions of her lithe young body, paying as little +heed to the rough stage-hands who hurried scenery about her on every +side, as those hardened stage-hands paid to her dancing. Henry or Ned +would probably have fallen madly in love with her on the spot. To Mike, +she was but a part of the economy of the stage; and had she been +Cleopatra herself, eyes filled to overflowing with the beauty of Esther +would have taken no more intimate note of her. So, it is said, painters +and sculptors regard their models with cold, artistic eyes. + +This self-possession enabled Mike to show to the best advantage; and +while they talked, the great actor, with an eye accustomed to read +faces, soon made up his mind about him. + +"I believe you and your friend are right, Mr. Laflin," he said. "I am +much mistaken if you are not a born actor. But if you are that, you will +not need to be told that the way is long and difficult, nor will you +mind that it is so. Every true artist rather loves than fears the +drudgery of his art. It is one of the tests of his being an artist. Art +is undoubtedly the pleasantest of all work; but it is work for all +that, and none of the easiest. Perhaps it is the pleasantest because it +is the hardest. So if you really want to be an artist, you won't object +to beginning your journey to the top right away at the bottom." + +"Anywhere at all, sir," said Mike, his heart beating at this hint of +what was coming. + +"Well, in that case," continued the other, "I can perhaps do something, +though a very little, for you." + +Mike eagerly murmured his gratitude. + +"I'm sorry to say I have no vacancy in my own company at present; but +would you be willing to take a part in my Christmas pantomime? I may say +that I myself began life as harlequin." + +"I will gladly take anything you can offer me," said Mike. + +"Shall we call it settled then? But I sha'n't need you for another four +months. Meanwhile I will have a contract made out and sent to you--" + +"Curtain rising for fourth act, sir," cried the call-boy, putting his +head in at the door at that moment. + +"You see I shall have to say good-bye," said the good-natured manager, +rising and moving towards the door; "but I shall look forward to seeing +you in October. My good wishes to your friend;" and so the happiest +person in that theatre slipped back to his seat by the side of a friend +who was surely as happy at his good news as though it had been his own. + +Meanwhile Esther had been counting the hours till ten, when she made a +pretence of going to bed with the rest. But there was no sleep for her +till she had heard Mike's news. Her bedroom looked out from the top of +the house into the front garden, and she had arranged to have a lamp +burning at the window, so that Mike, on his way home, should understand +that all was safe for a snatched five minutes' talk in the porch. She +sat trying to read till about midnight, when through her half-opened +windows came the soft whistle she had been waiting for. Turning down the +lamp to show that she had heard, she stole down through the quiet house +and cautiously opened the front door, fastened, it seemed, with a +hundred bolts and chains. + +"Is that you, Mike?" + +For answer two arms, which she didn't mistake for a burglar's, were +thrown round her. + +"Esther, I've found my million pounds." + +"Oh, Mike! He's really going to help you?" + +And here there is no further necessity for eaves-dropping. All persons +except Mike and Esther will please leave the porch. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +UNCHARTERED FREEDOM + + +On the morning after the dinner with which he bade farewell to Messrs. +Lingard and Fields, Henry awoke at his usual hour to a very unusual +feeling. For the first time in his life he could stay in bed as long as +he pleased. + +On the other side of the room Ned Hazell lay sleeping the deep sleep of +the unpunctual clerk; and Henry, when he had for a moment or two dwelt +upon his own happiness, took a malicious joy in arousing him. + +"Ned," he shouted, "get up! You'll be late for the office." + +Ned gave out a deep sound, something between a snore, a moan, and an +imprecation. + +"Ned!" his tormentor persisted, drawing the clothes warmly round him, in +a luxury of indifference to the time of day. + +Ned presently began rubbing his head vigorously, which was one of his +preliminaries of awakening, and then mournfully raised himself in bed, a +pillar of somnolence. + +"You might let a fellow have his sleep out," he said; "why don't you get +up yourself?--oh, I remember, you're a literary gentleman from to-day. +That's why you're so mighty ready to root me out," and he aimed a pillow +at Henry's bed in derision. + +Yes, Henry was free, an independent gentleman of time and space. The +clock might strike itself hoarse, yet, if he wished, he might go on +staying in bed. He was free! His late task-masters had no jurisdiction +here. It would even be in his power here to order Mr. Fields out of the +room, and, if he refused, forcibly to eject him into the street. Why +didn't Mr. Fields appear to gratify him in this matter? + +So he indulged his imagination, while Ned dressed in haste, with the +fear of the tyrant evident upon him. Poor fellow, he would have to +choose between two cups of coffee and two eggs and five minutes late! +Probably he would split the difference, bolt one cup of coffee and one +egg, and arrive two and a half minutes late. Henry watched him with +compassion; and when he had gone his ways, himself rose languidly and +dressed indolently, as with the aid of an invisible valet. At length he +sauntered down to breakfast, and sent out for a morning paper, which he +on no account ever read. He could imagine no more insulting waste of +time. He looked it through, but found no reference to the real +significance of the day. + +Breakfast over, he wondered what he should do with himself, how he +should spend the day. His clear duty was to begin being a great man on +the spot, and work at being a great man every day punctually from nine +till six. But where should he begin? Should he sit down in a +business-like way and begin his long romantic poem, or should he write +an essay, or again should he make a start on his novel? + +Romantic poems, he felt, however, are only well begun on special days +not easy to define; essays are only written on days when we have +determined to be idle,--and this, after the opening flirtation with +indolence, must be a busy day,--and it is not every day that one can +begin a novel. He might arrange his books, but really they were very +well arranged already. Or suppose he went out for a walk. Walking +quickened the brain. He might go and look in at the Art Gallery, where +he hadn't been for a long while, and see the new picture the morning +paper was talking about. It was by a painter whose poems he already knew +and loved. That might inspire him. So, by an accident of idleness, he +presently found himself standing rapt before the most wonderful picture +he had ever seen,--a picture to see which, he said to himself, men would +make pilgrimages to Tyre, when Tyre was a moss-grown, ruinous seaport, +from which the traffic of the world had long since passed away. + +Henry at this time had visited none of the great galleries and, except +in a few reproductions, knew nothing of the great Italian masters. +Therefore to him this picture was Italy, the Renaissance, and +Catholicism, all concentrated into one enthralling canvas. But it was +something greater than that. It was the terrible meeting of Youth and +Love and Death in one tremendous moment of infinite loss. Infinite +passion and infinite loss were here pictured, in a medium which +combined all that was spiritual and all that was sensual in a harmony +of beauty that was in the same moment delirium and peace. The +irresistible cry of the colour to the senses, the spheral call of the +theme and its agony to the soul. Beatrice dead, and Dante taken in a +dream across the strewn poppies of her death-chamber, to look his last +on the sleeping face, yet a little smiling in the after-glow of life; +her soul already carried by angels far over the curved and fluted roofs +of the Florentine houses, on its way to Paradise. Little Beatrice! Not +till they meet again in Paradise shall he see again that holy face. In a +dream of loss he gazes upon her, as the angels lift up the +flower-garnished sheet; and not only her face, but every detail of that +room of death is etched in tears upon his eyes,--the distant winding +stair, the pallid death-lamps, the intruding light of day. All Passion +and all Loss, all Youth, all Love, and all Death met together in an +everlasting requiem of tragic colour. + +Henry sat long before this picture, enveloped, as it were, in its rich +gloom, as the painted profundity of a church absorbs one in its depths. +And with the impression of its solemn beauty was blent a despairing awe +of the artist who, of a little coloured earth, had created such a +masterpiece of vitality, thrown on to a thin screen of canvas so +enduringly palpable, so sumptuous, and so poignantly dominating a +reflection of his visions. What a passionate energy of beauty must have +been in this man's soul; what a constant fury of meditation upon +things divine! + +When Henry came back to himself, his first thought was to share it with +Angel. Little soul, how her face would flame, how her body would tremble +with the wonder of it! In the minutiae, the technicalities of +appreciation, Angel, like Henry himself, might be lacking; but in the +motive fervour of appreciation, who was like her! It was almost painful +to see the joy which certain simple wonders gave her. Anything intense +or prodigal in nature, any splendidly fluent outpouring of the +elements,--the fierce life of streaming fire, water in gliding or +tumultuous masses, the vivid gold of crocus and daffodil spouting up +through the earth in spring, the exquisite liquidity of a bird +singing,--these, as with all elemental poetic natures, gave her the +same keen joy which we fable for those who, in the intense morning of +the world, first heard them; fable, indeed, for why should we suppose +that because ears deaf a thousand years heard the nightingale too, it +should therefore be less new for those who to-night hear it for the +first time? Rather shall it be more than less for us, by the memories +transmitted in our blood from all the generations who before have +listened and gone their way. + +So Henry sought out Angel, and they both stood in front of the great +picture for a long while without a word. Presently Angel put the feeling +of both of them into a single phrase,-- + +"Henry, dear, we have found our church." + +And indeed for many months henceforth this picture was to be their +altar, their place of prayer. Often hereafter when their hopes were +overcast, or life grew mean with little cares, they would slip, singly, +or together, into that gallery, and-- + + "let the beauty of Eternity + Smooth from their brows the little frets of time." + +Thus Henry's first day of freedom had begun auspiciously with the +unexpected discovery of an inalienable possession of beauty. Yet the +little cares were not far off, waiting their time; and that night, Henry +lay long awake asking himself what he was going to do? Whence was to +come the material gold and silver by which this impetuous spirit was to +be sustained? A sum not exceeding five pounds represented his +accumulated resources, and they would not last longer than--five pounds. +He needed little, but that little he needed emphatically. Soon a new +book and other literary projects would keep him going, but--meanwhile! +How were the next two or three months to be bridged? Return to his +father's house, he neither would, nor perhaps, indeed, could. + +So he lay awake a long while, fruitlessly thinking; but, just before he +slept, a thought that made him laugh himself awake suggested itself: +"Why not go and ask Aunt Tipping to take pity on you?" + +So he went to sleep, resolved, if only for the fun of it, to pay a visit +to Aunt Tipping on the morrow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +A PREPOSTEROUS AUNT + + +No doubt it has been surmised from what has gone before, that when Henry +said to himself that he would go and see Aunt Tipping, he did not +propose to himself a visit to the country seat of some quaint old lady +of quality. Baronial towers and stately avenues of ancestral elm did not +make a picturesque background for his thoughts as he recalled +Aunt Tipping. + +Poor kind Aunt Tipping, it is a shame to banter her memory even in so +obvious a fashion; for if ever there was a kind heart, it was hers. In +fact she possessed, in a degree that amounted to genius, one of the +rarest of human qualities,--unconditional pity for the unhappy human +creature. Within her narrow and squalid sphere, she was never known to +fail of such succour as was hers to give to misfortune, however +well-merited, or misery however self-made. + +No religion or philosophy has ever yet been merciful enough to human +weakness. Matilda Tipping repaired the lack so far as she went. In fact, +she had unconsciously realised that weakness _is_ human nature. It would +be difficult to fix upon an offence that would disqualify you for Aunt +Tipping's pity. To the prodigalities of the passions, and the appetites +disastrously indulged, she was accustomed by a long succession of those +sad and shady lodgers to whom it was part of her precarious livelihood +to let her rooms, and, not infrequently, to forgive them their rent. +That men and women should drink too much, and love too many, was, her +experience told her, one of those laws of nature that seemed to make a +good deal of unnecessary inconvenience in mortal affairs, but against +which mere preaching or punishment availed nothing. All that was to be +done was, so far as possible, to repair their ravages in particular +instances, and heal the wounds of human passion with simple +human kindness. + +Of two vessels, one for honour and the other for dishonour, surely +nature never made so complete a contrast as Matilda Tipping and her +sister, Mary Mesurier. Both country girls, born in a humble, though +defiantly respectable, stratum of society, the ways of the two sisters +had already parted in childhood. Mary was studious, neat, and religious; +Matilda was tomboyish, impatient of restraint, and fond of unedifying +associates. + +"Your aunt never aspired," Mrs. Mesurier would say of Aunt Tipping +sometimes to her children; and, while still a child, she had often +reproached her with her fondness for gossiping with companions "beneath +her." Matilda could never be persuaded to care for books. She was +naturally illiterate, and even late in life had a fixed aversion to +writing her own letters; whereas, at the age of seven, Mary had been +public scrivener for the whole village. But with these regrettable +instincts, from the first Matilda had also manifested a whimsical +liveliness, an unconquerable lightheartedness which made you forgive her +anything, and for which, poor soul, she had use enough before she was +done with life. At seventeen, added to good looks, of which at fifty +there was scarcely a trace in the thin and meanly worn face, this +vivacity had proved a tragic snare. A certain young capitalist--known as +a great gentleman--of that countryside had pounced down on the gay and +careless young Matilda, and had at once provided her life with its +formative tragedy and its deathless romance. Even at fifty, hopelessly +buried among the back streets and pawnshops of life, heaven still opened +in the heart of Matilda Tipping at the mention of the name of William +Allsopp. For several years she had lived with the Mesuriers, as general +help to her sister, between whom and her, in spite of surface +disparities, there was an indissoluble bond of affection; till, at +thirty-five or so, she had suddenly won the heart of a sad old widower +of fifty-five, named Samuel Tipping. + +Samuel Tipping was no ordinary widower. As you looked at his severe, +thoughtful face, surmounted by a shock of beautiful white hair, you +instinctively respected him; and when you heard that he lived by +cobbling shoes by day and playing a violin in the Theatre Royal +orchestra by night, occasionally putting off his leather apron to give a +music lesson in the front parlour of an afternoon, you respected him +all the more. There had been but one thing against Mr. Tipping's +eligibility for marriage, Matilda Tipping would tell you, even years +after, with a lowering of her voice: he was said to be an "atheist," and +a reader of strange books. Yet he seemed a quiet, manageable man, and +likely--again in Mrs. Tipping's phrase--to prove a "good provider;" so +she had risked his heterodoxy, which indeed was a somewhat fanciful +objection on her part, and made him, as he declared with his dying +breath, the best of wives. + +It chanced that when Henry, in pursuance of his over-night resolve, made +his way the following afternoon through a dingy little street, and +knocked on the door of a dingy little house, bearing upon a brass plate +the legend "Boots neatly repaired," Mr. Tipping was engaged in giving +one of those very music lessons. A dingy little maid-of-all-work opened +the door, and said that Mrs. Tipping was out shopping, but would be back +soon. From the front parlour came the lifeless tum-tumming of the piano, +and Mr. Tipping's voice gruffly counting time to the cheerless +five-finger exercises of a very evident beginner. + +"One--two--three! One--two--three! One--two--three!" went Mr. Tipping's +voice, with an occasional infusion of savagery. + +"But Mr. Tipping is at home?" said Henry. "I will wait till he is +disengaged. I will make myself comfortable in the kitchen," (Henry knew +his way about at Aunt Tipping's, and remembered there was only one front +parlour) adding, with something of pride, "I'm Mrs. Tipping's nephew, +you know." + +Presently the torture in the front parlour was at an end; and, as Mr. +Tipping was about to turn upstairs to the little back room where he +mended his shoes, Henry emerged upon him from the kitchen. They had had +some talks on books and the general misgovernment of the universe,--for +Mr. Tipping really was something of an "atheist,"--on Henry's occasional +visits, and were no strangers to each other. + +"Why, Henry, lad, whoever expected to see you! Your aunt's out at +present; but she'll be back soon. Come into the parlour." + +"If you don't mind, Uncle Tipping, I'd rather come upstairs with you. I +love the smell of the leather and the sight of all those sharp little +knives, and the black, shiny 'dubbin,' do you call it? And we can have a +talk about books till aunt comes home." + +"All right, lad. But it's a dusty place, and there's hardly a corner to +sit down in." + +So up they went to a little room where, in a chaos of boots mended on +one hand, and boots to mend on the other, sheets of leather lying about, +in one corner a great tubfull of water in which the leather was +soaked,--an old boyish fascination of Henry's,--Mr. Tipping spent the +greater part of his days. He sat on a low bench near a window, along +which ran a broad sill full of tools. On this, too, lay an opened book, +into which Mr. Tipping would dip now and again, when he could safely +leave the boot he was engaged upon to the mechanical skill of his hands. +At one end of the tool-shelf was a small collection of books, a dozen or +so shabby volumes, though these were far from constituting Mr. Tipping's +complete library. + +Mr. Tipping belonged to that pathetic army of book-lovers who subsist on +the refuse of the stalls, which he hunted not for rare editions, but for +the sheer bread of life, or rather the stale crusts of knowledge. His +tastes were not literary in the special sense of the word. For +belles-lettres he had no fancy, and fine passages, except in so far as +they were controversial, left him cold. His mind was primarily +scientific, secondarily philosophic, and occasionally historic. Travels +and books of physical science were the finds for which, mainly, he +rummaged the stalls. At the moment his pet study was astronomy; and a +curious apparatus in one of the corners, which Henry had noticed as he +entered, was his sad attempt to rig up a telescope for himself. + +"It's not so bad as it looks," he said, pointing it out; "but then," he +added, with a smile half sad and half humorous, "there are not many +stars to be seen from Tichborne Street." + +It was a touching characteristic of the type of bookman to which Mr. +Tipping belonged, that the astronomy from which he was reading by no +means embodied the latest discoveries. In fact, it narrowly escaped +being eighteenth-century science, for it was dated very early in the +eighteen hundreds. But an astronomy was an astronomy to Mr. Tipping; and +had Copernicus been born late enough, he would most certainly have +imbibed Ptolemaic doctrines with grateful unsuspicion. Indeed, had it +been put to him: "This astronomy after Copernicus at half-a-crown, and +this after Ptolemy for sixpence," his means alone would have left him no +choice. It is so the old clothes of the mind, like the old clothes of +the body,--superseded science, forgotten philosophy,--find a market, and +a book remains a book, with the power of comforting or diverting some +indigent, poor soul, so long as the stitching holds it together. + +Presently there was a knock at the front door. + +"There's your aunt," said Mr. Tipping; and, as the door opened, the +little maid-of-all-work was to be heard whispering her mistress that a +young gentleman who said he was her nephew had come and was upstairs +with "the master." + +"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Tipping, immediately starting upstairs +towards the open door of the cobblery. + +Henry was standing on the threshold, and the warm-hearted little woman +gave him a hearty hug of welcome. + +"Well, I _am_ glad to see you! And how are they all at home?" and she +ran over the list, name for name. "We mustn't forget your father. But +he's a hard 'un and no mistake," said the aunt, putting on a mimic +expression of severity. + +"He's an upright man, is James Mesurier," said Mr. Tipping, rather +severely. + +"Oh, yes, yes; we know that, crosspatch. I'm saying nothing against +him. He's good at heart, I know; but he's a little hard on the +surface--like some other folks I know," making a face at her husband. +"But you must come down and talk to me a bit, lad; you'll have had +enough of him and his old books. You never saw the like of him! Here he +sits day after day over his musty books, and you can hardly get him away +for his meals. He's no company for any one." + +"Talk of something you can understand, lass," retorted the husband, in a +voice that took any unkindness from the words, rather like a father than +a husband. "You don't ail much for lack of company, I'm sure." + +"Now if it was only a good novel," his wife persisted; "but nothing but +travels, geographies, and such like. Last thing he's taken up with is +the stars. I suppose he's been telling you about them--" and she said +this half as though it were a new form of lunacy Mr. Tipping had +developed, and half as though he had been opening up new realms of +knowledge--original but useless. She was far indeed from understanding +that lonely mind and its tragedy, thirsting so hopelessly for +knowledge, and to die athirst. She heard him knock, knock all day +upstairs; but the knocking told her nothing of his loneliness. He was +just a good, hard-working, rather cross old man, unaccountably fond of +printed matter, whom she liked to be good to, and if in her time that +knocking upstairs should stop for ever--well! she wasn't one to meet +trouble half way, but she would miss it a good deal, old man as he was. + +She was herself nearing fifty; but her slim little wiry body and her +elfish, wrinkled face, never still, but ever alive with the same +vivacity that years ago had attracted William Allsopp, made her seem +younger than her years; and her husband treated her as though she were +still a child, a wilful child. + +"Eh, Matilda," he said, "you're just a child. No more nor less,--just a +child. The years haven't tamed you one bit--" + +"Get out with you and your old stars!" she said, laughing. "Henry, come +along and have a talk with your old aunt." + +Though invincibly cheerful through it all, Aunt Tipping was always in +trouble, if not for herself, for somebody else. To-day, it was for +herself, though it was but a minor reverse in the guerilla warfare of +her life. A distressed lodger who had just left had begged her to +accept, in lieu of rent, the pawn-ticket of a handsome clock which had +been hers in happier days; and Mrs. Tipping, moved as she always was by +any tale of woe, however elaborate, had consented. Nor in her world was +such a way of settling accounts very exceptional, for pawn-tickets were +there looked upon as legitimately negotiable securities. Indeed, Aunt +Tipping was seldom without a selection of such securities upon her +hands; and, if a neighbour should chance to be in need, say, of a new +set of chimney ornaments, as likely as not Aunt Tipping had in her purse +a pledge for the very thing. This she would sell at a reasonable profit, +which would probably amount to but a small proportion of the original +debt for which she had accepted it. It was not a lucrative business, +though there were occasional "bargains" in it. + +In that word "bargains," all the active romance of Aunt Tipping's life +was now centred. In all departments of the cast-off and the second-hand +she was a daring speculator; and a spirited "auction" now and again +exhilarated her as much as a fortnight by the sea. That house which she +fought so desperately to keep tidy and respectable, had been furnished +almost entirely in this way. There was hardly an article in it that had +not already lived other lives in other houses, before it had been picked +up, "dirt cheap," by Aunt Tipping. + +But this afternoon her confidence in human nature had received a cruel +wound. When, after an hour's weary drag to a remote end of the town, she +had arrived at the pawnshop where was preserved the handsome clock of +the distressed lady, and had confidently presented the ticket and the +necessary money, the man had looked awhile perplexed. They had no such +clock, he said. And then, as he further examined the ticket, a light +broke in upon him. + +"My dear lady," he said, "look here. The year on this ticket has been +changed." + +So indeed it had, and poor Aunt Tipping was at least a year too late. + +"Did you ever hear of such treatment?" she said to Henry; "and such a +nice lady she was. 'I shall never forget your goodness to me, Mrs. +Tipping,' she said as she went away, 'never, if I live to be a hundred.' +I'll 'goodness' her, if ever I catch her. Cheating honest folks like +that! Such people oughtn't to be allowed. I don't know how people can +behave so!" + +Aunt Tipping's indignation seldom outlived a few plaintive words of this +sort; and had the offending lady of the clock appeared next moment, and +given some Arabian Nights' explanation, there is little doubt that Aunt +Tipping would have forgiven her on the spot. A tendency to do so was +already active in her next remark,-- + +"Well, poor soul, we mustn't be too hard on her. We never know what we +may be brought to ourselves." For it was Aunt Tipping's unformulated +axiom that, whatever cock-and-bull stories misfortune may tell, there is +always some truth in human misery. + +When Henry had told Aunt Tipping his story, and ventured to hint a +suggestion that, if it should not be inconvenient for her, he would like +to take sanctuary with her for a month or two, till he got his hopes +into working order, her little sharp face fairly gleamed with delight. +You would have thought that he was bringing her some great benefit, +instead of proposing to take something from her. That he should have +thought of _her_, such a little humble aunt; that, added to the love +she had for any one with any tincture of her family's blood running in +their veins, plus her general weakness for any one in trouble, brought +tears to her eyes that made her look quite young again. + +"I should think so indeed!" she said. "The best your poor old auntie's +got is yours with all her heart--Ah, your father never understood you. +You've got too much of our side of the family in you. You're a bit wild, +you know, lad; but you're none the worse for that, eh?" + +There is no need to say that Aunt Tipping's understanding of the tastes +and ambitions which had driven Henry momentarily to take refuge with her +was of the vaguest; but all she needed to know of such a situation was +that: here on the one hand was something somebody very much wanted to +do, and here on the other were certain stern powers ranked against his +doing it. That was enough for her. Her sympathy with all forms of revolt +was instantaneous. For law and order, as such, she had an instinctive +antipathy, as in all contests whatsoever her one general rule was: "Side +with the weaker." And it cannot but have been perceived that so much +sympathy with weakness could hardly have been in the gift of weakness. +No; Aunt Tipping was entirely impersonal in these charities of feeling, +and it was because there was so much sterling honesty and strength +hidden in her little wiry frame, that she could afford so much succour +to those who were neither honest nor strong. + +"Well, it was nice of you to think of your poor old aunt," she repeated +again and again; and then she remarked on the good fortune which had +caused the vacation of the front room over the parlour, her grievance +against the lady of the handsome clock quite forgotten. + +"It's a nice airy room," she said; and then she began planning how she +might best arrange it for his comfort. + +"Dear little aunt," said Henry, taking the little wisp of a woman into +his arms, "you're the salt of the earth." + + * * * * * + +"Why ever didn't I think of it before!" exclaimed Aunt Tipping, +presently. "I've got the very gentleman to help you with your writing." + +"Indeed," said Henry, somewhat sceptical. + +"Yes; he's down there in the back parlour. They say he's a great +writer," continued Aunt Tipping; "but he's not very well the last day or +two, and doesn't see anybody. To tell the truth, poor gentleman," she +confided, lowering her voice, "he's just a little too fond of his glass. +But he's as good and kind a gentleman as ever stepped, and always +regular with his rent every Monday morning." + +There was usually something mysterious about Aunt Tipping's lodgers. At +their best, she had known them as elaborately wronged bye-products of +aristocracy. Many of them were lawful expectants of illegally delayed +fortunes, and at the very least they always drank romantically. + +Thus it was that to the somewhat amused surprise of his family, Henry +came to take up his abode for a while with Aunt Tipping, and that his +books and the cast of Dante, and the sketch of the young Dante done in +sepia by Myrtilla Williamson's own fair hand, came to find themselves in +the incongruous environment of Tichborne Street. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN IN THE BACK PARLOUR + + +Aunt Tipping proved not so ludicrously out of it after all in regard to +the literary gentleman in the back parlour. Henry had hardly known what +to expect; but certainly he had pictured no one so interesting as Ashton +Gerard proved to be. For a dark den smelling strongly of whisky and +water, and some slovenly creature of the under-world crouched in a dirty +armchair over the fire, he found instead a pleasant little room, very +neatly kept, with books, two or three good pictures, and general +evidence of cultivated tastes; and on Mr. Gerard's refined sad face, +which, being shaven, and surmounted by a tuft of vigorous curly hair, +once black but now curiously splashed with vivid flakes of white, +retained something of boyish beauty even at forty, you looked in vain +for the marks of one who was in the grip of an imperious vice. Only by +the marked dimness and weariness of his blue eyes, which gave the face a +rather helpless, dreamy expression, might the experienced observer have +understood. So to speak, the ocular will had gone out of them; they no +longer grasped the visible, but glided listlessly over it; nor did they +seem to be looking on things invisible. They were the eyes of +the drowned. + +Mr. Gerard had exceedingly gentle manners. It was easy to understand +that a landlady would worship him. He gave little trouble, asked for the +most necessary service as though it were a courtesy, and never forgot an +interest in Aunt Tipping's affairs. On bright days he revealed a vein of +quite boyish gaiety; and in his talk with Henry he flashed out a strange +paradoxical humour, too often morbid in its themes, which, as usually +the case with such humour, was really sadness coming to the surface in +a jest. + +It soon transpired that a favourite subject of his talk was that very +weakness which most men would have been at pains to hide. + +"So you're going to be a poet, Mr. Mesurier," he said. "Well, so was I +once, so was I--but," he continued, "all too early another Muse took +hold of me, a terrible Muse--yet a Muse who never forsakes you--" and +he laid his hand on a decanter which stood near him on the table,--"yes, +Mr. Mesurier, the terrible Muse of Drink! You may be surprised to hear +me talk so; yet were this laudanum instead of brandy, there would seem +to you a certain element of the poetic in the service of such a Muse. +Drinks with Oriental or unfamiliar names have a romantic sound. Thus +Alfred de Musset as the slave to absinthe sounds much more poetic than, +say, Alfred de Musset as a slave to rum or gin, or even this brandy +here. Yet this, too, is no less the stuff that dreams are made of; and +the opium-eater, the absinthe-sipper, the brandy-drinker, are all +members of the same great brotherhood of tragic idealists--" + +He talked deliberately; but there was a smile playing at the corners of +the mouth which took from his talk the sense of a painful +self-revelation, and gave it the air of a playful fantasia upon a +paradox that for the moment amused him. + +"Idealists! Yes," he continued; "for what few understand is that drink +is an idealism--and," he presently added with a laugh, "and, of course, +like all idealisms, it has its dangers." + +With a monomaniac, conversation is apt to limit itself to monologue; +so, while Henry was greatly interested in this odd talk, it left him but +little to say. + +"I'm afraid I shock you a little, Mr. Mesurier, perhaps even--disgust +you," said Mr. Gerard. + +"Indeed, no!" exclaimed Henry; "but both the subject and your way of +treating it are, I confess, a little new to me." + +"You are surprised to find one who is what is popularly known as a +drunkard not so much ashamed of as interested in himself; isn't that it? +Well, that comes of the introspective literary temperament. It is only +the oyster fascinated by the pearl that is killing it." + +"You should write some 'Confessions' after the manner of De Quincey," +said Henry. + +"Indeed, I've often thought of it, for there's so much that needs saying +on the subject. There is nothing with which we are at once so familiar +and of which we know so little. For example"--and now he was quite +plainly off again--"for example, the passion for, I might say the dream +of, drink is usually regarded as a sensual appetite, a physical +indulgence. No doubt in its first crude stages it often is so; but soon +it becomes something much more strange and abstract. It becomes a +mysterious command, issuing we know not whence. It is hardly a desire, +and it is not so much a joyless, as a quite colourless, obedience to an +imperious necessity, decreed by some unknown will. You might well +imagine that I like the taste of this brandy there, as a child is +greedily fond of sweetstuff; but it would be quite a mistake. For my own +personal taste, there is no drink like a cup of tea; it is the demon, +the strange will that has imposed itself upon me, that has a taste +for brandy. + +"I sometimes wonder whether we poor drunkards are not the victims of +disembodied powers of the air who, by some chance, have contracted a +craving for earthly liquors, and can only satisfy that craving by +fastening themselves upon some unhappy human organism. At times there +comes an intermission of the command, as mysterious almost as the +command itself. For weeks together we give no thought to our tyrant. We +grow gay and young and innocent again. We are free,--so free, we seem to +have forgotten that we were ever enslaved. Then suddenly one day we hear +the call again. We cry for mercy; we throw ourselves on our knees in +prayer. We clutch sacred relics; we conjure the aid of holy memories; we +say over to ourselves the names of the dead we have loved: but it is all +in vain--surely we are dragged to the feet of that inexorable will, +surely we submit ourselves once more to the dark dominion." + +Henry listened, fascinated, and a little frightened. + +"The longer I live, the more I grow convinced that this is no mere +fancy, but actual science," Mr. Gerard continued; "for, again, you might +well imagine that one drinks for the dreams or other illusory effects it +is said to produce. At first, perhaps, yes; but such effects speedily +pass away, they pass away indeed before the tyranny has established +itself, while it would still be possible to shake it off. No, the dreams +of drink are poor things, not worth having at the best. Indeed, there +are no dreams worth having, believe me, but those of youth and health +and spring-water." + +And Mr. Gerard passed for awhile in silence into some hidden country of +his lost dreams. + +Henry gazed at him with a curious wonder. Here was a man evidently of +considerable gifts, a man of ideals, of humour, a man witty and gentle, +who surely could have easily made his mark in the world, and yet he had +thrown all away for a mechanical habit which he himself did not pretend +to be a passion,--a mere abstract attraction: as though a man should +say, "I care not for the joys or successes of this world. My destiny is +to sit alone all day and count my fingers and toes, count them over and +over and over again. There is not much pleasure in it, and I should be +glad to break off the habit,--but there it is. It is imposed upon me by +a will stronger than mine which I must obey. It is my destiny." + +"Yes, idealists!" said Mr. Gerard, presently coming back from his dreams +to his great subject, with a laugh. "That reminds me of a story a +business friend of mine told me the other day. A clerk in his office was +an incorrigible drunkard. He was quite alone in the world, and had no +one dependent upon him. The firm had been lenient to him, and again and +again forgiven his outbreaks. But one morning they called him in and +said: 'Look here, Jones, we have had a great deal of patience with you; +but the time has come when you must choose between the drink and the +office.' To their surprise, Jones, instead of eagerly promising reform, +looked up gravely, and replied, 'Will you give me a week to think it +over, sir? It is a very serious matter.' Drink was all the poor fellow +had outside his drudgery; was it to be expected that he should thus +lightly sacrifice it?-- + +"But, to talk about something else, your aunt, Mrs. Tipping, who has a +great idea of my literary importance, has a notion that I may be of some +help to you, Mr. Mesurier. Well, I'll tell you the whole extent of my +present literary engagements, and you are perfectly at liberty to laugh. +At the present time I do the sporting notes for the _Tyrian Daily Mail_, +and I write the theological reviews for _The Fleet Street Review_. These +apparently incongruous occupations are the relics of an old taste for +sport, which as a boy in the country I had ample opportunity for +indulging, and of an interrupted training for the Church--'twixt then +and now there is an eventful gap which, if you don't mind, we won't +sadden each other by filling--Let us fill our glasses and our pipes +instead; and, having failed so entirely myself, I will give you minute +directions how to succeed in literature." + +Mr. Gerard's discourse on how to succeed in literature was partly +practical and partly ironical, and probably too technical to interest +the general reader, who has no intention of being a great or a little +writer, and who perhaps has already found Mr. Gerard's previous +discourse a little too special in its character. Suffice it that Henry +heard much to remember, and much to laugh over, and that Mr. Gerard +concluded with a practical offer of kindness. + +"I don't know how much use it may be to you," he said; "but if you care +to have it, I should be very glad to give you a letter to the editor of +_The Fleet Street Review_. He has, I think, a certain regard for me, and +he might send you a book to do now and again. At all events, it would be +something." + +Henry embraced the offer gratefully; and it occurred to him that in a +day or two's time there was a five days' excursion running from Tyre to +London and back, for half-a-guinea. Why not take it, and expend his last +five pounds in a stimulating glimpse of the city he some day hoped to +conquer? He could then see his friend the publisher, present his letter +to the editor, and perhaps bring home with him some little work and a +renewed stock of hopes. + +So, before they parted that night, Mr. Gerard wrote him the letter. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +"THIS IS LONDON, THIS IS LIFE" + + +Thus it was that, all unexpectedly, Henry found himself set down one +autumn morning at the homeless hour of a quarter-to-seven, in Euston +station. He was going to stay in some street off the Strand, and +chartered a hansom to take him there. Few great cities are impressive in +the neighbourhood of their railway termini. You enter them, so to speak, +by the back door; and London waves no banners of bright welcome to the +stranger who first enters it by the Euston Road. + +But there was an interesting church presently, and on a dust-cart close +by Henry read "Vestry of St. Pancras." + +"Can that be the St. Pancras' Church," he said to himself, "where Mary +Wollstonecraft lies buried, and Browning was married?" + +Then as they drove along through Bloomsbury, the name "Great Coram +Street" caught his eye, and he exclaimed with delight: "Why, that's +where Thackeray lived for a time!" + +Great Coram Street is little accustomed to create such excitement in the +breast of the passer-by. But to the stranger London is necessarily first +a museum, till he begins to love it as a home, and, in addition to dead +men's associations, begins to people it with memories of his own. When +you have lived awhile in Gray's Inn, you grow to forget that Bacon's +ghost is your fellow-tenant; and it is the kind-hearted provincial who +from time to time lays those flowers on Goldsmith's tomb. When you are +caught in a block on Westminster Bridge, with only five minutes to get +to Waterloo, you forget to say to yourself: "Ah, this is the bridge on +which Wordsworth wrote his famous sonnet." You usually say something +quite different. + +The mere names of the streets,--how laden with immemorial poetry they +were! "Chancery Lane!" How wonderful! Yet the poor wretch standing +outside the public-house at the corner seemed to derive small +consolation from the fact that he was starving in Chancery Lane. + +But to Henry, as yet, London was an extended Westminster Abbey, and +every other street was Poet's Corner. He had hardly patience to +breakfast, so eager was he to be out in the streets; and while he ate, +his eyes were out of the windows all the time, and his ears drinking in +all the London morning sounds like music. At the foot of the street ran +the Thames; he had caught a thrilling glimpse of it as he stepped from +his cab, and had had a childish impulse to rush down to it before +entering his hotel. + +At last, free of food and baggage, light of heart, and brimming over +with youth, he stepped into the street. It was but little past eight +o'clock. He had just heard the hour chimed, in various tones of +sweetness and solemnity, from several mellow clocks, evidently hidden +high in the air in his near vicinity. For two or three hours there would +be no editor or publisher to be seen, and meanwhile he had London to +himself. He stepped out into it as into a garden,--a garden of those +old-time flowers in which antiquity has become a perfume full +of pictures. + +Yes, there was the Thames! "Sweet Themmes, run softly till I end my +song!" he quoted to himself. Chaucer's, Spenser's, Elizabeth's Thames! + +It was a bright morning and the river gleamed to advantage. The tall +tower of Westminster glittered richly in the sun, and the long front of +Somerset House wore a lordly smile. The embankment gardens sparkled and +rustled in morning freshness. Henry drew in the air of London as though +it had been a rose. Here was the Thames at the foot of the street, and +there at the head was the Strand, a stream of omnibuses and cabs, and +city-faring men and women. The Temple must be somewhere close by. Of +course it was here to his left. But he would first walk quietly by the +Thames side to Westminster, and then come back by the Strand. As he +walked, he stepped lightly and gently, as though reverent to the very +stones of so sacred a city, and all the time from every prospect and +every other street-corner came streaming like strains of music magnetic +memories,--"streets with the names of old kings, strong earls, and +warrior saints." If for no other reason, how important for the future of +a nation is it to preserve in such ancient cities as London and Oxford +the energising spectacle of a noble and strenuous antiquity; for there +are no such inspirers of young men as these old places! So much strength +and youth went into them long ago that even yet they have strength and +youth to give, and from them, as from the strong hills, pours out an +inexhaustible potency of bracing influence. + +At last Henry found himself back at the top-end of his street. He had +walked the Strand with deliberate enjoyment. Fleet Street he still +reserved, but, as according to the tower of Clement Danes it was only +just ten o'clock, it seemed still a little early to attack his business. +A florist's close by suggested a charming commonplace way of filling the +time. He would buy some flowers and carry them to Goldsmith's grave. Why +Goldsmith's grave should thus be specially honoured, he a little +wondered. He was conscious of loving several writers quite as well. But +it was a Johnsonian tradition to love Goldy, and the accessibility of +his resting-place made sentiment easy. + +He repented this momentary flippancy of thought as he stood in the +cloistered corner where Goldsmith sleeps under the eye of the law; and, +when he laid his little wreath on the worn stone, it was a genuine +offering. From it he turned away to his own personal dreams. + +By eleven he had found his friend the publisher, in a dainty little +place of business crammed with pottery, Rowlandsons, and books, and +more like a curiosity-shop than a publishing-house, for the publisher +proved an enthusiast in everything that was beautiful or curious, and +had indeed taken to publishing from that rare motive in a +publisher,--the love of books, rather than the love of money. He was +aiming to make his little shop the rallying-point of all the young +talent of the day, and as young talent has never too many publishers on +the look-out for it, his task was not difficult, though it was one of +those real services to literature which such publishers and booksellers +have occasionally done in our literary history, with but scant +acknowledgment. + +Henry was pleased to find that he looked upon him to make one of his +little band of youth; and as the publisher understood the art of +encouragement, Henry already felt it had been worth while to come to +London just to see him. He knew the editor to whom Henry had a letter +and volunteered him another. The afternoon would be the best time; +meanwhile, they must lunch together. He smiled when Henry suggested the +Cheshire Cheese. Henry had a sort of vague idea that literary men could +hardly think of taking their meals anywhere else. There had been an +attempt to bring it into fashion again, the publisher said; but it had +come to nothing--though he, for one, loved those old chop-houses, with +their tankards, and their sanded floors. So to the Cheshire Cheese they +repaired, and drank to a long friendship in foaming pewters of porter. + +"Alas!" said Henry, "we are fallen on smaller times. Once it was 'the +poet's pint of port.' Now we must be content with the poetaster's +half-a-pint of porter!" + +"You must come to my rooms to-night," said the publisher, "and be +introduced to some of our young men. I have one or two of our older +critics coming too." + +Henry's fortune was evidently made. + +He found the editor in a dim back room at the top of a high building, so +lost in a world of books and dust that at first Henry could hardly make +him out, writing by a window with his back to the door. Then an alert +head turned round to him, and a rather peevish gesture bade him be +seated, while the editor resumed his work. This hardly came up to +Henry's magnificent dreams of the editorial dignity. Perhaps he had a +vague idea that editors lived in palaces, and sat on thrones. + +Presently the editor put down his pen with an exclamation of +satisfaction; and the first impression of peevishness vanished in the +cordiality with which he now turned to his visitor. + +"You must excuse my absorption. It was a rather tough piece of +proof-reading. A subject I'm rather interested in,--new Welsh +dictionary. Don't suppose it's in your line, eh, eh?"--and the tall, +spare man laughed a boyish laugh like a mischievous bird, and tossed his +head at the jest. + +His face was small and sallow and tired; but the dark eyes were full of +fun and kindness. Presently, he rose and began to walk up and down the +room with a curious, prancing walk, rolling himself a cigarette, and +talking away in a rapid, jerky fashion with his continual, "eh, eh?" +coming in all the time. + +"Poor Gerard! So you know him? How is he now?" and he lowered his voice +with the suggestion of a mutual confidence, and stopped in his walk till +Henry should answer. "Poor Gerard! And he might have been--well, +well,--never mind. We were together at King's. Brilliant fellow. So you +know Gerard. Dear me! Dear me!" + +Then he turned to the subject of Henry's visit. + +"Well, my poor boy, nothing will satisfy you but literature? You are +determined to be a literary man, eh, eh?" Then he stopped in front of +Henry and laid his hand kindly on his shoulder, "Is it too late to say, +'Go back while there is yet time'? Perhaps--of course--you're going to +be a very great man," and he broke off into his walk again, with one of +his mischievous laughs. "But unless you are, take my word, it's a poor +game--Yet, I suppose, it's no use talking. I know, wasted breath, wasted +breath--Well, now, what can you do? and, by the way, you won't grow fat +on _The Fleet Street Review_. Ten shillings a column is our magnificent +rate of payment, and we can hardly afford that--" + +Then he began pulling out one book and another from the piles of all +sorts that lay around him. "I suppose, like the rest, you'd better begin +on poetry. There's a tableful over there--go and take your pick of it, +unless, of course, you've got some special subject. You're not, I +suppose, an authority on Assyriology, eh, eh?" + +Henry feared not, and then a new fit of industry came upon the editor, +and he begged Henry to take a look at the books while he ran through +another proof for the post. + +That dusty table--evidently the rubbish-heap of the room--was Henry's +first object-lesson in the half tragical, half farcical, over-production +of modern literature. Such a mass of foolishness and ineptitude he had +never conceived of; such pretentiousness too--and while he made various +melancholy reflections upon human vanity, what should he unearth +suddenly from the heap, but his own little volume. He could but half +suppress a cry of recognition. + +"What's that?" asked the editor, not turning round. "Found anything?" + +"No," said Henry; "nothing--for a moment I thought I had." + +Presently he had made a small pile of the most promising volumes, and +turned to take his leave. The editor took up one or two of them +carelessly. + +"Not much here, I'm afraid," he said. "Never mind; see what you can make +of them. Not more than three columns at the most, you know. And come and +see me again. I'm glad to have seen you." + +"Oh," said Henry, on the point of leaving, and laying his hand on his +own little book, "may I take this one too? It's not worth reviewing, but +it rather interested me just now." + +"God bless me, yes, certainly," said the editor; "you're welcome to the +lot, if you care to bring a hand-cart. Good-bye, good-bye." + +And Henry slipped his poor little neglected volume into his pocket. On +how many dusty tables, he wondered, was it then lying ignominiously +disregarded. Well, the day would come! Meanwhile, he had his first batch +of books for review. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE WITS + + +There now remained the gathering of wits fixed for the evening. His +publisher had asked him to dinner, but he had declined, from a secret +and absurd desire to dine at "The Cock." This he gratified, and with his +mind full of the spacious times of the early Victorians, he turned into +the publisher's little room about nine o'clock to meet some of +the later. + +There was no great muster as yet. Some half-a-dozen rather shy young men +spasmodically picked up strange drawings or odd-looking books, lying +about on the publisher's tables, struggled maidenly with cigars, sipped +a little whisky and soda; but little was said. + +Among them a pale-faced lad of about fifteen, miraculously +self-possessed, stood with his back to the chimney-piece. But soon +others began to turn in, and by ten the room was as full of chatter and +smoke as it could hold. Not least conspicuous among the talkers was the +pale-faced boy of fifteen. Henry had been sitting near to him, and had +been suddenly startled by his unexpectedly breaking out into a volley of +learning, delivered in a voice impressively deliberate and sententious. + +"What a remarkable boy that is!" said Henry, innocently, to the +publisher. + +"Yes; but he's not quite a boy,--though he's young enough. A curious +little creature, morbidly learned. A friend of mine says that he would +like to catch him and keep him in a bottle, and label it 'the learned +homunculus.'" + +"What dialect is it he is talking in?" said Henry; "I don't remember to +have heard it before." + +The publisher smiled: "My dear fellow, you must be careful what you say. +That is what we call 'the Oxford voice.'" + +"How remarkable!" said Henry, his attention called off by a being with a +face that half suggested a faun, and half suggested a flower,--a small, +olive-skinned face crowned with purply black hair, that kept falling in +an elflock over his forehead, and violet eyes set slant-wise. He was +talking earnestly of fairies, in a beautiful Irish accent, and Henry +liked him. The attraction seemed mutual, and Henry found himself drawn +into a remarkable relation about a fairy-hill in Connemara, and fairy +lights that for several nights had been seen glimmering about it; and +how at last he--that is, the narrator--and a particularly hard-headed +friend of his had kept watch one moonlit night, with the result that +they had actually seen and talked with the queen of the fairies and +learned many secrets of the ----. The narrator here made use of a long, +unpronounceable Irish word, which Henry could not catch. + +"I should have explained some of these phenomena to you," whispered the +publisher presently, noticing that Henry looked a little bewildered. +"This is a young Irish poet, who, in the intervals of his raising the +devil, writes very beautiful lyrics that he may well have learned from +the fairies. It is his method to seem mad on magic and such things. You +will meet with many strange methods here to-night. Don't be alarmed if +some one comes and talks to you about strange sins. You have come to +London in the 'strange sins' period. I will explain afterwards." + +He had hardly spoken when a pallid young man, with a preternatural +length and narrowness of face, began to talk to him about the sins of +the Borgias. + +"I suppose you never committed a murder yourself?" he asked Henry, +languidly. + +"No," said Henry, catching the spirit of the foolishness; "no, not yet. +I am keeping that--" implying that he was reserving so extreme a +stimulant till all his other vices failed him. + +Presently there entered a tall young man with a long, thin face, +curtained on either side with enormous masses of black hair, like a slip +of the young moon glimmering through a pine-wood. + +At the same moment there entered, as if by design, his very antithesis: +a short, firmly built, clerkly fellow, with a head like a billiard-ball +in need of a shave, a big brown moustache, and enormous spectacles. + +"That," said the publisher, referring to the moon-in-the-pine-wood young +man, "is our young apostle of sentiment, our new man of feeling, the +best-hated man we have; and the other is our young apostle of blood. He +is all for muscle and brutality--and he makes all the money. It is one +of our many fashions just now to sing 'Britain and Brutality.' But my +impression is that our young man of feeling will have his day,--though +he will have to wait for it. He would hasten it if he would cut his +hair; but that, he says, he will never do. His hair, he says, is his +battle-cry. Well, he enjoys himself--and loves a fight, though you +mightn't think it to look at him." + +A supercilious young man, with pink cheeks, and a voice which his +admirers compared to Shelley's, then came up to Henry and asked him what +he thought of Mallarmé's latest sonnet; but finding Henry confessedly at +sea, turned the conversation to the Empire ballet, of which, +unfortunately, Henry knew as little. The conversation then languished, +and the Shelley-voiced young man turned elsewhere for sympathy, with a +shrug at your country bumpkins who know nothing later than Rossetti. + +In the thick of the conversational turmoil, Henry's attention had from +time to time been attracted by the noise proceeding from a blustering, +red-headed man, with a face of fire. + +"Who is that?" at last he found opportunity to ask his friend. + +"That is our greatest critic," said the publisher. + +"Oh!" said Henry, "I must try and hear what he is saying. It seems +important from the way he is listened to." + +So Henry listened, and heard how the fire-faced man said the word "damn" +with great volubility and variety of cadence, and other words to the +same effect, and how the little group around him hung upon his words and +said to each other, "How brilliant!" "How absolute!" + +Henry turned to his friend. "The only word I can catch is the word +'damn,'" he said. + +"That," said the publisher, with a laugh, "is the master-word of +fashionable criticism." + +Presently a little talkative man came up, and said that he hoped Mr. +Mesurier was an adherent of the rightful king. + +"Oh, of course!" said Henry. + +"And do you belong to any secret society?" asked the little man. + +Henry couldn't say that he did. + +"Well, you must join us!" he said. + +"I suppose there won't be a rising just yet?" asked Henry, realising +that this was the Jacobite method. + +"Not just yet," said the little man, reassuringly. So Henry was +enrolled. + + * * * * * + +And so it went on till past midnight, when Henry at last escaped, to +talk it all over with the stars. The evening had naturally puzzled him, +as a man will always be puzzled who has developed under the influence of +the main tendencies of his generation, and who finds himself suddenly in +a backwater of fanciful reaction. Henry, in his simple way, was a +thinker and a radical, and he had nourished himself on the great +main-road masters of English literature. He had followed the lead of +modern philosophers and scientists, and had arrived at a mystical +agnosticism,--the first step of which was to banish the dogmas of the +church as old wives' tales. He considered that he had inherited the +hard-won gains of the rationalists. But he came to London and found +young men feebly playing with the fire of that Romanism which he +regarded as at once the most childish and the most dangerous of all +intellectual obsessions. In an age of great biologists and electricians, +he came upon children prettily talking about fairies and the +philosopher's stone. In one of the greatest ages of English poetry, he +came to London to find young English poets falling on their knees to the +metrical mathematicians of France. In the great age of democracy, a fool +had come and asked him if he were not a supporter of the house of +Stuart, a Jacobite of charades. But only once had he heard the name of +Milton; it was the learned boy of fifteen who had quoted him,--a +lifelong debt of gratitude; and never once had he heard the voice of +simple human feeling, nor heard one speak of beauty, simply, +passionately, with his heart in his mouth; nor of love with his heart +upon his sleeve. Much cleverness, much learning, much charm, there had +been, but he had missed the generous human impulse. No one seemed to be +doing anything because he must. These were pleasant eddies, dainty with +lilies and curiously starred water-grasses, but the great warm stream of +English literature was not flowing here. + +As he neared his hotel, he thought of his morning visit to Goldsmith's +tomb, and ten-fold he repented the little half-sneer with which he had +bought the flowers. In a boyish impulse, he rang the Temple bell, and +found his way again to the lonely corner. His flowers were lying there +in the moonlight, and again he read: "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith." + +"Forgive me, Goldy," he murmured. "Well may men bring you flowers,--for +you wrote, not as those yonder; you wrote for the human heart." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +BACK TO REALITY + + +It was good to get back to reality, with Angel's blue eyes, Mike's +laugh, and Esther's common sense. + +"Let me look deep into them, Angel--deep--deep. It is so good to get +back to something true." + +"Are they true?" said Angel, opening them very wide. + +"Something that will never forsake one, something we can never forsake! +Something in all the wide world's change that will never change. +Something that will still be Angel even in a thousand years." + +"I hope to be a real angel long before that," said Angel, laughing. + +"Do you think you can promise to be true so long, Angel?" asked Henry. + +"Dear, you know that so long as there is one little part of me left +anywhere in the world, that part will be true to you.--But come, tell +me about London. I'm afraid you didn't enjoy it very much." + +"Oh, yes, I loved London,--that is, old London; but new London made me a +little sad. I expect it was only because I didn't quite understand the +conditions." + +"Perhaps so," said Angel. "But tell me,--did you go to the Zoo?" + +"You dear child! Yes! I went out of pure love for you." + +"Now you needn't be so grown up. You know you wanted to go just for +yourself as well. And you saw the monkey-house?" + +"Yes." + +"And the lions?" + +"Yes." + +"And the snakes?" + +"Yes!" + +"Oh, I'd give anything to see the snakes! Did they eat any rabbits when +you were there,--fascinate them, and then draw them slowly, slowly in?" + +"Angel, what terrible interests you are developing! No, thank goodness, +they didn't." + +"Why, wouldn't it fascinate you to see something wonderfully killed?" +asked Angel. "It is dreadful and wicked, of course. But it would be so +thrillingly real." + +"I think I must introduce you to a young man I met in London," said +Henry, "who solemnly asked me if I had ever murdered anyone. You savage +little wild thing! I suppose this is what you mean by saying sometimes +that you are a gipsy, eh?" + +"Well, and you went to the Tower, and Westminster Abbey, and everything, +and it was really wonderful?" + +"Yes, I saw everything--including the Queen." + +For young people of Tyre and Sidon to go to London was like what it once +was to make the pilgrimage to Rome. + +Mike created some valuable nonsense on the occasion, which unfortunately +has not been preserved, and Esther was disgusted with Henry because he +could give no intelligible description of the latest London hats; and +all examined with due reverence those wonderful books for review. + +In Tichborne Street Aunt Tipping had taken advantage of his absence to +enrich his room with a bargain in the shape of an old desk, which was +the very thing he wanted. Dear old Aunt Tipping! And Gerard, it is to +be feared, took a little more brandy than usual in honour of his young +friend's adventures in the capital. + +These excitements over, Henry sat down at his old desk to write his +first review; and there for the present we may leave him, for he took it +very seriously and was dangerous to interrupt. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE OLD HOME MEANWHILE + + +More than a year had now gone by since Henry left home, and meanwhile, +with the exception of Dot's baptism, there had been no exciting changes +to record. Perhaps uneventfulness is part of the security of a +real home. Every morning James Mesurier had risen at half-past +six,--though he no longer imposed that hour of rising upon his +daughters,--breakfasted at eight, and reached his office at nine. Every +evening during those months, punctually at half-past six his latch-key +had rattled in the front-door lock, and one or other of his daughters +had hurried out at the sound to bid him welcome home. + +"Home at last, father dear!" they had said, helping him off with his +coat; and sometimes when he felt bright he would answer,-- + +"Yes, my dear, night brings crows home." + +"Home again, James!" his wife would say, as he next entered the front +parlour, and bent down to kiss her where she sat. "It's a long day. +Isn't it time you were pulling in a bit? Surely some of the younger +heads should begin to relieve you." + +"Responsibility, Mary dear! We cannot delegate responsibility," he would +answer. + +"But we see nothing of you. You just sacrifice your whole life for the +business." + +If he were in a good humour, he might answer with one of his rare sweet +laughs, and jokingly make one of his few French quotations: "_Telle est +la vie_! my dear, _Telle est la vie_! That's the French for it, +isn't it, Dot?" + +James Mesurier was just perceptibly softening. Perhaps it was that he +was growing a little tired, that he was no longer quite the stern +disciplinarian we met in the first chapter; perhaps the influence of his +wife, and his experiences with his children, were beginning to hint to +him what it takes so long for a strong individual nature to learn, that +the law of one temperament cannot justly or fruitfully be enforced as +the law of another. + +The younger children--Esther and Dot and Mat used sometimes to say to +each other--would grow up in a more clement atmosphere of home than had +been Henry's and theirs. Already they were quietly assuming privileges, +and nothing said, that would have meant beatings for their elders. For +these things had Henry and Esther gladly faced martyrdom. Henry had +looked on the Promised Land, but been denied an entrance there. By his +stripes this younger generation would be healed. + +The elder girls hastened to draw close to their father in gratitude, and +home breathed a kinder, freer air than ever had been known before. +Between Esther and her father particularly a kind of comradeship began +to spring up, which perhaps more than ever made the mother miss her boy. + +But, all the same, home was growing old. This was the kindness of the +setting sun! + +Childless middle age is no doubt often dreary to contemplate, yet is it +an egoistical bias which leads one to find in such limitation, or one +might rather say preservation, of the ego, a certain compensation? The +childless man or woman has at least preserved his or her individuality, +as few fathers and mothers of large families are suffered to do. By the +time you are fifty, with a family of half a dozen children, you have +become comparatively impersonal as "father" or "mother." It is tacitly +recognised that your life-work is finished, that your ambitions are +accomplished or not, and that your hopes are at an end. + +The young Mesuriers, for example, were all eagerly hastening towards +their several futures. They were garrulous over them at every meal. But +to what future in this world were James and Mary Mesurier looking +forward? Love had blossomed and brought forth fruit, but the fruit was +quickly ripening, and stranger hands would soon pluck it from the +boughs. In a very few years they would sit under a roof-tree bared of +fruit and blossom, and sad with falling leaves. They had dreamed their +dream, and there is only one such dream for a lifetime; now they must +sit and listen to the dreams of their children, help them to build +theirs. They mattered now no longer for themselves, but just as so much +aid and sympathy on which their children might draw. Too well in their +hearts they knew that their children only heard them with patience so +long as they talked of their to-morrows. Should they sometimes dwell +wistfully on their own yesterdays, they could too plainly see how long +the story seemed. + +_Telle est la vie!_ as James Mesurier said, and, that being so, no +wonder life is a sad business. Better perhaps be childless and retain +one's own personal hopes and fears for life, than be so relegated to +history in the very zenith of one's days. If only this younger +generation at the door were always, as it assumes, stronger and better +than its elder! but, though the careless assumption that it is so is +somewhat general, history alone shows how false and impudent the +assumption often is. Too often genius itself must submit to the silly +presumption of its noisy and fatuous children, and it is the young fool +who too often knocks imperiously at the door of wise and active +middle age. + +That all this is inevitable makes it none the less sad. The young +Mesuriers were neither fools nor hard of heart; and sometimes, in +moments of sympathy, their parents would be revealed to them in sudden +lights of pathos and old romance. They would listen to some old +love-affair of their mother's as though it had been their own, or go out +of their way to make their father tell once more the epic of the great +business over which he presided, and which, as he conceived it, was +doubtless a greater poem than his son would ever write. Yet still even +in such genuine sympathy, there was a certain imaginative effort to be +made. The gulf between the generations, however hidden for the moment, +was always there. + +Yet, after all, James and Mary Mesurier possessed an incorruptible +treasure, which their children had neither given nor could take away. To +regard them as without future would be a shallow observation,--for love +has always a future, however old in mortal years it may have grown; and +as they grew older, their love seemed to grow stronger. Involuntarily +they seemed to draw closer together, as by an instinct of +self-preservation. Their love had been before their children; were they +to be spared, it would still be the same love, sweeter by trial, when +their children had passed from them. In this love had been wise for +them. Some parents love their children so unwisely that they forget to +love each other; and, when the children forsake them, are left +disconsolate. One has heard young mothers say that now their boy has +come, their husbands may take a second place; and often of late we have +heard the woman say: "Give me but the child, and the lover can go his +ways." Foolish, unprophetic women! Let but twenty years go by, and how +glad you will be of that rejected lover; for, though a son may suffice +for his mother, what mother has ever sufficed for her son? + +But though sometimes, as they looked at their parents, the young +Mesuriers caught a glimpse of the infinite sadness of a life-work +accomplished, yet it failed to warn them against the eager haste with +which they were hurrying on towards a like conclusion. Too late they +would understand that all the joy was in the doing; too soon say to +themselves: "Was it for this that our little world shook with such fiery +commotion and molten ardours, that this present should be so firm and +insensitive beneath our feet? This habit--why, it was once a passion! +This fact--why, it was once a dream!" + +Oh, why shake off youth's fragile blossoms with the very speed of your +own impatience! Why make such haste towards autumn! Who ever thought the +ruddiest lapful of apples a fair exchange for a cloud of sunlit blossom? +Whose maturity, however laden with prosperity or gilded with honour, +ever kept the fairy promise of his youth? For so brief a space youth +glitters like a dewdrop on the tree of life, glitters and is gone. For +one desperate instant of perfection it hangs poised, and is seen +no more. + +But, alas! the art of enjoying youth with a wise economy is only learnt +when youth is over. It is perhaps too paradoxical an accomplishment to +be learnt before; for a youth that economised itself would be already +middle age. It is just the wasteful flare of it that leaves such a +dazzle in old eyes, as they look back in fancy to the conflagration of +fragrant fire which once bourgeoned and sang where these white ashes now +slowly smoulder towards extinction. + +When Mike has a theatre of his own and can send boxes to his friends, +when Henry maybe is an editor of power, when Esther and Angel are the +enthroned wives of famous men, and the new heaven and the new earth are +quite finished,--will they never sigh sometimes to have the making of +them all over again? Then they will have everything to enjoy, so there +will be nothing left to hope for. Then there will be no spice of peril +in their loves, no keen edge that comes of enforced denial; and the game +of life will be too sure for ambition to keep its savour. "There is no +thrill, no excitement nowadays," one can almost fancy their saying, and, +like children playing with their bricks, "Now let us knock it all down, +and build another, one. It will be such fun." + +However, these are intrusive, autumnal thoughts in this book of simple +youth, and our young people knew them not. They were far indeed from +Esther's mind as she talked with Dot of the future one afternoon. +Instead, her words were full of impatience with the slow march of +events, and the enforced inactivity of a girl's life at home. + +"It is so much easier for the boys," she was saying. "There is something +for them to do. But we can do nothing but sit at home and wait, darn +their socks, and clap our hands at their successes. I wish I were +a man!" + +"No, you don't," said Dot; "for then you couldn't marry Mike. And you +couldn't wear pretty dresses--Oh! and lots of things. I don't much envy +a man's life, after all. It's all very well talking about hard work when +you haven't got to do it; and it's not so much the work as the +responsibility. It must be such a responsibility to be a man." + +"Of course you're right, Dot--but, oh! this waiting is so stupid, all +the same. If only I could be doing something--anything!" + +"Well, you _are_ doing something. Is it nothing to be all the world to a +man?" said Dot, wistfully; "nothing to be his heaven upon earth? Nothing +to be the prize he is working for, and nothing to sustain and cheer him +on, as you do Mike, and as Angel cheers Henry? Would Henry have been the +same without Angel, or Mike the same without you? No, the man's work +makes more noise, but the woman's work is none the less real and useful +because it is quiet and underground." + +"Dear Dot, what a wise old thing you're growing! But you know you're +longing all the time for some work to do yourself. Didn't you say the +other day that you seemed to be wasting your life here, making beds and +doing housework?" + +"Yes; but I'm different. Don't you see?" retorted Dot, sadly. "I've got +no Mike. Your work is to help Mike be a great actor, but I've got no one +to help be anything. You may be sure I wouldn't complain of being idle +if I had. I think you're a bit forgetful sometimes how happy you are." + +"Poor old Dot! you needn't talk as if you're such a desperate old +maid,--you're not twenty yet. And I'm sure it's a good thing for you +that you haven't got any of the young men about here--to help be +aldermen! Wait till you come and stay with us in London, then you'll +soon find some one to work for, as you call it." + +"I don't know," said Dot, thoughtfully; "somehow I think I shall never +marry." + +"I suppose you mean you'd rather be a nun or something serious of that +sort." + +"Well, to tell the truth, I have been thinking lately if perhaps I +couldn't do something,--perhaps go into a hospital, or something of +that sort." + +"Oh, nonsense, Dot! Think of all the horrible, dirty people you'd have +to attend to. Ugh!" + +"Christ didn't think of that when He washed the feet of His disciples," +said little Dot, sententiously. + +"Why, Dot, how dreadfully religious you're getting! You want a good +shaking! Besides, isn't it a little impious to imply that the apostles +were horrible, dirty people?" + +"You know what I meant," said Dot, flushing. + +"Yes, of course, dear; and I think I know where you've been. You've been +to see that dear Sister Agatha." + +"You admit she's a dear?" + +"Of course I do; but I don't know whether she's quite good for you." + +"If you'd only seen her among the poor little children the other day, +how beautiful and how happy she looked, you might have thought +differently," said Dot. + +"Oh, yes, dear; but then you mustn't forget that her point of view is +different. She's renounced the world; she's one of those women," Esther +couldn't resist adding, maliciously, "who've given up hope of man, and +so have set all their hopes on God." + +"Esther, that's unworthy of you--though what if it is as you say, is it +so great a failure after all to dedicate one's self to God rather than +to one little individual man?" + +"Oh, come," said Esther, rather wilfully misunderstanding, and suddenly +flushing up, "Mike is not so little as all that!" + +"Why, you goose, how earthly you are! I never thought of dear +Mike--though it would have served you right for saying such a mean thing +about Sister Agatha." + +"Forgive me. I know it was mean, but I couldn't resist it. And it is +true, you'll admit, of some of those pious women, though I withdraw it +about Sister Agatha." + +"Of course I couldn't be a sister like Sister Agatha," said Dot, +"without being a Catholic as well; but I might be a nurse at one of the +ordinary hospitals." + +"It would be dreadfully hard work!" said Esther. + +"Harder than being a man, do you think?" asked Dot, laughing. + +"For goodness' sake, don't turn Catholic!" said Esther, in some alarm. +"_That_ would break father's heart, if you like." + +A horror of Catholicism ran in the very marrow of these young people. +It was one of the few relics of their father's Puritanism surviving in +them. Of "Catholics" they had been accustomed to speak since childhood +as of nightmares and Red Indians with bloody scalps at their waists; and +perhaps that instinctive terror of the subtle heart of Rome is the +religious prejudice which we will do well to part with last. + +Dot had not, indeed, contemplated an apostacy so unnatural; but beneath +these comparatively trivial words there was an ever-growing impulse to +fulfil that old longing of her nature to do something, as the Christians +would say, "for God," something serious, in return for the solemn and +beautiful gift of life. By an accident, she had met Sister Agatha one +day in the house of an old Irish servant of theirs, who had been +compelled to leave them on account of ill-health, and on whom she had +called with a little present of fruit. She had been struck by the +sweetness of the Sister's face, as the Sister had been struck by hers. +Sister Agatha had invited Dot to visit her some day at the home for +orphan children of which she had charge; and, with some misgiving as to +whether it was right thus to visit a Catholic, whether even it was +safe, Dot had accepted. So an acquaintance had grown up and ripened into +a friendship; and Sister Agatha, while making no attempt to turn the +friendship to the account of her church, was a great consolation to the +lonely, religious girl. + +Dot retained too much rationalism ever to become a Catholic, but the +longing to do something grew and grew. At a certain moment, with each +new generation of girls, there comes an epidemical desire in maiden +bosoms to dedicate their sweet young lives to the service of what Esther +called "horrible dirty people." At these periods the hospitals are +flooded with applications from young girls whom the vernal equinox urges +first to be mothers, and, failing motherhood, nurses. Just before she +met Henry, Angel had done her best to miss him by frantic endeavours to +nurse people whom the hospital doctors decided she was far too slight a +thing to lift,--for unless you can lift your patients, not to say throw +them about, you fail in the muscular qualifications of a hospital nurse. +Dot, as we have seen, was impelled in this direction from no merely +sentimental impulse, unless the religious impulse, which paradoxically +makes nuns of disappointed mothers, may so be called. Perhaps, +unacknowledged, deep down in her heart, she longed to be the nurse--of +one little wonderful child. Had this been granted her, it is probable +that the maimed and the halt would have had less attraction for her +pitying imagination. As it was, however, she persuaded herself that she +loved them. Was it because, at the moment, no one else seemed to +need her love? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +STAGE WAITS, MR. LAFLIN + + +Esther's impatience was to be appeased, perhaps a little to her regret +after all, by an unexpected remission of the time appointed between Mike +and his first real engagement. Suddenly one day came an exciting letter +from the great actor, saying that he saw his way to giving him a part in +his own London company, if he could join him for rehearsal in a +week's time. + +Here was news! At last a foundation-stone of the new heaven was to be +laid! In a week's time Mike would be working at one of the alabaster +walls. Perhaps in two years' time, perhaps even in a year, with good +fortune, the roof would be on, the door wreathed with garlands, and a +modest little heaven ready for occupation. + +Now all that remained was to make the momentous break with the old life. +Old Mr. Laflin had been left in peaceful ignorance of the mine which +must now be exploded beneath his evening armchair. Mike loved his +father, and this had been a dread long and wisely postponed. But now, +when the moment for inevitable decision had come, Mike remembered, with +a certain shrinking, that responsibility of which Dot had spoken,--the +responsibility of being a man. It was his dream to be an actor, to earn +his bread with joy. To earn it with less than joy seemed unworthy of +man. Yet there was another dream for him, still more, immeasurably more, +important--to be Esther's husband. If he stayed where he was, in slow +revolutions of a dull business, his father's place and income would +become his. If he renounced that certain prospect, he committed himself +to a destiny of brilliant chances; and for the first time he realised +that among those chances lurked, too, the chance of failure. Esther must +decide; and Henry's counsel, too, must be taken. Mike thought he knew +what the decision and the counsel would be; and, of course, he was +not mistaken. + +"Why, Mike, how can you hesitate?" said Esther. "Fail, if you like, and +I shall still love you; but you don't surely think I could go on loving +a man who was frightened to try?" + +That was a little hard of Esther, for Mike's fear had been for her sake, +not his own. However, that and the even more vehement counsel of Henry +had the desired bracing effect; and Mike nerved himself to deal the +necessary blow at his father's tranquillity. + +As the writer of this book takes no special joy in heart-breaking scenes +with fathers, the painful and somewhat violent scene with Mr. Laflin is +here omitted, and left to the imagination of any reader with a taste for +such unnatural collisions. Any one over thirty will agree that all the +reason was on Mr. Laflin's side, as all the instinct was on his son's. +Luckily for Mike, the instinct was to prove genuine, and his father to +live to be prouder of his rebellion than ever he would have been of his +obedience. + +This scene over, it was only a matter of days--five alone were +left--before Mike must up and away in right good earnest. + +"Oh, Mike," said Esther, "you're sure you'll go on loving me? I'm +awfully frightened of those pretty girls in ----'s company." + +"You needn't be," said Mike; "there's only one girl in the world will +look at a funny bit of a thing like me." + +"Oh, I don't know," said Esther, laughing, "some big girls have such +strange tastes." + +"Well, let's hope that before many months you can come and look after +me." + +"If we'd only a certain five pounds a week, we could get +along,--anything to be together. Of course, we'd have to be +economical--" said Esther, thoughtfully. + +On the last night but one before his leaving, it was Mike's turn for a +farewell dinner. Half-a-dozen of his best friends assembled at the +"Golden Bee," and toasts and tears were mingled to do him honour. Henry +happily caught the general feeling of the occasion in the following +verses, not hitherto printed. Henry was too much in earnest at the time +to regard the bathos of rhyming "stage waits" with such dignities as +"summoning fates," except for which _naïveté_ the poem is perhaps not a +bad example of sincere, occasional verse: + + _Dear Mike, at last the wishéd hour draws nigh-- + Weary indeed, the watching of a sky + For golden portent tarrying afar; + But here to-night we hail your risen star, + To-night we hear the cry of summoning fates-- + Stage waits! + + Stage waits! and we who love our brother so + Would keep him not; but only ere he go, + Led by the stars along the untried ways, + We'd hold his hand in ours a little space, + With grip of love that girdeth up the heart, + And kiss of eyes that giveth strength to part. + + Some of your lovers may be half afraid + To bid you forth, for fear of pitfalls laid + About your feet; but we have no such fears, + That cry is as a trumpet in our ears; + We dare not, would not, mock those summoning fates-- + Stage waits! + + Stage waits! and shall you fear and make delay? + Yes! when the mariner who long time lay, + Waiting the breeze, shall anchor when it blows; + Yes! when a thirsty summer-flower shall close + Against the rain; or when, in reaping days, + The husbandman shall set his fields ablaze. + + Nay, take your breeze, drink in your strengthening rain, + And, while you can, make harvest of your grain; + The land is fair to which that breeze shall blow. + The flower is sweet the rain shall set aglow, + The grain be rich within your garner gates-- + Stage waits! + + Stage waits! and we must loosen now your hand, + And miss your face's gold in all our land; + But yet we know that in a little while + You come again a conqueror, so smile + Godspeed, not parting, and, with hearts elate, + We wait_. + +Yes, for the second time the die was cast. Henry was already afoot on +the adventure perilous. Now it was Mike's turn. These young people had +passionately invoked those terrible gods who fulfil our dreams, and +already the celestial machinery was beginning to move in answer. Perhaps +it just a little took their breath, to see the great wheels so readily +turning at the touch of their young hands; but they were in for it now, +and with stout hearts must abide the issue. + +This was to be Esther and Mike's first experience of parting, and their +hearts sickened at the thought. Love surely does well in this world, so +full of snares and dangers, to fear to lose from its eyes for a moment +the face of its beloved; and in this respect the courage of love is the +more remarkable. How bravely it takes the appalling risks of life! To +separate for an hour may mean that never as long as the world lasts will +love hear the voice it loves again. "Good-bye," love has called gaily so +often, and waved hands from the threshold, and the beloved has called +"good-bye" and waved, and smiled back--for the last time. And yet love +faces the fears, not only of hours, but of weeks and months; weeks and +months on seas bottomless with danger, in lands rife with unknown evils, +dizzily taking the chances of desperate occupations. And the courage is +the greater, because, finally, in this world, love alone has anything to +lose. Other losses may be more or less repaired; but love's loss is, of +its essence, irreparable. Other fair faces and brave hearts the world +may bring us, but never that one face! Alas! for the most precious of +earthly things, the only precious thing of earth, there is no system of +insurance. The many waters have quenched love, and the floods drowned +it,--yet in the wide world is there no help, no hope, no recompense. + +The love that bound this little circle of young people together was so +strong and warm that it had developed in them an almost painful +sensibility to such risks of loss. So it was that expressions of +affection and outward endearments were more current among them than is +usual in a land where manners, from a proper fear of exaggeration, run +to a silly extreme of unresponsiveness. They never met without showing +their joy to be again together; never parted without that inner fear +that this might be their last chance of showing their love for +each other. + +"You all say good-bye as if you were going to America!" Myrtilla +Williamson had once said; "I suppose it's your Irish grandmother." And +no doubt the _empressement_ had its odd side for those who saw only +the surface. + +Thus for those who love love, who love to watch for it on human faces, +Mike's good-bye at the railway station was a sight worth going far +to see. + +"My word, they seem to be fond of each other, these young people!" said +a lady standing at the door of the next carriage. + +Mike was leaning through the window, and Esther was pressing near to +him. They murmured low to each other, and their eyes were bright with +tears. A little apart stood a small group, in which Henry and Angel and +Ned were conspicuous, and Mike's sisters and Dot and Mat were there. A +callous observer might have laughed, so sad and solemn they were. Mike's +fun tried a rally; but his jests fell spiritless. It was not so much a +parting, one might have thought, as a funeral. Little was said, but eyes +were eloquent, either with tears, or with long strong glances that meant +undying faithfulness all round; and Mike knew that Henry's eyes were +quoting "_Allons_! after the great Companions, and to belong to them!" + +Henry's will to achieve was too strong for him to think of this as a +parting; he could only think of it as a glorious beginning. There is +something impersonal in ambition, and in the absorption of the work to +be done the ambitious man forgets his merely individual sensibilities. +To achieve, though the heavens fall,--that was Henry's ambition for Mike +and for himself. + +No one really believed that the train would have the hard-heartedness to +start; but at last, with deliberate intention, evidently not to be +swayed by human pity, the guard set the estranging whistle to his lips, +cold and inexorable as Nero turning down the thumb of death, and surely +Mike's sad little face began to move away from them. Hands reached out +to him, eyes streamed, handkerchiefs fluttered,--but nothing could hold +him back; and when at last a curve in the line had swallowed the white +speck of his face, they turned away from the dark gulf where the train +had been as though it were a newly opened grave. + +A great to-do to make about a mere parting!--says someone. No doubt, my +dear sir! All depends upon one's standard of value. No doubt these young +people weighed life in fantastic scales. Their standard of value was, no +doubt, uncommon. To love each other was better than rubies; to lose each +other was bitter as death. For others other values,--they had found +their only realities in the human affections. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +ESTHER AND HENRY ONCE MORE + + +Yes, Mike had really gone. Henceforth for ever so long, he would only +exist for Esther in letters, or as a sad little voice at the end of a +wire. It had been arranged that Henry should take Esther with him for +dinner that evening to the brightest restaurant in Tyre. He was a great +believer in being together, and also in dinner, as comforters of your +sad heart. Perhaps, too, he was a little glad to feel Esther leaning +gently upon him once more. Their love was too sure and lasting and +ever-present to have many opportunities of being dramatic. Nature does +not make a fuss about gravitation. One of the most wonderful and +powerful of laws, it is yet of all laws the most retiring. Gravitation +never decks itself in rainbows, nor does it vaunt its undoubted strength +in thunder. It is content to make little show, because it is very +strong; yet you have always to reckon with it. It is undemonstrative, +but it is always there. The love of Esther and Henry was like that. It +has made little show in this history, but few readers can have missed +its presence in the atmosphere. It might go for weeks without its +festival; but there it was all the time, ready for any service, staunch +for any trial. It was one of the laws which kept the little world I have +been describing slung safely in space, and securely shining. + +It was, indeed, something like a perfect relationship,--this love of +Esther and Henry. Had the laws of nature permitted it, it is probable +that Mike and Angel would have been forced to seek their mates +elsewhere. As it was, though it was thus less than marriage, it was more +than friendship--as the holy intercourse of a mother and a son is more +than friendship. Freed from the perturbations of sex, it yet gained +warmth and exhilaration from the unconscious presence of that +stimulating difference. Though they were brother and sister, friend and +friend, Henry and Esther were also man and woman. So satisfying were +they to each other, that when they sat thus together, the truth must be +told, that, for the time at all events, they missed no other man +or woman. + +"I have always you," said Esther. + +"Do I still matter, then?" said Henry. "Are you sure the old love is not +growing old?" + +"You know it can never grow old. There is only one Mike; but there is +only one Henry too. It's a good love to have, Harry, isn't it? It makes +one feel so much safer in the world." + +"Dear little Esther! Do you remember those old beatings, and that night +you brought me the cake? Bless you!"--and Henry reached his hand across +the table, and laid it so kindly on Esther's that a hovering waiter +retreated out of delicacy, mistaking the pair for lovers. It was a +mistake that was often made when they were together; and they had +sometimes laughed, when travelling, at the kind-hearted way passengers +on the point of entering their carriage had suddenly made up their minds +not to disturb the poor newly-married young things. + +"And how we used to hate you once!" said Esther; "one can hardly +understand it now. Do you remember how on Sunday afternoons you would +insist on playing at church, and how, with a tablecloth for a surplice, +you used to be the minister? How you used to storm if we poor things +missed any of the responses!" + +"The monstrous egoism of it all!" said Henry, laughing. "It was all got +up to give me a stage, and nothing else. I didn't care whether you +enjoyed it or not. What dragons children are!" + +"'Dragons of the prime, that tare each other in their slime,'" quoted +Esther. "Yes, we tore each other, and no mistake--" + +"Well, I've made up for it since, haven't I?" said Henry. "I hope I'm a +humble enough brother of the beautiful to please you nowadays." + +"You're the truest, most reliable thing in the world," said Esther; "I +always think of you as something strong and true to come to--" + +"Except Mike!" + +"No, not even except Mike. We'll call it a draw--dear little Mike! To +think of him going further and further away every minute! I wonder where +he is by now. He must have reached Rugby long since." + +At that moment the waiter ventured to approach with a silver tray. A +telegram,--it was indeed a telegram of tears and distance from Mike, +given in at Rugby. Even so long parted and so far away, Mike was still +true. He had not yet forgotten! + +These young people were great extravagants of the emotional telegram. +They were probably among the earliest to apply electricity for +heart-breaking messages. Some lovers feel it a profanation thus to +reveal their souls beneath the eye of a telegraph-operator; but the +objection of delicacy ceases if you can regard the operator in his +actual capacity as a part of the machine. French perhaps is an advisable +medium; though, if the operator misunderstands it, your love is apt to +take strange forms at its destination, and if he understands it, you may +as well use English at once. + +"Dear Mike! God bless him!" and they pledged Mike in Esther's favourite +champagne. The wives of great actor-managers must early inure themselves +to champagne. + +"But if you're jealous of Mike," said Esther, presently, taking up the +dropped thread of their talk; "what about Angel?" + +"Of course it was only nonsense," said Henry. "I know you love Angel far +too much to be jealous of her, as I love Mike; and that's just the +beautiful harmony of it all. We are just a little impregnable world of +four,--four loving hearts against the world." + +"How clever it was of you to find Angel!" + +"I found Mike, too!" said Henry, laughing. + +"Oh, yes, I know; but then I discovered you." + +"Ah, but a still higher honour belongs to me, for I discovered you," +retorted Henry. "When you consider that I discovered three such +wonderful persons as you and Angel and Mike, don't you think, on the +whole, that I'm singularly modest?" + +"Do you love me?" said Esther, presently, quite irrelevantly. + +"Do you love _me_?" + +"I asked first." + +"Well, for the sake of argument, let us say 'yes.'" + +"How much?" + +"As big as the world." + +"Oh, well, then, let's have some Benedictine with the coffee!" said +Esther. + +"I've thought of something better, more 'sacramental,'" said Henry, +smiling, "but you couldn't conscientiously drink it with me. It's the +red drink of perfect love. Will you drink it with me?" + +"Of course I will." + +So the waiter brought a bottle bearing the beautiful words, "_Parfait +Amour_." + +"It's like blood," said Esther; "it makes me a little frightened." + +"Would you rather not drink it?" asked Henry. "You know if you drink it +with me, you must drink it with no one else. It is the law of it that we +can only drink it with one." + +"Not even with Mike?" + +"Not even with Mike." + +"What of Angel?" + +"I will drink it with no one but you as long as I live." + +"I will drink it then." + +They held up their glasses. + +"Dear old Esther!" + +"Dear old Henry!" + +And then they laughed at their solemnity. It was deeply sworn! + +When Esther reached home that evening, she found a further telegram from +Mike, announcing his arrival at Euston; and she had scarcely read it +when she heard her father's voice calling her. She went immediately to +the dining-room. + +"Esther, dear," he said, "your mother and I want a word with you." + +"No, James, you must speak for yourself in this," said Mrs. Mesurier, +evidently a little perturbed. + +"Well, dear, if I must be alone in the matter, I must bear it; I cannot +shrink from my duty on that account." Then, turning to Esther, "I called +you in to speak to you about Mike Laflin--" + +"Yes, father," exclaimed Esther, with a little gasp of surprise. + +"I met Mr. Laflin on the boat this morning, and was much astonished and +grieved to hear of the rash step his son has chosen to take. The matter +has evidently been kept from me,"--strictly speaking, it had; "I +understand, though on that again I have not been consulted, that you and +Mike have for some time been informally engaged to each other. Now you +know my views on the theatre, and I am sure that you must see that +Mike's having taken such a step must at once put an end to any such +idea. Your own sense of propriety would, I am sure, tell you that, +without any words from me--" + +"Father!" cried Esther, in astonishment. + +"You know that I considered Mike a very nice lad. His family is +respectable; and he would have come into a very comfortable business, if +he hadn't taken this foolish freak into his head--" + +"But, father, you have laughed at his recitations, yourself, many a +time, here of an evening. What difference can there be?" + +"There is the difference of the theatre, the contaminating atmosphere, +the people it attracts, the harm it does--your father, as you know, has +never been within a theatre in his life; is it likely that he can look +with calmness upon his daughter marrying a man whose livelihood is to be +gained in a scandalous and debasing profession?" + +"Father, I cannot listen to your talking of Mike like that. If it is +wrong to make people innocently happy, to make them laugh and forget +their troubles, to--to--well, if it's wrong to be Mike--I'm sorry; but, +wrong or right, I love him, and nothing will ever make me give him up." + +Mrs. Mesurier here interrupted, "I told you, James, how it would be. You +cannot change young hearts. The times are not the same as when you and I +were young; and, though I'm sure I don't want to go against you, I +think you are too hard on Esther. Love is love after all--and Mike's one +of the best-hearted lads that ever walked." + +"Thank you, mother," said Esther, impulsively, throwing her arms round +her mother's neck, and bursting into tears, "I--I will never +give--give--him up." + +"No, dear, no; now don't distress yourself. It will all come right. Your +father doesn't quite understand." And then a great tempest of sobbing +came over Esther, and swept her away to her own room. + +The father and mother turned to each other with some anger. + +"James, I'm surprised at your distressing the poor child like that +to-night; you might have known she would be sensitive, with Mike only +gone to-day! You could surely have waited till to-morrow." + +"I am surprised, Mary, that you can encourage her as you did. You cannot +surely uphold the theatre?" + +"Well, James, I don't know,--there are theatres and theatres, and actors +and actors; and there have been some very good men actors after all, and +some very bad men ministers, if it comes to that," she added; "and +theatre or no theatre, love's love in spite of all the fathers and +mothers in the world--" + +"All right, Mary, I would prefer then that we spoke no more on the +matter for this evening," and James Mesurier turned to his diary, to +record, along with the state of the weather, and the engagements of the +day, the undutiful conduct of Esther, and a painful difference with +his wife. + +Strange, that men who have themselves loved and begotten should thus for +a moment imagine that a small social prejudice, or a narrow religious +formula, can break the purpose of a young and vigorous passion. Do they +realise what it is they are proposing to obstruct? This is love--_love_, +my dear sir, at once the mightiest might, and the rightest right in the +universe! This is--Niagara--the Atlantic--the power of the stars--and +the strength of the tides. It is all the winds of the world, and all the +fires of the centre. You surely cannot be serious in asking it to take, +in exchange, some obsolete objection against its beloved! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +MIKE AFAR + + +This collision with her father braced up Esther's nerves, and made +Mike's absence easier to bear. Her father made no more allusion to it. +He was entering that period when fathers, however despotic, content +themselves with protest, where once they have governed by royal +proclamation. He was losing heart to contend with his children. They +must go their own ways--though it must not be without occasional severe +and solemn warnings on his part. + +Mike and Esther wrote to each other twice a week. They had talked of +every day, but a wise instinct prompted them to the less romantic, but +likely the more enduring arrangement. It would be none the less open to +them to write fourteen letters a week if they wished, but to have had to +admit that one letter a day was a serious tax, not only on one's other +occupations, including idleness, but also on the amount of +subject-matter available, would have been a dangerous correction of an +impulsive miscalculation. + +Second-rate London lodgings are not great cheerers of the human spirit, +and Mike was very lonely in his first letter or two; but, as the +rehearsals proceeded, it was evident that he was taking hold of his new +world, and the letter which told of his first night, and of his own +encouraging success in it, was buoyant with the rising tide of the +future. His chief had affectionately laid his hand on his shoulder, as +he came off from his scene, and, in the hearing of the whole company, +prophesied a great future for him. + +Mike had been born under a lucky star; and he had hardly been in London +two months when accident very perceptibly brightened it. The chief +comedian in the company fell ill; and though Mike had had so little +experience, his chief had so much confidence in his native gift, that he +cast him for the vacant part. Mike more than justified the confidence, +and not only pleased him, but succeeded in individualising himself with +the audience. He had only played it for a week, when one Saturday +evening the audience, after calling the manager himself three times, set +up a cry for "Laflin." The obsequious attendant pretended to consider it +as a fourth call for the manager, and made as if to move the curtain +aside for him once more; but, with a magnanimity rare indeed in a "star" +of his magnitude, "No, no!" he said; "it is Mr. Laflin they want. Quick, +lad, and take your first call." + +So little Mike stepped before the curtain, and made his first bow to an +affectionate burst of applause. What happy tears would have glittered in +Esther's eyes had she been there to see it, and in Henry's too, and +particularly, perhaps, in excitable Angel's! + +Even so soon was the blossom giving promise of the fruit. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +A LEGACY MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD + + +Meanwhile, Henry plodded away at Aunt Tipping's, working sometimes on a +volume of essays for the London publisher, and sometimes on his novel, +now and again writing a review, and earning an odd guinea for a poem; +and now and again indulging in a day of richly doing nothing. Otherwise, +one day was like another, with the many exceptions of the days on which +he saw Angel or Esther. With Ned, he spent many of his evenings; and he +soon formed the pleasant habit of dropping in on Gerard, last thing +before bed-time, for a smoke and half an hour's chat. + +There is always a good deal of youth left in any one who genuinely loves +youth; and Gerard always spoke of his youth as Adam, in his declining +years, might have spoken of Paradise. For him life was just youth--and +the rest of it death. + +"After thirty," he would say, "the happiest life is only history +repeating itself. I am no cynic,--far from it; but the worst of life is +the monotony of the bill of fare. To do a thing once, even twice, is +delightful--perhaps even a third time is successfully possible; but to +do it four times, is middle age. If you think of it, what is there to do +after thirty that one ought not to have achieved to perfection before? +You know the literary dictum, that the poet who hasn't written a +masterpiece before he is thirty will never write any after. Of course, +there are exceptions; I am speaking of the rule. In business, for +example, what future is there for the man who has not already a dashing +past at thirty? Of course, the bulk, the massive trunk and the +impressive foliage of his business, must come afterwards; but the tree +must have been firmly rooted and stoutly branched before then, and able +to go on growing on its own account. The work, in fact, must have +been done. + +"Take perhaps the only thing really worth doing in life," and Gerard +perceptibly saddened. "That is, marrying a woman you love, or I +should say _the_ woman, for you only really _love_ one woman--I'm +old-fashioned enough to think that,--well, I say, marrying the woman you +love, and bringing into the world that miracle of miracles,--a child +that shall be something of you and all her: that certainly is something +to have done before thirty, and not to be repeated, perhaps, more than +once before or after. She will want a boy like you, and you will have a +girl like her. That you may easily accomplish before thirty. Afterwards, +however, if you go on repeating each other, what do you do but blur the +individuality of the original masterpieces--though," pursued Gerard, +laughing, always ready to forget his original argument in the +seductiveness of an unexpected development of it, "though, after all, I +admit, there might be a temptation sometimes to improve upon the +originals. 'Agnes, my dear,' we might say, 'I'm not quite satisfied yet +with the shade of Eva's hair. It's nearly yours, but not quite. It's an +improvement on Anna's, whose eyes now are exactly yours. Eva's, +unfortunately, are not so faithful. I'm afraid we'll have to try again.' + +"No, but seriously," he once more began, "for a really vital and +successful life there is no adequate employment of the faculties after +thirty, except, of course, in the repetition of former successes. No; I +even withdraw that,--not the repetition, only the conservation, the +feeding, of former successes. The success is in the creation. When a +world is once created, any fool can keep it spinning. + +"Man's life is at least thirty years too long. Two score years is more +than enough for us to say what we were sent here to say; and if you'll +consider those biographies in which you are most interested, the +biographies of great writers, you cannot but bear me out. What, for +instance, did Keats and Shelley and Burns and Byron lose by dying, all +of them long before they were forty,--Keats even long before he was +thirty; and what did Wordsworth and Coleridge gain by living so long +after? Wordsworth and Coleridge didn't even live to repeat themselves, +else, of course, one would have begged them to go on living for ever; +for some repetitions, it is admitted, are welcome,--for instance, won't +you have a little more whisky?" + +Henry always agreed so completely with Gerard's talk, or at least so +delighted in it, that he had little scope of opportunity to say much +himself; and Gerard was too keen a talker to complain of a rapt +young listener. + +"How old are you?" he said, presently. + +"Twenty-two next month." + +"Twenty-two! How wonderful to be twenty-two! Yet I don't suppose you've +realised it in the least. In your own view, you're an aged philosopher, +white with a past, and bowed down with the cares of a future. Just you +stay in bed all day to-morrow, and ponder on the wonderfulness of being +twenty-two! + +"I'm forty-two. You're beginning--I'm done with. And yet, in some ways, +I believe I'm younger than you--though, perhaps, alas! what I consider +the youth in me is only the wish to be young again, the will to do and +enjoy, without the force and the appetite. But, by the way, when I say +I'm forty-two, I mean that I'm forty-two in the course of next week, +next Thursday, in fact, and if you'll do me that kindness, I should be +grateful if you would join me that evening in celebrating the melancholy +occasion. I've got a great mind to enlist your sympathy in a little +ancient history, if it won't be too great a tax upon your goodness; but +I'll think it over between now and then." + +Gerard's birthday had come; and the ancient history he had spoken of +had proved to be a chapter of his own history, the beauty and sadness of +which had made an impression upon Henry, to be rendered ineffaceable a +very few days after in a sudden and terrible manner. + +One early morning about four, just as it was growing light, he had +suddenly awakened with a strong feeling that some one was bending over +him. He opened his eyes, to see, as he thought, Gerard hastily leaving +his bedside. + +"Gerard!" he cried, "what's the matter?" but the figure gave no answer, +faded away down the long room, and disappeared. Henry sat up in bed and +struck a light, his heart beating violently. But there was no one there, +and the door was closed. It had evidently been one of those dreams that +persist on the eye for a moment after waking. Yet it left him uneasy; +and presently he wondered if Gerard could be ill. He determined to see; +so, slipping on his dressing-gown, he crossed the landing to Gerard's +room, and, softly knocking, opened the door and put in his head. + +"Gerard, old chap, are you all right?--Gerard--" + +There was no answer, and the room seemed unaccountably still. He +listened for the sound of breathing, but he couldn't hear it. + +"Gerard!" he cried, again louder, but there was still no answer; and +then, with the silence, a chill terror began to creep through his blood. +He had never yet seen death; and perhaps if he had the terror in his +thought would not have been lessened. With a heart that had almost +stopped beating, and knees that shook beneath him, he pushed open the +door and walked over to the bed. It was still too dark to see more than +outlines and masses of white and black; but even so he could see that +the stillness with which Gerard was lying was the stillness of death. + +His next thought was to rouse Aunt Tipping; and together the two bent +over the dead face. + +"Yes, he's gone," said Aunt Tipping; "poor gentlemen, how beautiful he +looks!" and they both gazed in silence upon the calm, smiling face. + +"Well, he's better off," she said, presently, leaning over him, and +softly pressing down the lids of his eyes. + +Henry involuntarily drew away. + +"Dear lad, there's nothing to be frightened of," said his aunt. "He's +as harmless as a baby." + +Then she took a handkerchief from a drawer, and spread it gently over +the dead man's face. To Aunt Tipping the dead were indeed as little +children, and inspired her with a strange motherly tenderness. Many had +been the tired silent ones whose eyes she had closed, and whose limbs +she had washed against their last resting place. They were so helpless +now; they could do nothing any more for themselves. + +Later in the day, Henry came again and sat long by the dead man's side. +It seemed uncompanionable to have grown thus suddenly afraid of him, to +leave him thus alone in that still room. And as he sat and watched him, +he gave to his memory a solemn service of faithful thought. Thus it was +he went over again the words in which Gerard had made him the +depository, the legatee, of his most sacred possession. + +Gerard had evidently had some presentiment of his approaching end. + +"I am going," he had said, "to place the greatest confidence in you one +man can place in another, pay you the greatest compliment. I shall die +some day, and something tells me that that divine event is not very far +off. Now I have no one in the world who cares an old 'J' pen for me, and +a new one is perhaps about as much as I care for any one--with one +exception, and that is a woman whom I shall never see again. She is not +dead, but has been worse than dead for me these ten years. I am optimist +enough to believe that her old love for me still survives, making sweet +the secret places of her soul. Never once in all these years to have +doubted her love has been more than most marriages; but were I to live +for another ten years, and still another, I would believe in it still. +But the stars were against us. We met too late. We met when she had long +been engaged to a friend of her youth, a man noble and true, to whom she +owed much, and whom she felt it a kind of murder to desert. It was one +of those fallacious chivalries of feeling which are the danger of +sensitive and imaginative minds. Religion strengthened it, as it is so +apt to strengthen any form of self-destruction, short of technical +suicide. There was but a month to their marriage when we met. For us it +was a month of rapture and agonies, of heaven shot through with hell. I +saw further than she. I begged her at least to wait a year; but the +force of my appeal was weakened by scruples similar to her own. To rob +another of his happiness is an act from which we may well shrink, though +we can clearly see that the happiness was really destined for us, and +can never be his in any like degree. During this time I had received +from her many letters, letters such as a woman only writes in the +May-morning of her passion; and one day I received the last. There was +in it one sentence which when I read it I think my heart broke, 'Do you +believe,' it ran, 'in a love that can lie asleep, as in a trance, in +this world, to awaken again in another, a love that during centuries of +silence can still be true, and be love still in a thousand years? If you +do, go on loving me. For that is the only love I dare give you. I must +love you no more in this world.' + +"Each morning as I have risen, and each night as I have turned to sleep, +those words have repeated themselves again and again in my heart, for +ten years. It was so I became the Ashton Gerard you know to-day. Since +that day, we have never met or written to each other. All I know is that +she is still alive, and still with him, and never would I disturb their +peace. When I die, I would not have her know it. If love _is_ immortal, +we shall meet again--when I am worthier to meet her. Such reunions are +either mere dreams, or they are realities to which the strongest forces +of the universe are pledged." + +Henry's only comment had been to grip Gerard's hand, and give him the +sympathy of silence. + +"Now," said Gerard, once more after a while, "it is about those letters +I want to speak to you. They are here," and he unlocked a drawer and +drew from it a little silver box. "I always keep them here. The key of +the drawer is on this ring, and this little gold key is the key of the +box itself. I tell you this, because I have what you may regard as a +strange request to make. + +"I suppose most men would consider it their duty either to burn these +letters, or leave instructions for them to be buried with them. That is +a gruesome form of sentiment in which I have too much imagination to +indulge. Both my ideas of duty and sentiment take a different form. The +surname of the writer of these letters is nowhere revealed in them, nor +are there any references in them by which she could ever be identified. +Therefore the menace to her fair fame in their preservation is not a +question involved. Now when the simplest woman is in love, she writes +wonderfully; but when a woman of imagination and intellect is caught by +the fire of passion, she becomes a poet. Once in her life, every such +woman is an artist; once, for some one man's unworthy sake, she becomes +inspired, and out of the fulness of her heart writes him letters warm +and real as the love-cries of Sappho. Such are the letters in this +little box. They are the classic of a month's passion, written as no man +has ever yet been able to write his love. Do you think it strange then +that I should shrink from destroying them? I would as soon burn the +songs of Shelley. They are living things. Shall I selfishly bury the +beating heart of them in the silence of the grave? + +"So, Mesurier," he continued, affectionately, "when I met you and +understood something of your nature, I thought that in you I had found +one who was worthy to guard this treasure for me, and perhaps pass it on +again to some other chosen spirit--so that these beautiful words of a +noble woman's heart shall not die--for when a man loves a woman, +Mesurier, as you yourself must know, he is insatiable to hear her +praise, and it is agony for him to think that her memory may suffer +extinction. Therefore, Mesurier,--Henry, let me call you,--I want to +give the memory of my love into your hands. I want you to love it for +me, when perhaps I can love it no more. I want you sometimes to open +this box, and read in these letters, as if they were your own; I want +you sometimes to speak softly the name of 'Helen,' when my lips can +speak it no more." + +Such was the beautiful legacy of which Henry found himself the possessor +by Gerard's death. Early on that day he had remembered his promise to +his dead friend, and had found the silver box, and locked it away among +his own most sacred things. Some day, in an hour and place upon which +none might break, he would open the little box and read Helen's letters, +as Gerard had wished. Already one sentence was fixed unforgettably upon +his mind, and he said it over softly to himself as he sat by Gerard's +silent bed: "Do you believe in a love that can lie asleep, as in a +trance in this world, to awaken again in another,--a love that during +centuries of silence can still be true, and be love still in a thousand +years? If you do, go on loving me. For that is the only love I dare give +you; I must love you no more in this world." + +Strange dreams of the indomitable dust! Already another man's love was +growing dear to him. Already his soul said the name of "Helen" softly +for Gerard's sake. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +LABORIOUS DAYS + + +With Gerard's death, Henry began to find Aunt Tipping's too sad a place +to go on living in. It had become haunted; and when new people moved +into Gerard's rooms, it became still more painful for him. It was as +though Gerard had been dispossessed and driven out. So he cast about for +some new shelter; and, one day, chance having taken him to the shipping +end of the city, he came upon some old offices which seemed full of +anxiety to be let. Inquiring of a chatty little housekeeper's wife, he +discovered, away at the echoing top of the building, a big, well-lighted +room, for which she thought the owner would be glad to take ten pounds a +year. That whole storey was deserted. Henry made up his mind at once, +and broke the news to Aunt Tipping that evening. It was the withering of +one of her few rays of poetry, and she struggled to keep him; but when +she saw how it was, the good woman insisted that he should take +something from her towards furnishing. Receiving was nothing like so +blessed as giving for Aunt Tipping. That old desk,--yes, she had bought +it for him,--that he must certainly take, and think of his old aunt +sometimes as he wrote his great books on it; and some bed-linen she +could well afford. She would take no denial. + +Angel and Esther were then called in to help him in the purchase of a +carpet, a folding-bed, an old sofa, and a few chairs. A carpenter got to +work on the bookshelves, and in a fortnight's time still another +habitation had been built for the Muse,--a habitation from which she was +not destined to remove again, till she and Angel and Henry all moved +into one house together,--a removal which was, as yet, too far off to be +included in this history. + +Ten pounds a year, a folding-bed, and a teapot!--this was Henry's new +formula for the cultivation of literature. He had so far progressed in +his ambitions as to have arrived at the dignity of a garret of his own, +and he liked to pretend that soon he might be romantically fortunate +enough to sit face to face with starvation. He knew, however, that it +would be a starvation mitigated by supplies from three separate, +well-lardered homes. A lad with a sweetheart and a sister, a mother and +an aunt, all in love with him, is not likely to become an authority on +starvation in its severest forms. + +A stern law had been passed that Henry's daytime hours were to be as +strictly respected as those of a man of business; yet quite often, about +eleven o'clock in the morning, there would come a heavenly whisper along +the passage and a little knock on the door, soft as a flower tapping +against a window-pane. + +"Thank goodness, that's Angel! + +"Angel, bless you! How glad I am to see you! I can't get on a bit with +my work this morning." + +"Oh, but I haven't come to interrupt you, dear. I sha'n't keep you five +minutes. Only I thought, dear, you'd be so tired of pressed beef and +tinned tongue, and so I thought I'd make a little hot-pot for you. I +bought the things for it as I came along, and it won't take five +minutes, if Mrs. Glass [the housekeeper] will only lend me a basin to +put it in, and bake it for you in her oven. Now, dear, you mustn't--you +know I mustn't stay. See now, I'll just take off my hat and jacket and +run along to Mrs. Glass, to get what I want. I'll be back in a minute. +Well, then, just one--now that's enough; good-bye," and off she +would skip. + +If you want to know how fairies look when they are making hot-pot, you +should have seen Angel's absorbed little shining face. + +"Now, do be quiet, Henry. I'm busy. Why don't you get on with your work? +I won't speak a word." + +"Angel, dear, you might just as well stay and help me to eat it. I +sha'n't do any work to-day, I know for certain. It's one of my +bad days." + +"Now, Henry, that's lazy. You mustn't give way like that. You'll make me +wish I hadn't come. It's all my fault." + +"No, really, dear, it isn't. I haven't done a stroke all morning--though +I've sat with my pen for two hours. You might stay, Angel, just an +hour or two." + +"No, Henry; mother wants me back soon. She's house-cleaning. And +besides, I mustn't. No--no--you see I've nearly finished now--see! Get +me the salt and pepper. There now--that looks nice, doesn't it? Now +aren't I a good little housewife?" + +"You would be, if you'd only stay. Do stay, Angel. Really, darling, it +will be all the same if you go. I know I shall do nothing. Look at my +morning's work, and he brought her a sheet of paper containing two lines +and a half of new-born prose, one line and a half of which was +plentifully scratched out. To this argument he added two or three +persuasive embraces. + +"It's really true, Henry? Well, of course, I oughtn't; but if you can't +work, of course you can't. And you must have a little rest sometimes, I +know. Well, then, I'll stay; but only till we've finished lunch, you +know, and we must have it early. I won't stay a minute past two o'clock, +do you hear? And now I'll run along with this to Mrs. Glass." + +When Angel had gone promptly at three, as likely as not another step +would be heard coming down the passage, and a feminine rustle, +suggesting a fuller foliage of skirts, pause outside the door, then a +sort of brotherly-sisterly knock. + +"Esther! Why, you've just missed Angel; what a pity!" + +"Well, dear, I only ran up for half-a-minute. I was shopping in town, +and I couldn't resist looking in to see how the poor boy was getting on. +No, dear, I won't take my things off. I must catch the half-past three +boat, and then I'll keep you from your work?" + +Esther always said this with a sort of suggestion in her voice that it +was just possible Henry might have found some new way of both keeping +her there and doing his work at the same time; as though she had said, +"I know you cannot possibly work while I am here; but, of course, if you +can, and talking to me all the time won't interfere with it--well, +I'll stay." + +"Oh, no, you won't really. To tell the truth, I've done none to-day. I +can't get into the mood." + +"So you've been getting Angel to help you. Oh, well, of course, if Angel +can be allowed to interrupt you, I suppose I can too. Well, then, I'll +stay a quarter of an hour." + +"But you may as well take your things off, and I'll make a cup of tea, +eh? That'll be cosey, won't it? And then you can read me Mike's last +letter, eh?" + +"Oh, he's doing splendidly, dear! I had a lovely letter from him this +morning. Would you really care to hear a bit of it?" + +And Esther would proceed to read, picking her way among the endearments +and the diminutives. + +"I _am_ glad, dear. Why, if he goes on at this rate, you'll be able to +get married in no time." + +"Yes; isn't it splendid, dear? I am so happy! What I'd give to see his +little face for five minutes! Wouldn't you?" + +"Rather. Perhaps he'll be able to run up on Bank Holiday." + +"I'm afraid not, dear. He speaks of it in his letter, and just hopes for +it; but rather fears they'll have to play at Brighton, or some other +stupid seaside place." + +"That's a bother. Yes, dear old Mike! To think of him working away there +all by himself--God bless him! Do you know he's never seen this old +room? It struck me yesterday. It doesn't seem quite warmed till he's +seen it. Wouldn't it be lovely to have him here some night?--one of our +old, long evenings. Well, I suppose it will really come one of these +days. And then we shall be having you married, and going off to London +in clouds of glory, while poor old Henry grubs away down here in Tyre." + +"Well, if we do go first, you will not be long after us, dear; and if +only Mike could make a really great hit, why, in five years' time we +might all be quite rich. Won't it be wonderful?" + +Then the kettle boiled, and Henry made the tea; and when it had long +since been drunk, Esther began to think it must be five o'clock, and, +horrified to find it a quarter to six, confessed to being ashamed of +herself, and tried to console her conscience by the haste of +her good-bye. + +"I'm afraid I've wasted your afternoon," she said; "but we don't often +get a chat nowadays, do we? Good-bye, dear. Go on loving me, won't you?" + +After that, Henry would give the day up as a bad job, and begin to +wonder if Ned would be dropping in that evening for a smoke; and as that +was Ned's almost nightly custom about eight o'clock, the chances of +Henry's disappointment were not serious. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +A HEAVIER FOOTFALL + + +One morning, as Henry was really doing a little work, a more ponderous +step broke the silence of his landing, a heavy footfall full of +friendship. Certainly that was not Angel, nor even the more weighty +Esther, though when the knock came it was little and shy as a woman's. + +Henry threw open the door, but for a moment there was no one to be seen; +and then, recalling the idiosyncrasy of a certain new friend whom by +that very token he guessed it might be, he came out on to the landing, +to find a great big friendly man in corpulent blue serge, a rough, dark +beard, and a slouched hat, standing a few feet off in a deprecating +way,--which really meant that if there were any ladies in the room with +Mr. Mesurier, he would prefer to call another time. For though he had +two or three grownup daughters of his own, this giant of a man was as +shy of a bit of a thing like Angel, whom he had met there one day, as +though he were a mere boy. He always felt, he once said in explanation, +as though he might break them in shaking hands. They affected him like +the presence of delicate china, and yet he could hold a baby deftly as +an elephant can nip up a flower; and to see him turn over the pages of a +delicate _édition de luxe_ was a lesson in tenderness. For this big man +who, as he would himself say, looked for all the world like a pirate, +was as insatiable of fine editions as a school-girl of chocolate creams. +He was one of those dearest of God's creatures, a gentle giant; and his +voice, when it wasn't necessary to be angry, was as low and kind as an +old nurse at the cradle's side. + +Henry had come to know him through his little Scotch printer, who +printed circulars and bill-heads, for the business over which Mr. +Fairfax--for that was his name--presided. By day he was the vigorous +brain of a huge emporium, a sort of Tyrian Whiteley's; but day and night +he was a lover of books, and you could never catch him so busy but that +he could spare the time mysteriously to beckon you into his private +office, and with the glee of a child, show you his last large paper. He +not only loved books; but he was rumoured liberally to have assisted one +or two distressed men of genius well-known to the world. The tales of +the surreptitious goodness of his heart were many; but it was known too +that the big kind man had a terribly searching eye under his briery +brows, and could be as stern towards ingratitude as he was soft to +misfortune. Henry once caught a glimpse of this as they spoke of a +mutual friend whom he had helped to no purpose. Mr. Fairfax never used +many words, on this occasion he was grimly laconic. + +"Rat-poison!" he said, shaking his head. "Rat-poison!" It was his way of +saying that that was the only cure for that particular kind of man. + +It was evident that his generous eye had seen how things were with +Henry. He had subscribed for at least a dozen copies of "The Book of +Angelica," and in several ways shown his interest in the struggling +young poet. As has been said, he had seen Angelica one day, and his +shyness had not prevented his heart from going out to these two young +people, and the dream he saw in their eyes. He had determined to do +what he could to help them, and to-day he had come with a plan. + +"I hope you're not too proud to give me a hand, Mr. Mesurier, in a +little idea I've got," he said. + +"I think you know how proud I am, and how proud I'm not, Mr. Fairfax," +said Henry. "I'm sure anything I could do for you would make me proud, +if that's what you mean." + +"Thank you. Thank you. But you mustn't speak too fast. It's +advertising--does the word frighten you? No? Well, it's a scheme I've +thought of for a little really artistic and humorous advertising +combined. I've got a promise from one of the most original artists of +the day, you know his name, to do the pictures; and I want you to do the +verses--at, I may say, your own price. It's not, perhaps, the highest +occupation for a poet; but it's something to be going on with; and if +we've got good posters as advertisements, I don't see why we shouldn't +have good humorous verse. What do you think of it?" + +"I think it's capital," said Henry, who was almost too ready to turn his +hand to anything. "Of course I'll do it; only too glad." + +"Well, that's settled. Now, name your price. Don't be frightened!" + +"Really, I can't. I haven't the least idea what I should get. Wait till +I have done a few of the verses, and you can give me what you please." + +"No, sir," said Mr. Fairfax; "business is business. If you won't name a +figure, I must. Will you consider a hundred pounds sufficient?" + +"A hundred pounds!" Henry gasped out, the tears almost starting to his +eyes. + +Mr. Fairfax did not miss his frank joy, and liked him for his +ingenuousness. + +"All right, then; we'll call it settled. I shall be ready for the verses +as soon as you care to write them." + +"Mr. Fairfax, I will tell you frankly that this is a great deal to me, +and I thank you from my heart." + +"Not a word, not a word, my boy. We want your verses, we want your +verses. That's right, isn't it? Good verses, good money! Now no more of +that," and the good man, in alarm lest he should be thanked further, +made an abrupt and awkward farewell. + +"It will keep the lad going a few months anyhow," he said to himself, +as he tramped downstairs, glad that he'd been able to think of +something; for, while the scheme was admirable as an advertisement, and +would more than repay Messrs. Owens' outlay, its origin had been pure +philanthropy. Such good angels do walk this world in the guise of bulky, +quite unpoetic-looking business-men. + +"One hundred pounds!" said Henry, over and over again to himself. "One +hundred pounds! What news for Angel!" + +He had soon a scheme in his head for the book, which entirely hit Mr. +Fairfax's fancy. It was to make a volume of verse celebrating each of +the various departments of the great store, in metres parodying the +styles of the old English ballads and various poets, ancient and modern, +and was to be called, "Bon Marché Ballads." + +"Something like this, for example," said Henry, a few days later, +pulling an envelope covered with pencil-scribble from his pocket. "This +for the ladies' department,-- + + _"Oh, where do you buy your hats, lady? + And where do you buy your hose? + And where do you buy your shoes, lady? + And where your underclothes?_ + +_"Hats, shoes, and stockings, everything + A lady's heart requires, + Quality good, and prices low, + We are the largest buyers! + + "The stock we bought on Wednesday last + Is fading fast away, + To-morrow it may be too late-- + Oh, come and buy to-day!"_ + +Mr. Fairfax fairly trumpeted approval. "If they're all as good as that," +he said; "you must have more money. Yes, you must. Well, well,--we'll +see, we'll see!" And when the "Bon Marché Ballads" actually appeared, +the generous creature insisted on adding another fifty pounds to +the cheque. + +As many were afterwards of opinion that Henry never again did such good +work as these nonsense rhymes, written thus for a frolic,--and one +hundred and fifty pounds,--and as copies of the "Bon Marché Ballads" are +now exceedingly scarce, it may possibly be of interest to quote two or +three more of its preposterous numbers. This is a lyric illustrative of +cheese, for the provision department:-- + + "_Are you fond of cheese? + Do you sometimes sigh + For a really good + Gorgonzola? Try, + + "Try our one-and-ten, + Wonderfully rotten, + Tasted once, it never can + Be again forgotten_!" + +Here is "a Ballad of Baby's Toys:"-- + + "_Oh, give me a toy" the baby said-- + The babe of three months old,-- + Oh, what shall I buy my little babee, + With silver and with gold?" + + "I would you buy a trumpet fine, + And a rocking-horse for me, + And a bucket and a spade, mother, + To dig beside the sea." + + "But where shall I buy these pretty things?" + The mother's heart inquires. + "Oh, go to Owens!" cried the babe; + "They are the largest buyers."_ + +The subject of our last selection is "Melton Mowbray," which bore +beneath its title due apologies to Mr. Swinburne:-- + + _"Strange pie, that is almost a passion, + O passion immoral, for pie! + Unknown are the ways that they fashion, + Unknown and unseen of the eye, + The pie that is marbled and mottled, + The pie that digests with a sigh: + For all is not Bass that is bottled, + And all is not pork that is pie."_ + +Of all the goodness else that Henry and Angel were to owe in future days +to Mr. Fairfax, there is not room in this book to write. But that +matters little, for is it not written in the Book of Love? + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +STILL ANOTHER CALLER + + +One afternoon the step coming along the corridor was almost light enough +to be Angel's, though a lover's ear told him that hers it was not. Once +more that feminine rustle, the very whisper of romantic mystery; again +the little feminine knock. + +Daintiness and Myrtilla! + +"Well, this is lovely of you, Myrtilla! But what courage! How did you +ever dare venture into this wild and savage spot,--this +mountain-fastness of Bohemia?" + +"Yes, it was brave of me, wasn't it?" said Myrtilla, with a little +laugh, for which the stairs had hardly left her breath. "But what a +climb! It is like having your rooms on the Matterhorn. I think I must +write a magazine article: 'How I climbed the fifty-thousand stairs,' +with illustrations,--and we could have some quite pretty ones," she +said, looking round the room. + +"That big skylight is splendid! As close, dear lad, to the stars as you +can get it? Are you as devoted to them as ever?" + +"Aren't you, Myrtilla?" + +"Oh, yes; but they don't get any nearer, you know." + +"It's awfully good to see you again, Myrtilla," said Henry, going over +to her and taking both her hands. "It's quite a long time, you know, +since we had a talk. It was a sweet thought of you to come. You'll have +some tea, won't you?" + +"Yes, I should love to see you make tea. Bachelors always make such good +tea. What pretty cups! My word, we are dainty! I suppose it was Esther +bought them for you?" + +Henry detected the little trap and smiled. No, it hadn't been Esther. + +"No? Someone else then? eh! I think I can guess her name. It was mean of +you not to tell me about her, Henry. I hear she's called Angel, and that +she looks like one. I wish I could have seen her before I went away." + +"Going away, Myrtilla? why, where? I've heard nothing of it. Tell me +about it." + +The atmosphere perceptibly darkened with the thought of Williamson. + +"Well!" she said, in the little airy melodious way she had when she was +telling something particularly unhappy about herself--a sort of +harpsichord bravado--"Well, you know, he's taken to fancying himself +seriously ill lately, and the doctors have aided and abetted him; and so +we're going to Davos Platz, or some such health-wilderness--and well, +that's all!" + +"And you I suppose are to nurse the--to nurse him?" said Henry, +savagely. + +"Hush, lad! It's no use, not a bit! You won't help me that way," she +said, laying her hand kindly on his, and her eyes growing bright with +suppressed tears. + +"It's a shame, nevertheless, Myrtilla, a cruel shame!" + +"You'd like to say it was a something-else shame, wouldn't you, dear +boy? Well, you can, if you like: but then you must say no more. And if +you really want to help me, you shall send me a long letter now and +again, with some of your new poems enclosed; and tell me what new books +are worth sending for? Will you do that?" + +"Of course, I will. That's precious little to do anyhow." + +"It's a good deal, really. But be sure you do it." + +"And, of course, you'll write to me sometimes. I don't think you know +yet what your letters are to me. I never work so well as when I've had a +letter from you." + +"Really, dear lad, I don't fancy you know how happy that makes me to +hear." + +"Yes, you take just the sort of interest in my work I want, and that no +one else takes." + +"Not even Angel?" said Myrtilla, slily. + +"Angel, bless her, loves my work; and is a brave little critic of it; +but then it isn't disloyal to her to say that she doesn't know as much +as you. Besides, she doesn't approach it in quite the same way. She +cares for it, first, because it is mine, and only secondly for its own +sake. Now you care for it just for what it is--" + +"I care for it, certainly, for what it's going to be," said Myrtilla, +making one of those honest distinctions which made her opinion so +stimulating to Henry. + +"Yes, there you are. You're artistically ambitious for me; you know what +I want to do, even before I know myself. That's why you're so good for +me. No one but you is that for me; and--poor stuff as I know it +is--never write a word without wondering what you will think of it." + +"You're sure it's quite true," said Myrtilla; "don't say so if it isn't. +Because you know you're saying what I care most to hear, perhaps, of +anything you could say. You know how I love literature, and--well, you +know too how fond I am of you, dear lad, don't you?" + +Literary criticism had kindled into emotion; and Henry bent down, and +kissed Myrtilla's hand. In return she let her hand rest a moment lightly +on his hair, and then, rather spasmodically, turned to remark on his +bookshelves with suspicious energy. + +At that moment another step was heard in the corridor, again feminine. +Henry knew it for Angel's; and it may be that his expression grew a +shade embarrassed, as he said: + +"I believe I shall be able to introduce you to Angel after all--for I +think this is she coming along the passage." + +As Henry opened the door, Angel was on the point of throwing her arms +round his neck, when, noticing a certain constraint in his manner of +greeting, she realised that he was not alone. + +"We were just talking of you, dear," said Henry. "This is my friend, +Mrs. Williamson,--'Myrtilla,' of whom you've often heard me speak." + +"Oh, yes, I've often heard of Mrs. Williamson," said Angel, not of +course suffering the irony of her thought to escape into her voice. + +"And I've heard no less of Miss Flower," said Mrs. Williamson, "not +indeed from this faithless boy here,--for I haven't seen him for so long +that I've had to humble myself at last and call,--but from Esther." + +Myrtilla loved the transparent face, pulsing with light, flushing or +fading with her varying mood, answering with exquisite delicacy to any +advance and retreat of the soul within. But an invincible prejudice, or +perhaps rather fear, shut Angel's eyes from the appreciation of +Myrtilla. She was sweet and beautiful, but to the child that Angel still +was she suggested malign artifice. Angel looked at her as an imaginative +child looks at the moon, with suspicion. + +So, in spite of Myrtilla's efforts to make friends, the conversation +sustained a distinct loss in sprightliness by Angel's arrival. + +Myrtilla, perhaps divining a little of the truth, rose to go. + +"Well, I'm afraid it's quite a long good-bye," she said. + +"Oh, you're going away?" said Angel, with a shade of relief +involuntarily in her voice. + +"Oh, yes, perhaps before we meet again, you and Henry will be married. +I'm sure I sincerely hope so." + +"Thank you," said Angel, somewhat coldly. + +"Well, good-bye, Henry," said Myrtilla,--it was rather a strangled +good-bye,--and then, in an evil moment, she caught sight of the Dante's +head which, hidden in a recess, she had not noticed before. "I see +you're still faithful to the Dante," she said; "that's sweet of +you,--good-bye, good-bye, Miss Flower, Angel, perhaps you'll let me say, +good-bye." + +When she had gone there seemed a curious constraint in the air. You +might have said that the consistency of the air had been doubled. +Gravitation was at least twice as many pounds as usual to the square +inch. Every little movement seemed heavy as though the medium had been +water instead of air. As Henry raised his hands to help Angel off with +her jacket, they seemed weighted with lead. + +"No, thank you," said Angel, "I won't take it off. I can't stay long." + +"Why, dear, what do you mean? I thought you were going to stay the +evening with me. I've quite a long new chapter to read to you." + +"I'm sorry, Henry,--but I find I can't." + +"Why, dear, how's that? Won't you tell me the reason? Has anything +happened?" + +Angel stood still in the middle of the room, with her face as firmly +miserable as she could make it. + +"Won't you tell me?" Henry pleaded. "Won't you speak to me? Come, +dear--what's the matter?" + +"You know well enough, Henry, what's the matter!" came an unexpected +flash of speech. + +"Indeed, I don't. I know of no reason whatever. How should I?" + +"Well, then, Mrs. Williamson's the matter!--'Myrtilla,' as you call her. +Something told me it was like this all along, though I couldn't bear to +doubt you, and so I put it away. I wonder how often she's been here when +I have known nothing about it." + +"This is the very first time she has ever set foot in these rooms," +said Henry, growing cold in his turn. "I'll give you my word of honour, +if you need it." + +"I don't want to hear any more. I'm going. Good-bye." + +"Going, Angel?" said Henry, standing between her and the door. "What can +you mean? See now,--give your brains a chance! You're not thinking in +the least. You've just let yourself go--for no reason at all. You'll be +sorry to-morrow." + +"Reason enough, I should think, when I find that you love another +woman!" + +"I love Myrtilla Williamson! It's a lie, Angel--and you ought to be +ashamed to say it. It's unworthy of you." + +"Why have you never told me then who made that sketch of Dante for you? +I suppose I should never have known, if she hadn't let it out. I asked +you once, but you put me off." + +Henry had indeed prevaricated, for Angel had chanced to ask him just +after Myrtilla's letter about his poems. + +"Well, I'll be frank," said Henry. "I didn't tell you, just because I +feared an unreasonable scene like this--" + +"If there had been nothing in it, there was nothing to fear; and, in +any case, why should she paint pictures for you, if she doesn't care for +you?--No, I'm going. Nothing will persuade me otherwise. Henry, please +let pass, if you're a gentleman--" and poor little Angel's face fairly +flamed. "No power on earth will keep me here--" + +"All right, Angel--" and Henry let her have her way. Her feet echoed +down the stairs, further and further away. She was gone; and Henry spent +that evening in torturingly imagining every kind of accident that might +happen to her on the way home. Every hour he expected to be suddenly +called to look at her dead body--his work. And so the night passed, and +the morning dawned in agony. So went the whole of the next day, for he +could be proud too--and the fault had been hers. + +Thus they sat apart for three days, poles of determined silence. And +then at last, on the evening of the third day, Henry, who was half +beside himself with suspense, heard, with wild thankfulness, once more +the little step in the passage--it seemed fainter, he thought, and +dragged a little, and the knock at the door was like a ghost's. + +There, with a wan smile, Angel stood; and with joy, wordless because +unspeakable, they fell almost like dead things into each other's arms. +For an hour they sat thus, and never spoke a word, only stroking each +other's hands and hair. It was so good for each to know that the other +was alive. It took so long for the stored agony in the nerves to relax. + +"I haven't eaten a morsel since Wednesday," said Angel, at last. + +"Nor I," said Henry. + +"Henry, dear, I'm sorry. I know now I was wrong. I give you my word +never to doubt you again." + +"Thank you, Angel. Don't let us even think of it any more." + +"I couldn't live through it again, darling." + +"But it can never happen any more, can it?" + +"No!--but--if you ever love any woman better than you love me, you'll +tell me, won't you? I could bear that better than to be deceived." + +"Yes, Angel, I promise to tell you." + +"Well, we're really happy again now--are we? I can hardly believe it--" + +"You didn't see me outside your house last night, did you?" + +"Henry!" + +"Yes, I was there. And I watched you carry the light into your bedroom, +and when you came to the window to draw down the blind, I thought you +must have seen me. Yes, I waited and waited, till I saw the light go out +and long after--" + +"Oh, Henry--you do love me then?" + +"And we do know how to hate each other sometimes, don't we, child?" said +Henry, laughing into Angel's eyes, all rainbows and tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +THE END OF A BEGINNING + + +And now blow, all ye trumpets, and, all ye organs, tremble with exultant +sound! Bring forth the harp, and the psaltry, and the sackbut! For the +long winter of waiting is at an end, and Mike is flying north to fetch +his bride. Now are the walls of heaven built four-square, and to-day was +the roof-beam hung with garlands. 'Tis but a small heaven, yet is it big +enough for two,--and Mike is flying north, flying north, through the +midnight, to fetch his bride. + +Henry and the morning meet him at Tyre. Blessings on his little wrinkled +face! The wrinkles are deeper and sweeter by a year's hard work. He has +laughed with them every night for full twelve months, laughed to make +others laugh. To-day he shall laugh for himself alone. The very river +seems glad, and tosses its shaggy waves like a faithful dog; and over +yonder in Sidon, where the sun is building a shrine of gold and pearl, +Esther, sleepless too, all night, waits at a window like the +morning-star. + +Oh, Mike! Mike! Mike! is it you at last? + +Oh, Esther, Esther, is it you? + +Their faces were so bright, as they gazed at each other, that it seemed +they might change to stars and wing together away up into the morning. +Henry snatched one look at the brightness and turned away. + +"She looked like a spirit!" said Mike, as they met again further along +the road. + +"He looked like a little angel," said Esther, as she threw herself into +Dot's sympathetic arms. + +A few miles from Sidon there stood an old church, dim with memories, in +a churchyard mossy with many graves. It was hither some few hours after +that unwonted carriages were driving through the snow of that happy +winter's day. In one of them Esther and Henry were sitting,--Esther +apparelled in--but here the local papers shall speak for us: "The +bride," it said, "was attired in a dress of grey velvet trimmed with +beaver, and a large picturesque hat with feathers to match; she carried +a bouquet of white chrysanthemums and hyacinths." + +"The very earth has put on white to be your bridesmaid!" said Henry, +looking out on the sunlit snow. + +"After all, though, of course, I'm sad in one way," said Esther, more +practical in her felicitations, "I'm glad in another that father +wouldn't give me away. For it was really you who gave me to Mike long +ago; wasn't it?--and so it's only as it should be that you should give +me to him to-day." + +"You'll never forget what we've been to each other?" + +"Don't you know?" + +"Yes, but our love has no organs and presents and prayer-books to bind +it together." + +"Do you think it needs it?" + +"Of course not! But it would be fun for us too some day to have a +marriage. Why should only one kind of love have its marriage ceremony? +When Mike's and your wedding is over, let's tell him that we're going +to send out cards for ours!" + +"All right. What form shall the ceremony take--_Parfait Amour_?" + +"You haven't forgotten?" + +"I shall forget just the second after you--not before--and, no, I won't +be mean, I'll not even forget you then." + +"Kiss me, Esther," said Henry. + +"Kiss me again, Esther," he said. "Do you remember?" + +"The cake and the beating?" + +"Yes, that was our marriage." + + * * * * * + +When all the glory of that happy day hung in crimson low down in the +west, like a chariot of fire in which Mike and Esther were speeding to +their paradise, Henry walked with Angel, homeward through the streets of +Tyre, solemn with sunset. In both that happy day still lived like music +richly dying. + +"Well," said Angel, in words far too practical for such a sunset, "I am +so glad it all went off so well. Poor dear Mrs. Mesurier, how bonny she +looked! And your dear old Aunt Tipping! Fancy her hiding there in +the church--" + +"Of course we'd asked her," said Henry; "but, poor old thing, she +didn't feel grand enough, as she would say, to come publicly." + +"And your poor father! Fancy him coming home for the lunch like that!" + +"After all, it was logical of him," said Henry. "I suppose he had made +up his mind that he would resist as long as it was any use, and after +that--gracefully give in. And he was always fond of Mike." + +"But didn't Esther cry, when he kissed her, and said that, since she'd +chosen Mike, he supposed he must choose him too. And Mike was as good as +crying too?" + +"I think every one was. Poor mother was just a mop." + +"Well, they're nearly home by now, I suppose." + +"Yes, another half-hour or so." + +"Oh, Henry, fancy! How wonderful for them! God bless them. I _am_ glad!" + +"I wonder when we shall get our home," said Henry, presently. + +"Oh, Henry, never mind us! I can't think of any one but them to-day." + +"Well, dear, I didn't mean to be selfish--I was only wondering how +long you'd be willing to wait for me?" + +"Suppose I were to say 'for ever!' Would that make you happy?" + +"Well, I think, dear--I might perhaps arrange things by then." + + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Young Lives, by Richard Le Gallienne + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10922 *** diff --git a/10922-h/10922-h.htm b/10922-h/10922-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..39f92ea --- /dev/null +++ b/10922-h/10922-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8008 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= + "text/html; charset=UTF-8"> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Young Lives, by Richard Le Gallienne. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + <!-- + * { font-family: Times;} + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: 14pt; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + blockquote {text-align: justify; + margin-left: 15%; + margin-right: 15%;} + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; } + // --> + </style> + + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10922 ***</div> + +<h2>YOUNG LIVES</h2> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>RICHARD LE GALLIENNE</h2> +<br> + +<h3>1899</h3> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h3>TO</h3> + +<h2>ALFRED LEE</h2> + +<h3>IN MEMORY OF ANGEL</h3> + +<h4><i>September, 1898</i>.</h4> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<center> +<i>Let thy soul strive that still the same<br> +Be early friendship's sacred flame;<br> +The affinities have strongest part<br> +In youth, and draw men heart to heart:<br> +As life wears on and finds no rest,<br> +The individual in each breast<br> +Is tyrannous to sunder them</i>.<br> +</center> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<ul> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. HARD YOUNG HEARTS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. CONCERNING THOSE "ATLANTIC LINERS" AND AN OLD DESK.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. OF THE LOVE OF HENRY AND ESTHER.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. OF THE PROFESSIONS THAT CHOOSE, AND MIKE LAFLIN.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. OF THE LOVE OF ESTHER AND MIKE, AND THE MESURIER LAW IN REGARD TO SWEETHEARTS".</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF HOME.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. A LINK WITH CIVILISATION.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. A RHAPSODY OF TYRE.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. A PENITENTIARY OF THE MATHEMATICS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. THE GRASS BETWEEN THE FLAG-STONES.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. HUMANITY IN HIGH PLACES.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS AT THE THEATRE.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS A GENEALOGY.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. MERELY A HUMBLE INTERRUPTION AND ILLUSTRATION OF THE LAST.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. CHAPTER FOURTEEN CONCLUDED.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII. DOT'S DECISION.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII. MIKE AND HIS MILLION POUNDS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX. ON CERTAIN ADVANTAGES OF A BACKWATER.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX. THE MAN IN POSSESSION.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI. LITTLE MISS FLOWER.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII. MIKE'S FIRST LAURELS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII. THE MOTHER OF AN ANGEL.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV. AN ANCIENT THEORY OF HEAVEN.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV. THE LAST CONTINUED, AFTER A BRIEF INTERVAL.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI. CONCERNING THE BEST KIND OF WIFE FOR A POET.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII. THE BOOK OF ANGELICA.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII. WHAT COMES OF PUBLISHING A BOOK.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX. MIKE'S TURN TO MOVE.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX. UNCHARTERED FREEDOM.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI. A PREPOSTEROUS AUNT.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXII. THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN IN THE BACK PARLOUR.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII. "THIS IS LONDON, THIS IS LIFE".</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV. THE WITS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV. BACK TO REALITY.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI. THE OLD HOME MEANWHILE.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII. STAGE WAITS, MR. LAFLIN.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII. ESTHER AND HENRY ONCE MORE.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX. MIKE AFAR.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL. A LEGACY MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">CHAPTER XLI. LABORIOUS DAYS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">CHAPTER XLII. A HEAVIER FOOTFALL.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">CHAPTER XLIII. STILL ANOTHER CALLER.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">CHAPTER XLIV. THE END OF A BEGINNING.</a></li> +</ul> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>YOUNG LIVES</h2> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> +<br> + +<h3>HARD YOUNG HEARTS</h3> + +<p>Behind the Venetian blinds of a respectable middle-class, +fifty-pound-a-year, "semi-detached," "family" house, in a respectable +middle-class road of the little north-county town of Sidon, midway +between the trees of wealth upon the hill, and the business quarters +that ended in squalor on the bank of the broad and busy river,--a house +boasting a few shabby trees of its own, in its damp little rockeried +slips of front and back gardens,--on a May evening some ten or twelve +years ago, a momentous crisis of contrasts had been reached.</p> + +<p>The house was still as for a battle. It was holding its breath to hear +what was going on in the front parlour, the door of which seemed to wear +an expression of being more than usually closed. A mournful half-light +fell through a little stained-glass vestibule into a hat-racked hall, on +the walls of which hung several pictures of those great steamships known +as "Atlantic liners" in big gilt frames--pictures of a significance +presently to be noted. A beautiful old eight-day clock ticked solemnly +to the flickering of the hall lamp. From below came occasionally a +furtive creaking of the kitchen stairs. The two servants were half way +up them listening. The stairs a flight above the hall also creaked at +intervals. Two young girls, respectively about fourteen and fifteen, +were craning necks out of nightdresses over the balusters in a shadowy +angle of the staircase. On the floor above them three other little girls +of gradually diminishing ages slept, unconscious of the issues being +decided between their big brother and their eldest sister on the one +side, and their father and mother on the other, in the front +parlour below.</p> + +<p>That parlour, a room of good size, was unostentatiously furnished with +good bourgeois mahogany. A buxom mahogany chiffonier, a large square +dining-table, a black marble clock with two dials, one being a +barometer, three large oil landscapes of exceedingly umbrageous trees +and glassy lakes, inoffensively uninteresting, more Atlantic liners, and +a large bookcase, apparently filled with serried lines of bound +magazines, and an excellent Brussels carpet of quiet pattern, were +mainly responsible for a general effect of middle-class comfort, in +which, indeed, if beauty had not been included, it had not been wilfully +violated, but merely unthought of. The young people for whom these +familiar objects meant a symbolism deep-rooted in their earliest +memories could hardly in fairness have declared anything positively +painful in that room--except perhaps those Atlantic liners; their +charges against furniture, which was unconsciously to them accumulating +memories that would some day bring tears of tenderness to their eyes, +could only have been negative. Beauty had been left out, but at least +ugliness had not been ostentatiously called in. There was no bad taste.</p> + +<p>In fact, whatever the individual character of each component object, +there was included in the general effect a certain indefinable dignity, +which had doubtless nothing to do with the mahogany, but was probably +one of those subtle atmospheric impressions which a room takes from the +people who habitually live in it. Had you entered that room when it was +empty, you would instinctively have felt that it was accustomed to the +occupancy of calm and refined people. There was something almost +religious in its quiet. Some one often sat there who, whatever his +commonplace disguises as a provincial man of business, however +inadequate to his powers the work life had given him to do, provincial +and humiliating as were the formulae with which narrowing conditions had +supplied him for expression of himself, was in his central being an +aristocrat,--though that was the very last word James Mesurier would +have thought of applying to himself. He was a man of business, serving +God and his employers with stern uprightness, and bringing up a large +family with something of the Puritan severity which had marked his own +early training; and, as in his own case no such allowance had been made, +making no allowance in his rigid abstract code for the diverse +temperaments of his children,--children in whom certain qualities and +needs of his own nature, dormant from his birth, were awakening, +supplemented by the fuller-fed intelligence and richer nature of the +mother, into expansive and rebellious individualities.</p> + +<p>It was now about eleven o'clock, and the house was thus lit and alive +half-an-hour beyond the rigorously enforced bed-time. An hour before, +James Mesurier had been peacefully engaged on the task which had been +nightly with him at this hour for twenty-five years,--the writing of his +diary, in a shorthand which he wrote with a neatness, almost a +daintiness, that always marked his use of pen and ink, and gave to his +merely commercial correspondence and his quite exquisitely kept +accounts, a certain touch of the scholar,--again an air of distinction +in excess of, and unaccounted for, by the nature of the interests which +it dignified.</p> + +<p>His somewhat narrow range of reading, had you followed it by his careful +markings through those bound volumes of sermons in the bookcase, bore +the same evidence of inherited and inadequately occupied refinement. His +life from boyhood had been too much of a struggle to leave him much +leisure for reading, and such as he had enjoyed had been diverted into +evangelical channels by the influence of a certain pious old lady, with +whom as a young man he had boarded, and for whose memory all his life +he cherished a reverence little short of saint-worship.</p> + +<p>The name of Mrs. Quiggins, whose portrait had still a conspicuous niche +among the <i>lares</i> of the household,--a little thin silvery old +widow-lady, suggesting great sadness, much gentleness, and a little +severity,--had thus become for the family of James Mesurier a symbol of +sanctity, with which a properly accredited saint of the calendar could +certainly not, in that Protestant home, have competed. It was she who +had given him that little well-worn Bible which lay on the table with +his letters and papers, as he wrote under the lamplight, and than which +a world full of sacred relics contains none more sacred. A business-like +elastic band encircled its covers, as a precaution against pages +becoming loose with much turning; and inside you would have found +scarcely a chapter unpencilled,--texts underlined, and sermons of +special helpfulness noted by date and preacher on the margin,--the +itinerary of a devout human soul on its way through this world to +the next.</p> + +<p>The Bible and the sermons of a certain famous Nonconformist Divine of +the day were James Mesurier's favourite and practically his only +reading, at this time; though as a young man he had picked up a fair +education for himself, and had taken a certain interest in modern +history. For novels he had not merely disapproval, but absolutely no +taste. Once in a specially genial mood he had undertaken to try +"Ivanhoe," to please his favourite daughter,--this night in revolt +against him,--and in half-an-hour he had been surprised with laughter, +sound asleep. The sermon that would send him to sleep had never been +written, at all events by his favourite theologian, whose sermons he +read every Sunday afternoon, and annotated with that same loving +appreciation and careful pencil with which a scholar annotates some +classic; so true is it that it is we who dignify our occupations, +not they us.</p> + +<p>Similarly, James Mesurier presided over the destinies of a large +commercial undertaking, with the air of one who had been called rather +to direct an empire than a business. You would say as he went by, "There +goes one accustomed to rule, accustomed to be regarded with great +respect;" but that air had been his long before the authority that once +more inadequately accounted for it.</p> + +<p>Thus this night, as he sat writing, his handsome, rather small, +iron-grey head bent over his papers, his face somewhat French in +character, his short beard slightly pointed; distinguished, refined, +severe; he had the look of a marshal of France engrossed with +documents of state.</p> + +<p>The mother, who sat in an armchair by the fire, reading, was a woman of +about forty-five, with a fine blonde, aquiline face, distinctively +English, and radiating intelligence from its large sympathetic lines. +She was in some respects so different from her husband as at times to +make children precociously wise--but nevertheless, far from knowing +everything--wonder why she had ever married their father, for whom, at +that time, it would be hypocrisy to describe their attitude as one of +love. To them he was not so much a father as the policeman of home,--a +personification of stern negative decrees, a systematic thwarter of +almost everything they most cared to do. He was a sort of embodied "Thou +shalt not," only to be won into acquiescence by one influence,--that of +the mother, whose married life, as she looked back on it, seemed to +consist of little else than bringing children into the world, with a +Christian-like regularity, and interceding with the father for their +varying temperaments when there.</p> + +<p>Though it might have been regarded as certain beforehand, that seven +children would differ each from each other in at least as many ways, it +never seems to have occurred to the father that one inflexible system +for them all could hardly be wise or comfortable. But, indeed, like so +many parents similarly trained and circumstanced, it is questionable +whether he ever realised their possession of separate individualities +till they were pleaded for by the mother, or made, as on this evening, +surprising assertion of themselves.</p> + +<p>Though this system of mediation had been responsible for the only +disagreements in their married life, there had never been any long or +serious difference between husband and wife; for, in spite of natures so +different, they loved each other with that love which is given us for +the very purpose of such situations, the love that no strain can snap, +the love that reconciles all such disparities. Though Mary Mesurier had +also been brought up among Nonconformists, and though the conditions of +her youth, like her husband's, had been far from adequate to the +demands of her nature, yet her religion had been of a gentler character, +broadening instead of narrowing in its effects, and had concerned itself +less with divinity than humanity. Her home life, if humble, had been +genial and rich in love, and there had come into it generous influences +from the outer world,--books with more of the human beat in them than is +to be found in sermons; and particularly an old travelled grandfather +who had been regarded as the rolling stone of his family, but in whom, +at all events, failure and travel had developed a great gentleness and +understanding of the human creature, which in long walks and talks with +his little grand-daughter somehow passed over into her young character, +and proved the best legacy he could have left her. Through him too was +encouraged a native love of poetry, of which in her childhood her memory +acquired a stock which never failed her, and which had often cheered her +lonely hours by successive cradles. She had a fine natural gift of +recitation, and in evening hours when the home was particularly united +in some glow of visitors or birthday celebration, she would be persuaded +to recall some of those old songs and simple apologues, with such charm +that even her husband, to whom verse was naturally an incomprehensible +triviality, was visibly softened, and perhaps, deep in the sadness of +his silent nature, moved to a passing realisation of a certain something +kind and musical in life which he had strangely missed.</p> + +<p>This greater breadth of temperament and training enabled Mary Mesurier +to understand and make allowances for the narrower and harder nature of +her husband, whom she learnt in time rather to pity for the bleakness of +his early days, than to condemn for their effect upon his character. He +was strong, good, clever, and handsome, and exceptionally all those four +good reasons for loving him; and the intellectual sympathy, the sharing +of broader interests, which she sometimes missed in him, she had for +some three or four years come to find in her eldest son, who, to his +father's bewilderment and disappointment, had reincarnated his own +strong will, in connection with literary practices and dreams which +threatened to end in his becoming a poet, instead of the business man +expected of him, for which development that love of poetry in one +parent, and a certain love of books in both, was no doubt to some degree +guiltily responsible.</p> + +<p>James Mesurier, as we have said, was no judge of poetry; and, had he +been so, a reading of his son's early effusions would have made him +still more obdurate in the choice for him of a commercial career; but on +general principles he was quite sufficiently firm against any but the +most non-committing, leisure-hour flirtation with the Muse. The mother, +while agreeing with the father's main proposition of the undesirability, +nay, impossibility, of literature as a livelihood,--had not the great +and successful Sir Walter himself described it as a good walking-stick, +but a poor crutch; a stick applied, since its first application as an +image, to the shoulders of how many generations of youthful genius,--was +naturally more sympathetic towards her son's ambition, and encouraged it +to the extent of helping from her housekeeping money the formation of +his little library, even occasionally proving successful in winning sums +of money from the father for the purchase of some book specially, as the +young man would declare, necessary for his development.</p> + +<p>As this little library had outgrown the accommodation of the common +rooms, a daring scheme had been conceived between mother and son,--no +less than that he should have a small room set apart for himself as a +study. When first broached to the father, this scheme had met with an +absolute denial that seemed to promise no hope of further consideration; +but the mother, accepting defeat at the time, had tried again and again, +with patient dexterity at favourable moments, till at last one proud day +the little room, with its bookshelves, a cast of Dante, and a strange +picture or two, was a beautiful, significant fact--all ready for the +possible visitation of the Muse.</p> + +<p>In such ways had the mother negotiated the needs of all her children; +though the youth of the rest--save the eldest girl, whose music lessons +had meant a battle, and whose growing attractiveness for the boys of the +district, and one in particular, was presently to mean another--made as +yet but small demands. In one question, however, periodically fruitful +of argument, even the youngest was becoming interested,--the question of +the visits to the household of the various friends and playmates of the +children. To these, it must be admitted, James Mesurier was apt to be +hardly less of a figure of fear than to his own children; for, apart +from the fact that such inroads from without were apt to disturb his few +quiet evening hours with rollicking and laughter, he, being entirely +unsocial in his own nature, had a curious idea that the family should be +sufficient to itself, and that the desire for any form of entertainment +outside it was a sign of dissatisfaction with God's gifts of a good +home, and generally a frivolity to be discouraged.</p> + +<p>As a boy he had grown up without companions, and as a man had remained +lonely, till he had met in his wife the one comrade of his days. What +had been good enough for their father should be good enough for his +children, was a formula which he applied all round to their bringing up, +curiously forgetful, for a man at heart so just, of the pleasure one +would have expected it to be to make sure that the errors of his own +training were not repeated in that of his offspring. But, indeed, there +was in him constitutionally something of the Puritan suspicion of, and +aversion from, pleasure, which it had never occurred to him to consider +as the end of, or, indeed, as a considerable element of existence. Life +was somehow too serious for play, spiritually as well as materially; and +much work and a little rest was the eternal and, on the whole, salutary +lot of man.</p> + +<p>Such were some of the conditions among which the young Mesuriers found +themselves, and of which their impatience had become momentously +explosive this February evening.</p> + +<p>For some days there had been an energetic simmer of rebellion among the +four elder children against a new edict of early rising which was surely +somewhat arbitrary. Early rising was one of James Mesurier's articles of +faith; and he was always up and dressed by half-past six, though there +was no breakfast till eight, and absolutely no necessity for his rising +at that hour beyond his own desire. There was still less, indeed none at +all, for his children to rise thus early; but nevertheless he had +recently decreed that such, for the future, must be the rule. The rule +fell heaviest upon the sisters, for the elder brother had always enjoyed +a certain immunity from such edicts. His sense of justice, however, +kindled none the less at this final piece of tyranny. He blazed and +fumed indignantly on behalf of his sisters, in the sanctuary of that +little study,--a spot where the despot seldom set foot; and out of this +comparatively trivial cause had sprung a mighty resolution, which he and +she whom he proudly honoured as "sister and friend" had, after some +girding of the loins, repaired to the front parlour this evening to +communicate.</p> + +<p>They had entered somewhat abruptly, and stood rather dramatically by the +table on which the father was writing,--the son with dark set face, in +which could be seen both the father and mother, and the daughter, timid +and close to him, resolutely keeping back her tears, a slim young copy +of the mother.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dears?" said the father, looking up with a keen, rather +surprised glance, and in a tone which qualified with some severity the +"my dears."</p> + +<p>The son had had some exceedingly fine beginnings in his head, but they +fled ignominiously with the calm that was necessary for their successful +delivery, and he blurted at once to the point.</p> + +<p>"We have come to say that we are no longer comfortable at home, and have +decided to leave it."</p> + +<p>"Henry," exclaimed the mother, hastily, "what do you mean, how can you +be so ungrateful?"</p> + +<p>"Mary, my dear," interrupted the father, "please leave the matter to +me." Then turning to the son: "What is this you are saying? I'm afraid I +don't understand."</p> + +<p>"I mean that Esther and I have decided to leave home and live together; +because it is impossible for us to live here any longer in happiness--"</p> + +<p>"On what do you propose to live?"</p> + +<p>"My salary will be sufficient for the present."</p> + +<p>"Sixty pounds a year!"</p> + +<p>"Yes!"</p> + +<p>"And may I ask what is wrong with your home? You have every comfort--far +more than your mother or father were accustomed to."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed!" echoed the mother.</p> + +<p>"Yes, we know you are very good and kind, and mean everything for our +good; but you don't understand other needs of our natures, and you make +no allowance for our individualities--"</p> + +<p>"Indeed! Individualities--I should like you to have heard what my +father would have said to talk about individualities. A rope's end would +have been his answer to that--"</p> + +<p>"It would have been a very silly one, and no argument."</p> + +<p>"It would have been effective, at all events."</p> + +<p>"Not with me--"</p> + +<p>"Well, please don't bandy words with me, sir. If you," particularly +addressing his son, "wish to go--then go; but remember that once you +have left your father's roof, you leave it for ever. As for your sister, +she has no power to leave her mother and father without my consent, and +that I shall certainly withhold till she is of a proper age to know what +is best for herself--"</p> + +<p>"She will go then without your consent," defiantly answered the son.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Henry, for shame!" exclaimed Mrs. Mesurier.</p> + +<p>"Mother dear, I'm sorry,--we don't mean to be disrespectful or +undutiful,--but father's petty tyrannies are more than we can bear. He +objects to the friends we care for; he denies us the theatre--"</p> + +<p>"Most certainly, and shall continue to do so. I have never been inside a +theatre in my life; nor, with my consent, shall any child of mine enter +one of them."</p> + +<p>"You can evidently know little about them then, and you'd be a much +finer man if you had," flashed out the son.</p> + +<p>"Your sitting in judgment on your father is certainly very pretty, I +must say,"--answered the father,--"very pretty; and I can only hope that +you will not have cause to regret it some future day. But I cannot allow +you to disturb me," for, with something of a pang, Henry noticed signs +of agitation amid the severity of his parent, though the matter was too +momentous for him to allow the indulgence of pity.</p> + +<p>"You have been a source of much anxiety to your mother and me, a child +of many prayers;" the father continued. "Whether it is the books you +read, or the friends you associate with, that are responsible for your +strange and, to my thinking, impious opinions, I do not know; but this I +know, that your influence on your sister has not of late been for good, +and for her sake, and the sake of your young sisters, it may perhaps be +well that your influence in the home be removed--"</p> + +<p>"Oh, James," exclaimed the wife.</p> + +<p>"Mary, my dear, you must let me finish. If Henry will go, go he shall; +but if he still stays, he must learn that I am master in this house, and +that while I remain so, not he, but I shall dictate how it is to be +carried on."</p> + +<p>It was at this point that Esther ventured to lift the girlish tremor of +her voice.</p> + +<p>"But, father, if you'll forgive my saying so, I think it would be best +for another reason for us to go. There are too many of us. We haven't +room to grow. We get in each other's way. And then it would ease you; it +would be less expense--"</p> + +<p>"When I complain of having to support my children, it will be time to +speak of that--"</p> + +<p>"But you have complained," hotly interrupted the son; "you have +reproached us many a time for what we cost you for clothes and food--"</p> + +<p>"Yes, when you have shown yourselves ungrateful for them, as you do +to-night--"</p> + +<p>"Ungrateful! For what should we be grateful? That you do your bare duty +of feeding and clothing us, and even for that, expect, in my case at all +events, that I shall prove so much business capital invested for the +future. Was it we who asked to come into the world? Did you consult us, +or did you beget us for anything but your own selfish pleasure, without +a thought--"</p> + +<p>Henry got no further. His father had grown white, and, with terrible +anger pointed to the door.</p> + +<p>"Leave the room, sir," he said, "and to-morrow leave my house for ever."</p> + +<p>The son was not cowed. He stood with an unflinching defiance before the +father, in whom he forgot the father and saw only the tyrant. For a +moment it seemed as if some unnatural blow would be struck; but so much +of pain was spared the future memory of the scene, and saying only, "It +is true for all that," he turned and left the room. The sister followed +him in silence, and the door closed.</p> + +<p>Mother and father looked at each other. They had brought up children, +they had suffered and toiled for them,--that they should talk to them +like this! Mrs. Mesurier came over to her husband, and put her arm +tenderly on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, dear. I'm sure he didn't mean to talk like that. He is a +good boy at heart, but you don't understand each other."</p> + +<p>"Mary dear, we will talk no more of it to-night," he replied; "I will +try and put it from me. You go to bed. I will finish my diary, and be +up in a few minutes."</p> + +<p>When he was alone, he sat still a little while, with a great lonely pain +on his face, and almost visibly upon it too the smart of the wounded +pride of his haughty nature. Never in his life had he been spoken to +like that,--and by his own son! The pang of it was almost more than he +could bear. But presently he had so far mastered himself as to take up +his pen and continue his writing. When that was finished, he opened his +Bible and read his wonted chapter. It was just the simple twenty-third +psalm: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." It was his favourite +psalm, and always had a remarkable tranquillising effect upon him. James +Mesurier's faith in God was very great. Then he knelt down and prayed in +silence,--prayed with a great love for his disobedient children; and, +when he rose from his knees, anger and pain had been washed away from +his face, and a serenity that is not of this world was there instead.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> +<br> + +<h3>CONCERNING THOSE "ATLANTIC LINERS" AND +AN OLD DESK</h3> + +<p>Of all battles in this complicated civil warfare of human life, none is +more painful than that being constantly waged from generation to +generation between young and old, and none, it would appear, more +inevitable, or indeed necessary. "The good gods sigh for the cost and +pain," and as, growing older ourselves, we become spectators of such a +conflict, with eyes able to see the real goodness and truth of both +combatants, how often must we exclaim: "Oh, just for a little touch of +sympathetic comprehension on either side!"</p> + +<p>And yet, after all, it is from the older generation that we have a right +to expect that. If that vaunted "experience" with which they are +accustomed to extinguish the voice of the young means anything, it +should surely include some knowledge of the needs of expanding youth, +and be prepared to meet them, not in a spirit of despotic denial, but in +that of thoughtful provision. The young cannot afford to be generous, +even if they possess the necessary insight. It would mean their losing +their battle,--a battle very necessary for them to win.</p> + +<p>Sometimes it would seem that a very little kindly explanation on the +part of the elder would set the younger at a point of view where greater +sympathy would be possible. The great demand of the young is for some +form of poetry in their lives and surroundings; and it is largely the +fault of the old if the poetry of one generation is almost invariably +the prose of the next.</p> + +<p>Those "Atlantic liners" are an illustration of my meaning. To the young +Mesuriers they were hideous chromo-lithographs in vulgar gilt frames, +arbitrary defacements of home; but undoubtedly even they would have +found a tolerant tenderness for them, had they realised that they +represented the poetry--long since renounced and put behind him--of +James Mesurier's life. He had come of a race of sea-captains, two of his +brothers had been sailors, and deep down in his heart the spirit of +romance answered, with voice fresh and young as ever, to any breath or +association of the sea. But he seldom, if ever, spoke of it, and only in +an anecdote or two was it occasionally brought to mind. Sometimes his +wife would tease him with the vanity which, on holidays by the sea, +would send him forth on blustering tempestuous nights clad in a +greatcoat of blue pilot-cloth and a sealskin cap, and tell how proud he +was on one occasion, as he stood on the wharf, at being addressed as +"captain," and asked what ship he had brought into port. Even the hard +heart of youth must soften at such a reminiscence.</p> + +<p>Then scattered about the house was many a prosaic bit of furniture which +was musical with memories for the parents,--memories of their first +little homes and their early struggles together. This side-board, now +relegated to the children's play-room, had once been their <i>pièce de +resistance</i> in such and such a street, twelve years ago, before their +children had risen up and--not called them blessed.</p> + +<p>A few years, and the light of poetry will be upon these things for their +children too; but, meanwhile, can we blame them that they cannot accept +the poetry of their elders in exchange for that of their own which they +are impatient to make? And when that poetry is made and resident in +similar concrete objects of home--how will it seem, one wonders, to +their children? This old desk which Esther has been allowed to +appropriate, and in a secret drawer of which are already accumulating +certain love-letters and lavender, will it ever, one wonders, turn to +lumber in younger hands? For a little while she leans her sweet young +bosom against it, and writes scented letters in a girlish hand to a +little red-headed boy who has these past weeks begun to love her. Can it +be possible that the desk on which Esther once wrote to her little Mike +will ever hear itself spoken of as "this ugly old thing"? Let us +hope not.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> +<br> + +<h3>OF THE LOVE OF HENRY AND ESTHER</h3> + +<p>Father and son had both meant what they said; and even the mother, for +whom it would be the cruellest wrench of all, knew that Henry was going +to leave home. Not literally on the morrow, for the following evening he +had appeared before his father to apologise for the manner--carefully +for the manner, not <i>the matter</i>,--in which he had spoken to him the +evening before, and asked for a day or two in which to make his +arrangements for departure. James Mesurier was too strong a man to be +resentful, and he accepted his son's apology with a gentleness that, as +each knew, detracted nothing from the resolution which each had come to.</p> + +<p>"My boy," he said, "you will never have such good friends as your father +and mother; but it is best that you go out into the world to learn it."</p> + +<p>There is something terribly winning and unnerving to the blackest +resolution, when the severity of the strong dissolves for a brief moment +into tenderness. The rare kind words of the stern, explain it as we +will, and unjust as the preference must surely be, one values beyond the +frequent forgivenesses of the gentle. Mary Mesurier would have laid down +her life in defence of her son's greatest fault, and James Mesurier +would as readily have court-martialled him for his smallest, and yet, +somehow, a kind word from him brought the tears to his son's eyes.</p> + +<p>He had no longer the heart to stimulate the rebellion of Esther, as he +felt it his duty to do; and, to her disappointment, he announced that, +on the whole, it would perhaps be best for him to go alone.</p> + +<p>"It would almost kill poor mother," he said; "and father means well +after all," he added.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid it would break father's heart," said Esther.</p> + +<p>So these two young people agreed to spare their parents, though--let it +not be otherwise imagined--at a great sacrifice. The little paper on +which they had carefully worked out their housekeeping, skilfully +allotting so much for rent, butcher's meat, milk, coals, and washing, +and making "everything" come most optimistically to <i>£59 17s. 9d.</i> a +year, would be of no use now, at all events for the present. Their +little Charles and Mary Lamb dream must be laid aside--for, of course, +they had thought of Charles and Mary Lamb; and indeed, out beyond this +history of a few youthful years, their friendship was to prove itself +far from unworthy of its famous model.</p> + +<p>Yet at this time it was of no great antiquity; for, but a very few years +back, Henry had been a miniature tyrant too, and ruled it over his +kingdom of six sisters with all the hideous egoism of a pampered "son +and heir." Although in the very middle class of society into which Henry +Mesurier was born, the dignity of eldest son is one but very +contingently connected with tangible inheritance, it is none the less +vigorously kept up; and, no doubt, without any consciousness of +partiality, Henry Mesurier, from his childhood, had been brought up to +regard himself as a sort of young prince, for whom all the privileges of +home were, by divine right, reserved. For example, he took his meals +with his parents fully five years before any of his sisters were +allowed to do so; and for retention of this privilege, when at length +the democratic measure of its extension to his two elder sisters was +proposed, he fought with the bitterest spirit of caste. Indeed, few +oligarchs have been more wildly hated than Henry Mesurier up to the age, +say, of fourteen. That was the age of his last thrashing, and it was in +the gloomy dusk of that momentous occasion, as he lay alone with +smarting back in the twilight of an unusually early bed-time, that a +possible new view of woman--as a creature of like passions and +privileges--presented itself to him.</p> + +<p>His thrashing had been so unjustly severe, that even the granite little +hearts of his sisters had been softened; and Esther, managing to secrete +a cake that he loved from the tea that was lost to him, stole with it to +the top of the house, where he writhed amid lonely echoes and shadows.</p> + +<p>She had brought it to him awkwardly, by no means sure of its reception, +but sure in her heart that she would hate him for ever, if he missed the +meaning of the little solatium. But fortunately his back was far too +sore, and his spirit too broken to remember his pride, and he accepted +the offering with gratitude and tears.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me, Esther," he had said; and a wonderful thrill had gone through +the little girl at this strange softness in the mighty, while the dawn +of a wonderful pity for the lot of woman had, unconsciously, broken in +the soul of the boy.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me again, Esther," he had said, and, with the tears that mingled +in that kiss, an eternal friendship was baptized.</p> + +<p>Henry rose on the morrow a changed being. The grosser pretensions of the +male had fallen from him for ever, and there was at first something +almost awe-inspiring to his sisters in the gentle solicitude for them +and their rights and pleasures which replaced the old despotism. From +that time, Esther and he became closer and closer companions, and as +they more and more formed an oligarchy of two, a rearrangement of +parties in the little parliament of home came about, to be upset again +as Dot and Mat qualified for admission into that exclusive +little circle.</p> + +<p>So soon as Henry had a new dream or a new thought, he shared it with +Esther; and freely as he had received from Carlyle, or Emerson, or +Thoreau, freely he passed it on to her. For the gloomiest occasion he +had some strengthening text, and one of the last things he did before he +left home was to make for her a little book which he called "Faith for +Cloudy Days," consisting of energising and sustaining phrases from +certain great writers,--as it were, a bottle of philosophical phosphates +against seasons of spiritual cowardice or debility. There one opened and +read: "<i>Sudden the worst turns best to the brave</i>" or Thoreau's "<i>I have +yet to hear a single word of wisdom spoken to me by my elders,</i>" or +again Matthew Arnold's</p> + +<blockquote> +"<i>Tasks in hours of insight willed<br> +May be through hours of gloom fulfilled</i>."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>James Mesurier knew nothing of all this; but if he had, he might have +understood that after all his children were not so far from the kingdom +of heaven.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<br> + +<h3>OF THE PROFESSIONS THAT CHOOSE, AND +MIKE LAFLIN</h3> + +<p>However we may hint at its explanation by theories of inheritance, it +still remains curious with what unerring instinct a child of character +will from the first, and when it is so evidently ignorant of the field +of choice, select, out of all life's occupations and distinctions, one +special work it hungers to do, one special distinction that to it seems +the most desirable of earthly honours. That Mary Mesurier loved poetry, +and James Mesurier sermons, in face of the fact that so many mothers and +fathers have done the same with no such result, hardly seems adequate to +account for the peculiar glamour which, almost before he could read, +there was for Henry Mesurier in any form of print. While books were +still being read to him, there had already come into his mind, +unaccountably, as by outside suggestion, that there could be nothing so +splendid in the world as to write a book for one's self. To be either a +soldier, a sailor, an architect, or an engineer, would, doubtless, have +its fascinations as well; but to make a real printed book, with your +name in gilt letters outside, was real romance.</p> + +<p>At that early day, and for a long while after, the boy had no preference +for any particular kind of book. It was an entirely abstract passion for +print and paper. To have been the author of "The Iliad" or of Beeton's +"Book of Household Recipes" would have given him almost the same +exaltation of authorship; and the thrill of worship which came over him +when, one early day, a man who had actually had an article on the sugar +bounties accepted by a commercial magazine was pointed out to him in the +street, was one he never forgot; nor in after years did he ever +encounter that transfigured contributor without an involuntary +recurrence of that old feeling of awe. No subsequent acquaintance with +editorial rooms ever led him into materialistic explanations of that +enchanted piece of work--a newspaper. The editors might do their +best--and succeed surprisingly--in looking like ordinary mortals, you +might even know the leader-writers, and, with the very public, gaze +through gratings into the subterranean printing-rooms,--the mystery none +the less remained. No exposure of editorial staffs or other machinery +could destroy the sense of enchantment, as no amount of anatomy or +biology can destroy the mystery of the human miracle.</p> + +<p>So I suppose Nature first makes us in love with the tools we are to use, +long before we have a thought upon what we shall use them. Perhaps the +first desire of the born writer is to be a compositor. Out of the love +of mere type quickly evolves a love of mere words for their own sake; +but whether we shall make use of them as a historian, novelist, +philosopher, or poet, is a secondary consideration, a mere afterthought. +To Henry Mesurier had already come the time when the face of life began +to Wear a certain aspect, the peculiar attraction of which for himself +he longed to fix, a certain mystical importance attaching to the +commonest every-day objects and circumstances, a certain ecstatic +quality in the simplest experiences; but even so far as it had been +revealed, this dawning vision of the world seemed only to have come to +him, not so much to find expression, as to mock him with his childish +incapacity adequately to use the very tools he loved. He would hang for +hours over some scene in nature, caught in a woodland spell, like a +nympholept of old; but when he tried to put in words what he had seen, +what a poor piece of ornamental gardening the thing was! There were +trees and birds and grass, to be sure; but there was nothing of that +meaning look which they had worn, that look of being tiptoe with +revelation which is one of the most fascinating tricks of the visible +world, and which even a harsh town full of chimneys can sometimes take +on when seen in given moments and lights. And it was astonishing to see +into what lifeless imitative verse his most original and passionate +moments could be transformed.</p> + +<p>Still some unreasonably indulgent spirit of the air, that had evidently +not read his manuscripts, whispered him to be of good cheer: the +lifeless words would not always be lifeless, some day the birds would +sing in his verses too. This sense of failure did not, it must be said, +immediately follow composition; for, for a little while the original +expression of the thing seen reinforced with reflected significance its +pale copy. It was only some weeks after, when the written copy was left +to do all the work itself, that its foolish inadequacy was exposed.</p> + +<p>"However, there is one consolation, they are not worse than Keats and +Shelley wrote at the same age," he said to himself, as he looked through +a bundle of the poor things the evening before his room was to be +dismantled. "Indeed, they couldn't be," he added, with a smile. +Fortunately he was but nineteen as yet; would he venture on a like +comparison were he twenty-five?</p> + +<p>Yes, his little room was to be dismantled on the morrow,--this first +little private chapel of his spirit. This fair order of shelves, this +external harmony answering to an inner harmony of his spirit, were to be +broken up for ever. Often as he had sat in the folioed lamplit nook +which was, as it were, the very chancel of the little church, and gazed +in an ecstasy at the books, each with a great shining name of fame upon +its cover, it had seemed as though he had put his very soul outside him, +externalised it in this little corner of books and pictures. His soul +shivered, as one who must go houseless awhile, at the thought that +to-morrow its home would be no more. When and how would be its +reincarnation? More magnificent, maybe, but never this again. It was +sacrilege,--was it not ingratitude too? When once more the books and the +pictures began to form into a new harmony, there would be no mother's +love to help the work go on....</p> + +<p>But as he mused in this no doubt sentimental fashion, the door opened +and the little red-headed Mike entered. His was a little Flibbertigibbet +of a face, already lined with the practice of mimicry; and there was in +it a very attractive blending of tenderness and humour. Mike was also +one of those whom life at the beginning had impressed with the delight +of one kind of work and no other. When a mere imp of a boy, the +heartless tormentor of a large and sententious stepmother, the despair +of schoolmasters, the most ingenious of truants, a humorous ragamuffin +invulnerable to punishment, it was already revealed to him that his +mission in life was to be the observation and reproduction of human +character, particularly in its humorous aspects. To this end Nature had +gifted him with a face that was capable of every form of transformation, +and at an early age he hastened to put it in training. All day long he +was pulling faces. As an artist will sketch everything he comes across, +so Mike would endeavour to imitate any characteristic expression or +attitude, animate or inanimate, in the world around him. Dogs, little +boys, and grotesque old men were his special delight, and of all his +elders he had, it goes without saying, a private gallery of irreverently +faithful portraits.</p> + +<p>In addition to his plastic face, Nature had given him a larynx which was +capable of imitating every human and inhuman sound. To squeak like a +pig, bark like a dog, low like a cow, and crow like a cock, were the +veriest juvenilia of his attainments; and he could imitate the buzzing +of a fly so cunningly that flies themselves have often been deceived. It +was this delight in imitation for its own sake, and not so much that he +had been caught by the usual allurements of the theatre, that he looked +upon the career of an actor as his natural and ultimate calling. It was +already privately whispered in the little circle that Mike would some +day go on the stage. But don't tell that as yet to old Mr. Laflin, +whatever you do.</p> + +<p>There was a good deal more in Mike than pulling faces, as Esther +recently, and Henry before her, had discovered. His acting was some day +to stir the hearts of audiences, because he had instincts for knowing +human nature inside as well as out, knew the secret springs of tears, as +well as the open secrets of laughter; and it was rather on this common +ground of a rich "many-veined humanity" that these two had met and +become friends, rather than on any real community of tastes and ideas. +Yet Mike loved books too, and had an excellent taste in them, though +perhaps he had hardly loved them, had not Henry and Esther loved them +first, and it is quite certain, and quite proper, that he never found a +page of any book so fascinating as the face of some lined and battered +human being. Over that writing he was never found asleep.</p> + +<p>There was one other literary matter on which he held a very personal and +unshakable opinion,--Henry Mesurier's future as a poet; and on this he +came just in the nick of time to cheer him this evening.</p> + +<p>"The next move will be to London, old fellow," he said; "and then you'll +soon see my prophecies come true. My opinion mayn't be worth much, but +you know what it is. You'll be a great writer some day, never fear."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, dear old boy. And you know what I think about your acting, +don't you?"</p> + +<p>Then it was that Esther appeared, and Henry made some transparent excuse +to leave them awhile together.</p> + +<p>"You dear old thing," said Esther, kissing him, "now don't stay away too +long."</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> +<br> + +<h3>OF THE LOVE OF ESTHER AND MIKE, AND +THE MESURIER LAW IN REGARD TO +"SWEETHEARTS"</h3> + +<p>I'm afraid Esther was little more than fourteen when she had first seen +and fallen in love with Mike. She had heard much of him from her +brother; but, for one reason or another, he had never been to the house. +One evening, however, at a concert, Henry had told her to look in a +certain direction and she would see Mike.</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose you'll call him good looking," he said.</p> + +<p>So Esther had looked round, and seen the pretty curly red hair and the +eager little wistful humorous face for the first time.</p> + +<p>"Why, he's got a lovely little face!" she said, blushing deeply for no +reason at all,--except perhaps that there had seemed something pleading +and shelter-seeking in that little face, something that cried out to be +"mothered," and that instantly there had welled up in her heart a great +warm wish that some day she might be that for it and more.</p> + +<p>And at the same instant it had occurred to the boy, that the face thus +turned to him for a moment was the loveliest face he had ever seen, the +only lovely face he would ever care to see. But with that thought, too, +had come a curious pang of hopelessness into his heart. For Esther +Mesurier was one of those girls who are the prizes of men. With all +those pretty tall fellows about her, it was unlikely indeed that she +would care for a little red-headed, face-pulling ragamuffin like him! +And yet if she never could care for him,--never, never at all, what a +lonely place the world would be!</p> + +<p>When, after the concert, Henry looked round to introduce Mike to his +sister, he had somehow slipped away and was nowhere to be seen.</p> + +<p>However, it was not long after this that Mike paid a visit to Henry's +study one evening, and, coming ostensibly to look at his books, once +more saw his sister, and spoke to her a brief introductory word. His +interest in literature became positively remarkable from this time; and +the enthusiasm with which his actor's mind reflected, and, no doubt in +all good faith, mimicked the various philosophical and literary +enthusiasms of his friend, was, though neither realised it, a sure +earnest of his future. More and more frequent visits to that study +became necessary for its gratification; and, in the course of one of +them, Mike confessed to Henry that he loved his sister, previously +piling upon himself many anticipatory terms of ignominy for daring to do +so presumptuous a thing. Henry, however, was so taken with the idea +that, in his singleness of mind, he suffered no pang of retrospective +suspicion of his friend's love for himself. Pending Esther's +decision,--and of her mind in the matter, he had something more than a +glimmering,--he welcomed Mike with gladness as a prospective +brother-in-law, and, as soon as he found an opportunity, left them alone +together, returning quite a long time afterwards--to find them +extraordinarily happy, it would appear, at his safe return.</p> + +<p>Esther and Mike had thus been fortunate enough to get that important +question of a mate settled quite early in life, and to be saved from +those arduous and desolating experiments in being fitted with a heart +which so many less happy people have to go through. But this happy fact +was as yet a secret beyond this strict circle of three; for, strange as +it may sound, the beautiful attraction of a girl for a boy, the +beautiful worship of a boy for a girl, were matters not even mentionable +as yet in the Mesurier household. For a child, particularly a girl, +under twenty to speak of having a "sweetheart" was an offence which had +a strong savour of disgust in it, even for Mrs. Mesurier, broad-minded +as in most matters she was.</p> + +<p>So far as the only decent theory of the relations of the sexes was +involuntarily explicit, by virtue of certain explosions on the subject, +it was something like this: That, at a certain age, say twenty-one, or, +for leniency, twenty, as it were on the striking of a clock, the young +girl, who previously had been profoundly and inexpressibly unconscious +that the male being existed, would suddenly sit up wide awake in an +attitude of attention to offers of marriage; and that, similarly, the +young man, who had meanwhile lived with his eyes shut and his senses +asleep, would jump up also at the striking of a clock, and, as it were, +with hilarity, say, "It is high time I chose a wife," and thereupon +begin to look about, among the streets and tennis-parties known to him, +for that impossible paragon,--a wife to satisfy both his parents.</p> + +<p>One or two of Henry's earliest troubles and most drastic punishments had +come of a propensity to "sweethearts," developed at an indecorously +early age, and in fact at the time of which I write he could barely +recall the name of Miss This or Miss The Other by the association of +ancient physical pangs suffered for their sake. The greatest danger to +such contraband passions was undoubtedly the post; for, in the Mesurier +household, a more than Russian censorship was exercised over the +incoming and--as far as it could be controlled--the outgoing mail. One +old morning, at family breakfast, which the subsequent events of the +evening were to fix on his mind, Henry Mesurier had grown white with +fear, as the stupid maid had handed him a fat letter addressed in a +sprawling school-girl's hand.</p> + +<p>"Who is your letter from, Henry?" asked the father.</p> + +<p>Henry blushed and boggled.</p> + +<p>"Pass it over to me."</p> + +<p>Resistance was worse than useless. As in war-time a woman will see her +husband set up against a wall and shot before her face, as a +conspirator sees the hands of the police close upon papers of the most +terrible secrecy, so did Henry watch that scented little package pass +with a sense of irrevocable loss into the cold hands of his father. The +father opened it, placed a little white enclosure by the side of his +coffee-cup for further inspection, and then read the letter--full of +"darlings" and "for evers"--with the severe attention he would have +given a business letter. Then he handed it across to the mother without +a word, but with the look one doctor gives another in discovering a new +and terrible symptom in a patient on whom they are consulting. While the +mother read, the father opened the little packet, and out rolled a tiny +plait of silky brown hair tied into a loop with a blue ribbon.</p> + +<p>"Disgusting!" exclaimed the father and mother, simultaneously, to each +other, as though the boy was not there.</p> + +<p>"I am shocked at you, Henry," said the mother.</p> + +<p>"I shall certainly write to the forward little girl's parents," said the +father.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't do that, father," exclaimed the boy, in terror, and half +wondering if so sweet a thing could really be so criminal.</p> + +<p>"Don't dare to speak to me," said the father. "Leave the +breakfast-table. I will see you again this evening."</p> + +<p>Henry knew too well what the verb "to see" signified under the +circumstances, and the day passed in such apprehensive gloom that it was +a positive relief, when evening had at last come, to feel a walking-cane +about him, at once more snaky and more notched than any previously +applied to his stubborn young frame. Not to cry was, of course, a point +of honour; and as the infuriating absence of tears inflamed the +righteous anger of the parent, the stick splintered and broke with a +crash, in which accident Henry learned he was responsible for a +double offence.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't have broken that stick for five pounds," said the father, +his interest suddenly withdrawn from his son; "it was given to me by my +old friend Tarporley," which, as can be imagined, was a mighty +satisfaction to the sad small soul, smarting, not merely from the stick, +but from the sense that life held something stupid in its injustice, in +that he was thus being mauled for the most beautiful exalted feeling +that had ever visited his young heart.</p> + +<p>Those dark ages of oppression were long since passed for Henry and +Esther, when Mike began to steal in of an evening to see Esther, and +they were only referred to now and again, anecdotally, as the nineteenth +century looks back at the days of the Holy Inquisition; but still it was +wise to be cautious, for an interdict against Mike's coming to the house +was quite within possibility, even in this comparatively enlightened +epoch; and that would have been even more effective than James +Mesurier's old friend Tarporley's stick of sacred memory.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<br> + +<h3>THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF HOME</h3> + +<p>Recalling for another moment or two the ancient affair of the heart +described in the last chapter, it may pertinently be added that James +Mesurier fulfilled his threat on that occasion, and had in fact written +to the "forward little girl's" parents. Could he have seen the rather +amused reception of his letter, he would have realised with sorrow that +an age of parental leniency, little short of degeneration, was in +certain quarters unmistakably supplanting the stern age of which he was +in a degree an anachronistic survival. That forward little girl's +parents chanced to know James Mesurier enough by sight and reputation to +respect him, while they smiled across to each other at his rather quaint +disciplinarianism. Could Henry Mesurier have seen that smile, he would +not only have felt reassured as to the fate of his little sweetheart, +but have understood that there were temperate zones of childhood, as +well as arctic, when young life waxed gaily to the sound of laughter +and other musical accompaniments.</p> + +<p>This revelation, however, was deferred some few years, till he became +acquainted with the merry family of which Mike Laflin was the +characteristic expression. Old Mr. Laflin was a little, jolly, +bald-headed gentleman, bubbling over with mirth, who liked to have young +people about him, and in his quips and cranks was as young as, and much +cleverer than, any of them. It almost startled Henry on his first +introduction to this family of two daughters and two brothers, where the +father was rather like a brother grown prematurely bald, and the +stepmother supplied with monumental dignity that element of solemnity +without which no properly regulated household is complete, to notice the +<i>camaraderie</i> which prevailed amongst them all. Jokes were flying about +from one to another all the time, and the father made a point of capping +them all. This was home in a liberal sense which the word had never +meant to Henry. Doubtless, it had its own individual restrictions and +censorships; but its surface was at all events debonair, and it was +serviceable to Henry as revealing the existence of more genial social +climates than that in which he had been nurtured--though in making the +comparison with his own atmosphere, he realised that this <i>bonhomie</i> was +nothing more important than a grace.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, nay, very surely, the seriousness, even the severity of, his +own training, had been among the very conditions needed to make him what +he some day hoped to be, though they had seemed so purposely inimical. +Had James Mesurier's religion been more free and easy, a matter less +personally assured and momentous, his son's almost oppressive sense of +the spiritual significance of existence had been less radiant and +constantly supporting. Life might have gained in superficial +liveableness; but it would have lost in intensity, in real importance, +and with that loss would have gone too Henry's chance of being a poet." +The poet in a golden clime was born!"--once and again, maybe, but more +often he comes from a land of iron and tears.</p> + +<p>It is in the nature of things that Henry should begin to appreciate the +services of his home to his development at the moment when he was +leaving it. And the mere pang of the parting from it, when one day the +hour for parting had surely come, was much more deep and complicated +than he could have dreamed. As in our bodies we become conscious of +certain vital centres, certain dependencies of relation and harmony, +only when they have suffered shock, so often in life we may go along +unconscious of the vital dependencies of our human relationships, till +the moment comes to strain or sever them. Then a thousand hidden nerves +quiver at the discovering touch of the knife. Henry's leaving home, +though it had been originally the suggestion of violent feeling, was not +to be an actual severance. His father's "leave my house for ever" had +owed something to the rhetoric of anger, and the expulsion and cutting +off which it had implied had since been so softened as practically to +have disappeared. Henry was certainly not leaving his father's house for +ever, but merely going into lodgings with a friend, with full privileges +to visit his own home as often as he chose.</p> + +<p>Still, he was, all the same, leaving home, and he was the first to leave +it. The mother, at all events, knew that this was the beginning of the +end, knew that, with her first-born's departure (desertion, she may have +called it), a new era had commenced for the home,--the era of +disintegration. For twenty years and more it had been all building and +building; now it would be all just pulling down again; and there was a +dreary sound as of demolition and wind-driven rain in her ears.</p> + +<p>Oh, tragic love of mothers! Of no love is the final loss and doom so +inevitably destined. The husband may desert the wife, but the son is +sure to desert his mother--must, for nature demands the desertion. Put +not your trust in princes--and yet put it rather in princes, oh, fond +and doting parents, than in the blue-eyed flower of childhood for which +year after year, with labours infinite, you would buy all the sunshine +of the world.</p> + +<p>Henry's pang at leaving home was mainly the pang of parting with his +mother. It seemed more than a mere physical parting. It was his +childhood that was parting from her for ever. When he came to see them +he would be something different,--a man, an independent being. As long +ago physically, now spiritually, the umbilical cord had been cut.</p> + +<p>With Esther and Dot and Mat the parting was hardly a parting, as it was +rather a promise of their all meeting together some day in a new place +of freedom, which there was a sense of his going out to prepare for +them. Their way would be his way, as the mother's could not; for theirs +was the highway of youth, which, sooner or later, they would all take +together, singing in the morning sun.</p> + +<p>The three younger sisters, the as yet unopened buds of the family +flower, took Henry's departure with the surface tears and the central +indifference of childhood. When a family is so large, it practically +includes two generations in itself; and these three girls were really to +prove a generation so different in characteristics from their four +elders as to demand a separate chronicle to themselves.</p> + +<p>Thus as Henry drove away amid his trunks from the home of his father +(genealogical poverty denies us the romantic grandiloquence of the +plural), it was his mother's farewell arms and farewell tears, and his +farewell promises to her, of which he was mainly conscious. He had +promised "to take care of himself," and particularly to beware of damp +sheets, and then he too had burst into tears. Indeed, it was generally a +tearful business, after which everybody was glad to retire into corners +to subside privately and dry themselves.</p> + +<p>Henry crouched in the corner of his cab with fully half his cry to +finish out; and, curiously, all the time a sad little story from an old +holiday in the country kept haunting him. It was at once a fact and a +fable concerning a happy little family of swallows, whose sudden tragedy +he had seen with his own boyish, pitying eyes.</p> + +<p>In a little vinery attached to an old country house which the Mesuriers +had rented for a month or so for certain successive summers, two +swallows had built their nest, and, in due course, there were three +young swallows to keep them company. It was understood that the door of +the vinery must be left open, that the parent swallows might fly to and +fro for food; but by some accident it chanced that the door was one day +closed, and the vinery not visited again for several days. When at last +the door was opened again, the sight that met young eyes was one Henry +had never forgotten. Three little starved swallows, hardly bigger than +butterflies, lay upon the floor, and from the nest above hung the long +horse-hairs with which the parents had vainly sought to anchor them +safely to the home. But still sadder details were forthcoming, when the +children, who had been wondering what had become of the parents, had +suddenly discovered their wasted bodies in the grass a yard or two away +from the vinery door. A few days ago this had been a happy, thriving +home, and now it was absolutely desolated, done away with for ever. It +needed no exceptional imagination or sympathy to conceive the agonised +longing of the parents, as they had dashed themselves again and again +upon that cruel, unyielding door, hearing the piteous cries of their +young ones within, and the anguish in which their exhausted little lives +had at last gone out. The young swallows had died for lack of food; but +the old ones had died--for love. Had some other hand brought them food, +would the young ones have missed the old ones like that?</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>A LINK WITH CIVILISATION</h3> +<br> + +<p>On the afternoon following Henry's departure, Esther went out for a +walk, and she came presently to a pretty little house half hidden in its +big garden. A well-kept lawn, richly bathed in sunlight, flashed through +the trees; and, opening the gate and following the tree-shaded path +along one side of the house, Esther presently mounted to a small +terrace, where, as she had hoped, she came upon a dainty little lady +watering her flowers.</p> + +<p>"Why, Esther, it's you! How sweet of you! I was just dying to see you!" +exclaimed the little lady, turning a pretty, but somewhat worn, and +brilliantly sad face from her gardening. "Just let me finish this +thirsty bed, and then you must give me a kiss. There!"</p> + +<p>Then the two embraced; and as Mrs. Myrtilla Williamson held Esther at +arm's length and looked at her admiringly,--</p> + +<p>"How pretty you look to-day!" she exclaimed, generously. "That new +hat's a great success. Didn't I tell you mauve was your colour? Turn +round. Yes, dear, you look charming. Where in the world, I wonder, did +you all get that grand look of yours from?--I don't mean your good looks +merely, but that look of distinction. Your father and mother have it +too; but where did <i>they</i> get it from? You're a puzzle-family--all of +you. But wouldn't you like a cup of tea? Come in," and she led the way +indoors to a tiny, sweet-smelling boudoir on the left of the hall, of +which a dainty glimpse, with its books and water-colours and bibelots, +was to be caught from the terrace.</p> + +<p>Everything about Myrtilla Williamson was scrupulously, determinedly +dainty, from the flowered tea-gown about her slim, girlish figure,--her +predilection for that then novel and suspected garment was regarded as a +sure mark of a certain Parisian levity by her neighbours,--to her just a +little "precious" enunciation. In France, in the seventeenth century, +she would almost certainly have been a visitor at the Hotel Rambouillet, +and to-day she was mysteriously and disapprovingly spoken of as +"aesthetic." She had a look as if she had tripped out of a Japanese fan, +and slept at night in a pot-pourri jar. And she had brains, those good +things--brains.</p> + +<p>Her name was very like her life, one-half of which might be described as +Myrtilla, the other half as Williamson. She was Myrtilla during the day, +dabbling with her water-colours, her flowers, or her books; but at six +o'clock each afternoon, with the sound of aggressive masculine boots in +the hall, her life suddenly changed with a sigh to Williamson. The +Williamson half of her life was so clumsily, so grotesquely ill-matched +with the Myrtilla half that it was, and probably will always remain, a +mystery why she had ever attempted so tasteless and inconvenient an +addition,--a mystery, however, far from unique in the history of those +mysteriously stupid unhappy marriages with evident boors which refined +and charming women will, it is to be feared, go on making to the end of +the human chapter.</p> + +<p>It was perhaps a day hardly less interesting for Myrtilla than for the +young people themselves when she had first met Henry and Esther +Mesurier. Before, in the dull bourgeois society into which Williamson +had transplanted her from London, she had found none with whom she dared +be her natural Myrtilla. There she was expected to be Williamson to the +bone. Henry and Esther, however, were only too grateful for Myrtilla, +through whom was to come to them the revelation of some minor graces of +life for which they had the instincts, but on which they had lacked +instruction; and who, still more important, at least for Henry, was to +be their first fragile link with certain strenuous new northern writers, +translations of whom in every tongue had just then descended, Gothlike, +upon Europe, to the great energising of its various literatures. She it +was too who first handed them the fretted golden key to the enchanted +garden of the Pre-Raphaelites, and the striking head of the young Dante +in sepia, which had hung in a sort of shrine-recess in Henry's study, +had been copied for him from Rossetti's sketch by Myrtilla's own hand.</p> + +<p>She had, too, one of the most precious gifts for friendship, the gift of +unselfish and diligent and progressive appreciation of all a friend's +good points. She never flattered; but she never missed the smallest +opportunity for praise. She was one of those rare people who make you +feel happy in yourself, who send you away somehow dignified, profitably +raised in your own esteem; just as others have a mysterious power of +dejecting you in your proudest moments. If you had any charm, however +shy, Myrtilla Williamson would find it, and send you away with a great +gush of gratitude to her because it had been found at last. This was +perhaps the greatest charm of her clever letters; they were all about +"you,"--not, of course, that you didn't want to hear about her. But +frequently all she told you of herself was her name. Perhaps she would +write in the half-hour that remained between, say, a visit from Esther +and the arrival of Williamson, to fix in a few intimate vivid words the +charm of their afternoon together, and tell Esther in some new +gratifying way what she was to her and why and how she was it; or when +Henry had been there--even more carefully in the absence of +Williamson--to read her his new poem, she would write him a long letter +of literary criticism, just perceptibly vibrating with the emotion she +might have felt for the romantic young poet, whom she allowed to call +himself her "cavaliere servente," had she not been Williamson as well as +Myrtilla, and had she not, as she somewhat unscientifically declared, +been old enough to be his mother.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said, as they sipped their tea, "so Henry's really gone. He +slipped round to bid me a sort of good-bye yesterday, and told me the +whole story. On the whole, I'm glad, though I know how you'll miss each +other. But I'm sorriest for your mother. Yes, yes, I'm sorry for her. +You must try to make it up to her, dear child. I think just that, above +all things, would make me fear to be a mother. One can do without +children," and there was a certain implication in the conversational +atmosphere that children of the name of Williamson had been mercifully +spared the world; "but when once they have come into one's life, it must +be terrible to see them go out again. I should like to come round and +have a little talk with your mother. I wonder if she'd care to see me?"</p> + +<p>"So long as you don't come in your tea-gown," said Esther, with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"Cruel child!" and then with a way she had of suddenly finding +something she wanted to hear of among the interests of her friends, +"Now," she said, "tell me something about Mike. I suppose the course of +true love runs as smoothly as ever. Happy children! Give him my love +when you see him, won't you?"</p> + +<p>Esther told all there was to tell about Mike up-to-date, and wished she +could have repaid her friend's sympathetic interest with a request for +something similar about Williamson. But it was tacitly understood that +there was nothing further to be said on that subject, and that the news +of Myrtilla's life could hardly again take any more excitingly personal +form than the bric-a-brac excitements of art or literature,--though +indeed art and literature were, to be just to them, far more than +bric-a-brac in the life of Myrtilla Williamson. They were, indeed, it +was easy to see, a very sustaining religion for the lonely little woman +who, having no children to study, and having completed her studies of +Williamson, was driven a good deal upon the study and development of +herself. The Williamson half of the day provided her fully with +opportunities for the practice of all the philosophy she was likely to +acquire from writers ancient and modern, and for the absorption of all +the consolation history and biography was likely to afford in the +stories of women similarly circumstanced. It is to be feared that +Myrtilla not only wore tea-gowns in advance of her time, but was also +somewhat prematurely something of a "new" woman; but this was a subject +on which she really did very little to "poison" Esther's "young mind." +Esther's young mind, in common with those of her two subsequent sisters, +was little in need of "poisoning" from outside on such subjects. Indeed, +it was a curious phenomenon to observe how all these young minds, sprung +from a stock of such ancient, unquestioning faith, had, so to say, been +born "poisoned;" or, to state the matter less metaphorically, had all +been born with instincts for the most pitiless and effortless reasoning +on all subjects human and divine.</p> + +<p>As the hour approached when poor Myrtilla must change back to +Williamson, Esther rose to say good-bye.</p> + +<p>"Come again soon, dear girl; you don't know the good you do me."</p> + +<p>The good, dear woman was entirely done by her unwearied, sympathetic +discussion of the affairs and dreams of Esther, Mike, and Henry.</p> + +<p>"Oh, here is a wonderful new book I intended to talk to you about. You +can take it with you; I have finished it. Come next week and tell me +what you think of it."</p> + +<p>As Esther walked down the path, Myrtilla watched her, and, as she passed +out of the gate, waved her a final kiss of parting, and turned indoors. +There seemed something ever so sad about her dainty back as it +disappeared into the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Poor little woman!" said Esther to herself, as she looked to see the +title of the book she was carrying. It included a curious Russian name, +the correct pronunciation of which she foresaw she must ask Myrtilla on +their next meeting. It was "The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff."</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>A RHAPSODY OF TYRE</h3> +<br> + +<p>Sidon, the stage of the moving events so far recorded, though it makes +much of possessing a separate importance, is really a cross-river +residential suburb of Tyre, the great seaport in which all the ships of +the world come to and fro. During the day Sidon is virtually emptied of +its men-folk, and is given up to perambulators and feminine activities +generally; for the men have streamed across the ferries that bridge the +sunny, boisterous river, to the docks and offices of Tyre.</p> + +<p>Though Tyre is not a very old city, it is not so new as to be denied a +few of those associations known as "historical." Tyre had once the +honour to be taken by Prince Rupert, and long before that its nucleus +had existed as a monk's ferry, by which travellers were rowed across the +river to the monastery and posting-house at Sidon. Sometimes of an +evening Henry and Mike would think of those far-off times as they looked +over the ferry-boat at the long lines of river lights, with their +restless heaving reflections; and sometimes they could picture to +themselves the green sloping banks of the virgin fields, and hear the +priory bell calling to them out of the darkness. But such were the +faintest of their visions; and they loved the river banks best as they +are to-day, with their Egyptian walls and swarming lights and +tangled ships.</p> + +<p>And whoso should think that that sordid commercial city, given up to all +the prose of trade day by day, is not a poet at heart, has never seen +her strange smile at evening when the shops are shut, and the offices +empty, and the men who know her not gone home. For then across the +crowded roofs softly comes a strange sweetness, and deep down among the +gloomy wynds of deserted warehouses, still as temples, sudden fairies of +sunset dance and dazzle, and touch the grimy walls with soft hands. In +lonely back rooms, full of desks and dust, haunted lights of evening +stand like splendid apparitions; and sometimes, if you lingered at the +top of High Street, beneath the dark old church, and the moon was out +on the left of the steeple and the sunset dying on the right, dying +beyond the tangled masts and fading from the river, you would forget you +were a city clerk, and you would wonder why the world was so beautiful, +why the moon was made of pearl, and what it was that called to you out +of yonder golden sea; and your heart would fill with a strange gladness, +and you would call back to those unearthly voices, "I am yours, yours, +all yours!"</p> + +<p>Thus would this town of bales and merchants, of office-desks and stools, +make poets at evening that she might stone them at noon. For, of course, +she would have forgotten it all in the morning; and it were well not to +remind her with your dreaming eyes of her last night's softness. She +will look back at you with stony misunderstanding, and her new lover +Reality will sharply box your ears.</p> + +<p>It is no use reminding the Exchange that it looked like a scene from +Romeo and Juliet in the moonlight. It dare not admit it. But wait +patiently till the evening. Tyre will be yours again with the sunset. +She pretends all day that it is the Mayor in the gilded coach and the +pursy merchantmen she cares for; but it is really you, a poor shabby +poet, she loves all the time, for you only does she wear her gauzy silks +at evening!</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>A PENITENTIARY OF THE MATHEMATICS</h3> +<br> + +<p>Yes, Mike was some day to be another Kean, and Henry was to prove a +serious rival to Shakespeare; but, meanwhile, they were clerks in the +offices of Tyre.</p> + +<p>Of the rigours, and therefore too the truancies and humours of the lot +official, Mike was comparatively so comfortably circumstanced as to have +little knowledge. His father was the king of a little flourishing prison +of desks, and Mike was one of the heirs-apparent. Consequently, his lot, +though dull, was seldom bitter; and many mitigations of it were within +his privilege. With Henry it was different. He was a humble unit among +twenty other slaves, chained to that modern substitute for the galleys, +the desk; and, in a wicked bargain, he had contracted to give his +life-blood from nine in the morning till six in the evening, for sixty +pounds a year, with an occasional "rise," which, after thirty years' +service, might end in your having reached a proud annual three hundred +for the rest of your maimed and narrowed days.</p> + +<p>Henry had come to the office straight from school, at the age of +sixteen; and, though classrooms breathe an air sufficiently frigid and +suggestive of inhuman interests and unmeaning discipline, the icy air of +that office had at first almost taken his breath. The place was so +ridiculously serious! There might conceivedly be interests in the world +worthy of so abject an absorption, so bleaching an obeisance of the +individual; but Henry, with the dews of certain classics still upon him, +remembered that anything really Olympian in its importance is always +strong enough to smile. It is a lesser strength that must make the +muscular effort of severity. True dignities, as often as possible, stand +at ease. But here indeed were no true strengths and dignities,--only +prison-strengths and prison-dignities. Here the majesties, the +occupations, the offences, were alike frivolities, fantastically changed +about into solemnities.</p> + +<p>That first impression of abject bowed heads and chains rattled beneath +desks, was roughly correct. For all that was human in a man, this was a +prison. These men who bent over foolish papers were evidently convicts +of the most desperate character; so, at all events, you would judge when +occasionally one or other of the prison-governors, known as "partners," +passed among them with the lash of his eye. Such faint human twittering +as may have grown up amongst even these poor exiles would suddenly die +into a silence white with fear, as when the shadow of a hawk falls +across the song of smaller birds.</p> + +<p>No human relations are acknowledged here. Outside, you may be a husband +wonderfully beloved and tragically important; you may be a man whose +courage has be-medalled your brave breast; you may be a passionate and +subtle musician in your private hours; you may even on Sundays be a much +appreciated vessel of the divine: but all such distinctions are not +current here; here they are foreign coin, diplomas unacknowledged in +this barbarous realm of ink and steel. The more ignorant, the more +narrow, the more mean, the more unnatural, you can contrive to be, the +better will be your lot in this sad monastery of Mammon. When the door +hissed behind you, with that little patent pneumatic device, you ceased +to be a human being, and began to be--the human machine. All the +vitality you have stored within that pale body you are expected to +exhaust here,--you have sold it, don't you remember, for sixty or three +hundred pounds a year; you are not expected to have any left over for +pleasures. That will be robbery. Masters suffer much from peculation +indeed in this way; but a machine is in course of invention which shall +put an end to this, by the application of which to your heart the +task-master will know whether or not you have spent every available +heart-beat in his slavery during the day, or whether you are +endeavouring, you miserable thief, to steal home with a little remnant +of it for your children at night.</p> + +<p>This was the theory of the office, as Henry once heard it expressed, +with a cynicism more brief and direct from the lips of one of his +task-masters; but it must be admitted that in certain respects his +experience was extreme. There are offices which are the ears and eyes of +activities absorbingly and even romantically human. To be in a +shipping-office is not perhaps to be the rose, but it is to live near +it,--the great rose of the sea. You are, so to say, a land-sailor, a +supercargo left on shore. Your office-windows are lashed with +hurricanes; your talk is frequently of cyclones. The names of far +romantic isles are constantly on your lips, and your bills of lading are +threepenny romances in themselves. Strange produce of distant lands are +your daily concern, and the four winds meet at your counter with a +savour of tar. For all you know, a pirate may claim your attention any +minute of the day.</p> + +<p>Or, again, to be, say, in a corn-merchant's, a clearing-house of the +fruitful earth. There at your telephone you may hear the corn-fields +whispering to you, hear the wheat waving in the wind, and the thin +chatter of oats. Or you may sell butter and cheese in an office that +smells of farms. However removed, you are an indirect agent of the +earth, a humble go-between of the seasons and the eternal needs of man.</p> + +<p>Or, once more, you may be one of the thousand clerks of a great +manufacturer, and be humbly related to one of the arts or crafts that +gladden the eye or add to the comforts of man. Or even, though you may +be denied so close an association with the elements, or the arts, you +may be the pen to some subtle legal confidante of human nature. Your +office may be stored with records of human perversity and whimsicality. +You may be the witness to fantastic wills, or assist in the +administration of the estates of lunatics. At all events, you will come +within hearing of the human passions. Misers will visit you at times, +and beautiful ladies in mourning deep as their distress; and from your +desk you will catch a glimpse of the sombre pageantry of litigious man.</p> + +<p>Though it is true that a certain far-off flavour of these legal +excitements occasionally enlivened the business to which Henry had been +sacrificially indentured, for the most part it was an abstract +parasitical thing which had succeeded in persuading other businesses, +more directly fed from the human spring, of its obliging usefulness in +relieving them of detachable burdens. In fact, it had no activity or +interest of its own to account for, so it proposed, in default of any +such original reason for existence, to look after the accounts of +others, as a self-constituted body of financial police. For those +engaged in it, except those who had been born mentally deformed, or +those who had become unnaturally perverted by long usage, it was a sort +of penitentiary of the mathematics.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> +<br> + +<h3>THE GRASS BETWEEN THE FLAG-STONES</h3> + +<p>Yes, it was a curiously unreal world; and, for the first day or two, as +Henry, bent, lonely and bewildered, over his desk, studied it furtively +with questioning eyes, it seemed to him as though he had strayed into +some asylum for the insane, where fantastic interests and mock honours +take the place of the real interests and honours of sane human beings.</p> + +<p>Part of the business of the firm consisted in the collection of +house-rents, frequently entailing visits from tenants and questions of +repairs. A certain Mr. Smith, a wiry little grey-headed man, with a keen +face and a decisive manner, looked after this branch; and the gusto with +which he did it was one of Henry's earliest and most instructive +amazements. House-repairs were quite evidently his poetry, and he never +seemed so happy as when passionately wrangling with a tenant on some +question of drains. The words "cesspool" and "wet-trap"--words to which +I don't pretend to attach any meaning--seemed to be particular +favourites of his. In fact, an hour seldom passed without their falling +from his lips. But Mr. Smith's great opportunity was a gale. For that +always meant an exciting harvest of dislodged chimney-pots, flying +slates, and smashed skylights, which would impart an energetic interest +to his life for days.</p> + +<p>Again, in Henry's department--for the office was cut into two halves, +with about ten clerks in each, the partners having, of course, their own +private offices, from which they might dart out at any moment--there was +a certain little fussy chief clerk who was obviously a person of very +mysterious importance. He was frequently away, evidently on missions of +great moment, for always on his return he would be closeted immediately +with one or other of the partners, who in turn seemed to consider him +important too, and would sometimes treat him almost like one of +themselves, actually condescending to laugh with him now and again over +some joke, evidently as mysterious as all the rest. This Mr. Perkins +seldom noticed the juniors in his department, though occasionally he +would select one of them to accompany him on one of his missions to +clients of the firm; and they would start off together, as you may see a +plumber and his apprentice sometimes in the streets,--the proud +master-plumber in front, and the little apprentice plumber behind, +carrying the lead pipe and the iron smelting-pot.</p> + +<p>Now, did Mr. Smith really take such a heart-interest in cesspools and +wet-traps as he appeared to do? and did Mr. Perkins really think he +mattered all that?</p> + +<p>These were two of the earliest questions which Henry asked himself, and +as time brought the answers to them, and kindred questions, there were +unexpected elements of comfort for the heart of the boy, longing so +desperately in that barren place for any hint of the human touch. One +day Mr. Smith startled him by mentioning Dickens, and even Charles Lamb. +It was a kindly recognition of Mesurier's rumoured interest in +literature. Henry looked at him in amazement. "Oh, you read then!" he +exclaimed. Of anything so human as reading he had suspected no one in +that office.</p> + +<p>Then as to the great Mr. Perkins, the time came when he was to prove +very human indeed. For, dying suddenly one day, his various work had to +pass into other hands; and, bit by bit, it began to leak out that those +missions had not been so industriously devoted to the interests of the +firm, nor been so carefully executed, as had been imagined. For Mr. +Perkins, it transpired, had been fond of his pleasures, could appreciate +wine, and liked an occasional informal holiday. So, posthumously, he +began to wear for Henry a faint halo of humanity.</p> + +<p>Indeed, it did not take Henry many days to realise that, as grass will +force its way even between the flag-stones in a prison-yard, no little +humanity contrived to support its existence even in this dead place. By +degrees, he realised that these apparently colourless and frigid figures +about him had each their separate individuality, engaging or otherwise; +that their interests were by no means centred on the dull pages before +them; and that, for the most part, they were very much in a like case +with himself. Although thus immured from the world of realities, they +still maintained, in vigorous activity, many healthy outdoor interests, +and were quite keen in their enthusiasm for, and remarkably instructed +in, the latest developments of horse-racing, football, and +prize-fighting. Likewise, they had retained an astonishingly fresh and +unimpaired interest in women, and still enjoyed the simple earth-born +pleasures of the glass and the pipe.</p> + +<p>As he understood this, Henry began to feel more at home; and, as the +characters of his associates revealed themselves, he began to see that +there were amongst them several pleasant and indeed merry fellows, and +that, after all, fortune might have thrown him into much worse company. +They, on their side, making like discoveries in him, he presently found +himself admitted to their freemasonry, and initiated into their many +secret ways of mitigating their lot, and shortening their long days. +Thus, this chill, stern world of automata, which, on first sight, looked +as if no human word or smile or jest could escape the detection of its +iron laws, revealed, when you were once inside it, an under-world of +pleasant escapes and exciting truancies, of which, as you grew +accustomed to the risks and general conditions of the life, you were +able skilfully to avail yourself.</p> + +<p>The main principle of these was to seem to spend twice as much time on +each task as it needed, that you might have the other half for such +private uses as were within your reach,--to elongate dinner-hours at +both ends so adroitly, and on such carefully selected propitious +occasions, that the elongation, or at least the whole extent of it, +would pass unobserved; and, in general, to gain time, any waste ends of +five minutes or quarter hours, on all possible occasions. If the reader +calls this shirking and robbery, he must. Technically, no doubt, it was; +but these clerks, without so formulating it, merely exercised the right +of all oppressed beings liberally to interpret to their own advantage, +where possible, the terms of an unjust contract which grinding economic +conditions had compelled them to make. They had been forced to promise +too much in exchange for too little, and they equalised the disparity +where they could.</p> + +<p>Whether they spent the time thus hoarded in a profitable fashion, is a +question of personal definition. It was usually expended in companies of +twos or threes, with a pipe and a pot of beer and much spirited talk, in +the warm corners of adjacent taverns; and, so long as you don't drink +too much, there has perhaps been invented none pleasanter than that +old-fashioned way of spending an hour. Certainly, it was the way for ale +to taste good, and a pipe to seem the most satisfying of all earthly +consolations. It was almost worth the bondage to enjoy the keen relish +of the escape.</p> + +<p>By degrees, though the youngest there, Henry came to be allowed a +certain leadership in these sorties of the human element. He made it his +business to stimulate these unthrifty instincts, and to fan the welcome +sparks of natural idleness; and so successfully that at times there +seemed to have entered with him into that gloomy place a certain Bacchic +influence, which now and again would prompt his comrades to such daring +clutches of animated release, that the spirit of it even pervaded the +penetralia of the senior partner's office, with the result that some +mishap of truancy would undo the genial work of months, and precipitate +upon them for a while the rigours of a ten-fold discipline. It was after +such an occasion that, in writing to James Mesurier as to the progress +of his son, old Mr. Septimus Lingard had paid Henry one of the proudest +compliments of his young days. "I fear that we shall make little of your +son Henry," he wrote. "His head seems full of literature, and he is so +idle that he is demoralising the whole office."</p> + +<p>It took Henry more than a year to win that testimonial; but the odds had +been so great against him that the wonder is he was ever able to win it +at all. Mr. Lingard wrote "demoralise." It was his way of saying +"humanise."</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<br> + +<h3>HUMANITY IN HIGH PLACES</h3> + +<p>One day, however, Henry was to make the still more surprising discovery, +that not only were the clerks human beings, but that one of the +partners--only one of them--was also human. He made this discovery about +the senior partner, whose old-world figure and quaint name, Septimus +Searle Lingard, had, in spite of his severity, attracted him by a +certain musty distinction.</p> + +<p>A stranger figure than Septimus Searle Lingard has seldom walked the +streets of any town. Though not actually much over sixty, you would have +said he must be a thousand; his abnormally long, narrow, shaven face was +so thin and gaunt and hollowed, and his tall, upright figure was so +painfully fragile, that his black broadcloth seemed almost too heavy for +the worn frame inside it. And nothing in the world else was ever so +piercingly solemn as his keen weary old eyes. With his tall silk hat, +his thin white hair, his long white face, long black frock-coat, and +black trousers, he looked for all the world like a distinguished +skeleton. Henry could never be quite sure whether he was to be classed +as a "character," or as a genuine personality. One thing was certain, +that, sometime or other, or many times, in his life he had done +something, or many things, which had won for him a respect as deep as +his solemnity of aspect; and certainly, if gravity of demeanour goes for +anything, all the owls of all the ages in collaboration could not have +produced an expression of time-honoured wisdom so convincing. Sometimes +his old lantern-jaws would emit an uncanny cackle of a laugh, and a +ghastly flicker of humour play across his parchment features; but these +only deepened the general sense of solemnity, as the hoot of a +night-bird deepens the loneliness of some desolate hollow among +the hills.</p> + +<p>It was this strange old ghost of a man that was to be the next to turn +human, and it came about like this. Right away at the top of the +building was a lonely room where the sun never shone, in which were +stored away the old account-books, diaries, and various +dead-and-done-with documents of the firm; and here too was deposited, +from time to time, various wreckage of the same kind from other +businesses whose last offices had been done by the firm, and whose +records were still preserved, in the unlikely event of any chance +resurrection of claim upon, or interest in, their long forgotten names.</p> + +<p>Here crumbled the last relics of many an ambitious enterprise,--great +ledgers, with their covers still fresh, lay like slabs, from which, if +you wiped away the dust, the gilded names of foundered companies would +flash as from gaudy tombstones; letter-books bursting with letters that +no eye would read again so long as the world lasted; yellow title-deeds +from which all the virtue had long since exhaled, and to which no +dangling of enormous seals could any longer lend a convincing air of +importance. Here everything was dead and dusty as an old shoe. The dry +bones in the valley of Askelon were as children skipping in the morning +sun compared with the dusty death that mouldered and mouldered in this +lonely locked-up room,--this catacomb of dead businesses.</p> + +<p>It was seldom necessary to visit this room; but occasionally Henry +would find an excuse to loiter an hour there, for there was a certain +dreary romance about the place, and the almost choking smell of old +leather seemed to promise all sorts of buried secrets. It cannot be said +that the place ever adequately gratified the sense of mystery it +excited; but, after all, to excite the sense of mystery is perhaps +better than to gratify it, and, considering its poor material, this room +was quite a clever old mysteriarch.</p> + +<p>One day, however, Henry came upon some writing that did greatly interest +him, though it was almost contemporary. It was old Mr. Septimus +Lingard's diary for the year preceding, which he had got hold of,--not +his private diary, but the entirely public official diary in which he +kept account of the division of his days among his various clients--for +the most part an unexciting record. But at the end of the book, on one +of the general memoranda pages, Henry noticed a square block of writing +which, to his surprise, proved to be a long quotation from a book which +the old man had been reading,--on the Immortality of the soul!</p> + +<p>Had old Mr. Septimus Lingard a soul too, a soul that troubled him +maybe, a soul that had its moving memories, and its immortal +aspirations? Yes, somewhere hidden in that strange legal document of a +body, there was evidently a soul. Mr. Lingard had a soul!</p> + +<p>But wait a moment, here was an addition of the old man's own! The +passage quoted had been of death and its possible significance, and it +was just a sigh, a fear, the old man had breathed after it: <i>How high +has the winding-sheet encompassed my own bosom</i>!</p> + +<p>Solemn as were the words in themselves, they seemed doubly so in that +lonely room; and Henry was glad to lock the door and return to the +comparatively living world downstairs. But from that moment old Mr. +Lingard was transfigured in his eyes. Beneath all the sternness of his +exterior, the grimness of the business interests which seemed to absorb +him, Henry had discovered the blessed human spring. And he came too to +wear a certain pathos and sanctity in Henry's eyes, as he remembered how +old a man he was, and that secretly all this time, while he seemed so +busy with this public company and another, he was quietly preparing to +die. From this moment tasks done for him came to have a certain joy in +them. For his sake, as it were, he began to understand how you might +take a pride in doing well something that, in your opinion, was not +worth doing; and one day when the old man, well satisfied with some work +he had done, patted him kindly on the back and said, "We'll make a +business man of you after all!" the tears started to his eyes, and for a +moment he almost hoped that they would.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<br> + +<h3>DAMON AND PYTHIAS</h3> + +<p>By an odd coincidence, the night which had seen Henry and Esther +confront their father, had seen, in another household in which the young +people counted another member of their secret society of youth, a +similar but even less seemly clash between the generations. Ned Hazell +would be a poet too, and a painter as well, and perhaps a romantic +actor; but his father's tastes for his son's future lay in none of these +directions, and Ned was for the present in cotton. Now the elder Mr. +Hazell was a man of violently convivial habits, and the <i>bonhomie</i>, with +which he was accustomed to enliven bar-parlours up till eleven of an +evening, was apt to suffer a certain ungenial transformation as he +reached his own front door. There the wit would fail upon his lips, the +twinkle die out of his glance, and an unaccountable ferocity towards the +household that was waiting up for him take their place. When possible, +he would fix upon some trivial reason to give an air of plausibility to +this curious change in him; but if that were not forthcoming, he would, +it appeared, fly into a violent rage for just that very reason.</p> + +<p>However, on this particular night, Heaven had provided him with an +heroic occasion. His son, he discovered, was for once out later than his +father. In what haunt of vice, or low place of drinking, he was at the +moment ensnared, no one better than his father could imagine. The +opportunity was one not to be missed. The outraged parent at last +realised that he had borne with him long enough, borne long enough with +his folderols of art and nonsense; and so determined was he on the +instant that he would have no more of it, that, with a quite remarkable +energy, he had thereupon repaired to his son's room, opened the window, +and begun vigorously to throw his pretty editions, his dainty +water-colours, his drawers full of letters, his cast of the Venus of +Milo, out on to the lawn, upon which at the moment a heavy rain was +also falling.</p> + +<p>In the very whirlwind of his righteous vandalism his son had returned, +and, being a muscular, hot-blooded lad, had taken his father by the +throat, called him a drunken beast, and hurled him to the floor, where +he pinned him down with a knee on his chest, and might conceivably have +made an end of him, but for the interference of mother and sisters, who +succeeded at last in getting the dazed and somewhat sobered parent +to bed.</p> + +<p>Having raked together from the sodden <i>débris</i> beneath his window some +disfigured remains of his poor treasures, Ned Hazell had left the house +in the early hours of the morning, in good earnest for ever.</p> + +<p>When he confided the excitements of the night to Henry at lunch next +day, and heard in return his friend's news, nothing could be more plain +than that they should set up lodgings together; and it was, therefore, +to the rooms of which Ned was already in possession that Henry's cab had +toppled with his various belongings, after those tearful farewells at +his father's door. Esther followed presently to help make the place +straight and dainty for the two boys, and having left them, late that +evening, with flowers in all the jars, and the curtains as they should +be, they were fairly launched on their new life together.</p> + +<p>In Mike Henry had a stanch friend and an admirer against all comers, and +in Henry Mike had a friend and admirer no less loyal; but their +friendship was one for which an on-looker might have found it less easy +to give reasons than for that of Henry and Ned. Mike and Henry loved +each other, it would appear, less for any correspondence in dispositions +or tastes, as just because they were Mike and Henry. Right away down in +their natures there was evidently some central affinity which operated +even in spite of surface contradictions. There was much of this +intrinsic quality in the affection of Henry and Ned also, but it was +much more to be accounted for by evident mutual sympathies. It was +largely the impassioned fellowship of two craftsmen in love with the +same art. Both had their literary ambitions; but, irrespective of those, +they both loved poetry. Yes, how they loved it! Ned was perhaps +particularly a born appreciator; and it was worth seeing how the tears +would come into his fine eyes, as his voice shook with tenderness over a +fine phrase or a noble passage. They had discovered some of the most +thrilling things in English literature together, at that impressionable +age when such things mean most to us. Together they had read Keats for +the first wonderful time; together learned Shakespeare's Sonnets by +heart; together rolled out over tavern-tables the sumptuous cadences of +De Quincey. Wonderful indeed, and never to be forgotten, were those +evenings when, the day at last over, they would leave their offices +behind them, and, while the sunset was turning the buildings of Tyre +into enchanted towers, and a clemency of release breathed upon its +streets, steal to the quiet corner of their favourite tavern; to drink +port and share their last new author, or their own latest rhymes, and +then to emerge again, with high calm hearts and eloquent eyes, beneath +the splendid stars.</p> + +<p>All the arts within their reach they thus shared together,--pictures, +music, theatres,--in a fine comradeship. Together they had bravoed the +great tragedians, and together hopelessly worshipped the beautiful +faces, enskied and sainted, of famous actresses. In fact, they were the +Damon and Pythias of Tyre.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<br> + +<h3>DAMON AND PYTHIAS AT THE THEATRE</h3> +<br> + +<p>Once, long before the beginning of this story, Damon and Pythias were +sitting in a theatre together, with the wonderful overture just +beginning to steal through their senses.</p> + +<p>Ah, violins, whither would you take their souls? You call to them like +the voice of one waiting by the sea, bathed in sunset. What are these +wonderful things you are whispering to their souls? You promise--ah, +what things you promise, strange voices of the string!</p> + +<p>Oh, sirens, have pity! Their hearts are pure, their bodies sweet as +apples. Oh, be faithful, betray them not, beautiful voices of the +wondrous world!</p> + +<p>The overture had succeeded. Their souls had followed it over the +footlights, and, floating in the limelight, shone there awaiting the +fulfilment of the promise.</p> + +<p>The play was "Pygmalion and Galatea," and at the appearance of Galatea +they knew that the overture had not lied. There, in dazzling white +flesh, was all it had promised; and when she called "Pyg-ma-lion!" how +their hearts thumped!--for they knew it was really them she was calling.</p> + +<p>"Pyg-ma-lion! Pyg-ma-lion!"</p> + +<p>It was as though Cleopatra called them from the tomb.</p> + +<p>Their hands met. They could hear each other's blood singing. And was not +the play itself an allegory of their coming lives? Did not Galatea +symbolise all the sleeping beauty of the world that was to awaken, warm +and fragrant, at the kiss of their youth? And somewhere, too, shrouded +in enchanted quiet, such a white white woman waited for their kiss. In a +vision they saw life like the treasure cave of the Arabian thief; and +they said to their beating hearts that they had the secret of the magic +word, that the "open Sesame" was youth.</p> + +<p>No fall of the curtain could hide the vision from their young eyes. It +transfigured the faces of their fellow-playgoers, crowding from the pit; +it made another stage of the embers of the sunset, a distant bridge of +silver far down the street. Then they took it with them to the tavern; +and to write of the solemn libations of that night would be to laugh or +cry. Only youth can be so radiantly ridiculous.</p> + +<p>They had found their own corner. Turning down the gas, the fire played +at day and night with their faces. Imagine them in one of the flashes, +solemnly raising their glasses, hands clasped across the table, earnest +gleaming eyes holding each other above it.</p> + +<p>"Old man, some day, somewhere, a woman like that!"</p> + +<p>But there was still a sequel. At home at last and in bed, how could +Damon sleep! It seemed as if he had got into a rosy sunset cloud in +mistake for his bed. The candle was out, and yet the room was full of +rolling light.</p> + +<p>It was no use; he must get up. So, striking a light, he was presently +deep in the composition of a fiery sonnet. It was evidently that which +had caused all the phosphorescence. But a sonnet is a mere pill-box; it +holds nothing. A mere cockle-shell,--and, oh, the raging sea it could +not hold! Besides being confessedly an art-form, duly licenced to lie, +it was apt to be misunderstood. It could not say in plain words, "Meet +me at the pier to-morrow at three in the afternoon;" it could make no +assignation nearer than the Isles of the Blest, "after life's fitful +fever." Therefore, it seemed well to add a postscript to that effect +in prose.</p> + +<p>But then, how was she to receive it? There was nothing to be hoped from +the post, and Damon's home in Sidon was three miles from the ferry. +Likewise, it was now nearing three in the morning. Just time to catch +the half-past three boat, run up to the theatre, a mile away, and meet +the return boat. So down, down through the creaking house, carefully, as +though he were a Jason picking his way among the coils of the sleeping +dragon; and soon he was shooting through the phantom streets, like +Mercury on a message through Hades.</p> + +<p>At last the river came in sight, growing slate-colour in the earliest +dawn. He could see the boat nuzzling up against the pier, and snoring in +its sleep. He said to himself that this was Styx and the fare an obolus. +As he jumped on board, with hot face and hotter heart, Charon clicked +his signal to the engines; the boat slowly snuffled itself half awake, +and shoved out into the sleepy water.</p> + +<p>As they crossed, the light grew, and the gas-lamps of Tyre beaconed with +fading gleam. Overhead began a restlessness in the clouds, as of a giant +drowsily shuffling off some of his bedclothes; but as yet he slept, and +only the silver bosom of his spouse, the moon, was uncovered.</p> + +<p>When they landed, the streets of Tyre were already light, but empty, as +though they had got up early to meet some one who had not arrived. Damon +sped through them like a sea-gull that has the harbour to itself, and +was not long in reaching the theatre. How desolate the play-bills looked +that had been so companionable but three or four hours before! And there +was her photograph! Surely it was an omen.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my angel! See, I am bringing you my heart in a song. 'All my heart +in this my singing!'"</p> + +<p>He dropped the letter into the box; but, as he turned away, momentarily +glancing up the long street, he caught sight of an approaching figure +that could hardly be mistaken. Good Heavens! it was Pythias, and he too +was carrying a letter.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<br> + +<h3>CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS A GENEALOGY</h3> + +<p>The egregious Miss Bashkirtseff did not greatly fascinate Esther. Her +egotism was too hard, too self-bounded, even for egotism, and there was +generally about her a lack of sympathy. Her passion for fame had +something provincial in its eagerness, and her broadest ideals seemed to +become limited by her very anxiety to compass them. Even her love of art +seemed a form of snobbery. In all these young Mesuriers there was +implicit,--partly as a bye-product of the sense of humour, and partly as +an unconscious mysticism,--a surprising instinct for allowing the +successes of this world their proper value and no more. Even Esther, who +was perhaps the most worldly of them all, and whose ambitions were +largely social, as became a bonny girl whom nature had marked out to be +popular, and on whom, some day when Mike was a great actor,--and had a +theatre of his own!--would devolve the cares of populous "at home" days, +bright after-the-performance suppers, and all the various diplomacies of +the popular wife of fame,--even Esther, however brilliant her life might +become, would never for a moment imagine that such success was a thing +worth winning, at the expense of the smallest loss to such human +realities as the affection she felt for Mike and Henry. To love some one +well and faithfully, to be one of a little circle vowed to eternal +fidelity one to the other,--such was the initial success of these young +lives; and it was to make them all their days safe from the dangers of +more meretricious successes.</p> + +<p>All the same, though the chief performer in Marie Bashkirtseff's +"Confessions" interested her but little, the stage on which for a little +while she had scolded and whimpered did interest her--for should it not +have been her stage too, and Henry's stage, and Dot's stage, father's +and mother's stage too? You had only to look at father to realise that +nature had really meant him for the great stage; here in Sidon, what was +he but a god in exile, bending great powers and a splendid character +upon ridiculously unimportant interests? Indeed, was not his destiny, +more or less, their destiny as a family? Henry would escape from it +through literature, and she through Mike. But what of Dot, what of Mat, +not yet to speak of "the children"?</p> + +<p>All she envied Marie Bashkirtseff was her opportunity. Great Goddess +Opportunity! So much had come to Marie in the cradle, and came daily to +a hundred thousand insignificant aristocratic babes, to approach which +for the Mesuriers, even ten years too late, meant convulsions of the +home, and to attain which in any satisfactory degree was probably +impossible. French, for example, and music! Why, if so disposed, Marie +Bashkirtseff might have read old French romances at ten, and to play +Chopin at an earlier age was not surprising in the opportunitied, +so-called "aristocratic" infant. Oh, why had they not been born like the +other Sidonians, whose natures and ideals had been mercifully calculated +to the meridian of Sidon! Why didn't they think the Proudfoots and the +Wilkinsons and the Wagstaffs, and other local nobody-somebodies, people +of importance, and why did they think the mayor a ludicrous upstart, +and the adjacent J.P. a sententious old idiot? Far better to have rested +content in that state of life to which God had called them. To talk +French, or to play Chopin! What did it matter? In one sense nothing, but +in another it mattered like other convenient facilities of life. To the +immortal soul it mattered nothing, but to the mortal social unit it made +life the easier, made the passage of ideas, the intercourse of +individualities, the readier, and, in general, facilitated spiritual and +intellectual, as well as social, communication. To be first-rate +in your instincts, in all your fibres, and third-rate in your +opportunities,--that was a bitter indignity of circumstance.</p> + +<p>This sub-conscious sense of aristocracy--it must be observed, lest it +should have been insufficiently implied--was almost humorously +dissociated in the minds of the young Mesuriers from any recorded family +distinctions. In so far as it was conscious, it was defiantly +independent of genealogy. Had the Mesuriers possessed a coat-of-arms, +James Mesurier would probably have kept it locked up as a frivolity to +be ashamed of, for it was a part of his Puritanism that such earthly +distinctions were foolishness with God; but, as a matter of fact, +between Adam and the immediate great-grandparents of the young +Mesuriers, there was a void which the Herald's office would have found a +difficulty in filling. This it never occurred to them to mind in +the least.</p> + +<p>It was one of Henry's deep-sunken maxims that "a distinguished product +implied a distinguished process," and that, at all events, the +genealogical process was only illustratively important. It would have +been interesting to know how they, the Mesuriers, came to be what they +were. In the dark night of their history a family portrait or two, or an +occasional reference in history, would have been an entertaining +illumination--but, such not being forthcoming, they were, documentally, +so much the less indebted to their progenitors. Yet if they had only +been able to claim some ancestor with a wig and a degree for the +humanities, or some beautiful ancestress with a romantic reputation! +One's own present is so much more interesting for developing, or even +repeating, some one else's past. And yet how much better it was to be as +they were, than as most scions of aristocratic lineage, whose present +was so often nothing and their past everything. How humiliating to be so +pathetically inadequate an outcome of such long and elaborate +preparation,--the mouse of a genealogical mountain! Yes, it was +immeasurably more satisfactory to one's self-respect to be Something out +of Nothing, than Nothing out of Everything. Here so little had made so +much; here so much had made--hardly even a lord. It was better for your +circumstances to be inadequate for you, than you to be inadequate for +your circumstances.</p> + +<p>Henry had amused himself one day in making a list of all their +"ancestors" to whom any sort of worldly or romantic distinction could +attach, and it ran somewhat as follows:--</p> + +<p>(1) A great-grandmother on the father's side, fabled to live in some +sort of a farm-house château in Guernsey, who once a year, up till two +years ago, when she died, had sent them a hamper of apples from Channel +Island orchards. Said "château" believed by his children to descend to +James Mesurier, but the latter indifferent to the matter, and relatives +on the spot probably able to look after it.</p> + +<p>(2) A great-grandfather on the mother's side given to travel, a +"rolling-stone," fond of books and talk, and rich in humanity. Surviving +still in a high-nosed old silhouette.</p> + +<p>(3) A grand-uncle on the father's side who was one of Napoleon's guard +at St. Helena!</p> + +<p>(4) A grandfather on the mother's side, who used to design and engrave +little wooden blocks for patterns on calico-stuffs, and whose little box +of delicate instruments, evidently made for the tracing of lines and +flowers, was one of the few family heirlooms.</p> + +<p>(5) A grandmother on the father's side of whom nothing was known beyond +the beautiful fact that she was Irish.</p> + +<p>(6) A grandfather on the father's side who was a sea-captain, sailing +his own ship (barque "the Lucretia") to the West Indies, and who died of +yellow fever, and was buried, in the odour of romance, on the Isthmus +of Panama.</p> + +<p>(7) An uncle who had also been a sea-captain, and who, in rescuing a +wrecked crew from an Australian reef, was himself capsized, and after a +long swim finally eaten by a shark,--said shark being captured next day, +and found to contain his head entire, two gold rings still in his ears, +which he wore for near-sightedness, after the manner of common sailors, +and one of which, after its strange vicissitudes, had found a +resting-place in the secretaire of his brother, James Mesurier.</p> + +<p>Such was the only accessible "ancestry" of the Mesuriers, and it is to +be feared that the last state of the family was socially worse than the +first. James Mesurier was unapproachably its present summit, its Alpine +peak; and he was made to suffer for it no little by humble and +impecunious relatives. Still, whatever else they lacked, Henry Mesurier +loved to insist that these various connections were rich in character, +one or two of them inexhaustible in humour; and their rare and somewhat +timorous visits to the castle of their exalted relative, James Mesurier, +were occasions of much mirthful embarrassment to the young people. Here +the reader is requested to excuse a brief parenthetical chapter by way +of illustration, which, if he pleases, he may skip without any loss of +continuity in the narrative, or the least offence in the world to the +writer. This present chapter will be found continued in chapter sixteen.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<br> + +<h3>MERELY A HUMBLE INTERRUPTION AND +ILLUSTRATION OF THE LAST</h3> + +<p>Some peaceable afternoon when Mrs. Mesurier was enjoying a little doze +on the parlour sofa, and her three elder daughters were snatching an +hour or two from housework--they had already left school--for a little +private reading, the drowsy house would suddenly be awakened by one loud +wooden knock at the door.</p> + +<p>"Now, whoever can that be!" the three girls would impatiently exclaim; +and presently the maid would come to Miss Esther to say that there was +an old man at the door asking for Mrs. Mesurier.</p> + +<p>"What's his name, Jane?"</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't give it, miss. He said it would be all right. Mrs. Mesurier +would know him well enough."</p> + +<p>"Whoever can it be? What's he like, Jane?"</p> + +<p>"He looks like a workman, miss,--very old, and rather dotey."</p> + +<p>"Who can it be? Go and ask him his name again."</p> + +<p>Esther would then arouse her mother; and the maid would come in to say +that at last the old man had been persuaded to confide his name as +Clegg--Samuel Clegg.</p> + +<p>"Tell the missus it's Samuel Clegg," the old man had said, with a +certain amusing conceit. "She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg."</p> + +<p>"Why!" said Mrs. Mesurier, "it's your father's poor old uncle, Mr. +Clegg. Now, girls, you mustn't run away, but try and be nice to him. +He's a simple, good, old man."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mesurier was no more interested in Mr. Clegg than her daughters; +but she had a great fund of humanity, and an inexhaustible capacity for +suffering bores brilliantly.</p> + +<p>"Why, I never!" she would say, adapting her idiom to make the old man +feel at home, as he was presently ushered in, chuntering and triumphant; +"you don't mean to say it's Uncle Clegg. Well, we are glad to see you! I +was just having a little nap, and so you must excuse my keeping +you waiting."</p> + +<p>"Ay, Mary. It's right nice of you to make me so welcome. I got a bit +misdoubtful at the door, for the young maid seemed somehow a little +frightened of me; but when I told the name it was all right. 'Samuel +Clegg,' I said. 'She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg,' I said."</p> + +<p>"Glad indeed," murmured Mrs. Mesurier, "I should think so. Find a chair +for your uncle, Esther."</p> + +<p>"Ay, the name did it," chuckled the old man, who as a matter of fact was +anything but a humble old person, and to whom the bare fact of +existence, and the name of Clegg, seemed warrant enough for thinking +quite a lot of yourself.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you don't remember your old uncle," said the old man to +Esther, looking dimly round, and rather bewildered by the fine young +ladies. Actually, he was only a remote courtesy uncle, having married +their father's mother's sister.</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course, Uncle Clegg," said Esther, a true daughter of her +mother; "but, you see, it's a long time since we saw you."</p> + +<p>"And this is Dorcas. Come and kiss your uncle, Dorcas. And this is +Matilda," said Mrs. Mesurier.</p> + +<p>"Ay," said the old man, "and you're all growing up such fine young +ladies. Deary me, Mary, but they must make you feel old."</p> + +<p>"We were just going to have some tea," said Esther; "wouldn't you like a +cup, uncle?"</p> + +<p>"I daresay your uncle would rather have a glass of beer," said Mrs. +Mesurier.</p> + +<p>"Ay, you're right there, Mary," answered the old man, "right there. A +glass of beer is good enough for Samuel Clegg. A glass of beer and some +bread and cheese, as the old saying is, is good enough for a king; but +bread and cheese and water isn't fit for a beggar."</p> + +<p>All laughed obligingly; and the old man turned to a bulging pocket which +had evidently been on his mind from his entrance.</p> + +<p>"I've got a little present here from Esther," he said,--"Esther" being +the aunt after whom Mike's Esther had been named,--bringing out a little +newspaper parcel. "But I must tell you from the beginning.</p> + +<p>"Well, you know, Mary," he continued, "I was feeling rather low +yesterday, and Esther said to me, 'Why not take a day off to-morrow, +Samuel, and see Mary, it'll shake you up a bit, and I'll be bound she's +right glad to see you?' 'Why, lass!' I said, 'it's the very thing. See +if I don't go in the morning.'</p> + +<p>"So this morning," he continued, "she tidies me up--you know her +way--and sends me off. But before I started, she said, 'Here, Samuel, +you must take this, with my love, to Mary.' I've kept it wrapped up in +this drawer for thirty years, and only the other day our Mary Elizabeth +said, 'Mother, you might give me that old jug. It would look nice in our +little parlour.'" "But no!" I says, "Mary Elizabeth, if any one's to have +that jug, it's your Aunt Mary."</p> + +<p>"How kind of her!" murmured Mrs. Mesurier, sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"Yes, those were her words, Mary," said the old man, unfolding the +newspaper parcel, and revealing an ugly little jug of metallically +glistening earthenware, such as were turned out with strange pride from +certain English potteries about seventy years ago. It seemed made in +imitation of metal,--a sort of earthenware pewter; and evidently it had +been a great aesthetic treasure in the eyes of Mrs. Clegg. Mrs. Mesurier +received it accordingly.</p> + +<p>"How pretty," she said, "and how kind of Aunt Esther! They don't make +such things nowadays."</p> + +<p>"No, it's a vallyble relic," said the old man; "but you're worthy of +it, Mary. I'd rather see you have it than any of them. My word, but I'm +glad I've got it here safely. Esther would never have forgiven me.' Now, +Samuel,' she said, as I left, 'mind you get home before dark, and don't +sit on the jug, whatever you do.'"</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the "young ladies" were in imminent danger of convulsions; +and, at that moment, further to enhance the situation, an old lady of +the neighbourhood, who occasionally dropped in for a gossip, was +announced. She was a prim little lady, with "Cranford" curls, and a +certain old-world charm and old-world vanity about her, and very deaf. +She too was a "character" in her way, but so different from old Mr. +Clegg that the entertainment to be expected from their conjunction was +irresistible even to anticipate.</p> + +<p>"This is Mr. Clegg, an uncle of Mr. Mesurier," said poor Mrs. Mesurier, +by way of introduction.</p> + +<p>"Howd'ye do, marm?" said Mr. Clegg, without rising.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Turtle bowed primly. "Are you sure, my dear, I don't interrupt?" +she said to Mrs. Mesurier; "shall I not call in some other day?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, no!" said Mrs. Mesurier. "Esther, get Mrs. Turtle a little +whisky and water."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Turtle, "only the least little drop in the +world, Esther dear. My heart, you know, my dear. Even so short a walk as +this tires me out."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mesurier responded sympathetically; and then, by way of making +himself pleasant, Mr. Clegg suddenly broke in with such an extraordinary +amenity of old-world gallantry that everybody's hair stood on end.</p> + +<p>"How old do you be?" he said, bowing to the new-comer.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Turtle, putting her hand to her ear; "but +I'm slightly deaf."</p> + +<p>"How old do you be?" shouted the old man.</p> + +<p>Though not unnaturally taken aback at such an unwonted conception of +conversational intercourse, Mrs. Turtle recovered herself with +considerable humour, and, bridling, with an old-world shake of her +head, said,--</p> + +<p>"What would you take me for?"</p> + +<p>"I should say you were seventy, if you're a day," promptly answered the +old man.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, no!" replied Mrs. Turtle, with some pique; "I was only sixty +last January."</p> + +<p>"Well, you carry your age badly," retorted the old man, not to be +beaten.</p> + +<p>"What does he say, my dear?" said the poor old lady turning to Mrs. +Mesurier.</p> + +<p>"You carry your age badly," shouted the determined old man; "she should +see our Esther, shouldn't she, Mary?"</p> + +<p>The silence here of the young people was positively electric with +suppressed laughter. Two of them escaped to explode in another room, and +Esther and her mother were left to save the situation. But on such +occasions as these Mrs. Mesurier grew positively great; and the manner +in which she contrived to "turn the conversation," and smooth over the +terrible hiatus, was a feat that admits of no worthy description.</p> + +<p>Presently the old man rose to go, as the clock neared five. He had +promised to be home before dark, and Esther would think him "benighted" +if he should be late. He evidently had been to America and back in that +short afternoon.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mary, good-bye," he said; "one never knows whether we shall meet +again. I'm getting an old man."</p> + +<p>"Eh, Uncle Clegg, you're worth twenty dead ones yet," said Mrs. +Mesurier, reassuringly.</p> + +<p>"What a strange old gentleman!" said Mrs. Turtle, somewhat bewildered, +as this family apparition left the room.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Uncle Clegg," Esther was heard singing in the hall. +"Good-bye, be careful of the steps. Good-bye. Give our love to +Aunt Esther."</p> + +<p>Then the door would bang, and the whole house breathe a gigantic sigh of +humorous relief.</p> + +<p>(This was the kind of thing girls at home had to put up with!)</p> + +<p>"Well, mother, did you ever see such a funny old person?" said Esther, +on her return to the parlour.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't laugh at him," Mrs. Mesurier would say, laughing herself; +"he's a good old man."</p> + +<p>"No doubt he's good enough, mother dear; but he's unmistakably funny," +Esther would reply, with a whimsical thought of the family tree. Yes, +they were a distinguished race!</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<br> + +<h3>CHAPTER FOURTEEN CONCLUDED</h3> + +<p>No, the Mesuriers had absolutely nothing to hope for from their +relations,--nothing to look back upon, less to look forward to. Most +families, however poor and even <i>bourgeois</i>, had some memories to +dignify them or some one possible contingency of pecuniary inheritance. +At the very least, they had a ghost-story in the family. You seldom read +the biographies of writers or artists without finding references, +however remote, to at least one person of some distinction or substance. +To have had even a curate for an ancestor, or a connection, would have +been something, some frail link with gentility.</p> + +<p>Now if, instead of being a rough old sea-captain of a trading ship, +Grandfather Mesurier had only been a charming old white-headed admiral +living in London, and glad, now and again, to welcome his little country +granddaughters to stay with him! He would probably have been very dull, +but then he would have looked distinguished, and taken one for walks in +the Park, or bought one presents in the Burlington arcade. At least old +admirals always seemed to serve this indulgent purpose in stories. At +all events, he would have been something, some possible link with an +existence of more generous opportunities. Dot and Mat would then at +least have seen a nice boy or two occasionally, and in time got married +as they deserved to be, and thus escape from this little provincial +theatre of Sidon. Who could look at Dot and think that anything short of +a miracle--a miracle like Esther's own meeting with Mike--was going to +find her a worthy mate in Sidon; and, suppose the miracle happened once +more in her case, what of Mat and all the rest? To be the wife of a +Sidonian town-councillor, at the highest,--what a fate!</p> + +<p>Henry and she had often discussed this inadequate outlook for their +younger sisters, quite in the manner of those whose positions of +enlargement were practically achieved. The only thing to be done was for +Henry to make haste to win a name as a writer, and Mike to make his +fortune as an actor. Then another society would be at once opened to +them all. Yes, what wonders were to take place then, particularly when +Mike had made his fortune!--for the financial prospects of the young +people were mainly centred in him. Literature seldom made much +money--except when it wasn't literature. Henry hoped to be too good a +writer to hope to make money as well. But that would be a mere detail, +when Mike was a flourishing manager; for when that had come about, had +not Henry promised him that he would not be too proud to regard him as +his patron to the extent of accepting from him an allowance of, say, a +thousand a year. No, he positively wouldn't agree to more than a +thousand; and Mike had to be content with his promising to take that.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, what could girls at home do, but watch and wait and make home +as pretty as possible, and, by the aid of books and pictures, reflect as +much light from a larger world into their lives as might be.</p> + +<p>On Henry's going away, the three girls had promptly bespoken the +reversion of his study as a little sitting-room for themselves. Here +they concentrated their books, and some few pictures that appealed to +tastes in revolt against Atlantic liners, but not yet developed to the +appreciation of those true classics of art--to which indeed they had yet +to be introduced. Such half-way masters as Leighton, Alma-Tadema, Sant, +and Dicksee were as yet to them something of what Rossetti and +Burne-Jones, and certain old Italian masters, were soon to become. In +books, they had already learnt from Henry a truer, or at all events a +more strenuous, taste; and they would grapple manfully with Carlyle and +Browning, and presently Meredith, long before their lives had use or +understanding for such tremendous nourishment.</p> + +<p>One evening, as they were all three sitting cosily in Henry's study,--as +they still faithfully called it,--Esther was reading "Pride and +Prejudice" aloud, while Dot and Mat busied themselves respectively with +"macramé" work and a tea-cosy against a coming bazaar. Esther's tasks in +the house were somewhat illustrated by her part in the trio this +evening. Her energies were mainly devoted to "the higher nights" of +housekeeping, to the aesthetic activities of the home,--arranging +flowers, dusting vases and pictures, and so on,--and the lightness of +these employments was, it is to be admitted, an occasionally raised +grievance among the sisters. To Dot and Mat fell much more arduous and +manual spheres of labour. Yet all were none the less grateful for the +decorative innovations which Esther, acting on occasional hints from her +friend Myrtilla Williamson, was able to make; and if it were true that +she hardly took her fair share of bed-making and pastry-cooking, it was +equally undeniable that to her was due the introduction of Liberty silk +curtains and cushions in two or three rooms. She too--alas, for the +mistakes of young taste!--had also introduced painted tambourines, and +swathed the lamps in wonderful turbans of puffed tissue paper. Was she +to receive no credit for these services? Then it was she who had dared +to do battle with her mother's somewhat old-fashioned taste in dress; +and whenever the Mesurier sisters came out in something specially pretty +or fashionable, it was due to Esther.</p> + +<p>Well, on this particular evening, she was, as we have said, taking her +share in the housework by reading "Jane Austen" aloud to Dot and Mat; +when the door suddenly opened, and James Mesurier stood there, a little +aloof,--for it was seldom he entered this room, which perhaps had for +him a certain painful association of his son's rebellion. Perhaps, too, +the picture of this happy little corner of his children--a world +evidently so complete in itself, and daily developing more and more away +from the parent world in the front parlour--gave him a certain pang of +estrangement. Perhaps he too felt as he looked on them that same dreary +sense of disintegration which had overtaken the mother on Henry's +departure; and perhaps there was something of that in his voice, as, +looking at them with rather a sad smile, he said,--</p> + +<p>"You look very comfortable here, children. I hope that's a profitable +book you are reading, Esther."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, father. It's 'Jane Austen,' you know."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I want a few words with Dorcas. +She can join you again soon."</p> + +<p>So Dot, wondering what was in store for her, rose and accompanied her +father to the front parlour, where Mrs. Mesurier was peacefully knitting +in the lamplight.</p> + +<p>"Dorcas, my dear," he said, when the door was closed, "your mother and +I have had a serious talk this evening on the subject of your joining +the church. You are now nearly sixteen, and of an age to think for +yourself in such matters; and we think it is time that you made some +profession of your faith as a Christian before the world."</p> + +<p>The Church James Mesurier referred to was that branch of the English +Nonconformists known as Baptists; and the profession of faith was the +curious rite of baptism by complete immersion, the importance claimed +for which by this sect is, perhaps, from a Christian point of view, made +the less disproportionate by another condition attaching to it,--the +condition that not till years of individual judgment have been reached +is one eligible for the sacred rite. With that rationalism which +religious sects are so skilful in applying to some unimportant point of +ritual, and so careful not to apply to vital questions of dogma, the +Baptists reasonably argue that to baptise an unthinking infant, and, by +an external rite which has no significance except as the symbol of an +internal decision, declare him a Christian, is nothing more than an +idolatrous mummery. Wait till the child is of age to choose for him or +herself, to understand the significance of the Christian revelation and +the nature of the profession it is called upon to make; then if, by the +grace of God, it chooses aright, let him or her be baptised. And for the +manner of that baptism, if symbols are to be made use of by the +Christian church,--and it is held wise among the Baptists to make use of +few, and those the most central,--should they not be designed as nearly +after the fashion set forth in the Bible itself as is possible? The +"Ordinance" of the Lord's Supper--as it is called amongst them--follows +the procedure of the Last Supper as recorded in the Gospels; should not, +therefore, the rite of baptism be in its details similarly faithful to +authority? Now in Scripture, as is well known, baptisms were complete +immersions, symbolic alike of the washing away of sin, and also of the +dying to this world and the resurrection to the Life eternal in +Christ Jesus.</p> + +<p>So much theology was bred in the bone of all the young Mesuriers; and +the youngest of them could as readily have capitulated these articles of +belief as their father, who once more briefly summarised them to-night +for the benefit of his daughter. He ended with something of a personal +appeal. It had been one of the griefs of his life that Henry and Esther +had both refused to join their father's church, though Esther always +dutifully attended it every Sunday morning; and it was thinking of them, +though without naming them, that he said,--</p> + +<p>"I met Mr. Trotter yesterday,"--Mr. Trotter was the local Baptist +minister, and Dot remarked to herself that her father was able to +pronounce his name without the smallest suspicion that such a name, as +belonging to a minister of divine mysteries, was rather ludicrous, +though indeed Baptist ministers seemed always to have names like +that!--"and he asked me when some of my young ladies were going to join +the church. I confess the question made me feel a little ashamed; for, +you know, my dear, out of our large family not one of you has yet come +forward as a Christian."</p> + +<p>"No, father," said Dot, at last.</p> + +<p>"I hope, my dear, you are not going to disappoint me in this matter."</p> + +<p>"No indeed, father," said Dot, whose nature was pliable and +sympathetic, as well as fundamentally religious; "but I'm afraid I +haven't thought quite as much about it as I should like to, and, if you +don't mind, I should like to have a few days to think it out."</p> + +<p>"Of course, my dear. That is a very right feeling; for the step is a +solemn one, and should not be taken without reverent thought. You cannot +do better than to talk it over with Mr. Trotter. If you have any +difficulties, you can tell him; and I'm sure he would be delighted to +help you. Isn't it so, mother? Well, dear," he continued, "you can run +away now; but bear in mind what I have said, and I shall hope to hear +that you have made the right choice before long. Kiss me, dear."</p> + +<p>And so, with something of a lump in her throat, Dot returned to the +interrupted "Jane Austen."</p> + +<p>"Whatever did father want?" asked the two girls, looking up as she +entered the room.</p> + +<p>"What do you think?" said Dot. "He wants me to be baptised!"</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +<br> + +<h3>DOT'S DECISION</h3> + +<p>Now, in thus appealing to Dot, her father had appealed to just the one +out of all his children who was least likely to disappoint him. To Dot +and Henry had unmistakably been transmitted the largest share of their +father's spirituality. Esther was not actively religious, any more than +she was actively poetic. Hers was one of those composite, admirably +balanced natures which include most qualities and faculties, but no one +in excess of another. Such make those engaging good women of the world, +who are able to understand and sympathise with the most diverse +interests and temperaments; as it is the characteristic of a good critic +to understand all those various products of art, which it would be +impossible for him to create. Thus Esther could have delighted a saint +with her sympathetic comprehension, as she could have healed the wounds +of a sinner by her comprehensive sympathy; but it was certain she would +never be, in sufficient excess, spiritually wrought or sensually +rebellious to be one or the other. She was beautifully, buoyantly +normal, with a happy, expansive, enjoying nature, glad in the sunlight, +brave in the shadow, optimistically looking forward to blithe years of +life and love with Mike and her friends, and not feeling the necessity +of being anxious about her soul, or any other world but this. She was +not shallow; but she merely realised life more through her intelligence +than through her feelings. To have become a Baptist would have offended +her intelligence, without bringing any satisfaction to spiritual +instincts not, in any event, clamorous.</p> + +<p>As for Henry, it was not only activity of intelligence, but activity of +spirituality, that made it impossible for him to embrace any such narrow +creed as that proposed to him; and, for the present, that spiritual +activity found ample scope for itself in poetry.</p> + +<p>Dot's, however, was an intermediate case. With an intelligence active +too, she united a spirituality torturingly intense, but for which she +had no such natural creative outlet as Henry. With her loss of the old +creed,--in discarding which these three sisters had followed the lead of +their brother with a curious instinctiveness, almost, it would seem, +independent of reasoning,--her spirituality had been left somewhat +bleakly houseless, and she had often longed for some compromise by which +she could reconcile her intelligence to the acceptance of some +established home of faith, whose kindly enclosing walls should be more +genially habitable to the soul than the cold, star-lit spaces which +Henry declared to be sufficient temple.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Esther's commiseration of her sisters' narrow opportunities was, +so far as it related to Dot, a little unnecessary, for indeed Dot's +ambitions were not social. By nature shy and meditative, and with her +religious bias, had she been born into a Catholic family, she might not +improbably have found the world well lost in a sisterhood. The Puritan +conscience had an uncomfortable preponderance in the deep places of her +nature, and, far down in her soul, like her father, she would ask +herself if pleasure could be the end of life--was there not something +serious each of us could and ought to do, to justify his place in the +world? Were we not all under some mysterious solemn obligation to do +something, however little, in return for life?</p> + +<p>Mat, on the other hand, had no such scruples. She was more like Esther +in nature, with a touch of cynicism curling her dainty lip, arising, +perhaps, from an early divination that she was to lack Esther's +opportunities. Perhaps it was because she was the pessimist--the quite +cheerful pessimist--of the family, that she was by far the cleverest and +most industrious at the housework. If it was her fate to be Cinderella, +she might as well make the best of it, with a cynical endurance and +good-humour, and be Cinderella with a good grace. Probably the only +glass slipper in the family had already fallen to Esther. Never mind, +though her good looks might fade with being a good girl at home, year by +year, what did it matter, after all? Nothing mattered in the end. And +thus, out of a great indifference, Mat developed a great unselfishness; +and if you could name one special angel in the house of the Mesuriers, +she was unmistakably Mat.</p> + +<p>In addition to her religious promptings, Dot had lately developed a +great sympathy for her father. Standing a little aside from the conflict +between him and Henry, she was able to divine something of the feelings +of both; and she had now and again caught a look of loneliness on her +father's face that made her ready to do almost anything to please him.</p> + +<p>Of course the question was one for general consultation. She knew what +Henry would say. It didn't much matter anyhow, he would say, but it was +a pity. How was intellectual freedom to be won, if those who had seen +the light should thus deliberately forego it, time after time, from such +merely sentimental reasons? And when she saw Henry, that was just what +he did say.</p> + +<p>"But," she said, "it would make father so happy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," he answered; "and it would be very beautiful of you. +Besides, of course, in one way it's only a matter of symbolism; but +then, on the other hand, it's symbolism hardened into dogmatism that has +done all the mischief. Do it, dear, if you like; I hardly know what to +say. As you say, it will make father happy, and I shall quite +understand."</p> + +<p>Dot was one of those natures that like to seek, and are liable to take, +advice; so, after seeing Henry, she thought she would see what Mr. +Trotter had to say; for, in spite of his unfortunate name, Mr. Trotter +was a gentle, cultivated mind, and was indeed somewhat incongruously, +perhaps in a mild way Jesuitically, circumstanced as a Baptist minister. +Henry and he were great friends on literary matters; and Dot and he had +had many talks, greatly helpful to her, on spiritual things. In fact, +Chrysostom Trotter was one of those numerous half-way men between the +old beliefs and their new modifications, which the continuous advance of +scientific discovery and philosophical speculation on the one hand, and +the obstinate survival of Christianity on the other, necessitate--if men +of spiritual intuitions who are not poets and artists are to earn their +living. There was nothing you could say to Chrysostom Trotter, provided +you said it reverently, that would startle him. He knew all that long +ago and far more. For, though obliged to trade in this backwater of +belief, he was in many respects a very modern mind. You were hardly +likely to know your Herbert Spencer as intimately as he, and all the +most exquisite literature of doubt was upon his shelves. Though you +might declare him superficially disingenuous, you could not, unless you +were some commonplace atheist or materialist, gainsay the honest logic +of his position.</p> + +<p>"You believe that the world, that life, is a spiritual mystery?" he +would say.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You do not for a moment think that any materialistic science has +remotely approached an adequate explanation of its meaning?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not."</p> + +<p>"You believe too that, however it comes about, and whatever it means, +there is an eternal struggle in man between what, for sake of argument, +we will call the higher and lower natures?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, this spiritual mystery, this struggle, are hinted at in +various media of human expression, in an ever-changing variety of human +symbols. Art chiefly concerns itself with the sexual mystery, with the +wonderful love of man and woman, in its explanation of which alone +science is so pitifully inadequate. Literature more fully concerns +itself with the mystery of man's indestructibly instinctive relation to +what we call the unseen,--that is, the Whole, the Cosmos, God, or +whatever you please to call it. But more than literature, religion has +for centuries concerned itself with these considerations, has +consciously and industriously sought to make itself the science of what +we call the soul. It has thrown its observations, just as poetry and art +have thrown their observations, into symbolic forms, of which +Christianity is incomparably the most important. You don't reject the +revelation of human love because Hero and Leander are probably creations +of the poet's fancy. Will you reject the revelation of divine love, +because it chances, for its greater efficiency in winning human hearts, +to have found expression in a similar human symbolism? Personally, I +hold that Christ actually lived, and was literally the Son of God; but, +were the human literalness of his divine story discredited, the eternal +verities of human degeneration, and a mysterious regeneration, would be +no whit disproved. Externally, Christianity may be a symbol; +essentially, it is a science of spiritual fact, as really as geology is +a science of material fact.</p> + +<p>"And as for its miraculous, supernatural, side,--are the laws of nature +so easy to understand that we should find such a difficulty in accepting +a few divergencies from them? He who can make laws for so vast a +universe may surely be capable of inventing a few comparatively trivial +exceptions."</p> + +<p>Not perhaps in so many words, but in some such spirit, would Chrysostom +Trotter argue; and it was in some such fashion that he talked in his +charmingly sympathetic way with Dorcas Mesurier, one afternoon, as she +had tea with him in a study breathing on every hand the man of letters, +rather than the minister of a somewhat antiquated sect.</p> + +<p>"My dear Dorcas," he said, "you know me well enough--you know me perhaps +better than your father knows me--know me well enough to believe that I +wouldn't urge you to do this thing if I didn't think it was right <i>for +you</i>--as well as for your father and me. But I know it is right, and for +this reason. You are a deeply religious nature, but you need some +outward symbol to hold on to,--you need, so to say, the magnetising +association of a religious organisation. Henry can get along very well, +as many poets have, with his birds and his sunsets and so forth; but you +need something more authoritative. It happens that the church I +represent, the church of your father, is nearest to you. You might, with +all the goodwill in the world, so far as I am concerned, embrace some +other modification of the Christian faith; but here is a church, so to +say, ready for you, familiar by long association, endeared to your +father. You believe in God, you believe in the spiritual meaning of +life, you believe that we poor human beings need something to keep our +eyes fixed upon that spiritual meaning--well, dear Dorcas," he ended, +abruptly, "what do you think?"</p> + +<p>"I'll do it," said Dot.</p> + +<p>"Good girl," said the minister; "sometimes it is a form of righteousness +to waive our doubts for those who are at once so dear and good as your +father. And don't for a moment think that it will leave you just where +you are. These outward acts are great energisers of the soul. Dear +Dorcas, I welcome you into one of God's many churches."</p> + +<p>So it was that Dot came to be baptised; and, to witness the ceremony, +all the Mesuriers assembled at the chapel that Sunday evening,--even +Henry, who could hardly remember when he used to sit in this +still-familiar pew, and scribble love-verses in the back of his +hymn-book during the sermon.</p> + +<p>To the mere mocker, the rite of baptism by immersion might well seem a +somewhat grotesque antic of sectarianism; but to any one who must needs +find sympathy for any observance into which, in whatsoever forgotten and +superseded time, has passed the prayerful enthusiasm of man, the rite +could hardly fail of a moving solemnity. As Chrysostom Trotter ordered +it, it was certainly made to yield its fullest measure of +impressiveness. To begin with, the chapel was quite a comely edifice +inside and out; and its ministerial end, with its singers' gallery +backed by great organ pipes, and fronted by a handsome pulpit, which Mr. +Trotter had dared to garnish with chrysanthemums on each side of his +Bible, had a modest, sacerdotal effect. Beneath the pulpit on ordinary +occasions stood the Communion-table; but on evenings when the rite of +baptism was prepared, this table, and a boarding on which it stood, +were removed, revealing a tiled baptistry,--that is, a tiled tank, about +eight feet long, and six wide, with steps on each side descending into +about four feet of water.</p> + +<p>Towards the close of the service, the minister would leave his pulpit, +and, during the singing of a hymn, would presently emerge from his +vestry in a long waterproof garment. As the hymn ended, some "sister" or +"brother" that night to be admitted into the church, would timidly join +him at the baptistry side, and together they would go down into +the water.</p> + +<p>Holding the hands of the new communicant, the minister, in a solemn +voice, would say, "Sister," or "Brother, on confession of your faith in +our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I baptise thee in the name of the +Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."</p> + +<p>Then the organ would strike up a triumphant peal, and, to the +accompaniment of its music and the mellow plashing of the water, the +sister or brother would be plunged beneath the symbolic wave.</p> + +<p>Great was the excitement, needless to say, in the Mesurier pew, as +little Dot at last came forth from the vestry, and, stealing down into +the water, took the minister's out-stretched hands.</p> + +<p>"There she is! There's Dot!" passed round the pew, and the hardest young +heart, whoever it belonged to, stopped beating, to hear the minister's +words. They seemed to come with a special personal tenderness,--</p> + +<p>"Sister, on confession of your faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus +Christ, I baptise thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of +the Holy Ghost."</p> + +<p>Once more the organ triumphant, and the mellow splashing of the water.</p> + +<p>Dear little Dot, she had done it!</p> + +<p>"Did you see father's face?" Esther whispered to Henry.</p> + +<p>Yes; perhaps none of them would ever do such a beautiful thing as Dot +had done that night. At least there was one of James Mesurier's children +who had not disappointed him.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>MIKE AND HIS MILLION POUNDS</h3> +<br> + +<p>The most exquisite compliment a man has ever paid to him is worded +something like this: "Well, dear, you certainly know how to make love;" +and this compliment is always the reward, not of passion however +sustained, or sentiment however refined, but of humour whimsically +fantasticating and balancing both. It is the gentle laugh, not +violating, but just humanising, that very solemn kiss; the quip that +just saves passion from toppling over the brink into bathos, that mark +the skilful lover. No lover will long be successful unless he is a +humourist too, and is able to keep the heart of love amused. A lover +should always be something of an actor as well; not, of course, for the +purpose of feigning what he does not feel, but so that he may the better +dramatise his sincerity!</p> + +<p>Mike had therefore many advantages over those merely pretty fellows +whose rivalry he had once been modest enough to fear. He was a master +of all the child's play of love; and to attempt to describe the fancies +which he found to vary the game of love, would be to run the risk of +exposing the limitations of the literary medium. No words can pull those +whimsical faces, or put on those heart-breaking pathetic expressions, +with which he loved to meet Esther after some short absence. Sometimes +he would come into the room, a little forlorn sparrow of a creature, +signifying, by a dejection in which his very clothes took part, that he +was out in the east wind of circumstance and no one in the world cared a +shabby feather for him. He would stand shivering in a corner, and look +timorously from side to side, till at last he would pretend she had +warmed him with her kisses, and generally made him welcome to the world.</p> + +<p>Sometimes he would come in with his collar dismally turned up, and an +old battered hat upon his head, and pretend that he hadn't had a +meal--of kisses--for a whole week; and occasionally he would come +blowing out his cheeks like a king's trumpeter, to announce that Mike +Laflin might be at any moment expected. But for the most part these +impersonations were in a minor key, as Mike had soon discovered that the +more pathetic he was, the more he was hugged and called a "weenty," +which was one of his own sad little names for himself.</p> + +<p>One of his "long-run" fairy-tales, as he would call them, was that each +morning as he went to business, he really started out in search of a +million pounds, which was somewhere awaiting him, and which he might +break his shins over at any moment. It might be here, it might be there, +it might come at any hour of the day. The next post might bring it. It +might be in yonder Parcel Delivery van,--nothing more probable. Or at +any moment it might fall from heaven in a parachute, or be at that +second passing through the dock-gates, wearily home from the Islands of +Sugar and Spice. You never could tell.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mike," said Esther, one evening, as he came in, hopping in a +pitifully wounded way, and explaining that he had been one of the three +ravens sitting on a bough which the cruel huntsman had shot through the +wing, etc., "have you found your million pounds to-day?"</p> + +<p>"No, not my million pounds," said Mike. "I'm told I shall find them +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Who told you?"</p> + +<p>"The Weenty."</p> + +<p>"You silly old thing! Give me a kiss. Are you a dear? Tell me, aren't +you a dear?"</p> + +<p>"No-p! I'm only a poor little houseless, roofless, windowless, +chimney-less, Esther-less, brainless, +out-in-the-wind-and-the-snow-and-the-rain, Mike!"</p> + +<p>"You're the biggest dear in the world!"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not. I'm the littlest!"</p> + +<p>"Suppose you found your million pounds, Mike?"</p> + +<p>"Suppose! Didn't I tell you I'm sure of it to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"Well, when you find it to-morrow, what will you do with it?"</p> + +<p>"I'll buy the moon."</p> + +<p>"The moon?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; as a present for Henry."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't it be rather dear?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. Twenty thousand would buy it any time this last hundred +years. But the worst of it is, no one wants it but the poets, and they +cannot afford it. Yet if only a poet could get hold of it, why what a +literary property it would be!"</p> + +<p>"You silly old thing!"</p> + +<p>"No! but you don't seem to realise that I'm quite serious. Think of the +money there would be for any poet who had acquired the exclusive +literary rights in the moon! Within a week I'd have it placarded all +over, 'Literary trespassers will be prosecuted!' And then I've no doubt +Henry would lend me the Man in the Moon for my Christmas pantomimes."</p> + +<p>"After all, it's not a bad idea," said Esther.</p> + +<p>"Of course it's not," said Mike; "but be careful not to mention it to +Henry just yet. I shouldn't like to disappoint him--for, of course, +before we took any final steps in the purchase, we'd have to make sure +that it wasn't, as some people think, made of green cheese."</p> + +<p>"But never mind about the moon. Tell us how you got on with The +Sothern."</p> + +<p>The Sothern was an amateur dramatic club in Tyre which took itself very +seriously, and to which Mike was seeking admission, as a first step +towards London management. He had that day passed an examination before +three of the official members, solemn and important as though they had +been the Honourable Directors of Drury Lane, and had been admitted to +membership in the club, with the promise of a small part in their +forthcoming performance.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's good!" said Esther. "What were they like?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they were all right,--rather humorous. They gave me 'Eugene Aram' +to read--Me reading 'Eugene Aram'!--and a scene out of 'London +Assurance,' which was, of course, better. Naturally, not one of the men +was the remotest bit like himself. One was a queer kind of Irving, +another a sad sort of Arthur Roberts, and the other was--shall we say, a +Tyrian Wyndham."</p> + +<p>Actors, like poets, have provincial parodists of their styles in even +greater numbers, so adoringly imitative is humanity. Some day, Mike +would have his imitators,--boys who pulled faces like his, and prided +themselves on having the Laflin wrinkles; just as it was once the +fashion for girls to look like Burne-Jones pictures, or young poets to +imitate Mr. Swinburne.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've got my first part. I've got it in my pocket," said Mike.</p> + +<p>"Oh, really! That's splendid!" exclaimed Esther, with delight.</p> + +<p>"Wait till you see it," said Mike, bringing out a French's acting +edition of some forgotten comedy. "Yes; guess how many words I've got to +say! Just exactly eleven. And such words!"</p> + +<p>"Well, never mind, dear. It's a beginning."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, it's a beginning,--the very beginning of a beginning."</p> + +<p>"Come, let me see it, Mike. What are you supposed to be?"</p> + +<p>At last Mike was persuaded to confess the humble little <i>rôle</i> for which +the eminent actors who had consented to be his colleagues had cast him. +He was to be the comic boy of a pastry-cook's man, and his distinguished +part in the action of the piece was to come in at a certain moment with +the pie that had been ordered, and, as he delivered it, he was to +remark, "That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mike, what a shame!" exclaimed Esther. "How absurd! Why, you're a +better actor with your little finger than any one of them with their +whole body."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but they don't know that yet, you see."</p> + +<p>"Any one could see it if they looked at your face half-a-minute."</p> + +<p>"I wanted to play the part of Snodgrass; but they couldn't think of +giving me that, of course. So, do you know what I pretended, to comfort +myself? I pretended I was Edward Kean waiting in the passages at Drury +Lane, with all the other fine fellows looking down at the shabby little +gloomy man from the provinces. That was conceit for you, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>The pathos of this was, of course, irresistible to Esther, and Mike was +thereupon hugged and kissed as he expected.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," he said, "you'll see if I don't make something of the poor +little part after all."</p> + +<p>And, thereupon, he described what he laughingly called his "conception," +and how he proposed to dress and make up, so vividly that it was evident +that the pastry-cook's boy was already to him a personality whose +actions and interests were by no means limited to his brief appearance +on the stage, but who, though accidentally he had but few words to speak +before the audience, was a very voluble and vital little person in +scenes where the audience did not follow him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you see I'll do something with it. The best of a small part," +said Mike, speaking as one of experience, "is that it gives you plenty +of opportunity for making the audience wish there was more of it."</p> + +<p>"From that point of view, you certainly couldn't have a finer part," +laughed Esther.</p> + +<p>Then for a moment Mike skipped out of the room, and presently knocked, +and, putting in a funny face, entered carrying a cushion with alacrity.</p> + +<p>"That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!" he fooled, throwing the +cushion into Esther's lap, where presently his little red head found +its way too.</p> + +<p>"How can you love such a silly little creature?" he said, looking up +into Esther's blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, I'm sure," said Esther; "but I do," and, bending down, +she kissed the wistful boy's face. Was it because Esther was in a way +his mother, as well as his sweetheart, that she seemed to do all +the kissing?</p> + +<p>Thus was Mike's first part rehearsed and rewarded.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>ON CERTAIN ADVANTAGES OF A BACKWATER</h3> +<br> + +<p>Though from a maritime point of view, Tyre was perhaps the chief centre +of conjunction for all the main streams of the world, from the point of +view of literature and any other art, it was an admitted backwater. Take +what art you pleased, Tyre was a dunce. Even to music, the most +persuasive of the arts, it was deaf. Surely, of all cities, it had not +been built to music. It possessed, indeed, one private-spirited +town-councillor, who insisted on presenting it with nude sculptures and +mysterious paintings which it furiously declined. If Tyre was to be +artistically great, it must certainly be with a greatness reluctantly +thrust upon it.</p> + +<p>Still Henry and Ned had sense enough to be glad that they had been born +there. It was from no mere recognition of an inexpensively effective +background; perhaps they hardly knew why they were glad till later on. +But, meanwhile, they instinctively laid hold of the advantages of their +limitations. Had they been London-born and Oxford-bred, they would have +been much more fashionable in their tastes; but their very isolation, +happily, saved them from the passing superstitions of fashion; and they +were thus able to enjoy the antiquities of beauty with the same +freshness of appetite as though they had been novelties. If Henry was to +meet Ned some evening with the announcement that he had a wonderful new +book to share with him, it was just as likely to be Sir Philip Sidney's +"Astrophel and Stella," as any more recent publication--though, indeed, +they contrived to keep in touch with the literary developments of the +day with a remarkable instinct, and perhaps a juster estimate of their +character and value than those who were taking part in them; for it is +seldom that one can be in the movement and at the centre as well.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, there was little that interested them, or which at +all events didn't disappoint and somewhat bewilder. The novel was +groaning under the thraldom of realism; poetry, with one or two +exceptions, was given up to bric-a-brac and metrical ingenuity. To +young men for whom French romanticism was still alive, who were still +content to see the world through the spiritual eyes of Shelley and +Keats, and who had not yet learned to belittle Carlyle, there seemed a +strange lack of generosity and, indeed, vitality in the literary ideals +of the hour. The novel particularly seemed barren and unprofitable to +them, more and more an instrument of science than a branch of +literature. Laughter had deserted it, as clearly as romance or pathos, +and more and more it was becoming the vehicle of cynical biology on the +one hand, and Unitarian theology on the other. Besides, strangest of +all, men were praised for lacking those very qualities which to these +boys had seemed essential to literature. The excellences praised were +the excellences of science, not literature. In fact, there seemed to be +but one excellence, namely, accuracy of observation; and to write a +novel with any eye to beauty of language was to err, as the writer of a +scientific treatise would err who endeavoured to add charm and grace to +the sober record of his investigations. Dull sociological analysts +reigned in the once laughing domain of Cervantes, of Fielding and +Thackeray, of Dumas and Dickens, of Hugo and Gautier and George Sand.</p> + +<p>Were they born too late? Were they anachronisms from the forgotten age +of romanticism, or were they just born in time to assist at the birth of +another romantic, idealistic age? Would dreams and love and beautiful +writing ever come into fashion again? Would the poet be again a creature +of passion, and the novelist once more make you laugh and cry; and would +there be essayists any more, whose pages you would mark and whose +phrases you would roll over and over again on your tongue, with delight +at some mysterious magic in the words?</p> + +<p>History may be held to have answered these questions since then, much in +favour of those young men, or at all events is engaged in answering +them; but, meanwhile, what a miraculous refreshment in a dry and thirsty +land was the new book Henry Mesurier had just discovered, and had +eagerly brought to share with Ned in their tavern corner one summer +evening in 1885.</p> + +<p>Ned was late; but when Henry had sipped a little at his port, and turned +to the new-born exquisite pages, he hardly noticed how the minutes were +going by as he read. Presently he had come to the end of the first +volume, the only one he had with him, and he raised his eyes from the +closing page with that exquisite exaltation, that beatific satisfaction +of mind and spirit,--even almost one might say of body,--which for the +lover of literature nothing in the world like a fine passage can bring.</p> + +<p>He turned again to the closing sentences: "<i>Yes; what was wanting was +the heart that would make it impossible to witness all this; and the +future would be with the forces that would beget a heart like that. His +favourite philosophy had said, Trust the eye. Strive to be right always, +regarding the concrete experience. Never falsify your impressions. And +its sanction had been at least effective here, in saying: It is what I +may not see! Surely, evil was a real thing; and the wise man wanting in +the sense of it, where not to have been, by instinctive election, on the +right side was to have failed in life</i>."</p> + +<p>The passage referred to the Roman gladiatorial shows, and to the +philosophic detachment by which Marcus Aurelius was able to see and yet +not to see them; and the whole book was the spiritual story of a young +Roman's soul, a priestlike artistic temperament, born in the haunted +twilight between the setting sun of pagan religion and philosophy and +the dawn of the Christian idea. The theme presented many fascinating +analogies to the present time; and in the hero's "sensations and ideas" +Henry found many correspondences with his own nature. In him, too, was +united that same joy in the sensuous form, that same adoration of the +spiritual mystery, the temperaments in one of artist and priest. He, +too, in a dim fashion indeed, and under conditions of culture less +favourable, had speculated and experimented in a similar manner upon the +literary art over which as yet he had acquired--how crushingly this +exquisite book taught him--such pathetically uncertain mastery. That +impassioned comradeship in books beautiful, was it not to-day Ned's and +his, as all those years before it had been that of Marius and Flavian?</p> + +<p>And where in the world <i>was</i> Ned? How he would kindle at a passage like +this: "<i>To keep the eye clear by a sort of exquisite personal alacrity +and cleanliness, extending even to his dwelling-place; to discriminate, +ever more and more exactly, select form and colour in things from what +was less select; to meditate much on beautiful visible objects, on +objects, more especially, connected with the period of youth,--on +children at play in the morning, the trees in early spring, on young +animals, on the fashions and amusements of young men; to keep ever by +him, if it were but a single choice flower, a graceful animal or +sea-shell, as a token and representation of the whole kingdom of such +things; to avoid jealously, in his way through the world, everything +repugnant to sight; and, should any circumstance tempt him to a general +converse in the range of such objects, to disentangle himself from that +circumstance at any cost of place, money, or opportunity: such were, in +brief outline, the duties recognised, the rights demanded, in this new +formula of life</i>."</p> + +<p>And again, what gleaming single phrases, whole counsels of existence in +a dozen words! He must copy out some of them for Esther. This, for +example: "<i>Not pleasure, but fulness, completeness of life generally</i>," +or this: "<i>To be able to make use of the flower when the fruit, perhaps, +was useless or poisonous</i>" or again this: "<i>To be absolutely virgin +towards a direct and concrete experience</i>"--and there were a +hundred more.</p> + +<p>Then for the young craftsman what an insight into, what a compassionate, +childish remembrance of the moods and the little foolish accidents of +creation: "<i>His dilettanteism, his assiduous preoccupation with what +might seem but the details of mere form or manner, was, after all, bent +upon the function of bringing to the surface, sincerely and in their +integrity, certain strong personal intuitions, certain visions or +apprehensions of things as being, with important results, in this way +rather than that--apprehensions which the artistic or literary +expression was called upon to follow, with the exactness of wax or clay, +clothing the model within it. Flavian, too, with his fine, clear mastery +of the practically effective, had early laid hold of the principle, as +axiomatic in literature: That 'to know when one's self is interested, is +the first condition of interesting other people'"</i> And once more: "<i>As +it oftenest happens also, with natures of genuinely poetic quality, +those piecemeal beginnings came suddenly to harmonious completeness +among the fortunate incidents, the physical heat and light, of one +singularly happy day</i>."</p> + +<p>And, over all, what a beauty! a beauty at once so sensuous and so +spiritual--the beauty of flowering laurel, the beauty of austerity +aflower. Here the very senses prayed. Surely this was the most +beautiful prose book ever written! It had been compared, he saw, with +Gautier's "Mademoiselle de Maupin;" but was not the beauty of that +masterpiece, in comparison with the beauty of this, as the beauty of a +leopard-skin to the beauty of a statue of Minerva, withdrawn in a +grove of ilex.</p> + +<p>Still Ned delayed, and, meanwhile, the third glass of port had come and +gone, and at length, reluctantly, Henry emerged from his tavern-cloister +upon the warm brilliancy of the streets. All around him the lights +beaconed, and the women called with bright eyes. But to-night there was +no temptation for him in these things. They but recalled another +exquisite quotation from his new-found treasure, which he stopped under +a lamp to fix in his memory: "<i>And, as the fresh, rich evening came on, +there was heard all over Rome, far above a whisper, the whole town +seeming hushed to catch it distinctly, the living, reckless call to +'play,' from the sons and daughters of foolishness to those in whom +their life was still green</i>--Donec virenti canities abest! Donec virenti +canities abest! <i>Marius could hardly doubt how Cornelius would have +taken the call. And as for himself, slight as was the burden of +positive moral obligation with which he had entered Rome, it was to no +wasteful and vagrant affections, such as these, that his Epicureanism +had committed him</i>."</p> + +<p>But what could have happened to Ned?</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>THE MAN IN POSSESSION</h3> +<br> + +<p>One morning, two or three months after Henry had left home, old Mr. +Lingard came to him as he sat bent, drearily industrious, over some +accounts, and said that he wished him in half-an-hour's time to go with +him to a new client; and presently the two set out together, Henry +wondering what it was to be, and welcoming anything that even exchanged +for a while one prison-house for another.</p> + +<p>"I am taking you," said the old man, as they walked along together, "to +a firm of carriers and carters whose affairs have just come into our +hands; there is a dispute arisen between the partners. We represent +certain interests, as I shall presently explain to you, and you are to +be <i>our</i> representative,--our man in possession," and the old gentleman +laughed uncannily.</p> + +<p>"You never expected to be a man in possession, did you?"</p> + +<p>Henry thrilled with a sense of awful intimacy, thus walking and even +jesting with his august employer.</p> + +<p>"It may very likely be a long business," the old man continued; "and I +fear may be a little dull for you. For you must be on the spot all day +long. Your lunch will be served to you from the manager's house; I will +see to that. Actually, there will be very little for you to do, beyond +looking over the day-book and receipts for the day. The main thing is +for you to be there,--so to say, the moral effect of your +presence,"--and the old gentleman laughed again. Then, with an amused +sympathy that seemed almost exquisite to Henry, he chuckled out, looking +at him, from one corner of his eye, like a roguish skeleton--</p> + +<p>"You'll be able to write as much poetry as you like. I see you've got a +book with you. Well, it will keep you awake. I don't mind that,--or even +the poetry,--so long as you don't forget the day-book."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir," said Henry, almost hysterically.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," the old man continued, presently, and in all he said there +was a tone of affectionate banter that quite won Henry's heart, "that +you're still as set on literature as ever. Well, well, far be it from me +to discourage you; but, my dear boy, you'll find out that we can't live +on dreams." (Henry thought, but didn't dare to say, that it was dreams +alone that made it possible to live at all.) "I suppose you think I'm a +dried-up old fellow enough. Well, well, I've had my dreams too. Yes, +I've had my dreams,"--Henry thought of what he had discovered that day +in the old man's diary,--"and I've written my verses to my lady's +eyebrow in my time too. Ah, my boy, we are all young and foolish once in +our lives!" and it was evident what a narrow and desperate escape from +being a poet the old man had had.</p> + +<p>They had some distance to walk, for the stables to which they were bound +were situated in an old and rather disreputable part of the town. "It's +not a nice quarter," said Mr. Lingard, "not particularly salubrious or +refined," as bad smells and dirty women began to cross their path; "but +they are nice people you've got to deal with, and the place itself is +clean and nice enough, when you once get inside."</p> + +<p>"Here we are," he said, presently, as they stopped short of an +old-fashioned house, set in a high red-brick wall which seemed to +enclose quite a considerable area of the district. In the wall, a yard +or two from the house, was set a low door, with a brass bell-pull at the +side which answered to Mr. Lingard's summons with a far-off clang. Soon +was heard the sound of hob-nailed boots, evidently over a paved yard, +and a big carter admitted them to the enclosure, which immediately +impressed them with its sense of country stable-yard cleanliness, and +its country smell of horses and provender. The stones of the courtyard +seemed to have been individually washed and scoured, and a small space +in front of a door evidently leading to the house was chalked over in +the prim, old-fashioned way.</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Flower about?" asked Mr. Lingard; and, as he asked the question, +a handsome, broad-shouldered man of about forty-five came down the yard. +It was a massive country face, a little heavy, a little slow, but +exceptionally gentle and refined.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Mr. Lingard."</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Mr. Flower. This is our representative, Mr. Mesurier, of +whom I have already spoken to you. I'm sure you will get on well +together; and I'm sure he will give you as little trouble as possible."</p> + +<p>Henry and Mr. Flower shook hands, and, as men sometimes do, took to each +other at once in the grasp of each other's hands, and the glances which +accompanied it.</p> + +<p>Then the three walked further up the yard, to the little office where +Henry was to pass the next few weeks; and as Mr. Lingard turned over +books, and explained to Henry what he was expected to do, the sound of +horses kicking their stalls, and rattling chains in their mangers, came +to him from near at hand with a delightful echo of the country.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Lingard had gone, Mr. Flower asked Henry if he'd care to look +at the horses. Henry sympathetically consented, though his knowledge of +horse-flesh hardly equalled his knowledge of accounts. But with the +healthy animal, in whatever form, one always feels more or less at home, +as one feels at home with the green earth, or that simple creature +the sea.</p> + +<p>Mr. Flower led the way to a long stable where some fifty horses +protruded brown and dappled haunches on either hand. It was all +wonderfully clean and sweet, and the cobbled pavement, the straw beds, +the hay tumbling in sweet-scented bunches into the stalls from the loft +overhead, made you forget that around this bucolic enclosure swarmed and +rotted the foulest slums of the city, garrets where coiners plied their +amateur mints, and cellars where murderers lay hidden in the dark.</p> + +<p>"It's like a breath of the country," said Henry, unconsciously striking +the right note.</p> + +<p>"You're right there," said Mr. Flower, at the same moment heartily +slapping the shining side of a big chestnut mare, after the approved +manner of men who love horses. To thus belabour a horse on its +hinder-parts would seem to be equivalent among the horse-breeding +fraternity to chucking a buxom milkmaid under the chin.</p> + +<p>"You're right there," he said; "and here's a good Derbyshire lass for +you," once more administering a sounding caress upon his sleek +favourite.</p> + +<p>The horse turned its head and whinnied softly at the attention; and it +was evident it loved the very sound of Mr. Flower's voice.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever been to Derbyshire?" asked Mr. Flower, presently, and +Henry immediately scented an idealism in the question.</p> + +<p>"No," he answered; "but I believe it's a beautiful county."</p> + +<p>"Beautiful's no name for it," said Mr. Flower; "it's just a garden."</p> + +<p>And as Henry caught a glance of his eyes, he realised that Derbyshire +was Mr. Flower's poetry,--the poetry of a countryman imprisoned in the +town,--and that when he died he just hoped to go to Derbyshire.</p> + +<p>"Ah, there are places there,--places like Miller's Dale, for +instance,--I'd rather take my hat off to than any bishop,"--and Henry +eagerly scented something of a thinker; "for God made them for sure, and +bishops--well--" and Mr. Flower wisely left the rest unsaid.</p> + +<p>Thus they made the tour of the stables; and though Henry's remarks on +the subject of slapped horse-flesh had been anything but those of an +expert, it was tacitly agreed that Mr. Flower and he had taken to each +other. Nor, as he presently found, were Mr. Flower's interests limited +to horses.</p> + +<p>"You're a reader, I see," he said, presently, when they had returned to +the office. "Well, I don't get much time to read nowadays; but there's +nothing I enjoy better, when I've got a pipe lit of an evening, than to +sit and listen to my little daughter reading Thackeray or +George Eliot."</p> + +<p>Of course Henry was interested.</p> + +<p>"Now there was a woman who knew country life," Mr. Flower continued. +"'Silas Marner,' or 'Adam Bede.' How wonderfully she gets at the very +heart of the people! And not only that, but the very smell of +country air."</p> + +<p>And Mr. Flower drew a long breath of longing for Miller's Dale.</p> + +<p>Henry mentally furbished up his George Eliot to reply.</p> + +<p>"And 'The Mill on the Floss'?" he said.</p> + +<p>"And 'Scenes from Clerical Life,'" said Mr. Flower. "There are some rare +strokes of nature there."</p> + +<p>And so they went on comparing notes, till a little blue-eyed girl of +about seventeen appeared, carrying a dainty lunch for Henry, and telling +Mr. Flower that his own lunch was ready.</p> + +<p>"This is my daughter of whom I spoke," said Mr. Flower.</p> + +<p>"She who reads Thackeray and George Eliot to you?" said the Man in +Possession; and, when they had gone, he said to himself "What a bright +little face!"</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>LITTLE MISS FLOWER</h3> +<br> + +<p>Little Miss Flower continued to bring Henry his lunch with great +punctuality each day; and each day he found himself more and more +interested in its arrival, though when it had come he ate it with no +special haste. Indeed, sometimes it almost seemed that it had served its +purpose in merely having been brought, judging by the moments of reverie +in which Henry seemed to have forgotten it, and to be thinking of +something else.</p> + +<p>Yes, he had soon begun to watch for that bright little face, and it was +hardly to be wondered at; for, particularly come upon against such a +background, the face had something of the surprise of an apparition. It +seemed all made of light; and when one o'clock had come, and Henry heard +the expected footsteps of his little waiting-maid, and the tinkle of the +tray she carried, coming up the yard, her entrance was as though some +one had carried a lamp into the dark office. Surely it was more like +the face of a spirit than that of a little human girl, and you would +almost have expected it to shine in the dark. When you got used to the +light of it, you realised that the radiance poured from singularly, even +disproportionately, large blue eyes, set beneath a broad white brow of +great purity, and that what at first had seemed rays of light around her +head was a mass of sunny gold-brown hair which glinted even in shadow.</p> + +<p>Strange indeed are the vagaries of the Spirit of Beauty! From how many +high places will she turn away, yet delight to waste herself upon a slum +like this! How fantastic the accident that had brought such a face to +flower in such a spot!--and yet hardly more fantastic, he reflected, +than that which had sown his own family haphazard where they were. Was +it the ironic fate of power to be always a god in exile, turning mean +wheels with mighty hands; and was Cinderella the fable of the eternal +lot of beauty in this capriciously ordered world?</p> + +<p>Yes, what chance wind, blowing all the way from Derbyshire, had set down +Mr. Flower with his little garden of girls in this uncongenial spot? +For by this Henry had made the acquaintance of the whole family: Mr. and +Mrs. Flower and four daughters in all,--all pretty girls, but not one of +the others with a face like that,--which was another puzzle. How is it +that out of one family one will be chosen by the Spirit of Beauty or +genius, and the others so unmistakably left? There could be no doubt as +to whom had been chosen here.</p> + +<p>One day the step coming up the yard at one o'clock seemed to be +different, and when the door opened it was another sister who had +brought his lunch that day. Her eldest sister was ill, she explained, +and in bed; and it was so for the next day, and again the next. Could it +be possible that Henry had watched so eagerly for that little face, that +he missed it so much already?</p> + +<p>The next morning he bought some roses on his way through town, and +begged that they might be allowed to brighten her room; and the next day +surely it was the same light little tread once more coming up the yard. +Joy! she was better again. She looked pale, he said anxiously, and +ventured to say too that he had missed her. As she blushed and looked +down, he saw that she wore one of his roses in her bosom.</p> + +<p>He had already begun to lend her books, which she returned, always with +some clever little criticism, often girlishly naïve, but never merely +conventional. There were brains under her bright hair. One day Henry had +run out of literature, and asked her if she could lend him a book. +Anything,--some novel he had read before; it didn't matter. Oh, yes, he +hadn't read George Eliot for ever so long. Had she "The Mill on the +Floss"? Yes, it had been a present from her father. She would bring +that. As she lingered a moment, while Henry looked at the book, his eye +fell upon a name on the title-page: "Angel Flower."</p> + +<p>"Is that your name, Miss Flower?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes; father wrote it there. My real name is Angelica; but they call me +Angel, for short," she answered, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Are you surprised?" said Henry, suddenly blushing like a girl, as +though he had never ventured on such a small gallantry before. +"Angelica! How did you come to get such a beautiful name?"</p> + +<p>"Father loves beautiful names, and his grandmother was called +Angelica."</p> + +<p>"I wonder if I might call you Angelica?" presently ventured Henry, in a +low voice.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you know me well enough?" said Angelica, with a little +gasp, which was really joy, in her breath.</p> + +<p>Henry didn't answer; but their eyes met in a long, still look. In each +heart behind the stillness was a storm of indescribable sweetness. Henry +leaned forward, his face grown very pale, and impulsively took +Angelica's hand,--</p> + +<p>"I think, after all, I'd rather call you Angel," he said.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>MIKE'S FIRST LAURELS</h3> +<br> + +<p>The gardens of Sidon had a curious habit of growing laurel-trees; +laurels and rhododendrons were the only wear in shrubs. Rhododendrons +one can understand. They are to the garden what mahogany is to the front +parlour,--the <i>bourgeoisie</i> of the vegetable kingdom. But the +laurel,--what use could they have for laurel in Sidon? Possibly they +supplied it to the rest of the world,--market-gardeners, so to say, to +the Temple of Fame; it could hardly be for home consumption. Well, at +all events, it was a peculiarity fortunate for Esther's purpose, as one +morning, soon after breakfast, she went about the garden cutting the +glossiest branches of the distinguished tree. As she filled her arms +with them, she recalled with a smile the different purpose for which, +dragged at the heels of one of Henry's enthusiasms, she had gathered +them several years before.</p> + +<p>At that period Henry had been a mighty entomologist; and, as the late +summer came on, he and all available sisters would set out, armed with +butterfly-nets and other paraphernalia, just before twilight, to the +nearest woodland, where they would proceed to daub the trees with an +intoxicating preparation of honey and rum,--a temptation to which moths +were declared in text-books to be incapable of resistance. Then, as +night fell, Henry would light his bull's-eye, and cautiously visit the +various snares. It was a sight worth seeing to come upon those little +night-clubs of drunken and bewildered moths, hanging on to the sweetness +with tragic gluttony,--an easy prey for Henry's eager fingers, which, as +greedy of them as they of the honey, would seize and thrust them into +the lethal chamber, in the form of a cigar-box loosely filled with +bruised laurel leaves, which hung by a strap from his shoulder.</p> + +<p>It was for such exciting employment that Esther had once gathered laurel +leaves. And, once again, she remembered gathering them one Shakespeare's +birthday, to crown a little bust in Henry's study. The sacred head had +worn them proudly all day, and they all had a feeling that somehow +Shakespeare must know about it, and appreciate the little offering; just +as even to-day one might bring roses and myrtle, or the blood of a +maiden dove to Venus, and expect her to smile upon our affairs of +the heart.</p> + +<p>But it was for a dearer purpose that Esther was gathering them this +morning. That coming evening Mike was to utter his first stage-words in +public. The laurel was to crown the occasion on which Mike was to make +that memorable utterance: "That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!"</p> + +<p>Now while Esther was busily weaving this laurel into a wreath, Henry was +busily weaving the best words he could find into a sonnet to accompany +the wreath. When Angel duly brought him his lunch, it was finished, and +lay about on his desk in rags and tatters of composition. Angel was +going to the performance with her sisters,--for all these young people +were fond of advertising each other, and he had soon told her about +Mike,--so she was interested to hear the sonnet. Whatever other +qualities poetry may lack, the presence of generous sincerity will +always give it a certain value, to all but the merely supercilious; and +this sonnet, boyish in its touches of grandiloquence, had yet a certain +pathos of strong feeling about it.</p> + +<blockquote> +Not unto him alone whom loud acclaim<br> + Declares the victor does the meed belong,<br> + For others, standing silent in the throng,<br> +May well be worthier of a nobler fame;<br> +And so, dear friend, although unknown thy name<br> + Unto the shouting herd, we would give tongue<br> + To our deep thought, and the world's great among<br> +By this symbolic laurel thee proclaim.<br><br> + +And if, perchance, the herd shall find thee out<br> + In coming time, and many a nobler crown<br> + To one they love to honour gladly throw;<br> +Wilt thou not turn thee from their eager shout,<br> + And whisper o'er these leaves, then sere and brown:<br> + 'Thou'rt late, O world! love knew it long ago?'<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>The reader will probably agree with Angel in considering the last line +the best. But, of course, she thought the whole was wonderful.</p> + +<p>"How wonderful it must be to be able to write!" she said, with a look in +her face which was worth all the books ever written.</p> + +<p>"And how wonderful even to have something written to one like that!"</p> + +<p>"Surely that must have happened to you," said Henry, slyly.</p> + +<p>"You're only laughing at me."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not. You don't know what may have been written to you. Poems +may quite well have been written to you without your having heard of +them. The poet mayn't have thought them worthy of you."</p> + +<p>"What nonsense! Why, I don't know any poets!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Henry.</p> + +<p>"I mean, except you."</p> + +<p>"And how do you know that I haven't written a whole book full of poems +to you? I've known you--how long now?"</p> + +<p>"Two months next Monday," said Angel, with that chronological accuracy +on such matters which seems to be a special gift of women in love. Men +in love are nothing like so accurate.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's long enough, isn't it? And I've had nothing else to do, +you know."</p> + +<p>"But you don't care enough about me?"</p> + +<p>"You never know."</p> + +<p>"But tell me really, have you written something for me?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, you'd like to know now, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I would. Tell me. It would make me very happy."</p> + +<p>"It really would?"</p> + +<p>"You know it would."</p> + +<p>"But why?"</p> + +<p>"It would."</p> + +<p>"But you couldn't care for the poetry, unless you cared for the poet?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. Poetry's poetry, isn't it, whoever makes it? But what +if I did care a little for the poet?"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean you do, Angel?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, you want to know now, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Tell me. Do tell me."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you when you read me my poem," and as Angel prepared to run +off with a laugh, Henry called after her,--</p> + +<p>"You will really? It's a bargain?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's a bargain," she called back, as she tripped off again down +the yard.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>Mike's <i>début</i> was as great a success as so small a part could make it; +and the main point about it was the excitement of knowing that this was +an actual beginning. He had made them all laugh and cry in drawing-rooms +for ever so long; but to-night he was on the stage, the real +stage--real, at all events, for him, for Mike could never be an +amateur. Esther's eyes filled with glad tears as the well-loved little +figure popped in, with a baker's paper hat on his head, and delivered +the absurd words; and if you had looked at Henry's face too, you would +have been at a loss to know which loved the little pastry-cook's +boy best.</p> + +<p>When Mike returned to his dressing-room, a mysterious box was awaiting +him. He opened it, and found Esther's wreath and Henry's sonnet.</p> + +<p>"God bless them," he said.</p> + +<p>No doubt it was very childish and sentimental, and old-fashioned; but +these young people certainly loved each other.</p> + +<p>As Mike had left the stage, Henry had turned round and smiled at some +one a few seats away. Esther had noticed him, and looked in the same +direction.</p> + +<p>"Who was that you bowed to, Henry?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you another time," he said; for he had a good deal to tell +her about Angel Flower.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>THE MOTHER OF AN ANGEL</h3> +<br> + +<p>The Man in Possession was becoming more and more a favourite at Mr. +Flower's. One day Mr. Flower, taking pity on his loneliness, suggested +that he might possibly prefer to have his lunch in company with them all +down at the house. Henry gladly embraced the proposal, and thus became +the daily honoured guest of a family, each member of which had some +simple human attraction for him. He had already won the heart of simple +Mrs. Flower, few and brief as had been his encounters with her, and that +heart she had several times coined in unexpected cakes and other +dainties of her own making; but when he thus became partially domiciled +with the family, she was his slave outright. There was a reason for +this, which will need, and may perhaps excuse, a few lines entirely +devoted to Mrs. Flower, who, on her own peculiar merits, deserves them.</p> + +<p>Perhaps to introduce Eliza Flower in this way is to take her more +seriously than any of her affectionate acquaintance were able to do. +For, somehow, people had a bad habit of laughing at Mrs. Flower, though +they admitted she was the hardest-working, best-hearted little housewife +in the world. Housewife in fact she was <i>in excelsis</i>, not to say <i>ad +absurdum</i>. No little woman who worked herself to skin-and-bone to keep +things straight, and the home comfortable, was ever a more typical +"squaw." Whatever her religious opinions, which, one may be sure, were +inflexibly orthodox, there can be no question that Mr. Flower was her +god, and, as the hymn says, heaven was her home. To serve God and Mr. +Flower were to her the same thing; and there can be little doubt that a +god who had no socks to darn, or linen to keep spotless, was a god whom +Mrs. Flower would have found it impossible to conceive.</p> + +<p>A more complete and delighted absorption in the physical comforts and +nourishments of the human creature than Mrs. Flower's, it would be +impossible for dreamer to imagine. Such an absolute adjustment between a +being of presumably infinite aspirations and immortal discontents and +its environment, is a happiness seldom encountered by philosophers. To +think of death for poor Mrs. Flower was to conceive a homelessness +peculiarly pathetic; unless, indeed, there are kitcheners to +superintend, beds to make, rooms to "turn out," and four +spring-cleanings a year in heaven. Of what use else was the bewildering +gift of immortality to one who was touchingly mortal in all her tastes? +Indeed, Henry used to say that Mrs. Flower was the most convincing +argument against the immortality of the soul that he had ever met.</p> + +<p>Yet, though it was quite evident that there was nothing in the world +else she cared so much to do, and though indeed it was equally evident +that she was one of the best-natured little creatures in the world, she +did not deny herself a certain more or less constant asperity of +reference to occupations which kept her on her feet from morning till +night, and made her the slave of the whole house, in spite of four big +idle daughters. And she with rheumatism too, so bad that she could +hardly get up and down stairs!</p> + +<p>Probably nothing so much as Henry's respectful sympathy for this +immemorial rheumatism had contributed to win Mrs. Flower's heart. As to +the precise amount of rheumatism from which Mrs. Flower suffered, Henry +soon realised that there seemed to be an irreverent scepticism in the +family, nothing short of heartless; for rheumatism so poignantly +expressive, so movingly dramatised, he never remembered to have met. +Mrs. Flower could not walk across the floor without grimaces of pain, or +piteous indrawings of her breath; and yet demonstrations that you might +have thought would have softened stones, left her unfeeling audience not +only unmoved, but apparently even unobservant. From sheer decency, Henry +would flute out something to show that her suffering was not lost on +him; but it is to be feared the young ones would only wink at each other +at this sign of unsophistication.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you unfeeling child!" Mrs. Flower would exclaim, as sometimes she +caught them exchanging comments in this way. "And your father, there, is +just as bad," she would say, impatient to provoke somebody.</p> + +<p>This remark would probably prompt Mr. Flower to the indulgence of a form +of matrimonial banter which was not unlike the endearments he bestowed +upon his horses, and which, when you knew that he loved the little +quaint woman with all his heart, you were able to translate into more +customary modes of affection.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," he would say, "it's evidently time I was looking out for +some active young woman, Eliza--when you begin limping about like that. +It's a pity, but the best of us must wear out some day--"</p> + +<p>This superficially heartless pleasantry he would deliver with a sweeping +wink at Henry and his four girls; but Mrs. Flower would see nothing to +laugh at, for humour was not her strong point.</p> + +<p>"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Ralph," she said, "before the +children. I was once young and active enough to take your fancy, anyhow. +Mr. Mesurier, won't you have a little more spinach? Do; it's fresh from +the country this morning. You mustn't mind Mr. Flower. He's fond of his +joke; and, whatever he likes to say, he'd get on pretty badly without +his old Eliza."</p> + +<p>"Gracious, no!" Mr. Flower would retort. "Don't flatter yourself, old +girl. I've got my eye on two or three fine young women who'll be glad +of the job, I assure you;" but this, perhaps, proving too much for poor +Mrs. Flower, whose tears were never far away, and apt to require +smelling-salts, he would change his tone in an instant and say, dropping +into his Derbyshire "thous,"--</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, lass, can't thee take a bit of a joke? Come now, come. Don't +be silly. Thou knowest well enough what thou art to me, and so do the +girls. See, let's have a drive out to Livingstone Cemetery this +afternoon. Thou'rt a bit out o' sorts. It'll cheer thee up a bit."</p> + +<p>And so Mrs. Flower would recover, and harmony would be restored, and +nobody would wink for a quarter of an hour. Certainly it was a quaint +little mother for an Angel.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>AN ANCIENT THEORY OF HEAVEN</h3> +<br> + +<p>"When are you going to read me my poem?" said Angelica, one day.</p> + +<p>"When are you going to tell me what I asked?" replied Henry.</p> + +<p>"Whenever you read me my poem," retorted Angelica.</p> + +<p>"All right. When would you like to hear it?"</p> + +<p>"Now."</p> + +<p>"But I haven't got it with me to-day."</p> + +<p>"Can't you remember it?"</p> + +<p>"No, not to-day."</p> + +<p>"When will you bring it?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what. Come with me to Woodside Meadows on Saturday +afternoon. Your father won't mind?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; father likes you."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad, because I'm very fond of him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's a dear; and he's got far more in him than perhaps you think, +under his country ways. If you could see him in the country, it would +make you cry. He loves it so."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I could tell that by the way he talked of Derbyshire the first day +we met. But you'll come on Saturday?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll come."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>Angel! Yes, it was the face of an angel; but, bright as it had seemed on +that dark background, it seemed almost brighter still as it moved by +Henry's side among the green lanes. He had never known Angel till then, +never known what primal ecstasy her nature was capable of. In the town, +her soul was like a flame in a lamp of pearl; here in the country, it +was like a star in a vase of dew. To be near trees, to touch their rough +barks, to fill one's hands with green leaves, to hear birds, to listen +to running water, to look up into the sky,--oh, this was to come +home!--and Angel's joy in these things was that of some wood-spirit who +you might expect any moment, like Undine, to slip out of your hands in +some laughing brook, or change to a shower of blossom over your head.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how good the country is! I wish father were here. I could eat the +grass. And I just want to take the sky in my arms." As she swept across +meadow and through woodland, with the eagerness of a child, greedily +hastening from room to room of some inexhaustible palace, her little +tense body seemed like a transparent garment fluttering round the flying +feet of her soul.</p> + +<p>At length she flung herself down, almost breathless, at the grassy foot +of a great tree.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you think I'm mad," she said. "And really I think I must be; +for why should mere green grass and blue sky and a few birds make one +so happy?"</p> + +<p>"Why should anything make us happy?"</p> + +<p>"Or sad?"</p> + +<p>"But now you're going to read my poem," she said, presently.</p> + +<p>"Yes; but something has to happen before I can read it," said Henry, +growing unaccountably serious; "for it is in the nature of a prophecy, +or at all events of an anticipation. You have to fulfil that +prophecy first."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me a very mysterious poem. But what have I to do?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether you can do it."</p> + +<p>"Well, what is it? Try me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Angel, I care nothing about poems. Can't you see how I love you? +That's all poetry will ever mean to me. Just to say over and over again, +'I love Angel.' Just to find new and wonderful ways of saying that--"</p> + +<p>"Listen, Henry. I've loved you from the first moment I saw you that day +talking to father, and I shall love you till I die."</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear Angel!"</p> + +<p>"Henry!"</p> + +<p>Then Henry's arms enfolded Angel with wonderful love, and her fresh +young lips were on his, and the world faded away like a dream within +a dream.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"Now perhaps you can read me your poem," said Angel, after a while; and +she noticed a curious something different in her way of speaking to him, +as in his way of speaking to her,--something blissfully homelike, as it +were, as though they had sat like this for ever and ever, and were quite +used to it, though at the same time it remained thrillingly new.</p> + +<p>"It's only a silly little childish rhyme," said Henry; "some day I'll +write you far better."</p> + +<p>Then, coming close to Angel, he whispered,--</p> + +<blockquote> +This is Angelica,<br> + Fallen from heaven,<br> +Fallen from heaven<br> + Into my arms.<br><br> + +Will you go back again,<br> + Little Angelica,<br> +Back up to heaven,<br> + Out of my arms!<br><br> + +"No," said Angelica,<br> + "Here is my heaven,<br> +Here is my heaven,<br> + Here in your arms.<br><br> + +"Not out of heaven,<br> + But into my heaven,<br> +Here have I fallen,<br> + Here in your arms."<br> +</blockquote> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>THE LAST CONTINUED, AFTER A BRIEF INTERVAL</h3> +<br> + +<p>After the long happy silence which followed Henry's recitation of his +verses, Angel at length spoke,--</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell <i>you</i> something now?" she said. "I'm almost ashamed to, +for I know you'll laugh at me, and call me superstitious."</p> + +<p>"Go on, little child," said Henry.</p> + +<p>"You remember the day," said Angel, in a hushed little impressive voice, +"I first saw you in father's office?"</p> + +<p>Henry was able to remember it.</p> + +<p>"Well, that was not the first time I had seen you."</p> + +<p>"Really, Angel! Why didn't you tell me before? Where was it, then? In +the street, or where?"</p> + +<p>"No, it was much stranger than that," said Angel. "Do you believe the +future can be foretold to us?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was in a dream, you funny Angel; was that it?" said Henry, +whose rationalism at this period was the chief danger to his +imagination.</p> + +<p>"No, not a dream. Something stranger than that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, I give it up."</p> + +<p>"It was like this," Angel continued; "there's a strange old gipsy woman +who lives near us--"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see, your hand--palmistry," said Henry, with a touch of gentle +impatience.</p> + +<p>"Henry, dear, I said you would laugh at me. I won't tell you now, if +you're going to take it in that spirit."</p> + +<p>Henry promptly locked up his reason for the moment, with apologies, and +professed himself open to conviction.</p> + +<p>"Well, mother sometimes helps this poor old woman, and, one day, when +she happened to call, Alice and Edith and I were in the kitchen helping +mother. 'God bless you, lady,' she said,--you know how they +talk,--'you've got a kind heart; and how are all the young ladies? It's +time, I'm thinking, they had their fortunes told.' 'Oh, yes,' we all +said, 'tell us our fortunes, mother,'--we always called her mother. +'I'll tell you yours, my dear,' she said, taking hold of my hand. 'Your +fortunes are too young yet, ladies,' she said to Alice and Edith; 'come +to me in a year's time and, maybe, I'll tell you all about him.'"</p> + +<p>"You dear!" said Henry, by way of interruption.</p> + +<p>"Then," continued Angel, "she took me aside, and looked at my hand; and +she told me first what had happened to me, and then what was to come. +What she told me of the past"--as if dear Angel, whose life was as yet +all future, could as yet have had any past to speak of!--"was so true, +that I couldn't help half believing in what she said of the future. Now +you're laughing again!"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, I'm not," said Henry, perfectly solemn.</p> + +<p>"She told me that just before I was twenty, I would meet a young man +with dark hair and blue eyes, very unexpectedly,--I shall be twenty in +six weeks,--and that he would be my fate. But the strangest is yet to +come. 'Would you like to see his face?' she said. She made me a little +frightened; but, of course, I said, 'Yes,' and then she brought out of +her pocket a sort of glass egg, and told me to look in it, and tell her +what I saw. So I looked, but for a long time I could see nothing; but +suddenly there seemed to be something moving in the centre of the glass, +like clouds breaking when the sun is coming out; and presently I could +see a lamp burning on a table; and then round the lamp shelves of books +began to grow out of the mist; then I saw a picture hanging in a recess, +a bowed head with a strange sort of head-dress on it, a dark thin face, +very sad-looking--"</p> + +<p>"Why, that must have been my Dante!" said Henry, astonished in spite of +himself.</p> + +<p>The exclamation was a "score" for Angel; and she continued, with greater +confidence, "And then I seemed to see some one sitting there; but, +though I tried and tried, I couldn't catch sight of his face. I told the +old woman what I saw. 'Wait a minute,' she said, 'then try again.' So I +waited, and presently tried again. This time I hadn't so long to wait +before I saw a room again; but it was quite different, a big desk ran +along in front of a window, and there were two tall office-stools. 'Why, +it's father's office,' I said. 'Go on looking,' said the old woman, 'and +tell me what you see.' In a moment or two, I saw some one sitting on +one of the stools, first dimly and then clearer and clearer. 'Why,' I +almost cried out, for I felt more and more frightened, 'I see a young +man sitting at a desk, with a pen behind his ear.' 'Can you see him +clearly?' 'Yes,' I said; 'he's got dark curly hair and blue eyes.' +'You're sure you won't forget his face? You'd know him if you saw him +again?' 'Indeed, I would,' I said. 'All right,' said the old woman, 'you +can give me back the crystal. You keep a look out for that young +man,--you will see him some day, mark my words, and that young man will +be your fate.'</p> + +<p>"Now, surely, you won't deny that was strange, will you?" asked Angel, +in conclusion. "And I shall never forget the start it gave me that day +when I came in, quite unsuspecting, with your lunch-tray, and saw you +talking to father, with your pen behind your ear, and your blue eyes and +dark hair. Now, isn't it strange? How can one help being superstitious +after a thing like that?"</p> + +<p>"Are you quite sure it was I?" Henry asked, quizzically. "It appears to +me that any presentable young man with a pen behind his ear would have +answered nearly enough to the vision. You would hardly have been quite +sure of the colour of the eyes, would you, now, if the old woman hadn't +mentioned it first, as she looked at your hand?"</p> + +<p>"You are horrid!" said Angel; "I wish I hadn't told you now. But it +wasn't merely the colour of the eyes. It was the look in them."</p> + +<p>"Look again, and see if you haven't made a mistake. Look very +carefully," said Henry.</p> + +<p>"I won't," said Angel; "I think you're cruel."</p> + +<p>"Angel, if you'll only look, and say you are quite sure, I'll believe +every word the old woman said."</p> + +<p>At last Angel was persuaded to look, and to look again, and the old +woman's credit rose at each look.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Henry, whatever happens, I know it is true. My life is in your +hands."</p> + +<p>Those are solemn words for one human being to hear uttered by another; +and a shiver of new responsibility involuntarily ran through +Henry's veins.</p> + +<p>"May the hands be always strong and clean enough to hold so precious a +gift," he answered, gravely.</p> + +<p>"Are you sad, dear?" asked Angel, presently, with a sort of divination.</p> + +<p>"Not sad, dear, but serious," he answered.</p> + +<p>"Have I turned to a responsibility so soon?"</p> + +<p>"You strange, wise child, I believe you are a witch."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I was right then."</p> + +<p>"Right in one way, but perhaps wrong in another. Don't you know that +some responsibilities are the most dearly coveted of mortal honours? But +then we shouldn't be worthy of them, if they didn't make us feel a +little serious. Can't you imagine that to hear another say that her life +is in one's hands makes one feel just a little solemn?"</p> + +<p>"But isn't your life in mine, Henry?" asked Angel, simply.</p> + +<p>"Of course it is, dear," answered Henry.</p> + +<p>And then the moon began to rise through the trees, pouring enchantment +over the sleeping woods, and the meadows half-submerged in lakes +of mist.</p> + +<p>Angel drew close to Henry, and watched it with big eyes.</p> + +<p>"What a wonderful world it is! How beautiful and how sad!" she said, +half to herself.</p> + +<p>"Yes; there is nothing in the world so sad as beauty," answered Henry.</p> + +<p>"If only to-night could last forever! If only we could die now, sitting +just like this, with the moon rising yonder."</p> + +<p>"But we shall have many nights like this together," said Henry.</p> + +<p>"No; we shall never have this night again. We may have other wonderful +nights, but they will be different. This will never come again."</p> + +<p>Henry instinctively realised that here was a mystical side to Angel's +nature which, however it might charm him, was not to be indiscriminately +encouraged, and he tried to rally her out of her sadness, but her +feeling was too much his own for him to persist; and as the moonlight +moved in its ascension from one beautiful change to another, now woven +by branches and leaves into weird tapestries of light and darkness, now +hanging like some golden fruit from the boughs, and now uplifted like a +lamp in some window of space, they sat together, alike held by the +ancient spell; and, presently, Henry so far lost himself in it as to +quote some lines entirely in Angel's mood:</p> + +<blockquote> +"She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die;<br> + And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips<br> +Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,<br> + Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:<br> +Ay, in the very temple of Delight<br> + Veiled Melancholy has her sov'ran shrine,<br> +Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue<br> + Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;<br> +His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,<br> + And be among her cloudy trophies hung."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>"What wonderful lines!" said Angel; "who wrote them? Are they your own?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, Angel, what would I give if they were! No, they are by John Keats. +You must let me give you his poems."</p> + +<p>Presently, the moonlight began to lose its lustre. It grew pale, and, as +it were, anxious; dark billows of clouds threatened to swallow up its +silver coracle, and presently the world grew suddenly black with its +submergence, the woods and meadows disappeared, and Henry and Angel +began playfully to strike matches to see each other's faces. Thus they +suddenly flared up to each other out of the darkness, like Rembrandts +seen by lightning, and then they were lost again, and were only voices +fumbling for each other in the dark.</p> + +<p>Yet, even so, lips and arms found each other without much difficulty, +and when they began to think of the last train, and fear they would miss +it, but waited for just one last good-night kiss under their sacred +tree, the world suddenly lit up again, for the moon had triumphed over +its enemies, and come out just in time to give them its blessing.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>CONCERNING THE BEST KIND OF WIFE FOR A POET</h3> +<br> + +<p>We are apt sometimes to complain that so much of importance in our lives +is at the dispensation of accident, yet how often too are we compelled +to confess that some of the happiest and most fruitful circumstances of +our lives are due to the far-seeing diplomacies of chance.</p> + +<p>Among no set of circumstances is this more true than in the fateful +relations of men and women. While, in a blind sort of way, we may be +said to choose for ourselves the man or woman with whom we are to share +the joys and sorrows of our years, yet the choice is only superficially +ours. Frequently our brains, our antecedent plans, have no part in the +decision. The woman we choose appears at the wrong time, in the wrong +place, in an undesirable environment, with hair and eyes and general +complexion different in colour from what we had predestined for +ourselves, short when we had made up our minds for tall, and tall when +we had hoped for short. Yet, in in spite of all our preconceptions, we +choose her. This is not properly a choice in which the intelligence +confessedly submits to violence. It is the compulsion of mysterious +instincts that know better than our brains or our tastes.</p> + +<p>Now had she been asked beforehand, Esther might not have sketched out a +Mike as the ideal of her maiden dreams, nor indeed might Henry have +described an Angelica, any more than perhaps Mike an Esther, or Angelica +a Henry. Yet chance has only to place Esther and Mike, and Angelica and +Henry in the same room together for less than a minute of time, and they +fly into the arms of each other's souls with an instant recognition. +This is a mystery which it will take more than biology to explain.</p> + +<p>A young man's dreams of the woman he will some day marry are apt to be +meretricious, or at all events conventional. A young poet, especially, +is likely to err in the direction of paragons of beauty, or fame, or +romance. Perhaps he dreams of a great singer, or an illustrious beauty, +ignorant of the natural law which makes great singers and illustrious +beauties, in common with all artists, incapable of loving really any one +but themselves. Or perhaps it will be some woman of great and exquisite +culture. But chance knows that women of great and exquisite culture are +usually beings lacking in those plastic elemental qualities which a +poet, above all men, needs in the woman he shall love. Their very +culture, while it may seem to broaden, really narrows them, limits them +to a caste of mind, and, for an infinite suggestiveness, substitutes a +few finite accomplishments.</p> + +<p>Critics without understanding have wondered now and again at attachments +such as that of Heine for his Mathilde. Yet in some ways Mathilde was +the type of wife best suited for a poet. She was just a wondering child, +a bit of unspoiled chaos. She meant as little intellectually, and as +much spiritually, as a wave of the sea, a bird of the air, a star in +the sky.</p> + +<p>Another great poet always kept in his room a growing plant in a big tub +of earth, and another tub full of fresh water. With the fire going, he +used to say that he had the four elements within his four walls; and to +people unaccustomed to talk with the elements these no doubt seemed dull +and even remarkable companions,--like Heine's Mathilde.</p> + +<p>Now Angel, though far more than a goose intellectually, having, indeed, +a very keen and subtle mind, was only secondarily intellectual, being +primarily something far more important. You no more asked of her to be +intellectual, than you expect a spirit to be mathematical. She was just +a dream-child, thrilling with wonder and love before the strange world +in which she had been mysteriously placed,--a dream-child and an +excellent housewife in one, as full of common-sense on the one hand, as +she was filled with fairy "nonsense" on the other. She was just, in +fact, the wife for a poet.</p> + +<p>The interest taken in each other by Angel and the Man in Possession had +not been unobserved by Angel's family. Her sisters had teased her +considerably on the subject.</p> + +<p>"Why have you changed the way of wearing your hair, Angel?" they would +say, "Does Mr. Mesurier like it that way?" or, "My word! we are getting +smart and particular, now a certain gentleman has come into the +office!" or again, "How small your writing is nowadays, Angel! What have +you changed it for? I like your big old writing best; but I suppose--" +and then they would retreat to a safe distance to finish--"Mr. Mesurier +isn't of the same opinion!"</p> + +<p>Sometimes Esther would start in pursuit, and playful scrimmages would +ensue, the hilarious uproar of which would turn poor Mrs. +Flower's brain.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Flower had certainly not been unobservant, and one may perhaps +suspect that those cakes and other delicacies which she had so often +sent up the yard, had not been sent entirely without those ulterior +designs which every thoughtful mother may becomingly cherish for her +daughters.</p> + +<p>After Angel and Henry's excursion to the country together, Henry felt +that some official announcement of the state of his heart was demanded +of him, and lost no time in finding Mr. Flower alone for that tremulous +purpose. However, it was soon over. There were no questions of <i>dots</i> +and marriage settlements to discuss. Genealogically, both sides were +about equally distinguished, and, socially, belonged to that large +undefined class called "respectable"--though it must not be supposed +that, when so minded, families of that "respectable" zone do not +occasionally make nice distinctions. "Do you know what you are asking +for?" once said a retired tradesman's wife in Sidon to her daughter's +suitor. "Do you know that both Katie's grandfathers were mayors?"</p> + +<p>But there were no traditional mayoralties to keep these two young hearts +asunder. It was understood on both sides that they had nothing to bring +but each other, and they asked nothing better. Angel was going to marry +a poet, and Henry a fairy; and not only they themselves, but the whole +family, was more than satisfied. Mr. Flower was undisguisedly pleased, +and the tears stood in his eyes as he gripped Henry's hand.</p> + +<p>"I've liked you," he said, "since the first time we shook hands. There +was something honest about your grip I liked, and I go a good deal by +these things. It is not many men I would trust with my little Angel; for +when you take her, you take her father's great treasure. Guard her well, +dear lad, guard her well."</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<h3>THE BOOK OF ANGELICA</h3> +<br> + +<p>The first duty of a poet's wife is to inspire him. When she ceases to do +that--but that is a consideration which need not occupy us in this +unsophisticated story. We have already seen that Angelica in this +respect early began her wifely duties towards Henry; and that little +song he read in chapter twenty-five was but one of many he had written +to her in his capacity of man in possession.</p> + +<p>The feminine inspirations of his early youth had been numerous, but +mediocre in quality. Even in love, as in all else, his opportunities had +been second and even third-rate. He had broken his boy's heart, time +after time, for some commonplace, little provincial miss who knew not +"the god's wonder or his woe." But, at last, in circumstances so +unforeseen, the maiden of the Lord had been revealed to him, and with +the revelation a great impulse of metrical expression had come upon the +young poet. All day long rhythms and fancies were effervescing within +him, till at length he had quite a publishable mass of verse for which, +it is to be feared, Angelica must be counted responsible.</p> + +<p>Of these he was busily making a surreptitious fair copy one morning, +when old Mr. Septimus Lingard suddenly visited his seclusion, with the +announcement that his task there was at an end, so that he might now +return to his regular office. Though, of course, Henry had realised that +the present happy arrangement could not go on for ever, the news brought +temporary desolation to the two young lovers. For four months their days +had been spent within a few yards of each other; and though Angel's +excursions up the yard to Henry's desk could not be many, or long, each +day, yet each was conscious that the other was near at hand. When Angel +sang at her housework, it was from the secure sense that Henry was close +by. Their separation was little more than that of a husband and wife +working in different rooms of the same house. But now their meetings +would have to be arranged out somewhere in a cold world, little +considerate of the convenience of lovers, and, for whole days of warm +proximity, they would have to exchange occasional snatched +precarious hours.</p> + +<p>Well, the only thing to do was for Henry to work away at their dream of +a home together--home together, however little, just four walls to love +each other in, away from the gaze of prying eyes, none daring to make +them afraid. How that home was to be compassed was far from clear in +either of their minds; but vaguely it was felt that it would be brought +about by the powerful enchantments of literature. Henry had recently had +one of Angel's poems accepted by a rather good magazine, and the trance +of joy in which for fully two hours he had sat gazing at that, his +first, proof-sheet, was hardly less rapturous than that into which he +had fallen after seeing Angel for the first time,--so dear are the +emblems of his craft to the artist, at the beginning, and still at the +end, of his career.</p> + +<p>So Henry had to finish the fair copy of his poems at home in his +lodgings of an evening, for so ambitious a private enterprise could not +be carried on in his own office without perilous interruptions. He was +making the copy with especial care, in the form of a real book; and when +it was made, he daintily bound it in vellum with his own hands. Then he +wrapped it lovingly in tissue paper, and kept it by him two or three +days, in readiness for Angel's birthday, on the morning of which day he +hid it in a box of flowers and sent it to Angel. The sympathetic reader +can imagine her delight, as she discovered among the flowers a dainty +little white volume, bearing the title-page, "The Book of Angelica, by +Henry Mesurier. Tyre, 1886. Edition limited to one copy."</p> + +<p>Now this little book presently began to enjoy a certain very carefully +limited circulation among Angel's friends. Of course they were not +allowed to take it away. They were only allowed to look at it now and +again for a few minutes, Angel anxiously standing by to see that they +did not soil her treasure. Sometimes Mr. Flower would ask Angel to show +it to one of the family friends; and thus one evening it came beneath +the eyes of a little Scotch printer who had a great love for poetry and +some taste in it.</p> + +<p>"The man's a genius," he said, with all that authority with which a +strong Scotch accent mysteriously endows the humblest Scot.</p> + +<p>"The man's a genius," he repeated; "his poems must be printed."</p> + +<p>Henry had already found that this was easier said than done, for he had +already tried several London publishers who professed their willingness +to publish--at his expense. This little Scotch printer, however, was to +prove more venturesome. He forthwith communicated a proposal to Henry +through the Flowers. If Henry would provide him with a list of a certain +number of friends he could rely on for subscriptions, he would take the +risk of printing an edition, and give Henry half the profits,--a +proposal as generous as it was rash. Angel communicated the offer in an +excited little letter, with the result that Mr. Leith and Henry met one +morning in the bar-parlour of "The Green Man Still," and parted an hour +or so after in a high state of friendship, and deeply pledged together +to a mutual adventure of three hundred copies of a book to be called +"The Book of Angelica," and to be printed in so dainty a fashion that +the mere outside should attract buyers.</p> + +<p>Mr. Leith worked under difficulties, for his business, small as it was, +was much saddled with pecuniary obligations which it but inadequately +supported. His printing of Henry's poems was really a work of sheer +idealism which none but a Scotsman, or perhaps an Irishman, would have +undertaken; and it was a work that might at any moment be interrupted by +bailiffs, empowered to carry away the presses and the very types over +which Henry loved to hang in his spare hours, trying to read in the +lines of mysteriously carved metal, his "Madrigal to Angelica singing," +or his "Sonnet on first beholding Angelica."</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Leith was of a convivial disposition; and Henry and he must +have spent more hours drinking to the success of the little book than +would have sufficed to print it twice over. However, the day did at last +come when it was a living, breathing reality, and when Angel and Henry +sat with tears of joy over the little new-born "Book of Angelica." Was +it not, they told each other, the little spirit-child of their love? How +wonderful it all was! How wonderful their future was going to be!</p> + +<p>"What does it feel like?" said Henry, playfully recalling their old +talk, "to have a book written all about one's self?"</p> + +<p>"It is to feel the happiest and proudest girl in the world."</p> + +<p>That all the other young people were hardly less happy and excited +about the little book goes without saying. Mike spent quite a large sum +in copies, and for a while employed his luncheon-hour in asking at +book-shops with a nonchalant air, as though he had barely heard of the +author, if they sold a little book called "The Book of Angelica." Mrs. +Mesurier seemed to see her faith in her boy beginning to be justified; +and when James Mesurier opened his local paper one morning, and found a +long and appreciative article on a certain "fellow-townsman," he cut it +out to paste in his diary. Perhaps the lad would prove right, after all.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<h3>WHAT COMES OF PUBLISHING A BOOK</h3> +<br> + +<p>It is only just to Tyre to acknowledge that it behaved quite +sympathetically towards the young poet thus discovered in its midst. Its +newspapers reviewed him with marked kindness,--a kindness which in a few +years' time, when he had long since grown out of his baby volume, he was +obliged to set to the credit of the general goodness of human nature, +rather than to the poetic quality of his own verses. In many unexpected +quarters also he met with recognition which, if not always intelligent, +was at least gratifying. For praise, or at least some form of notice, is +breath in the nostrils of the young poet. He hungers to feel that his +personality counts for something, though it be merely to anger his +fellow-men. It was perhaps no very culpable vanity on his part to be +pleased that people began to point him out in the streets, and whisper +that that was the young poet; and that distant acquaintances seemed +more ready to smile at him than before. Now and again one of these would +stop him to say how pleased he had been to see the kind article about +him in <i>The Tyrian Daily Mail</i>, and that he intended to buy "the work" +as soon as possible. Henry smiled to himself, to hear his frail little +flower of a volume spoken of as a "work," as though it had been the +Encyclopaedia Britannica; and he rather wondered what that would-be +purchaser would make of it, as he turned over pages of which so large a +proportion was reserved for a spotless frame of margin. No doubt he +would decide that the margin had been left for the purpose of making +notes,--making notes on those abstruse rose-petals of boyish song!</p> + +<p>Even in far-away London,--which was as yet merely a sounding name to +these young people,--hard-worked reviewers, contemptuously disposing of +batches of new poetry in a few lines, found a kind word or two to say +for the little provincial volume; and, through one agency or another, +Mr. Leith, within six weeks of the publication, was able to announce +that the edition was exhausted and that there was something like forty +pounds profit to share between them.</p> + +<p>That poetry could be exchanged for real money, Henry had heard, but had +never hoped to work the miracle in his own case. It was like selling +moonlight, or Angelica's smiles. Was it not, indeed, Angelica's smiles +turned from one kind of gold into another? One more change they should +undergo, and then return to her from whom they had come. From minted +gold of the realm they should change into the gold of a ring, and thus +Angel should wear upon her finger the ornament of her own smiles. +Setting aside a small proportion of his gains to buy Esther and Mike, +Dot and Mat and his mother, a little memorial present each, he then +spent the rest on Angel's ring. Angel pretended to scold him for his +extravagance; but, as no woman can resist a ring, her remonstrance was +not convincing, and then, as Henry said, was it not their betrothal +ring, and, therefore, one of the legitimate expenses of love?</p> + +<p>Three other acknowledgments his poems brought him. The first was a +delightful letter from Myrtilla Williamson. How much men of talent owe +to the letters of women has never been sufficiently acknowledged, as +the debt can never be adequately repaid. Of the many branches of woman's +unselfishness, this is perhaps the most important to the world. Always +behind the flaming renown of some great soldier, statesman, or poet, +there is a woman's hand, or the hands, maybe, of many women, pouring, +unseen, the nutritive oil of praise.</p> + +<p>This letter Henry, in the gladness of his heart, ingenuously showed to +Angel, with the result that it provoked their first quarrel. With the +charms of a child, Angel, it now appeared, united also the faults. She +had it in her to be bitterly and unreasonably jealous. She read the +letter coldly.</p> + +<p>"You seem very proud of her praise," she said; "is it so very valuable?"</p> + +<p>"I value it a good deal, at all events," answered Henry.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see!" retorted Angel; "I suppose my praise is nothing to hers."</p> + +<p>"Angel dear, what <i>do</i> you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing, of course; but I'm sure you must regret caring for an +ignorant girl like me, when there are such clever, talented women in the +world as your Mrs. Williamson. I hate your learned women!"</p> + +<p>"Angel, I'm surprised you can talk like that. Because we love each +other, are we to have no other friends?"</p> + +<p>"Have as many as you like, dear. Don't think I mind. But I don't want to +see their letters."</p> + +<p>"Very well, Angel," answered Henry, quietly. He was making one of those +discoveries of temperament which have to be made, and have to be +accepted, in all close relationships. This was evidently one of Angel's +faults. He must try to help her with it, as he must try and let her help +him with his.</p> + +<p>The second was a letter, forwarded care of his printer, by one of the +London reviews which had noticed his verses. It was from a rising young +London publisher who, it appeared from an envelope enclosed, had already +tried to reach him direct at Tyre. "Henry Mesurier, Esqre, Author of +'The Book of Angelica,' Tyre," the address had run, but the post-office +of Tyre had returned it to the sender, with the words "Not known" +officially stamped upon it.</p> + +<p>He was as yet "not known," even in Tyre! "In another five years he shall +try again," said Henry, savagely, to himself, "and we shall see whether +it will be 'not known' then!"</p> + +<p>The letter expressed the writer's pleasure in the extracts he had seen +from Mr. Mesurier's book, and hoped that when his next book was ready, +he would give the writer an opportunity of publishing it. Fortune was +beginning already to smile.</p> + +<p>But the third acknowledgment was something more like a frown, and was, +at all events, by far the most momentous outcome of Henry's first +publication. One morning, soon after Mr. Leith had paid over to him his +twenty pounds profit, he found himself unexpectedly requested to step +into "the private office." There, at Mr. Lingard's table, he found the +three partners seated in solemn conclave, as for a court-martial. Mr. +Lingard, as senior partner, was the spokesman.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Mesurier," he began, "the firm has been having a very serious +consultation in regard to you, and has been obliged, very reluctantly, I +would have you believe, to come to a painful conclusion. We gladly +acknowledge that during the last few months your work has given us more +satisfaction than at one time we expected it to give. But, +unfortunately, that is not all. Your attention to your duties, we admit, +has been very satisfactory. It is not a sin of omission, but one of +commission, of which we have to complain. What we have to complain of as +business men is a matter which perhaps you will say does not concern us, +though on that point we must respectfully differ from you. Mr. Mesurier, +you have recently published a book."</p> + +<p>Henry drew himself up haughtily. Surely that was nothing to be ashamed +of.</p> + +<p>"It is quite a pretty little book," continued Mr. Lingard, with one of +his grim smiles. "It contains some quite pretty verses. Oh, yes, I have +seen it," and Henry noticed a copy of the offending little volume lying, +like a rose, among some legal papers at Mr. Lingard's left hand; "but +its excellence as poetry is not to the point here. Our difficulty is +that you are now branded so unmistakably as a poet, that it is no use +our any longer pretending to our clients that you are a clerk. So long +as you were only suspected of being a poet," and the old man smiled +again, "it did not so much matter; but now that all Tyre knows you, by +your own act and deed, as a poet, the case is different. We can no +longer, without risk of losing confidence with our clients, send an +acknowledged poet to inspect their books--though, personally, we may +have every faith in your capacity. No doubt they will be glad enough to +buy your books in the future; but they will be nervous of trusting you +with theirs at the moment." And the old man laughed heartily at his +own humour.</p> + +<p>"You mean, then, sir, that you will have no further need for my +services?" said Henry, looking somewhat pale; for it is one thing to +hate the means of one's livelihood, and another to exchange it for none.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid, my dear lad, that that is what it comes to. We are, I hope +you will believe, exceedingly sorry to come to such a conclusion, both +for our own sakes and yours, as well as that of your father,--who is an +old and valued friend of ours; but we are able to see no other way out +of the difficulty. Of course, you will not leave us this minute; but +take what time you need to look round and arrange your future plans; and +so far as we are concerned, we shall part from you as good friends and +sincere well-wishers."</p> + +<p>The old man held out his hand, and Henry took it, with a grateful sense +of the friendly manner in which Mr. Lingard had performed a painful +task, and a certain recognition that, after all, a poet must be +something of a nuisance to business-men.</p> + +<p>When he returned to his desk, he sat for a long time thoughtful, divided +in mind between exultation that he was soon to be free to take the +adventurous highway of literature, and anxiety as to where in a month's +time his preliminary meals were to come from.</p> + +<p>Yet, after all, the main thing was to be free of this servitude. Out of +freedom all things might be hoped.</p> + +<p>Still, as Henry looked round at the familiar faces of his fellow-clerks, +and realised that in a month's time his comradeship with them would be +at an end, he was surprised to feel a certain pang of separation. Mere +custom has so great a part in our affections, that though a routine may +have been dull and distasteful, if it has any extenuating circumstances +at all, we change it with a certain irrational regret. After all, his +office-life was associated with much contraband merriment; and, +unconsciously, his associates had taken a valuable part in his training, +humanised him in certain directions, as he had humanised them in others. +They had saved him from dilettanteism, and whatever he wrote in future +would owe something warm and kindly to the years he had spent with them.</p> + +<p>His very desk took on a pathetic expression, as of a place that was so +soon to know him no more for ever; and Mr. Smith, wrangling over +wet-traps and cesspools at the counter, just as on the first day he had +heard him, almost moved him to tears. Perhaps in ten years' time, were +he to come back, he would find him still at his post, fervidly engaged +in the same altercations, with only a little additional greyness at the +temples to mark the lapse of time.</p> + +<p>And Jenkins would still be sitting in the little screened-off cupboard, +with "cashier" painted on the glass window. As three o'clock approached, +he would still be heard loudly counting his cash and shovelling the gold +into wash-leather bags, and the silver into little paper-bags marked £5 +apiece, in a wild rush to reach the bank before it closed.</p> + +<p>And would the same good fellows, a little more serious, because long +since married, be cracking jokes and loafing near the fire-guard, in +some rare safe hour, of the afternoon when all the partners were out, to +make a spring for the desks, as the carefully learnt tread of one or +another of those partners followed the opening of the front door.</p> + +<p>The very work that he hated seemed to wear an unwonted look of +tenderness. Who would keep the books he had kept--with something of his +father's neatness; who would look after the accounts of "the Rev. Thomas +Salthouse," or take charge of "Ex'ors James Shuttleworth, Esqre"?</p> + +<p>Of course, it was absurd--absurd, perhaps, just because it was human. +For was he not going to be free, free to fulfil his dreams, free to +follow those voices that had so often called him from beyond the sunset? +Soon he would be able to cry out to them, with literal truth, "I am +yours, yours--all yours!" And in those ten years which were to pass so +invariably for Mr. Smith, and for Jenkins and the rest, what various and +dazzling changes might be, must be, in store for him. Long before the +end of them he must have written masterpieces and become famous, and +Angel and he be long settled together in their paradise of home.</p> + +<p>Henry was pleased to find that his chums were to miss him no less than +he was to miss them. As an unofficial master of their pale revels, his +place would not be easy to fill; and he was much touched, when, a day or +two before the end of the month, which was the time mutually agreed upon +for Henry to look round, they intimated their desire to give a little +dinner in his honour at "The Jovial Clerks" tavern.</p> + +<p>Henry was nothing loth, and the evening came and went with no little +emotion and no little wine, on either side. He had bidden good-bye to +his employers in the afternoon, and Mr. Lingard had shaken his hand, and +admonished him as to his future with something of paternal affection.</p> + +<p>Toward the close of the dinner, Bob Cherry, who acted as chairman, rose, +with an unaccustomed blush upon his cheek, to propose the toast of the +evening. They had had the honour and pleasure, he said, to be associated +for several years past with a gentleman to whom that evening they were +to say good-bye. No better fellow had ever graced the offices of Lingard +and Fields, and his would be a real loss to the gaiety of their little +world. They understood that he was a poet; and indeed had he not already +published a charming volume with which they were all acquainted!--still +this made no difference to them. Certain high powers might object, but +they liked him none the less; and whether he was a poet or not, he was +certainly a jolly good fellow, and wherever his new career might take +him, the good wishes of his old chums would certainly follow him. The +chairman concluded his speech by requesting his acceptance of a copy of +the "Works of Lord Macaulay," as a small remembrance of the days they +had spent together.</p> + +<p>The toast having been seconded and drunk with resounding cordiality, +Henry responded in a speech of mingled playfulness and emotion, assuring +them, on his part, that though they might not be poets, he thought no +worse of them for that, but should always remember them as the best +fellows he had ever known. The talk then became general, and tender with +reminiscence. After all, what a lot of pleasant things those hard years +had given them to remember! So they kept the evening going, and it was +not till an early hour of the following day that this important volume +of Henry's life was finally closed.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<h3>MIKE'S TURN TO MOVE</h3> +<br> + +<p>While Henry had been busily engaged in winning Angelica and writing and +printing his little book, Mike's fortunes had not been idle. Meanwhile, +the Sothern Dramatic Club had given two more performances, in which his +parts had been considerable, and been played by him with such success as +to make the former pieman's apprentice one of the chief members of the +club. Mike and his friends therefore became more and more eager for him +to try his talents on the great stage. But this was an experiment not so +easy to make.</p> + +<p>However unknown a writer may be, he can still at least write his book in +his obscurity, and, when done, bring it to market, with a reasonable +hope of its finding a publisher; moreover, though he may remain for +years unappreciated, his writings still go on fighting for him till his +due recognition is won. He has not to find his publisher before he +begins to write. Yet it is actually such a disability under which the +unproved and often the proved actor must labour. Unless some one engages +him to act, and provides an audience for him, he has no opportunity of +showing his powers. And such opportunities are difficult to find, unless +you are a dissolute young lord, or belong to one of the traditional +theatrical families,--whose members are brought up to the stage, as the +sons of a lawyer are brought up to law. For the avenues to the stage are +blocked by perhaps more frivolous incompetents than any other +profession. Any idle girl with good looks, and any idle gentleman with +something of a good carriage, deem themselves qualified for one of the +most arduous of the arts.</p> + +<p>Mike's plan had been to try every considerable actor that came to Tyre, +who might possibly have a vacant place in his company; but he had tried +many in vain. While one or two were unable to see him at all, most of +them treated him with a kindness remarkable in men daily besieged by the +innumerable hopeless. They gave him good advice; they wished him well; +but already they had long lists of experienced applicants waiting their +turn for the coveted vacancy. At last, however, there came to Tyre a +famous romantic actor who was said to be more sympathetic towards the +youthful aspirant than the other heads of his profession, and as, too, +he was rumoured to be vulnerable on the side of literature, Mike and +Henry agreed to make a joint attack upon him. Mike should write a brief +note asking for an interview, and Henry should follow it up with another +letter to the same effect, and at the same time send him a copy of "The +Book of Angelica."</p> + +<p>The plan was carried out. Both letters and the book were sent, and the +young men awaited with impatience the result. Henry had adopted a very +lofty tone. "In granting my friend an interview," he had said, "you may +be giving his first chance to an actor of genius. Of course you may not; +but at least you will have had the satisfaction of giving to possible +genius that benefit of the doubt which we have a right to expect from +the creator of ----," and he named one of the actor's most famous rôles.</p> + +<p>A cordial answer came by return, enclosing two stalls for the following +evening, when, said the great actor, he would be glad to see Mr. Laflin +during or after the performance. The two young men were in their places +as the curtain rose, and it goes without saying that their enthusiasm +was unequalled in the audience. Between the third and fourth acts there +was a considerable interval, and early in the performance it had been +notified to Mike that the great actor would see him then. So when the +time came, with a whispered "good luck" from Henry, he left his place +and was led through a little mysterious iron door at the back of the +boxes, on to the stage and into the great man's dressing-room. Opening +suddenly out of the darkness at one side of the stage, it was more like +a brilliantly lighted cave hung with mirrors than a room. Mirrors and +lights and laurel wreaths with cards attached, and many photographs with +huge signatures scrawled across them, and a magnificent being reading a +book, while his dresser laced up some high boots he was to wear in the +following act,--made Mike's first impression. Then the magnificent being +looked up with a charming smile.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, Mr. Laflin. I am delighted to see you. I hope you will +excuse my rising."</p> + +<p>He said "Mr. Laflin" with a captivating familiarity of intonation, as +though Mike was something between an old friend and a distinguished +stranger.</p> + +<p>"So you are thinking of joining our profession. I hope you liked the +performance. I saw you in front, or at least I thought it was you. And +your friend? I hope he will come and see me some other time. I have been +delighted with his poems."</p> + +<p>There is something dazzling and disconcerting to an average layman about +an actor's dressing-room, even though the dressing-room be that of an +intimate friend. He feels like a being on the confines of two worlds and +belonging to neither, awkwardly suspended 'twixt fact and fancy. The +actor for a while has laid aside his part and forgotten his wig and his +make-up. As he talks to you, he is thinking of himself merely as a +private individual; whereas his visitor cannot forget that in appearance +he is a king, or an eighteenth-century dandy, or--though you know him +well enough as a clean-shaven young man of thirty--a bowed and wrinkled +greybeard. The visitor's voice rings thin and hestitating. It cannot +strike the right pitch, and generally he does himself no sort +of justice.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, however, it was because Mike had been born for this world in +which now for the first time he found himself, that he suffered from +none of this embarrassment; perhaps, too, it was some half-conscious +instinct of his own gifts that made him quite self-contained in the +presence of acknowledged distinction, so self-contained that you might +have thought he had no reverence. As he had passed across the stage, he +had eyed that mysterious behind-the-scenes rather with the eye of a +future stage-manager, than of a youth all whose dreams converged at this +point, and at this moment.</p> + +<p>One touch of the poetry of contrast caught his eye, of which custom +would probably have made him unobservant. In an alcove of the stage, a +"scene-dock," as Mike knew already to call it, a beautiful spirit in +gauze and tights was silently rehearsing to herself a dance which she +had to perform in the next act. Softly and silently she danced, +absorbed in the evolutions of her lithe young body, paying as little +heed to the rough stage-hands who hurried scenery about her on every +side, as those hardened stage-hands paid to her dancing. Henry or Ned +would probably have fallen madly in love with her on the spot. To Mike, +she was but a part of the economy of the stage; and had she been +Cleopatra herself, eyes filled to overflowing with the beauty of Esther +would have taken no more intimate note of her. So, it is said, painters +and sculptors regard their models with cold, artistic eyes.</p> + +<p>This self-possession enabled Mike to show to the best advantage; and +while they talked, the great actor, with an eye accustomed to read +faces, soon made up his mind about him.</p> + +<p>"I believe you and your friend are right, Mr. Laflin," he said. "I am +much mistaken if you are not a born actor. But if you are that, you will +not need to be told that the way is long and difficult, nor will you +mind that it is so. Every true artist rather loves than fears the +drudgery of his art. It is one of the tests of his being an artist. Art +is undoubtedly the pleasantest of all work; but it is work for all +that, and none of the easiest. Perhaps it is the pleasantest because it +is the hardest. So if you really want to be an artist, you won't object +to beginning your journey to the top right away at the bottom."</p> + +<p>"Anywhere at all, sir," said Mike, his heart beating at this hint of +what was coming.</p> + +<p>"Well, in that case," continued the other, "I can perhaps do something, +though a very little, for you."</p> + +<p>Mike eagerly murmured his gratitude.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to say I have no vacancy in my own company at present; but +would you be willing to take a part in my Christmas pantomime? I may say +that I myself began life as harlequin."</p> + +<p>"I will gladly take anything you can offer me," said Mike.</p> + +<p>"Shall we call it settled then? But I sha'n't need you for another four +months. Meanwhile I will have a contract made out and sent to you--"</p> + +<p>"Curtain rising for fourth act, sir," cried the call-boy, putting his +head in at the door at that moment.</p> + +<p>"You see I shall have to say good-bye," said the good-natured manager, +rising and moving towards the door; "but I shall look forward to seeing +you in October. My good wishes to your friend;" and so the happiest +person in that theatre slipped back to his seat by the side of a friend +who was surely as happy at his good news as though it had been his own.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Esther had been counting the hours till ten, when she made a +pretence of going to bed with the rest. But there was no sleep for her +till she had heard Mike's news. Her bedroom looked out from the top of +the house into the front garden, and she had arranged to have a lamp +burning at the window, so that Mike, on his way home, should understand +that all was safe for a snatched five minutes' talk in the porch. She +sat trying to read till about midnight, when through her half-opened +windows came the soft whistle she had been waiting for. Turning down the +lamp to show that she had heard, she stole down through the quiet house +and cautiously opened the front door, fastened, it seemed, with a +hundred bolts and chains.</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Mike?"</p> + +<p>For answer two arms, which she didn't mistake for a burglar's, were +thrown round her.</p> + +<p>"Esther, I've found my million pounds."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mike! He's really going to help you?"</p> + +<p>And here there is no further necessity for eaves-dropping. All persons +except Mike and Esther will please leave the porch.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + +<h3>UNCHARTERED FREEDOM</h3> +<br> + +<p>On the morning after the dinner with which he bade farewell to Messrs. +Lingard and Fields, Henry awoke at his usual hour to a very unusual +feeling. For the first time in his life he could stay in bed as long as +he pleased.</p> + +<p>On the other side of the room Ned Hazell lay sleeping the deep sleep of +the unpunctual clerk; and Henry, when he had for a moment or two dwelt +upon his own happiness, took a malicious joy in arousing him.</p> + +<p>"Ned," he shouted, "get up! You'll be late for the office."</p> + +<p>Ned gave out a deep sound, something between a snore, a moan, and an +imprecation.</p> + +<p>"Ned!" his tormentor persisted, drawing the clothes warmly round him, in +a luxury of indifference to the time of day.</p> + +<p>Ned presently began rubbing his head vigorously, which was one of his +preliminaries of awakening, and then mournfully raised himself in bed, a +pillar of somnolence.</p> + +<p>"You might let a fellow have his sleep out," he said; "why don't you get +up yourself?--oh, I remember, you're a literary gentleman from to-day. +That's why you're so mighty ready to root me out," and he aimed a pillow +at Henry's bed in derision.</p> + +<p>Yes, Henry was free, an independent gentleman of time and space. The +clock might strike itself hoarse, yet, if he wished, he might go on +staying in bed. He was free! His late task-masters had no jurisdiction +here. It would even be in his power here to order Mr. Fields out of the +room, and, if he refused, forcibly to eject him into the street. Why +didn't Mr. Fields appear to gratify him in this matter?</p> + +<p>So he indulged his imagination, while Ned dressed in haste, with the +fear of the tyrant evident upon him. Poor fellow, he would have to +choose between two cups of coffee and two eggs and five minutes late! +Probably he would split the difference, bolt one cup of coffee and one +egg, and arrive two and a half minutes late. Henry watched him with +compassion; and when he had gone his ways, himself rose languidly and +dressed indolently, as with the aid of an invisible valet. At length he +sauntered down to breakfast, and sent out for a morning paper, which he +on no account ever read. He could imagine no more insulting waste of +time. He looked it through, but found no reference to the real +significance of the day.</p> + +<p>Breakfast over, he wondered what he should do with himself, how he +should spend the day. His clear duty was to begin being a great man on +the spot, and work at being a great man every day punctually from nine +till six. But where should he begin? Should he sit down in a +business-like way and begin his long romantic poem, or should he write +an essay, or again should he make a start on his novel?</p> + +<p>Romantic poems, he felt, however, are only well begun on special days +not easy to define; essays are only written on days when we have +determined to be idle,--and this, after the opening flirtation with +indolence, must be a busy day,--and it is not every day that one can +begin a novel. He might arrange his books, but really they were very +well arranged already. Or suppose he went out for a walk. Walking +quickened the brain. He might go and look in at the Art Gallery, where +he hadn't been for a long while, and see the new picture the morning +paper was talking about. It was by a painter whose poems he already knew +and loved. That might inspire him. So, by an accident of idleness, he +presently found himself standing rapt before the most wonderful picture +he had ever seen,--a picture to see which, he said to himself, men would +make pilgrimages to Tyre, when Tyre was a moss-grown, ruinous seaport, +from which the traffic of the world had long since passed away.</p> + +<p>Henry at this time had visited none of the great galleries and, except +in a few reproductions, knew nothing of the great Italian masters. +Therefore to him this picture was Italy, the Renaissance, and +Catholicism, all concentrated into one enthralling canvas. But it was +something greater than that. It was the terrible meeting of Youth and +Love and Death in one tremendous moment of infinite loss. Infinite +passion and infinite loss were here pictured, in a medium which +combined all that was spiritual and all that was sensual in a harmony +of beauty that was in the same moment delirium and peace. The +irresistible cry of the colour to the senses, the spheral call of the +theme and its agony to the soul. Beatrice dead, and Dante taken in a +dream across the strewn poppies of her death-chamber, to look his last +on the sleeping face, yet a little smiling in the after-glow of life; +her soul already carried by angels far over the curved and fluted roofs +of the Florentine houses, on its way to Paradise. Little Beatrice! Not +till they meet again in Paradise shall he see again that holy face. In a +dream of loss he gazes upon her, as the angels lift up the +flower-garnished sheet; and not only her face, but every detail of that +room of death is etched in tears upon his eyes,--the distant winding +stair, the pallid death-lamps, the intruding light of day. All Passion +and all Loss, all Youth, all Love, and all Death met together in an +everlasting requiem of tragic colour.</p> + +<p>Henry sat long before this picture, enveloped, as it were, in its rich +gloom, as the painted profundity of a church absorbs one in its depths. +And with the impression of its solemn beauty was blent a despairing awe +of the artist who, of a little coloured earth, had created such a +masterpiece of vitality, thrown on to a thin screen of canvas so +enduringly palpable, so sumptuous, and so poignantly dominating a +reflection of his visions. What a passionate energy of beauty must have +been in this man's soul; what a constant fury of meditation upon +things divine!</p> + +<p>When Henry came back to himself, his first thought was to share it with +Angel. Little soul, how her face would flame, how her body would tremble +with the wonder of it! In the minutiae, the technicalities of +appreciation, Angel, like Henry himself, might be lacking; but in the +motive fervour of appreciation, who was like her! It was almost painful +to see the joy which certain simple wonders gave her. Anything intense +or prodigal in nature, any splendidly fluent outpouring of the +elements,--the fierce life of streaming fire, water in gliding or +tumultuous masses, the vivid gold of crocus and daffodil spouting up +through the earth in spring, the exquisite liquidity of a bird +singing,--these, as with all elemental poetic natures, gave her the +same keen joy which we fable for those who, in the intense morning of +the world, first heard them; fable, indeed, for why should we suppose +that because ears deaf a thousand years heard the nightingale too, it +should therefore be less new for those who to-night hear it for the +first time? Rather shall it be more than less for us, by the memories +transmitted in our blood from all the generations who before have +listened and gone their way.</p> + +<p>So Henry sought out Angel, and they both stood in front of the great +picture for a long while without a word. Presently Angel put the feeling +of both of them into a single phrase,--</p> + +<p>"Henry, dear, we have found our church."</p> + +<p>And indeed for many months henceforth this picture was to be their +altar, their place of prayer. Often hereafter when their hopes were +overcast, or life grew mean with little cares, they would slip, singly, +or together, into that gallery, and--</p> + +<blockquote> + "let the beauty of Eternity<br> +Smooth from their brows the little frets of time."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Thus Henry's first day of freedom had begun auspiciously with the +unexpected discovery of an inalienable possession of beauty. Yet the +little cares were not far off, waiting their time; and that night, Henry +lay long awake asking himself what he was going to do? Whence was to +come the material gold and silver by which this impetuous spirit was to +be sustained? A sum not exceeding five pounds represented his +accumulated resources, and they would not last longer than--five pounds. +He needed little, but that little he needed emphatically. Soon a new +book and other literary projects would keep him going, but--meanwhile! +How were the next two or three months to be bridged? Return to his +father's house, he neither would, nor perhaps, indeed, could.</p> + +<p>So he lay awake a long while, fruitlessly thinking; but, just before he +slept, a thought that made him laugh himself awake suggested itself: +"Why not go and ask Aunt Tipping to take pity on you?"</p> + +<p>So he went to sleep, resolved, if only for the fun of it, to pay a visit +to Aunt Tipping on the morrow.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + +<h3>A PREPOSTEROUS AUNT</h3> +<br> + +<p>No doubt it has been surmised from what has gone before, that when Henry +said to himself that he would go and see Aunt Tipping, he did not +propose to himself a visit to the country seat of some quaint old lady +of quality. Baronial towers and stately avenues of ancestral elm did not +make a picturesque background for his thoughts as he recalled +Aunt Tipping.</p> + +<p>Poor kind Aunt Tipping, it is a shame to banter her memory even in so +obvious a fashion; for if ever there was a kind heart, it was hers. In +fact she possessed, in a degree that amounted to genius, one of the +rarest of human qualities,--unconditional pity for the unhappy human +creature. Within her narrow and squalid sphere, she was never known to +fail of such succour as was hers to give to misfortune, however +well-merited, or misery however self-made.</p> + +<p>No religion or philosophy has ever yet been merciful enough to human +weakness. Matilda Tipping repaired the lack so far as she went. In fact, +she had unconsciously realised that weakness <i>is</i> human nature. It would +be difficult to fix upon an offence that would disqualify you for Aunt +Tipping's pity. To the prodigalities of the passions, and the appetites +disastrously indulged, she was accustomed by a long succession of those +sad and shady lodgers to whom it was part of her precarious livelihood +to let her rooms, and, not infrequently, to forgive them their rent. +That men and women should drink too much, and love too many, was, her +experience told her, one of those laws of nature that seemed to make a +good deal of unnecessary inconvenience in mortal affairs, but against +which mere preaching or punishment availed nothing. All that was to be +done was, so far as possible, to repair their ravages in particular +instances, and heal the wounds of human passion with simple +human kindness.</p> + +<p>Of two vessels, one for honour and the other for dishonour, surely +nature never made so complete a contrast as Matilda Tipping and her +sister, Mary Mesurier. Both country girls, born in a humble, though +defiantly respectable, stratum of society, the ways of the two sisters +had already parted in childhood. Mary was studious, neat, and religious; +Matilda was tomboyish, impatient of restraint, and fond of unedifying +associates.</p> + +<p>"Your aunt never aspired," Mrs. Mesurier would say of Aunt Tipping +sometimes to her children; and, while still a child, she had often +reproached her with her fondness for gossiping with companions "beneath +her." Matilda could never be persuaded to care for books. She was +naturally illiterate, and even late in life had a fixed aversion to +writing her own letters; whereas, at the age of seven, Mary had been +public scrivener for the whole village. But with these regrettable +instincts, from the first Matilda had also manifested a whimsical +liveliness, an unconquerable lightheartedness which made you forgive her +anything, and for which, poor soul, she had use enough before she was +done with life. At seventeen, added to good looks, of which at fifty +there was scarcely a trace in the thin and meanly worn face, this +vivacity had proved a tragic snare. A certain young capitalist--known as +a great gentleman--of that countryside had pounced down on the gay and +careless young Matilda, and had at once provided her life with its +formative tragedy and its deathless romance. Even at fifty, hopelessly +buried among the back streets and pawnshops of life, heaven still opened +in the heart of Matilda Tipping at the mention of the name of William +Allsopp. For several years she had lived with the Mesuriers, as general +help to her sister, between whom and her, in spite of surface +disparities, there was an indissoluble bond of affection; till, at +thirty-five or so, she had suddenly won the heart of a sad old widower +of fifty-five, named Samuel Tipping.</p> + +<p>Samuel Tipping was no ordinary widower. As you looked at his severe, +thoughtful face, surmounted by a shock of beautiful white hair, you +instinctively respected him; and when you heard that he lived by +cobbling shoes by day and playing a violin in the Theatre Royal +orchestra by night, occasionally putting off his leather apron to give a +music lesson in the front parlour of an afternoon, you respected him +all the more. There had been but one thing against Mr. Tipping's +eligibility for marriage, Matilda Tipping would tell you, even years +after, with a lowering of her voice: he was said to be an "atheist," and +a reader of strange books. Yet he seemed a quiet, manageable man, and +likely--again in Mrs. Tipping's phrase--to prove a "good provider;" so +she had risked his heterodoxy, which indeed was a somewhat fanciful +objection on her part, and made him, as he declared with his dying +breath, the best of wives.</p> + +<p>It chanced that when Henry, in pursuance of his over-night resolve, made +his way the following afternoon through a dingy little street, and +knocked on the door of a dingy little house, bearing upon a brass plate +the legend "Boots neatly repaired," Mr. Tipping was engaged in giving +one of those very music lessons. A dingy little maid-of-all-work opened +the door, and said that Mrs. Tipping was out shopping, but would be back +soon. From the front parlour came the lifeless tum-tumming of the piano, +and Mr. Tipping's voice gruffly counting time to the cheerless +five-finger exercises of a very evident beginner.</p> + +<p>"One--two--three! One--two--three! One--two--three!" went Mr. Tipping's +voice, with an occasional infusion of savagery.</p> + +<p>"But Mr. Tipping is at home?" said Henry. "I will wait till he is +disengaged. I will make myself comfortable in the kitchen," (Henry knew +his way about at Aunt Tipping's, and remembered there was only one front +parlour) adding, with something of pride, "I'm Mrs. Tipping's nephew, +you know."</p> + +<p>Presently the torture in the front parlour was at an end; and, as Mr. +Tipping was about to turn upstairs to the little back room where he +mended his shoes, Henry emerged upon him from the kitchen. They had had +some talks on books and the general misgovernment of the universe,--for +Mr. Tipping really was something of an "atheist,"--on Henry's occasional +visits, and were no strangers to each other.</p> + +<p>"Why, Henry, lad, whoever expected to see you! Your aunt's out at +present; but she'll be back soon. Come into the parlour."</p> + +<p>"If you don't mind, Uncle Tipping, I'd rather come upstairs with you. I +love the smell of the leather and the sight of all those sharp little +knives, and the black, shiny 'dubbin,' do you call it? And we can have a +talk about books till aunt comes home."</p> + +<p>"All right, lad. But it's a dusty place, and there's hardly a corner to +sit down in."</p> + +<p>So up they went to a little room where, in a chaos of boots mended on +one hand, and boots to mend on the other, sheets of leather lying about, +in one corner a great tubfull of water in which the leather was +soaked,--an old boyish fascination of Henry's,--Mr. Tipping spent the +greater part of his days. He sat on a low bench near a window, along +which ran a broad sill full of tools. On this, too, lay an opened book, +into which Mr. Tipping would dip now and again, when he could safely +leave the boot he was engaged upon to the mechanical skill of his hands. +At one end of the tool-shelf was a small collection of books, a dozen or +so shabby volumes, though these were far from constituting Mr. Tipping's +complete library.</p> + +<p>Mr. Tipping belonged to that pathetic army of book-lovers who subsist on +the refuse of the stalls, which he hunted not for rare editions, but for +the sheer bread of life, or rather the stale crusts of knowledge. His +tastes were not literary in the special sense of the word. For +belles-lettres he had no fancy, and fine passages, except in so far as +they were controversial, left him cold. His mind was primarily +scientific, secondarily philosophic, and occasionally historic. Travels +and books of physical science were the finds for which, mainly, he +rummaged the stalls. At the moment his pet study was astronomy; and a +curious apparatus in one of the corners, which Henry had noticed as he +entered, was his sad attempt to rig up a telescope for himself.</p> + +<p>"It's not so bad as it looks," he said, pointing it out; "but then," he +added, with a smile half sad and half humorous, "there are not many +stars to be seen from Tichborne Street."</p> + +<p>It was a touching characteristic of the type of bookman to which Mr. +Tipping belonged, that the astronomy from which he was reading by no +means embodied the latest discoveries. In fact, it narrowly escaped +being eighteenth-century science, for it was dated very early in the +eighteen hundreds. But an astronomy was an astronomy to Mr. Tipping; and +had Copernicus been born late enough, he would most certainly have +imbibed Ptolemaic doctrines with grateful unsuspicion. Indeed, had it +been put to him: "This astronomy after Copernicus at half-a-crown, and +this after Ptolemy for sixpence," his means alone would have left him no +choice. It is so the old clothes of the mind, like the old clothes of +the body,--superseded science, forgotten philosophy,--find a market, and +a book remains a book, with the power of comforting or diverting some +indigent, poor soul, so long as the stitching holds it together.</p> + +<p>Presently there was a knock at the front door.</p> + +<p>"There's your aunt," said Mr. Tipping; and, as the door opened, the +little maid-of-all-work was to be heard whispering her mistress that a +young gentleman who said he was her nephew had come and was upstairs +with "the master."</p> + +<p>"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Tipping, immediately starting upstairs +towards the open door of the cobblery.</p> + +<p>Henry was standing on the threshold, and the warm-hearted little woman +gave him a hearty hug of welcome.</p> + +<p>"Well, I <i>am</i> glad to see you! And how are they all at home?" and she +ran over the list, name for name. "We mustn't forget your father. But +he's a hard 'un and no mistake," said the aunt, putting on a mimic +expression of severity.</p> + +<p>"He's an upright man, is James Mesurier," said Mr. Tipping, rather +severely.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, yes; we know that, crosspatch. I'm saying nothing against +him. He's good at heart, I know; but he's a little hard on the +surface--like some other folks I know," making a face at her husband. +"But you must come down and talk to me a bit, lad; you'll have had +enough of him and his old books. You never saw the like of him! Here he +sits day after day over his musty books, and you can hardly get him away +for his meals. He's no company for any one."</p> + +<p>"Talk of something you can understand, lass," retorted the husband, in a +voice that took any unkindness from the words, rather like a father than +a husband. "You don't ail much for lack of company, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"Now if it was only a good novel," his wife persisted; "but nothing but +travels, geographies, and such like. Last thing he's taken up with is +the stars. I suppose he's been telling you about them--" and she said +this half as though it were a new form of lunacy Mr. Tipping had +developed, and half as though he had been opening up new realms of +knowledge--original but useless. She was far indeed from understanding +that lonely mind and its tragedy, thirsting so hopelessly for +knowledge, and to die athirst. She heard him knock, knock all day +upstairs; but the knocking told her nothing of his loneliness. He was +just a good, hard-working, rather cross old man, unaccountably fond of +printed matter, whom she liked to be good to, and if in her time that +knocking upstairs should stop for ever--well! she wasn't one to meet +trouble half way, but she would miss it a good deal, old man as he was.</p> + +<p>She was herself nearing fifty; but her slim little wiry body and her +elfish, wrinkled face, never still, but ever alive with the same +vivacity that years ago had attracted William Allsopp, made her seem +younger than her years; and her husband treated her as though she were +still a child, a wilful child.</p> + +<p>"Eh, Matilda," he said, "you're just a child. No more nor less,--just a +child. The years haven't tamed you one bit--"</p> + +<p>"Get out with you and your old stars!" she said, laughing. "Henry, come +along and have a talk with your old aunt."</p> + +<p>Though invincibly cheerful through it all, Aunt Tipping was always in +trouble, if not for herself, for somebody else. To-day, it was for +herself, though it was but a minor reverse in the guerilla warfare of +her life. A distressed lodger who had just left had begged her to +accept, in lieu of rent, the pawn-ticket of a handsome clock which had +been hers in happier days; and Mrs. Tipping, moved as she always was by +any tale of woe, however elaborate, had consented. Nor in her world was +such a way of settling accounts very exceptional, for pawn-tickets were +there looked upon as legitimately negotiable securities. Indeed, Aunt +Tipping was seldom without a selection of such securities upon her +hands; and, if a neighbour should chance to be in need, say, of a new +set of chimney ornaments, as likely as not Aunt Tipping had in her purse +a pledge for the very thing. This she would sell at a reasonable profit, +which would probably amount to but a small proportion of the original +debt for which she had accepted it. It was not a lucrative business, +though there were occasional "bargains" in it.</p> + +<p>In that word "bargains," all the active romance of Aunt Tipping's life +was now centred. In all departments of the cast-off and the second-hand +she was a daring speculator; and a spirited "auction" now and again +exhilarated her as much as a fortnight by the sea. That house which she +fought so desperately to keep tidy and respectable, had been furnished +almost entirely in this way. There was hardly an article in it that had +not already lived other lives in other houses, before it had been picked +up, "dirt cheap," by Aunt Tipping.</p> + +<p>But this afternoon her confidence in human nature had received a cruel +wound. When, after an hour's weary drag to a remote end of the town, she +had arrived at the pawnshop where was preserved the handsome clock of +the distressed lady, and had confidently presented the ticket and the +necessary money, the man had looked awhile perplexed. They had no such +clock, he said. And then, as he further examined the ticket, a light +broke in upon him.</p> + +<p>"My dear lady," he said, "look here. The year on this ticket has been +changed."</p> + +<p>So indeed it had, and poor Aunt Tipping was at least a year too late.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever hear of such treatment?" she said to Henry; "and such a +nice lady she was. 'I shall never forget your goodness to me, Mrs. +Tipping,' she said as she went away, 'never, if I live to be a hundred.' +I'll 'goodness' her, if ever I catch her. Cheating honest folks like +that! Such people oughtn't to be allowed. I don't know how people can +behave so!"</p> + +<p>Aunt Tipping's indignation seldom outlived a few plaintive words of this +sort; and had the offending lady of the clock appeared next moment, and +given some Arabian Nights' explanation, there is little doubt that Aunt +Tipping would have forgiven her on the spot. A tendency to do so was +already active in her next remark,--</p> + +<p>"Well, poor soul, we mustn't be too hard on her. We never know what we +may be brought to ourselves." For it was Aunt Tipping's unformulated +axiom that, whatever cock-and-bull stories misfortune may tell, there is +always some truth in human misery.</p> + +<p>When Henry had told Aunt Tipping his story, and ventured to hint a +suggestion that, if it should not be inconvenient for her, he would like +to take sanctuary with her for a month or two, till he got his hopes +into working order, her little sharp face fairly gleamed with delight. +You would have thought that he was bringing her some great benefit, +instead of proposing to take something from her. That he should have +thought of <i>her</i>, such a little humble aunt; that, added to the love +she had for any one with any tincture of her family's blood running in +their veins, plus her general weakness for any one in trouble, brought +tears to her eyes that made her look quite young again.</p> + +<p>"I should think so indeed!" she said. "The best your poor old auntie's +got is yours with all her heart--Ah, your father never understood you. +You've got too much of our side of the family in you. You're a bit wild, +you know, lad; but you're none the worse for that, eh?"</p> + +<p>There is no need to say that Aunt Tipping's understanding of the tastes +and ambitions which had driven Henry momentarily to take refuge with her +was of the vaguest; but all she needed to know of such a situation was +that: here on the one hand was something somebody very much wanted to +do, and here on the other were certain stern powers ranked against his +doing it. That was enough for her. Her sympathy with all forms of revolt +was instantaneous. For law and order, as such, she had an instinctive +antipathy, as in all contests whatsoever her one general rule was: "Side +with the weaker." And it cannot but have been perceived that so much +sympathy with weakness could hardly have been in the gift of weakness. +No; Aunt Tipping was entirely impersonal in these charities of feeling, +and it was because there was so much sterling honesty and strength +hidden in her little wiry frame, that she could afford so much succour +to those who were neither honest nor strong.</p> + +<p>"Well, it was nice of you to think of your poor old aunt," she repeated +again and again; and then she remarked on the good fortune which had +caused the vacation of the front room over the parlour, her grievance +against the lady of the handsome clock quite forgotten.</p> + +<p>"It's a nice airy room," she said; and then she began planning how she +might best arrange it for his comfort.</p> + +<p>"Dear little aunt," said Henry, taking the little wisp of a woman into +his arms, "you're the salt of the earth."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"Why ever didn't I think of it before!" exclaimed Aunt Tipping, +presently. "I've got the very gentleman to help you with your writing."</p> + +<p>"Indeed," said Henry, somewhat sceptical.</p> + +<p>"Yes; he's down there in the back parlour. They say he's a great +writer," continued Aunt Tipping; "but he's not very well the last day or +two, and doesn't see anybody. To tell the truth, poor gentleman," she +confided, lowering her voice, "he's just a little too fond of his glass. +But he's as good and kind a gentleman as ever stepped, and always +regular with his rent every Monday morning."</p> + +<p>There was usually something mysterious about Aunt Tipping's lodgers. At +their best, she had known them as elaborately wronged bye-products of +aristocracy. Many of them were lawful expectants of illegally delayed +fortunes, and at the very least they always drank romantically.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that to the somewhat amused surprise of his family, Henry +came to take up his abode for a while with Aunt Tipping, and that his +books and the cast of Dante, and the sketch of the young Dante done in +sepia by Myrtilla Williamson's own fair hand, came to find themselves in +the incongruous environment of Tichborne Street.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + +<h3>THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN IN THE BACK PARLOUR</h3> +<br> + +<p>Aunt Tipping proved not so ludicrously out of it after all in regard to +the literary gentleman in the back parlour. Henry had hardly known what +to expect; but certainly he had pictured no one so interesting as Ashton +Gerard proved to be. For a dark den smelling strongly of whisky and +water, and some slovenly creature of the under-world crouched in a dirty +armchair over the fire, he found instead a pleasant little room, very +neatly kept, with books, two or three good pictures, and general +evidence of cultivated tastes; and on Mr. Gerard's refined sad face, +which, being shaven, and surmounted by a tuft of vigorous curly hair, +once black but now curiously splashed with vivid flakes of white, +retained something of boyish beauty even at forty, you looked in vain +for the marks of one who was in the grip of an imperious vice. Only by +the marked dimness and weariness of his blue eyes, which gave the face a +rather helpless, dreamy expression, might the experienced observer have +understood. So to speak, the ocular will had gone out of them; they no +longer grasped the visible, but glided listlessly over it; nor did they +seem to be looking on things invisible. They were the eyes of +the drowned.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gerard had exceedingly gentle manners. It was easy to understand +that a landlady would worship him. He gave little trouble, asked for the +most necessary service as though it were a courtesy, and never forgot an +interest in Aunt Tipping's affairs. On bright days he revealed a vein of +quite boyish gaiety; and in his talk with Henry he flashed out a strange +paradoxical humour, too often morbid in its themes, which, as usually +the case with such humour, was really sadness coming to the surface in +a jest.</p> + +<p>It soon transpired that a favourite subject of his talk was that very +weakness which most men would have been at pains to hide.</p> + +<p>"So you're going to be a poet, Mr. Mesurier," he said. "Well, so was I +once, so was I--but," he continued, "all too early another Muse took +hold of me, a terrible Muse--yet a Muse who never forsakes you--" and +he laid his hand on a decanter which stood near him on the table,--"yes, +Mr. Mesurier, the terrible Muse of Drink! You may be surprised to hear +me talk so; yet were this laudanum instead of brandy, there would seem +to you a certain element of the poetic in the service of such a Muse. +Drinks with Oriental or unfamiliar names have a romantic sound. Thus +Alfred de Musset as the slave to absinthe sounds much more poetic than, +say, Alfred de Musset as a slave to rum or gin, or even this brandy +here. Yet this, too, is no less the stuff that dreams are made of; and +the opium-eater, the absinthe-sipper, the brandy-drinker, are all +members of the same great brotherhood of tragic idealists--"</p> + +<p>He talked deliberately; but there was a smile playing at the corners of +the mouth which took from his talk the sense of a painful +self-revelation, and gave it the air of a playful fantasia upon a +paradox that for the moment amused him.</p> + +<p>"Idealists! Yes," he continued; "for what few understand is that drink +is an idealism--and," he presently added with a laugh, "and, of course, +like all idealisms, it has its dangers."</p> + +<p>With a monomaniac, conversation is apt to limit itself to monologue; +so, while Henry was greatly interested in this odd talk, it left him but +little to say.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I shock you a little, Mr. Mesurier, perhaps even--disgust +you," said Mr. Gerard.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, no!" exclaimed Henry; "but both the subject and your way of +treating it are, I confess, a little new to me."</p> + +<p>"You are surprised to find one who is what is popularly known as a +drunkard not so much ashamed of as interested in himself; isn't that it? +Well, that comes of the introspective literary temperament. It is only +the oyster fascinated by the pearl that is killing it."</p> + +<p>"You should write some 'Confessions' after the manner of De Quincey," +said Henry.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I've often thought of it, for there's so much that needs saying +on the subject. There is nothing with which we are at once so familiar +and of which we know so little. For example"--and now he was quite +plainly off again--"for example, the passion for, I might say the dream +of, drink is usually regarded as a sensual appetite, a physical +indulgence. No doubt in its first crude stages it often is so; but soon +it becomes something much more strange and abstract. It becomes a +mysterious command, issuing we know not whence. It is hardly a desire, +and it is not so much a joyless, as a quite colourless, obedience to an +imperious necessity, decreed by some unknown will. You might well +imagine that I like the taste of this brandy there, as a child is +greedily fond of sweetstuff; but it would be quite a mistake. For my own +personal taste, there is no drink like a cup of tea; it is the demon, +the strange will that has imposed itself upon me, that has a taste +for brandy.</p> + +<p>"I sometimes wonder whether we poor drunkards are not the victims of +disembodied powers of the air who, by some chance, have contracted a +craving for earthly liquors, and can only satisfy that craving by +fastening themselves upon some unhappy human organism. At times there +comes an intermission of the command, as mysterious almost as the +command itself. For weeks together we give no thought to our tyrant. We +grow gay and young and innocent again. We are free,--so free, we seem to +have forgotten that we were ever enslaved. Then suddenly one day we hear +the call again. We cry for mercy; we throw ourselves on our knees in +prayer. We clutch sacred relics; we conjure the aid of holy memories; we +say over to ourselves the names of the dead we have loved: but it is all +in vain--surely we are dragged to the feet of that inexorable will, +surely we submit ourselves once more to the dark dominion."</p> + +<p>Henry listened, fascinated, and a little frightened.</p> + +<p>"The longer I live, the more I grow convinced that this is no mere +fancy, but actual science," Mr. Gerard continued; "for, again, you might +well imagine that one drinks for the dreams or other illusory effects it +is said to produce. At first, perhaps, yes; but such effects speedily +pass away, they pass away indeed before the tyranny has established +itself, while it would still be possible to shake it off. No, the dreams +of drink are poor things, not worth having at the best. Indeed, there +are no dreams worth having, believe me, but those of youth and health +and spring-water."</p> + +<p>And Mr. Gerard passed for awhile in silence into some hidden country of +his lost dreams.</p> + +<p>Henry gazed at him with a curious wonder. Here was a man evidently of +considerable gifts, a man of ideals, of humour, a man witty and gentle, +who surely could have easily made his mark in the world, and yet he had +thrown all away for a mechanical habit which he himself did not pretend +to be a passion,--a mere abstract attraction: as though a man should +say, "I care not for the joys or successes of this world. My destiny is +to sit alone all day and count my fingers and toes, count them over and +over and over again. There is not much pleasure in it, and I should be +glad to break off the habit,--but there it is. It is imposed upon me by +a will stronger than mine which I must obey. It is my destiny."</p> + +<p>"Yes, idealists!" said Mr. Gerard, presently coming back from his dreams +to his great subject, with a laugh. "That reminds me of a story a +business friend of mine told me the other day. A clerk in his office was +an incorrigible drunkard. He was quite alone in the world, and had no +one dependent upon him. The firm had been lenient to him, and again and +again forgiven his outbreaks. But one morning they called him in and +said: 'Look here, Jones, we have had a great deal of patience with you; +but the time has come when you must choose between the drink and the +office.' To their surprise, Jones, instead of eagerly promising reform, +looked up gravely, and replied, 'Will you give me a week to think it +over, sir? It is a very serious matter.' Drink was all the poor fellow +had outside his drudgery; was it to be expected that he should thus +lightly sacrifice it?--</p> + +<p>"But, to talk about something else, your aunt, Mrs. Tipping, who has a +great idea of my literary importance, has a notion that I may be of some +help to you, Mr. Mesurier. Well, I'll tell you the whole extent of my +present literary engagements, and you are perfectly at liberty to laugh. +At the present time I do the sporting notes for the <i>Tyrian Daily Mail</i>, +and I write the theological reviews for <i>The Fleet Street Review</i>. These +apparently incongruous occupations are the relics of an old taste for +sport, which as a boy in the country I had ample opportunity for +indulging, and of an interrupted training for the Church--'twixt then +and now there is an eventful gap which, if you don't mind, we won't +sadden each other by filling--Let us fill our glasses and our pipes +instead; and, having failed so entirely myself, I will give you minute +directions how to succeed in literature."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gerard's discourse on how to succeed in literature was partly +practical and partly ironical, and probably too technical to interest +the general reader, who has no intention of being a great or a little +writer, and who perhaps has already found Mr. Gerard's previous +discourse a little too special in its character. Suffice it that Henry +heard much to remember, and much to laugh over, and that Mr. Gerard +concluded with a practical offer of kindness.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how much use it may be to you," he said; "but if you care +to have it, I should be very glad to give you a letter to the editor of +<i>The Fleet Street Review</i>. He has, I think, a certain regard for me, and +he might send you a book to do now and again. At all events, it would be +something."</p> + +<p>Henry embraced the offer gratefully; and it occurred to him that in a +day or two's time there was a five days' excursion running from Tyre to +London and back, for half-a-guinea. Why not take it, and expend his last +five pounds in a stimulating glimpse of the city he some day hoped to +conquer? He could then see his friend the publisher, present his letter +to the editor, and perhaps bring home with him some little work and a +renewed stock of hopes.</p> + +<p>So, before they parted that night, Mr. Gerard wrote him the letter.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> + +<h3>"THIS IS LONDON, THIS IS LIFE"</h3> +<br> + +<p>Thus it was that, all unexpectedly, Henry found himself set down one +autumn morning at the homeless hour of a quarter-to-seven, in Euston +station. He was going to stay in some street off the Strand, and +chartered a hansom to take him there. Few great cities are impressive in +the neighbourhood of their railway termini. You enter them, so to speak, +by the back door; and London waves no banners of bright welcome to the +stranger who first enters it by the Euston Road.</p> + +<p>But there was an interesting church presently, and on a dust-cart close +by Henry read "Vestry of St. Pancras."</p> + +<p>"Can that be the St. Pancras' Church," he said to himself, "where Mary +Wollstonecraft lies buried, and Browning was married?"</p> + +<p>Then as they drove along through Bloomsbury, the name "Great Coram +Street" caught his eye, and he exclaimed with delight: "Why, that's +where Thackeray lived for a time!"</p> + +<p>Great Coram Street is little accustomed to create such excitement in the +breast of the passer-by. But to the stranger London is necessarily first +a museum, till he begins to love it as a home, and, in addition to dead +men's associations, begins to people it with memories of his own. When +you have lived awhile in Gray's Inn, you grow to forget that Bacon's +ghost is your fellow-tenant; and it is the kind-hearted provincial who +from time to time lays those flowers on Goldsmith's tomb. When you are +caught in a block on Westminster Bridge, with only five minutes to get +to Waterloo, you forget to say to yourself: "Ah, this is the bridge on +which Wordsworth wrote his famous sonnet." You usually say something +quite different.</p> + +<p>The mere names of the streets,--how laden with immemorial poetry they +were! "Chancery Lane!" How wonderful! Yet the poor wretch standing +outside the public-house at the corner seemed to derive small +consolation from the fact that he was starving in Chancery Lane.</p> + +<p>But to Henry, as yet, London was an extended Westminster Abbey, and +every other street was Poet's Corner. He had hardly patience to +breakfast, so eager was he to be out in the streets; and while he ate, +his eyes were out of the windows all the time, and his ears drinking in +all the London morning sounds like music. At the foot of the street ran +the Thames; he had caught a thrilling glimpse of it as he stepped from +his cab, and had had a childish impulse to rush down to it before +entering his hotel.</p> + +<p>At last, free of food and baggage, light of heart, and brimming over +with youth, he stepped into the street. It was but little past eight +o'clock. He had just heard the hour chimed, in various tones of +sweetness and solemnity, from several mellow clocks, evidently hidden +high in the air in his near vicinity. For two or three hours there would +be no editor or publisher to be seen, and meanwhile he had London to +himself. He stepped out into it as into a garden,--a garden of those +old-time flowers in which antiquity has become a perfume full +of pictures.</p> + +<p>Yes, there was the Thames! "Sweet Themmes, run softly till I end my +song!" he quoted to himself. Chaucer's, Spenser's, Elizabeth's Thames!</p> + +<p>It was a bright morning and the river gleamed to advantage. The tall +tower of Westminster glittered richly in the sun, and the long front of +Somerset House wore a lordly smile. The embankment gardens sparkled and +rustled in morning freshness. Henry drew in the air of London as though +it had been a rose. Here was the Thames at the foot of the street, and +there at the head was the Strand, a stream of omnibuses and cabs, and +city-faring men and women. The Temple must be somewhere close by. Of +course it was here to his left. But he would first walk quietly by the +Thames side to Westminster, and then come back by the Strand. As he +walked, he stepped lightly and gently, as though reverent to the very +stones of so sacred a city, and all the time from every prospect and +every other street-corner came streaming like strains of music magnetic +memories,--"streets with the names of old kings, strong earls, and +warrior saints." If for no other reason, how important for the future of +a nation is it to preserve in such ancient cities as London and Oxford +the energising spectacle of a noble and strenuous antiquity; for there +are no such inspirers of young men as these old places! So much strength +and youth went into them long ago that even yet they have strength and +youth to give, and from them, as from the strong hills, pours out an +inexhaustible potency of bracing influence.</p> + +<p>At last Henry found himself back at the top-end of his street. He had +walked the Strand with deliberate enjoyment. Fleet Street he still +reserved, but, as according to the tower of Clement Danes it was only +just ten o'clock, it seemed still a little early to attack his business. +A florist's close by suggested a charming commonplace way of filling the +time. He would buy some flowers and carry them to Goldsmith's grave. Why +Goldsmith's grave should thus be specially honoured, he a little +wondered. He was conscious of loving several writers quite as well. But +it was a Johnsonian tradition to love Goldy, and the accessibility of +his resting-place made sentiment easy.</p> + +<p>He repented this momentary flippancy of thought as he stood in the +cloistered corner where Goldsmith sleeps under the eye of the law; and, +when he laid his little wreath on the worn stone, it was a genuine +offering. From it he turned away to his own personal dreams.</p> + +<p>By eleven he had found his friend the publisher, in a dainty little +place of business crammed with pottery, Rowlandsons, and books, and +more like a curiosity-shop than a publishing-house, for the publisher +proved an enthusiast in everything that was beautiful or curious, and +had indeed taken to publishing from that rare motive in a +publisher,--the love of books, rather than the love of money. He was +aiming to make his little shop the rallying-point of all the young +talent of the day, and as young talent has never too many publishers on +the look-out for it, his task was not difficult, though it was one of +those real services to literature which such publishers and booksellers +have occasionally done in our literary history, with but scant +acknowledgment.</p> + +<p>Henry was pleased to find that he looked upon him to make one of his +little band of youth; and as the publisher understood the art of +encouragement, Henry already felt it had been worth while to come to +London just to see him. He knew the editor to whom Henry had a letter +and volunteered him another. The afternoon would be the best time; +meanwhile, they must lunch together. He smiled when Henry suggested the +Cheshire Cheese. Henry had a sort of vague idea that literary men could +hardly think of taking their meals anywhere else. There had been an +attempt to bring it into fashion again, the publisher said; but it had +come to nothing--though he, for one, loved those old chop-houses, with +their tankards, and their sanded floors. So to the Cheshire Cheese they +repaired, and drank to a long friendship in foaming pewters of porter.</p> + +<p>"Alas!" said Henry, "we are fallen on smaller times. Once it was 'the +poet's pint of port.' Now we must be content with the poetaster's +half-a-pint of porter!"</p> + +<p>"You must come to my rooms to-night," said the publisher, "and be +introduced to some of our young men. I have one or two of our older +critics coming too."</p> + +<p>Henry's fortune was evidently made.</p> + +<p>He found the editor in a dim back room at the top of a high building, so +lost in a world of books and dust that at first Henry could hardly make +him out, writing by a window with his back to the door. Then an alert +head turned round to him, and a rather peevish gesture bade him be +seated, while the editor resumed his work. This hardly came up to +Henry's magnificent dreams of the editorial dignity. Perhaps he had a +vague idea that editors lived in palaces, and sat on thrones.</p> + +<p>Presently the editor put down his pen with an exclamation of +satisfaction; and the first impression of peevishness vanished in the +cordiality with which he now turned to his visitor.</p> + +<p>"You must excuse my absorption. It was a rather tough piece of +proof-reading. A subject I'm rather interested in,--new Welsh +dictionary. Don't suppose it's in your line, eh, eh?"--and the tall, +spare man laughed a boyish laugh like a mischievous bird, and tossed his +head at the jest.</p> + +<p>His face was small and sallow and tired; but the dark eyes were full of +fun and kindness. Presently, he rose and began to walk up and down the +room with a curious, prancing walk, rolling himself a cigarette, and +talking away in a rapid, jerky fashion with his continual, "eh, eh?" +coming in all the time.</p> + +<p>"Poor Gerard! So you know him? How is he now?" and he lowered his voice +with the suggestion of a mutual confidence, and stopped in his walk till +Henry should answer. "Poor Gerard! And he might have been--well, +well,--never mind. We were together at King's. Brilliant fellow. So you +know Gerard. Dear me! Dear me!"</p> + +<p>Then he turned to the subject of Henry's visit.</p> + +<p>"Well, my poor boy, nothing will satisfy you but literature? You are +determined to be a literary man, eh, eh?" Then he stopped in front of +Henry and laid his hand kindly on his shoulder, "Is it too late to say, +'Go back while there is yet time'? Perhaps--of course--you're going to +be a very great man," and he broke off into his walk again, with one of +his mischievous laughs. "But unless you are, take my word, it's a poor +game--Yet, I suppose, it's no use talking. I know, wasted breath, wasted +breath--Well, now, what can you do? and, by the way, you won't grow fat +on <i>The Fleet Street Review</i>. Ten shillings a column is our magnificent +rate of payment, and we can hardly afford that--"</p> + +<p>Then he began pulling out one book and another from the piles of all +sorts that lay around him. "I suppose, like the rest, you'd better begin +on poetry. There's a tableful over there--go and take your pick of it, +unless, of course, you've got some special subject. You're not, I +suppose, an authority on Assyriology, eh, eh?"</p> + +<p>Henry feared not, and then a new fit of industry came upon the editor, +and he begged Henry to take a look at the books while he ran through +another proof for the post.</p> + +<p>That dusty table--evidently the rubbish-heap of the room--was Henry's +first object-lesson in the half tragical, half farcical, over-production +of modern literature. Such a mass of foolishness and ineptitude he had +never conceived of; such pretentiousness too--and while he made various +melancholy reflections upon human vanity, what should he unearth +suddenly from the heap, but his own little volume. He could but half +suppress a cry of recognition.</p> + +<p>"What's that?" asked the editor, not turning round. "Found anything?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Henry; "nothing--for a moment I thought I had."</p> + +<p>Presently he had made a small pile of the most promising volumes, and +turned to take his leave. The editor took up one or two of them +carelessly.</p> + +<p>"Not much here, I'm afraid," he said. "Never mind; see what you can make +of them. Not more than three columns at the most, you know. And come and +see me again. I'm glad to have seen you."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Henry, on the point of leaving, and laying his hand on his +own little book, "may I take this one too? It's not worth reviewing, but +it rather interested me just now."</p> + +<p>"God bless me, yes, certainly," said the editor; "you're welcome to the +lot, if you care to bring a hand-cart. Good-bye, good-bye."</p> + +<p>And Henry slipped his poor little neglected volume into his pocket. On +how many dusty tables, he wondered, was it then lying ignominiously +disregarded. Well, the day would come! Meanwhile, he had his first batch +of books for review.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> + +<h3>THE WITS</h3> +<br> + +<p>There now remained the gathering of wits fixed for the evening. His +publisher had asked him to dinner, but he had declined, from a secret +and absurd desire to dine at "The Cock." This he gratified, and with his +mind full of the spacious times of the early Victorians, he turned into +the publisher's little room about nine o'clock to meet some of +the later.</p> + +<p>There was no great muster as yet. Some half-a-dozen rather shy young men +spasmodically picked up strange drawings or odd-looking books, lying +about on the publisher's tables, struggled maidenly with cigars, sipped +a little whisky and soda; but little was said.</p> + +<p>Among them a pale-faced lad of about fifteen, miraculously +self-possessed, stood with his back to the chimney-piece. But soon +others began to turn in, and by ten the room was as full of chatter and +smoke as it could hold. Not least conspicuous among the talkers was the +pale-faced boy of fifteen. Henry had been sitting near to him, and had +been suddenly startled by his unexpectedly breaking out into a volley of +learning, delivered in a voice impressively deliberate and sententious.</p> + +<p>"What a remarkable boy that is!" said Henry, innocently, to the +publisher.</p> + +<p>"Yes; but he's not quite a boy,--though he's young enough. A curious +little creature, morbidly learned. A friend of mine says that he would +like to catch him and keep him in a bottle, and label it 'the learned +homunculus.'"</p> + +<p>"What dialect is it he is talking in?" said Henry; "I don't remember to +have heard it before."</p> + +<p>The publisher smiled: "My dear fellow, you must be careful what you say. +That is what we call 'the Oxford voice.'"</p> + +<p>"How remarkable!" said Henry, his attention called off by a being with a +face that half suggested a faun, and half suggested a flower,--a small, +olive-skinned face crowned with purply black hair, that kept falling in +an elflock over his forehead, and violet eyes set slant-wise. He was +talking earnestly of fairies, in a beautiful Irish accent, and Henry +liked him. The attraction seemed mutual, and Henry found himself drawn +into a remarkable relation about a fairy-hill in Connemara, and fairy +lights that for several nights had been seen glimmering about it; and +how at last he--that is, the narrator--and a particularly hard-headed +friend of his had kept watch one moonlit night, with the result that +they had actually seen and talked with the queen of the fairies and +learned many secrets of the ----. The narrator here made use of a long, +unpronounceable Irish word, which Henry could not catch.</p> + +<p>"I should have explained some of these phenomena to you," whispered the +publisher presently, noticing that Henry looked a little bewildered. +"This is a young Irish poet, who, in the intervals of his raising the +devil, writes very beautiful lyrics that he may well have learned from +the fairies. It is his method to seem mad on magic and such things. You +will meet with many strange methods here to-night. Don't be alarmed if +some one comes and talks to you about strange sins. You have come to +London in the 'strange sins' period. I will explain afterwards."</p> + +<p>He had hardly spoken when a pallid young man, with a preternatural +length and narrowness of face, began to talk to him about the sins of +the Borgias.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you never committed a murder yourself?" he asked Henry, +languidly.</p> + +<p>"No," said Henry, catching the spirit of the foolishness; "no, not yet. +I am keeping that--" implying that he was reserving so extreme a +stimulant till all his other vices failed him.</p> + +<p>Presently there entered a tall young man with a long, thin face, +curtained on either side with enormous masses of black hair, like a slip +of the young moon glimmering through a pine-wood.</p> + +<p>At the same moment there entered, as if by design, his very antithesis: +a short, firmly built, clerkly fellow, with a head like a billiard-ball +in need of a shave, a big brown moustache, and enormous spectacles.</p> + +<p>"That," said the publisher, referring to the moon-in-the-pine-wood young +man, "is our young apostle of sentiment, our new man of feeling, the +best-hated man we have; and the other is our young apostle of blood. He +is all for muscle and brutality--and he makes all the money. It is one +of our many fashions just now to sing 'Britain and Brutality.' But my +impression is that our young man of feeling will have his day,--though +he will have to wait for it. He would hasten it if he would cut his +hair; but that, he says, he will never do. His hair, he says, is his +battle-cry. Well, he enjoys himself--and loves a fight, though you +mightn't think it to look at him."</p> + +<p>A supercilious young man, with pink cheeks, and a voice which his +admirers compared to Shelley's, then came up to Henry and asked him what +he thought of Mallarmé's latest sonnet; but finding Henry confessedly at +sea, turned the conversation to the Empire ballet, of which, +unfortunately, Henry knew as little. The conversation then languished, +and the Shelley-voiced young man turned elsewhere for sympathy, with a +shrug at your country bumpkins who know nothing later than Rossetti.</p> + +<p>In the thick of the conversational turmoil, Henry's attention had from +time to time been attracted by the noise proceeding from a blustering, +red-headed man, with a face of fire.</p> + +<p>"Who is that?" at last he found opportunity to ask his friend.</p> + +<p>"That is our greatest critic," said the publisher.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Henry, "I must try and hear what he is saying. It seems +important from the way he is listened to."</p> + +<p>So Henry listened, and heard how the fire-faced man said the word "damn" +with great volubility and variety of cadence, and other words to the +same effect, and how the little group around him hung upon his words and +said to each other, "How brilliant!" "How absolute!"</p> + +<p>Henry turned to his friend. "The only word I can catch is the word +'damn,'" he said.</p> + +<p>"That," said the publisher, with a laugh, "is the master-word of +fashionable criticism."</p> + +<p>Presently a little talkative man came up, and said that he hoped Mr. +Mesurier was an adherent of the rightful king.</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course!" said Henry.</p> + +<p>"And do you belong to any secret society?" asked the little man.</p> + +<p>Henry couldn't say that he did.</p> + +<p>"Well, you must join us!" he said.</p> + +<p>"I suppose there won't be a rising just yet?" asked Henry, realising +that this was the Jacobite method.</p> + +<p>"Not just yet," said the little man, reassuringly. So Henry was +enrolled.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>And so it went on till past midnight, when Henry at last escaped, to +talk it all over with the stars. The evening had naturally puzzled him, +as a man will always be puzzled who has developed under the influence of +the main tendencies of his generation, and who finds himself suddenly in +a backwater of fanciful reaction. Henry, in his simple way, was a +thinker and a radical, and he had nourished himself on the great +main-road masters of English literature. He had followed the lead of +modern philosophers and scientists, and had arrived at a mystical +agnosticism,--the first step of which was to banish the dogmas of the +church as old wives' tales. He considered that he had inherited the +hard-won gains of the rationalists. But he came to London and found +young men feebly playing with the fire of that Romanism which he +regarded as at once the most childish and the most dangerous of all +intellectual obsessions. In an age of great biologists and electricians, +he came upon children prettily talking about fairies and the +philosopher's stone. In one of the greatest ages of English poetry, he +came to London to find young English poets falling on their knees to the +metrical mathematicians of France. In the great age of democracy, a fool +had come and asked him if he were not a supporter of the house of +Stuart, a Jacobite of charades. But only once had he heard the name of +Milton; it was the learned boy of fifteen who had quoted him,--a +lifelong debt of gratitude; and never once had he heard the voice of +simple human feeling, nor heard one speak of beauty, simply, +passionately, with his heart in his mouth; nor of love with his heart +upon his sleeve. Much cleverness, much learning, much charm, there had +been, but he had missed the generous human impulse. No one seemed to be +doing anything because he must. These were pleasant eddies, dainty with +lilies and curiously starred water-grasses, but the great warm stream of +English literature was not flowing here.</p> + +<p>As he neared his hotel, he thought of his morning visit to Goldsmith's +tomb, and ten-fold he repented the little half-sneer with which he had +bought the flowers. In a boyish impulse, he rang the Temple bell, and +found his way again to the lonely corner. His flowers were lying there +in the moonlight, and again he read: "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith."</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, Goldy," he murmured. "Well may men bring you flowers,--for +you wrote, not as those yonder; you wrote for the human heart."</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2> + +<h3>BACK TO REALITY</h3> +<br> + +<p>It was good to get back to reality, with Angel's blue eyes, Mike's +laugh, and Esther's common sense.</p> + +<p>"Let me look deep into them, Angel--deep--deep. It is so good to get +back to something true."</p> + +<p>"Are they true?" said Angel, opening them very wide.</p> + +<p>"Something that will never forsake one, something we can never forsake! +Something in all the wide world's change that will never change. +Something that will still be Angel even in a thousand years."</p> + +<p>"I hope to be a real angel long before that," said Angel, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you can promise to be true so long, Angel?" asked Henry.</p> + +<p>"Dear, you know that so long as there is one little part of me left +anywhere in the world, that part will be true to you.--But come, tell +me about London. I'm afraid you didn't enjoy it very much."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I loved London,--that is, old London; but new London made me a +little sad. I expect it was only because I didn't quite understand the +conditions."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps so," said Angel. "But tell me,--did you go to the Zoo?"</p> + +<p>"You dear child! Yes! I went out of pure love for you."</p> + +<p>"Now you needn't be so grown up. You know you wanted to go just for +yourself as well. And you saw the monkey-house?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And the lions?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And the snakes?"</p> + +<p>"Yes!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'd give anything to see the snakes! Did they eat any rabbits when +you were there,--fascinate them, and then draw them slowly, slowly in?"</p> + +<p>"Angel, what terrible interests you are developing! No, thank goodness, +they didn't."</p> + +<p>"Why, wouldn't it fascinate you to see something wonderfully killed?" +asked Angel. "It is dreadful and wicked, of course. But it would be so +thrillingly real."</p> + +<p>"I think I must introduce you to a young man I met in London," said +Henry, "who solemnly asked me if I had ever murdered anyone. You savage +little wild thing! I suppose this is what you mean by saying sometimes +that you are a gipsy, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Well, and you went to the Tower, and Westminster Abbey, and everything, +and it was really wonderful?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I saw everything--including the Queen."</p> + +<p>For young people of Tyre and Sidon to go to London was like what it once +was to make the pilgrimage to Rome.</p> + +<p>Mike created some valuable nonsense on the occasion, which unfortunately +has not been preserved, and Esther was disgusted with Henry because he +could give no intelligible description of the latest London hats; and +all examined with due reverence those wonderful books for review.</p> + +<p>In Tichborne Street Aunt Tipping had taken advantage of his absence to +enrich his room with a bargain in the shape of an old desk, which was +the very thing he wanted. Dear old Aunt Tipping! And Gerard, it is to +be feared, took a little more brandy than usual in honour of his young +friend's adventures in the capital.</p> + +<p>These excitements over, Henry sat down at his old desk to write his +first review; and there for the present we may leave him, for he took it +very seriously and was dangerous to interrupt.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> + +<h3>THE OLD HOME MEANWHILE</h3> +<br> + +<p>More than a year had now gone by since Henry left home, and meanwhile, +with the exception of Dot's baptism, there had been no exciting changes +to record. Perhaps uneventfulness is part of the security of a +real home. Every morning James Mesurier had risen at half-past +six,--though he no longer imposed that hour of rising upon his +daughters,--breakfasted at eight, and reached his office at nine. Every +evening during those months, punctually at half-past six his latch-key +had rattled in the front-door lock, and one or other of his daughters +had hurried out at the sound to bid him welcome home.</p> + +<p>"Home at last, father dear!" they had said, helping him off with his +coat; and sometimes when he felt bright he would answer,--</p> + +<p>"Yes, my dear, night brings crows home."</p> + +<p>"Home again, James!" his wife would say, as he next entered the front +parlour, and bent down to kiss her where she sat. "It's a long day. +Isn't it time you were pulling in a bit? Surely some of the younger +heads should begin to relieve you."</p> + +<p>"Responsibility, Mary dear! We cannot delegate responsibility," he would +answer.</p> + +<p>"But we see nothing of you. You just sacrifice your whole life for the +business."</p> + +<p>If he were in a good humour, he might answer with one of his rare sweet +laughs, and jokingly make one of his few French quotations: "<i>Telle est +la vie</i>! my dear, <i>Telle est la vie</i>! That's the French for it, +isn't it, Dot?"</p> + +<p>James Mesurier was just perceptibly softening. Perhaps it was that he +was growing a little tired, that he was no longer quite the stern +disciplinarian we met in the first chapter; perhaps the influence of his +wife, and his experiences with his children, were beginning to hint to +him what it takes so long for a strong individual nature to learn, that +the law of one temperament cannot justly or fruitfully be enforced as +the law of another.</p> + +<p>The younger children--Esther and Dot and Mat used sometimes to say to +each other--would grow up in a more clement atmosphere of home than had +been Henry's and theirs. Already they were quietly assuming privileges, +and nothing said, that would have meant beatings for their elders. For +these things had Henry and Esther gladly faced martyrdom. Henry had +looked on the Promised Land, but been denied an entrance there. By his +stripes this younger generation would be healed.</p> + +<p>The elder girls hastened to draw close to their father in gratitude, and +home breathed a kinder, freer air than ever had been known before. +Between Esther and her father particularly a kind of comradeship began +to spring up, which perhaps more than ever made the mother miss her boy.</p> + +<p>But, all the same, home was growing old. This was the kindness of the +setting sun!</p> + +<p>Childless middle age is no doubt often dreary to contemplate, yet is it +an egoistical bias which leads one to find in such limitation, or one +might rather say preservation, of the ego, a certain compensation? The +childless man or woman has at least preserved his or her individuality, +as few fathers and mothers of large families are suffered to do. By the +time you are fifty, with a family of half a dozen children, you have +become comparatively impersonal as "father" or "mother." It is tacitly +recognised that your life-work is finished, that your ambitions are +accomplished or not, and that your hopes are at an end.</p> + +<p>The young Mesuriers, for example, were all eagerly hastening towards +their several futures. They were garrulous over them at every meal. But +to what future in this world were James and Mary Mesurier looking +forward? Love had blossomed and brought forth fruit, but the fruit was +quickly ripening, and stranger hands would soon pluck it from the +boughs. In a very few years they would sit under a roof-tree bared of +fruit and blossom, and sad with falling leaves. They had dreamed their +dream, and there is only one such dream for a lifetime; now they must +sit and listen to the dreams of their children, help them to build +theirs. They mattered now no longer for themselves, but just as so much +aid and sympathy on which their children might draw. Too well in their +hearts they knew that their children only heard them with patience so +long as they talked of their to-morrows. Should they sometimes dwell +wistfully on their own yesterdays, they could too plainly see how long +the story seemed.</p> + +<p><i>Telle est la vie!</i> as James Mesurier said, and, that being so, no +wonder life is a sad business. Better perhaps be childless and retain +one's own personal hopes and fears for life, than be so relegated to +history in the very zenith of one's days. If only this younger +generation at the door were always, as it assumes, stronger and better +than its elder! but, though the careless assumption that it is so is +somewhat general, history alone shows how false and impudent the +assumption often is. Too often genius itself must submit to the silly +presumption of its noisy and fatuous children, and it is the young fool +who too often knocks imperiously at the door of wise and active +middle age.</p> + +<p>That all this is inevitable makes it none the less sad. The young +Mesuriers were neither fools nor hard of heart; and sometimes, in +moments of sympathy, their parents would be revealed to them in sudden +lights of pathos and old romance. They would listen to some old +love-affair of their mother's as though it had been their own, or go out +of their way to make their father tell once more the epic of the great +business over which he presided, and which, as he conceived it, was +doubtless a greater poem than his son would ever write. Yet still even +in such genuine sympathy, there was a certain imaginative effort to be +made. The gulf between the generations, however hidden for the moment, +was always there.</p> + +<p>Yet, after all, James and Mary Mesurier possessed an incorruptible +treasure, which their children had neither given nor could take away. To +regard them as without future would be a shallow observation,--for love +has always a future, however old in mortal years it may have grown; and +as they grew older, their love seemed to grow stronger. Involuntarily +they seemed to draw closer together, as by an instinct of +self-preservation. Their love had been before their children; were they +to be spared, it would still be the same love, sweeter by trial, when +their children had passed from them. In this love had been wise for +them. Some parents love their children so unwisely that they forget to +love each other; and, when the children forsake them, are left +disconsolate. One has heard young mothers say that now their boy has +come, their husbands may take a second place; and often of late we have +heard the woman say: "Give me but the child, and the lover can go his +ways." Foolish, unprophetic women! Let but twenty years go by, and how +glad you will be of that rejected lover; for, though a son may suffice +for his mother, what mother has ever sufficed for her son?</p> + +<p>But though sometimes, as they looked at their parents, the young +Mesuriers caught a glimpse of the infinite sadness of a life-work +accomplished, yet it failed to warn them against the eager haste with +which they were hurrying on towards a like conclusion. Too late they +would understand that all the joy was in the doing; too soon say to +themselves: "Was it for this that our little world shook with such fiery +commotion and molten ardours, that this present should be so firm and +insensitive beneath our feet? This habit--why, it was once a passion! +This fact--why, it was once a dream!"</p> + +<p>Oh, why shake off youth's fragile blossoms with the very speed of your +own impatience! Why make such haste towards autumn! Who ever thought the +ruddiest lapful of apples a fair exchange for a cloud of sunlit blossom? +Whose maturity, however laden with prosperity or gilded with honour, +ever kept the fairy promise of his youth? For so brief a space youth +glitters like a dewdrop on the tree of life, glitters and is gone. For +one desperate instant of perfection it hangs poised, and is seen +no more.</p> + +<p>But, alas! the art of enjoying youth with a wise economy is only learnt +when youth is over. It is perhaps too paradoxical an accomplishment to +be learnt before; for a youth that economised itself would be already +middle age. It is just the wasteful flare of it that leaves such a +dazzle in old eyes, as they look back in fancy to the conflagration of +fragrant fire which once bourgeoned and sang where these white ashes now +slowly smoulder towards extinction.</p> + +<p>When Mike has a theatre of his own and can send boxes to his friends, +when Henry maybe is an editor of power, when Esther and Angel are the +enthroned wives of famous men, and the new heaven and the new earth are +quite finished,--will they never sigh sometimes to have the making of +them all over again? Then they will have everything to enjoy, so there +will be nothing left to hope for. Then there will be no spice of peril +in their loves, no keen edge that comes of enforced denial; and the game +of life will be too sure for ambition to keep its savour. "There is no +thrill, no excitement nowadays," one can almost fancy their saying, and, +like children playing with their bricks, "Now let us knock it all down, +and build another, one. It will be such fun."</p> + +<p>However, these are intrusive, autumnal thoughts in this book of simple +youth, and our young people knew them not. They were far indeed from +Esther's mind as she talked with Dot of the future one afternoon. +Instead, her words were full of impatience with the slow march of +events, and the enforced inactivity of a girl's life at home.</p> + +<p>"It is so much easier for the boys," she was saying. "There is something +for them to do. But we can do nothing but sit at home and wait, darn +their socks, and clap our hands at their successes. I wish I were +a man!"</p> + +<p>"No, you don't," said Dot; "for then you couldn't marry Mike. And you +couldn't wear pretty dresses--Oh! and lots of things. I don't much envy +a man's life, after all. It's all very well talking about hard work when +you haven't got to do it; and it's not so much the work as the +responsibility. It must be such a responsibility to be a man."</p> + +<p>"Of course you're right, Dot--but, oh! this waiting is so stupid, all +the same. If only I could be doing something--anything!"</p> + +<p>"Well, you <i>are</i> doing something. Is it nothing to be all the world to a +man?" said Dot, wistfully; "nothing to be his heaven upon earth? Nothing +to be the prize he is working for, and nothing to sustain and cheer him +on, as you do Mike, and as Angel cheers Henry? Would Henry have been the +same without Angel, or Mike the same without you? No, the man's work +makes more noise, but the woman's work is none the less real and useful +because it is quiet and underground."</p> + +<p>"Dear Dot, what a wise old thing you're growing! But you know you're +longing all the time for some work to do yourself. Didn't you say the +other day that you seemed to be wasting your life here, making beds and +doing housework?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; but I'm different. Don't you see?" retorted Dot, sadly. "I've got +no Mike. Your work is to help Mike be a great actor, but I've got no one +to help be anything. You may be sure I wouldn't complain of being idle +if I had. I think you're a bit forgetful sometimes how happy you are."</p> + +<p>"Poor old Dot! you needn't talk as if you're such a desperate old +maid,--you're not twenty yet. And I'm sure it's a good thing for you +that you haven't got any of the young men about here--to help be +aldermen! Wait till you come and stay with us in London, then you'll +soon find some one to work for, as you call it."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Dot, thoughtfully; "somehow I think I shall never +marry."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you mean you'd rather be a nun or something serious of that +sort."</p> + +<p>"Well, to tell the truth, I have been thinking lately if perhaps I +couldn't do something,--perhaps go into a hospital, or something of +that sort."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense, Dot! Think of all the horrible, dirty people you'd have +to attend to. Ugh!"</p> + +<p>"Christ didn't think of that when He washed the feet of His disciples," +said little Dot, sententiously.</p> + +<p>"Why, Dot, how dreadfully religious you're getting! You want a good +shaking! Besides, isn't it a little impious to imply that the apostles +were horrible, dirty people?"</p> + +<p>"You know what I meant," said Dot, flushing.</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course, dear; and I think I know where you've been. You've been +to see that dear Sister Agatha."</p> + +<p>"You admit she's a dear?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do; but I don't know whether she's quite good for you."</p> + +<p>"If you'd only seen her among the poor little children the other day, +how beautiful and how happy she looked, you might have thought +differently," said Dot.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, dear; but then you mustn't forget that her point of view is +different. She's renounced the world; she's one of those women," Esther +couldn't resist adding, maliciously, "who've given up hope of man, and +so have set all their hopes on God."</p> + +<p>"Esther, that's unworthy of you--though what if it is as you say, is it +so great a failure after all to dedicate one's self to God rather than +to one little individual man?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, come," said Esther, rather wilfully misunderstanding, and suddenly +flushing up, "Mike is not so little as all that!"</p> + +<p>"Why, you goose, how earthly you are! I never thought of dear +Mike--though it would have served you right for saying such a mean thing +about Sister Agatha."</p> + +<p>"Forgive me. I know it was mean, but I couldn't resist it. And it is +true, you'll admit, of some of those pious women, though I withdraw it +about Sister Agatha."</p> + +<p>"Of course I couldn't be a sister like Sister Agatha," said Dot, +"without being a Catholic as well; but I might be a nurse at one of the +ordinary hospitals."</p> + +<p>"It would be dreadfully hard work!" said Esther.</p> + +<p>"Harder than being a man, do you think?" asked Dot, laughing.</p> + +<p>"For goodness' sake, don't turn Catholic!" said Esther, in some alarm. +"<i>That</i> would break father's heart, if you like."</p> + +<p>A horror of Catholicism ran in the very marrow of these young people. +It was one of the few relics of their father's Puritanism surviving in +them. Of "Catholics" they had been accustomed to speak since childhood +as of nightmares and Red Indians with bloody scalps at their waists; and +perhaps that instinctive terror of the subtle heart of Rome is the +religious prejudice which we will do well to part with last.</p> + +<p>Dot had not, indeed, contemplated an apostacy so unnatural; but beneath +these comparatively trivial words there was an ever-growing impulse to +fulfil that old longing of her nature to do something, as the Christians +would say, "for God," something serious, in return for the solemn and +beautiful gift of life. By an accident, she had met Sister Agatha one +day in the house of an old Irish servant of theirs, who had been +compelled to leave them on account of ill-health, and on whom she had +called with a little present of fruit. She had been struck by the +sweetness of the Sister's face, as the Sister had been struck by hers. +Sister Agatha had invited Dot to visit her some day at the home for +orphan children of which she had charge; and, with some misgiving as to +whether it was right thus to visit a Catholic, whether even it was +safe, Dot had accepted. So an acquaintance had grown up and ripened into +a friendship; and Sister Agatha, while making no attempt to turn the +friendship to the account of her church, was a great consolation to the +lonely, religious girl.</p> + +<p>Dot retained too much rationalism ever to become a Catholic, but the +longing to do something grew and grew. At a certain moment, with each +new generation of girls, there comes an epidemical desire in maiden +bosoms to dedicate their sweet young lives to the service of what Esther +called "horrible dirty people." At these periods the hospitals are +flooded with applications from young girls whom the vernal equinox urges +first to be mothers, and, failing motherhood, nurses. Just before she +met Henry, Angel had done her best to miss him by frantic endeavours to +nurse people whom the hospital doctors decided she was far too slight a +thing to lift,--for unless you can lift your patients, not to say throw +them about, you fail in the muscular qualifications of a hospital nurse. +Dot, as we have seen, was impelled in this direction from no merely +sentimental impulse, unless the religious impulse, which paradoxically +makes nuns of disappointed mothers, may so be called. Perhaps, +unacknowledged, deep down in her heart, she longed to be the nurse--of +one little wonderful child. Had this been granted her, it is probable +that the maimed and the halt would have had less attraction for her +pitying imagination. As it was, however, she persuaded herself that she +loved them. Was it because, at the moment, no one else seemed to +need her love?</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> + +<h3>STAGE WAITS, MR. LAFLIN</h3> +<br> + +<p>Esther's impatience was to be appeased, perhaps a little to her regret +after all, by an unexpected remission of the time appointed between Mike +and his first real engagement. Suddenly one day came an exciting letter +from the great actor, saying that he saw his way to giving him a part in +his own London company, if he could join him for rehearsal in a +week's time.</p> + +<p>Here was news! At last a foundation-stone of the new heaven was to be +laid! In a week's time Mike would be working at one of the alabaster +walls. Perhaps in two years' time, perhaps even in a year, with good +fortune, the roof would be on, the door wreathed with garlands, and a +modest little heaven ready for occupation.</p> + +<p>Now all that remained was to make the momentous break with the old life. +Old Mr. Laflin had been left in peaceful ignorance of the mine which +must now be exploded beneath his evening armchair. Mike loved his +father, and this had been a dread long and wisely postponed. But now, +when the moment for inevitable decision had come, Mike remembered, with +a certain shrinking, that responsibility of which Dot had spoken,--the +responsibility of being a man. It was his dream to be an actor, to earn +his bread with joy. To earn it with less than joy seemed unworthy of +man. Yet there was another dream for him, still more, immeasurably more, +important--to be Esther's husband. If he stayed where he was, in slow +revolutions of a dull business, his father's place and income would +become his. If he renounced that certain prospect, he committed himself +to a destiny of brilliant chances; and for the first time he realised +that among those chances lurked, too, the chance of failure. Esther must +decide; and Henry's counsel, too, must be taken. Mike thought he knew +what the decision and the counsel would be; and, of course, he was +not mistaken.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mike, how can you hesitate?" said Esther. "Fail, if you like, and +I shall still love you; but you don't surely think I could go on loving +a man who was frightened to try?"</p> + +<p>That was a little hard of Esther, for Mike's fear had been for her sake, +not his own. However, that and the even more vehement counsel of Henry +had the desired bracing effect; and Mike nerved himself to deal the +necessary blow at his father's tranquillity.</p> + +<p>As the writer of this book takes no special joy in heart-breaking scenes +with fathers, the painful and somewhat violent scene with Mr. Laflin is +here omitted, and left to the imagination of any reader with a taste for +such unnatural collisions. Any one over thirty will agree that all the +reason was on Mr. Laflin's side, as all the instinct was on his son's. +Luckily for Mike, the instinct was to prove genuine, and his father to +live to be prouder of his rebellion than ever he would have been of his +obedience.</p> + +<p>This scene over, it was only a matter of days--five alone were +left--before Mike must up and away in right good earnest.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mike," said Esther, "you're sure you'll go on loving me? I'm +awfully frightened of those pretty girls in ----'s company."</p> + +<p>"You needn't be," said Mike; "there's only one girl in the world will +look at a funny bit of a thing like me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," said Esther, laughing, "some big girls have such +strange tastes."</p> + +<p>"Well, let's hope that before many months you can come and look after +me."</p> + +<p>"If we'd only a certain five pounds a week, we could get +along,--anything to be together. Of course, we'd have to be +economical--" said Esther, thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>On the last night but one before his leaving, it was Mike's turn for a +farewell dinner. Half-a-dozen of his best friends assembled at the +"Golden Bee," and toasts and tears were mingled to do him honour. Henry +happily caught the general feeling of the occasion in the following +verses, not hitherto printed. Henry was too much in earnest at the time +to regard the bathos of rhyming "stage waits" with such dignities as +"summoning fates," except for which <i>naïveté</i> the poem is perhaps not a +bad example of sincere, occasional verse:</p> + +<blockquote> +<i>Dear Mike, at last the wishéd hour draws nigh--<br> +Weary indeed, the watching of a sky<br> +For golden portent tarrying afar;<br> +But here to-night we hail your risen star,<br> +To-night we hear the cry of summoning fates--<br> + Stage waits!</i><br><br> + +<i>Stage waits! and we who love our brother so<br> +Would keep him not; but only ere he go,<br> +Led by the stars along the untried ways,<br> +We'd hold his hand in ours a little space,<br> +With grip of love that girdeth up the heart,<br> +And kiss of eyes that giveth strength to part.</i><br><br> + +<i>Some of your lovers may be half afraid<br> +To bid you forth, for fear of pitfalls laid<br> +About your feet; but we have no such fears,<br> +That cry is as a trumpet in our ears;<br> +We dare not, would not, mock those summoning fates--<br> + Stage waits!</i><br><br> + +<i>Stage waits! and shall you fear and make delay?<br> +Yes! when the mariner who long time lay,<br> +Waiting the breeze, shall anchor when it blows;<br> +Yes! when a thirsty summer-flower shall close<br> +Against the rain; or when, in reaping days,<br> +The husbandman shall set his fields ablaze.</i><br><br> + +<i>Nay, take your breeze, drink in your strengthening rain,<br> +And, while you can, make harvest of your grain;<br> +The land is fair to which that breeze shall blow.<br> +The flower is sweet the rain shall set aglow,<br> +The grain be rich within your garner gates--<br> + Stage waits!</i><br><br> + +<i>Stage waits! and we must loosen now your hand,<br> +And miss your face's gold in all our land;<br> +But yet we know that in a little while<br> +You come again a conqueror, so smile<br> +Godspeed, not parting, and, with hearts elate,<br> + We wait</i>.<br><br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Yes, for the second time the die was cast. Henry was already afoot on +the adventure perilous. Now it was Mike's turn. These young people had +passionately invoked those terrible gods who fulfil our dreams, and +already the celestial machinery was beginning to move in answer. Perhaps +it just a little took their breath, to see the great wheels so readily +turning at the touch of their young hands; but they were in for it now, +and with stout hearts must abide the issue.</p> + +<p>This was to be Esther and Mike's first experience of parting, and their +hearts sickened at the thought. Love surely does well in this world, so +full of snares and dangers, to fear to lose from its eyes for a moment +the face of its beloved; and in this respect the courage of love is the +more remarkable. How bravely it takes the appalling risks of life! To +separate for an hour may mean that never as long as the world lasts will +love hear the voice it loves again. "Good-bye," love has called gaily so +often, and waved hands from the threshold, and the beloved has called +"good-bye" and waved, and smiled back--for the last time. And yet love +faces the fears, not only of hours, but of weeks and months; weeks and +months on seas bottomless with danger, in lands rife with unknown evils, +dizzily taking the chances of desperate occupations. And the courage is +the greater, because, finally, in this world, love alone has anything to +lose. Other losses may be more or less repaired; but love's loss is, of +its essence, irreparable. Other fair faces and brave hearts the world +may bring us, but never that one face! Alas! for the most precious of +earthly things, the only precious thing of earth, there is no system of +insurance. The many waters have quenched love, and the floods drowned +it,--yet in the wide world is there no help, no hope, no recompense.</p> + +<p>The love that bound this little circle of young people together was so +strong and warm that it had developed in them an almost painful +sensibility to such risks of loss. So it was that expressions of +affection and outward endearments were more current among them than is +usual in a land where manners, from a proper fear of exaggeration, run +to a silly extreme of unresponsiveness. They never met without showing +their joy to be again together; never parted without that inner fear +that this might be their last chance of showing their love for +each other.</p> + +<p>"You all say good-bye as if you were going to America!" Myrtilla +Williamson had once said; "I suppose it's your Irish grandmother." And +no doubt the <i>empressement</i> had its odd side for those who saw only +the surface.</p> + +<p>Thus for those who love love, who love to watch for it on human faces, +Mike's good-bye at the railway station was a sight worth going far +to see.</p> + +<p>"My word, they seem to be fond of each other, these young people!" said +a lady standing at the door of the next carriage.</p> + +<p>Mike was leaning through the window, and Esther was pressing near to +him. They murmured low to each other, and their eyes were bright with +tears. A little apart stood a small group, in which Henry and Angel and +Ned were conspicuous, and Mike's sisters and Dot and Mat were there. A +callous observer might have laughed, so sad and solemn they were. Mike's +fun tried a rally; but his jests fell spiritless. It was not so much a +parting, one might have thought, as a funeral. Little was said, but eyes +were eloquent, either with tears, or with long strong glances that meant +undying faithfulness all round; and Mike knew that Henry's eyes were +quoting "<i>Allons</i>! after the great Companions, and to belong to them!"</p> + +<p>Henry's will to achieve was too strong for him to think of this as a +parting; he could only think of it as a glorious beginning. There is +something impersonal in ambition, and in the absorption of the work to +be done the ambitious man forgets his merely individual sensibilities. +To achieve, though the heavens fall,--that was Henry's ambition for Mike +and for himself.</p> + +<p>No one really believed that the train would have the hard-heartedness to +start; but at last, with deliberate intention, evidently not to be +swayed by human pity, the guard set the estranging whistle to his lips, +cold and inexorable as Nero turning down the thumb of death, and surely +Mike's sad little face began to move away from them. Hands reached out +to him, eyes streamed, handkerchiefs fluttered,--but nothing could hold +him back; and when at last a curve in the line had swallowed the white +speck of his face, they turned away from the dark gulf where the train +had been as though it were a newly opened grave.</p> + +<p>A great to-do to make about a mere parting!--says someone. No doubt, my +dear sir! All depends upon one's standard of value. No doubt these young +people weighed life in fantastic scales. Their standard of value was, no +doubt, uncommon. To love each other was better than rubies; to lose each +other was bitter as death. For others other values,--they had found +their only realities in the human affections.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> + +<h3>ESTHER AND HENRY ONCE MORE</h3> +<br> + +<p>Yes, Mike had really gone. Henceforth for ever so long, he would only +exist for Esther in letters, or as a sad little voice at the end of a +wire. It had been arranged that Henry should take Esther with him for +dinner that evening to the brightest restaurant in Tyre. He was a great +believer in being together, and also in dinner, as comforters of your +sad heart. Perhaps, too, he was a little glad to feel Esther leaning +gently upon him once more. Their love was too sure and lasting and +ever-present to have many opportunities of being dramatic. Nature does +not make a fuss about gravitation. One of the most wonderful and +powerful of laws, it is yet of all laws the most retiring. Gravitation +never decks itself in rainbows, nor does it vaunt its undoubted strength +in thunder. It is content to make little show, because it is very +strong; yet you have always to reckon with it. It is undemonstrative, +but it is always there. The love of Esther and Henry was like that. It +has made little show in this history, but few readers can have missed +its presence in the atmosphere. It might go for weeks without its +festival; but there it was all the time, ready for any service, staunch +for any trial. It was one of the laws which kept the little world I have +been describing slung safely in space, and securely shining.</p> + +<p>It was, indeed, something like a perfect relationship,--this love of +Esther and Henry. Had the laws of nature permitted it, it is probable +that Mike and Angel would have been forced to seek their mates +elsewhere. As it was, though it was thus less than marriage, it was more +than friendship--as the holy intercourse of a mother and a son is more +than friendship. Freed from the perturbations of sex, it yet gained +warmth and exhilaration from the unconscious presence of that +stimulating difference. Though they were brother and sister, friend and +friend, Henry and Esther were also man and woman. So satisfying were +they to each other, that when they sat thus together, the truth must be +told, that, for the time at all events, they missed no other man +or woman.</p> + +<p>"I have always you," said Esther.</p> + +<p>"Do I still matter, then?" said Henry. "Are you sure the old love is not +growing old?"</p> + +<p>"You know it can never grow old. There is only one Mike; but there is +only one Henry too. It's a good love to have, Harry, isn't it? It makes +one feel so much safer in the world."</p> + +<p>"Dear little Esther! Do you remember those old beatings, and that night +you brought me the cake? Bless you!"--and Henry reached his hand across +the table, and laid it so kindly on Esther's that a hovering waiter +retreated out of delicacy, mistaking the pair for lovers. It was a +mistake that was often made when they were together; and they had +sometimes laughed, when travelling, at the kind-hearted way passengers +on the point of entering their carriage had suddenly made up their minds +not to disturb the poor newly-married young things.</p> + +<p>"And how we used to hate you once!" said Esther; "one can hardly +understand it now. Do you remember how on Sunday afternoons you would +insist on playing at church, and how, with a tablecloth for a surplice, +you used to be the minister? How you used to storm if we poor things +missed any of the responses!"</p> + +<p>"The monstrous egoism of it all!" said Henry, laughing. "It was all got +up to give me a stage, and nothing else. I didn't care whether you +enjoyed it or not. What dragons children are!"</p> + +<p>"'Dragons of the prime, that tare each other in their slime,'" quoted +Esther. "Yes, we tore each other, and no mistake--"</p> + +<p>"Well, I've made up for it since, haven't I?" said Henry. "I hope I'm a +humble enough brother of the beautiful to please you nowadays."</p> + +<p>"You're the truest, most reliable thing in the world," said Esther; "I +always think of you as something strong and true to come to--"</p> + +<p>"Except Mike!"</p> + +<p>"No, not even except Mike. We'll call it a draw--dear little Mike! To +think of him going further and further away every minute! I wonder where +he is by now. He must have reached Rugby long since."</p> + +<p>At that moment the waiter ventured to approach with a silver tray. A +telegram,--it was indeed a telegram of tears and distance from Mike, +given in at Rugby. Even so long parted and so far away, Mike was still +true. He had not yet forgotten!</p> + +<p>These young people were great extravagants of the emotional telegram. +They were probably among the earliest to apply electricity for +heart-breaking messages. Some lovers feel it a profanation thus to +reveal their souls beneath the eye of a telegraph-operator; but the +objection of delicacy ceases if you can regard the operator in his +actual capacity as a part of the machine. French perhaps is an advisable +medium; though, if the operator misunderstands it, your love is apt to +take strange forms at its destination, and if he understands it, you may +as well use English at once.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mike! God bless him!" and they pledged Mike in Esther's favourite +champagne. The wives of great actor-managers must early inure themselves +to champagne.</p> + +<p>"But if you're jealous of Mike," said Esther, presently, taking up the +dropped thread of their talk; "what about Angel?"</p> + +<p>"Of course it was only nonsense," said Henry. "I know you love Angel far +too much to be jealous of her, as I love Mike; and that's just the +beautiful harmony of it all. We are just a little impregnable world of +four,--four loving hearts against the world."</p> + +<p>"How clever it was of you to find Angel!"</p> + +<p>"I found Mike, too!" said Henry, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I know; but then I discovered you."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but a still higher honour belongs to me, for I discovered you," +retorted Henry. "When you consider that I discovered three such +wonderful persons as you and Angel and Mike, don't you think, on the +whole, that I'm singularly modest?"</p> + +<p>"Do you love me?" said Esther, presently, quite irrelevantly.</p> + +<p>"Do you love <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I asked first."</p> + +<p>"Well, for the sake of argument, let us say 'yes.'"</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"As big as the world."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, then, let's have some Benedictine with the coffee!" said +Esther.</p> + +<p>"I've thought of something better, more 'sacramental,'" said Henry, +smiling, "but you couldn't conscientiously drink it with me. It's the +red drink of perfect love. Will you drink it with me?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I will."</p> + +<p>So the waiter brought a bottle bearing the beautiful words, "<i>Parfait +Amour</i>."</p> + +<p>"It's like blood," said Esther; "it makes me a little frightened."</p> + +<p>"Would you rather not drink it?" asked Henry. "You know if you drink it +with me, you must drink it with no one else. It is the law of it that we +can only drink it with one."</p> + +<p>"Not even with Mike?"</p> + +<p>"Not even with Mike."</p> + +<p>"What of Angel?"</p> + +<p>"I will drink it with no one but you as long as I live."</p> + +<p>"I will drink it then."</p> + +<p>They held up their glasses.</p> + +<p>"Dear old Esther!"</p> + +<p>"Dear old Henry!"</p> + +<p>And then they laughed at their solemnity. It was deeply sworn!</p> + +<p>When Esther reached home that evening, she found a further telegram from +Mike, announcing his arrival at Euston; and she had scarcely read it +when she heard her father's voice calling her. She went immediately to +the dining-room.</p> + +<p>"Esther, dear," he said, "your mother and I want a word with you."</p> + +<p>"No, James, you must speak for yourself in this," said Mrs. Mesurier, +evidently a little perturbed.</p> + +<p>"Well, dear, if I must be alone in the matter, I must bear it; I cannot +shrink from my duty on that account." Then, turning to Esther, "I called +you in to speak to you about Mike Laflin--"</p> + +<p>"Yes, father," exclaimed Esther, with a little gasp of surprise.</p> + +<p>"I met Mr. Laflin on the boat this morning, and was much astonished and +grieved to hear of the rash step his son has chosen to take. The matter +has evidently been kept from me,"--strictly speaking, it had; "I +understand, though on that again I have not been consulted, that you and +Mike have for some time been informally engaged to each other. Now you +know my views on the theatre, and I am sure that you must see that +Mike's having taken such a step must at once put an end to any such +idea. Your own sense of propriety would, I am sure, tell you that, +without any words from me--"</p> + +<p>"Father!" cried Esther, in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"You know that I considered Mike a very nice lad. His family is +respectable; and he would have come into a very comfortable business, if +he hadn't taken this foolish freak into his head--"</p> + +<p>"But, father, you have laughed at his recitations, yourself, many a +time, here of an evening. What difference can there be?"</p> + +<p>"There is the difference of the theatre, the contaminating atmosphere, +the people it attracts, the harm it does--your father, as you know, has +never been within a theatre in his life; is it likely that he can look +with calmness upon his daughter marrying a man whose livelihood is to be +gained in a scandalous and debasing profession?"</p> + +<p>"Father, I cannot listen to your talking of Mike like that. If it is +wrong to make people innocently happy, to make them laugh and forget +their troubles, to--to--well, if it's wrong to be Mike--I'm sorry; but, +wrong or right, I love him, and nothing will ever make me give him up."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mesurier here interrupted, "I told you, James, how it would be. You +cannot change young hearts. The times are not the same as when you and I +were young; and, though I'm sure I don't want to go against you, I +think you are too hard on Esther. Love is love after all--and Mike's one +of the best-hearted lads that ever walked."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, mother," said Esther, impulsively, throwing her arms round +her mother's neck, and bursting into tears, "I--I will never +give--give--him up."</p> + +<p>"No, dear, no; now don't distress yourself. It will all come right. Your +father doesn't quite understand." And then a great tempest of sobbing +came over Esther, and swept her away to her own room.</p> + +<p>The father and mother turned to each other with some anger.</p> + +<p>"James, I'm surprised at your distressing the poor child like that +to-night; you might have known she would be sensitive, with Mike only +gone to-day! You could surely have waited till to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"I am surprised, Mary, that you can encourage her as you did. You cannot +surely uphold the theatre?"</p> + +<p>"Well, James, I don't know,--there are theatres and theatres, and actors +and actors; and there have been some very good men actors after all, and +some very bad men ministers, if it comes to that," she added; "and +theatre or no theatre, love's love in spite of all the fathers and +mothers in the world--"</p> + +<p>"All right, Mary, I would prefer then that we spoke no more on the +matter for this evening," and James Mesurier turned to his diary, to +record, along with the state of the weather, and the engagements of the +day, the undutiful conduct of Esther, and a painful difference with +his wife.</p> + +<p>Strange, that men who have themselves loved and begotten should thus for +a moment imagine that a small social prejudice, or a narrow religious +formula, can break the purpose of a young and vigorous passion. Do they +realise what it is they are proposing to obstruct? This is love--<i>love</i>, +my dear sir, at once the mightiest might, and the rightest right in the +universe! This is--Niagara--the Atlantic--the power of the stars--and +the strength of the tides. It is all the winds of the world, and all the +fires of the centre. You surely cannot be serious in asking it to take, +in exchange, some obsolete objection against its beloved!</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2> + +<h3>MIKE AFAR</h3> +<br> + +<p>This collision with her father braced up Esther's nerves, and made +Mike's absence easier to bear. Her father made no more allusion to it. +He was entering that period when fathers, however despotic, content +themselves with protest, where once they have governed by royal +proclamation. He was losing heart to contend with his children. They +must go their own ways--though it must not be without occasional severe +and solemn warnings on his part.</p> + +<p>Mike and Esther wrote to each other twice a week. They had talked of +every day, but a wise instinct prompted them to the less romantic, but +likely the more enduring arrangement. It would be none the less open to +them to write fourteen letters a week if they wished, but to have had to +admit that one letter a day was a serious tax, not only on one's other +occupations, including idleness, but also on the amount of +subject-matter available, would have been a dangerous correction of an +impulsive miscalculation.</p> + +<p>Second-rate London lodgings are not great cheerers of the human spirit, +and Mike was very lonely in his first letter or two; but, as the +rehearsals proceeded, it was evident that he was taking hold of his new +world, and the letter which told of his first night, and of his own +encouraging success in it, was buoyant with the rising tide of the +future. His chief had affectionately laid his hand on his shoulder, as +he came off from his scene, and, in the hearing of the whole company, +prophesied a great future for him.</p> + +<p>Mike had been born under a lucky star; and he had hardly been in London +two months when accident very perceptibly brightened it. The chief +comedian in the company fell ill; and though Mike had had so little +experience, his chief had so much confidence in his native gift, that he +cast him for the vacant part. Mike more than justified the confidence, +and not only pleased him, but succeeded in individualising himself with +the audience. He had only played it for a week, when one Saturday +evening the audience, after calling the manager himself three times, set +up a cry for "Laflin." The obsequious attendant pretended to consider it +as a fourth call for the manager, and made as if to move the curtain +aside for him once more; but, with a magnanimity rare indeed in a "star" +of his magnitude, "No, no!" he said; "it is Mr. Laflin they want. Quick, +lad, and take your first call."</p> + +<p>So little Mike stepped before the curtain, and made his first bow to an +affectionate burst of applause. What happy tears would have glittered in +Esther's eyes had she been there to see it, and in Henry's too, and +particularly, perhaps, in excitable Angel's!</p> + +<p>Even so soon was the blossom giving promise of the fruit.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h2> + +<h3>A LEGACY MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD</h3> +<br> + +<p>Meanwhile, Henry plodded away at Aunt Tipping's, working sometimes on a +volume of essays for the London publisher, and sometimes on his novel, +now and again writing a review, and earning an odd guinea for a poem; +and now and again indulging in a day of richly doing nothing. Otherwise, +one day was like another, with the many exceptions of the days on which +he saw Angel or Esther. With Ned, he spent many of his evenings; and he +soon formed the pleasant habit of dropping in on Gerard, last thing +before bed-time, for a smoke and half an hour's chat.</p> + +<p>There is always a good deal of youth left in any one who genuinely loves +youth; and Gerard always spoke of his youth as Adam, in his declining +years, might have spoken of Paradise. For him life was just youth--and +the rest of it death.</p> + +<p>"After thirty," he would say, "the happiest life is only history +repeating itself. I am no cynic,--far from it; but the worst of life is +the monotony of the bill of fare. To do a thing once, even twice, is +delightful--perhaps even a third time is successfully possible; but to +do it four times, is middle age. If you think of it, what is there to do +after thirty that one ought not to have achieved to perfection before? +You know the literary dictum, that the poet who hasn't written a +masterpiece before he is thirty will never write any after. Of course, +there are exceptions; I am speaking of the rule. In business, for +example, what future is there for the man who has not already a dashing +past at thirty? Of course, the bulk, the massive trunk and the +impressive foliage of his business, must come afterwards; but the tree +must have been firmly rooted and stoutly branched before then, and able +to go on growing on its own account. The work, in fact, must have +been done.</p> + +<p>"Take perhaps the only thing really worth doing in life," and Gerard +perceptibly saddened. "That is, marrying a woman you love, or I +should say <i>the</i> woman, for you only really <i>love</i> one woman--I'm +old-fashioned enough to think that,--well, I say, marrying the woman you +love, and bringing into the world that miracle of miracles,--a child +that shall be something of you and all her: that certainly is something +to have done before thirty, and not to be repeated, perhaps, more than +once before or after. She will want a boy like you, and you will have a +girl like her. That you may easily accomplish before thirty. Afterwards, +however, if you go on repeating each other, what do you do but blur the +individuality of the original masterpieces--though," pursued Gerard, +laughing, always ready to forget his original argument in the +seductiveness of an unexpected development of it, "though, after all, I +admit, there might be a temptation sometimes to improve upon the +originals. 'Agnes, my dear,' we might say, 'I'm not quite satisfied yet +with the shade of Eva's hair. It's nearly yours, but not quite. It's an +improvement on Anna's, whose eyes now are exactly yours. Eva's, +unfortunately, are not so faithful. I'm afraid we'll have to try again.'</p> + +<p>"No, but seriously," he once more began, "for a really vital and +successful life there is no adequate employment of the faculties after +thirty, except, of course, in the repetition of former successes. No; I +even withdraw that,--not the repetition, only the conservation, the +feeding, of former successes. The success is in the creation. When a +world is once created, any fool can keep it spinning.</p> + +<p>"Man's life is at least thirty years too long. Two score years is more +than enough for us to say what we were sent here to say; and if you'll +consider those biographies in which you are most interested, the +biographies of great writers, you cannot but bear me out. What, for +instance, did Keats and Shelley and Burns and Byron lose by dying, all +of them long before they were forty,--Keats even long before he was +thirty; and what did Wordsworth and Coleridge gain by living so long +after? Wordsworth and Coleridge didn't even live to repeat themselves, +else, of course, one would have begged them to go on living for ever; +for some repetitions, it is admitted, are welcome,--for instance, won't +you have a little more whisky?"</p> + +<p>Henry always agreed so completely with Gerard's talk, or at least so +delighted in it, that he had little scope of opportunity to say much +himself; and Gerard was too keen a talker to complain of a rapt +young listener.</p> + +<p>"How old are you?" he said, presently.</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two next month."</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two! How wonderful to be twenty-two! Yet I don't suppose you've +realised it in the least. In your own view, you're an aged philosopher, +white with a past, and bowed down with the cares of a future. Just you +stay in bed all day to-morrow, and ponder on the wonderfulness of being +twenty-two!</p> + +<p>"I'm forty-two. You're beginning--I'm done with. And yet, in some ways, +I believe I'm younger than you--though, perhaps, alas! what I consider +the youth in me is only the wish to be young again, the will to do and +enjoy, without the force and the appetite. But, by the way, when I say +I'm forty-two, I mean that I'm forty-two in the course of next week, +next Thursday, in fact, and if you'll do me that kindness, I should be +grateful if you would join me that evening in celebrating the melancholy +occasion. I've got a great mind to enlist your sympathy in a little +ancient history, if it won't be too great a tax upon your goodness; but +I'll think it over between now and then."</p> + +<p>Gerard's birthday had come; and the ancient history he had spoken of +had proved to be a chapter of his own history, the beauty and sadness of +which had made an impression upon Henry, to be rendered ineffaceable a +very few days after in a sudden and terrible manner.</p> + +<p>One early morning about four, just as it was growing light, he had +suddenly awakened with a strong feeling that some one was bending over +him. He opened his eyes, to see, as he thought, Gerard hastily leaving +his bedside.</p> + +<p>"Gerard!" he cried, "what's the matter?" but the figure gave no answer, +faded away down the long room, and disappeared. Henry sat up in bed and +struck a light, his heart beating violently. But there was no one there, +and the door was closed. It had evidently been one of those dreams that +persist on the eye for a moment after waking. Yet it left him uneasy; +and presently he wondered if Gerard could be ill. He determined to see; +so, slipping on his dressing-gown, he crossed the landing to Gerard's +room, and, softly knocking, opened the door and put in his head.</p> + +<p>"Gerard, old chap, are you all right?--Gerard--"</p> + +<p>There was no answer, and the room seemed unaccountably still. He +listened for the sound of breathing, but he couldn't hear it.</p> + +<p>"Gerard!" he cried, again louder, but there was still no answer; and +then, with the silence, a chill terror began to creep through his blood. +He had never yet seen death; and perhaps if he had the terror in his +thought would not have been lessened. With a heart that had almost +stopped beating, and knees that shook beneath him, he pushed open the +door and walked over to the bed. It was still too dark to see more than +outlines and masses of white and black; but even so he could see that +the stillness with which Gerard was lying was the stillness of death.</p> + +<p>His next thought was to rouse Aunt Tipping; and together the two bent +over the dead face.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's gone," said Aunt Tipping; "poor gentlemen, how beautiful he +looks!" and they both gazed in silence upon the calm, smiling face.</p> + +<p>"Well, he's better off," she said, presently, leaning over him, and +softly pressing down the lids of his eyes.</p> + +<p>Henry involuntarily drew away.</p> + +<p>"Dear lad, there's nothing to be frightened of," said his aunt. "He's +as harmless as a baby."</p> + +<p>Then she took a handkerchief from a drawer, and spread it gently over +the dead man's face. To Aunt Tipping the dead were indeed as little +children, and inspired her with a strange motherly tenderness. Many had +been the tired silent ones whose eyes she had closed, and whose limbs +she had washed against their last resting place. They were so helpless +now; they could do nothing any more for themselves.</p> + +<p>Later in the day, Henry came again and sat long by the dead man's side. +It seemed uncompanionable to have grown thus suddenly afraid of him, to +leave him thus alone in that still room. And as he sat and watched him, +he gave to his memory a solemn service of faithful thought. Thus it was +he went over again the words in which Gerard had made him the +depository, the legatee, of his most sacred possession.</p> + +<p>Gerard had evidently had some presentiment of his approaching end.</p> + +<p>"I am going," he had said, "to place the greatest confidence in you one +man can place in another, pay you the greatest compliment. I shall die +some day, and something tells me that that divine event is not very far +off. Now I have no one in the world who cares an old 'J' pen for me, and +a new one is perhaps about as much as I care for any one--with one +exception, and that is a woman whom I shall never see again. She is not +dead, but has been worse than dead for me these ten years. I am optimist +enough to believe that her old love for me still survives, making sweet +the secret places of her soul. Never once in all these years to have +doubted her love has been more than most marriages; but were I to live +for another ten years, and still another, I would believe in it still. +But the stars were against us. We met too late. We met when she had long +been engaged to a friend of her youth, a man noble and true, to whom she +owed much, and whom she felt it a kind of murder to desert. It was one +of those fallacious chivalries of feeling which are the danger of +sensitive and imaginative minds. Religion strengthened it, as it is so +apt to strengthen any form of self-destruction, short of technical +suicide. There was but a month to their marriage when we met. For us it +was a month of rapture and agonies, of heaven shot through with hell. I +saw further than she. I begged her at least to wait a year; but the +force of my appeal was weakened by scruples similar to her own. To rob +another of his happiness is an act from which we may well shrink, though +we can clearly see that the happiness was really destined for us, and +can never be his in any like degree. During this time I had received +from her many letters, letters such as a woman only writes in the +May-morning of her passion; and one day I received the last. There was +in it one sentence which when I read it I think my heart broke, 'Do you +believe,' it ran, 'in a love that can lie asleep, as in a trance, in +this world, to awaken again in another, a love that during centuries of +silence can still be true, and be love still in a thousand years? If you +do, go on loving me. For that is the only love I dare give you. I must +love you no more in this world.'</p> + +<p>"Each morning as I have risen, and each night as I have turned to sleep, +those words have repeated themselves again and again in my heart, for +ten years. It was so I became the Ashton Gerard you know to-day. Since +that day, we have never met or written to each other. All I know is that +she is still alive, and still with him, and never would I disturb their +peace. When I die, I would not have her know it. If love <i>is</i> immortal, +we shall meet again--when I am worthier to meet her. Such reunions are +either mere dreams, or they are realities to which the strongest forces +of the universe are pledged."</p> + +<p>Henry's only comment had been to grip Gerard's hand, and give him the +sympathy of silence.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Gerard, once more after a while, "it is about those letters +I want to speak to you. They are here," and he unlocked a drawer and +drew from it a little silver box. "I always keep them here. The key of +the drawer is on this ring, and this little gold key is the key of the +box itself. I tell you this, because I have what you may regard as a +strange request to make.</p> + +<p>"I suppose most men would consider it their duty either to burn these +letters, or leave instructions for them to be buried with them. That is +a gruesome form of sentiment in which I have too much imagination to +indulge. Both my ideas of duty and sentiment take a different form. The +surname of the writer of these letters is nowhere revealed in them, nor +are there any references in them by which she could ever be identified. +Therefore the menace to her fair fame in their preservation is not a +question involved. Now when the simplest woman is in love, she writes +wonderfully; but when a woman of imagination and intellect is caught by +the fire of passion, she becomes a poet. Once in her life, every such +woman is an artist; once, for some one man's unworthy sake, she becomes +inspired, and out of the fulness of her heart writes him letters warm +and real as the love-cries of Sappho. Such are the letters in this +little box. They are the classic of a month's passion, written as no man +has ever yet been able to write his love. Do you think it strange then +that I should shrink from destroying them? I would as soon burn the +songs of Shelley. They are living things. Shall I selfishly bury the +beating heart of them in the silence of the grave?</p> + +<p>"So, Mesurier," he continued, affectionately, "when I met you and +understood something of your nature, I thought that in you I had found +one who was worthy to guard this treasure for me, and perhaps pass it on +again to some other chosen spirit--so that these beautiful words of a +noble woman's heart shall not die--for when a man loves a woman, +Mesurier, as you yourself must know, he is insatiable to hear her +praise, and it is agony for him to think that her memory may suffer +extinction. Therefore, Mesurier,--Henry, let me call you,--I want to +give the memory of my love into your hands. I want you to love it for +me, when perhaps I can love it no more. I want you sometimes to open +this box, and read in these letters, as if they were your own; I want +you sometimes to speak softly the name of 'Helen,' when my lips can +speak it no more."</p> + +<p>Such was the beautiful legacy of which Henry found himself the possessor +by Gerard's death. Early on that day he had remembered his promise to +his dead friend, and had found the silver box, and locked it away among +his own most sacred things. Some day, in an hour and place upon which +none might break, he would open the little box and read Helen's letters, +as Gerard had wished. Already one sentence was fixed unforgettably upon +his mind, and he said it over softly to himself as he sat by Gerard's +silent bed: "Do you believe in a love that can lie asleep, as in a +trance in this world, to awaken again in another,--a love that during +centuries of silence can still be true, and be love still in a thousand +years? If you do, go on loving me. For that is the only love I dare give +you; I must love you no more in this world."</p> + +<p>Strange dreams of the indomitable dust! Already another man's love was +growing dear to him. Already his soul said the name of "Helen" softly +for Gerard's sake.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI</h2> + +<h3>LABORIOUS DAYS</h3> +<br> + +<p>With Gerard's death, Henry began to find Aunt Tipping's too sad a place +to go on living in. It had become haunted; and when new people moved +into Gerard's rooms, it became still more painful for him. It was as +though Gerard had been dispossessed and driven out. So he cast about for +some new shelter; and, one day, chance having taken him to the shipping +end of the city, he came upon some old offices which seemed full of +anxiety to be let. Inquiring of a chatty little housekeeper's wife, he +discovered, away at the echoing top of the building, a big, well-lighted +room, for which she thought the owner would be glad to take ten pounds a +year. That whole storey was deserted. Henry made up his mind at once, +and broke the news to Aunt Tipping that evening. It was the withering of +one of her few rays of poetry, and she struggled to keep him; but when +she saw how it was, the good woman insisted that he should take +something from her towards furnishing. Receiving was nothing like so +blessed as giving for Aunt Tipping. That old desk,--yes, she had bought +it for him,--that he must certainly take, and think of his old aunt +sometimes as he wrote his great books on it; and some bed-linen she +could well afford. She would take no denial.</p> + +<p>Angel and Esther were then called in to help him in the purchase of a +carpet, a folding-bed, an old sofa, and a few chairs. A carpenter got to +work on the bookshelves, and in a fortnight's time still another +habitation had been built for the Muse,--a habitation from which she was +not destined to remove again, till she and Angel and Henry all moved +into one house together,--a removal which was, as yet, too far off to be +included in this history.</p> + +<p>Ten pounds a year, a folding-bed, and a teapot!--this was Henry's new +formula for the cultivation of literature. He had so far progressed in +his ambitions as to have arrived at the dignity of a garret of his own, +and he liked to pretend that soon he might be romantically fortunate +enough to sit face to face with starvation. He knew, however, that it +would be a starvation mitigated by supplies from three separate, +well-lardered homes. A lad with a sweetheart and a sister, a mother and +an aunt, all in love with him, is not likely to become an authority on +starvation in its severest forms.</p> + +<p>A stern law had been passed that Henry's daytime hours were to be as +strictly respected as those of a man of business; yet quite often, about +eleven o'clock in the morning, there would come a heavenly whisper along +the passage and a little knock on the door, soft as a flower tapping +against a window-pane.</p> + +<p>"Thank goodness, that's Angel!</p> + +<p>"Angel, bless you! How glad I am to see you! I can't get on a bit with +my work this morning."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I haven't come to interrupt you, dear. I sha'n't keep you five +minutes. Only I thought, dear, you'd be so tired of pressed beef and +tinned tongue, and so I thought I'd make a little hot-pot for you. I +bought the things for it as I came along, and it won't take five +minutes, if Mrs. Glass [the housekeeper] will only lend me a basin to +put it in, and bake it for you in her oven. Now, dear, you mustn't--you +know I mustn't stay. See now, I'll just take off my hat and jacket and +run along to Mrs. Glass, to get what I want. I'll be back in a minute. +Well, then, just one--now that's enough; good-bye," and off she +would skip.</p> + +<p>If you want to know how fairies look when they are making hot-pot, you +should have seen Angel's absorbed little shining face.</p> + +<p>"Now, do be quiet, Henry. I'm busy. Why don't you get on with your work? +I won't speak a word."</p> + +<p>"Angel, dear, you might just as well stay and help me to eat it. I +sha'n't do any work to-day, I know for certain. It's one of my +bad days."</p> + +<p>"Now, Henry, that's lazy. You mustn't give way like that. You'll make me +wish I hadn't come. It's all my fault."</p> + +<p>"No, really, dear, it isn't. I haven't done a stroke all morning--though +I've sat with my pen for two hours. You might stay, Angel, just an +hour or two."</p> + +<p>"No, Henry; mother wants me back soon. She's house-cleaning. And +besides, I mustn't. No--no--you see I've nearly finished now--see! Get +me the salt and pepper. There now--that looks nice, doesn't it? Now +aren't I a good little housewife?"</p> + +<p>"You would be, if you'd only stay. Do stay, Angel. Really, darling, it +will be all the same if you go. I know I shall do nothing. Look at my +morning's work, and he brought her a sheet of paper containing two lines +and a half of new-born prose, one line and a half of which was +plentifully scratched out. To this argument he added two or three +persuasive embraces.</p> + +<p>"It's really true, Henry? Well, of course, I oughtn't; but if you can't +work, of course you can't. And you must have a little rest sometimes, I +know. Well, then, I'll stay; but only till we've finished lunch, you +know, and we must have it early. I won't stay a minute past two o'clock, +do you hear? And now I'll run along with this to Mrs. Glass."</p> + +<p>When Angel had gone promptly at three, as likely as not another step +would be heard coming down the passage, and a feminine rustle, +suggesting a fuller foliage of skirts, pause outside the door, then a +sort of brotherly-sisterly knock.</p> + +<p>"Esther! Why, you've just missed Angel; what a pity!"</p> + +<p>"Well, dear, I only ran up for half-a-minute. I was shopping in town, +and I couldn't resist looking in to see how the poor boy was getting on. +No, dear, I won't take my things off. I must catch the half-past three +boat, and then I'll keep you from your work?"</p> + +<p>Esther always said this with a sort of suggestion in her voice that it +was just possible Henry might have found some new way of both keeping +her there and doing his work at the same time; as though she had said, +"I know you cannot possibly work while I am here; but, of course, if you +can, and talking to me all the time won't interfere with it--well, +I'll stay."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, you won't really. To tell the truth, I've done none to-day. I +can't get into the mood."</p> + +<p>"So you've been getting Angel to help you. Oh, well, of course, if Angel +can be allowed to interrupt you, I suppose I can too. Well, then, I'll +stay a quarter of an hour."</p> + +<p>"But you may as well take your things off, and I'll make a cup of tea, +eh? That'll be cosey, won't it? And then you can read me Mike's last +letter, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's doing splendidly, dear! I had a lovely letter from him this +morning. Would you really care to hear a bit of it?"</p> + +<p>And Esther would proceed to read, picking her way among the endearments +and the diminutives.</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> glad, dear. Why, if he goes on at this rate, you'll be able to +get married in no time."</p> + +<p>"Yes; isn't it splendid, dear? I am so happy! What I'd give to see his +little face for five minutes! Wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Rather. Perhaps he'll be able to run up on Bank Holiday."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid not, dear. He speaks of it in his letter, and just hopes for +it; but rather fears they'll have to play at Brighton, or some other +stupid seaside place."</p> + +<p>"That's a bother. Yes, dear old Mike! To think of him working away there +all by himself--God bless him! Do you know he's never seen this old +room? It struck me yesterday. It doesn't seem quite warmed till he's +seen it. Wouldn't it be lovely to have him here some night?--one of our +old, long evenings. Well, I suppose it will really come one of these +days. And then we shall be having you married, and going off to London +in clouds of glory, while poor old Henry grubs away down here in Tyre."</p> + +<p>"Well, if we do go first, you will not be long after us, dear; and if +only Mike could make a really great hit, why, in five years' time we +might all be quite rich. Won't it be wonderful?"</p> + +<p>Then the kettle boiled, and Henry made the tea; and when it had long +since been drunk, Esther began to think it must be five o'clock, and, +horrified to find it a quarter to six, confessed to being ashamed of +herself, and tried to console her conscience by the haste of +her good-bye.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I've wasted your afternoon," she said; "but we don't often +get a chat nowadays, do we? Good-bye, dear. Go on loving me, won't you?"</p> + +<p>After that, Henry would give the day up as a bad job, and begin to +wonder if Ned would be dropping in that evening for a smoke; and as that +was Ned's almost nightly custom about eight o'clock, the chances of +Henry's disappointment were not serious.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII</h2> + +<h3>A HEAVIER FOOTFALL</h3> +<br> + +<p>One morning, as Henry was really doing a little work, a more ponderous +step broke the silence of his landing, a heavy footfall full of +friendship. Certainly that was not Angel, nor even the more weighty +Esther, though when the knock came it was little and shy as a woman's.</p> + +<p>Henry threw open the door, but for a moment there was no one to be seen; +and then, recalling the idiosyncrasy of a certain new friend whom by +that very token he guessed it might be, he came out on to the landing, +to find a great big friendly man in corpulent blue serge, a rough, dark +beard, and a slouched hat, standing a few feet off in a deprecating +way,--which really meant that if there were any ladies in the room with +Mr. Mesurier, he would prefer to call another time. For though he had +two or three grownup daughters of his own, this giant of a man was as +shy of a bit of a thing like Angel, whom he had met there one day, as +though he were a mere boy. He always felt, he once said in explanation, +as though he might break them in shaking hands. They affected him like +the presence of delicate china, and yet he could hold a baby deftly as +an elephant can nip up a flower; and to see him turn over the pages of a +delicate <i>édition de luxe</i> was a lesson in tenderness. For this big man +who, as he would himself say, looked for all the world like a pirate, +was as insatiable of fine editions as a school-girl of chocolate creams. +He was one of those dearest of God's creatures, a gentle giant; and his +voice, when it wasn't necessary to be angry, was as low and kind as an +old nurse at the cradle's side.</p> + +<p>Henry had come to know him through his little Scotch printer, who +printed circulars and bill-heads, for the business over which Mr. +Fairfax--for that was his name--presided. By day he was the vigorous +brain of a huge emporium, a sort of Tyrian Whiteley's; but day and night +he was a lover of books, and you could never catch him so busy but that +he could spare the time mysteriously to beckon you into his private +office, and with the glee of a child, show you his last large paper. He +not only loved books; but he was rumoured liberally to have assisted one +or two distressed men of genius well-known to the world. The tales of +the surreptitious goodness of his heart were many; but it was known too +that the big kind man had a terribly searching eye under his briery +brows, and could be as stern towards ingratitude as he was soft to +misfortune. Henry once caught a glimpse of this as they spoke of a +mutual friend whom he had helped to no purpose. Mr. Fairfax never used +many words, on this occasion he was grimly laconic.</p> + +<p>"Rat-poison!" he said, shaking his head. "Rat-poison!" It was his way of +saying that that was the only cure for that particular kind of man.</p> + +<p>It was evident that his generous eye had seen how things were with +Henry. He had subscribed for at least a dozen copies of "The Book of +Angelica," and in several ways shown his interest in the struggling +young poet. As has been said, he had seen Angelica one day, and his +shyness had not prevented his heart from going out to these two young +people, and the dream he saw in their eyes. He had determined to do +what he could to help them, and to-day he had come with a plan.</p> + +<p>"I hope you're not too proud to give me a hand, Mr. Mesurier, in a +little idea I've got," he said.</p> + +<p>"I think you know how proud I am, and how proud I'm not, Mr. Fairfax," +said Henry. "I'm sure anything I could do for you would make me proud, +if that's what you mean."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. Thank you. But you mustn't speak too fast. It's +advertising--does the word frighten you? No? Well, it's a scheme I've +thought of for a little really artistic and humorous advertising +combined. I've got a promise from one of the most original artists of +the day, you know his name, to do the pictures; and I want you to do the +verses--at, I may say, your own price. It's not, perhaps, the highest +occupation for a poet; but it's something to be going on with; and if +we've got good posters as advertisements, I don't see why we shouldn't +have good humorous verse. What do you think of it?"</p> + +<p>"I think it's capital," said Henry, who was almost too ready to turn his +hand to anything. "Of course I'll do it; only too glad."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's settled. Now, name your price. Don't be frightened!"</p> + +<p>"Really, I can't. I haven't the least idea what I should get. Wait till +I have done a few of the verses, and you can give me what you please."</p> + +<p>"No, sir," said Mr. Fairfax; "business is business. If you won't name a +figure, I must. Will you consider a hundred pounds sufficient?"</p> + +<p>"A hundred pounds!" Henry gasped out, the tears almost starting to his +eyes.</p> + +<p>Mr. Fairfax did not miss his frank joy, and liked him for his +ingenuousness.</p> + +<p>"All right, then; we'll call it settled. I shall be ready for the verses +as soon as you care to write them."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Fairfax, I will tell you frankly that this is a great deal to me, +and I thank you from my heart."</p> + +<p>"Not a word, not a word, my boy. We want your verses, we want your +verses. That's right, isn't it? Good verses, good money! Now no more of +that," and the good man, in alarm lest he should be thanked further, +made an abrupt and awkward farewell.</p> + +<p>"It will keep the lad going a few months anyhow," he said to himself, +as he tramped downstairs, glad that he'd been able to think of +something; for, while the scheme was admirable as an advertisement, and +would more than repay Messrs. Owens' outlay, its origin had been pure +philanthropy. Such good angels do walk this world in the guise of bulky, +quite unpoetic-looking business-men.</p> + +<p>"One hundred pounds!" said Henry, over and over again to himself. "One +hundred pounds! What news for Angel!"</p> + +<p>He had soon a scheme in his head for the book, which entirely hit Mr. +Fairfax's fancy. It was to make a volume of verse celebrating each of +the various departments of the great store, in metres parodying the +styles of the old English ballads and various poets, ancient and modern, +and was to be called, "Bon Marché Ballads."</p> + +<p>"Something like this, for example," said Henry, a few days later, +pulling an envelope covered with pencil-scribble from his pocket. "This +for the ladies' department,--</p> + +<blockquote> +<i>"Oh, where do you buy your hats, lady?<br> + And where do you buy your hose?<br> + And where do you buy your shoes, lady?<br> + And where your underclothes?</i><br><br> + +<i>"Hats, shoes, and stockings, everything<br> + A lady's heart requires,<br> +Quality good, and prices low,<br> + We are the largest buyers!</i><br><br> + +<i>"The stock we bought on Wednesday last<br> + Is fading fast away,<br> +To-morrow it may be too late--<br> + Oh, come and buy to-day!"</i><br><br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Fairfax fairly trumpeted approval. "If they're all as good as that," +he said; "you must have more money. Yes, you must. Well, well,--we'll +see, we'll see!" And when the "Bon Marché Ballads" actually appeared, +the generous creature insisted on adding another fifty pounds to +the cheque.</p> + +<p>As many were afterwards of opinion that Henry never again did such good +work as these nonsense rhymes, written thus for a frolic,--and one +hundred and fifty pounds,--and as copies of the "Bon Marché Ballads" are +now exceedingly scarce, it may possibly be of interest to quote two or +three more of its preposterous numbers. This is a lyric illustrative of +cheese, for the provision department:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"<i>Are you fond of cheese?<br> + Do you sometimes sigh<br> +For a really good<br> + Gorgonzola? Try,</i><br><br> + +"<i>Try our one-and-ten,<br> + Wonderfully rotten,<br> +Tasted once, it never can<br> + Be again forgotten</i>!"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Here is "a Ballad of Baby's Toys:"--</p> + +<blockquote> +"<i>Oh, give me a toy" the baby said--<br> + The babe of three months old,--<br> +Oh, what shall I buy my little babee,<br> + With silver and with gold?</i>"<br><br> + +"<i>I would you buy a trumpet fine,<br> + And a rocking-horse for me,<br> +And a bucket and a spade, mother,<br> + To dig beside the sea.</i>"<br><br> + +"<i>But where shall I buy these pretty things?"<br> + The mother's heart inquires.<br> +"Oh, go to Owens!" cried the babe;<br> + "They are the largest buyers."</i><br> +</blockquote> + +<p>The subject of our last selection is "Melton Mowbray," which bore +beneath its title due apologies to Mr. Swinburne:--</p> + +<blockquote> +<i>"Strange pie, that is almost a passion,<br> + O passion immoral, for pie!<br> +Unknown are the ways that they fashion,<br> + Unknown and unseen of the eye,<br> +The pie that is marbled and mottled,<br> + The pie that digests with a sigh:<br> +For all is not Bass that is bottled,<br> + And all is not pork that is pie."</i><br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Of all the goodness else that Henry and Angel were to owe in future days +to Mr. Fairfax, there is not room in this book to write. But that +matters little, for is it not written in the Book of Love?</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII</h2> + +<h3>STILL ANOTHER CALLER</h3> +<br> + +<p>One afternoon the step coming along the corridor was almost light enough +to be Angel's, though a lover's ear told him that hers it was not. Once +more that feminine rustle, the very whisper of romantic mystery; again +the little feminine knock.</p> + +<p>Daintiness and Myrtilla!</p> + +<p>"Well, this is lovely of you, Myrtilla! But what courage! How did you +ever dare venture into this wild and savage spot,--this +mountain-fastness of Bohemia?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was brave of me, wasn't it?" said Myrtilla, with a little +laugh, for which the stairs had hardly left her breath. "But what a +climb! It is like having your rooms on the Matterhorn. I think I must +write a magazine article: 'How I climbed the fifty-thousand stairs,' +with illustrations,--and we could have some quite pretty ones," she +said, looking round the room.</p> + +<p>"That big skylight is splendid! As close, dear lad, to the stars as you +can get it? Are you as devoted to them as ever?"</p> + +<p>"Aren't you, Myrtilla?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; but they don't get any nearer, you know."</p> + +<p>"It's awfully good to see you again, Myrtilla," said Henry, going over +to her and taking both her hands. "It's quite a long time, you know, +since we had a talk. It was a sweet thought of you to come. You'll have +some tea, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I should love to see you make tea. Bachelors always make such good +tea. What pretty cups! My word, we are dainty! I suppose it was Esther +bought them for you?"</p> + +<p>Henry detected the little trap and smiled. No, it hadn't been Esther.</p> + +<p>"No? Someone else then? eh! I think I can guess her name. It was mean of +you not to tell me about her, Henry. I hear she's called Angel, and that +she looks like one. I wish I could have seen her before I went away."</p> + +<p>"Going away, Myrtilla? why, where? I've heard nothing of it. Tell me +about it."</p> + +<p>The atmosphere perceptibly darkened with the thought of Williamson.</p> + +<p>"Well!" she said, in the little airy melodious way she had when she was +telling something particularly unhappy about herself--a sort of +harpsichord bravado--"Well, you know, he's taken to fancying himself +seriously ill lately, and the doctors have aided and abetted him; and so +we're going to Davos Platz, or some such health-wilderness--and well, +that's all!"</p> + +<p>"And you I suppose are to nurse the--to nurse him?" said Henry, +savagely.</p> + +<p>"Hush, lad! It's no use, not a bit! You won't help me that way," she +said, laying her hand kindly on his, and her eyes growing bright with +suppressed tears.</p> + +<p>"It's a shame, nevertheless, Myrtilla, a cruel shame!"</p> + +<p>"You'd like to say it was a something-else shame, wouldn't you, dear +boy? Well, you can, if you like: but then you must say no more. And if +you really want to help me, you shall send me a long letter now and +again, with some of your new poems enclosed; and tell me what new books +are worth sending for? Will you do that?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, I will. That's precious little to do anyhow."</p> + +<p>"It's a good deal, really. But be sure you do it."</p> + +<p>"And, of course, you'll write to me sometimes. I don't think you know +yet what your letters are to me. I never work so well as when I've had a +letter from you."</p> + +<p>"Really, dear lad, I don't fancy you know how happy that makes me to +hear."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you take just the sort of interest in my work I want, and that no +one else takes."</p> + +<p>"Not even Angel?" said Myrtilla, slily.</p> + +<p>"Angel, bless her, loves my work; and is a brave little critic of it; +but then it isn't disloyal to her to say that she doesn't know as much +as you. Besides, she doesn't approach it in quite the same way. She +cares for it, first, because it is mine, and only secondly for its own +sake. Now you care for it just for what it is--"</p> + +<p>"I care for it, certainly, for what it's going to be," said Myrtilla, +making one of those honest distinctions which made her opinion so +stimulating to Henry.</p> + +<p>"Yes, there you are. You're artistically ambitious for me; you know what +I want to do, even before I know myself. That's why you're so good for +me. No one but you is that for me; and--poor stuff as I know it +is--never write a word without wondering what you will think of it."</p> + +<p>"You're sure it's quite true," said Myrtilla; "don't say so if it isn't. +Because you know you're saying what I care most to hear, perhaps, of +anything you could say. You know how I love literature, and--well, you +know too how fond I am of you, dear lad, don't you?"</p> + +<p>Literary criticism had kindled into emotion; and Henry bent down, and +kissed Myrtilla's hand. In return she let her hand rest a moment lightly +on his hair, and then, rather spasmodically, turned to remark on his +bookshelves with suspicious energy.</p> + +<p>At that moment another step was heard in the corridor, again feminine. +Henry knew it for Angel's; and it may be that his expression grew a +shade embarrassed, as he said:</p> + +<p>"I believe I shall be able to introduce you to Angel after all--for I +think this is she coming along the passage."</p> + +<p>As Henry opened the door, Angel was on the point of throwing her arms +round his neck, when, noticing a certain constraint in his manner of +greeting, she realised that he was not alone.</p> + +<p>"We were just talking of you, dear," said Henry. "This is my friend, +Mrs. Williamson,--'Myrtilla,' of whom you've often heard me speak."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I've often heard of Mrs. Williamson," said Angel, not of +course suffering the irony of her thought to escape into her voice.</p> + +<p>"And I've heard no less of Miss Flower," said Mrs. Williamson, "not +indeed from this faithless boy here,--for I haven't seen him for so long +that I've had to humble myself at last and call,--but from Esther."</p> + +<p>Myrtilla loved the transparent face, pulsing with light, flushing or +fading with her varying mood, answering with exquisite delicacy to any +advance and retreat of the soul within. But an invincible prejudice, or +perhaps rather fear, shut Angel's eyes from the appreciation of +Myrtilla. She was sweet and beautiful, but to the child that Angel still +was she suggested malign artifice. Angel looked at her as an imaginative +child looks at the moon, with suspicion.</p> + +<p>So, in spite of Myrtilla's efforts to make friends, the conversation +sustained a distinct loss in sprightliness by Angel's arrival.</p> + +<p>Myrtilla, perhaps divining a little of the truth, rose to go.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm afraid it's quite a long good-bye," she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're going away?" said Angel, with a shade of relief +involuntarily in her voice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, perhaps before we meet again, you and Henry will be married. +I'm sure I sincerely hope so."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Angel, somewhat coldly.</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye, Henry," said Myrtilla,--it was rather a strangled +good-bye,--and then, in an evil moment, she caught sight of the Dante's +head which, hidden in a recess, she had not noticed before. "I see +you're still faithful to the Dante," she said; "that's sweet of +you,--good-bye, good-bye, Miss Flower, Angel, perhaps you'll let me say, +good-bye."</p> + +<p>When she had gone there seemed a curious constraint in the air. You +might have said that the consistency of the air had been doubled. +Gravitation was at least twice as many pounds as usual to the square +inch. Every little movement seemed heavy as though the medium had been +water instead of air. As Henry raised his hands to help Angel off with +her jacket, they seemed weighted with lead.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you," said Angel, "I won't take it off. I can't stay long."</p> + +<p>"Why, dear, what do you mean? I thought you were going to stay the +evening with me. I've quite a long new chapter to read to you."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Henry,--but I find I can't."</p> + +<p>"Why, dear, how's that? Won't you tell me the reason? Has anything +happened?"</p> + +<p>Angel stood still in the middle of the room, with her face as firmly +miserable as she could make it.</p> + +<p>"Won't you tell me?" Henry pleaded. "Won't you speak to me? Come, +dear--what's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"You know well enough, Henry, what's the matter!" came an unexpected +flash of speech.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I don't. I know of no reason whatever. How should I?"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, Mrs. Williamson's the matter!--'Myrtilla,' as you call her. +Something told me it was like this all along, though I couldn't bear to +doubt you, and so I put it away. I wonder how often she's been here when +I have known nothing about it."</p> + +<p>"This is the very first time she has ever set foot in these rooms," +said Henry, growing cold in his turn. "I'll give you my word of honour, +if you need it."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to hear any more. I'm going. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>"Going, Angel?" said Henry, standing between her and the door. "What can +you mean? See now,--give your brains a chance! You're not thinking in +the least. You've just let yourself go--for no reason at all. You'll be +sorry to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Reason enough, I should think, when I find that you love another +woman!"</p> + +<p>"I love Myrtilla Williamson! It's a lie, Angel--and you ought to be +ashamed to say it. It's unworthy of you."</p> + +<p>"Why have you never told me then who made that sketch of Dante for you? +I suppose I should never have known, if she hadn't let it out. I asked +you once, but you put me off."</p> + +<p>Henry had indeed prevaricated, for Angel had chanced to ask him just +after Myrtilla's letter about his poems.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be frank," said Henry. "I didn't tell you, just because I +feared an unreasonable scene like this--"</p> + +<p>"If there had been nothing in it, there was nothing to fear; and, in +any case, why should she paint pictures for you, if she doesn't care for +you?--No, I'm going. Nothing will persuade me otherwise. Henry, please +let pass, if you're a gentleman--" and poor little Angel's face fairly +flamed. "No power on earth will keep me here--"</p> + +<p>"All right, Angel--" and Henry let her have her way. Her feet echoed +down the stairs, further and further away. She was gone; and Henry spent +that evening in torturingly imagining every kind of accident that might +happen to her on the way home. Every hour he expected to be suddenly +called to look at her dead body--his work. And so the night passed, and +the morning dawned in agony. So went the whole of the next day, for he +could be proud too--and the fault had been hers.</p> + +<p>Thus they sat apart for three days, poles of determined silence. And +then at last, on the evening of the third day, Henry, who was half +beside himself with suspense, heard, with wild thankfulness, once more +the little step in the passage--it seemed fainter, he thought, and +dragged a little, and the knock at the door was like a ghost's.</p> + +<p>There, with a wan smile, Angel stood; and with joy, wordless because +unspeakable, they fell almost like dead things into each other's arms. +For an hour they sat thus, and never spoke a word, only stroking each +other's hands and hair. It was so good for each to know that the other +was alive. It took so long for the stored agony in the nerves to relax.</p> + +<p>"I haven't eaten a morsel since Wednesday," said Angel, at last.</p> + +<p>"Nor I," said Henry.</p> + +<p>"Henry, dear, I'm sorry. I know now I was wrong. I give you my word +never to doubt you again."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Angel. Don't let us even think of it any more."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't live through it again, darling."</p> + +<p>"But it can never happen any more, can it?"</p> + +<p>"No!--but--if you ever love any woman better than you love me, you'll +tell me, won't you? I could bear that better than to be deceived."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Angel, I promise to tell you."</p> + +<p>"Well, we're really happy again now--are we? I can hardly believe it--"</p> + +<p>"You didn't see me outside your house last night, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Henry!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was there. And I watched you carry the light into your bedroom, +and when you came to the window to draw down the blind, I thought you +must have seen me. Yes, I waited and waited, till I saw the light go out +and long after--"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Henry--you do love me then?"</p> + +<p>"And we do know how to hate each other sometimes, don't we, child?" said +Henry, laughing into Angel's eyes, all rainbows and tears.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV</h2> + +<h3>THE END OF A BEGINNING</h3> +<br> + +<p>And now blow, all ye trumpets, and, all ye organs, tremble with exultant +sound! Bring forth the harp, and the psaltry, and the sackbut! For the +long winter of waiting is at an end, and Mike is flying north to fetch +his bride. Now are the walls of heaven built four-square, and to-day was +the roof-beam hung with garlands. 'Tis but a small heaven, yet is it big +enough for two,--and Mike is flying north, flying north, through the +midnight, to fetch his bride.</p> + +<p>Henry and the morning meet him at Tyre. Blessings on his little wrinkled +face! The wrinkles are deeper and sweeter by a year's hard work. He has +laughed with them every night for full twelve months, laughed to make +others laugh. To-day he shall laugh for himself alone. The very river +seems glad, and tosses its shaggy waves like a faithful dog; and over +yonder in Sidon, where the sun is building a shrine of gold and pearl, +Esther, sleepless too, all night, waits at a window like the +morning-star.</p> + +<p>Oh, Mike! Mike! Mike! is it you at last?</p> + +<p>Oh, Esther, Esther, is it you?</p> + +<p>Their faces were so bright, as they gazed at each other, that it seemed +they might change to stars and wing together away up into the morning. +Henry snatched one look at the brightness and turned away.</p> + +<p>"She looked like a spirit!" said Mike, as they met again further along +the road.</p> + +<p>"He looked like a little angel," said Esther, as she threw herself into +Dot's sympathetic arms.</p> + +<p>A few miles from Sidon there stood an old church, dim with memories, in +a churchyard mossy with many graves. It was hither some few hours after +that unwonted carriages were driving through the snow of that happy +winter's day. In one of them Esther and Henry were sitting,--Esther +apparelled in--but here the local papers shall speak for us: "The +bride," it said, "was attired in a dress of grey velvet trimmed with +beaver, and a large picturesque hat with feathers to match; she carried +a bouquet of white chrysanthemums and hyacinths."</p> + +<p>"The very earth has put on white to be your bridesmaid!" said Henry, +looking out on the sunlit snow.</p> + +<p>"After all, though, of course, I'm sad in one way," said Esther, more +practical in her felicitations, "I'm glad in another that father +wouldn't give me away. For it was really you who gave me to Mike long +ago; wasn't it?--and so it's only as it should be that you should give +me to him to-day."</p> + +<p>"You'll never forget what we've been to each other?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you know?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but our love has no organs and presents and prayer-books to bind +it together."</p> + +<p>"Do you think it needs it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not! But it would be fun for us too some day to have a +marriage. Why should only one kind of love have its marriage ceremony? +When Mike's and your wedding is over, let's tell him that we're going +to send out cards for ours!"</p> + +<p>"All right. What form shall the ceremony take--<i>Parfait Amour</i>?"</p> + +<p>"You haven't forgotten?"</p> + +<p>"I shall forget just the second after you--not before--and, no, I won't +be mean, I'll not even forget you then."</p> + +<p>"Kiss me, Esther," said Henry.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me again, Esther," he said. "Do you remember?"</p> + +<p>"The cake and the beating?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that was our marriage."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>When all the glory of that happy day hung in crimson low down in the +west, like a chariot of fire in which Mike and Esther were speeding to +their paradise, Henry walked with Angel, homeward through the streets of +Tyre, solemn with sunset. In both that happy day still lived like music +richly dying.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Angel, in words far too practical for such a sunset, "I am +so glad it all went off so well. Poor dear Mrs. Mesurier, how bonny she +looked! And your dear old Aunt Tipping! Fancy her hiding there in +the church--"</p> + +<p>"Of course we'd asked her," said Henry; "but, poor old thing, she +didn't feel grand enough, as she would say, to come publicly."</p> + +<p>"And your poor father! Fancy him coming home for the lunch like that!"</p> + +<p>"After all, it was logical of him," said Henry. "I suppose he had made +up his mind that he would resist as long as it was any use, and after +that--gracefully give in. And he was always fond of Mike."</p> + +<p>"But didn't Esther cry, when he kissed her, and said that, since she'd +chosen Mike, he supposed he must choose him too. And Mike was as good as +crying too?"</p> + +<p>"I think every one was. Poor mother was just a mop."</p> + +<p>"Well, they're nearly home by now, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Yes, another half-hour or so."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Henry, fancy! How wonderful for them! God bless them. I <i>am</i> glad!"</p> + +<p>"I wonder when we shall get our home," said Henry, presently.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Henry, never mind us! I can't think of any one but them to-day."</p> + +<p>"Well, dear, I didn't mean to be selfish--I was only wondering how +long you'd be willing to wait for me?"</p> + +<p>"Suppose I were to say 'for ever!' Would that make you happy?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I think, dear--I might perhaps arrange things by then."</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>THE END</h2> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10922 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a2db311 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10922 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10922) diff --git a/old/10922-8.txt b/old/10922-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8690df5 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10922-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8387 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Young Lives, by Richard Le Gallienne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Young Lives + +Author: Richard Le Gallienne + +Release Date: February 3, 2004 [EBook #10922] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUNG LIVES *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +YOUNG LIVES + +BY + +RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + + +1899 + + + + +TO + +ALFRED LEE + +IN MEMORY OF ANGEL + +_September, 1898_. + + _Let thy soul strive that still the same + Be early friendship's sacred flame; + The affinities have strongest part + In youth, and draw men heart to heart: + As life wears on and finds no rest, + The individual in each breast + Is tyrannous to sunder them_. + + + + +CONTENTS + +Chapter + I. HARD YOUNG HEARTS. + II. CONCERNING THOSE "ATLANTIC LINERS" AND AN OLD DESK. + III. OF THE LOVE OF HENRY AND ESTHER. + IV. OF THE PROFESSIONS THAT CHOOSE, AND MIKE LAFLIN. + V. OF THE LOVE OF ESTHER AND MIKE, AND THE MESURIER LAW IN REGARD TO + "SWEETHEARTS". + VI. THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF HOME. + VII. A LINK WITH CIVILISATION. + VIII. A RHAPSODY OF TYRE. + IX. A PENITENTIARY OF THE MATHEMATICS. + X. THE GRASS BETWEEN THE FLAG-STONES. + XI. HUMANITY IN HIGH PLACES. + XII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS. + XIII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS AT THE THEATRE. + XIV. CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS A GENEALOGY. + XV. MERELY A HUMBLE INTERRUPTION AND ILLUSTRATION OF THE LAST. + XVI. CHAPTER FOURTEEN CONCLUDED. + XVII. DOT'S DECISION. + XVIII. MIKE AND HIS MILLION POUNDS. + XIX. ON CERTAIN ADVANTAGES OF A BACKWATER. + XX. THE MAN IN POSSESSION. + XXI. LITTLE MISS FLOWER. + XXII. MIKE'S FIRST LAURELS. + XXIII. THE MOTHER OF AN ANGEL. + XXIV. AN ANCIENT THEORY OF HEAVEN. + XXV. THE LAST CONTINUED, AFTER A BRIEF INTERVAL. + XXVI. CONCERNING THE BEST KIND OF WIFE FOR A POET. + XXVII. THE BOOK OF ANGELICA. + XXVIII. WHAT COMES OF PUBLISHING A BOOK. + XXIX. MIKE'S TURN TO MOVE. + XXX. UNCHARTERED FREEDOM. + XXXI. A PREPOSTEROUS AUNT. + XXXII. THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN IN THE BACK PARLOUR. + XXXIII. "THIS IS LONDON, THIS IS LIFE". + XXXIV. THE WITS. + XXXV. BACK TO REALITY. + XXXVI. THE OLD HOME MEANWHILE. + XXXVII. STAGE WAITS, MR. LAFLIN. +XXXVIII. ESTHER AND HENRY ONCE MORE. + XXXIX. MIKE AFAR. + XL. A LEGACY MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD. + XLI. LABORIOUS DAYS. + XLII. A HEAVIER FOOTFALL. + XLIII. STILL ANOTHER CALLER. + XLIV. THE END OF A BEGINNING. + + + + +YOUNG LIVES + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +HARD YOUNG HEARTS + +Behind the Venetian blinds of a respectable middle-class, +fifty-pound-a-year, "semi-detached," "family" house, in a respectable +middle-class road of the little north-county town of Sidon, midway +between the trees of wealth upon the hill, and the business quarters +that ended in squalor on the bank of the broad and busy river,--a house +boasting a few shabby trees of its own, in its damp little rockeried +slips of front and back gardens,--on a May evening some ten or twelve +years ago, a momentous crisis of contrasts had been reached. + +The house was still as for a battle. It was holding its breath to hear +what was going on in the front parlour, the door of which seemed to wear +an expression of being more than usually closed. A mournful half-light +fell through a little stained-glass vestibule into a hat-racked hall, on +the walls of which hung several pictures of those great steamships known +as "Atlantic liners" in big gilt frames--pictures of a significance +presently to be noted. A beautiful old eight-day clock ticked solemnly +to the flickering of the hall lamp. From below came occasionally a +furtive creaking of the kitchen stairs. The two servants were half way +up them listening. The stairs a flight above the hall also creaked at +intervals. Two young girls, respectively about fourteen and fifteen, +were craning necks out of nightdresses over the balusters in a shadowy +angle of the staircase. On the floor above them three other little girls +of gradually diminishing ages slept, unconscious of the issues being +decided between their big brother and their eldest sister on the one +side, and their father and mother on the other, in the front +parlour below. + +That parlour, a room of good size, was unostentatiously furnished with +good bourgeois mahogany. A buxom mahogany chiffonier, a large square +dining-table, a black marble clock with two dials, one being a +barometer, three large oil landscapes of exceedingly umbrageous trees +and glassy lakes, inoffensively uninteresting, more Atlantic liners, and +a large bookcase, apparently filled with serried lines of bound +magazines, and an excellent Brussels carpet of quiet pattern, were +mainly responsible for a general effect of middle-class comfort, in +which, indeed, if beauty had not been included, it had not been wilfully +violated, but merely unthought of. The young people for whom these +familiar objects meant a symbolism deep-rooted in their earliest +memories could hardly in fairness have declared anything positively +painful in that room--except perhaps those Atlantic liners; their +charges against furniture, which was unconsciously to them accumulating +memories that would some day bring tears of tenderness to their eyes, +could only have been negative. Beauty had been left out, but at least +ugliness had not been ostentatiously called in. There was no bad taste. + +In fact, whatever the individual character of each component object, +there was included in the general effect a certain indefinable dignity, +which had doubtless nothing to do with the mahogany, but was probably +one of those subtle atmospheric impressions which a room takes from the +people who habitually live in it. Had you entered that room when it was +empty, you would instinctively have felt that it was accustomed to the +occupancy of calm and refined people. There was something almost +religious in its quiet. Some one often sat there who, whatever his +commonplace disguises as a provincial man of business, however +inadequate to his powers the work life had given him to do, provincial +and humiliating as were the formulae with which narrowing conditions had +supplied him for expression of himself, was in his central being an +aristocrat,--though that was the very last word James Mesurier would +have thought of applying to himself. He was a man of business, serving +God and his employers with stern uprightness, and bringing up a large +family with something of the Puritan severity which had marked his own +early training; and, as in his own case no such allowance had been made, +making no allowance in his rigid abstract code for the diverse +temperaments of his children,--children in whom certain qualities and +needs of his own nature, dormant from his birth, were awakening, +supplemented by the fuller-fed intelligence and richer nature of the +mother, into expansive and rebellious individualities. + +It was now about eleven o'clock, and the house was thus lit and alive +half-an-hour beyond the rigorously enforced bed-time. An hour before, +James Mesurier had been peacefully engaged on the task which had been +nightly with him at this hour for twenty-five years,--the writing of his +diary, in a shorthand which he wrote with a neatness, almost a +daintiness, that always marked his use of pen and ink, and gave to his +merely commercial correspondence and his quite exquisitely kept +accounts, a certain touch of the scholar,--again an air of distinction +in excess of, and unaccounted for, by the nature of the interests which +it dignified. + +His somewhat narrow range of reading, had you followed it by his careful +markings through those bound volumes of sermons in the bookcase, bore +the same evidence of inherited and inadequately occupied refinement. His +life from boyhood had been too much of a struggle to leave him much +leisure for reading, and such as he had enjoyed had been diverted into +evangelical channels by the influence of a certain pious old lady, with +whom as a young man he had boarded, and for whose memory all his life +he cherished a reverence little short of saint-worship. + +The name of Mrs. Quiggins, whose portrait had still a conspicuous niche +among the _lares_ of the household,--a little thin silvery old +widow-lady, suggesting great sadness, much gentleness, and a little +severity,--had thus become for the family of James Mesurier a symbol of +sanctity, with which a properly accredited saint of the calendar could +certainly not, in that Protestant home, have competed. It was she who +had given him that little well-worn Bible which lay on the table with +his letters and papers, as he wrote under the lamplight, and than which +a world full of sacred relics contains none more sacred. A business-like +elastic band encircled its covers, as a precaution against pages +becoming loose with much turning; and inside you would have found +scarcely a chapter unpencilled,--texts underlined, and sermons of +special helpfulness noted by date and preacher on the margin,--the +itinerary of a devout human soul on its way through this world to +the next. + +The Bible and the sermons of a certain famous Nonconformist Divine of +the day were James Mesurier's favourite and practically his only +reading, at this time; though as a young man he had picked up a fair +education for himself, and had taken a certain interest in modern +history. For novels he had not merely disapproval, but absolutely no +taste. Once in a specially genial mood he had undertaken to try +"Ivanhoe," to please his favourite daughter,--this night in revolt +against him,--and in half-an-hour he had been surprised with laughter, +sound asleep. The sermon that would send him to sleep had never been +written, at all events by his favourite theologian, whose sermons he +read every Sunday afternoon, and annotated with that same loving +appreciation and careful pencil with which a scholar annotates some +classic; so true is it that it is we who dignify our occupations, +not they us. + +Similarly, James Mesurier presided over the destinies of a large +commercial undertaking, with the air of one who had been called rather +to direct an empire than a business. You would say as he went by, "There +goes one accustomed to rule, accustomed to be regarded with great +respect;" but that air had been his long before the authority that once +more inadequately accounted for it. + +Thus this night, as he sat writing, his handsome, rather small, +iron-grey head bent over his papers, his face somewhat French in +character, his short beard slightly pointed; distinguished, refined, +severe; he had the look of a marshal of France engrossed with +documents of state. + +The mother, who sat in an armchair by the fire, reading, was a woman of +about forty-five, with a fine blonde, aquiline face, distinctively +English, and radiating intelligence from its large sympathetic lines. +She was in some respects so different from her husband as at times to +make children precociously wise--but nevertheless, far from knowing +everything--wonder why she had ever married their father, for whom, at +that time, it would be hypocrisy to describe their attitude as one of +love. To them he was not so much a father as the policeman of home,--a +personification of stern negative decrees, a systematic thwarter of +almost everything they most cared to do. He was a sort of embodied "Thou +shalt not," only to be won into acquiescence by one influence,--that of +the mother, whose married life, as she looked back on it, seemed to +consist of little else than bringing children into the world, with a +Christian-like regularity, and interceding with the father for their +varying temperaments when there. + +Though it might have been regarded as certain beforehand, that seven +children would differ each from each other in at least as many ways, it +never seems to have occurred to the father that one inflexible system +for them all could hardly be wise or comfortable. But, indeed, like so +many parents similarly trained and circumstanced, it is questionable +whether he ever realised their possession of separate individualities +till they were pleaded for by the mother, or made, as on this evening, +surprising assertion of themselves. + +Though this system of mediation had been responsible for the only +disagreements in their married life, there had never been any long or +serious difference between husband and wife; for, in spite of natures so +different, they loved each other with that love which is given us for +the very purpose of such situations, the love that no strain can snap, +the love that reconciles all such disparities. Though Mary Mesurier had +also been brought up among Nonconformists, and though the conditions of +her youth, like her husband's, had been far from adequate to the +demands of her nature, yet her religion had been of a gentler character, +broadening instead of narrowing in its effects, and had concerned itself +less with divinity than humanity. Her home life, if humble, had been +genial and rich in love, and there had come into it generous influences +from the outer world,--books with more of the human beat in them than is +to be found in sermons; and particularly an old travelled grandfather +who had been regarded as the rolling stone of his family, but in whom, +at all events, failure and travel had developed a great gentleness and +understanding of the human creature, which in long walks and talks with +his little grand-daughter somehow passed over into her young character, +and proved the best legacy he could have left her. Through him too was +encouraged a native love of poetry, of which in her childhood her memory +acquired a stock which never failed her, and which had often cheered her +lonely hours by successive cradles. She had a fine natural gift of +recitation, and in evening hours when the home was particularly united +in some glow of visitors or birthday celebration, she would be persuaded +to recall some of those old songs and simple apologues, with such charm +that even her husband, to whom verse was naturally an incomprehensible +triviality, was visibly softened, and perhaps, deep in the sadness of +his silent nature, moved to a passing realisation of a certain something +kind and musical in life which he had strangely missed. + +This greater breadth of temperament and training enabled Mary Mesurier +to understand and make allowances for the narrower and harder nature of +her husband, whom she learnt in time rather to pity for the bleakness of +his early days, than to condemn for their effect upon his character. He +was strong, good, clever, and handsome, and exceptionally all those four +good reasons for loving him; and the intellectual sympathy, the sharing +of broader interests, which she sometimes missed in him, she had for +some three or four years come to find in her eldest son, who, to his +father's bewilderment and disappointment, had reincarnated his own +strong will, in connection with literary practices and dreams which +threatened to end in his becoming a poet, instead of the business man +expected of him, for which development that love of poetry in one +parent, and a certain love of books in both, was no doubt to some degree +guiltily responsible. + +James Mesurier, as we have said, was no judge of poetry; and, had he +been so, a reading of his son's early effusions would have made him +still more obdurate in the choice for him of a commercial career; but on +general principles he was quite sufficiently firm against any but the +most non-committing, leisure-hour flirtation with the Muse. The mother, +while agreeing with the father's main proposition of the undesirability, +nay, impossibility, of literature as a livelihood,--had not the great +and successful Sir Walter himself described it as a good walking-stick, +but a poor crutch; a stick applied, since its first application as an +image, to the shoulders of how many generations of youthful genius,--was +naturally more sympathetic towards her son's ambition, and encouraged it +to the extent of helping from her housekeeping money the formation of +his little library, even occasionally proving successful in winning sums +of money from the father for the purchase of some book specially, as the +young man would declare, necessary for his development. + +As this little library had outgrown the accommodation of the common +rooms, a daring scheme had been conceived between mother and son,--no +less than that he should have a small room set apart for himself as a +study. When first broached to the father, this scheme had met with an +absolute denial that seemed to promise no hope of further consideration; +but the mother, accepting defeat at the time, had tried again and again, +with patient dexterity at favourable moments, till at last one proud day +the little room, with its bookshelves, a cast of Dante, and a strange +picture or two, was a beautiful, significant fact--all ready for the +possible visitation of the Muse. + +In such ways had the mother negotiated the needs of all her children; +though the youth of the rest--save the eldest girl, whose music lessons +had meant a battle, and whose growing attractiveness for the boys of the +district, and one in particular, was presently to mean another--made as +yet but small demands. In one question, however, periodically fruitful +of argument, even the youngest was becoming interested,--the question of +the visits to the household of the various friends and playmates of the +children. To these, it must be admitted, James Mesurier was apt to be +hardly less of a figure of fear than to his own children; for, apart +from the fact that such inroads from without were apt to disturb his few +quiet evening hours with rollicking and laughter, he, being entirely +unsocial in his own nature, had a curious idea that the family should be +sufficient to itself, and that the desire for any form of entertainment +outside it was a sign of dissatisfaction with God's gifts of a good +home, and generally a frivolity to be discouraged. + +As a boy he had grown up without companions, and as a man had remained +lonely, till he had met in his wife the one comrade of his days. What +had been good enough for their father should be good enough for his +children, was a formula which he applied all round to their bringing up, +curiously forgetful, for a man at heart so just, of the pleasure one +would have expected it to be to make sure that the errors of his own +training were not repeated in that of his offspring. But, indeed, there +was in him constitutionally something of the Puritan suspicion of, and +aversion from, pleasure, which it had never occurred to him to consider +as the end of, or, indeed, as a considerable element of existence. Life +was somehow too serious for play, spiritually as well as materially; and +much work and a little rest was the eternal and, on the whole, salutary +lot of man. + +Such were some of the conditions among which the young Mesuriers found +themselves, and of which their impatience had become momentously +explosive this February evening. + +For some days there had been an energetic simmer of rebellion among the +four elder children against a new edict of early rising which was surely +somewhat arbitrary. Early rising was one of James Mesurier's articles of +faith; and he was always up and dressed by half-past six, though there +was no breakfast till eight, and absolutely no necessity for his rising +at that hour beyond his own desire. There was still less, indeed none at +all, for his children to rise thus early; but nevertheless he had +recently decreed that such, for the future, must be the rule. The rule +fell heaviest upon the sisters, for the elder brother had always enjoyed +a certain immunity from such edicts. His sense of justice, however, +kindled none the less at this final piece of tyranny. He blazed and +fumed indignantly on behalf of his sisters, in the sanctuary of that +little study,--a spot where the despot seldom set foot; and out of this +comparatively trivial cause had sprung a mighty resolution, which he and +she whom he proudly honoured as "sister and friend" had, after some +girding of the loins, repaired to the front parlour this evening to +communicate. + +They had entered somewhat abruptly, and stood rather dramatically by the +table on which the father was writing,--the son with dark set face, in +which could be seen both the father and mother, and the daughter, timid +and close to him, resolutely keeping back her tears, a slim young copy +of the mother. + +"Well, my dears?" said the father, looking up with a keen, rather +surprised glance, and in a tone which qualified with some severity the +"my dears." + +The son had had some exceedingly fine beginnings in his head, but they +fled ignominiously with the calm that was necessary for their successful +delivery, and he blurted at once to the point. + +"We have come to say that we are no longer comfortable at home, and have +decided to leave it." + +"Henry," exclaimed the mother, hastily, "what do you mean, how can you +be so ungrateful?" + +"Mary, my dear," interrupted the father, "please leave the matter to +me." Then turning to the son: "What is this you are saying? I'm afraid I +don't understand." + +"I mean that Esther and I have decided to leave home and live together; +because it is impossible for us to live here any longer in happiness--" + +"On what do you propose to live?" + +"My salary will be sufficient for the present." + +"Sixty pounds a year!" + +"Yes!" + +"And may I ask what is wrong with your home? You have every comfort--far +more than your mother or father were accustomed to." + +"Yes, indeed!" echoed the mother. + +"Yes, we know you are very good and kind, and mean everything for our +good; but you don't understand other needs of our natures, and you make +no allowance for our individualities--" + +"Indeed! Individualities--I should like you to have heard what my +father would have said to talk about individualities. A rope's end would +have been his answer to that--" + +"It would have been a very silly one, and no argument." + +"It would have been effective, at all events." + +"Not with me--" + +"Well, please don't bandy words with me, sir. If you," particularly +addressing his son, "wish to go--then go; but remember that once you +have left your father's roof, you leave it for ever. As for your sister, +she has no power to leave her mother and father without my consent, and +that I shall certainly withhold till she is of a proper age to know what +is best for herself--" + +"She will go then without your consent," defiantly answered the son. + +"Oh, Henry, for shame!" exclaimed Mrs. Mesurier. + +"Mother dear, I'm sorry,--we don't mean to be disrespectful or +undutiful,--but father's petty tyrannies are more than we can bear. He +objects to the friends we care for; he denies us the theatre--" + +"Most certainly, and shall continue to do so. I have never been inside a +theatre in my life; nor, with my consent, shall any child of mine enter +one of them." + +"You can evidently know little about them then, and you'd be a much +finer man if you had," flashed out the son. + +"Your sitting in judgment on your father is certainly very pretty, I +must say,"--answered the father,--"very pretty; and I can only hope that +you will not have cause to regret it some future day. But I cannot allow +you to disturb me," for, with something of a pang, Henry noticed signs +of agitation amid the severity of his parent, though the matter was too +momentous for him to allow the indulgence of pity. + +"You have been a source of much anxiety to your mother and me, a child +of many prayers;" the father continued. "Whether it is the books you +read, or the friends you associate with, that are responsible for your +strange and, to my thinking, impious opinions, I do not know; but this I +know, that your influence on your sister has not of late been for good, +and for her sake, and the sake of your young sisters, it may perhaps be +well that your influence in the home be removed--" + +"Oh, James," exclaimed the wife. + +"Mary, my dear, you must let me finish. If Henry will go, go he shall; +but if he still stays, he must learn that I am master in this house, and +that while I remain so, not he, but I shall dictate how it is to be +carried on." + +It was at this point that Esther ventured to lift the girlish tremor of +her voice. + +"But, father, if you'll forgive my saying so, I think it would be best +for another reason for us to go. There are too many of us. We haven't +room to grow. We get in each other's way. And then it would ease you; it +would be less expense--" + +"When I complain of having to support my children, it will be time to +speak of that--" + +"But you have complained," hotly interrupted the son; "you have +reproached us many a time for what we cost you for clothes and food--" + +"Yes, when you have shown yourselves ungrateful for them, as you do +to-night--" + +"Ungrateful! For what should we be grateful? That you do your bare duty +of feeding and clothing us, and even for that, expect, in my case at all +events, that I shall prove so much business capital invested for the +future. Was it we who asked to come into the world? Did you consult us, +or did you beget us for anything but your own selfish pleasure, without +a thought--" + +Henry got no further. His father had grown white, and, with terrible +anger pointed to the door. + +"Leave the room, sir," he said, "and to-morrow leave my house for ever." + +The son was not cowed. He stood with an unflinching defiance before the +father, in whom he forgot the father and saw only the tyrant. For a +moment it seemed as if some unnatural blow would be struck; but so much +of pain was spared the future memory of the scene, and saying only, "It +is true for all that," he turned and left the room. The sister followed +him in silence, and the door closed. + +Mother and father looked at each other. They had brought up children, +they had suffered and toiled for them,--that they should talk to them +like this! Mrs. Mesurier came over to her husband, and put her arm +tenderly on his shoulder. + +"Never mind, dear. I'm sure he didn't mean to talk like that. He is a +good boy at heart, but you don't understand each other." + +"Mary dear, we will talk no more of it to-night," he replied; "I will +try and put it from me. You go to bed. I will finish my diary, and be +up in a few minutes." + +When he was alone, he sat still a little while, with a great lonely pain +on his face, and almost visibly upon it too the smart of the wounded +pride of his haughty nature. Never in his life had he been spoken to +like that,--and by his own son! The pang of it was almost more than he +could bear. But presently he had so far mastered himself as to take up +his pen and continue his writing. When that was finished, he opened his +Bible and read his wonted chapter. It was just the simple twenty-third +psalm: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." It was his favourite +psalm, and always had a remarkable tranquillising effect upon him. James +Mesurier's faith in God was very great. Then he knelt down and prayed in +silence,--prayed with a great love for his disobedient children; and, +when he rose from his knees, anger and pain had been washed away from +his face, and a serenity that is not of this world was there instead. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +CONCERNING THOSE "ATLANTIC LINERS" AND +AN OLD DESK + +Of all battles in this complicated civil warfare of human life, none is +more painful than that being constantly waged from generation to +generation between young and old, and none, it would appear, more +inevitable, or indeed necessary. "The good gods sigh for the cost and +pain," and as, growing older ourselves, we become spectators of such a +conflict, with eyes able to see the real goodness and truth of both +combatants, how often must we exclaim: "Oh, just for a little touch of +sympathetic comprehension on either side!" + +And yet, after all, it is from the older generation that we have a right +to expect that. If that vaunted "experience" with which they are +accustomed to extinguish the voice of the young means anything, it +should surely include some knowledge of the needs of expanding youth, +and be prepared to meet them, not in a spirit of despotic denial, but in +that of thoughtful provision. The young cannot afford to be generous, +even if they possess the necessary insight. It would mean their losing +their battle,--a battle very necessary for them to win. + +Sometimes it would seem that a very little kindly explanation on the +part of the elder would set the younger at a point of view where greater +sympathy would be possible. The great demand of the young is for some +form of poetry in their lives and surroundings; and it is largely the +fault of the old if the poetry of one generation is almost invariably +the prose of the next. + +Those "Atlantic liners" are an illustration of my meaning. To the young +Mesuriers they were hideous chromo-lithographs in vulgar gilt frames, +arbitrary defacements of home; but undoubtedly even they would have +found a tolerant tenderness for them, had they realised that they +represented the poetry--long since renounced and put behind him--of +James Mesurier's life. He had come of a race of sea-captains, two of his +brothers had been sailors, and deep down in his heart the spirit of +romance answered, with voice fresh and young as ever, to any breath or +association of the sea. But he seldom, if ever, spoke of it, and only in +an anecdote or two was it occasionally brought to mind. Sometimes his +wife would tease him with the vanity which, on holidays by the sea, +would send him forth on blustering tempestuous nights clad in a +greatcoat of blue pilot-cloth and a sealskin cap, and tell how proud he +was on one occasion, as he stood on the wharf, at being addressed as +"captain," and asked what ship he had brought into port. Even the hard +heart of youth must soften at such a reminiscence. + +Then scattered about the house was many a prosaic bit of furniture which +was musical with memories for the parents,--memories of their first +little homes and their early struggles together. This side-board, now +relegated to the children's play-room, had once been their _pièce de +resistance_ in such and such a street, twelve years ago, before their +children had risen up and--not called them blessed. + +A few years, and the light of poetry will be upon these things for their +children too; but, meanwhile, can we blame them that they cannot accept +the poetry of their elders in exchange for that of their own which they +are impatient to make? And when that poetry is made and resident in +similar concrete objects of home--how will it seem, one wonders, to +their children? This old desk which Esther has been allowed to +appropriate, and in a secret drawer of which are already accumulating +certain love-letters and lavender, will it ever, one wonders, turn to +lumber in younger hands? For a little while she leans her sweet young +bosom against it, and writes scented letters in a girlish hand to a +little red-headed boy who has these past weeks begun to love her. Can it +be possible that the desk on which Esther once wrote to her little Mike +will ever hear itself spoken of as "this ugly old thing"? Let us +hope not. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +OF THE LOVE OF HENRY AND ESTHER + +Father and son had both meant what they said; and even the mother, for +whom it would be the cruellest wrench of all, knew that Henry was going +to leave home. Not literally on the morrow, for the following evening he +had appeared before his father to apologise for the manner--carefully +for the manner, not _the matter_,--in which he had spoken to him the +evening before, and asked for a day or two in which to make his +arrangements for departure. James Mesurier was too strong a man to be +resentful, and he accepted his son's apology with a gentleness that, as +each knew, detracted nothing from the resolution which each had come to. + +"My boy," he said, "you will never have such good friends as your father +and mother; but it is best that you go out into the world to learn it." + +There is something terribly winning and unnerving to the blackest +resolution, when the severity of the strong dissolves for a brief moment +into tenderness. The rare kind words of the stern, explain it as we +will, and unjust as the preference must surely be, one values beyond the +frequent forgivenesses of the gentle. Mary Mesurier would have laid down +her life in defence of her son's greatest fault, and James Mesurier +would as readily have court-martialled him for his smallest, and yet, +somehow, a kind word from him brought the tears to his son's eyes. + +He had no longer the heart to stimulate the rebellion of Esther, as he +felt it his duty to do; and, to her disappointment, he announced that, +on the whole, it would perhaps be best for him to go alone. + +"It would almost kill poor mother," he said; "and father means well +after all," he added. + +"I'm afraid it would break father's heart," said Esther. + +So these two young people agreed to spare their parents, though--let it +not be otherwise imagined--at a great sacrifice. The little paper on +which they had carefully worked out their housekeeping, skilfully +allotting so much for rent, butcher's meat, milk, coals, and washing, +and making "everything" come most optimistically to _£59 17s. 9d._ a +year, would be of no use now, at all events for the present. Their +little Charles and Mary Lamb dream must be laid aside--for, of course, +they had thought of Charles and Mary Lamb; and indeed, out beyond this +history of a few youthful years, their friendship was to prove itself +far from unworthy of its famous model. + +Yet at this time it was of no great antiquity; for, but a very few years +back, Henry had been a miniature tyrant too, and ruled it over his +kingdom of six sisters with all the hideous egoism of a pampered "son +and heir." Although in the very middle class of society into which Henry +Mesurier was born, the dignity of eldest son is one but very +contingently connected with tangible inheritance, it is none the less +vigorously kept up; and, no doubt, without any consciousness of +partiality, Henry Mesurier, from his childhood, had been brought up to +regard himself as a sort of young prince, for whom all the privileges of +home were, by divine right, reserved. For example, he took his meals +with his parents fully five years before any of his sisters were +allowed to do so; and for retention of this privilege, when at length +the democratic measure of its extension to his two elder sisters was +proposed, he fought with the bitterest spirit of caste. Indeed, few +oligarchs have been more wildly hated than Henry Mesurier up to the age, +say, of fourteen. That was the age of his last thrashing, and it was in +the gloomy dusk of that momentous occasion, as he lay alone with +smarting back in the twilight of an unusually early bed-time, that a +possible new view of woman--as a creature of like passions and +privileges--presented itself to him. + +His thrashing had been so unjustly severe, that even the granite little +hearts of his sisters had been softened; and Esther, managing to secrete +a cake that he loved from the tea that was lost to him, stole with it to +the top of the house, where he writhed amid lonely echoes and shadows. + +She had brought it to him awkwardly, by no means sure of its reception, +but sure in her heart that she would hate him for ever, if he missed the +meaning of the little solatium. But fortunately his back was far too +sore, and his spirit too broken to remember his pride, and he accepted +the offering with gratitude and tears. + +"Kiss me, Esther," he had said; and a wonderful thrill had gone through +the little girl at this strange softness in the mighty, while the dawn +of a wonderful pity for the lot of woman had, unconsciously, broken in +the soul of the boy. + +"Kiss me again, Esther," he had said, and, with the tears that mingled +in that kiss, an eternal friendship was baptized. + +Henry rose on the morrow a changed being. The grosser pretensions of the +male had fallen from him for ever, and there was at first something +almost awe-inspiring to his sisters in the gentle solicitude for them +and their rights and pleasures which replaced the old despotism. From +that time, Esther and he became closer and closer companions, and as +they more and more formed an oligarchy of two, a rearrangement of +parties in the little parliament of home came about, to be upset again +as Dot and Mat qualified for admission into that exclusive +little circle. + +So soon as Henry had a new dream or a new thought, he shared it with +Esther; and freely as he had received from Carlyle, or Emerson, or +Thoreau, freely he passed it on to her. For the gloomiest occasion he +had some strengthening text, and one of the last things he did before he +left home was to make for her a little book which he called "Faith for +Cloudy Days," consisting of energising and sustaining phrases from +certain great writers,--as it were, a bottle of philosophical phosphates +against seasons of spiritual cowardice or debility. There one opened and +read: "_Sudden the worst turns best to the brave_" or Thoreau's "_I have +yet to hear a single word of wisdom spoken to me by my elders,_" or +again Matthew Arnold's + + "_Tasks in hours of insight willed + May be through hours of gloom fulfilled_." + +James Mesurier knew nothing of all this; but if he had, he might have +understood that after all his children were not so far from the kingdom +of heaven. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +OF THE PROFESSIONS THAT CHOOSE, AND +MIKE LAFLIN + +However we may hint at its explanation by theories of inheritance, it +still remains curious with what unerring instinct a child of character +will from the first, and when it is so evidently ignorant of the field +of choice, select, out of all life's occupations and distinctions, one +special work it hungers to do, one special distinction that to it seems +the most desirable of earthly honours. That Mary Mesurier loved poetry, +and James Mesurier sermons, in face of the fact that so many mothers and +fathers have done the same with no such result, hardly seems adequate to +account for the peculiar glamour which, almost before he could read, +there was for Henry Mesurier in any form of print. While books were +still being read to him, there had already come into his mind, +unaccountably, as by outside suggestion, that there could be nothing so +splendid in the world as to write a book for one's self. To be either a +soldier, a sailor, an architect, or an engineer, would, doubtless, have +its fascinations as well; but to make a real printed book, with your +name in gilt letters outside, was real romance. + +At that early day, and for a long while after, the boy had no preference +for any particular kind of book. It was an entirely abstract passion for +print and paper. To have been the author of "The Iliad" or of Beeton's +"Book of Household Recipes" would have given him almost the same +exaltation of authorship; and the thrill of worship which came over him +when, one early day, a man who had actually had an article on the sugar +bounties accepted by a commercial magazine was pointed out to him in the +street, was one he never forgot; nor in after years did he ever +encounter that transfigured contributor without an involuntary +recurrence of that old feeling of awe. No subsequent acquaintance with +editorial rooms ever led him into materialistic explanations of that +enchanted piece of work--a newspaper. The editors might do their +best--and succeed surprisingly--in looking like ordinary mortals, you +might even know the leader-writers, and, with the very public, gaze +through gratings into the subterranean printing-rooms,--the mystery none +the less remained. No exposure of editorial staffs or other machinery +could destroy the sense of enchantment, as no amount of anatomy or +biology can destroy the mystery of the human miracle. + +So I suppose Nature first makes us in love with the tools we are to use, +long before we have a thought upon what we shall use them. Perhaps the +first desire of the born writer is to be a compositor. Out of the love +of mere type quickly evolves a love of mere words for their own sake; +but whether we shall make use of them as a historian, novelist, +philosopher, or poet, is a secondary consideration, a mere afterthought. +To Henry Mesurier had already come the time when the face of life began +to Wear a certain aspect, the peculiar attraction of which for himself +he longed to fix, a certain mystical importance attaching to the +commonest every-day objects and circumstances, a certain ecstatic +quality in the simplest experiences; but even so far as it had been +revealed, this dawning vision of the world seemed only to have come to +him, not so much to find expression, as to mock him with his childish +incapacity adequately to use the very tools he loved. He would hang for +hours over some scene in nature, caught in a woodland spell, like a +nympholept of old; but when he tried to put in words what he had seen, +what a poor piece of ornamental gardening the thing was! There were +trees and birds and grass, to be sure; but there was nothing of that +meaning look which they had worn, that look of being tiptoe with +revelation which is one of the most fascinating tricks of the visible +world, and which even a harsh town full of chimneys can sometimes take +on when seen in given moments and lights. And it was astonishing to see +into what lifeless imitative verse his most original and passionate +moments could be transformed. + +Still some unreasonably indulgent spirit of the air, that had evidently +not read his manuscripts, whispered him to be of good cheer: the +lifeless words would not always be lifeless, some day the birds would +sing in his verses too. This sense of failure did not, it must be said, +immediately follow composition; for, for a little while the original +expression of the thing seen reinforced with reflected significance its +pale copy. It was only some weeks after, when the written copy was left +to do all the work itself, that its foolish inadequacy was exposed. + +"However, there is one consolation, they are not worse than Keats and +Shelley wrote at the same age," he said to himself, as he looked through +a bundle of the poor things the evening before his room was to be +dismantled. "Indeed, they couldn't be," he added, with a smile. +Fortunately he was but nineteen as yet; would he venture on a like +comparison were he twenty-five? + +Yes, his little room was to be dismantled on the morrow,--this first +little private chapel of his spirit. This fair order of shelves, this +external harmony answering to an inner harmony of his spirit, were to be +broken up for ever. Often as he had sat in the folioed lamplit nook +which was, as it were, the very chancel of the little church, and gazed +in an ecstasy at the books, each with a great shining name of fame upon +its cover, it had seemed as though he had put his very soul outside him, +externalised it in this little corner of books and pictures. His soul +shivered, as one who must go houseless awhile, at the thought that +to-morrow its home would be no more. When and how would be its +reincarnation? More magnificent, maybe, but never this again. It was +sacrilege,--was it not ingratitude too? When once more the books and the +pictures began to form into a new harmony, there would be no mother's +love to help the work go on.... + +But as he mused in this no doubt sentimental fashion, the door opened +and the little red-headed Mike entered. His was a little Flibbertigibbet +of a face, already lined with the practice of mimicry; and there was in +it a very attractive blending of tenderness and humour. Mike was also +one of those whom life at the beginning had impressed with the delight +of one kind of work and no other. When a mere imp of a boy, the +heartless tormentor of a large and sententious stepmother, the despair +of schoolmasters, the most ingenious of truants, a humorous ragamuffin +invulnerable to punishment, it was already revealed to him that his +mission in life was to be the observation and reproduction of human +character, particularly in its humorous aspects. To this end Nature had +gifted him with a face that was capable of every form of transformation, +and at an early age he hastened to put it in training. All day long he +was pulling faces. As an artist will sketch everything he comes across, +so Mike would endeavour to imitate any characteristic expression or +attitude, animate or inanimate, in the world around him. Dogs, little +boys, and grotesque old men were his special delight, and of all his +elders he had, it goes without saying, a private gallery of irreverently +faithful portraits. + +In addition to his plastic face, Nature had given him a larynx which was +capable of imitating every human and inhuman sound. To squeak like a +pig, bark like a dog, low like a cow, and crow like a cock, were the +veriest juvenilia of his attainments; and he could imitate the buzzing +of a fly so cunningly that flies themselves have often been deceived. It +was this delight in imitation for its own sake, and not so much that he +had been caught by the usual allurements of the theatre, that he looked +upon the career of an actor as his natural and ultimate calling. It was +already privately whispered in the little circle that Mike would some +day go on the stage. But don't tell that as yet to old Mr. Laflin, +whatever you do. + +There was a good deal more in Mike than pulling faces, as Esther +recently, and Henry before her, had discovered. His acting was some day +to stir the hearts of audiences, because he had instincts for knowing +human nature inside as well as out, knew the secret springs of tears, as +well as the open secrets of laughter; and it was rather on this common +ground of a rich "many-veined humanity" that these two had met and +become friends, rather than on any real community of tastes and ideas. +Yet Mike loved books too, and had an excellent taste in them, though +perhaps he had hardly loved them, had not Henry and Esther loved them +first, and it is quite certain, and quite proper, that he never found a +page of any book so fascinating as the face of some lined and battered +human being. Over that writing he was never found asleep. + +There was one other literary matter on which he held a very personal and +unshakable opinion,--Henry Mesurier's future as a poet; and on this he +came just in the nick of time to cheer him this evening. + +"The next move will be to London, old fellow," he said; "and then you'll +soon see my prophecies come true. My opinion mayn't be worth much, but +you know what it is. You'll be a great writer some day, never fear." + +"Thank you, dear old boy. And you know what I think about your acting, +don't you?" + +Then it was that Esther appeared, and Henry made some transparent excuse +to leave them awhile together. + +"You dear old thing," said Esther, kissing him, "now don't stay away too +long." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +OF THE LOVE OF ESTHER AND MIKE, AND +THE MESURIER LAW IN REGARD TO +"SWEETHEARTS" + +I'm afraid Esther was little more than fourteen when she had first seen +and fallen in love with Mike. She had heard much of him from her +brother; but, for one reason or another, he had never been to the house. +One evening, however, at a concert, Henry had told her to look in a +certain direction and she would see Mike. + +"I don't suppose you'll call him good looking," he said. + +So Esther had looked round, and seen the pretty curly red hair and the +eager little wistful humorous face for the first time. + +"Why, he's got a lovely little face!" she said, blushing deeply for no +reason at all,--except perhaps that there had seemed something pleading +and shelter-seeking in that little face, something that cried out to be +"mothered," and that instantly there had welled up in her heart a great +warm wish that some day she might be that for it and more. + +And at the same instant it had occurred to the boy, that the face thus +turned to him for a moment was the loveliest face he had ever seen, the +only lovely face he would ever care to see. But with that thought, too, +had come a curious pang of hopelessness into his heart. For Esther +Mesurier was one of those girls who are the prizes of men. With all +those pretty tall fellows about her, it was unlikely indeed that she +would care for a little red-headed, face-pulling ragamuffin like him! +And yet if she never could care for him,--never, never at all, what a +lonely place the world would be! + +When, after the concert, Henry looked round to introduce Mike to his +sister, he had somehow slipped away and was nowhere to be seen. + +However, it was not long after this that Mike paid a visit to Henry's +study one evening, and, coming ostensibly to look at his books, once +more saw his sister, and spoke to her a brief introductory word. His +interest in literature became positively remarkable from this time; and +the enthusiasm with which his actor's mind reflected, and, no doubt in +all good faith, mimicked the various philosophical and literary +enthusiasms of his friend, was, though neither realised it, a sure +earnest of his future. More and more frequent visits to that study +became necessary for its gratification; and, in the course of one of +them, Mike confessed to Henry that he loved his sister, previously +piling upon himself many anticipatory terms of ignominy for daring to do +so presumptuous a thing. Henry, however, was so taken with the idea +that, in his singleness of mind, he suffered no pang of retrospective +suspicion of his friend's love for himself. Pending Esther's +decision,--and of her mind in the matter, he had something more than a +glimmering,--he welcomed Mike with gladness as a prospective +brother-in-law, and, as soon as he found an opportunity, left them alone +together, returning quite a long time afterwards--to find them +extraordinarily happy, it would appear, at his safe return. + +Esther and Mike had thus been fortunate enough to get that important +question of a mate settled quite early in life, and to be saved from +those arduous and desolating experiments in being fitted with a heart +which so many less happy people have to go through. But this happy fact +was as yet a secret beyond this strict circle of three; for, strange as +it may sound, the beautiful attraction of a girl for a boy, the +beautiful worship of a boy for a girl, were matters not even mentionable +as yet in the Mesurier household. For a child, particularly a girl, +under twenty to speak of having a "sweetheart" was an offence which had +a strong savour of disgust in it, even for Mrs. Mesurier, broad-minded +as in most matters she was. + +So far as the only decent theory of the relations of the sexes was +involuntarily explicit, by virtue of certain explosions on the subject, +it was something like this: That, at a certain age, say twenty-one, or, +for leniency, twenty, as it were on the striking of a clock, the young +girl, who previously had been profoundly and inexpressibly unconscious +that the male being existed, would suddenly sit up wide awake in an +attitude of attention to offers of marriage; and that, similarly, the +young man, who had meanwhile lived with his eyes shut and his senses +asleep, would jump up also at the striking of a clock, and, as it were, +with hilarity, say, "It is high time I chose a wife," and thereupon +begin to look about, among the streets and tennis-parties known to him, +for that impossible paragon,--a wife to satisfy both his parents. + +One or two of Henry's earliest troubles and most drastic punishments had +come of a propensity to "sweethearts," developed at an indecorously +early age, and in fact at the time of which I write he could barely +recall the name of Miss This or Miss The Other by the association of +ancient physical pangs suffered for their sake. The greatest danger to +such contraband passions was undoubtedly the post; for, in the Mesurier +household, a more than Russian censorship was exercised over the +incoming and--as far as it could be controlled--the outgoing mail. One +old morning, at family breakfast, which the subsequent events of the +evening were to fix on his mind, Henry Mesurier had grown white with +fear, as the stupid maid had handed him a fat letter addressed in a +sprawling school-girl's hand. + +"Who is your letter from, Henry?" asked the father. + +Henry blushed and boggled. + +"Pass it over to me." + +Resistance was worse than useless. As in war-time a woman will see her +husband set up against a wall and shot before her face, as a +conspirator sees the hands of the police close upon papers of the most +terrible secrecy, so did Henry watch that scented little package pass +with a sense of irrevocable loss into the cold hands of his father. The +father opened it, placed a little white enclosure by the side of his +coffee-cup for further inspection, and then read the letter--full of +"darlings" and "for evers"--with the severe attention he would have +given a business letter. Then he handed it across to the mother without +a word, but with the look one doctor gives another in discovering a new +and terrible symptom in a patient on whom they are consulting. While the +mother read, the father opened the little packet, and out rolled a tiny +plait of silky brown hair tied into a loop with a blue ribbon. + +"Disgusting!" exclaimed the father and mother, simultaneously, to each +other, as though the boy was not there. + +"I am shocked at you, Henry," said the mother. + +"I shall certainly write to the forward little girl's parents," said the +father. + +"Oh, don't do that, father," exclaimed the boy, in terror, and half +wondering if so sweet a thing could really be so criminal. + +"Don't dare to speak to me," said the father. "Leave the +breakfast-table. I will see you again this evening." + +Henry knew too well what the verb "to see" signified under the +circumstances, and the day passed in such apprehensive gloom that it was +a positive relief, when evening had at last come, to feel a walking-cane +about him, at once more snaky and more notched than any previously +applied to his stubborn young frame. Not to cry was, of course, a point +of honour; and as the infuriating absence of tears inflamed the +righteous anger of the parent, the stick splintered and broke with a +crash, in which accident Henry learned he was responsible for a +double offence. + +"I wouldn't have broken that stick for five pounds," said the father, +his interest suddenly withdrawn from his son; "it was given to me by my +old friend Tarporley," which, as can be imagined, was a mighty +satisfaction to the sad small soul, smarting, not merely from the stick, +but from the sense that life held something stupid in its injustice, in +that he was thus being mauled for the most beautiful exalted feeling +that had ever visited his young heart. + +Those dark ages of oppression were long since passed for Henry and +Esther, when Mike began to steal in of an evening to see Esther, and +they were only referred to now and again, anecdotally, as the nineteenth +century looks back at the days of the Holy Inquisition; but still it was +wise to be cautious, for an interdict against Mike's coming to the house +was quite within possibility, even in this comparatively enlightened +epoch; and that would have been even more effective than James +Mesurier's old friend Tarporley's stick of sacred memory. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF HOME + +Recalling for another moment or two the ancient affair of the heart +described in the last chapter, it may pertinently be added that James +Mesurier fulfilled his threat on that occasion, and had in fact written +to the "forward little girl's" parents. Could he have seen the rather +amused reception of his letter, he would have realised with sorrow that +an age of parental leniency, little short of degeneration, was in +certain quarters unmistakably supplanting the stern age of which he was +in a degree an anachronistic survival. That forward little girl's +parents chanced to know James Mesurier enough by sight and reputation to +respect him, while they smiled across to each other at his rather quaint +disciplinarianism. Could Henry Mesurier have seen that smile, he would +not only have felt reassured as to the fate of his little sweetheart, +but have understood that there were temperate zones of childhood, as +well as arctic, when young life waxed gaily to the sound of laughter +and other musical accompaniments. + +This revelation, however, was deferred some few years, till he became +acquainted with the merry family of which Mike Laflin was the +characteristic expression. Old Mr. Laflin was a little, jolly, +bald-headed gentleman, bubbling over with mirth, who liked to have young +people about him, and in his quips and cranks was as young as, and much +cleverer than, any of them. It almost startled Henry on his first +introduction to this family of two daughters and two brothers, where the +father was rather like a brother grown prematurely bald, and the +stepmother supplied with monumental dignity that element of solemnity +without which no properly regulated household is complete, to notice the +_camaraderie_ which prevailed amongst them all. Jokes were flying about +from one to another all the time, and the father made a point of capping +them all. This was home in a liberal sense which the word had never +meant to Henry. Doubtless, it had its own individual restrictions and +censorships; but its surface was at all events debonair, and it was +serviceable to Henry as revealing the existence of more genial social +climates than that in which he had been nurtured--though in making the +comparison with his own atmosphere, he realised that this _bonhomie_ was +nothing more important than a grace. + +Perhaps, nay, very surely, the seriousness, even the severity of, his +own training, had been among the very conditions needed to make him what +he some day hoped to be, though they had seemed so purposely inimical. +Had James Mesurier's religion been more free and easy, a matter less +personally assured and momentous, his son's almost oppressive sense of +the spiritual significance of existence had been less radiant and +constantly supporting. Life might have gained in superficial +liveableness; but it would have lost in intensity, in real importance, +and with that loss would have gone too Henry's chance of being a poet." +The poet in a golden clime was born!"--once and again, maybe, but more +often he comes from a land of iron and tears. + +It is in the nature of things that Henry should begin to appreciate the +services of his home to his development at the moment when he was +leaving it. And the mere pang of the parting from it, when one day the +hour for parting had surely come, was much more deep and complicated +than he could have dreamed. As in our bodies we become conscious of +certain vital centres, certain dependencies of relation and harmony, +only when they have suffered shock, so often in life we may go along +unconscious of the vital dependencies of our human relationships, till +the moment comes to strain or sever them. Then a thousand hidden nerves +quiver at the discovering touch of the knife. Henry's leaving home, +though it had been originally the suggestion of violent feeling, was not +to be an actual severance. His father's "leave my house for ever" had +owed something to the rhetoric of anger, and the expulsion and cutting +off which it had implied had since been so softened as practically to +have disappeared. Henry was certainly not leaving his father's house for +ever, but merely going into lodgings with a friend, with full privileges +to visit his own home as often as he chose. + +Still, he was, all the same, leaving home, and he was the first to leave +it. The mother, at all events, knew that this was the beginning of the +end, knew that, with her first-born's departure (desertion, she may have +called it), a new era had commenced for the home,--the era of +disintegration. For twenty years and more it had been all building and +building; now it would be all just pulling down again; and there was a +dreary sound as of demolition and wind-driven rain in her ears. + +Oh, tragic love of mothers! Of no love is the final loss and doom so +inevitably destined. The husband may desert the wife, but the son is +sure to desert his mother--must, for nature demands the desertion. Put +not your trust in princes--and yet put it rather in princes, oh, fond +and doting parents, than in the blue-eyed flower of childhood for which +year after year, with labours infinite, you would buy all the sunshine +of the world. + +Henry's pang at leaving home was mainly the pang of parting with his +mother. It seemed more than a mere physical parting. It was his +childhood that was parting from her for ever. When he came to see them +he would be something different,--a man, an independent being. As long +ago physically, now spiritually, the umbilical cord had been cut. + +With Esther and Dot and Mat the parting was hardly a parting, as it was +rather a promise of their all meeting together some day in a new place +of freedom, which there was a sense of his going out to prepare for +them. Their way would be his way, as the mother's could not; for theirs +was the highway of youth, which, sooner or later, they would all take +together, singing in the morning sun. + +The three younger sisters, the as yet unopened buds of the family +flower, took Henry's departure with the surface tears and the central +indifference of childhood. When a family is so large, it practically +includes two generations in itself; and these three girls were really to +prove a generation so different in characteristics from their four +elders as to demand a separate chronicle to themselves. + +Thus as Henry drove away amid his trunks from the home of his father +(genealogical poverty denies us the romantic grandiloquence of the +plural), it was his mother's farewell arms and farewell tears, and his +farewell promises to her, of which he was mainly conscious. He had +promised "to take care of himself," and particularly to beware of damp +sheets, and then he too had burst into tears. Indeed, it was generally a +tearful business, after which everybody was glad to retire into corners +to subside privately and dry themselves. + +Henry crouched in the corner of his cab with fully half his cry to +finish out; and, curiously, all the time a sad little story from an old +holiday in the country kept haunting him. It was at once a fact and a +fable concerning a happy little family of swallows, whose sudden tragedy +he had seen with his own boyish, pitying eyes. + +In a little vinery attached to an old country house which the Mesuriers +had rented for a month or so for certain successive summers, two +swallows had built their nest, and, in due course, there were three +young swallows to keep them company. It was understood that the door of +the vinery must be left open, that the parent swallows might fly to and +fro for food; but by some accident it chanced that the door was one day +closed, and the vinery not visited again for several days. When at last +the door was opened again, the sight that met young eyes was one Henry +had never forgotten. Three little starved swallows, hardly bigger than +butterflies, lay upon the floor, and from the nest above hung the long +horse-hairs with which the parents had vainly sought to anchor them +safely to the home. But still sadder details were forthcoming, when the +children, who had been wondering what had become of the parents, had +suddenly discovered their wasted bodies in the grass a yard or two away +from the vinery door. A few days ago this had been a happy, thriving +home, and now it was absolutely desolated, done away with for ever. It +needed no exceptional imagination or sympathy to conceive the agonised +longing of the parents, as they had dashed themselves again and again +upon that cruel, unyielding door, hearing the piteous cries of their +young ones within, and the anguish in which their exhausted little lives +had at last gone out. The young swallows had died for lack of food; but +the old ones had died--for love. Had some other hand brought them food, +would the young ones have missed the old ones like that? + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A LINK WITH CIVILISATION + + +On the afternoon following Henry's departure, Esther went out for a +walk, and she came presently to a pretty little house half hidden in its +big garden. A well-kept lawn, richly bathed in sunlight, flashed through +the trees; and, opening the gate and following the tree-shaded path +along one side of the house, Esther presently mounted to a small +terrace, where, as she had hoped, she came upon a dainty little lady +watering her flowers. + +"Why, Esther, it's you! How sweet of you! I was just dying to see you!" +exclaimed the little lady, turning a pretty, but somewhat worn, and +brilliantly sad face from her gardening. "Just let me finish this +thirsty bed, and then you must give me a kiss. There!" + +Then the two embraced; and as Mrs. Myrtilla Williamson held Esther at +arm's length and looked at her admiringly,-- + +"How pretty you look to-day!" she exclaimed, generously. "That new +hat's a great success. Didn't I tell you mauve was your colour? Turn +round. Yes, dear, you look charming. Where in the world, I wonder, did +you all get that grand look of yours from?--I don't mean your good looks +merely, but that look of distinction. Your father and mother have it +too; but where did _they_ get it from? You're a puzzle-family--all of +you. But wouldn't you like a cup of tea? Come in," and she led the way +indoors to a tiny, sweet-smelling boudoir on the left of the hall, of +which a dainty glimpse, with its books and water-colours and bibelots, +was to be caught from the terrace. + +Everything about Myrtilla Williamson was scrupulously, determinedly +dainty, from the flowered tea-gown about her slim, girlish figure,--her +predilection for that then novel and suspected garment was regarded as a +sure mark of a certain Parisian levity by her neighbours,--to her just a +little "precious" enunciation. In France, in the seventeenth century, +she would almost certainly have been a visitor at the Hotel Rambouillet, +and to-day she was mysteriously and disapprovingly spoken of as +"aesthetic." She had a look as if she had tripped out of a Japanese fan, +and slept at night in a pot-pourri jar. And she had brains, those good +things--brains. + +Her name was very like her life, one-half of which might be described as +Myrtilla, the other half as Williamson. She was Myrtilla during the day, +dabbling with her water-colours, her flowers, or her books; but at six +o'clock each afternoon, with the sound of aggressive masculine boots in +the hall, her life suddenly changed with a sigh to Williamson. The +Williamson half of her life was so clumsily, so grotesquely ill-matched +with the Myrtilla half that it was, and probably will always remain, a +mystery why she had ever attempted so tasteless and inconvenient an +addition,--a mystery, however, far from unique in the history of those +mysteriously stupid unhappy marriages with evident boors which refined +and charming women will, it is to be feared, go on making to the end of +the human chapter. + +It was perhaps a day hardly less interesting for Myrtilla than for the +young people themselves when she had first met Henry and Esther +Mesurier. Before, in the dull bourgeois society into which Williamson +had transplanted her from London, she had found none with whom she dared +be her natural Myrtilla. There she was expected to be Williamson to the +bone. Henry and Esther, however, were only too grateful for Myrtilla, +through whom was to come to them the revelation of some minor graces of +life for which they had the instincts, but on which they had lacked +instruction; and who, still more important, at least for Henry, was to +be their first fragile link with certain strenuous new northern writers, +translations of whom in every tongue had just then descended, Gothlike, +upon Europe, to the great energising of its various literatures. She it +was too who first handed them the fretted golden key to the enchanted +garden of the Pre-Raphaelites, and the striking head of the young Dante +in sepia, which had hung in a sort of shrine-recess in Henry's study, +had been copied for him from Rossetti's sketch by Myrtilla's own hand. + +She had, too, one of the most precious gifts for friendship, the gift of +unselfish and diligent and progressive appreciation of all a friend's +good points. She never flattered; but she never missed the smallest +opportunity for praise. She was one of those rare people who make you +feel happy in yourself, who send you away somehow dignified, profitably +raised in your own esteem; just as others have a mysterious power of +dejecting you in your proudest moments. If you had any charm, however +shy, Myrtilla Williamson would find it, and send you away with a great +gush of gratitude to her because it had been found at last. This was +perhaps the greatest charm of her clever letters; they were all about +"you,"--not, of course, that you didn't want to hear about her. But +frequently all she told you of herself was her name. Perhaps she would +write in the half-hour that remained between, say, a visit from Esther +and the arrival of Williamson, to fix in a few intimate vivid words the +charm of their afternoon together, and tell Esther in some new +gratifying way what she was to her and why and how she was it; or when +Henry had been there--even more carefully in the absence of +Williamson--to read her his new poem, she would write him a long letter +of literary criticism, just perceptibly vibrating with the emotion she +might have felt for the romantic young poet, whom she allowed to call +himself her "cavaliere servente," had she not been Williamson as well as +Myrtilla, and had she not, as she somewhat unscientifically declared, +been old enough to be his mother. + +"Well," she said, as they sipped their tea, "so Henry's really gone. He +slipped round to bid me a sort of good-bye yesterday, and told me the +whole story. On the whole, I'm glad, though I know how you'll miss each +other. But I'm sorriest for your mother. Yes, yes, I'm sorry for her. +You must try to make it up to her, dear child. I think just that, above +all things, would make me fear to be a mother. One can do without +children," and there was a certain implication in the conversational +atmosphere that children of the name of Williamson had been mercifully +spared the world; "but when once they have come into one's life, it must +be terrible to see them go out again. I should like to come round and +have a little talk with your mother. I wonder if she'd care to see me?" + +"So long as you don't come in your tea-gown," said Esther, with a laugh. + +"Cruel child!" and then with a way she had of suddenly finding +something she wanted to hear of among the interests of her friends, +"Now," she said, "tell me something about Mike. I suppose the course of +true love runs as smoothly as ever. Happy children! Give him my love +when you see him, won't you?" + +Esther told all there was to tell about Mike up-to-date, and wished she +could have repaid her friend's sympathetic interest with a request for +something similar about Williamson. But it was tacitly understood that +there was nothing further to be said on that subject, and that the news +of Myrtilla's life could hardly again take any more excitingly personal +form than the bric-a-brac excitements of art or literature,--though +indeed art and literature were, to be just to them, far more than +bric-a-brac in the life of Myrtilla Williamson. They were, indeed, it +was easy to see, a very sustaining religion for the lonely little woman +who, having no children to study, and having completed her studies of +Williamson, was driven a good deal upon the study and development of +herself. The Williamson half of the day provided her fully with +opportunities for the practice of all the philosophy she was likely to +acquire from writers ancient and modern, and for the absorption of all +the consolation history and biography was likely to afford in the +stories of women similarly circumstanced. It is to be feared that +Myrtilla not only wore tea-gowns in advance of her time, but was also +somewhat prematurely something of a "new" woman; but this was a subject +on which she really did very little to "poison" Esther's "young mind." +Esther's young mind, in common with those of her two subsequent sisters, +was little in need of "poisoning" from outside on such subjects. Indeed, +it was a curious phenomenon to observe how all these young minds, sprung +from a stock of such ancient, unquestioning faith, had, so to say, been +born "poisoned;" or, to state the matter less metaphorically, had all +been born with instincts for the most pitiless and effortless reasoning +on all subjects human and divine. + +As the hour approached when poor Myrtilla must change back to +Williamson, Esther rose to say good-bye. + +"Come again soon, dear girl; you don't know the good you do me." + +The good, dear woman was entirely done by her unwearied, sympathetic +discussion of the affairs and dreams of Esther, Mike, and Henry. + +"Oh, here is a wonderful new book I intended to talk to you about. You +can take it with you; I have finished it. Come next week and tell me +what you think of it." + +As Esther walked down the path, Myrtilla watched her, and, as she passed +out of the gate, waved her a final kiss of parting, and turned indoors. +There seemed something ever so sad about her dainty back as it +disappeared into the doorway. + +"Poor little woman!" said Esther to herself, as she looked to see the +title of the book she was carrying. It included a curious Russian name, +the correct pronunciation of which she foresaw she must ask Myrtilla on +their next meeting. It was "The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A RHAPSODY OF TYRE + + +Sidon, the stage of the moving events so far recorded, though it makes +much of possessing a separate importance, is really a cross-river +residential suburb of Tyre, the great seaport in which all the ships of +the world come to and fro. During the day Sidon is virtually emptied of +its men-folk, and is given up to perambulators and feminine activities +generally; for the men have streamed across the ferries that bridge the +sunny, boisterous river, to the docks and offices of Tyre. + +Though Tyre is not a very old city, it is not so new as to be denied a +few of those associations known as "historical." Tyre had once the +honour to be taken by Prince Rupert, and long before that its nucleus +had existed as a monk's ferry, by which travellers were rowed across the +river to the monastery and posting-house at Sidon. Sometimes of an +evening Henry and Mike would think of those far-off times as they looked +over the ferry-boat at the long lines of river lights, with their +restless heaving reflections; and sometimes they could picture to +themselves the green sloping banks of the virgin fields, and hear the +priory bell calling to them out of the darkness. But such were the +faintest of their visions; and they loved the river banks best as they +are to-day, with their Egyptian walls and swarming lights and +tangled ships. + +And whoso should think that that sordid commercial city, given up to all +the prose of trade day by day, is not a poet at heart, has never seen +her strange smile at evening when the shops are shut, and the offices +empty, and the men who know her not gone home. For then across the +crowded roofs softly comes a strange sweetness, and deep down among the +gloomy wynds of deserted warehouses, still as temples, sudden fairies of +sunset dance and dazzle, and touch the grimy walls with soft hands. In +lonely back rooms, full of desks and dust, haunted lights of evening +stand like splendid apparitions; and sometimes, if you lingered at the +top of High Street, beneath the dark old church, and the moon was out +on the left of the steeple and the sunset dying on the right, dying +beyond the tangled masts and fading from the river, you would forget you +were a city clerk, and you would wonder why the world was so beautiful, +why the moon was made of pearl, and what it was that called to you out +of yonder golden sea; and your heart would fill with a strange gladness, +and you would call back to those unearthly voices, "I am yours, yours, +all yours!" + +Thus would this town of bales and merchants, of office-desks and stools, +make poets at evening that she might stone them at noon. For, of course, +she would have forgotten it all in the morning; and it were well not to +remind her with your dreaming eyes of her last night's softness. She +will look back at you with stony misunderstanding, and her new lover +Reality will sharply box your ears. + +It is no use reminding the Exchange that it looked like a scene from +Romeo and Juliet in the moonlight. It dare not admit it. But wait +patiently till the evening. Tyre will be yours again with the sunset. +She pretends all day that it is the Mayor in the gilded coach and the +pursy merchantmen she cares for; but it is really you, a poor shabby +poet, she loves all the time, for you only does she wear her gauzy silks +at evening! + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A PENITENTIARY OF THE MATHEMATICS + + +Yes, Mike was some day to be another Kean, and Henry was to prove a +serious rival to Shakespeare; but, meanwhile, they were clerks in the +offices of Tyre. + +Of the rigours, and therefore too the truancies and humours of the lot +official, Mike was comparatively so comfortably circumstanced as to have +little knowledge. His father was the king of a little flourishing prison +of desks, and Mike was one of the heirs-apparent. Consequently, his lot, +though dull, was seldom bitter; and many mitigations of it were within +his privilege. With Henry it was different. He was a humble unit among +twenty other slaves, chained to that modern substitute for the galleys, +the desk; and, in a wicked bargain, he had contracted to give his +life-blood from nine in the morning till six in the evening, for sixty +pounds a year, with an occasional "rise," which, after thirty years' +service, might end in your having reached a proud annual three hundred +for the rest of your maimed and narrowed days. + +Henry had come to the office straight from school, at the age of +sixteen; and, though classrooms breathe an air sufficiently frigid and +suggestive of inhuman interests and unmeaning discipline, the icy air of +that office had at first almost taken his breath. The place was so +ridiculously serious! There might conceivedly be interests in the world +worthy of so abject an absorption, so bleaching an obeisance of the +individual; but Henry, with the dews of certain classics still upon him, +remembered that anything really Olympian in its importance is always +strong enough to smile. It is a lesser strength that must make the +muscular effort of severity. True dignities, as often as possible, stand +at ease. But here indeed were no true strengths and dignities,--only +prison-strengths and prison-dignities. Here the majesties, the +occupations, the offences, were alike frivolities, fantastically changed +about into solemnities. + +That first impression of abject bowed heads and chains rattled beneath +desks, was roughly correct. For all that was human in a man, this was a +prison. These men who bent over foolish papers were evidently convicts +of the most desperate character; so, at all events, you would judge when +occasionally one or other of the prison-governors, known as "partners," +passed among them with the lash of his eye. Such faint human twittering +as may have grown up amongst even these poor exiles would suddenly die +into a silence white with fear, as when the shadow of a hawk falls +across the song of smaller birds. + +No human relations are acknowledged here. Outside, you may be a husband +wonderfully beloved and tragically important; you may be a man whose +courage has be-medalled your brave breast; you may be a passionate and +subtle musician in your private hours; you may even on Sundays be a much +appreciated vessel of the divine: but all such distinctions are not +current here; here they are foreign coin, diplomas unacknowledged in +this barbarous realm of ink and steel. The more ignorant, the more +narrow, the more mean, the more unnatural, you can contrive to be, the +better will be your lot in this sad monastery of Mammon. When the door +hissed behind you, with that little patent pneumatic device, you ceased +to be a human being, and began to be--the human machine. All the +vitality you have stored within that pale body you are expected to +exhaust here,--you have sold it, don't you remember, for sixty or three +hundred pounds a year; you are not expected to have any left over for +pleasures. That will be robbery. Masters suffer much from peculation +indeed in this way; but a machine is in course of invention which shall +put an end to this, by the application of which to your heart the +task-master will know whether or not you have spent every available +heart-beat in his slavery during the day, or whether you are +endeavouring, you miserable thief, to steal home with a little remnant +of it for your children at night. + +This was the theory of the office, as Henry once heard it expressed, +with a cynicism more brief and direct from the lips of one of his +task-masters; but it must be admitted that in certain respects his +experience was extreme. There are offices which are the ears and eyes of +activities absorbingly and even romantically human. To be in a +shipping-office is not perhaps to be the rose, but it is to live near +it,--the great rose of the sea. You are, so to say, a land-sailor, a +supercargo left on shore. Your office-windows are lashed with +hurricanes; your talk is frequently of cyclones. The names of far +romantic isles are constantly on your lips, and your bills of lading are +threepenny romances in themselves. Strange produce of distant lands are +your daily concern, and the four winds meet at your counter with a +savour of tar. For all you know, a pirate may claim your attention any +minute of the day. + +Or, again, to be, say, in a corn-merchant's, a clearing-house of the +fruitful earth. There at your telephone you may hear the corn-fields +whispering to you, hear the wheat waving in the wind, and the thin +chatter of oats. Or you may sell butter and cheese in an office that +smells of farms. However removed, you are an indirect agent of the +earth, a humble go-between of the seasons and the eternal needs of man. + +Or, once more, you may be one of the thousand clerks of a great +manufacturer, and be humbly related to one of the arts or crafts that +gladden the eye or add to the comforts of man. Or even, though you may +be denied so close an association with the elements, or the arts, you +may be the pen to some subtle legal confidante of human nature. Your +office may be stored with records of human perversity and whimsicality. +You may be the witness to fantastic wills, or assist in the +administration of the estates of lunatics. At all events, you will come +within hearing of the human passions. Misers will visit you at times, +and beautiful ladies in mourning deep as their distress; and from your +desk you will catch a glimpse of the sombre pageantry of litigious man. + +Though it is true that a certain far-off flavour of these legal +excitements occasionally enlivened the business to which Henry had been +sacrificially indentured, for the most part it was an abstract +parasitical thing which had succeeded in persuading other businesses, +more directly fed from the human spring, of its obliging usefulness in +relieving them of detachable burdens. In fact, it had no activity or +interest of its own to account for, so it proposed, in default of any +such original reason for existence, to look after the accounts of +others, as a self-constituted body of financial police. For those +engaged in it, except those who had been born mentally deformed, or +those who had become unnaturally perverted by long usage, it was a sort +of penitentiary of the mathematics. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +THE GRASS BETWEEN THE FLAG-STONES + +Yes, it was a curiously unreal world; and, for the first day or two, as +Henry, bent, lonely and bewildered, over his desk, studied it furtively +with questioning eyes, it seemed to him as though he had strayed into +some asylum for the insane, where fantastic interests and mock honours +take the place of the real interests and honours of sane human beings. + +Part of the business of the firm consisted in the collection of +house-rents, frequently entailing visits from tenants and questions of +repairs. A certain Mr. Smith, a wiry little grey-headed man, with a keen +face and a decisive manner, looked after this branch; and the gusto with +which he did it was one of Henry's earliest and most instructive +amazements. House-repairs were quite evidently his poetry, and he never +seemed so happy as when passionately wrangling with a tenant on some +question of drains. The words "cesspool" and "wet-trap"--words to which +I don't pretend to attach any meaning--seemed to be particular +favourites of his. In fact, an hour seldom passed without their falling +from his lips. But Mr. Smith's great opportunity was a gale. For that +always meant an exciting harvest of dislodged chimney-pots, flying +slates, and smashed skylights, which would impart an energetic interest +to his life for days. + +Again, in Henry's department--for the office was cut into two halves, +with about ten clerks in each, the partners having, of course, their own +private offices, from which they might dart out at any moment--there was +a certain little fussy chief clerk who was obviously a person of very +mysterious importance. He was frequently away, evidently on missions of +great moment, for always on his return he would be closeted immediately +with one or other of the partners, who in turn seemed to consider him +important too, and would sometimes treat him almost like one of +themselves, actually condescending to laugh with him now and again over +some joke, evidently as mysterious as all the rest. This Mr. Perkins +seldom noticed the juniors in his department, though occasionally he +would select one of them to accompany him on one of his missions to +clients of the firm; and they would start off together, as you may see a +plumber and his apprentice sometimes in the streets,--the proud +master-plumber in front, and the little apprentice plumber behind, +carrying the lead pipe and the iron smelting-pot. + +Now, did Mr. Smith really take such a heart-interest in cesspools and +wet-traps as he appeared to do? and did Mr. Perkins really think he +mattered all that? + +These were two of the earliest questions which Henry asked himself, and +as time brought the answers to them, and kindred questions, there were +unexpected elements of comfort for the heart of the boy, longing so +desperately in that barren place for any hint of the human touch. One +day Mr. Smith startled him by mentioning Dickens, and even Charles Lamb. +It was a kindly recognition of Mesurier's rumoured interest in +literature. Henry looked at him in amazement. "Oh, you read then!" he +exclaimed. Of anything so human as reading he had suspected no one in +that office. + +Then as to the great Mr. Perkins, the time came when he was to prove +very human indeed. For, dying suddenly one day, his various work had to +pass into other hands; and, bit by bit, it began to leak out that those +missions had not been so industriously devoted to the interests of the +firm, nor been so carefully executed, as had been imagined. For Mr. +Perkins, it transpired, had been fond of his pleasures, could appreciate +wine, and liked an occasional informal holiday. So, posthumously, he +began to wear for Henry a faint halo of humanity. + +Indeed, it did not take Henry many days to realise that, as grass will +force its way even between the flag-stones in a prison-yard, no little +humanity contrived to support its existence even in this dead place. By +degrees, he realised that these apparently colourless and frigid figures +about him had each their separate individuality, engaging or otherwise; +that their interests were by no means centred on the dull pages before +them; and that, for the most part, they were very much in a like case +with himself. Although thus immured from the world of realities, they +still maintained, in vigorous activity, many healthy outdoor interests, +and were quite keen in their enthusiasm for, and remarkably instructed +in, the latest developments of horse-racing, football, and +prize-fighting. Likewise, they had retained an astonishingly fresh and +unimpaired interest in women, and still enjoyed the simple earth-born +pleasures of the glass and the pipe. + +As he understood this, Henry began to feel more at home; and, as the +characters of his associates revealed themselves, he began to see that +there were amongst them several pleasant and indeed merry fellows, and +that, after all, fortune might have thrown him into much worse company. +They, on their side, making like discoveries in him, he presently found +himself admitted to their freemasonry, and initiated into their many +secret ways of mitigating their lot, and shortening their long days. +Thus, this chill, stern world of automata, which, on first sight, looked +as if no human word or smile or jest could escape the detection of its +iron laws, revealed, when you were once inside it, an under-world of +pleasant escapes and exciting truancies, of which, as you grew +accustomed to the risks and general conditions of the life, you were +able skilfully to avail yourself. + +The main principle of these was to seem to spend twice as much time on +each task as it needed, that you might have the other half for such +private uses as were within your reach,--to elongate dinner-hours at +both ends so adroitly, and on such carefully selected propitious +occasions, that the elongation, or at least the whole extent of it, +would pass unobserved; and, in general, to gain time, any waste ends of +five minutes or quarter hours, on all possible occasions. If the reader +calls this shirking and robbery, he must. Technically, no doubt, it was; +but these clerks, without so formulating it, merely exercised the right +of all oppressed beings liberally to interpret to their own advantage, +where possible, the terms of an unjust contract which grinding economic +conditions had compelled them to make. They had been forced to promise +too much in exchange for too little, and they equalised the disparity +where they could. + +Whether they spent the time thus hoarded in a profitable fashion, is a +question of personal definition. It was usually expended in companies of +twos or threes, with a pipe and a pot of beer and much spirited talk, in +the warm corners of adjacent taverns; and, so long as you don't drink +too much, there has perhaps been invented none pleasanter than that +old-fashioned way of spending an hour. Certainly, it was the way for ale +to taste good, and a pipe to seem the most satisfying of all earthly +consolations. It was almost worth the bondage to enjoy the keen relish +of the escape. + +By degrees, though the youngest there, Henry came to be allowed a +certain leadership in these sorties of the human element. He made it his +business to stimulate these unthrifty instincts, and to fan the welcome +sparks of natural idleness; and so successfully that at times there +seemed to have entered with him into that gloomy place a certain Bacchic +influence, which now and again would prompt his comrades to such daring +clutches of animated release, that the spirit of it even pervaded the +penetralia of the senior partner's office, with the result that some +mishap of truancy would undo the genial work of months, and precipitate +upon them for a while the rigours of a ten-fold discipline. It was after +such an occasion that, in writing to James Mesurier as to the progress +of his son, old Mr. Septimus Lingard had paid Henry one of the proudest +compliments of his young days. "I fear that we shall make little of your +son Henry," he wrote. "His head seems full of literature, and he is so +idle that he is demoralising the whole office." + +It took Henry more than a year to win that testimonial; but the odds had +been so great against him that the wonder is he was ever able to win it +at all. Mr. Lingard wrote "demoralise." It was his way of saying +"humanise." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +HUMANITY IN HIGH PLACES + +One day, however, Henry was to make the still more surprising discovery, +that not only were the clerks human beings, but that one of the +partners--only one of them--was also human. He made this discovery about +the senior partner, whose old-world figure and quaint name, Septimus +Searle Lingard, had, in spite of his severity, attracted him by a +certain musty distinction. + +A stranger figure than Septimus Searle Lingard has seldom walked the +streets of any town. Though not actually much over sixty, you would have +said he must be a thousand; his abnormally long, narrow, shaven face was +so thin and gaunt and hollowed, and his tall, upright figure was so +painfully fragile, that his black broadcloth seemed almost too heavy for +the worn frame inside it. And nothing in the world else was ever so +piercingly solemn as his keen weary old eyes. With his tall silk hat, +his thin white hair, his long white face, long black frock-coat, and +black trousers, he looked for all the world like a distinguished +skeleton. Henry could never be quite sure whether he was to be classed +as a "character," or as a genuine personality. One thing was certain, +that, sometime or other, or many times, in his life he had done +something, or many things, which had won for him a respect as deep as +his solemnity of aspect; and certainly, if gravity of demeanour goes for +anything, all the owls of all the ages in collaboration could not have +produced an expression of time-honoured wisdom so convincing. Sometimes +his old lantern-jaws would emit an uncanny cackle of a laugh, and a +ghastly flicker of humour play across his parchment features; but these +only deepened the general sense of solemnity, as the hoot of a +night-bird deepens the loneliness of some desolate hollow among +the hills. + +It was this strange old ghost of a man that was to be the next to turn +human, and it came about like this. Right away at the top of the +building was a lonely room where the sun never shone, in which were +stored away the old account-books, diaries, and various +dead-and-done-with documents of the firm; and here too was deposited, +from time to time, various wreckage of the same kind from other +businesses whose last offices had been done by the firm, and whose +records were still preserved, in the unlikely event of any chance +resurrection of claim upon, or interest in, their long forgotten names. + +Here crumbled the last relics of many an ambitious enterprise,--great +ledgers, with their covers still fresh, lay like slabs, from which, if +you wiped away the dust, the gilded names of foundered companies would +flash as from gaudy tombstones; letter-books bursting with letters that +no eye would read again so long as the world lasted; yellow title-deeds +from which all the virtue had long since exhaled, and to which no +dangling of enormous seals could any longer lend a convincing air of +importance. Here everything was dead and dusty as an old shoe. The dry +bones in the valley of Askelon were as children skipping in the morning +sun compared with the dusty death that mouldered and mouldered in this +lonely locked-up room,--this catacomb of dead businesses. + +It was seldom necessary to visit this room; but occasionally Henry +would find an excuse to loiter an hour there, for there was a certain +dreary romance about the place, and the almost choking smell of old +leather seemed to promise all sorts of buried secrets. It cannot be said +that the place ever adequately gratified the sense of mystery it +excited; but, after all, to excite the sense of mystery is perhaps +better than to gratify it, and, considering its poor material, this room +was quite a clever old mysteriarch. + +One day, however, Henry came upon some writing that did greatly interest +him, though it was almost contemporary. It was old Mr. Septimus +Lingard's diary for the year preceding, which he had got hold of,--not +his private diary, but the entirely public official diary in which he +kept account of the division of his days among his various clients--for +the most part an unexciting record. But at the end of the book, on one +of the general memoranda pages, Henry noticed a square block of writing +which, to his surprise, proved to be a long quotation from a book which +the old man had been reading,--on the Immortality of the soul! + +Had old Mr. Septimus Lingard a soul too, a soul that troubled him +maybe, a soul that had its moving memories, and its immortal +aspirations? Yes, somewhere hidden in that strange legal document of a +body, there was evidently a soul. Mr. Lingard had a soul! + +But wait a moment, here was an addition of the old man's own! The +passage quoted had been of death and its possible significance, and it +was just a sigh, a fear, the old man had breathed after it: _How high +has the winding-sheet encompassed my own bosom_! + +Solemn as were the words in themselves, they seemed doubly so in that +lonely room; and Henry was glad to lock the door and return to the +comparatively living world downstairs. But from that moment old Mr. +Lingard was transfigured in his eyes. Beneath all the sternness of his +exterior, the grimness of the business interests which seemed to absorb +him, Henry had discovered the blessed human spring. And he came too to +wear a certain pathos and sanctity in Henry's eyes, as he remembered how +old a man he was, and that secretly all this time, while he seemed so +busy with this public company and another, he was quietly preparing to +die. From this moment tasks done for him came to have a certain joy in +them. For his sake, as it were, he began to understand how you might +take a pride in doing well something that, in your opinion, was not +worth doing; and one day when the old man, well satisfied with some work +he had done, patted him kindly on the back and said, "We'll make a +business man of you after all!" the tears started to his eyes, and for a +moment he almost hoped that they would. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +DAMON AND PYTHIAS + +By an odd coincidence, the night which had seen Henry and Esther +confront their father, had seen, in another household in which the young +people counted another member of their secret society of youth, a +similar but even less seemly clash between the generations. Ned Hazell +would be a poet too, and a painter as well, and perhaps a romantic +actor; but his father's tastes for his son's future lay in none of these +directions, and Ned was for the present in cotton. Now the elder Mr. +Hazell was a man of violently convivial habits, and the _bonhomie_, with +which he was accustomed to enliven bar-parlours up till eleven of an +evening, was apt to suffer a certain ungenial transformation as he +reached his own front door. There the wit would fail upon his lips, the +twinkle die out of his glance, and an unaccountable ferocity towards the +household that was waiting up for him take their place. When possible, +he would fix upon some trivial reason to give an air of plausibility to +this curious change in him; but if that were not forthcoming, he would, +it appeared, fly into a violent rage for just that very reason. + +However, on this particular night, Heaven had provided him with an +heroic occasion. His son, he discovered, was for once out later than his +father. In what haunt of vice, or low place of drinking, he was at the +moment ensnared, no one better than his father could imagine. The +opportunity was one not to be missed. The outraged parent at last +realised that he had borne with him long enough, borne long enough with +his folderols of art and nonsense; and so determined was he on the +instant that he would have no more of it, that, with a quite remarkable +energy, he had thereupon repaired to his son's room, opened the window, +and begun vigorously to throw his pretty editions, his dainty +water-colours, his drawers full of letters, his cast of the Venus of +Milo, out on to the lawn, upon which at the moment a heavy rain was +also falling. + +In the very whirlwind of his righteous vandalism his son had returned, +and, being a muscular, hot-blooded lad, had taken his father by the +throat, called him a drunken beast, and hurled him to the floor, where +he pinned him down with a knee on his chest, and might conceivably have +made an end of him, but for the interference of mother and sisters, who +succeeded at last in getting the dazed and somewhat sobered parent +to bed. + +Having raked together from the sodden _débris_ beneath his window some +disfigured remains of his poor treasures, Ned Hazell had left the house +in the early hours of the morning, in good earnest for ever. + +When he confided the excitements of the night to Henry at lunch next +day, and heard in return his friend's news, nothing could be more plain +than that they should set up lodgings together; and it was, therefore, +to the rooms of which Ned was already in possession that Henry's cab had +toppled with his various belongings, after those tearful farewells at +his father's door. Esther followed presently to help make the place +straight and dainty for the two boys, and having left them, late that +evening, with flowers in all the jars, and the curtains as they should +be, they were fairly launched on their new life together. + +In Mike Henry had a stanch friend and an admirer against all comers, and +in Henry Mike had a friend and admirer no less loyal; but their +friendship was one for which an on-looker might have found it less easy +to give reasons than for that of Henry and Ned. Mike and Henry loved +each other, it would appear, less for any correspondence in dispositions +or tastes, as just because they were Mike and Henry. Right away down in +their natures there was evidently some central affinity which operated +even in spite of surface contradictions. There was much of this +intrinsic quality in the affection of Henry and Ned also, but it was +much more to be accounted for by evident mutual sympathies. It was +largely the impassioned fellowship of two craftsmen in love with the +same art. Both had their literary ambitions; but, irrespective of those, +they both loved poetry. Yes, how they loved it! Ned was perhaps +particularly a born appreciator; and it was worth seeing how the tears +would come into his fine eyes, as his voice shook with tenderness over a +fine phrase or a noble passage. They had discovered some of the most +thrilling things in English literature together, at that impressionable +age when such things mean most to us. Together they had read Keats for +the first wonderful time; together learned Shakespeare's Sonnets by +heart; together rolled out over tavern-tables the sumptuous cadences of +De Quincey. Wonderful indeed, and never to be forgotten, were those +evenings when, the day at last over, they would leave their offices +behind them, and, while the sunset was turning the buildings of Tyre +into enchanted towers, and a clemency of release breathed upon its +streets, steal to the quiet corner of their favourite tavern; to drink +port and share their last new author, or their own latest rhymes, and +then to emerge again, with high calm hearts and eloquent eyes, beneath +the splendid stars. + +All the arts within their reach they thus shared together,--pictures, +music, theatres,--in a fine comradeship. Together they had bravoed the +great tragedians, and together hopelessly worshipped the beautiful +faces, enskied and sainted, of famous actresses. In fact, they were the +Damon and Pythias of Tyre. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +DAMON AND PYTHIAS AT THE THEATRE + + +Once, long before the beginning of this story, Damon and Pythias were +sitting in a theatre together, with the wonderful overture just +beginning to steal through their senses. + +Ah, violins, whither would you take their souls? You call to them like +the voice of one waiting by the sea, bathed in sunset. What are these +wonderful things you are whispering to their souls? You promise--ah, +what things you promise, strange voices of the string! + +Oh, sirens, have pity! Their hearts are pure, their bodies sweet as +apples. Oh, be faithful, betray them not, beautiful voices of the +wondrous world! + +The overture had succeeded. Their souls had followed it over the +footlights, and, floating in the limelight, shone there awaiting the +fulfilment of the promise. + +The play was "Pygmalion and Galatea," and at the appearance of Galatea +they knew that the overture had not lied. There, in dazzling white +flesh, was all it had promised; and when she called "Pyg-ma-lion!" how +their hearts thumped!--for they knew it was really them she was calling. + +"Pyg-ma-lion! Pyg-ma-lion!" + +It was as though Cleopatra called them from the tomb. + +Their hands met. They could hear each other's blood singing. And was not +the play itself an allegory of their coming lives? Did not Galatea +symbolise all the sleeping beauty of the world that was to awaken, warm +and fragrant, at the kiss of their youth? And somewhere, too, shrouded +in enchanted quiet, such a white white woman waited for their kiss. In a +vision they saw life like the treasure cave of the Arabian thief; and +they said to their beating hearts that they had the secret of the magic +word, that the "open Sesame" was youth. + +No fall of the curtain could hide the vision from their young eyes. It +transfigured the faces of their fellow-playgoers, crowding from the pit; +it made another stage of the embers of the sunset, a distant bridge of +silver far down the street. Then they took it with them to the tavern; +and to write of the solemn libations of that night would be to laugh or +cry. Only youth can be so radiantly ridiculous. + +They had found their own corner. Turning down the gas, the fire played +at day and night with their faces. Imagine them in one of the flashes, +solemnly raising their glasses, hands clasped across the table, earnest +gleaming eyes holding each other above it. + +"Old man, some day, somewhere, a woman like that!" + +But there was still a sequel. At home at last and in bed, how could +Damon sleep! It seemed as if he had got into a rosy sunset cloud in +mistake for his bed. The candle was out, and yet the room was full of +rolling light. + +It was no use; he must get up. So, striking a light, he was presently +deep in the composition of a fiery sonnet. It was evidently that which +had caused all the phosphorescence. But a sonnet is a mere pill-box; it +holds nothing. A mere cockle-shell,--and, oh, the raging sea it could +not hold! Besides being confessedly an art-form, duly licenced to lie, +it was apt to be misunderstood. It could not say in plain words, "Meet +me at the pier to-morrow at three in the afternoon;" it could make no +assignation nearer than the Isles of the Blest, "after life's fitful +fever." Therefore, it seemed well to add a postscript to that effect +in prose. + +But then, how was she to receive it? There was nothing to be hoped from +the post, and Damon's home in Sidon was three miles from the ferry. +Likewise, it was now nearing three in the morning. Just time to catch +the half-past three boat, run up to the theatre, a mile away, and meet +the return boat. So down, down through the creaking house, carefully, as +though he were a Jason picking his way among the coils of the sleeping +dragon; and soon he was shooting through the phantom streets, like +Mercury on a message through Hades. + +At last the river came in sight, growing slate-colour in the earliest +dawn. He could see the boat nuzzling up against the pier, and snoring in +its sleep. He said to himself that this was Styx and the fare an obolus. +As he jumped on board, with hot face and hotter heart, Charon clicked +his signal to the engines; the boat slowly snuffled itself half awake, +and shoved out into the sleepy water. + +As they crossed, the light grew, and the gas-lamps of Tyre beaconed with +fading gleam. Overhead began a restlessness in the clouds, as of a giant +drowsily shuffling off some of his bedclothes; but as yet he slept, and +only the silver bosom of his spouse, the moon, was uncovered. + +When they landed, the streets of Tyre were already light, but empty, as +though they had got up early to meet some one who had not arrived. Damon +sped through them like a sea-gull that has the harbour to itself, and +was not long in reaching the theatre. How desolate the play-bills looked +that had been so companionable but three or four hours before! And there +was her photograph! Surely it was an omen. + +"Ah, my angel! See, I am bringing you my heart in a song. 'All my heart +in this my singing!'" + +He dropped the letter into the box; but, as he turned away, momentarily +glancing up the long street, he caught sight of an approaching figure +that could hardly be mistaken. Good Heavens! it was Pythias, and he too +was carrying a letter. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS A GENEALOGY + +The egregious Miss Bashkirtseff did not greatly fascinate Esther. Her +egotism was too hard, too self-bounded, even for egotism, and there was +generally about her a lack of sympathy. Her passion for fame had +something provincial in its eagerness, and her broadest ideals seemed to +become limited by her very anxiety to compass them. Even her love of art +seemed a form of snobbery. In all these young Mesuriers there was +implicit,--partly as a bye-product of the sense of humour, and partly as +an unconscious mysticism,--a surprising instinct for allowing the +successes of this world their proper value and no more. Even Esther, who +was perhaps the most worldly of them all, and whose ambitions were +largely social, as became a bonny girl whom nature had marked out to be +popular, and on whom, some day when Mike was a great actor,--and had a +theatre of his own!--would devolve the cares of populous "at home" days, +bright after-the-performance suppers, and all the various diplomacies of +the popular wife of fame,--even Esther, however brilliant her life might +become, would never for a moment imagine that such success was a thing +worth winning, at the expense of the smallest loss to such human +realities as the affection she felt for Mike and Henry. To love some one +well and faithfully, to be one of a little circle vowed to eternal +fidelity one to the other,--such was the initial success of these young +lives; and it was to make them all their days safe from the dangers of +more meretricious successes. + +All the same, though the chief performer in Marie Bashkirtseff's +"Confessions" interested her but little, the stage on which for a little +while she had scolded and whimpered did interest her--for should it not +have been her stage too, and Henry's stage, and Dot's stage, father's +and mother's stage too? You had only to look at father to realise that +nature had really meant him for the great stage; here in Sidon, what was +he but a god in exile, bending great powers and a splendid character +upon ridiculously unimportant interests? Indeed, was not his destiny, +more or less, their destiny as a family? Henry would escape from it +through literature, and she through Mike. But what of Dot, what of Mat, +not yet to speak of "the children"? + +All she envied Marie Bashkirtseff was her opportunity. Great Goddess +Opportunity! So much had come to Marie in the cradle, and came daily to +a hundred thousand insignificant aristocratic babes, to approach which +for the Mesuriers, even ten years too late, meant convulsions of the +home, and to attain which in any satisfactory degree was probably +impossible. French, for example, and music! Why, if so disposed, Marie +Bashkirtseff might have read old French romances at ten, and to play +Chopin at an earlier age was not surprising in the opportunitied, +so-called "aristocratic" infant. Oh, why had they not been born like the +other Sidonians, whose natures and ideals had been mercifully calculated +to the meridian of Sidon! Why didn't they think the Proudfoots and the +Wilkinsons and the Wagstaffs, and other local nobody-somebodies, people +of importance, and why did they think the mayor a ludicrous upstart, +and the adjacent J.P. a sententious old idiot? Far better to have rested +content in that state of life to which God had called them. To talk +French, or to play Chopin! What did it matter? In one sense nothing, but +in another it mattered like other convenient facilities of life. To the +immortal soul it mattered nothing, but to the mortal social unit it made +life the easier, made the passage of ideas, the intercourse of +individualities, the readier, and, in general, facilitated spiritual and +intellectual, as well as social, communication. To be first-rate +in your instincts, in all your fibres, and third-rate in your +opportunities,--that was a bitter indignity of circumstance. + +This sub-conscious sense of aristocracy--it must be observed, lest it +should have been insufficiently implied--was almost humorously +dissociated in the minds of the young Mesuriers from any recorded family +distinctions. In so far as it was conscious, it was defiantly +independent of genealogy. Had the Mesuriers possessed a coat-of-arms, +James Mesurier would probably have kept it locked up as a frivolity to +be ashamed of, for it was a part of his Puritanism that such earthly +distinctions were foolishness with God; but, as a matter of fact, +between Adam and the immediate great-grandparents of the young +Mesuriers, there was a void which the Herald's office would have found a +difficulty in filling. This it never occurred to them to mind in +the least. + +It was one of Henry's deep-sunken maxims that "a distinguished product +implied a distinguished process," and that, at all events, the +genealogical process was only illustratively important. It would have +been interesting to know how they, the Mesuriers, came to be what they +were. In the dark night of their history a family portrait or two, or an +occasional reference in history, would have been an entertaining +illumination--but, such not being forthcoming, they were, documentally, +so much the less indebted to their progenitors. Yet if they had only +been able to claim some ancestor with a wig and a degree for the +humanities, or some beautiful ancestress with a romantic reputation! +One's own present is so much more interesting for developing, or even +repeating, some one else's past. And yet how much better it was to be as +they were, than as most scions of aristocratic lineage, whose present +was so often nothing and their past everything. How humiliating to be so +pathetically inadequate an outcome of such long and elaborate +preparation,--the mouse of a genealogical mountain! Yes, it was +immeasurably more satisfactory to one's self-respect to be Something out +of Nothing, than Nothing out of Everything. Here so little had made so +much; here so much had made--hardly even a lord. It was better for your +circumstances to be inadequate for you, than you to be inadequate for +your circumstances. + +Henry had amused himself one day in making a list of all their +"ancestors" to whom any sort of worldly or romantic distinction could +attach, and it ran somewhat as follows:-- + +(1) A great-grandmother on the father's side, fabled to live in some +sort of a farm-house château in Guernsey, who once a year, up till two +years ago, when she died, had sent them a hamper of apples from Channel +Island orchards. Said "château" believed by his children to descend to +James Mesurier, but the latter indifferent to the matter, and relatives +on the spot probably able to look after it. + +(2) A great-grandfather on the mother's side given to travel, a +"rolling-stone," fond of books and talk, and rich in humanity. Surviving +still in a high-nosed old silhouette. + +(3) A grand-uncle on the father's side who was one of Napoleon's guard +at St. Helena! + +(4) A grandfather on the mother's side, who used to design and engrave +little wooden blocks for patterns on calico-stuffs, and whose little box +of delicate instruments, evidently made for the tracing of lines and +flowers, was one of the few family heirlooms. + +(5) A grandmother on the father's side of whom nothing was known beyond +the beautiful fact that she was Irish. + +(6) A grandfather on the father's side who was a sea-captain, sailing +his own ship (barque "the Lucretia") to the West Indies, and who died of +yellow fever, and was buried, in the odour of romance, on the Isthmus +of Panama. + +(7) An uncle who had also been a sea-captain, and who, in rescuing a +wrecked crew from an Australian reef, was himself capsized, and after a +long swim finally eaten by a shark,--said shark being captured next day, +and found to contain his head entire, two gold rings still in his ears, +which he wore for near-sightedness, after the manner of common sailors, +and one of which, after its strange vicissitudes, had found a +resting-place in the secretaire of his brother, James Mesurier. + +Such was the only accessible "ancestry" of the Mesuriers, and it is to +be feared that the last state of the family was socially worse than the +first. James Mesurier was unapproachably its present summit, its Alpine +peak; and he was made to suffer for it no little by humble and +impecunious relatives. Still, whatever else they lacked, Henry Mesurier +loved to insist that these various connections were rich in character, +one or two of them inexhaustible in humour; and their rare and somewhat +timorous visits to the castle of their exalted relative, James Mesurier, +were occasions of much mirthful embarrassment to the young people. Here +the reader is requested to excuse a brief parenthetical chapter by way +of illustration, which, if he pleases, he may skip without any loss of +continuity in the narrative, or the least offence in the world to the +writer. This present chapter will be found continued in chapter sixteen. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +MERELY A HUMBLE INTERRUPTION AND +ILLUSTRATION OF THE LAST + +Some peaceable afternoon when Mrs. Mesurier was enjoying a little doze +on the parlour sofa, and her three elder daughters were snatching an +hour or two from housework--they had already left school--for a little +private reading, the drowsy house would suddenly be awakened by one loud +wooden knock at the door. + +"Now, whoever can that be!" the three girls would impatiently exclaim; +and presently the maid would come to Miss Esther to say that there was +an old man at the door asking for Mrs. Mesurier. + +"What's his name, Jane?" + +"He wouldn't give it, miss. He said it would be all right. Mrs. Mesurier +would know him well enough." + +"Whoever can it be? What's he like, Jane?" + +"He looks like a workman, miss,--very old, and rather dotey." + +"Who can it be? Go and ask him his name again." + +Esther would then arouse her mother; and the maid would come in to say +that at last the old man had been persuaded to confide his name as +Clegg--Samuel Clegg. + +"Tell the missus it's Samuel Clegg," the old man had said, with a +certain amusing conceit. "She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg." + +"Why!" said Mrs. Mesurier, "it's your father's poor old uncle, Mr. +Clegg. Now, girls, you mustn't run away, but try and be nice to him. +He's a simple, good, old man." + +Mrs. Mesurier was no more interested in Mr. Clegg than her daughters; +but she had a great fund of humanity, and an inexhaustible capacity for +suffering bores brilliantly. + +"Why, I never!" she would say, adapting her idiom to make the old man +feel at home, as he was presently ushered in, chuntering and triumphant; +"you don't mean to say it's Uncle Clegg. Well, we are glad to see you! I +was just having a little nap, and so you must excuse my keeping +you waiting." + +"Ay, Mary. It's right nice of you to make me so welcome. I got a bit +misdoubtful at the door, for the young maid seemed somehow a little +frightened of me; but when I told the name it was all right. 'Samuel +Clegg,' I said. 'She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg,' I said." + +"Glad indeed," murmured Mrs. Mesurier, "I should think so. Find a chair +for your uncle, Esther." + +"Ay, the name did it," chuckled the old man, who as a matter of fact was +anything but a humble old person, and to whom the bare fact of +existence, and the name of Clegg, seemed warrant enough for thinking +quite a lot of yourself. + +"I'm afraid you don't remember your old uncle," said the old man to +Esther, looking dimly round, and rather bewildered by the fine young +ladies. Actually, he was only a remote courtesy uncle, having married +their father's mother's sister. + +"Oh, of course, Uncle Clegg," said Esther, a true daughter of her +mother; "but, you see, it's a long time since we saw you." + +"And this is Dorcas. Come and kiss your uncle, Dorcas. And this is +Matilda," said Mrs. Mesurier. + +"Ay," said the old man, "and you're all growing up such fine young +ladies. Deary me, Mary, but they must make you feel old." + +"We were just going to have some tea," said Esther; "wouldn't you like a +cup, uncle?" + +"I daresay your uncle would rather have a glass of beer," said Mrs. +Mesurier. + +"Ay, you're right there, Mary," answered the old man, "right there. A +glass of beer is good enough for Samuel Clegg. A glass of beer and some +bread and cheese, as the old saying is, is good enough for a king; but +bread and cheese and water isn't fit for a beggar." + +All laughed obligingly; and the old man turned to a bulging pocket which +had evidently been on his mind from his entrance. + +"I've got a little present here from Esther," he said,--"Esther" being +the aunt after whom Mike's Esther had been named,--bringing out a little +newspaper parcel. "But I must tell you from the beginning. + +"Well, you know, Mary," he continued, "I was feeling rather low +yesterday, and Esther said to me, 'Why not take a day off to-morrow, +Samuel, and see Mary, it'll shake you up a bit, and I'll be bound she's +right glad to see you?' 'Why, lass!' I said, 'it's the very thing. See +if I don't go in the morning.' + +"So this morning," he continued, "she tidies me up--you know her +way--and sends me off. But before I started, she said, 'Here, Samuel, +you must take this, with my love, to Mary.' I've kept it wrapped up in +this drawer for thirty years, and only the other day our Mary Elizabeth +said, 'Mother, you might give me that old jug. It would look nice in our +little parlour.'" "But no!" I says, "Mary Elizabeth, if any one's to have +that jug, it's your Aunt Mary." + +"How kind of her!" murmured Mrs. Mesurier, sympathetically. + +"Yes, those were her words, Mary," said the old man, unfolding the +newspaper parcel, and revealing an ugly little jug of metallically +glistening earthenware, such as were turned out with strange pride from +certain English potteries about seventy years ago. It seemed made in +imitation of metal,--a sort of earthenware pewter; and evidently it had +been a great aesthetic treasure in the eyes of Mrs. Clegg. Mrs. Mesurier +received it accordingly. + +"How pretty," she said, "and how kind of Aunt Esther! They don't make +such things nowadays." + +"No, it's a vallyble relic," said the old man; "but you're worthy of +it, Mary. I'd rather see you have it than any of them. My word, but I'm +glad I've got it here safely. Esther would never have forgiven me.' Now, +Samuel,' she said, as I left, 'mind you get home before dark, and don't +sit on the jug, whatever you do.'" + +Meanwhile the "young ladies" were in imminent danger of convulsions; +and, at that moment, further to enhance the situation, an old lady of +the neighbourhood, who occasionally dropped in for a gossip, was +announced. She was a prim little lady, with "Cranford" curls, and a +certain old-world charm and old-world vanity about her, and very deaf. +She too was a "character" in her way, but so different from old Mr. +Clegg that the entertainment to be expected from their conjunction was +irresistible even to anticipate. + +"This is Mr. Clegg, an uncle of Mr. Mesurier," said poor Mrs. Mesurier, +by way of introduction. + +"Howd'ye do, marm?" said Mr. Clegg, without rising. + +Mrs. Turtle bowed primly. "Are you sure, my dear, I don't interrupt?" +she said to Mrs. Mesurier; "shall I not call in some other day?" + +"Oh, dear, no!" said Mrs. Mesurier. "Esther, get Mrs. Turtle a little +whisky and water." + +"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Turtle, "only the least little drop in the +world, Esther dear. My heart, you know, my dear. Even so short a walk as +this tires me out." + +Mrs. Mesurier responded sympathetically; and then, by way of making +himself pleasant, Mr. Clegg suddenly broke in with such an extraordinary +amenity of old-world gallantry that everybody's hair stood on end. + +"How old do you be?" he said, bowing to the new-comer. + +"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Turtle, putting her hand to her ear; "but +I'm slightly deaf." + +"How old do you be?" shouted the old man. + +Though not unnaturally taken aback at such an unwonted conception of +conversational intercourse, Mrs. Turtle recovered herself with +considerable humour, and, bridling, with an old-world shake of her +head, said,-- + +"What would you take me for?" + +"I should say you were seventy, if you're a day," promptly answered the +old man. + +"Oh, dear, no!" replied Mrs. Turtle, with some pique; "I was only sixty +last January." + +"Well, you carry your age badly," retorted the old man, not to be +beaten. + +"What does he say, my dear?" said the poor old lady turning to Mrs. +Mesurier. + +"You carry your age badly," shouted the determined old man; "she should +see our Esther, shouldn't she, Mary?" + +The silence here of the young people was positively electric with +suppressed laughter. Two of them escaped to explode in another room, and +Esther and her mother were left to save the situation. But on such +occasions as these Mrs. Mesurier grew positively great; and the manner +in which she contrived to "turn the conversation," and smooth over the +terrible hiatus, was a feat that admits of no worthy description. + +Presently the old man rose to go, as the clock neared five. He had +promised to be home before dark, and Esther would think him "benighted" +if he should be late. He evidently had been to America and back in that +short afternoon. + +"Well, Mary, good-bye," he said; "one never knows whether we shall meet +again. I'm getting an old man." + +"Eh, Uncle Clegg, you're worth twenty dead ones yet," said Mrs. +Mesurier, reassuringly. + +"What a strange old gentleman!" said Mrs. Turtle, somewhat bewildered, +as this family apparition left the room. + +"Good-bye, Uncle Clegg," Esther was heard singing in the hall. +"Good-bye, be careful of the steps. Good-bye. Give our love to +Aunt Esther." + +Then the door would bang, and the whole house breathe a gigantic sigh of +humorous relief. + +(This was the kind of thing girls at home had to put up with!) + +"Well, mother, did you ever see such a funny old person?" said Esther, +on her return to the parlour. + +"You mustn't laugh at him," Mrs. Mesurier would say, laughing herself; +"he's a good old man." + +"No doubt he's good enough, mother dear; but he's unmistakably funny," +Esther would reply, with a whimsical thought of the family tree. Yes, +they were a distinguished race! + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN CONCLUDED + +No, the Mesuriers had absolutely nothing to hope for from their +relations,--nothing to look back upon, less to look forward to. Most +families, however poor and even _bourgeois_, had some memories to +dignify them or some one possible contingency of pecuniary inheritance. +At the very least, they had a ghost-story in the family. You seldom read +the biographies of writers or artists without finding references, +however remote, to at least one person of some distinction or substance. +To have had even a curate for an ancestor, or a connection, would have +been something, some frail link with gentility. + +Now if, instead of being a rough old sea-captain of a trading ship, +Grandfather Mesurier had only been a charming old white-headed admiral +living in London, and glad, now and again, to welcome his little country +granddaughters to stay with him! He would probably have been very dull, +but then he would have looked distinguished, and taken one for walks in +the Park, or bought one presents in the Burlington arcade. At least old +admirals always seemed to serve this indulgent purpose in stories. At +all events, he would have been something, some possible link with an +existence of more generous opportunities. Dot and Mat would then at +least have seen a nice boy or two occasionally, and in time got married +as they deserved to be, and thus escape from this little provincial +theatre of Sidon. Who could look at Dot and think that anything short of +a miracle--a miracle like Esther's own meeting with Mike--was going to +find her a worthy mate in Sidon; and, suppose the miracle happened once +more in her case, what of Mat and all the rest? To be the wife of a +Sidonian town-councillor, at the highest,--what a fate! + +Henry and she had often discussed this inadequate outlook for their +younger sisters, quite in the manner of those whose positions of +enlargement were practically achieved. The only thing to be done was for +Henry to make haste to win a name as a writer, and Mike to make his +fortune as an actor. Then another society would be at once opened to +them all. Yes, what wonders were to take place then, particularly when +Mike had made his fortune!--for the financial prospects of the young +people were mainly centred in him. Literature seldom made much +money--except when it wasn't literature. Henry hoped to be too good a +writer to hope to make money as well. But that would be a mere detail, +when Mike was a flourishing manager; for when that had come about, had +not Henry promised him that he would not be too proud to regard him as +his patron to the extent of accepting from him an allowance of, say, a +thousand a year. No, he positively wouldn't agree to more than a +thousand; and Mike had to be content with his promising to take that. + +Meanwhile, what could girls at home do, but watch and wait and make home +as pretty as possible, and, by the aid of books and pictures, reflect as +much light from a larger world into their lives as might be. + +On Henry's going away, the three girls had promptly bespoken the +reversion of his study as a little sitting-room for themselves. Here +they concentrated their books, and some few pictures that appealed to +tastes in revolt against Atlantic liners, but not yet developed to the +appreciation of those true classics of art--to which indeed they had yet +to be introduced. Such half-way masters as Leighton, Alma-Tadema, Sant, +and Dicksee were as yet to them something of what Rossetti and +Burne-Jones, and certain old Italian masters, were soon to become. In +books, they had already learnt from Henry a truer, or at all events a +more strenuous, taste; and they would grapple manfully with Carlyle and +Browning, and presently Meredith, long before their lives had use or +understanding for such tremendous nourishment. + +One evening, as they were all three sitting cosily in Henry's study,--as +they still faithfully called it,--Esther was reading "Pride and +Prejudice" aloud, while Dot and Mat busied themselves respectively with +"macramé" work and a tea-cosy against a coming bazaar. Esther's tasks in +the house were somewhat illustrated by her part in the trio this +evening. Her energies were mainly devoted to "the higher nights" of +housekeeping, to the aesthetic activities of the home,--arranging +flowers, dusting vases and pictures, and so on,--and the lightness of +these employments was, it is to be admitted, an occasionally raised +grievance among the sisters. To Dot and Mat fell much more arduous and +manual spheres of labour. Yet all were none the less grateful for the +decorative innovations which Esther, acting on occasional hints from her +friend Myrtilla Williamson, was able to make; and if it were true that +she hardly took her fair share of bed-making and pastry-cooking, it was +equally undeniable that to her was due the introduction of Liberty silk +curtains and cushions in two or three rooms. She too--alas, for the +mistakes of young taste!--had also introduced painted tambourines, and +swathed the lamps in wonderful turbans of puffed tissue paper. Was she +to receive no credit for these services? Then it was she who had dared +to do battle with her mother's somewhat old-fashioned taste in dress; +and whenever the Mesurier sisters came out in something specially pretty +or fashionable, it was due to Esther. + +Well, on this particular evening, she was, as we have said, taking her +share in the housework by reading "Jane Austen" aloud to Dot and Mat; +when the door suddenly opened, and James Mesurier stood there, a little +aloof,--for it was seldom he entered this room, which perhaps had for +him a certain painful association of his son's rebellion. Perhaps, too, +the picture of this happy little corner of his children--a world +evidently so complete in itself, and daily developing more and more away +from the parent world in the front parlour--gave him a certain pang of +estrangement. Perhaps he too felt as he looked on them that same dreary +sense of disintegration which had overtaken the mother on Henry's +departure; and perhaps there was something of that in his voice, as, +looking at them with rather a sad smile, he said,-- + +"You look very comfortable here, children. I hope that's a profitable +book you are reading, Esther." + +"Oh, yes, father. It's 'Jane Austen,' you know." + +"Well, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I want a few words with Dorcas. +She can join you again soon." + +So Dot, wondering what was in store for her, rose and accompanied her +father to the front parlour, where Mrs. Mesurier was peacefully knitting +in the lamplight. + +"Dorcas, my dear," he said, when the door was closed, "your mother and +I have had a serious talk this evening on the subject of your joining +the church. You are now nearly sixteen, and of an age to think for +yourself in such matters; and we think it is time that you made some +profession of your faith as a Christian before the world." + +The Church James Mesurier referred to was that branch of the English +Nonconformists known as Baptists; and the profession of faith was the +curious rite of baptism by complete immersion, the importance claimed +for which by this sect is, perhaps, from a Christian point of view, made +the less disproportionate by another condition attaching to it,--the +condition that not till years of individual judgment have been reached +is one eligible for the sacred rite. With that rationalism which +religious sects are so skilful in applying to some unimportant point of +ritual, and so careful not to apply to vital questions of dogma, the +Baptists reasonably argue that to baptise an unthinking infant, and, by +an external rite which has no significance except as the symbol of an +internal decision, declare him a Christian, is nothing more than an +idolatrous mummery. Wait till the child is of age to choose for him or +herself, to understand the significance of the Christian revelation and +the nature of the profession it is called upon to make; then if, by the +grace of God, it chooses aright, let him or her be baptised. And for the +manner of that baptism, if symbols are to be made use of by the +Christian church,--and it is held wise among the Baptists to make use of +few, and those the most central,--should they not be designed as nearly +after the fashion set forth in the Bible itself as is possible? The +"Ordinance" of the Lord's Supper--as it is called amongst them--follows +the procedure of the Last Supper as recorded in the Gospels; should not, +therefore, the rite of baptism be in its details similarly faithful to +authority? Now in Scripture, as is well known, baptisms were complete +immersions, symbolic alike of the washing away of sin, and also of the +dying to this world and the resurrection to the Life eternal in +Christ Jesus. + +So much theology was bred in the bone of all the young Mesuriers; and +the youngest of them could as readily have capitulated these articles of +belief as their father, who once more briefly summarised them to-night +for the benefit of his daughter. He ended with something of a personal +appeal. It had been one of the griefs of his life that Henry and Esther +had both refused to join their father's church, though Esther always +dutifully attended it every Sunday morning; and it was thinking of them, +though without naming them, that he said,-- + +"I met Mr. Trotter yesterday,"--Mr. Trotter was the local Baptist +minister, and Dot remarked to herself that her father was able to +pronounce his name without the smallest suspicion that such a name, as +belonging to a minister of divine mysteries, was rather ludicrous, +though indeed Baptist ministers seemed always to have names like +that!--"and he asked me when some of my young ladies were going to join +the church. I confess the question made me feel a little ashamed; for, +you know, my dear, out of our large family not one of you has yet come +forward as a Christian." + +"No, father," said Dot, at last. + +"I hope, my dear, you are not going to disappoint me in this matter." + +"No indeed, father," said Dot, whose nature was pliable and +sympathetic, as well as fundamentally religious; "but I'm afraid I +haven't thought quite as much about it as I should like to, and, if you +don't mind, I should like to have a few days to think it out." + +"Of course, my dear. That is a very right feeling; for the step is a +solemn one, and should not be taken without reverent thought. You cannot +do better than to talk it over with Mr. Trotter. If you have any +difficulties, you can tell him; and I'm sure he would be delighted to +help you. Isn't it so, mother? Well, dear," he continued, "you can run +away now; but bear in mind what I have said, and I shall hope to hear +that you have made the right choice before long. Kiss me, dear." + +And so, with something of a lump in her throat, Dot returned to the +interrupted "Jane Austen." + +"Whatever did father want?" asked the two girls, looking up as she +entered the room. + +"What do you think?" said Dot. "He wants me to be baptised!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +DOT'S DECISION + +Now, in thus appealing to Dot, her father had appealed to just the one +out of all his children who was least likely to disappoint him. To Dot +and Henry had unmistakably been transmitted the largest share of their +father's spirituality. Esther was not actively religious, any more than +she was actively poetic. Hers was one of those composite, admirably +balanced natures which include most qualities and faculties, but no one +in excess of another. Such make those engaging good women of the world, +who are able to understand and sympathise with the most diverse +interests and temperaments; as it is the characteristic of a good critic +to understand all those various products of art, which it would be +impossible for him to create. Thus Esther could have delighted a saint +with her sympathetic comprehension, as she could have healed the wounds +of a sinner by her comprehensive sympathy; but it was certain she would +never be, in sufficient excess, spiritually wrought or sensually +rebellious to be one or the other. She was beautifully, buoyantly +normal, with a happy, expansive, enjoying nature, glad in the sunlight, +brave in the shadow, optimistically looking forward to blithe years of +life and love with Mike and her friends, and not feeling the necessity +of being anxious about her soul, or any other world but this. She was +not shallow; but she merely realised life more through her intelligence +than through her feelings. To have become a Baptist would have offended +her intelligence, without bringing any satisfaction to spiritual +instincts not, in any event, clamorous. + +As for Henry, it was not only activity of intelligence, but activity of +spirituality, that made it impossible for him to embrace any such narrow +creed as that proposed to him; and, for the present, that spiritual +activity found ample scope for itself in poetry. + +Dot's, however, was an intermediate case. With an intelligence active +too, she united a spirituality torturingly intense, but for which she +had no such natural creative outlet as Henry. With her loss of the old +creed,--in discarding which these three sisters had followed the lead of +their brother with a curious instinctiveness, almost, it would seem, +independent of reasoning,--her spirituality had been left somewhat +bleakly houseless, and she had often longed for some compromise by which +she could reconcile her intelligence to the acceptance of some +established home of faith, whose kindly enclosing walls should be more +genially habitable to the soul than the cold, star-lit spaces which +Henry declared to be sufficient temple. + +Perhaps Esther's commiseration of her sisters' narrow opportunities was, +so far as it related to Dot, a little unnecessary, for indeed Dot's +ambitions were not social. By nature shy and meditative, and with her +religious bias, had she been born into a Catholic family, she might not +improbably have found the world well lost in a sisterhood. The Puritan +conscience had an uncomfortable preponderance in the deep places of her +nature, and, far down in her soul, like her father, she would ask +herself if pleasure could be the end of life--was there not something +serious each of us could and ought to do, to justify his place in the +world? Were we not all under some mysterious solemn obligation to do +something, however little, in return for life? + +Mat, on the other hand, had no such scruples. She was more like Esther +in nature, with a touch of cynicism curling her dainty lip, arising, +perhaps, from an early divination that she was to lack Esther's +opportunities. Perhaps it was because she was the pessimist--the quite +cheerful pessimist--of the family, that she was by far the cleverest and +most industrious at the housework. If it was her fate to be Cinderella, +she might as well make the best of it, with a cynical endurance and +good-humour, and be Cinderella with a good grace. Probably the only +glass slipper in the family had already fallen to Esther. Never mind, +though her good looks might fade with being a good girl at home, year by +year, what did it matter, after all? Nothing mattered in the end. And +thus, out of a great indifference, Mat developed a great unselfishness; +and if you could name one special angel in the house of the Mesuriers, +she was unmistakably Mat. + +In addition to her religious promptings, Dot had lately developed a +great sympathy for her father. Standing a little aside from the conflict +between him and Henry, she was able to divine something of the feelings +of both; and she had now and again caught a look of loneliness on her +father's face that made her ready to do almost anything to please him. + +Of course the question was one for general consultation. She knew what +Henry would say. It didn't much matter anyhow, he would say, but it was +a pity. How was intellectual freedom to be won, if those who had seen +the light should thus deliberately forego it, time after time, from such +merely sentimental reasons? And when she saw Henry, that was just what +he did say. + +"But," she said, "it would make father so happy." + +"Yes, I know," he answered; "and it would be very beautiful of you. +Besides, of course, in one way it's only a matter of symbolism; but +then, on the other hand, it's symbolism hardened into dogmatism that has +done all the mischief. Do it, dear, if you like; I hardly know what to +say. As you say, it will make father happy, and I shall quite +understand." + +Dot was one of those natures that like to seek, and are liable to take, +advice; so, after seeing Henry, she thought she would see what Mr. +Trotter had to say; for, in spite of his unfortunate name, Mr. Trotter +was a gentle, cultivated mind, and was indeed somewhat incongruously, +perhaps in a mild way Jesuitically, circumstanced as a Baptist minister. +Henry and he were great friends on literary matters; and Dot and he had +had many talks, greatly helpful to her, on spiritual things. In fact, +Chrysostom Trotter was one of those numerous half-way men between the +old beliefs and their new modifications, which the continuous advance of +scientific discovery and philosophical speculation on the one hand, and +the obstinate survival of Christianity on the other, necessitate--if men +of spiritual intuitions who are not poets and artists are to earn their +living. There was nothing you could say to Chrysostom Trotter, provided +you said it reverently, that would startle him. He knew all that long +ago and far more. For, though obliged to trade in this backwater of +belief, he was in many respects a very modern mind. You were hardly +likely to know your Herbert Spencer as intimately as he, and all the +most exquisite literature of doubt was upon his shelves. Though you +might declare him superficially disingenuous, you could not, unless you +were some commonplace atheist or materialist, gainsay the honest logic +of his position. + +"You believe that the world, that life, is a spiritual mystery?" he +would say. + +"Yes." + +"You do not for a moment think that any materialistic science has +remotely approached an adequate explanation of its meaning?" + +"Certainly not." + +"You believe too that, however it comes about, and whatever it means, +there is an eternal struggle in man between what, for sake of argument, +we will call the higher and lower natures?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, then, this spiritual mystery, this struggle, are hinted at in +various media of human expression, in an ever-changing variety of human +symbols. Art chiefly concerns itself with the sexual mystery, with the +wonderful love of man and woman, in its explanation of which alone +science is so pitifully inadequate. Literature more fully concerns +itself with the mystery of man's indestructibly instinctive relation to +what we call the unseen,--that is, the Whole, the Cosmos, God, or +whatever you please to call it. But more than literature, religion has +for centuries concerned itself with these considerations, has +consciously and industriously sought to make itself the science of what +we call the soul. It has thrown its observations, just as poetry and art +have thrown their observations, into symbolic forms, of which +Christianity is incomparably the most important. You don't reject the +revelation of human love because Hero and Leander are probably creations +of the poet's fancy. Will you reject the revelation of divine love, +because it chances, for its greater efficiency in winning human hearts, +to have found expression in a similar human symbolism? Personally, I +hold that Christ actually lived, and was literally the Son of God; but, +were the human literalness of his divine story discredited, the eternal +verities of human degeneration, and a mysterious regeneration, would be +no whit disproved. Externally, Christianity may be a symbol; +essentially, it is a science of spiritual fact, as really as geology is +a science of material fact. + +"And as for its miraculous, supernatural, side,--are the laws of nature +so easy to understand that we should find such a difficulty in accepting +a few divergencies from them? He who can make laws for so vast a +universe may surely be capable of inventing a few comparatively trivial +exceptions." + +Not perhaps in so many words, but in some such spirit, would Chrysostom +Trotter argue; and it was in some such fashion that he talked in his +charmingly sympathetic way with Dorcas Mesurier, one afternoon, as she +had tea with him in a study breathing on every hand the man of letters, +rather than the minister of a somewhat antiquated sect. + +"My dear Dorcas," he said, "you know me well enough--you know me perhaps +better than your father knows me--know me well enough to believe that I +wouldn't urge you to do this thing if I didn't think it was right _for +you_--as well as for your father and me. But I know it is right, and for +this reason. You are a deeply religious nature, but you need some +outward symbol to hold on to,--you need, so to say, the magnetising +association of a religious organisation. Henry can get along very well, +as many poets have, with his birds and his sunsets and so forth; but you +need something more authoritative. It happens that the church I +represent, the church of your father, is nearest to you. You might, with +all the goodwill in the world, so far as I am concerned, embrace some +other modification of the Christian faith; but here is a church, so to +say, ready for you, familiar by long association, endeared to your +father. You believe in God, you believe in the spiritual meaning of +life, you believe that we poor human beings need something to keep our +eyes fixed upon that spiritual meaning--well, dear Dorcas," he ended, +abruptly, "what do you think?" + +"I'll do it," said Dot. + +"Good girl," said the minister; "sometimes it is a form of righteousness +to waive our doubts for those who are at once so dear and good as your +father. And don't for a moment think that it will leave you just where +you are. These outward acts are great energisers of the soul. Dear +Dorcas, I welcome you into one of God's many churches." + +So it was that Dot came to be baptised; and, to witness the ceremony, +all the Mesuriers assembled at the chapel that Sunday evening,--even +Henry, who could hardly remember when he used to sit in this +still-familiar pew, and scribble love-verses in the back of his +hymn-book during the sermon. + +To the mere mocker, the rite of baptism by immersion might well seem a +somewhat grotesque antic of sectarianism; but to any one who must needs +find sympathy for any observance into which, in whatsoever forgotten and +superseded time, has passed the prayerful enthusiasm of man, the rite +could hardly fail of a moving solemnity. As Chrysostom Trotter ordered +it, it was certainly made to yield its fullest measure of +impressiveness. To begin with, the chapel was quite a comely edifice +inside and out; and its ministerial end, with its singers' gallery +backed by great organ pipes, and fronted by a handsome pulpit, which Mr. +Trotter had dared to garnish with chrysanthemums on each side of his +Bible, had a modest, sacerdotal effect. Beneath the pulpit on ordinary +occasions stood the Communion-table; but on evenings when the rite of +baptism was prepared, this table, and a boarding on which it stood, +were removed, revealing a tiled baptistry,--that is, a tiled tank, about +eight feet long, and six wide, with steps on each side descending into +about four feet of water. + +Towards the close of the service, the minister would leave his pulpit, +and, during the singing of a hymn, would presently emerge from his +vestry in a long waterproof garment. As the hymn ended, some "sister" or +"brother" that night to be admitted into the church, would timidly join +him at the baptistry side, and together they would go down into +the water. + +Holding the hands of the new communicant, the minister, in a solemn +voice, would say, "Sister," or "Brother, on confession of your faith in +our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I baptise thee in the name of the +Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." + +Then the organ would strike up a triumphant peal, and, to the +accompaniment of its music and the mellow plashing of the water, the +sister or brother would be plunged beneath the symbolic wave. + +Great was the excitement, needless to say, in the Mesurier pew, as +little Dot at last came forth from the vestry, and, stealing down into +the water, took the minister's out-stretched hands. + +"There she is! There's Dot!" passed round the pew, and the hardest young +heart, whoever it belonged to, stopped beating, to hear the minister's +words. They seemed to come with a special personal tenderness,-- + +"Sister, on confession of your faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus +Christ, I baptise thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of +the Holy Ghost." + +Once more the organ triumphant, and the mellow splashing of the water. + +Dear little Dot, she had done it! + +"Did you see father's face?" Esther whispered to Henry. + +Yes; perhaps none of them would ever do such a beautiful thing as Dot +had done that night. At least there was one of James Mesurier's children +who had not disappointed him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +MIKE AND HIS MILLION POUNDS + + +The most exquisite compliment a man has ever paid to him is worded +something like this: "Well, dear, you certainly know how to make love;" +and this compliment is always the reward, not of passion however +sustained, or sentiment however refined, but of humour whimsically +fantasticating and balancing both. It is the gentle laugh, not +violating, but just humanising, that very solemn kiss; the quip that +just saves passion from toppling over the brink into bathos, that mark +the skilful lover. No lover will long be successful unless he is a +humourist too, and is able to keep the heart of love amused. A lover +should always be something of an actor as well; not, of course, for the +purpose of feigning what he does not feel, but so that he may the better +dramatise his sincerity! + +Mike had therefore many advantages over those merely pretty fellows +whose rivalry he had once been modest enough to fear. He was a master +of all the child's play of love; and to attempt to describe the fancies +which he found to vary the game of love, would be to run the risk of +exposing the limitations of the literary medium. No words can pull those +whimsical faces, or put on those heart-breaking pathetic expressions, +with which he loved to meet Esther after some short absence. Sometimes +he would come into the room, a little forlorn sparrow of a creature, +signifying, by a dejection in which his very clothes took part, that he +was out in the east wind of circumstance and no one in the world cared a +shabby feather for him. He would stand shivering in a corner, and look +timorously from side to side, till at last he would pretend she had +warmed him with her kisses, and generally made him welcome to the world. + +Sometimes he would come in with his collar dismally turned up, and an +old battered hat upon his head, and pretend that he hadn't had a +meal--of kisses--for a whole week; and occasionally he would come +blowing out his cheeks like a king's trumpeter, to announce that Mike +Laflin might be at any moment expected. But for the most part these +impersonations were in a minor key, as Mike had soon discovered that the +more pathetic he was, the more he was hugged and called a "weenty," +which was one of his own sad little names for himself. + +One of his "long-run" fairy-tales, as he would call them, was that each +morning as he went to business, he really started out in search of a +million pounds, which was somewhere awaiting him, and which he might +break his shins over at any moment. It might be here, it might be there, +it might come at any hour of the day. The next post might bring it. It +might be in yonder Parcel Delivery van,--nothing more probable. Or at +any moment it might fall from heaven in a parachute, or be at that +second passing through the dock-gates, wearily home from the Islands of +Sugar and Spice. You never could tell. + +"Well, Mike," said Esther, one evening, as he came in, hopping in a +pitifully wounded way, and explaining that he had been one of the three +ravens sitting on a bough which the cruel huntsman had shot through the +wing, etc., "have you found your million pounds to-day?" + +"No, not my million pounds," said Mike. "I'm told I shall find them +to-morrow." + +"Who told you?" + +"The Weenty." + +"You silly old thing! Give me a kiss. Are you a dear? Tell me, aren't +you a dear?" + +"No-p! I'm only a poor little houseless, roofless, windowless, +chimney-less, Esther-less, brainless, +out-in-the-wind-and-the-snow-and-the-rain, Mike!" + +"You're the biggest dear in the world!" + +"No, I'm not. I'm the littlest!" + +"Suppose you found your million pounds, Mike?" + +"Suppose! Didn't I tell you I'm sure of it to-morrow?" + +"Well, when you find it to-morrow, what will you do with it?" + +"I'll buy the moon." + +"The moon?" + +"Yes; as a present for Henry." + +"Wouldn't it be rather dear?" + +"Not at all. Twenty thousand would buy it any time this last hundred +years. But the worst of it is, no one wants it but the poets, and they +cannot afford it. Yet if only a poet could get hold of it, why what a +literary property it would be!" + +"You silly old thing!" + +"No! but you don't seem to realise that I'm quite serious. Think of the +money there would be for any poet who had acquired the exclusive +literary rights in the moon! Within a week I'd have it placarded all +over, 'Literary trespassers will be prosecuted!' And then I've no doubt +Henry would lend me the Man in the Moon for my Christmas pantomimes." + +"After all, it's not a bad idea," said Esther. + +"Of course it's not," said Mike; "but be careful not to mention it to +Henry just yet. I shouldn't like to disappoint him--for, of course, +before we took any final steps in the purchase, we'd have to make sure +that it wasn't, as some people think, made of green cheese." + +"But never mind about the moon. Tell us how you got on with The +Sothern." + +The Sothern was an amateur dramatic club in Tyre which took itself very +seriously, and to which Mike was seeking admission, as a first step +towards London management. He had that day passed an examination before +three of the official members, solemn and important as though they had +been the Honourable Directors of Drury Lane, and had been admitted to +membership in the club, with the promise of a small part in their +forthcoming performance. + +"Oh, that's good!" said Esther. "What were they like?" + +"Oh, they were all right,--rather humorous. They gave me 'Eugene Aram' +to read--Me reading 'Eugene Aram'!--and a scene out of 'London +Assurance,' which was, of course, better. Naturally, not one of the men +was the remotest bit like himself. One was a queer kind of Irving, +another a sad sort of Arthur Roberts, and the other was--shall we say, a +Tyrian Wyndham." + +Actors, like poets, have provincial parodists of their styles in even +greater numbers, so adoringly imitative is humanity. Some day, Mike +would have his imitators,--boys who pulled faces like his, and prided +themselves on having the Laflin wrinkles; just as it was once the +fashion for girls to look like Burne-Jones pictures, or young poets to +imitate Mr. Swinburne. + +"Yes, I've got my first part. I've got it in my pocket," said Mike. + +"Oh, really! That's splendid!" exclaimed Esther, with delight. + +"Wait till you see it," said Mike, bringing out a French's acting +edition of some forgotten comedy. "Yes; guess how many words I've got to +say! Just exactly eleven. And such words!" + +"Well, never mind, dear. It's a beginning." + +"Certainly, it's a beginning,--the very beginning of a beginning." + +"Come, let me see it, Mike. What are you supposed to be?" + +At last Mike was persuaded to confess the humble little _rôle_ for which +the eminent actors who had consented to be his colleagues had cast him. +He was to be the comic boy of a pastry-cook's man, and his distinguished +part in the action of the piece was to come in at a certain moment with +the pie that had been ordered, and, as he delivered it, he was to +remark, "That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!" + +"Oh, Mike, what a shame!" exclaimed Esther. "How absurd! Why, you're a +better actor with your little finger than any one of them with their +whole body." + +"Ah, but they don't know that yet, you see." + +"Any one could see it if they looked at your face half-a-minute." + +"I wanted to play the part of Snodgrass; but they couldn't think of +giving me that, of course. So, do you know what I pretended, to comfort +myself? I pretended I was Edward Kean waiting in the passages at Drury +Lane, with all the other fine fellows looking down at the shabby little +gloomy man from the provinces. That was conceit for you, wasn't it?" + +The pathos of this was, of course, irresistible to Esther, and Mike was +thereupon hugged and kissed as he expected. + +"Never mind," he said, "you'll see if I don't make something of the poor +little part after all." + +And, thereupon, he described what he laughingly called his "conception," +and how he proposed to dress and make up, so vividly that it was evident +that the pastry-cook's boy was already to him a personality whose +actions and interests were by no means limited to his brief appearance +on the stage, but who, though accidentally he had but few words to speak +before the audience, was a very voluble and vital little person in +scenes where the audience did not follow him. + +"Yes, you see I'll do something with it. The best of a small part," +said Mike, speaking as one of experience, "is that it gives you plenty +of opportunity for making the audience wish there was more of it." + +"From that point of view, you certainly couldn't have a finer part," +laughed Esther. + +Then for a moment Mike skipped out of the room, and presently knocked, +and, putting in a funny face, entered carrying a cushion with alacrity. + +"That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!" he fooled, throwing the +cushion into Esther's lap, where presently his little red head found +its way too. + +"How can you love such a silly little creature?" he said, looking up +into Esther's blue eyes. + +"I don't know, I'm sure," said Esther; "but I do," and, bending down, +she kissed the wistful boy's face. Was it because Esther was in a way +his mother, as well as his sweetheart, that she seemed to do all +the kissing? + +Thus was Mike's first part rehearsed and rewarded. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ON CERTAIN ADVANTAGES OF A BACKWATER + + +Though from a maritime point of view, Tyre was perhaps the chief centre +of conjunction for all the main streams of the world, from the point of +view of literature and any other art, it was an admitted backwater. Take +what art you pleased, Tyre was a dunce. Even to music, the most +persuasive of the arts, it was deaf. Surely, of all cities, it had not +been built to music. It possessed, indeed, one private-spirited +town-councillor, who insisted on presenting it with nude sculptures and +mysterious paintings which it furiously declined. If Tyre was to be +artistically great, it must certainly be with a greatness reluctantly +thrust upon it. + +Still Henry and Ned had sense enough to be glad that they had been born +there. It was from no mere recognition of an inexpensively effective +background; perhaps they hardly knew why they were glad till later on. +But, meanwhile, they instinctively laid hold of the advantages of their +limitations. Had they been London-born and Oxford-bred, they would have +been much more fashionable in their tastes; but their very isolation, +happily, saved them from the passing superstitions of fashion; and they +were thus able to enjoy the antiquities of beauty with the same +freshness of appetite as though they had been novelties. If Henry was to +meet Ned some evening with the announcement that he had a wonderful new +book to share with him, it was just as likely to be Sir Philip Sidney's +"Astrophel and Stella," as any more recent publication--though, indeed, +they contrived to keep in touch with the literary developments of the +day with a remarkable instinct, and perhaps a juster estimate of their +character and value than those who were taking part in them; for it is +seldom that one can be in the movement and at the centre as well. + +As a matter of fact, there was little that interested them, or which at +all events didn't disappoint and somewhat bewilder. The novel was +groaning under the thraldom of realism; poetry, with one or two +exceptions, was given up to bric-a-brac and metrical ingenuity. To +young men for whom French romanticism was still alive, who were still +content to see the world through the spiritual eyes of Shelley and +Keats, and who had not yet learned to belittle Carlyle, there seemed a +strange lack of generosity and, indeed, vitality in the literary ideals +of the hour. The novel particularly seemed barren and unprofitable to +them, more and more an instrument of science than a branch of +literature. Laughter had deserted it, as clearly as romance or pathos, +and more and more it was becoming the vehicle of cynical biology on the +one hand, and Unitarian theology on the other. Besides, strangest of +all, men were praised for lacking those very qualities which to these +boys had seemed essential to literature. The excellences praised were +the excellences of science, not literature. In fact, there seemed to be +but one excellence, namely, accuracy of observation; and to write a +novel with any eye to beauty of language was to err, as the writer of a +scientific treatise would err who endeavoured to add charm and grace to +the sober record of his investigations. Dull sociological analysts +reigned in the once laughing domain of Cervantes, of Fielding and +Thackeray, of Dumas and Dickens, of Hugo and Gautier and George Sand. + +Were they born too late? Were they anachronisms from the forgotten age +of romanticism, or were they just born in time to assist at the birth of +another romantic, idealistic age? Would dreams and love and beautiful +writing ever come into fashion again? Would the poet be again a creature +of passion, and the novelist once more make you laugh and cry; and would +there be essayists any more, whose pages you would mark and whose +phrases you would roll over and over again on your tongue, with delight +at some mysterious magic in the words? + +History may be held to have answered these questions since then, much in +favour of those young men, or at all events is engaged in answering +them; but, meanwhile, what a miraculous refreshment in a dry and thirsty +land was the new book Henry Mesurier had just discovered, and had +eagerly brought to share with Ned in their tavern corner one summer +evening in 1885. + +Ned was late; but when Henry had sipped a little at his port, and turned +to the new-born exquisite pages, he hardly noticed how the minutes were +going by as he read. Presently he had come to the end of the first +volume, the only one he had with him, and he raised his eyes from the +closing page with that exquisite exaltation, that beatific satisfaction +of mind and spirit,--even almost one might say of body,--which for the +lover of literature nothing in the world like a fine passage can bring. + +He turned again to the closing sentences: "_Yes; what was wanting was +the heart that would make it impossible to witness all this; and the +future would be with the forces that would beget a heart like that. His +favourite philosophy had said, Trust the eye. Strive to be right always, +regarding the concrete experience. Never falsify your impressions. And +its sanction had been at least effective here, in saying: It is what I +may not see! Surely, evil was a real thing; and the wise man wanting in +the sense of it, where not to have been, by instinctive election, on the +right side was to have failed in life_." + +The passage referred to the Roman gladiatorial shows, and to the +philosophic detachment by which Marcus Aurelius was able to see and yet +not to see them; and the whole book was the spiritual story of a young +Roman's soul, a priestlike artistic temperament, born in the haunted +twilight between the setting sun of pagan religion and philosophy and +the dawn of the Christian idea. The theme presented many fascinating +analogies to the present time; and in the hero's "sensations and ideas" +Henry found many correspondences with his own nature. In him, too, was +united that same joy in the sensuous form, that same adoration of the +spiritual mystery, the temperaments in one of artist and priest. He, +too, in a dim fashion indeed, and under conditions of culture less +favourable, had speculated and experimented in a similar manner upon the +literary art over which as yet he had acquired--how crushingly this +exquisite book taught him--such pathetically uncertain mastery. That +impassioned comradeship in books beautiful, was it not to-day Ned's and +his, as all those years before it had been that of Marius and Flavian? + +And where in the world _was_ Ned? How he would kindle at a passage like +this: "_To keep the eye clear by a sort of exquisite personal alacrity +and cleanliness, extending even to his dwelling-place; to discriminate, +ever more and more exactly, select form and colour in things from what +was less select; to meditate much on beautiful visible objects, on +objects, more especially, connected with the period of youth,--on +children at play in the morning, the trees in early spring, on young +animals, on the fashions and amusements of young men; to keep ever by +him, if it were but a single choice flower, a graceful animal or +sea-shell, as a token and representation of the whole kingdom of such +things; to avoid jealously, in his way through the world, everything +repugnant to sight; and, should any circumstance tempt him to a general +converse in the range of such objects, to disentangle himself from that +circumstance at any cost of place, money, or opportunity: such were, in +brief outline, the duties recognised, the rights demanded, in this new +formula of life_." + +And again, what gleaming single phrases, whole counsels of existence in +a dozen words! He must copy out some of them for Esther. This, for +example: "_Not pleasure, but fulness, completeness of life generally_," +or this: "_To be able to make use of the flower when the fruit, perhaps, +was useless or poisonous_" or again this: "_To be absolutely virgin +towards a direct and concrete experience_"--and there were a +hundred more. + +Then for the young craftsman what an insight into, what a compassionate, +childish remembrance of the moods and the little foolish accidents of +creation: "_His dilettanteism, his assiduous preoccupation with what +might seem but the details of mere form or manner, was, after all, bent +upon the function of bringing to the surface, sincerely and in their +integrity, certain strong personal intuitions, certain visions or +apprehensions of things as being, with important results, in this way +rather than that--apprehensions which the artistic or literary +expression was called upon to follow, with the exactness of wax or clay, +clothing the model within it. Flavian, too, with his fine, clear mastery +of the practically effective, had early laid hold of the principle, as +axiomatic in literature: That 'to know when one's self is interested, is +the first condition of interesting other people'"_ And once more: "_As +it oftenest happens also, with natures of genuinely poetic quality, +those piecemeal beginnings came suddenly to harmonious completeness +among the fortunate incidents, the physical heat and light, of one +singularly happy day_." + +And, over all, what a beauty! a beauty at once so sensuous and so +spiritual--the beauty of flowering laurel, the beauty of austerity +aflower. Here the very senses prayed. Surely this was the most +beautiful prose book ever written! It had been compared, he saw, with +Gautier's "Mademoiselle de Maupin;" but was not the beauty of that +masterpiece, in comparison with the beauty of this, as the beauty of a +leopard-skin to the beauty of a statue of Minerva, withdrawn in a +grove of ilex. + +Still Ned delayed, and, meanwhile, the third glass of port had come and +gone, and at length, reluctantly, Henry emerged from his tavern-cloister +upon the warm brilliancy of the streets. All around him the lights +beaconed, and the women called with bright eyes. But to-night there was +no temptation for him in these things. They but recalled another +exquisite quotation from his new-found treasure, which he stopped under +a lamp to fix in his memory: "_And, as the fresh, rich evening came on, +there was heard all over Rome, far above a whisper, the whole town +seeming hushed to catch it distinctly, the living, reckless call to +'play,' from the sons and daughters of foolishness to those in whom +their life was still green_--Donec virenti canities abest! Donec virenti +canities abest! _Marius could hardly doubt how Cornelius would have +taken the call. And as for himself, slight as was the burden of +positive moral obligation with which he had entered Rome, it was to no +wasteful and vagrant affections, such as these, that his Epicureanism +had committed him_." + +But what could have happened to Ned? + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE MAN IN POSSESSION + + +One morning, two or three months after Henry had left home, old Mr. +Lingard came to him as he sat bent, drearily industrious, over some +accounts, and said that he wished him in half-an-hour's time to go with +him to a new client; and presently the two set out together, Henry +wondering what it was to be, and welcoming anything that even exchanged +for a while one prison-house for another. + +"I am taking you," said the old man, as they walked along together, "to +a firm of carriers and carters whose affairs have just come into our +hands; there is a dispute arisen between the partners. We represent +certain interests, as I shall presently explain to you, and you are to +be _our_ representative,--our man in possession," and the old gentleman +laughed uncannily. + +"You never expected to be a man in possession, did you?" + +Henry thrilled with a sense of awful intimacy, thus walking and even +jesting with his august employer. + +"It may very likely be a long business," the old man continued; "and I +fear may be a little dull for you. For you must be on the spot all day +long. Your lunch will be served to you from the manager's house; I will +see to that. Actually, there will be very little for you to do, beyond +looking over the day-book and receipts for the day. The main thing is +for you to be there,--so to say, the moral effect of your +presence,"--and the old gentleman laughed again. Then, with an amused +sympathy that seemed almost exquisite to Henry, he chuckled out, looking +at him, from one corner of his eye, like a roguish skeleton-- + +"You'll be able to write as much poetry as you like. I see you've got a +book with you. Well, it will keep you awake. I don't mind that,--or even +the poetry,--so long as you don't forget the day-book." + +"Thank you, sir," said Henry, almost hysterically. + +"I suppose," the old man continued, presently, and in all he said there +was a tone of affectionate banter that quite won Henry's heart, "that +you're still as set on literature as ever. Well, well, far be it from me +to discourage you; but, my dear boy, you'll find out that we can't live +on dreams." (Henry thought, but didn't dare to say, that it was dreams +alone that made it possible to live at all.) "I suppose you think I'm a +dried-up old fellow enough. Well, well, I've had my dreams too. Yes, +I've had my dreams,"--Henry thought of what he had discovered that day +in the old man's diary,--"and I've written my verses to my lady's +eyebrow in my time too. Ah, my boy, we are all young and foolish once in +our lives!" and it was evident what a narrow and desperate escape from +being a poet the old man had had. + +They had some distance to walk, for the stables to which they were bound +were situated in an old and rather disreputable part of the town. "It's +not a nice quarter," said Mr. Lingard, "not particularly salubrious or +refined," as bad smells and dirty women began to cross their path; "but +they are nice people you've got to deal with, and the place itself is +clean and nice enough, when you once get inside." + +"Here we are," he said, presently, as they stopped short of an +old-fashioned house, set in a high red-brick wall which seemed to +enclose quite a considerable area of the district. In the wall, a yard +or two from the house, was set a low door, with a brass bell-pull at the +side which answered to Mr. Lingard's summons with a far-off clang. Soon +was heard the sound of hob-nailed boots, evidently over a paved yard, +and a big carter admitted them to the enclosure, which immediately +impressed them with its sense of country stable-yard cleanliness, and +its country smell of horses and provender. The stones of the courtyard +seemed to have been individually washed and scoured, and a small space +in front of a door evidently leading to the house was chalked over in +the prim, old-fashioned way. + +"Is Mr. Flower about?" asked Mr. Lingard; and, as he asked the question, +a handsome, broad-shouldered man of about forty-five came down the yard. +It was a massive country face, a little heavy, a little slow, but +exceptionally gentle and refined. + +"Good-morning, Mr. Lingard." + +"Good-morning, Mr. Flower. This is our representative, Mr. Mesurier, of +whom I have already spoken to you. I'm sure you will get on well +together; and I'm sure he will give you as little trouble as possible." + +Henry and Mr. Flower shook hands, and, as men sometimes do, took to each +other at once in the grasp of each other's hands, and the glances which +accompanied it. + +Then the three walked further up the yard, to the little office where +Henry was to pass the next few weeks; and as Mr. Lingard turned over +books, and explained to Henry what he was expected to do, the sound of +horses kicking their stalls, and rattling chains in their mangers, came +to him from near at hand with a delightful echo of the country. + +When Mr. Lingard had gone, Mr. Flower asked Henry if he'd care to look +at the horses. Henry sympathetically consented, though his knowledge of +horse-flesh hardly equalled his knowledge of accounts. But with the +healthy animal, in whatever form, one always feels more or less at home, +as one feels at home with the green earth, or that simple creature +the sea. + +Mr. Flower led the way to a long stable where some fifty horses +protruded brown and dappled haunches on either hand. It was all +wonderfully clean and sweet, and the cobbled pavement, the straw beds, +the hay tumbling in sweet-scented bunches into the stalls from the loft +overhead, made you forget that around this bucolic enclosure swarmed and +rotted the foulest slums of the city, garrets where coiners plied their +amateur mints, and cellars where murderers lay hidden in the dark. + +"It's like a breath of the country," said Henry, unconsciously striking +the right note. + +"You're right there," said Mr. Flower, at the same moment heartily +slapping the shining side of a big chestnut mare, after the approved +manner of men who love horses. To thus belabour a horse on its +hinder-parts would seem to be equivalent among the horse-breeding +fraternity to chucking a buxom milkmaid under the chin. + +"You're right there," he said; "and here's a good Derbyshire lass for +you," once more administering a sounding caress upon his sleek +favourite. + +The horse turned its head and whinnied softly at the attention; and it +was evident it loved the very sound of Mr. Flower's voice. + +"Have you ever been to Derbyshire?" asked Mr. Flower, presently, and +Henry immediately scented an idealism in the question. + +"No," he answered; "but I believe it's a beautiful county." + +"Beautiful's no name for it," said Mr. Flower; "it's just a garden." + +And as Henry caught a glance of his eyes, he realised that Derbyshire +was Mr. Flower's poetry,--the poetry of a countryman imprisoned in the +town,--and that when he died he just hoped to go to Derbyshire. + +"Ah, there are places there,--places like Miller's Dale, for +instance,--I'd rather take my hat off to than any bishop,"--and Henry +eagerly scented something of a thinker; "for God made them for sure, and +bishops--well--" and Mr. Flower wisely left the rest unsaid. + +Thus they made the tour of the stables; and though Henry's remarks on +the subject of slapped horse-flesh had been anything but those of an +expert, it was tacitly agreed that Mr. Flower and he had taken to each +other. Nor, as he presently found, were Mr. Flower's interests limited +to horses. + +"You're a reader, I see," he said, presently, when they had returned to +the office. "Well, I don't get much time to read nowadays; but there's +nothing I enjoy better, when I've got a pipe lit of an evening, than to +sit and listen to my little daughter reading Thackeray or +George Eliot." + +Of course Henry was interested. + +"Now there was a woman who knew country life," Mr. Flower continued. +"'Silas Marner,' or 'Adam Bede.' How wonderfully she gets at the very +heart of the people! And not only that, but the very smell of +country air." + +And Mr. Flower drew a long breath of longing for Miller's Dale. + +Henry mentally furbished up his George Eliot to reply. + +"And 'The Mill on the Floss'?" he said. + +"And 'Scenes from Clerical Life,'" said Mr. Flower. "There are some rare +strokes of nature there." + +And so they went on comparing notes, till a little blue-eyed girl of +about seventeen appeared, carrying a dainty lunch for Henry, and telling +Mr. Flower that his own lunch was ready. + +"This is my daughter of whom I spoke," said Mr. Flower. + +"She who reads Thackeray and George Eliot to you?" said the Man in +Possession; and, when they had gone, he said to himself "What a bright +little face!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +LITTLE MISS FLOWER + + +Little Miss Flower continued to bring Henry his lunch with great +punctuality each day; and each day he found himself more and more +interested in its arrival, though when it had come he ate it with no +special haste. Indeed, sometimes it almost seemed that it had served its +purpose in merely having been brought, judging by the moments of reverie +in which Henry seemed to have forgotten it, and to be thinking of +something else. + +Yes, he had soon begun to watch for that bright little face, and it was +hardly to be wondered at; for, particularly come upon against such a +background, the face had something of the surprise of an apparition. It +seemed all made of light; and when one o'clock had come, and Henry heard +the expected footsteps of his little waiting-maid, and the tinkle of the +tray she carried, coming up the yard, her entrance was as though some +one had carried a lamp into the dark office. Surely it was more like +the face of a spirit than that of a little human girl, and you would +almost have expected it to shine in the dark. When you got used to the +light of it, you realised that the radiance poured from singularly, even +disproportionately, large blue eyes, set beneath a broad white brow of +great purity, and that what at first had seemed rays of light around her +head was a mass of sunny gold-brown hair which glinted even in shadow. + +Strange indeed are the vagaries of the Spirit of Beauty! From how many +high places will she turn away, yet delight to waste herself upon a slum +like this! How fantastic the accident that had brought such a face to +flower in such a spot!--and yet hardly more fantastic, he reflected, +than that which had sown his own family haphazard where they were. Was +it the ironic fate of power to be always a god in exile, turning mean +wheels with mighty hands; and was Cinderella the fable of the eternal +lot of beauty in this capriciously ordered world? + +Yes, what chance wind, blowing all the way from Derbyshire, had set down +Mr. Flower with his little garden of girls in this uncongenial spot? +For by this Henry had made the acquaintance of the whole family: Mr. and +Mrs. Flower and four daughters in all,--all pretty girls, but not one of +the others with a face like that,--which was another puzzle. How is it +that out of one family one will be chosen by the Spirit of Beauty or +genius, and the others so unmistakably left? There could be no doubt as +to whom had been chosen here. + +One day the step coming up the yard at one o'clock seemed to be +different, and when the door opened it was another sister who had +brought his lunch that day. Her eldest sister was ill, she explained, +and in bed; and it was so for the next day, and again the next. Could it +be possible that Henry had watched so eagerly for that little face, that +he missed it so much already? + +The next morning he bought some roses on his way through town, and +begged that they might be allowed to brighten her room; and the next day +surely it was the same light little tread once more coming up the yard. +Joy! she was better again. She looked pale, he said anxiously, and +ventured to say too that he had missed her. As she blushed and looked +down, he saw that she wore one of his roses in her bosom. + +He had already begun to lend her books, which she returned, always with +some clever little criticism, often girlishly naïve, but never merely +conventional. There were brains under her bright hair. One day Henry had +run out of literature, and asked her if she could lend him a book. +Anything,--some novel he had read before; it didn't matter. Oh, yes, he +hadn't read George Eliot for ever so long. Had she "The Mill on the +Floss"? Yes, it had been a present from her father. She would bring +that. As she lingered a moment, while Henry looked at the book, his eye +fell upon a name on the title-page: "Angel Flower." + +"Is that your name, Miss Flower?" he said. + +"Yes; father wrote it there. My real name is Angelica; but they call me +Angel, for short," she answered, smiling. + +"Are you surprised?" said Henry, suddenly blushing like a girl, as +though he had never ventured on such a small gallantry before. +"Angelica! How did you come to get such a beautiful name?" + +"Father loves beautiful names, and his grandmother was called +Angelica." + +"I wonder if I might call you Angelica?" presently ventured Henry, in a +low voice. + +"Do you think you know me well enough?" said Angelica, with a little +gasp, which was really joy, in her breath. + +Henry didn't answer; but their eyes met in a long, still look. In each +heart behind the stillness was a storm of indescribable sweetness. Henry +leaned forward, his face grown very pale, and impulsively took +Angelica's hand,-- + +"I think, after all, I'd rather call you Angel," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +MIKE'S FIRST LAURELS + + +The gardens of Sidon had a curious habit of growing laurel-trees; +laurels and rhododendrons were the only wear in shrubs. Rhododendrons +one can understand. They are to the garden what mahogany is to the front +parlour,--the _bourgeoisie_ of the vegetable kingdom. But the +laurel,--what use could they have for laurel in Sidon? Possibly they +supplied it to the rest of the world,--market-gardeners, so to say, to +the Temple of Fame; it could hardly be for home consumption. Well, at +all events, it was a peculiarity fortunate for Esther's purpose, as one +morning, soon after breakfast, she went about the garden cutting the +glossiest branches of the distinguished tree. As she filled her arms +with them, she recalled with a smile the different purpose for which, +dragged at the heels of one of Henry's enthusiasms, she had gathered +them several years before. + +At that period Henry had been a mighty entomologist; and, as the late +summer came on, he and all available sisters would set out, armed with +butterfly-nets and other paraphernalia, just before twilight, to the +nearest woodland, where they would proceed to daub the trees with an +intoxicating preparation of honey and rum,--a temptation to which moths +were declared in text-books to be incapable of resistance. Then, as +night fell, Henry would light his bull's-eye, and cautiously visit the +various snares. It was a sight worth seeing to come upon those little +night-clubs of drunken and bewildered moths, hanging on to the sweetness +with tragic gluttony,--an easy prey for Henry's eager fingers, which, as +greedy of them as they of the honey, would seize and thrust them into +the lethal chamber, in the form of a cigar-box loosely filled with +bruised laurel leaves, which hung by a strap from his shoulder. + +It was for such exciting employment that Esther had once gathered laurel +leaves. And, once again, she remembered gathering them one Shakespeare's +birthday, to crown a little bust in Henry's study. The sacred head had +worn them proudly all day, and they all had a feeling that somehow +Shakespeare must know about it, and appreciate the little offering; just +as even to-day one might bring roses and myrtle, or the blood of a +maiden dove to Venus, and expect her to smile upon our affairs of +the heart. + +But it was for a dearer purpose that Esther was gathering them this +morning. That coming evening Mike was to utter his first stage-words in +public. The laurel was to crown the occasion on which Mike was to make +that memorable utterance: "That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!" + +Now while Esther was busily weaving this laurel into a wreath, Henry was +busily weaving the best words he could find into a sonnet to accompany +the wreath. When Angel duly brought him his lunch, it was finished, and +lay about on his desk in rags and tatters of composition. Angel was +going to the performance with her sisters,--for all these young people +were fond of advertising each other, and he had soon told her about +Mike,--so she was interested to hear the sonnet. Whatever other +qualities poetry may lack, the presence of generous sincerity will +always give it a certain value, to all but the merely supercilious; and +this sonnet, boyish in its touches of grandiloquence, had yet a certain +pathos of strong feeling about it. + + Not unto him alone whom loud acclaim + Declares the victor does the meed belong, + For others, standing silent in the throng, + May well be worthier of a nobler fame; + And so, dear friend, although unknown thy name + Unto the shouting herd, we would give tongue + To our deep thought, and the world's great among + By this symbolic laurel thee proclaim. + + And if, perchance, the herd shall find thee out + In coming time, and many a nobler crown + To one they love to honour gladly throw; + Wilt thou not turn thee from their eager shout, + And whisper o'er these leaves, then sere and brown: + 'Thou'rt late, O world! love knew it long ago?' + +The reader will probably agree with Angel in considering the last line +the best. But, of course, she thought the whole was wonderful. + +"How wonderful it must be to be able to write!" she said, with a look in +her face which was worth all the books ever written. + +"And how wonderful even to have something written to one like that!" + +"Surely that must have happened to you," said Henry, slyly. + +"You're only laughing at me." + +"No, I'm not. You don't know what may have been written to you. Poems +may quite well have been written to you without your having heard of +them. The poet mayn't have thought them worthy of you." + +"What nonsense! Why, I don't know any poets!" + +"Oh!" said Henry. + +"I mean, except you." + +"And how do you know that I haven't written a whole book full of poems +to you? I've known you--how long now?" + +"Two months next Monday," said Angel, with that chronological accuracy +on such matters which seems to be a special gift of women in love. Men +in love are nothing like so accurate. + +"Well, that's long enough, isn't it? And I've had nothing else to do, +you know." + +"But you don't care enough about me?" + +"You never know." + +"But tell me really, have you written something for me?" + +"Ah, you'd like to know now, wouldn't you?" + +"Of course I would. Tell me. It would make me very happy." + +"It really would?" + +"You know it would." + +"But why?" + +"It would." + +"But you couldn't care for the poetry, unless you cared for the poet?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Poetry's poetry, isn't it, whoever makes it? But what +if I did care a little for the poet?" + +"Do you mean you do, Angel?" + +"Ah, you want to know now, don't you?" + +"Tell me. Do tell me." + +"I'll tell you when you read me my poem," and as Angel prepared to run +off with a laugh, Henry called after her,-- + +"You will really? It's a bargain?" + +"Yes, it's a bargain," she called back, as she tripped off again down +the yard. + + * * * * * + +Mike's _début_ was as great a success as so small a part could make it; +and the main point about it was the excitement of knowing that this was +an actual beginning. He had made them all laugh and cry in drawing-rooms +for ever so long; but to-night he was on the stage, the real +stage--real, at all events, for him, for Mike could never be an +amateur. Esther's eyes filled with glad tears as the well-loved little +figure popped in, with a baker's paper hat on his head, and delivered +the absurd words; and if you had looked at Henry's face too, you would +have been at a loss to know which loved the little pastry-cook's +boy best. + +When Mike returned to his dressing-room, a mysterious box was awaiting +him. He opened it, and found Esther's wreath and Henry's sonnet. + +"God bless them," he said. + +No doubt it was very childish and sentimental, and old-fashioned; but +these young people certainly loved each other. + +As Mike had left the stage, Henry had turned round and smiled at some +one a few seats away. Esther had noticed him, and looked in the same +direction. + +"Who was that you bowed to, Henry?" + +"I'll tell you another time," he said; for he had a good deal to tell +her about Angel Flower. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE MOTHER OF AN ANGEL + + +The Man in Possession was becoming more and more a favourite at Mr. +Flower's. One day Mr. Flower, taking pity on his loneliness, suggested +that he might possibly prefer to have his lunch in company with them all +down at the house. Henry gladly embraced the proposal, and thus became +the daily honoured guest of a family, each member of which had some +simple human attraction for him. He had already won the heart of simple +Mrs. Flower, few and brief as had been his encounters with her, and that +heart she had several times coined in unexpected cakes and other +dainties of her own making; but when he thus became partially domiciled +with the family, she was his slave outright. There was a reason for +this, which will need, and may perhaps excuse, a few lines entirely +devoted to Mrs. Flower, who, on her own peculiar merits, deserves them. + +Perhaps to introduce Eliza Flower in this way is to take her more +seriously than any of her affectionate acquaintance were able to do. +For, somehow, people had a bad habit of laughing at Mrs. Flower, though +they admitted she was the hardest-working, best-hearted little housewife +in the world. Housewife in fact she was _in excelsis_, not to say _ad +absurdum_. No little woman who worked herself to skin-and-bone to keep +things straight, and the home comfortable, was ever a more typical +"squaw." Whatever her religious opinions, which, one may be sure, were +inflexibly orthodox, there can be no question that Mr. Flower was her +god, and, as the hymn says, heaven was her home. To serve God and Mr. +Flower were to her the same thing; and there can be little doubt that a +god who had no socks to darn, or linen to keep spotless, was a god whom +Mrs. Flower would have found it impossible to conceive. + +A more complete and delighted absorption in the physical comforts and +nourishments of the human creature than Mrs. Flower's, it would be +impossible for dreamer to imagine. Such an absolute adjustment between a +being of presumably infinite aspirations and immortal discontents and +its environment, is a happiness seldom encountered by philosophers. To +think of death for poor Mrs. Flower was to conceive a homelessness +peculiarly pathetic; unless, indeed, there are kitcheners to +superintend, beds to make, rooms to "turn out," and four +spring-cleanings a year in heaven. Of what use else was the bewildering +gift of immortality to one who was touchingly mortal in all her tastes? +Indeed, Henry used to say that Mrs. Flower was the most convincing +argument against the immortality of the soul that he had ever met. + +Yet, though it was quite evident that there was nothing in the world +else she cared so much to do, and though indeed it was equally evident +that she was one of the best-natured little creatures in the world, she +did not deny herself a certain more or less constant asperity of +reference to occupations which kept her on her feet from morning till +night, and made her the slave of the whole house, in spite of four big +idle daughters. And she with rheumatism too, so bad that she could +hardly get up and down stairs! + +Probably nothing so much as Henry's respectful sympathy for this +immemorial rheumatism had contributed to win Mrs. Flower's heart. As to +the precise amount of rheumatism from which Mrs. Flower suffered, Henry +soon realised that there seemed to be an irreverent scepticism in the +family, nothing short of heartless; for rheumatism so poignantly +expressive, so movingly dramatised, he never remembered to have met. +Mrs. Flower could not walk across the floor without grimaces of pain, or +piteous indrawings of her breath; and yet demonstrations that you might +have thought would have softened stones, left her unfeeling audience not +only unmoved, but apparently even unobservant. From sheer decency, Henry +would flute out something to show that her suffering was not lost on +him; but it is to be feared the young ones would only wink at each other +at this sign of unsophistication. + +"Oh, you unfeeling child!" Mrs. Flower would exclaim, as sometimes she +caught them exchanging comments in this way. "And your father, there, is +just as bad," she would say, impatient to provoke somebody. + +This remark would probably prompt Mr. Flower to the indulgence of a form +of matrimonial banter which was not unlike the endearments he bestowed +upon his horses, and which, when you knew that he loved the little +quaint woman with all his heart, you were able to translate into more +customary modes of affection. + +"Yes, indeed," he would say, "it's evidently time I was looking out for +some active young woman, Eliza--when you begin limping about like that. +It's a pity, but the best of us must wear out some day--" + +This superficially heartless pleasantry he would deliver with a sweeping +wink at Henry and his four girls; but Mrs. Flower would see nothing to +laugh at, for humour was not her strong point. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Ralph," she said, "before the +children. I was once young and active enough to take your fancy, anyhow. +Mr. Mesurier, won't you have a little more spinach? Do; it's fresh from +the country this morning. You mustn't mind Mr. Flower. He's fond of his +joke; and, whatever he likes to say, he'd get on pretty badly without +his old Eliza." + +"Gracious, no!" Mr. Flower would retort. "Don't flatter yourself, old +girl. I've got my eye on two or three fine young women who'll be glad +of the job, I assure you;" but this, perhaps, proving too much for poor +Mrs. Flower, whose tears were never far away, and apt to require +smelling-salts, he would change his tone in an instant and say, dropping +into his Derbyshire "thous,"-- + +"Nonsense, lass, can't thee take a bit of a joke? Come now, come. Don't +be silly. Thou knowest well enough what thou art to me, and so do the +girls. See, let's have a drive out to Livingstone Cemetery this +afternoon. Thou'rt a bit out o' sorts. It'll cheer thee up a bit." + +And so Mrs. Flower would recover, and harmony would be restored, and +nobody would wink for a quarter of an hour. Certainly it was a quaint +little mother for an Angel. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +AN ANCIENT THEORY OF HEAVEN + + +"When are you going to read me my poem?" said Angelica, one day. + +"When are you going to tell me what I asked?" replied Henry. + +"Whenever you read me my poem," retorted Angelica. + +"All right. When would you like to hear it?" + +"Now." + +"But I haven't got it with me to-day." + +"Can't you remember it?" + +"No, not to-day." + +"When will you bring it?" + +"I'll tell you what. Come with me to Woodside Meadows on Saturday +afternoon. Your father won't mind?" + +"Oh, no; father likes you." + +"I'm glad, because I'm very fond of him." + +"Yes, he's a dear; and he's got far more in him than perhaps you think, +under his country ways. If you could see him in the country, it would +make you cry. He loves it so." + +"Yes, I could tell that by the way he talked of Derbyshire the first day +we met. But you'll come on Saturday?" + +"Yes, I'll come." + + * * * * * + +Angel! Yes, it was the face of an angel; but, bright as it had seemed on +that dark background, it seemed almost brighter still as it moved by +Henry's side among the green lanes. He had never known Angel till then, +never known what primal ecstasy her nature was capable of. In the town, +her soul was like a flame in a lamp of pearl; here in the country, it +was like a star in a vase of dew. To be near trees, to touch their rough +barks, to fill one's hands with green leaves, to hear birds, to listen +to running water, to look up into the sky,--oh, this was to come +home!--and Angel's joy in these things was that of some wood-spirit who +you might expect any moment, like Undine, to slip out of your hands in +some laughing brook, or change to a shower of blossom over your head. + +"Oh, how good the country is! I wish father were here. I could eat the +grass. And I just want to take the sky in my arms." As she swept across +meadow and through woodland, with the eagerness of a child, greedily +hastening from room to room of some inexhaustible palace, her little +tense body seemed like a transparent garment fluttering round the flying +feet of her soul. + +At length she flung herself down, almost breathless, at the grassy foot +of a great tree. + +"I suppose you think I'm mad," she said. "And really I think I must be; +for why should mere green grass and blue sky and a few birds make one +so happy?" + +"Why should anything make us happy?" + +"Or sad?" + +"But now you're going to read my poem," she said, presently. + +"Yes; but something has to happen before I can read it," said Henry, +growing unaccountably serious; "for it is in the nature of a prophecy, +or at all events of an anticipation. You have to fulfil that +prophecy first." + +"It seems to me a very mysterious poem. But what have I to do?" + +"I don't know whether you can do it." + +"Well, what is it? Try me." + +"Oh, Angel, I care nothing about poems. Can't you see how I love you? +That's all poetry will ever mean to me. Just to say over and over again, +'I love Angel.' Just to find new and wonderful ways of saying that--" + +"Listen, Henry. I've loved you from the first moment I saw you that day +talking to father, and I shall love you till I die." + +"Dear, dear Angel!" + +"Henry!" + +Then Henry's arms enfolded Angel with wonderful love, and her fresh +young lips were on his, and the world faded away like a dream within +a dream. + + * * * * * + +"Now perhaps you can read me your poem," said Angel, after a while; and +she noticed a curious something different in her way of speaking to him, +as in his way of speaking to her,--something blissfully homelike, as it +were, as though they had sat like this for ever and ever, and were quite +used to it, though at the same time it remained thrillingly new. + +"It's only a silly little childish rhyme," said Henry; "some day I'll +write you far better." + +Then, coming close to Angel, he whispered,-- + + This is Angelica, + Fallen from heaven, + Fallen from heaven + Into my arms. + + Will you go back again, + Little Angelica, + Back up to heaven, + Out of my arms! + + "No," said Angelica, + "Here is my heaven, + Here is my heaven, + Here in your arms. + + "Not out of heaven, + But into my heaven, + Here have I fallen, + Here in your arms." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE LAST CONTINUED, AFTER A BRIEF INTERVAL + + +After the long happy silence which followed Henry's recitation of his +verses, Angel at length spoke,-- + +"Shall I tell _you_ something now?" she said. "I'm almost ashamed to, +for I know you'll laugh at me, and call me superstitious." + +"Go on, little child," said Henry. + +"You remember the day," said Angel, in a hushed little impressive voice, +"I first saw you in father's office?" + +Henry was able to remember it. + +"Well, that was not the first time I had seen you." + +"Really, Angel! Why didn't you tell me before? Where was it, then? In +the street, or where?" + +"No, it was much stranger than that," said Angel. "Do you believe the +future can be foretold to us?" + +"Oh, it was in a dream, you funny Angel; was that it?" said Henry, +whose rationalism at this period was the chief danger to his +imagination. + +"No, not a dream. Something stranger than that." + +"Oh, well, I give it up." + +"It was like this," Angel continued; "there's a strange old gipsy woman +who lives near us--" + +"Oh, I see, your hand--palmistry," said Henry, with a touch of gentle +impatience. + +"Henry, dear, I said you would laugh at me. I won't tell you now, if +you're going to take it in that spirit." + +Henry promptly locked up his reason for the moment, with apologies, and +professed himself open to conviction. + +"Well, mother sometimes helps this poor old woman, and, one day, when +she happened to call, Alice and Edith and I were in the kitchen helping +mother. 'God bless you, lady,' she said,--you know how they +talk,--'you've got a kind heart; and how are all the young ladies? It's +time, I'm thinking, they had their fortunes told.' 'Oh, yes,' we all +said, 'tell us our fortunes, mother,'--we always called her mother. +'I'll tell you yours, my dear,' she said, taking hold of my hand. 'Your +fortunes are too young yet, ladies,' she said to Alice and Edith; 'come +to me in a year's time and, maybe, I'll tell you all about him.'" + +"You dear!" said Henry, by way of interruption. + +"Then," continued Angel, "she took me aside, and looked at my hand; and +she told me first what had happened to me, and then what was to come. +What she told me of the past"--as if dear Angel, whose life was as yet +all future, could as yet have had any past to speak of!--"was so true, +that I couldn't help half believing in what she said of the future. Now +you're laughing again!" + +"No, indeed, I'm not," said Henry, perfectly solemn. + +"She told me that just before I was twenty, I would meet a young man +with dark hair and blue eyes, very unexpectedly,--I shall be twenty in +six weeks,--and that he would be my fate. But the strangest is yet to +come. 'Would you like to see his face?' she said. She made me a little +frightened; but, of course, I said, 'Yes,' and then she brought out of +her pocket a sort of glass egg, and told me to look in it, and tell her +what I saw. So I looked, but for a long time I could see nothing; but +suddenly there seemed to be something moving in the centre of the glass, +like clouds breaking when the sun is coming out; and presently I could +see a lamp burning on a table; and then round the lamp shelves of books +began to grow out of the mist; then I saw a picture hanging in a recess, +a bowed head with a strange sort of head-dress on it, a dark thin face, +very sad-looking--" + +"Why, that must have been my Dante!" said Henry, astonished in spite of +himself. + +The exclamation was a "score" for Angel; and she continued, with greater +confidence, "And then I seemed to see some one sitting there; but, +though I tried and tried, I couldn't catch sight of his face. I told the +old woman what I saw. 'Wait a minute,' she said, 'then try again.' So I +waited, and presently tried again. This time I hadn't so long to wait +before I saw a room again; but it was quite different, a big desk ran +along in front of a window, and there were two tall office-stools. 'Why, +it's father's office,' I said. 'Go on looking,' said the old woman, 'and +tell me what you see.' In a moment or two, I saw some one sitting on +one of the stools, first dimly and then clearer and clearer. 'Why,' I +almost cried out, for I felt more and more frightened, 'I see a young +man sitting at a desk, with a pen behind his ear.' 'Can you see him +clearly?' 'Yes,' I said; 'he's got dark curly hair and blue eyes.' +'You're sure you won't forget his face? You'd know him if you saw him +again?' 'Indeed, I would,' I said. 'All right,' said the old woman, 'you +can give me back the crystal. You keep a look out for that young +man,--you will see him some day, mark my words, and that young man will +be your fate.' + +"Now, surely, you won't deny that was strange, will you?" asked Angel, +in conclusion. "And I shall never forget the start it gave me that day +when I came in, quite unsuspecting, with your lunch-tray, and saw you +talking to father, with your pen behind your ear, and your blue eyes and +dark hair. Now, isn't it strange? How can one help being superstitious +after a thing like that?" + +"Are you quite sure it was I?" Henry asked, quizzically. "It appears to +me that any presentable young man with a pen behind his ear would have +answered nearly enough to the vision. You would hardly have been quite +sure of the colour of the eyes, would you, now, if the old woman hadn't +mentioned it first, as she looked at your hand?" + +"You are horrid!" said Angel; "I wish I hadn't told you now. But it +wasn't merely the colour of the eyes. It was the look in them." + +"Look again, and see if you haven't made a mistake. Look very +carefully," said Henry. + +"I won't," said Angel; "I think you're cruel." + +"Angel, if you'll only look, and say you are quite sure, I'll believe +every word the old woman said." + +At last Angel was persuaded to look, and to look again, and the old +woman's credit rose at each look. + +"Yes, Henry, whatever happens, I know it is true. My life is in your +hands." + +Those are solemn words for one human being to hear uttered by another; +and a shiver of new responsibility involuntarily ran through +Henry's veins. + +"May the hands be always strong and clean enough to hold so precious a +gift," he answered, gravely. + +"Are you sad, dear?" asked Angel, presently, with a sort of divination. + +"Not sad, dear, but serious," he answered. + +"Have I turned to a responsibility so soon?" + +"You strange, wise child, I believe you are a witch." + +"Oh, I was right then." + +"Right in one way, but perhaps wrong in another. Don't you know that +some responsibilities are the most dearly coveted of mortal honours? But +then we shouldn't be worthy of them, if they didn't make us feel a +little serious. Can't you imagine that to hear another say that her life +is in one's hands makes one feel just a little solemn?" + +"But isn't your life in mine, Henry?" asked Angel, simply. + +"Of course it is, dear," answered Henry. + +And then the moon began to rise through the trees, pouring enchantment +over the sleeping woods, and the meadows half-submerged in lakes +of mist. + +Angel drew close to Henry, and watched it with big eyes. + +"What a wonderful world it is! How beautiful and how sad!" she said, +half to herself. + +"Yes; there is nothing in the world so sad as beauty," answered Henry. + +"If only to-night could last forever! If only we could die now, sitting +just like this, with the moon rising yonder." + +"But we shall have many nights like this together," said Henry. + +"No; we shall never have this night again. We may have other wonderful +nights, but they will be different. This will never come again." + +Henry instinctively realised that here was a mystical side to Angel's +nature which, however it might charm him, was not to be indiscriminately +encouraged, and he tried to rally her out of her sadness, but her +feeling was too much his own for him to persist; and as the moonlight +moved in its ascension from one beautiful change to another, now woven +by branches and leaves into weird tapestries of light and darkness, now +hanging like some golden fruit from the boughs, and now uplifted like a +lamp in some window of space, they sat together, alike held by the +ancient spell; and, presently, Henry so far lost himself in it as to +quote some lines entirely in Angel's mood: + + "She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die; + And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips + Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, + Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: + Ay, in the very temple of Delight + Veiled Melancholy has her sov'ran shrine, + Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue + Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; + His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, + And be among her cloudy trophies hung." + +"What wonderful lines!" said Angel; "who wrote them? Are they your own?" + +"Ah, Angel, what would I give if they were! No, they are by John Keats. +You must let me give you his poems." + +Presently, the moonlight began to lose its lustre. It grew pale, and, as +it were, anxious; dark billows of clouds threatened to swallow up its +silver coracle, and presently the world grew suddenly black with its +submergence, the woods and meadows disappeared, and Henry and Angel +began playfully to strike matches to see each other's faces. Thus they +suddenly flared up to each other out of the darkness, like Rembrandts +seen by lightning, and then they were lost again, and were only voices +fumbling for each other in the dark. + +Yet, even so, lips and arms found each other without much difficulty, +and when they began to think of the last train, and fear they would miss +it, but waited for just one last good-night kiss under their sacred +tree, the world suddenly lit up again, for the moon had triumphed over +its enemies, and come out just in time to give them its blessing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +CONCERNING THE BEST KIND OF WIFE FOR A POET + + +We are apt sometimes to complain that so much of importance in our lives +is at the dispensation of accident, yet how often too are we compelled +to confess that some of the happiest and most fruitful circumstances of +our lives are due to the far-seeing diplomacies of chance. + +Among no set of circumstances is this more true than in the fateful +relations of men and women. While, in a blind sort of way, we may be +said to choose for ourselves the man or woman with whom we are to share +the joys and sorrows of our years, yet the choice is only superficially +ours. Frequently our brains, our antecedent plans, have no part in the +decision. The woman we choose appears at the wrong time, in the wrong +place, in an undesirable environment, with hair and eyes and general +complexion different in colour from what we had predestined for +ourselves, short when we had made up our minds for tall, and tall when +we had hoped for short. Yet, in in spite of all our preconceptions, we +choose her. This is not properly a choice in which the intelligence +confessedly submits to violence. It is the compulsion of mysterious +instincts that know better than our brains or our tastes. + +Now had she been asked beforehand, Esther might not have sketched out a +Mike as the ideal of her maiden dreams, nor indeed might Henry have +described an Angelica, any more than perhaps Mike an Esther, or Angelica +a Henry. Yet chance has only to place Esther and Mike, and Angelica and +Henry in the same room together for less than a minute of time, and they +fly into the arms of each other's souls with an instant recognition. +This is a mystery which it will take more than biology to explain. + +A young man's dreams of the woman he will some day marry are apt to be +meretricious, or at all events conventional. A young poet, especially, +is likely to err in the direction of paragons of beauty, or fame, or +romance. Perhaps he dreams of a great singer, or an illustrious beauty, +ignorant of the natural law which makes great singers and illustrious +beauties, in common with all artists, incapable of loving really any one +but themselves. Or perhaps it will be some woman of great and exquisite +culture. But chance knows that women of great and exquisite culture are +usually beings lacking in those plastic elemental qualities which a +poet, above all men, needs in the woman he shall love. Their very +culture, while it may seem to broaden, really narrows them, limits them +to a caste of mind, and, for an infinite suggestiveness, substitutes a +few finite accomplishments. + +Critics without understanding have wondered now and again at attachments +such as that of Heine for his Mathilde. Yet in some ways Mathilde was +the type of wife best suited for a poet. She was just a wondering child, +a bit of unspoiled chaos. She meant as little intellectually, and as +much spiritually, as a wave of the sea, a bird of the air, a star in +the sky. + +Another great poet always kept in his room a growing plant in a big tub +of earth, and another tub full of fresh water. With the fire going, he +used to say that he had the four elements within his four walls; and to +people unaccustomed to talk with the elements these no doubt seemed dull +and even remarkable companions,--like Heine's Mathilde. + +Now Angel, though far more than a goose intellectually, having, indeed, +a very keen and subtle mind, was only secondarily intellectual, being +primarily something far more important. You no more asked of her to be +intellectual, than you expect a spirit to be mathematical. She was just +a dream-child, thrilling with wonder and love before the strange world +in which she had been mysteriously placed,--a dream-child and an +excellent housewife in one, as full of common-sense on the one hand, as +she was filled with fairy "nonsense" on the other. She was just, in +fact, the wife for a poet. + +The interest taken in each other by Angel and the Man in Possession had +not been unobserved by Angel's family. Her sisters had teased her +considerably on the subject. + +"Why have you changed the way of wearing your hair, Angel?" they would +say, "Does Mr. Mesurier like it that way?" or, "My word! we are getting +smart and particular, now a certain gentleman has come into the +office!" or again, "How small your writing is nowadays, Angel! What have +you changed it for? I like your big old writing best; but I suppose--" +and then they would retreat to a safe distance to finish--"Mr. Mesurier +isn't of the same opinion!" + +Sometimes Esther would start in pursuit, and playful scrimmages would +ensue, the hilarious uproar of which would turn poor Mrs. +Flower's brain. + +Mrs. Flower had certainly not been unobservant, and one may perhaps +suspect that those cakes and other delicacies which she had so often +sent up the yard, had not been sent entirely without those ulterior +designs which every thoughtful mother may becomingly cherish for her +daughters. + +After Angel and Henry's excursion to the country together, Henry felt +that some official announcement of the state of his heart was demanded +of him, and lost no time in finding Mr. Flower alone for that tremulous +purpose. However, it was soon over. There were no questions of _dots_ +and marriage settlements to discuss. Genealogically, both sides were +about equally distinguished, and, socially, belonged to that large +undefined class called "respectable"--though it must not be supposed +that, when so minded, families of that "respectable" zone do not +occasionally make nice distinctions. "Do you know what you are asking +for?" once said a retired tradesman's wife in Sidon to her daughter's +suitor. "Do you know that both Katie's grandfathers were mayors?" + +But there were no traditional mayoralties to keep these two young hearts +asunder. It was understood on both sides that they had nothing to bring +but each other, and they asked nothing better. Angel was going to marry +a poet, and Henry a fairy; and not only they themselves, but the whole +family, was more than satisfied. Mr. Flower was undisguisedly pleased, +and the tears stood in his eyes as he gripped Henry's hand. + +"I've liked you," he said, "since the first time we shook hands. There +was something honest about your grip I liked, and I go a good deal by +these things. It is not many men I would trust with my little Angel; for +when you take her, you take her father's great treasure. Guard her well, +dear lad, guard her well." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE BOOK OF ANGELICA + + +The first duty of a poet's wife is to inspire him. When she ceases to do +that--but that is a consideration which need not occupy us in this +unsophisticated story. We have already seen that Angelica in this +respect early began her wifely duties towards Henry; and that little +song he read in chapter twenty-five was but one of many he had written +to her in his capacity of man in possession. + +The feminine inspirations of his early youth had been numerous, but +mediocre in quality. Even in love, as in all else, his opportunities had +been second and even third-rate. He had broken his boy's heart, time +after time, for some commonplace, little provincial miss who knew not +"the god's wonder or his woe." But, at last, in circumstances so +unforeseen, the maiden of the Lord had been revealed to him, and with +the revelation a great impulse of metrical expression had come upon the +young poet. All day long rhythms and fancies were effervescing within +him, till at length he had quite a publishable mass of verse for which, +it is to be feared, Angelica must be counted responsible. + +Of these he was busily making a surreptitious fair copy one morning, +when old Mr. Septimus Lingard suddenly visited his seclusion, with the +announcement that his task there was at an end, so that he might now +return to his regular office. Though, of course, Henry had realised that +the present happy arrangement could not go on for ever, the news brought +temporary desolation to the two young lovers. For four months their days +had been spent within a few yards of each other; and though Angel's +excursions up the yard to Henry's desk could not be many, or long, each +day, yet each was conscious that the other was near at hand. When Angel +sang at her housework, it was from the secure sense that Henry was close +by. Their separation was little more than that of a husband and wife +working in different rooms of the same house. But now their meetings +would have to be arranged out somewhere in a cold world, little +considerate of the convenience of lovers, and, for whole days of warm +proximity, they would have to exchange occasional snatched +precarious hours. + +Well, the only thing to do was for Henry to work away at their dream of +a home together--home together, however little, just four walls to love +each other in, away from the gaze of prying eyes, none daring to make +them afraid. How that home was to be compassed was far from clear in +either of their minds; but vaguely it was felt that it would be brought +about by the powerful enchantments of literature. Henry had recently had +one of Angel's poems accepted by a rather good magazine, and the trance +of joy in which for fully two hours he had sat gazing at that, his +first, proof-sheet, was hardly less rapturous than that into which he +had fallen after seeing Angel for the first time,--so dear are the +emblems of his craft to the artist, at the beginning, and still at the +end, of his career. + +So Henry had to finish the fair copy of his poems at home in his +lodgings of an evening, for so ambitious a private enterprise could not +be carried on in his own office without perilous interruptions. He was +making the copy with especial care, in the form of a real book; and when +it was made, he daintily bound it in vellum with his own hands. Then he +wrapped it lovingly in tissue paper, and kept it by him two or three +days, in readiness for Angel's birthday, on the morning of which day he +hid it in a box of flowers and sent it to Angel. The sympathetic reader +can imagine her delight, as she discovered among the flowers a dainty +little white volume, bearing the title-page, "The Book of Angelica, by +Henry Mesurier. Tyre, 1886. Edition limited to one copy." + +Now this little book presently began to enjoy a certain very carefully +limited circulation among Angel's friends. Of course they were not +allowed to take it away. They were only allowed to look at it now and +again for a few minutes, Angel anxiously standing by to see that they +did not soil her treasure. Sometimes Mr. Flower would ask Angel to show +it to one of the family friends; and thus one evening it came beneath +the eyes of a little Scotch printer who had a great love for poetry and +some taste in it. + +"The man's a genius," he said, with all that authority with which a +strong Scotch accent mysteriously endows the humblest Scot. + +"The man's a genius," he repeated; "his poems must be printed." + +Henry had already found that this was easier said than done, for he had +already tried several London publishers who professed their willingness +to publish--at his expense. This little Scotch printer, however, was to +prove more venturesome. He forthwith communicated a proposal to Henry +through the Flowers. If Henry would provide him with a list of a certain +number of friends he could rely on for subscriptions, he would take the +risk of printing an edition, and give Henry half the profits,--a +proposal as generous as it was rash. Angel communicated the offer in an +excited little letter, with the result that Mr. Leith and Henry met one +morning in the bar-parlour of "The Green Man Still," and parted an hour +or so after in a high state of friendship, and deeply pledged together +to a mutual adventure of three hundred copies of a book to be called +"The Book of Angelica," and to be printed in so dainty a fashion that +the mere outside should attract buyers. + +Mr. Leith worked under difficulties, for his business, small as it was, +was much saddled with pecuniary obligations which it but inadequately +supported. His printing of Henry's poems was really a work of sheer +idealism which none but a Scotsman, or perhaps an Irishman, would have +undertaken; and it was a work that might at any moment be interrupted by +bailiffs, empowered to carry away the presses and the very types over +which Henry loved to hang in his spare hours, trying to read in the +lines of mysteriously carved metal, his "Madrigal to Angelica singing," +or his "Sonnet on first beholding Angelica." + +Then Mr. Leith was of a convivial disposition; and Henry and he must +have spent more hours drinking to the success of the little book than +would have sufficed to print it twice over. However, the day did at last +come when it was a living, breathing reality, and when Angel and Henry +sat with tears of joy over the little new-born "Book of Angelica." Was +it not, they told each other, the little spirit-child of their love? How +wonderful it all was! How wonderful their future was going to be! + +"What does it feel like?" said Henry, playfully recalling their old +talk, "to have a book written all about one's self?" + +"It is to feel the happiest and proudest girl in the world." + +That all the other young people were hardly less happy and excited +about the little book goes without saying. Mike spent quite a large sum +in copies, and for a while employed his luncheon-hour in asking at +book-shops with a nonchalant air, as though he had barely heard of the +author, if they sold a little book called "The Book of Angelica." Mrs. +Mesurier seemed to see her faith in her boy beginning to be justified; +and when James Mesurier opened his local paper one morning, and found a +long and appreciative article on a certain "fellow-townsman," he cut it +out to paste in his diary. Perhaps the lad would prove right, after all. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +WHAT COMES OF PUBLISHING A BOOK + + +It is only just to Tyre to acknowledge that it behaved quite +sympathetically towards the young poet thus discovered in its midst. Its +newspapers reviewed him with marked kindness,--a kindness which in a few +years' time, when he had long since grown out of his baby volume, he was +obliged to set to the credit of the general goodness of human nature, +rather than to the poetic quality of his own verses. In many unexpected +quarters also he met with recognition which, if not always intelligent, +was at least gratifying. For praise, or at least some form of notice, is +breath in the nostrils of the young poet. He hungers to feel that his +personality counts for something, though it be merely to anger his +fellow-men. It was perhaps no very culpable vanity on his part to be +pleased that people began to point him out in the streets, and whisper +that that was the young poet; and that distant acquaintances seemed +more ready to smile at him than before. Now and again one of these would +stop him to say how pleased he had been to see the kind article about +him in _The Tyrian Daily Mail_, and that he intended to buy "the work" +as soon as possible. Henry smiled to himself, to hear his frail little +flower of a volume spoken of as a "work," as though it had been the +Encyclopaedia Britannica; and he rather wondered what that would-be +purchaser would make of it, as he turned over pages of which so large a +proportion was reserved for a spotless frame of margin. No doubt he +would decide that the margin had been left for the purpose of making +notes,--making notes on those abstruse rose-petals of boyish song! + +Even in far-away London,--which was as yet merely a sounding name to +these young people,--hard-worked reviewers, contemptuously disposing of +batches of new poetry in a few lines, found a kind word or two to say +for the little provincial volume; and, through one agency or another, +Mr. Leith, within six weeks of the publication, was able to announce +that the edition was exhausted and that there was something like forty +pounds profit to share between them. + +That poetry could be exchanged for real money, Henry had heard, but had +never hoped to work the miracle in his own case. It was like selling +moonlight, or Angelica's smiles. Was it not, indeed, Angelica's smiles +turned from one kind of gold into another? One more change they should +undergo, and then return to her from whom they had come. From minted +gold of the realm they should change into the gold of a ring, and thus +Angel should wear upon her finger the ornament of her own smiles. +Setting aside a small proportion of his gains to buy Esther and Mike, +Dot and Mat and his mother, a little memorial present each, he then +spent the rest on Angel's ring. Angel pretended to scold him for his +extravagance; but, as no woman can resist a ring, her remonstrance was +not convincing, and then, as Henry said, was it not their betrothal +ring, and, therefore, one of the legitimate expenses of love? + +Three other acknowledgments his poems brought him. The first was a +delightful letter from Myrtilla Williamson. How much men of talent owe +to the letters of women has never been sufficiently acknowledged, as +the debt can never be adequately repaid. Of the many branches of woman's +unselfishness, this is perhaps the most important to the world. Always +behind the flaming renown of some great soldier, statesman, or poet, +there is a woman's hand, or the hands, maybe, of many women, pouring, +unseen, the nutritive oil of praise. + +This letter Henry, in the gladness of his heart, ingenuously showed to +Angel, with the result that it provoked their first quarrel. With the +charms of a child, Angel, it now appeared, united also the faults. She +had it in her to be bitterly and unreasonably jealous. She read the +letter coldly. + +"You seem very proud of her praise," she said; "is it so very valuable?" + +"I value it a good deal, at all events," answered Henry. + +"Oh, I see!" retorted Angel; "I suppose my praise is nothing to hers." + +"Angel dear, what _do_ you mean?" + +"Oh, nothing, of course; but I'm sure you must regret caring for an +ignorant girl like me, when there are such clever, talented women in the +world as your Mrs. Williamson. I hate your learned women!" + +"Angel, I'm surprised you can talk like that. Because we love each +other, are we to have no other friends?" + +"Have as many as you like, dear. Don't think I mind. But I don't want to +see their letters." + +"Very well, Angel," answered Henry, quietly. He was making one of those +discoveries of temperament which have to be made, and have to be +accepted, in all close relationships. This was evidently one of Angel's +faults. He must try to help her with it, as he must try and let her help +him with his. + +The second was a letter, forwarded care of his printer, by one of the +London reviews which had noticed his verses. It was from a rising young +London publisher who, it appeared from an envelope enclosed, had already +tried to reach him direct at Tyre. "Henry Mesurier, Esqre, Author of +'The Book of Angelica,' Tyre," the address had run, but the post-office +of Tyre had returned it to the sender, with the words "Not known" +officially stamped upon it. + +He was as yet "not known," even in Tyre! "In another five years he shall +try again," said Henry, savagely, to himself, "and we shall see whether +it will be 'not known' then!" + +The letter expressed the writer's pleasure in the extracts he had seen +from Mr. Mesurier's book, and hoped that when his next book was ready, +he would give the writer an opportunity of publishing it. Fortune was +beginning already to smile. + +But the third acknowledgment was something more like a frown, and was, +at all events, by far the most momentous outcome of Henry's first +publication. One morning, soon after Mr. Leith had paid over to him his +twenty pounds profit, he found himself unexpectedly requested to step +into "the private office." There, at Mr. Lingard's table, he found the +three partners seated in solemn conclave, as for a court-martial. Mr. +Lingard, as senior partner, was the spokesman. + +"Mr. Mesurier," he began, "the firm has been having a very serious +consultation in regard to you, and has been obliged, very reluctantly, I +would have you believe, to come to a painful conclusion. We gladly +acknowledge that during the last few months your work has given us more +satisfaction than at one time we expected it to give. But, +unfortunately, that is not all. Your attention to your duties, we admit, +has been very satisfactory. It is not a sin of omission, but one of +commission, of which we have to complain. What we have to complain of as +business men is a matter which perhaps you will say does not concern us, +though on that point we must respectfully differ from you. Mr. Mesurier, +you have recently published a book." + +Henry drew himself up haughtily. Surely that was nothing to be ashamed +of. + +"It is quite a pretty little book," continued Mr. Lingard, with one of +his grim smiles. "It contains some quite pretty verses. Oh, yes, I have +seen it," and Henry noticed a copy of the offending little volume lying, +like a rose, among some legal papers at Mr. Lingard's left hand; "but +its excellence as poetry is not to the point here. Our difficulty is +that you are now branded so unmistakably as a poet, that it is no use +our any longer pretending to our clients that you are a clerk. So long +as you were only suspected of being a poet," and the old man smiled +again, "it did not so much matter; but now that all Tyre knows you, by +your own act and deed, as a poet, the case is different. We can no +longer, without risk of losing confidence with our clients, send an +acknowledged poet to inspect their books--though, personally, we may +have every faith in your capacity. No doubt they will be glad enough to +buy your books in the future; but they will be nervous of trusting you +with theirs at the moment." And the old man laughed heartily at his +own humour. + +"You mean, then, sir, that you will have no further need for my +services?" said Henry, looking somewhat pale; for it is one thing to +hate the means of one's livelihood, and another to exchange it for none. + +"I'm afraid, my dear lad, that that is what it comes to. We are, I hope +you will believe, exceedingly sorry to come to such a conclusion, both +for our own sakes and yours, as well as that of your father,--who is an +old and valued friend of ours; but we are able to see no other way out +of the difficulty. Of course, you will not leave us this minute; but +take what time you need to look round and arrange your future plans; and +so far as we are concerned, we shall part from you as good friends and +sincere well-wishers." + +The old man held out his hand, and Henry took it, with a grateful sense +of the friendly manner in which Mr. Lingard had performed a painful +task, and a certain recognition that, after all, a poet must be +something of a nuisance to business-men. + +When he returned to his desk, he sat for a long time thoughtful, divided +in mind between exultation that he was soon to be free to take the +adventurous highway of literature, and anxiety as to where in a month's +time his preliminary meals were to come from. + +Yet, after all, the main thing was to be free of this servitude. Out of +freedom all things might be hoped. + +Still, as Henry looked round at the familiar faces of his fellow-clerks, +and realised that in a month's time his comradeship with them would be +at an end, he was surprised to feel a certain pang of separation. Mere +custom has so great a part in our affections, that though a routine may +have been dull and distasteful, if it has any extenuating circumstances +at all, we change it with a certain irrational regret. After all, his +office-life was associated with much contraband merriment; and, +unconsciously, his associates had taken a valuable part in his training, +humanised him in certain directions, as he had humanised them in others. +They had saved him from dilettanteism, and whatever he wrote in future +would owe something warm and kindly to the years he had spent with them. + +His very desk took on a pathetic expression, as of a place that was so +soon to know him no more for ever; and Mr. Smith, wrangling over +wet-traps and cesspools at the counter, just as on the first day he had +heard him, almost moved him to tears. Perhaps in ten years' time, were +he to come back, he would find him still at his post, fervidly engaged +in the same altercations, with only a little additional greyness at the +temples to mark the lapse of time. + +And Jenkins would still be sitting in the little screened-off cupboard, +with "cashier" painted on the glass window. As three o'clock approached, +he would still be heard loudly counting his cash and shovelling the gold +into wash-leather bags, and the silver into little paper-bags marked £5 +apiece, in a wild rush to reach the bank before it closed. + +And would the same good fellows, a little more serious, because long +since married, be cracking jokes and loafing near the fire-guard, in +some rare safe hour, of the afternoon when all the partners were out, to +make a spring for the desks, as the carefully learnt tread of one or +another of those partners followed the opening of the front door. + +The very work that he hated seemed to wear an unwonted look of +tenderness. Who would keep the books he had kept--with something of his +father's neatness; who would look after the accounts of "the Rev. Thomas +Salthouse," or take charge of "Ex'ors James Shuttleworth, Esqre"? + +Of course, it was absurd--absurd, perhaps, just because it was human. +For was he not going to be free, free to fulfil his dreams, free to +follow those voices that had so often called him from beyond the sunset? +Soon he would be able to cry out to them, with literal truth, "I am +yours, yours--all yours!" And in those ten years which were to pass so +invariably for Mr. Smith, and for Jenkins and the rest, what various and +dazzling changes might be, must be, in store for him. Long before the +end of them he must have written masterpieces and become famous, and +Angel and he be long settled together in their paradise of home. + +Henry was pleased to find that his chums were to miss him no less than +he was to miss them. As an unofficial master of their pale revels, his +place would not be easy to fill; and he was much touched, when, a day or +two before the end of the month, which was the time mutually agreed upon +for Henry to look round, they intimated their desire to give a little +dinner in his honour at "The Jovial Clerks" tavern. + +Henry was nothing loth, and the evening came and went with no little +emotion and no little wine, on either side. He had bidden good-bye to +his employers in the afternoon, and Mr. Lingard had shaken his hand, and +admonished him as to his future with something of paternal affection. + +Toward the close of the dinner, Bob Cherry, who acted as chairman, rose, +with an unaccustomed blush upon his cheek, to propose the toast of the +evening. They had had the honour and pleasure, he said, to be associated +for several years past with a gentleman to whom that evening they were +to say good-bye. No better fellow had ever graced the offices of Lingard +and Fields, and his would be a real loss to the gaiety of their little +world. They understood that he was a poet; and indeed had he not already +published a charming volume with which they were all acquainted!--still +this made no difference to them. Certain high powers might object, but +they liked him none the less; and whether he was a poet or not, he was +certainly a jolly good fellow, and wherever his new career might take +him, the good wishes of his old chums would certainly follow him. The +chairman concluded his speech by requesting his acceptance of a copy of +the "Works of Lord Macaulay," as a small remembrance of the days they +had spent together. + +The toast having been seconded and drunk with resounding cordiality, +Henry responded in a speech of mingled playfulness and emotion, assuring +them, on his part, that though they might not be poets, he thought no +worse of them for that, but should always remember them as the best +fellows he had ever known. The talk then became general, and tender with +reminiscence. After all, what a lot of pleasant things those hard years +had given them to remember! So they kept the evening going, and it was +not till an early hour of the following day that this important volume +of Henry's life was finally closed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +MIKE'S TURN TO MOVE + + +While Henry had been busily engaged in winning Angelica and writing and +printing his little book, Mike's fortunes had not been idle. Meanwhile, +the Sothern Dramatic Club had given two more performances, in which his +parts had been considerable, and been played by him with such success as +to make the former pieman's apprentice one of the chief members of the +club. Mike and his friends therefore became more and more eager for him +to try his talents on the great stage. But this was an experiment not so +easy to make. + +However unknown a writer may be, he can still at least write his book in +his obscurity, and, when done, bring it to market, with a reasonable +hope of its finding a publisher; moreover, though he may remain for +years unappreciated, his writings still go on fighting for him till his +due recognition is won. He has not to find his publisher before he +begins to write. Yet it is actually such a disability under which the +unproved and often the proved actor must labour. Unless some one engages +him to act, and provides an audience for him, he has no opportunity of +showing his powers. And such opportunities are difficult to find, unless +you are a dissolute young lord, or belong to one of the traditional +theatrical families,--whose members are brought up to the stage, as the +sons of a lawyer are brought up to law. For the avenues to the stage are +blocked by perhaps more frivolous incompetents than any other +profession. Any idle girl with good looks, and any idle gentleman with +something of a good carriage, deem themselves qualified for one of the +most arduous of the arts. + +Mike's plan had been to try every considerable actor that came to Tyre, +who might possibly have a vacant place in his company; but he had tried +many in vain. While one or two were unable to see him at all, most of +them treated him with a kindness remarkable in men daily besieged by the +innumerable hopeless. They gave him good advice; they wished him well; +but already they had long lists of experienced applicants waiting their +turn for the coveted vacancy. At last, however, there came to Tyre a +famous romantic actor who was said to be more sympathetic towards the +youthful aspirant than the other heads of his profession, and as, too, +he was rumoured to be vulnerable on the side of literature, Mike and +Henry agreed to make a joint attack upon him. Mike should write a brief +note asking for an interview, and Henry should follow it up with another +letter to the same effect, and at the same time send him a copy of "The +Book of Angelica." + +The plan was carried out. Both letters and the book were sent, and the +young men awaited with impatience the result. Henry had adopted a very +lofty tone. "In granting my friend an interview," he had said, "you may +be giving his first chance to an actor of genius. Of course you may not; +but at least you will have had the satisfaction of giving to possible +genius that benefit of the doubt which we have a right to expect from +the creator of ----," and he named one of the actor's most famous rôles. + +A cordial answer came by return, enclosing two stalls for the following +evening, when, said the great actor, he would be glad to see Mr. Laflin +during or after the performance. The two young men were in their places +as the curtain rose, and it goes without saying that their enthusiasm +was unequalled in the audience. Between the third and fourth acts there +was a considerable interval, and early in the performance it had been +notified to Mike that the great actor would see him then. So when the +time came, with a whispered "good luck" from Henry, he left his place +and was led through a little mysterious iron door at the back of the +boxes, on to the stage and into the great man's dressing-room. Opening +suddenly out of the darkness at one side of the stage, it was more like +a brilliantly lighted cave hung with mirrors than a room. Mirrors and +lights and laurel wreaths with cards attached, and many photographs with +huge signatures scrawled across them, and a magnificent being reading a +book, while his dresser laced up some high boots he was to wear in the +following act,--made Mike's first impression. Then the magnificent being +looked up with a charming smile. + +"Good-evening, Mr. Laflin. I am delighted to see you. I hope you will +excuse my rising." + +He said "Mr. Laflin" with a captivating familiarity of intonation, as +though Mike was something between an old friend and a distinguished +stranger. + +"So you are thinking of joining our profession. I hope you liked the +performance. I saw you in front, or at least I thought it was you. And +your friend? I hope he will come and see me some other time. I have been +delighted with his poems." + +There is something dazzling and disconcerting to an average layman about +an actor's dressing-room, even though the dressing-room be that of an +intimate friend. He feels like a being on the confines of two worlds and +belonging to neither, awkwardly suspended 'twixt fact and fancy. The +actor for a while has laid aside his part and forgotten his wig and his +make-up. As he talks to you, he is thinking of himself merely as a +private individual; whereas his visitor cannot forget that in appearance +he is a king, or an eighteenth-century dandy, or--though you know him +well enough as a clean-shaven young man of thirty--a bowed and wrinkled +greybeard. The visitor's voice rings thin and hestitating. It cannot +strike the right pitch, and generally he does himself no sort +of justice. + +Perhaps, however, it was because Mike had been born for this world in +which now for the first time he found himself, that he suffered from +none of this embarrassment; perhaps, too, it was some half-conscious +instinct of his own gifts that made him quite self-contained in the +presence of acknowledged distinction, so self-contained that you might +have thought he had no reverence. As he had passed across the stage, he +had eyed that mysterious behind-the-scenes rather with the eye of a +future stage-manager, than of a youth all whose dreams converged at this +point, and at this moment. + +One touch of the poetry of contrast caught his eye, of which custom +would probably have made him unobservant. In an alcove of the stage, a +"scene-dock," as Mike knew already to call it, a beautiful spirit in +gauze and tights was silently rehearsing to herself a dance which she +had to perform in the next act. Softly and silently she danced, +absorbed in the evolutions of her lithe young body, paying as little +heed to the rough stage-hands who hurried scenery about her on every +side, as those hardened stage-hands paid to her dancing. Henry or Ned +would probably have fallen madly in love with her on the spot. To Mike, +she was but a part of the economy of the stage; and had she been +Cleopatra herself, eyes filled to overflowing with the beauty of Esther +would have taken no more intimate note of her. So, it is said, painters +and sculptors regard their models with cold, artistic eyes. + +This self-possession enabled Mike to show to the best advantage; and +while they talked, the great actor, with an eye accustomed to read +faces, soon made up his mind about him. + +"I believe you and your friend are right, Mr. Laflin," he said. "I am +much mistaken if you are not a born actor. But if you are that, you will +not need to be told that the way is long and difficult, nor will you +mind that it is so. Every true artist rather loves than fears the +drudgery of his art. It is one of the tests of his being an artist. Art +is undoubtedly the pleasantest of all work; but it is work for all +that, and none of the easiest. Perhaps it is the pleasantest because it +is the hardest. So if you really want to be an artist, you won't object +to beginning your journey to the top right away at the bottom." + +"Anywhere at all, sir," said Mike, his heart beating at this hint of +what was coming. + +"Well, in that case," continued the other, "I can perhaps do something, +though a very little, for you." + +Mike eagerly murmured his gratitude. + +"I'm sorry to say I have no vacancy in my own company at present; but +would you be willing to take a part in my Christmas pantomime? I may say +that I myself began life as harlequin." + +"I will gladly take anything you can offer me," said Mike. + +"Shall we call it settled then? But I sha'n't need you for another four +months. Meanwhile I will have a contract made out and sent to you--" + +"Curtain rising for fourth act, sir," cried the call-boy, putting his +head in at the door at that moment. + +"You see I shall have to say good-bye," said the good-natured manager, +rising and moving towards the door; "but I shall look forward to seeing +you in October. My good wishes to your friend;" and so the happiest +person in that theatre slipped back to his seat by the side of a friend +who was surely as happy at his good news as though it had been his own. + +Meanwhile Esther had been counting the hours till ten, when she made a +pretence of going to bed with the rest. But there was no sleep for her +till she had heard Mike's news. Her bedroom looked out from the top of +the house into the front garden, and she had arranged to have a lamp +burning at the window, so that Mike, on his way home, should understand +that all was safe for a snatched five minutes' talk in the porch. She +sat trying to read till about midnight, when through her half-opened +windows came the soft whistle she had been waiting for. Turning down the +lamp to show that she had heard, she stole down through the quiet house +and cautiously opened the front door, fastened, it seemed, with a +hundred bolts and chains. + +"Is that you, Mike?" + +For answer two arms, which she didn't mistake for a burglar's, were +thrown round her. + +"Esther, I've found my million pounds." + +"Oh, Mike! He's really going to help you?" + +And here there is no further necessity for eaves-dropping. All persons +except Mike and Esther will please leave the porch. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +UNCHARTERED FREEDOM + + +On the morning after the dinner with which he bade farewell to Messrs. +Lingard and Fields, Henry awoke at his usual hour to a very unusual +feeling. For the first time in his life he could stay in bed as long as +he pleased. + +On the other side of the room Ned Hazell lay sleeping the deep sleep of +the unpunctual clerk; and Henry, when he had for a moment or two dwelt +upon his own happiness, took a malicious joy in arousing him. + +"Ned," he shouted, "get up! You'll be late for the office." + +Ned gave out a deep sound, something between a snore, a moan, and an +imprecation. + +"Ned!" his tormentor persisted, drawing the clothes warmly round him, in +a luxury of indifference to the time of day. + +Ned presently began rubbing his head vigorously, which was one of his +preliminaries of awakening, and then mournfully raised himself in bed, a +pillar of somnolence. + +"You might let a fellow have his sleep out," he said; "why don't you get +up yourself?--oh, I remember, you're a literary gentleman from to-day. +That's why you're so mighty ready to root me out," and he aimed a pillow +at Henry's bed in derision. + +Yes, Henry was free, an independent gentleman of time and space. The +clock might strike itself hoarse, yet, if he wished, he might go on +staying in bed. He was free! His late task-masters had no jurisdiction +here. It would even be in his power here to order Mr. Fields out of the +room, and, if he refused, forcibly to eject him into the street. Why +didn't Mr. Fields appear to gratify him in this matter? + +So he indulged his imagination, while Ned dressed in haste, with the +fear of the tyrant evident upon him. Poor fellow, he would have to +choose between two cups of coffee and two eggs and five minutes late! +Probably he would split the difference, bolt one cup of coffee and one +egg, and arrive two and a half minutes late. Henry watched him with +compassion; and when he had gone his ways, himself rose languidly and +dressed indolently, as with the aid of an invisible valet. At length he +sauntered down to breakfast, and sent out for a morning paper, which he +on no account ever read. He could imagine no more insulting waste of +time. He looked it through, but found no reference to the real +significance of the day. + +Breakfast over, he wondered what he should do with himself, how he +should spend the day. His clear duty was to begin being a great man on +the spot, and work at being a great man every day punctually from nine +till six. But where should he begin? Should he sit down in a +business-like way and begin his long romantic poem, or should he write +an essay, or again should he make a start on his novel? + +Romantic poems, he felt, however, are only well begun on special days +not easy to define; essays are only written on days when we have +determined to be idle,--and this, after the opening flirtation with +indolence, must be a busy day,--and it is not every day that one can +begin a novel. He might arrange his books, but really they were very +well arranged already. Or suppose he went out for a walk. Walking +quickened the brain. He might go and look in at the Art Gallery, where +he hadn't been for a long while, and see the new picture the morning +paper was talking about. It was by a painter whose poems he already knew +and loved. That might inspire him. So, by an accident of idleness, he +presently found himself standing rapt before the most wonderful picture +he had ever seen,--a picture to see which, he said to himself, men would +make pilgrimages to Tyre, when Tyre was a moss-grown, ruinous seaport, +from which the traffic of the world had long since passed away. + +Henry at this time had visited none of the great galleries and, except +in a few reproductions, knew nothing of the great Italian masters. +Therefore to him this picture was Italy, the Renaissance, and +Catholicism, all concentrated into one enthralling canvas. But it was +something greater than that. It was the terrible meeting of Youth and +Love and Death in one tremendous moment of infinite loss. Infinite +passion and infinite loss were here pictured, in a medium which +combined all that was spiritual and all that was sensual in a harmony +of beauty that was in the same moment delirium and peace. The +irresistible cry of the colour to the senses, the spheral call of the +theme and its agony to the soul. Beatrice dead, and Dante taken in a +dream across the strewn poppies of her death-chamber, to look his last +on the sleeping face, yet a little smiling in the after-glow of life; +her soul already carried by angels far over the curved and fluted roofs +of the Florentine houses, on its way to Paradise. Little Beatrice! Not +till they meet again in Paradise shall he see again that holy face. In a +dream of loss he gazes upon her, as the angels lift up the +flower-garnished sheet; and not only her face, but every detail of that +room of death is etched in tears upon his eyes,--the distant winding +stair, the pallid death-lamps, the intruding light of day. All Passion +and all Loss, all Youth, all Love, and all Death met together in an +everlasting requiem of tragic colour. + +Henry sat long before this picture, enveloped, as it were, in its rich +gloom, as the painted profundity of a church absorbs one in its depths. +And with the impression of its solemn beauty was blent a despairing awe +of the artist who, of a little coloured earth, had created such a +masterpiece of vitality, thrown on to a thin screen of canvas so +enduringly palpable, so sumptuous, and so poignantly dominating a +reflection of his visions. What a passionate energy of beauty must have +been in this man's soul; what a constant fury of meditation upon +things divine! + +When Henry came back to himself, his first thought was to share it with +Angel. Little soul, how her face would flame, how her body would tremble +with the wonder of it! In the minutiae, the technicalities of +appreciation, Angel, like Henry himself, might be lacking; but in the +motive fervour of appreciation, who was like her! It was almost painful +to see the joy which certain simple wonders gave her. Anything intense +or prodigal in nature, any splendidly fluent outpouring of the +elements,--the fierce life of streaming fire, water in gliding or +tumultuous masses, the vivid gold of crocus and daffodil spouting up +through the earth in spring, the exquisite liquidity of a bird +singing,--these, as with all elemental poetic natures, gave her the +same keen joy which we fable for those who, in the intense morning of +the world, first heard them; fable, indeed, for why should we suppose +that because ears deaf a thousand years heard the nightingale too, it +should therefore be less new for those who to-night hear it for the +first time? Rather shall it be more than less for us, by the memories +transmitted in our blood from all the generations who before have +listened and gone their way. + +So Henry sought out Angel, and they both stood in front of the great +picture for a long while without a word. Presently Angel put the feeling +of both of them into a single phrase,-- + +"Henry, dear, we have found our church." + +And indeed for many months henceforth this picture was to be their +altar, their place of prayer. Often hereafter when their hopes were +overcast, or life grew mean with little cares, they would slip, singly, +or together, into that gallery, and-- + + "let the beauty of Eternity + Smooth from their brows the little frets of time." + +Thus Henry's first day of freedom had begun auspiciously with the +unexpected discovery of an inalienable possession of beauty. Yet the +little cares were not far off, waiting their time; and that night, Henry +lay long awake asking himself what he was going to do? Whence was to +come the material gold and silver by which this impetuous spirit was to +be sustained? A sum not exceeding five pounds represented his +accumulated resources, and they would not last longer than--five pounds. +He needed little, but that little he needed emphatically. Soon a new +book and other literary projects would keep him going, but--meanwhile! +How were the next two or three months to be bridged? Return to his +father's house, he neither would, nor perhaps, indeed, could. + +So he lay awake a long while, fruitlessly thinking; but, just before he +slept, a thought that made him laugh himself awake suggested itself: +"Why not go and ask Aunt Tipping to take pity on you?" + +So he went to sleep, resolved, if only for the fun of it, to pay a visit +to Aunt Tipping on the morrow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +A PREPOSTEROUS AUNT + + +No doubt it has been surmised from what has gone before, that when Henry +said to himself that he would go and see Aunt Tipping, he did not +propose to himself a visit to the country seat of some quaint old lady +of quality. Baronial towers and stately avenues of ancestral elm did not +make a picturesque background for his thoughts as he recalled +Aunt Tipping. + +Poor kind Aunt Tipping, it is a shame to banter her memory even in so +obvious a fashion; for if ever there was a kind heart, it was hers. In +fact she possessed, in a degree that amounted to genius, one of the +rarest of human qualities,--unconditional pity for the unhappy human +creature. Within her narrow and squalid sphere, she was never known to +fail of such succour as was hers to give to misfortune, however +well-merited, or misery however self-made. + +No religion or philosophy has ever yet been merciful enough to human +weakness. Matilda Tipping repaired the lack so far as she went. In fact, +she had unconsciously realised that weakness _is_ human nature. It would +be difficult to fix upon an offence that would disqualify you for Aunt +Tipping's pity. To the prodigalities of the passions, and the appetites +disastrously indulged, she was accustomed by a long succession of those +sad and shady lodgers to whom it was part of her precarious livelihood +to let her rooms, and, not infrequently, to forgive them their rent. +That men and women should drink too much, and love too many, was, her +experience told her, one of those laws of nature that seemed to make a +good deal of unnecessary inconvenience in mortal affairs, but against +which mere preaching or punishment availed nothing. All that was to be +done was, so far as possible, to repair their ravages in particular +instances, and heal the wounds of human passion with simple +human kindness. + +Of two vessels, one for honour and the other for dishonour, surely +nature never made so complete a contrast as Matilda Tipping and her +sister, Mary Mesurier. Both country girls, born in a humble, though +defiantly respectable, stratum of society, the ways of the two sisters +had already parted in childhood. Mary was studious, neat, and religious; +Matilda was tomboyish, impatient of restraint, and fond of unedifying +associates. + +"Your aunt never aspired," Mrs. Mesurier would say of Aunt Tipping +sometimes to her children; and, while still a child, she had often +reproached her with her fondness for gossiping with companions "beneath +her." Matilda could never be persuaded to care for books. She was +naturally illiterate, and even late in life had a fixed aversion to +writing her own letters; whereas, at the age of seven, Mary had been +public scrivener for the whole village. But with these regrettable +instincts, from the first Matilda had also manifested a whimsical +liveliness, an unconquerable lightheartedness which made you forgive her +anything, and for which, poor soul, she had use enough before she was +done with life. At seventeen, added to good looks, of which at fifty +there was scarcely a trace in the thin and meanly worn face, this +vivacity had proved a tragic snare. A certain young capitalist--known as +a great gentleman--of that countryside had pounced down on the gay and +careless young Matilda, and had at once provided her life with its +formative tragedy and its deathless romance. Even at fifty, hopelessly +buried among the back streets and pawnshops of life, heaven still opened +in the heart of Matilda Tipping at the mention of the name of William +Allsopp. For several years she had lived with the Mesuriers, as general +help to her sister, between whom and her, in spite of surface +disparities, there was an indissoluble bond of affection; till, at +thirty-five or so, she had suddenly won the heart of a sad old widower +of fifty-five, named Samuel Tipping. + +Samuel Tipping was no ordinary widower. As you looked at his severe, +thoughtful face, surmounted by a shock of beautiful white hair, you +instinctively respected him; and when you heard that he lived by +cobbling shoes by day and playing a violin in the Theatre Royal +orchestra by night, occasionally putting off his leather apron to give a +music lesson in the front parlour of an afternoon, you respected him +all the more. There had been but one thing against Mr. Tipping's +eligibility for marriage, Matilda Tipping would tell you, even years +after, with a lowering of her voice: he was said to be an "atheist," and +a reader of strange books. Yet he seemed a quiet, manageable man, and +likely--again in Mrs. Tipping's phrase--to prove a "good provider;" so +she had risked his heterodoxy, which indeed was a somewhat fanciful +objection on her part, and made him, as he declared with his dying +breath, the best of wives. + +It chanced that when Henry, in pursuance of his over-night resolve, made +his way the following afternoon through a dingy little street, and +knocked on the door of a dingy little house, bearing upon a brass plate +the legend "Boots neatly repaired," Mr. Tipping was engaged in giving +one of those very music lessons. A dingy little maid-of-all-work opened +the door, and said that Mrs. Tipping was out shopping, but would be back +soon. From the front parlour came the lifeless tum-tumming of the piano, +and Mr. Tipping's voice gruffly counting time to the cheerless +five-finger exercises of a very evident beginner. + +"One--two--three! One--two--three! One--two--three!" went Mr. Tipping's +voice, with an occasional infusion of savagery. + +"But Mr. Tipping is at home?" said Henry. "I will wait till he is +disengaged. I will make myself comfortable in the kitchen," (Henry knew +his way about at Aunt Tipping's, and remembered there was only one front +parlour) adding, with something of pride, "I'm Mrs. Tipping's nephew, +you know." + +Presently the torture in the front parlour was at an end; and, as Mr. +Tipping was about to turn upstairs to the little back room where he +mended his shoes, Henry emerged upon him from the kitchen. They had had +some talks on books and the general misgovernment of the universe,--for +Mr. Tipping really was something of an "atheist,"--on Henry's occasional +visits, and were no strangers to each other. + +"Why, Henry, lad, whoever expected to see you! Your aunt's out at +present; but she'll be back soon. Come into the parlour." + +"If you don't mind, Uncle Tipping, I'd rather come upstairs with you. I +love the smell of the leather and the sight of all those sharp little +knives, and the black, shiny 'dubbin,' do you call it? And we can have a +talk about books till aunt comes home." + +"All right, lad. But it's a dusty place, and there's hardly a corner to +sit down in." + +So up they went to a little room where, in a chaos of boots mended on +one hand, and boots to mend on the other, sheets of leather lying about, +in one corner a great tubfull of water in which the leather was +soaked,--an old boyish fascination of Henry's,--Mr. Tipping spent the +greater part of his days. He sat on a low bench near a window, along +which ran a broad sill full of tools. On this, too, lay an opened book, +into which Mr. Tipping would dip now and again, when he could safely +leave the boot he was engaged upon to the mechanical skill of his hands. +At one end of the tool-shelf was a small collection of books, a dozen or +so shabby volumes, though these were far from constituting Mr. Tipping's +complete library. + +Mr. Tipping belonged to that pathetic army of book-lovers who subsist on +the refuse of the stalls, which he hunted not for rare editions, but for +the sheer bread of life, or rather the stale crusts of knowledge. His +tastes were not literary in the special sense of the word. For +belles-lettres he had no fancy, and fine passages, except in so far as +they were controversial, left him cold. His mind was primarily +scientific, secondarily philosophic, and occasionally historic. Travels +and books of physical science were the finds for which, mainly, he +rummaged the stalls. At the moment his pet study was astronomy; and a +curious apparatus in one of the corners, which Henry had noticed as he +entered, was his sad attempt to rig up a telescope for himself. + +"It's not so bad as it looks," he said, pointing it out; "but then," he +added, with a smile half sad and half humorous, "there are not many +stars to be seen from Tichborne Street." + +It was a touching characteristic of the type of bookman to which Mr. +Tipping belonged, that the astronomy from which he was reading by no +means embodied the latest discoveries. In fact, it narrowly escaped +being eighteenth-century science, for it was dated very early in the +eighteen hundreds. But an astronomy was an astronomy to Mr. Tipping; and +had Copernicus been born late enough, he would most certainly have +imbibed Ptolemaic doctrines with grateful unsuspicion. Indeed, had it +been put to him: "This astronomy after Copernicus at half-a-crown, and +this after Ptolemy for sixpence," his means alone would have left him no +choice. It is so the old clothes of the mind, like the old clothes of +the body,--superseded science, forgotten philosophy,--find a market, and +a book remains a book, with the power of comforting or diverting some +indigent, poor soul, so long as the stitching holds it together. + +Presently there was a knock at the front door. + +"There's your aunt," said Mr. Tipping; and, as the door opened, the +little maid-of-all-work was to be heard whispering her mistress that a +young gentleman who said he was her nephew had come and was upstairs +with "the master." + +"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Tipping, immediately starting upstairs +towards the open door of the cobblery. + +Henry was standing on the threshold, and the warm-hearted little woman +gave him a hearty hug of welcome. + +"Well, I _am_ glad to see you! And how are they all at home?" and she +ran over the list, name for name. "We mustn't forget your father. But +he's a hard 'un and no mistake," said the aunt, putting on a mimic +expression of severity. + +"He's an upright man, is James Mesurier," said Mr. Tipping, rather +severely. + +"Oh, yes, yes; we know that, crosspatch. I'm saying nothing against +him. He's good at heart, I know; but he's a little hard on the +surface--like some other folks I know," making a face at her husband. +"But you must come down and talk to me a bit, lad; you'll have had +enough of him and his old books. You never saw the like of him! Here he +sits day after day over his musty books, and you can hardly get him away +for his meals. He's no company for any one." + +"Talk of something you can understand, lass," retorted the husband, in a +voice that took any unkindness from the words, rather like a father than +a husband. "You don't ail much for lack of company, I'm sure." + +"Now if it was only a good novel," his wife persisted; "but nothing but +travels, geographies, and such like. Last thing he's taken up with is +the stars. I suppose he's been telling you about them--" and she said +this half as though it were a new form of lunacy Mr. Tipping had +developed, and half as though he had been opening up new realms of +knowledge--original but useless. She was far indeed from understanding +that lonely mind and its tragedy, thirsting so hopelessly for +knowledge, and to die athirst. She heard him knock, knock all day +upstairs; but the knocking told her nothing of his loneliness. He was +just a good, hard-working, rather cross old man, unaccountably fond of +printed matter, whom she liked to be good to, and if in her time that +knocking upstairs should stop for ever--well! she wasn't one to meet +trouble half way, but she would miss it a good deal, old man as he was. + +She was herself nearing fifty; but her slim little wiry body and her +elfish, wrinkled face, never still, but ever alive with the same +vivacity that years ago had attracted William Allsopp, made her seem +younger than her years; and her husband treated her as though she were +still a child, a wilful child. + +"Eh, Matilda," he said, "you're just a child. No more nor less,--just a +child. The years haven't tamed you one bit--" + +"Get out with you and your old stars!" she said, laughing. "Henry, come +along and have a talk with your old aunt." + +Though invincibly cheerful through it all, Aunt Tipping was always in +trouble, if not for herself, for somebody else. To-day, it was for +herself, though it was but a minor reverse in the guerilla warfare of +her life. A distressed lodger who had just left had begged her to +accept, in lieu of rent, the pawn-ticket of a handsome clock which had +been hers in happier days; and Mrs. Tipping, moved as she always was by +any tale of woe, however elaborate, had consented. Nor in her world was +such a way of settling accounts very exceptional, for pawn-tickets were +there looked upon as legitimately negotiable securities. Indeed, Aunt +Tipping was seldom without a selection of such securities upon her +hands; and, if a neighbour should chance to be in need, say, of a new +set of chimney ornaments, as likely as not Aunt Tipping had in her purse +a pledge for the very thing. This she would sell at a reasonable profit, +which would probably amount to but a small proportion of the original +debt for which she had accepted it. It was not a lucrative business, +though there were occasional "bargains" in it. + +In that word "bargains," all the active romance of Aunt Tipping's life +was now centred. In all departments of the cast-off and the second-hand +she was a daring speculator; and a spirited "auction" now and again +exhilarated her as much as a fortnight by the sea. That house which she +fought so desperately to keep tidy and respectable, had been furnished +almost entirely in this way. There was hardly an article in it that had +not already lived other lives in other houses, before it had been picked +up, "dirt cheap," by Aunt Tipping. + +But this afternoon her confidence in human nature had received a cruel +wound. When, after an hour's weary drag to a remote end of the town, she +had arrived at the pawnshop where was preserved the handsome clock of +the distressed lady, and had confidently presented the ticket and the +necessary money, the man had looked awhile perplexed. They had no such +clock, he said. And then, as he further examined the ticket, a light +broke in upon him. + +"My dear lady," he said, "look here. The year on this ticket has been +changed." + +So indeed it had, and poor Aunt Tipping was at least a year too late. + +"Did you ever hear of such treatment?" she said to Henry; "and such a +nice lady she was. 'I shall never forget your goodness to me, Mrs. +Tipping,' she said as she went away, 'never, if I live to be a hundred.' +I'll 'goodness' her, if ever I catch her. Cheating honest folks like +that! Such people oughtn't to be allowed. I don't know how people can +behave so!" + +Aunt Tipping's indignation seldom outlived a few plaintive words of this +sort; and had the offending lady of the clock appeared next moment, and +given some Arabian Nights' explanation, there is little doubt that Aunt +Tipping would have forgiven her on the spot. A tendency to do so was +already active in her next remark,-- + +"Well, poor soul, we mustn't be too hard on her. We never know what we +may be brought to ourselves." For it was Aunt Tipping's unformulated +axiom that, whatever cock-and-bull stories misfortune may tell, there is +always some truth in human misery. + +When Henry had told Aunt Tipping his story, and ventured to hint a +suggestion that, if it should not be inconvenient for her, he would like +to take sanctuary with her for a month or two, till he got his hopes +into working order, her little sharp face fairly gleamed with delight. +You would have thought that he was bringing her some great benefit, +instead of proposing to take something from her. That he should have +thought of _her_, such a little humble aunt; that, added to the love +she had for any one with any tincture of her family's blood running in +their veins, plus her general weakness for any one in trouble, brought +tears to her eyes that made her look quite young again. + +"I should think so indeed!" she said. "The best your poor old auntie's +got is yours with all her heart--Ah, your father never understood you. +You've got too much of our side of the family in you. You're a bit wild, +you know, lad; but you're none the worse for that, eh?" + +There is no need to say that Aunt Tipping's understanding of the tastes +and ambitions which had driven Henry momentarily to take refuge with her +was of the vaguest; but all she needed to know of such a situation was +that: here on the one hand was something somebody very much wanted to +do, and here on the other were certain stern powers ranked against his +doing it. That was enough for her. Her sympathy with all forms of revolt +was instantaneous. For law and order, as such, she had an instinctive +antipathy, as in all contests whatsoever her one general rule was: "Side +with the weaker." And it cannot but have been perceived that so much +sympathy with weakness could hardly have been in the gift of weakness. +No; Aunt Tipping was entirely impersonal in these charities of feeling, +and it was because there was so much sterling honesty and strength +hidden in her little wiry frame, that she could afford so much succour +to those who were neither honest nor strong. + +"Well, it was nice of you to think of your poor old aunt," she repeated +again and again; and then she remarked on the good fortune which had +caused the vacation of the front room over the parlour, her grievance +against the lady of the handsome clock quite forgotten. + +"It's a nice airy room," she said; and then she began planning how she +might best arrange it for his comfort. + +"Dear little aunt," said Henry, taking the little wisp of a woman into +his arms, "you're the salt of the earth." + + * * * * * + +"Why ever didn't I think of it before!" exclaimed Aunt Tipping, +presently. "I've got the very gentleman to help you with your writing." + +"Indeed," said Henry, somewhat sceptical. + +"Yes; he's down there in the back parlour. They say he's a great +writer," continued Aunt Tipping; "but he's not very well the last day or +two, and doesn't see anybody. To tell the truth, poor gentleman," she +confided, lowering her voice, "he's just a little too fond of his glass. +But he's as good and kind a gentleman as ever stepped, and always +regular with his rent every Monday morning." + +There was usually something mysterious about Aunt Tipping's lodgers. At +their best, she had known them as elaborately wronged bye-products of +aristocracy. Many of them were lawful expectants of illegally delayed +fortunes, and at the very least they always drank romantically. + +Thus it was that to the somewhat amused surprise of his family, Henry +came to take up his abode for a while with Aunt Tipping, and that his +books and the cast of Dante, and the sketch of the young Dante done in +sepia by Myrtilla Williamson's own fair hand, came to find themselves in +the incongruous environment of Tichborne Street. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN IN THE BACK PARLOUR + + +Aunt Tipping proved not so ludicrously out of it after all in regard to +the literary gentleman in the back parlour. Henry had hardly known what +to expect; but certainly he had pictured no one so interesting as Ashton +Gerard proved to be. For a dark den smelling strongly of whisky and +water, and some slovenly creature of the under-world crouched in a dirty +armchair over the fire, he found instead a pleasant little room, very +neatly kept, with books, two or three good pictures, and general +evidence of cultivated tastes; and on Mr. Gerard's refined sad face, +which, being shaven, and surmounted by a tuft of vigorous curly hair, +once black but now curiously splashed with vivid flakes of white, +retained something of boyish beauty even at forty, you looked in vain +for the marks of one who was in the grip of an imperious vice. Only by +the marked dimness and weariness of his blue eyes, which gave the face a +rather helpless, dreamy expression, might the experienced observer have +understood. So to speak, the ocular will had gone out of them; they no +longer grasped the visible, but glided listlessly over it; nor did they +seem to be looking on things invisible. They were the eyes of +the drowned. + +Mr. Gerard had exceedingly gentle manners. It was easy to understand +that a landlady would worship him. He gave little trouble, asked for the +most necessary service as though it were a courtesy, and never forgot an +interest in Aunt Tipping's affairs. On bright days he revealed a vein of +quite boyish gaiety; and in his talk with Henry he flashed out a strange +paradoxical humour, too often morbid in its themes, which, as usually +the case with such humour, was really sadness coming to the surface in +a jest. + +It soon transpired that a favourite subject of his talk was that very +weakness which most men would have been at pains to hide. + +"So you're going to be a poet, Mr. Mesurier," he said. "Well, so was I +once, so was I--but," he continued, "all too early another Muse took +hold of me, a terrible Muse--yet a Muse who never forsakes you--" and +he laid his hand on a decanter which stood near him on the table,--"yes, +Mr. Mesurier, the terrible Muse of Drink! You may be surprised to hear +me talk so; yet were this laudanum instead of brandy, there would seem +to you a certain element of the poetic in the service of such a Muse. +Drinks with Oriental or unfamiliar names have a romantic sound. Thus +Alfred de Musset as the slave to absinthe sounds much more poetic than, +say, Alfred de Musset as a slave to rum or gin, or even this brandy +here. Yet this, too, is no less the stuff that dreams are made of; and +the opium-eater, the absinthe-sipper, the brandy-drinker, are all +members of the same great brotherhood of tragic idealists--" + +He talked deliberately; but there was a smile playing at the corners of +the mouth which took from his talk the sense of a painful +self-revelation, and gave it the air of a playful fantasia upon a +paradox that for the moment amused him. + +"Idealists! Yes," he continued; "for what few understand is that drink +is an idealism--and," he presently added with a laugh, "and, of course, +like all idealisms, it has its dangers." + +With a monomaniac, conversation is apt to limit itself to monologue; +so, while Henry was greatly interested in this odd talk, it left him but +little to say. + +"I'm afraid I shock you a little, Mr. Mesurier, perhaps even--disgust +you," said Mr. Gerard. + +"Indeed, no!" exclaimed Henry; "but both the subject and your way of +treating it are, I confess, a little new to me." + +"You are surprised to find one who is what is popularly known as a +drunkard not so much ashamed of as interested in himself; isn't that it? +Well, that comes of the introspective literary temperament. It is only +the oyster fascinated by the pearl that is killing it." + +"You should write some 'Confessions' after the manner of De Quincey," +said Henry. + +"Indeed, I've often thought of it, for there's so much that needs saying +on the subject. There is nothing with which we are at once so familiar +and of which we know so little. For example"--and now he was quite +plainly off again--"for example, the passion for, I might say the dream +of, drink is usually regarded as a sensual appetite, a physical +indulgence. No doubt in its first crude stages it often is so; but soon +it becomes something much more strange and abstract. It becomes a +mysterious command, issuing we know not whence. It is hardly a desire, +and it is not so much a joyless, as a quite colourless, obedience to an +imperious necessity, decreed by some unknown will. You might well +imagine that I like the taste of this brandy there, as a child is +greedily fond of sweetstuff; but it would be quite a mistake. For my own +personal taste, there is no drink like a cup of tea; it is the demon, +the strange will that has imposed itself upon me, that has a taste +for brandy. + +"I sometimes wonder whether we poor drunkards are not the victims of +disembodied powers of the air who, by some chance, have contracted a +craving for earthly liquors, and can only satisfy that craving by +fastening themselves upon some unhappy human organism. At times there +comes an intermission of the command, as mysterious almost as the +command itself. For weeks together we give no thought to our tyrant. We +grow gay and young and innocent again. We are free,--so free, we seem to +have forgotten that we were ever enslaved. Then suddenly one day we hear +the call again. We cry for mercy; we throw ourselves on our knees in +prayer. We clutch sacred relics; we conjure the aid of holy memories; we +say over to ourselves the names of the dead we have loved: but it is all +in vain--surely we are dragged to the feet of that inexorable will, +surely we submit ourselves once more to the dark dominion." + +Henry listened, fascinated, and a little frightened. + +"The longer I live, the more I grow convinced that this is no mere +fancy, but actual science," Mr. Gerard continued; "for, again, you might +well imagine that one drinks for the dreams or other illusory effects it +is said to produce. At first, perhaps, yes; but such effects speedily +pass away, they pass away indeed before the tyranny has established +itself, while it would still be possible to shake it off. No, the dreams +of drink are poor things, not worth having at the best. Indeed, there +are no dreams worth having, believe me, but those of youth and health +and spring-water." + +And Mr. Gerard passed for awhile in silence into some hidden country of +his lost dreams. + +Henry gazed at him with a curious wonder. Here was a man evidently of +considerable gifts, a man of ideals, of humour, a man witty and gentle, +who surely could have easily made his mark in the world, and yet he had +thrown all away for a mechanical habit which he himself did not pretend +to be a passion,--a mere abstract attraction: as though a man should +say, "I care not for the joys or successes of this world. My destiny is +to sit alone all day and count my fingers and toes, count them over and +over and over again. There is not much pleasure in it, and I should be +glad to break off the habit,--but there it is. It is imposed upon me by +a will stronger than mine which I must obey. It is my destiny." + +"Yes, idealists!" said Mr. Gerard, presently coming back from his dreams +to his great subject, with a laugh. "That reminds me of a story a +business friend of mine told me the other day. A clerk in his office was +an incorrigible drunkard. He was quite alone in the world, and had no +one dependent upon him. The firm had been lenient to him, and again and +again forgiven his outbreaks. But one morning they called him in and +said: 'Look here, Jones, we have had a great deal of patience with you; +but the time has come when you must choose between the drink and the +office.' To their surprise, Jones, instead of eagerly promising reform, +looked up gravely, and replied, 'Will you give me a week to think it +over, sir? It is a very serious matter.' Drink was all the poor fellow +had outside his drudgery; was it to be expected that he should thus +lightly sacrifice it?-- + +"But, to talk about something else, your aunt, Mrs. Tipping, who has a +great idea of my literary importance, has a notion that I may be of some +help to you, Mr. Mesurier. Well, I'll tell you the whole extent of my +present literary engagements, and you are perfectly at liberty to laugh. +At the present time I do the sporting notes for the _Tyrian Daily Mail_, +and I write the theological reviews for _The Fleet Street Review_. These +apparently incongruous occupations are the relics of an old taste for +sport, which as a boy in the country I had ample opportunity for +indulging, and of an interrupted training for the Church--'twixt then +and now there is an eventful gap which, if you don't mind, we won't +sadden each other by filling--Let us fill our glasses and our pipes +instead; and, having failed so entirely myself, I will give you minute +directions how to succeed in literature." + +Mr. Gerard's discourse on how to succeed in literature was partly +practical and partly ironical, and probably too technical to interest +the general reader, who has no intention of being a great or a little +writer, and who perhaps has already found Mr. Gerard's previous +discourse a little too special in its character. Suffice it that Henry +heard much to remember, and much to laugh over, and that Mr. Gerard +concluded with a practical offer of kindness. + +"I don't know how much use it may be to you," he said; "but if you care +to have it, I should be very glad to give you a letter to the editor of +_The Fleet Street Review_. He has, I think, a certain regard for me, and +he might send you a book to do now and again. At all events, it would be +something." + +Henry embraced the offer gratefully; and it occurred to him that in a +day or two's time there was a five days' excursion running from Tyre to +London and back, for half-a-guinea. Why not take it, and expend his last +five pounds in a stimulating glimpse of the city he some day hoped to +conquer? He could then see his friend the publisher, present his letter +to the editor, and perhaps bring home with him some little work and a +renewed stock of hopes. + +So, before they parted that night, Mr. Gerard wrote him the letter. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +"THIS IS LONDON, THIS IS LIFE" + + +Thus it was that, all unexpectedly, Henry found himself set down one +autumn morning at the homeless hour of a quarter-to-seven, in Euston +station. He was going to stay in some street off the Strand, and +chartered a hansom to take him there. Few great cities are impressive in +the neighbourhood of their railway termini. You enter them, so to speak, +by the back door; and London waves no banners of bright welcome to the +stranger who first enters it by the Euston Road. + +But there was an interesting church presently, and on a dust-cart close +by Henry read "Vestry of St. Pancras." + +"Can that be the St. Pancras' Church," he said to himself, "where Mary +Wollstonecraft lies buried, and Browning was married?" + +Then as they drove along through Bloomsbury, the name "Great Coram +Street" caught his eye, and he exclaimed with delight: "Why, that's +where Thackeray lived for a time!" + +Great Coram Street is little accustomed to create such excitement in the +breast of the passer-by. But to the stranger London is necessarily first +a museum, till he begins to love it as a home, and, in addition to dead +men's associations, begins to people it with memories of his own. When +you have lived awhile in Gray's Inn, you grow to forget that Bacon's +ghost is your fellow-tenant; and it is the kind-hearted provincial who +from time to time lays those flowers on Goldsmith's tomb. When you are +caught in a block on Westminster Bridge, with only five minutes to get +to Waterloo, you forget to say to yourself: "Ah, this is the bridge on +which Wordsworth wrote his famous sonnet." You usually say something +quite different. + +The mere names of the streets,--how laden with immemorial poetry they +were! "Chancery Lane!" How wonderful! Yet the poor wretch standing +outside the public-house at the corner seemed to derive small +consolation from the fact that he was starving in Chancery Lane. + +But to Henry, as yet, London was an extended Westminster Abbey, and +every other street was Poet's Corner. He had hardly patience to +breakfast, so eager was he to be out in the streets; and while he ate, +his eyes were out of the windows all the time, and his ears drinking in +all the London morning sounds like music. At the foot of the street ran +the Thames; he had caught a thrilling glimpse of it as he stepped from +his cab, and had had a childish impulse to rush down to it before +entering his hotel. + +At last, free of food and baggage, light of heart, and brimming over +with youth, he stepped into the street. It was but little past eight +o'clock. He had just heard the hour chimed, in various tones of +sweetness and solemnity, from several mellow clocks, evidently hidden +high in the air in his near vicinity. For two or three hours there would +be no editor or publisher to be seen, and meanwhile he had London to +himself. He stepped out into it as into a garden,--a garden of those +old-time flowers in which antiquity has become a perfume full +of pictures. + +Yes, there was the Thames! "Sweet Themmes, run softly till I end my +song!" he quoted to himself. Chaucer's, Spenser's, Elizabeth's Thames! + +It was a bright morning and the river gleamed to advantage. The tall +tower of Westminster glittered richly in the sun, and the long front of +Somerset House wore a lordly smile. The embankment gardens sparkled and +rustled in morning freshness. Henry drew in the air of London as though +it had been a rose. Here was the Thames at the foot of the street, and +there at the head was the Strand, a stream of omnibuses and cabs, and +city-faring men and women. The Temple must be somewhere close by. Of +course it was here to his left. But he would first walk quietly by the +Thames side to Westminster, and then come back by the Strand. As he +walked, he stepped lightly and gently, as though reverent to the very +stones of so sacred a city, and all the time from every prospect and +every other street-corner came streaming like strains of music magnetic +memories,--"streets with the names of old kings, strong earls, and +warrior saints." If for no other reason, how important for the future of +a nation is it to preserve in such ancient cities as London and Oxford +the energising spectacle of a noble and strenuous antiquity; for there +are no such inspirers of young men as these old places! So much strength +and youth went into them long ago that even yet they have strength and +youth to give, and from them, as from the strong hills, pours out an +inexhaustible potency of bracing influence. + +At last Henry found himself back at the top-end of his street. He had +walked the Strand with deliberate enjoyment. Fleet Street he still +reserved, but, as according to the tower of Clement Danes it was only +just ten o'clock, it seemed still a little early to attack his business. +A florist's close by suggested a charming commonplace way of filling the +time. He would buy some flowers and carry them to Goldsmith's grave. Why +Goldsmith's grave should thus be specially honoured, he a little +wondered. He was conscious of loving several writers quite as well. But +it was a Johnsonian tradition to love Goldy, and the accessibility of +his resting-place made sentiment easy. + +He repented this momentary flippancy of thought as he stood in the +cloistered corner where Goldsmith sleeps under the eye of the law; and, +when he laid his little wreath on the worn stone, it was a genuine +offering. From it he turned away to his own personal dreams. + +By eleven he had found his friend the publisher, in a dainty little +place of business crammed with pottery, Rowlandsons, and books, and +more like a curiosity-shop than a publishing-house, for the publisher +proved an enthusiast in everything that was beautiful or curious, and +had indeed taken to publishing from that rare motive in a +publisher,--the love of books, rather than the love of money. He was +aiming to make his little shop the rallying-point of all the young +talent of the day, and as young talent has never too many publishers on +the look-out for it, his task was not difficult, though it was one of +those real services to literature which such publishers and booksellers +have occasionally done in our literary history, with but scant +acknowledgment. + +Henry was pleased to find that he looked upon him to make one of his +little band of youth; and as the publisher understood the art of +encouragement, Henry already felt it had been worth while to come to +London just to see him. He knew the editor to whom Henry had a letter +and volunteered him another. The afternoon would be the best time; +meanwhile, they must lunch together. He smiled when Henry suggested the +Cheshire Cheese. Henry had a sort of vague idea that literary men could +hardly think of taking their meals anywhere else. There had been an +attempt to bring it into fashion again, the publisher said; but it had +come to nothing--though he, for one, loved those old chop-houses, with +their tankards, and their sanded floors. So to the Cheshire Cheese they +repaired, and drank to a long friendship in foaming pewters of porter. + +"Alas!" said Henry, "we are fallen on smaller times. Once it was 'the +poet's pint of port.' Now we must be content with the poetaster's +half-a-pint of porter!" + +"You must come to my rooms to-night," said the publisher, "and be +introduced to some of our young men. I have one or two of our older +critics coming too." + +Henry's fortune was evidently made. + +He found the editor in a dim back room at the top of a high building, so +lost in a world of books and dust that at first Henry could hardly make +him out, writing by a window with his back to the door. Then an alert +head turned round to him, and a rather peevish gesture bade him be +seated, while the editor resumed his work. This hardly came up to +Henry's magnificent dreams of the editorial dignity. Perhaps he had a +vague idea that editors lived in palaces, and sat on thrones. + +Presently the editor put down his pen with an exclamation of +satisfaction; and the first impression of peevishness vanished in the +cordiality with which he now turned to his visitor. + +"You must excuse my absorption. It was a rather tough piece of +proof-reading. A subject I'm rather interested in,--new Welsh +dictionary. Don't suppose it's in your line, eh, eh?"--and the tall, +spare man laughed a boyish laugh like a mischievous bird, and tossed his +head at the jest. + +His face was small and sallow and tired; but the dark eyes were full of +fun and kindness. Presently, he rose and began to walk up and down the +room with a curious, prancing walk, rolling himself a cigarette, and +talking away in a rapid, jerky fashion with his continual, "eh, eh?" +coming in all the time. + +"Poor Gerard! So you know him? How is he now?" and he lowered his voice +with the suggestion of a mutual confidence, and stopped in his walk till +Henry should answer. "Poor Gerard! And he might have been--well, +well,--never mind. We were together at King's. Brilliant fellow. So you +know Gerard. Dear me! Dear me!" + +Then he turned to the subject of Henry's visit. + +"Well, my poor boy, nothing will satisfy you but literature? You are +determined to be a literary man, eh, eh?" Then he stopped in front of +Henry and laid his hand kindly on his shoulder, "Is it too late to say, +'Go back while there is yet time'? Perhaps--of course--you're going to +be a very great man," and he broke off into his walk again, with one of +his mischievous laughs. "But unless you are, take my word, it's a poor +game--Yet, I suppose, it's no use talking. I know, wasted breath, wasted +breath--Well, now, what can you do? and, by the way, you won't grow fat +on _The Fleet Street Review_. Ten shillings a column is our magnificent +rate of payment, and we can hardly afford that--" + +Then he began pulling out one book and another from the piles of all +sorts that lay around him. "I suppose, like the rest, you'd better begin +on poetry. There's a tableful over there--go and take your pick of it, +unless, of course, you've got some special subject. You're not, I +suppose, an authority on Assyriology, eh, eh?" + +Henry feared not, and then a new fit of industry came upon the editor, +and he begged Henry to take a look at the books while he ran through +another proof for the post. + +That dusty table--evidently the rubbish-heap of the room--was Henry's +first object-lesson in the half tragical, half farcical, over-production +of modern literature. Such a mass of foolishness and ineptitude he had +never conceived of; such pretentiousness too--and while he made various +melancholy reflections upon human vanity, what should he unearth +suddenly from the heap, but his own little volume. He could but half +suppress a cry of recognition. + +"What's that?" asked the editor, not turning round. "Found anything?" + +"No," said Henry; "nothing--for a moment I thought I had." + +Presently he had made a small pile of the most promising volumes, and +turned to take his leave. The editor took up one or two of them +carelessly. + +"Not much here, I'm afraid," he said. "Never mind; see what you can make +of them. Not more than three columns at the most, you know. And come and +see me again. I'm glad to have seen you." + +"Oh," said Henry, on the point of leaving, and laying his hand on his +own little book, "may I take this one too? It's not worth reviewing, but +it rather interested me just now." + +"God bless me, yes, certainly," said the editor; "you're welcome to the +lot, if you care to bring a hand-cart. Good-bye, good-bye." + +And Henry slipped his poor little neglected volume into his pocket. On +how many dusty tables, he wondered, was it then lying ignominiously +disregarded. Well, the day would come! Meanwhile, he had his first batch +of books for review. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE WITS + + +There now remained the gathering of wits fixed for the evening. His +publisher had asked him to dinner, but he had declined, from a secret +and absurd desire to dine at "The Cock." This he gratified, and with his +mind full of the spacious times of the early Victorians, he turned into +the publisher's little room about nine o'clock to meet some of +the later. + +There was no great muster as yet. Some half-a-dozen rather shy young men +spasmodically picked up strange drawings or odd-looking books, lying +about on the publisher's tables, struggled maidenly with cigars, sipped +a little whisky and soda; but little was said. + +Among them a pale-faced lad of about fifteen, miraculously +self-possessed, stood with his back to the chimney-piece. But soon +others began to turn in, and by ten the room was as full of chatter and +smoke as it could hold. Not least conspicuous among the talkers was the +pale-faced boy of fifteen. Henry had been sitting near to him, and had +been suddenly startled by his unexpectedly breaking out into a volley of +learning, delivered in a voice impressively deliberate and sententious. + +"What a remarkable boy that is!" said Henry, innocently, to the +publisher. + +"Yes; but he's not quite a boy,--though he's young enough. A curious +little creature, morbidly learned. A friend of mine says that he would +like to catch him and keep him in a bottle, and label it 'the learned +homunculus.'" + +"What dialect is it he is talking in?" said Henry; "I don't remember to +have heard it before." + +The publisher smiled: "My dear fellow, you must be careful what you say. +That is what we call 'the Oxford voice.'" + +"How remarkable!" said Henry, his attention called off by a being with a +face that half suggested a faun, and half suggested a flower,--a small, +olive-skinned face crowned with purply black hair, that kept falling in +an elflock over his forehead, and violet eyes set slant-wise. He was +talking earnestly of fairies, in a beautiful Irish accent, and Henry +liked him. The attraction seemed mutual, and Henry found himself drawn +into a remarkable relation about a fairy-hill in Connemara, and fairy +lights that for several nights had been seen glimmering about it; and +how at last he--that is, the narrator--and a particularly hard-headed +friend of his had kept watch one moonlit night, with the result that +they had actually seen and talked with the queen of the fairies and +learned many secrets of the ----. The narrator here made use of a long, +unpronounceable Irish word, which Henry could not catch. + +"I should have explained some of these phenomena to you," whispered the +publisher presently, noticing that Henry looked a little bewildered. +"This is a young Irish poet, who, in the intervals of his raising the +devil, writes very beautiful lyrics that he may well have learned from +the fairies. It is his method to seem mad on magic and such things. You +will meet with many strange methods here to-night. Don't be alarmed if +some one comes and talks to you about strange sins. You have come to +London in the 'strange sins' period. I will explain afterwards." + +He had hardly spoken when a pallid young man, with a preternatural +length and narrowness of face, began to talk to him about the sins of +the Borgias. + +"I suppose you never committed a murder yourself?" he asked Henry, +languidly. + +"No," said Henry, catching the spirit of the foolishness; "no, not yet. +I am keeping that--" implying that he was reserving so extreme a +stimulant till all his other vices failed him. + +Presently there entered a tall young man with a long, thin face, +curtained on either side with enormous masses of black hair, like a slip +of the young moon glimmering through a pine-wood. + +At the same moment there entered, as if by design, his very antithesis: +a short, firmly built, clerkly fellow, with a head like a billiard-ball +in need of a shave, a big brown moustache, and enormous spectacles. + +"That," said the publisher, referring to the moon-in-the-pine-wood young +man, "is our young apostle of sentiment, our new man of feeling, the +best-hated man we have; and the other is our young apostle of blood. He +is all for muscle and brutality--and he makes all the money. It is one +of our many fashions just now to sing 'Britain and Brutality.' But my +impression is that our young man of feeling will have his day,--though +he will have to wait for it. He would hasten it if he would cut his +hair; but that, he says, he will never do. His hair, he says, is his +battle-cry. Well, he enjoys himself--and loves a fight, though you +mightn't think it to look at him." + +A supercilious young man, with pink cheeks, and a voice which his +admirers compared to Shelley's, then came up to Henry and asked him what +he thought of Mallarmé's latest sonnet; but finding Henry confessedly at +sea, turned the conversation to the Empire ballet, of which, +unfortunately, Henry knew as little. The conversation then languished, +and the Shelley-voiced young man turned elsewhere for sympathy, with a +shrug at your country bumpkins who know nothing later than Rossetti. + +In the thick of the conversational turmoil, Henry's attention had from +time to time been attracted by the noise proceeding from a blustering, +red-headed man, with a face of fire. + +"Who is that?" at last he found opportunity to ask his friend. + +"That is our greatest critic," said the publisher. + +"Oh!" said Henry, "I must try and hear what he is saying. It seems +important from the way he is listened to." + +So Henry listened, and heard how the fire-faced man said the word "damn" +with great volubility and variety of cadence, and other words to the +same effect, and how the little group around him hung upon his words and +said to each other, "How brilliant!" "How absolute!" + +Henry turned to his friend. "The only word I can catch is the word +'damn,'" he said. + +"That," said the publisher, with a laugh, "is the master-word of +fashionable criticism." + +Presently a little talkative man came up, and said that he hoped Mr. +Mesurier was an adherent of the rightful king. + +"Oh, of course!" said Henry. + +"And do you belong to any secret society?" asked the little man. + +Henry couldn't say that he did. + +"Well, you must join us!" he said. + +"I suppose there won't be a rising just yet?" asked Henry, realising +that this was the Jacobite method. + +"Not just yet," said the little man, reassuringly. So Henry was +enrolled. + + * * * * * + +And so it went on till past midnight, when Henry at last escaped, to +talk it all over with the stars. The evening had naturally puzzled him, +as a man will always be puzzled who has developed under the influence of +the main tendencies of his generation, and who finds himself suddenly in +a backwater of fanciful reaction. Henry, in his simple way, was a +thinker and a radical, and he had nourished himself on the great +main-road masters of English literature. He had followed the lead of +modern philosophers and scientists, and had arrived at a mystical +agnosticism,--the first step of which was to banish the dogmas of the +church as old wives' tales. He considered that he had inherited the +hard-won gains of the rationalists. But he came to London and found +young men feebly playing with the fire of that Romanism which he +regarded as at once the most childish and the most dangerous of all +intellectual obsessions. In an age of great biologists and electricians, +he came upon children prettily talking about fairies and the +philosopher's stone. In one of the greatest ages of English poetry, he +came to London to find young English poets falling on their knees to the +metrical mathematicians of France. In the great age of democracy, a fool +had come and asked him if he were not a supporter of the house of +Stuart, a Jacobite of charades. But only once had he heard the name of +Milton; it was the learned boy of fifteen who had quoted him,--a +lifelong debt of gratitude; and never once had he heard the voice of +simple human feeling, nor heard one speak of beauty, simply, +passionately, with his heart in his mouth; nor of love with his heart +upon his sleeve. Much cleverness, much learning, much charm, there had +been, but he had missed the generous human impulse. No one seemed to be +doing anything because he must. These were pleasant eddies, dainty with +lilies and curiously starred water-grasses, but the great warm stream of +English literature was not flowing here. + +As he neared his hotel, he thought of his morning visit to Goldsmith's +tomb, and ten-fold he repented the little half-sneer with which he had +bought the flowers. In a boyish impulse, he rang the Temple bell, and +found his way again to the lonely corner. His flowers were lying there +in the moonlight, and again he read: "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith." + +"Forgive me, Goldy," he murmured. "Well may men bring you flowers,--for +you wrote, not as those yonder; you wrote for the human heart." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +BACK TO REALITY + + +It was good to get back to reality, with Angel's blue eyes, Mike's +laugh, and Esther's common sense. + +"Let me look deep into them, Angel--deep--deep. It is so good to get +back to something true." + +"Are they true?" said Angel, opening them very wide. + +"Something that will never forsake one, something we can never forsake! +Something in all the wide world's change that will never change. +Something that will still be Angel even in a thousand years." + +"I hope to be a real angel long before that," said Angel, laughing. + +"Do you think you can promise to be true so long, Angel?" asked Henry. + +"Dear, you know that so long as there is one little part of me left +anywhere in the world, that part will be true to you.--But come, tell +me about London. I'm afraid you didn't enjoy it very much." + +"Oh, yes, I loved London,--that is, old London; but new London made me a +little sad. I expect it was only because I didn't quite understand the +conditions." + +"Perhaps so," said Angel. "But tell me,--did you go to the Zoo?" + +"You dear child! Yes! I went out of pure love for you." + +"Now you needn't be so grown up. You know you wanted to go just for +yourself as well. And you saw the monkey-house?" + +"Yes." + +"And the lions?" + +"Yes." + +"And the snakes?" + +"Yes!" + +"Oh, I'd give anything to see the snakes! Did they eat any rabbits when +you were there,--fascinate them, and then draw them slowly, slowly in?" + +"Angel, what terrible interests you are developing! No, thank goodness, +they didn't." + +"Why, wouldn't it fascinate you to see something wonderfully killed?" +asked Angel. "It is dreadful and wicked, of course. But it would be so +thrillingly real." + +"I think I must introduce you to a young man I met in London," said +Henry, "who solemnly asked me if I had ever murdered anyone. You savage +little wild thing! I suppose this is what you mean by saying sometimes +that you are a gipsy, eh?" + +"Well, and you went to the Tower, and Westminster Abbey, and everything, +and it was really wonderful?" + +"Yes, I saw everything--including the Queen." + +For young people of Tyre and Sidon to go to London was like what it once +was to make the pilgrimage to Rome. + +Mike created some valuable nonsense on the occasion, which unfortunately +has not been preserved, and Esther was disgusted with Henry because he +could give no intelligible description of the latest London hats; and +all examined with due reverence those wonderful books for review. + +In Tichborne Street Aunt Tipping had taken advantage of his absence to +enrich his room with a bargain in the shape of an old desk, which was +the very thing he wanted. Dear old Aunt Tipping! And Gerard, it is to +be feared, took a little more brandy than usual in honour of his young +friend's adventures in the capital. + +These excitements over, Henry sat down at his old desk to write his +first review; and there for the present we may leave him, for he took it +very seriously and was dangerous to interrupt. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE OLD HOME MEANWHILE + + +More than a year had now gone by since Henry left home, and meanwhile, +with the exception of Dot's baptism, there had been no exciting changes +to record. Perhaps uneventfulness is part of the security of a +real home. Every morning James Mesurier had risen at half-past +six,--though he no longer imposed that hour of rising upon his +daughters,--breakfasted at eight, and reached his office at nine. Every +evening during those months, punctually at half-past six his latch-key +had rattled in the front-door lock, and one or other of his daughters +had hurried out at the sound to bid him welcome home. + +"Home at last, father dear!" they had said, helping him off with his +coat; and sometimes when he felt bright he would answer,-- + +"Yes, my dear, night brings crows home." + +"Home again, James!" his wife would say, as he next entered the front +parlour, and bent down to kiss her where she sat. "It's a long day. +Isn't it time you were pulling in a bit? Surely some of the younger +heads should begin to relieve you." + +"Responsibility, Mary dear! We cannot delegate responsibility," he would +answer. + +"But we see nothing of you. You just sacrifice your whole life for the +business." + +If he were in a good humour, he might answer with one of his rare sweet +laughs, and jokingly make one of his few French quotations: "_Telle est +la vie_! my dear, _Telle est la vie_! That's the French for it, +isn't it, Dot?" + +James Mesurier was just perceptibly softening. Perhaps it was that he +was growing a little tired, that he was no longer quite the stern +disciplinarian we met in the first chapter; perhaps the influence of his +wife, and his experiences with his children, were beginning to hint to +him what it takes so long for a strong individual nature to learn, that +the law of one temperament cannot justly or fruitfully be enforced as +the law of another. + +The younger children--Esther and Dot and Mat used sometimes to say to +each other--would grow up in a more clement atmosphere of home than had +been Henry's and theirs. Already they were quietly assuming privileges, +and nothing said, that would have meant beatings for their elders. For +these things had Henry and Esther gladly faced martyrdom. Henry had +looked on the Promised Land, but been denied an entrance there. By his +stripes this younger generation would be healed. + +The elder girls hastened to draw close to their father in gratitude, and +home breathed a kinder, freer air than ever had been known before. +Between Esther and her father particularly a kind of comradeship began +to spring up, which perhaps more than ever made the mother miss her boy. + +But, all the same, home was growing old. This was the kindness of the +setting sun! + +Childless middle age is no doubt often dreary to contemplate, yet is it +an egoistical bias which leads one to find in such limitation, or one +might rather say preservation, of the ego, a certain compensation? The +childless man or woman has at least preserved his or her individuality, +as few fathers and mothers of large families are suffered to do. By the +time you are fifty, with a family of half a dozen children, you have +become comparatively impersonal as "father" or "mother." It is tacitly +recognised that your life-work is finished, that your ambitions are +accomplished or not, and that your hopes are at an end. + +The young Mesuriers, for example, were all eagerly hastening towards +their several futures. They were garrulous over them at every meal. But +to what future in this world were James and Mary Mesurier looking +forward? Love had blossomed and brought forth fruit, but the fruit was +quickly ripening, and stranger hands would soon pluck it from the +boughs. In a very few years they would sit under a roof-tree bared of +fruit and blossom, and sad with falling leaves. They had dreamed their +dream, and there is only one such dream for a lifetime; now they must +sit and listen to the dreams of their children, help them to build +theirs. They mattered now no longer for themselves, but just as so much +aid and sympathy on which their children might draw. Too well in their +hearts they knew that their children only heard them with patience so +long as they talked of their to-morrows. Should they sometimes dwell +wistfully on their own yesterdays, they could too plainly see how long +the story seemed. + +_Telle est la vie!_ as James Mesurier said, and, that being so, no +wonder life is a sad business. Better perhaps be childless and retain +one's own personal hopes and fears for life, than be so relegated to +history in the very zenith of one's days. If only this younger +generation at the door were always, as it assumes, stronger and better +than its elder! but, though the careless assumption that it is so is +somewhat general, history alone shows how false and impudent the +assumption often is. Too often genius itself must submit to the silly +presumption of its noisy and fatuous children, and it is the young fool +who too often knocks imperiously at the door of wise and active +middle age. + +That all this is inevitable makes it none the less sad. The young +Mesuriers were neither fools nor hard of heart; and sometimes, in +moments of sympathy, their parents would be revealed to them in sudden +lights of pathos and old romance. They would listen to some old +love-affair of their mother's as though it had been their own, or go out +of their way to make their father tell once more the epic of the great +business over which he presided, and which, as he conceived it, was +doubtless a greater poem than his son would ever write. Yet still even +in such genuine sympathy, there was a certain imaginative effort to be +made. The gulf between the generations, however hidden for the moment, +was always there. + +Yet, after all, James and Mary Mesurier possessed an incorruptible +treasure, which their children had neither given nor could take away. To +regard them as without future would be a shallow observation,--for love +has always a future, however old in mortal years it may have grown; and +as they grew older, their love seemed to grow stronger. Involuntarily +they seemed to draw closer together, as by an instinct of +self-preservation. Their love had been before their children; were they +to be spared, it would still be the same love, sweeter by trial, when +their children had passed from them. In this love had been wise for +them. Some parents love their children so unwisely that they forget to +love each other; and, when the children forsake them, are left +disconsolate. One has heard young mothers say that now their boy has +come, their husbands may take a second place; and often of late we have +heard the woman say: "Give me but the child, and the lover can go his +ways." Foolish, unprophetic women! Let but twenty years go by, and how +glad you will be of that rejected lover; for, though a son may suffice +for his mother, what mother has ever sufficed for her son? + +But though sometimes, as they looked at their parents, the young +Mesuriers caught a glimpse of the infinite sadness of a life-work +accomplished, yet it failed to warn them against the eager haste with +which they were hurrying on towards a like conclusion. Too late they +would understand that all the joy was in the doing; too soon say to +themselves: "Was it for this that our little world shook with such fiery +commotion and molten ardours, that this present should be so firm and +insensitive beneath our feet? This habit--why, it was once a passion! +This fact--why, it was once a dream!" + +Oh, why shake off youth's fragile blossoms with the very speed of your +own impatience! Why make such haste towards autumn! Who ever thought the +ruddiest lapful of apples a fair exchange for a cloud of sunlit blossom? +Whose maturity, however laden with prosperity or gilded with honour, +ever kept the fairy promise of his youth? For so brief a space youth +glitters like a dewdrop on the tree of life, glitters and is gone. For +one desperate instant of perfection it hangs poised, and is seen +no more. + +But, alas! the art of enjoying youth with a wise economy is only learnt +when youth is over. It is perhaps too paradoxical an accomplishment to +be learnt before; for a youth that economised itself would be already +middle age. It is just the wasteful flare of it that leaves such a +dazzle in old eyes, as they look back in fancy to the conflagration of +fragrant fire which once bourgeoned and sang where these white ashes now +slowly smoulder towards extinction. + +When Mike has a theatre of his own and can send boxes to his friends, +when Henry maybe is an editor of power, when Esther and Angel are the +enthroned wives of famous men, and the new heaven and the new earth are +quite finished,--will they never sigh sometimes to have the making of +them all over again? Then they will have everything to enjoy, so there +will be nothing left to hope for. Then there will be no spice of peril +in their loves, no keen edge that comes of enforced denial; and the game +of life will be too sure for ambition to keep its savour. "There is no +thrill, no excitement nowadays," one can almost fancy their saying, and, +like children playing with their bricks, "Now let us knock it all down, +and build another, one. It will be such fun." + +However, these are intrusive, autumnal thoughts in this book of simple +youth, and our young people knew them not. They were far indeed from +Esther's mind as she talked with Dot of the future one afternoon. +Instead, her words were full of impatience with the slow march of +events, and the enforced inactivity of a girl's life at home. + +"It is so much easier for the boys," she was saying. "There is something +for them to do. But we can do nothing but sit at home and wait, darn +their socks, and clap our hands at their successes. I wish I were +a man!" + +"No, you don't," said Dot; "for then you couldn't marry Mike. And you +couldn't wear pretty dresses--Oh! and lots of things. I don't much envy +a man's life, after all. It's all very well talking about hard work when +you haven't got to do it; and it's not so much the work as the +responsibility. It must be such a responsibility to be a man." + +"Of course you're right, Dot--but, oh! this waiting is so stupid, all +the same. If only I could be doing something--anything!" + +"Well, you _are_ doing something. Is it nothing to be all the world to a +man?" said Dot, wistfully; "nothing to be his heaven upon earth? Nothing +to be the prize he is working for, and nothing to sustain and cheer him +on, as you do Mike, and as Angel cheers Henry? Would Henry have been the +same without Angel, or Mike the same without you? No, the man's work +makes more noise, but the woman's work is none the less real and useful +because it is quiet and underground." + +"Dear Dot, what a wise old thing you're growing! But you know you're +longing all the time for some work to do yourself. Didn't you say the +other day that you seemed to be wasting your life here, making beds and +doing housework?" + +"Yes; but I'm different. Don't you see?" retorted Dot, sadly. "I've got +no Mike. Your work is to help Mike be a great actor, but I've got no one +to help be anything. You may be sure I wouldn't complain of being idle +if I had. I think you're a bit forgetful sometimes how happy you are." + +"Poor old Dot! you needn't talk as if you're such a desperate old +maid,--you're not twenty yet. And I'm sure it's a good thing for you +that you haven't got any of the young men about here--to help be +aldermen! Wait till you come and stay with us in London, then you'll +soon find some one to work for, as you call it." + +"I don't know," said Dot, thoughtfully; "somehow I think I shall never +marry." + +"I suppose you mean you'd rather be a nun or something serious of that +sort." + +"Well, to tell the truth, I have been thinking lately if perhaps I +couldn't do something,--perhaps go into a hospital, or something of +that sort." + +"Oh, nonsense, Dot! Think of all the horrible, dirty people you'd have +to attend to. Ugh!" + +"Christ didn't think of that when He washed the feet of His disciples," +said little Dot, sententiously. + +"Why, Dot, how dreadfully religious you're getting! You want a good +shaking! Besides, isn't it a little impious to imply that the apostles +were horrible, dirty people?" + +"You know what I meant," said Dot, flushing. + +"Yes, of course, dear; and I think I know where you've been. You've been +to see that dear Sister Agatha." + +"You admit she's a dear?" + +"Of course I do; but I don't know whether she's quite good for you." + +"If you'd only seen her among the poor little children the other day, +how beautiful and how happy she looked, you might have thought +differently," said Dot. + +"Oh, yes, dear; but then you mustn't forget that her point of view is +different. She's renounced the world; she's one of those women," Esther +couldn't resist adding, maliciously, "who've given up hope of man, and +so have set all their hopes on God." + +"Esther, that's unworthy of you--though what if it is as you say, is it +so great a failure after all to dedicate one's self to God rather than +to one little individual man?" + +"Oh, come," said Esther, rather wilfully misunderstanding, and suddenly +flushing up, "Mike is not so little as all that!" + +"Why, you goose, how earthly you are! I never thought of dear +Mike--though it would have served you right for saying such a mean thing +about Sister Agatha." + +"Forgive me. I know it was mean, but I couldn't resist it. And it is +true, you'll admit, of some of those pious women, though I withdraw it +about Sister Agatha." + +"Of course I couldn't be a sister like Sister Agatha," said Dot, +"without being a Catholic as well; but I might be a nurse at one of the +ordinary hospitals." + +"It would be dreadfully hard work!" said Esther. + +"Harder than being a man, do you think?" asked Dot, laughing. + +"For goodness' sake, don't turn Catholic!" said Esther, in some alarm. +"_That_ would break father's heart, if you like." + +A horror of Catholicism ran in the very marrow of these young people. +It was one of the few relics of their father's Puritanism surviving in +them. Of "Catholics" they had been accustomed to speak since childhood +as of nightmares and Red Indians with bloody scalps at their waists; and +perhaps that instinctive terror of the subtle heart of Rome is the +religious prejudice which we will do well to part with last. + +Dot had not, indeed, contemplated an apostacy so unnatural; but beneath +these comparatively trivial words there was an ever-growing impulse to +fulfil that old longing of her nature to do something, as the Christians +would say, "for God," something serious, in return for the solemn and +beautiful gift of life. By an accident, she had met Sister Agatha one +day in the house of an old Irish servant of theirs, who had been +compelled to leave them on account of ill-health, and on whom she had +called with a little present of fruit. She had been struck by the +sweetness of the Sister's face, as the Sister had been struck by hers. +Sister Agatha had invited Dot to visit her some day at the home for +orphan children of which she had charge; and, with some misgiving as to +whether it was right thus to visit a Catholic, whether even it was +safe, Dot had accepted. So an acquaintance had grown up and ripened into +a friendship; and Sister Agatha, while making no attempt to turn the +friendship to the account of her church, was a great consolation to the +lonely, religious girl. + +Dot retained too much rationalism ever to become a Catholic, but the +longing to do something grew and grew. At a certain moment, with each +new generation of girls, there comes an epidemical desire in maiden +bosoms to dedicate their sweet young lives to the service of what Esther +called "horrible dirty people." At these periods the hospitals are +flooded with applications from young girls whom the vernal equinox urges +first to be mothers, and, failing motherhood, nurses. Just before she +met Henry, Angel had done her best to miss him by frantic endeavours to +nurse people whom the hospital doctors decided she was far too slight a +thing to lift,--for unless you can lift your patients, not to say throw +them about, you fail in the muscular qualifications of a hospital nurse. +Dot, as we have seen, was impelled in this direction from no merely +sentimental impulse, unless the religious impulse, which paradoxically +makes nuns of disappointed mothers, may so be called. Perhaps, +unacknowledged, deep down in her heart, she longed to be the nurse--of +one little wonderful child. Had this been granted her, it is probable +that the maimed and the halt would have had less attraction for her +pitying imagination. As it was, however, she persuaded herself that she +loved them. Was it because, at the moment, no one else seemed to +need her love? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +STAGE WAITS, MR. LAFLIN + + +Esther's impatience was to be appeased, perhaps a little to her regret +after all, by an unexpected remission of the time appointed between Mike +and his first real engagement. Suddenly one day came an exciting letter +from the great actor, saying that he saw his way to giving him a part in +his own London company, if he could join him for rehearsal in a +week's time. + +Here was news! At last a foundation-stone of the new heaven was to be +laid! In a week's time Mike would be working at one of the alabaster +walls. Perhaps in two years' time, perhaps even in a year, with good +fortune, the roof would be on, the door wreathed with garlands, and a +modest little heaven ready for occupation. + +Now all that remained was to make the momentous break with the old life. +Old Mr. Laflin had been left in peaceful ignorance of the mine which +must now be exploded beneath his evening armchair. Mike loved his +father, and this had been a dread long and wisely postponed. But now, +when the moment for inevitable decision had come, Mike remembered, with +a certain shrinking, that responsibility of which Dot had spoken,--the +responsibility of being a man. It was his dream to be an actor, to earn +his bread with joy. To earn it with less than joy seemed unworthy of +man. Yet there was another dream for him, still more, immeasurably more, +important--to be Esther's husband. If he stayed where he was, in slow +revolutions of a dull business, his father's place and income would +become his. If he renounced that certain prospect, he committed himself +to a destiny of brilliant chances; and for the first time he realised +that among those chances lurked, too, the chance of failure. Esther must +decide; and Henry's counsel, too, must be taken. Mike thought he knew +what the decision and the counsel would be; and, of course, he was +not mistaken. + +"Why, Mike, how can you hesitate?" said Esther. "Fail, if you like, and +I shall still love you; but you don't surely think I could go on loving +a man who was frightened to try?" + +That was a little hard of Esther, for Mike's fear had been for her sake, +not his own. However, that and the even more vehement counsel of Henry +had the desired bracing effect; and Mike nerved himself to deal the +necessary blow at his father's tranquillity. + +As the writer of this book takes no special joy in heart-breaking scenes +with fathers, the painful and somewhat violent scene with Mr. Laflin is +here omitted, and left to the imagination of any reader with a taste for +such unnatural collisions. Any one over thirty will agree that all the +reason was on Mr. Laflin's side, as all the instinct was on his son's. +Luckily for Mike, the instinct was to prove genuine, and his father to +live to be prouder of his rebellion than ever he would have been of his +obedience. + +This scene over, it was only a matter of days--five alone were +left--before Mike must up and away in right good earnest. + +"Oh, Mike," said Esther, "you're sure you'll go on loving me? I'm +awfully frightened of those pretty girls in ----'s company." + +"You needn't be," said Mike; "there's only one girl in the world will +look at a funny bit of a thing like me." + +"Oh, I don't know," said Esther, laughing, "some big girls have such +strange tastes." + +"Well, let's hope that before many months you can come and look after +me." + +"If we'd only a certain five pounds a week, we could get +along,--anything to be together. Of course, we'd have to be +economical--" said Esther, thoughtfully. + +On the last night but one before his leaving, it was Mike's turn for a +farewell dinner. Half-a-dozen of his best friends assembled at the +"Golden Bee," and toasts and tears were mingled to do him honour. Henry +happily caught the general feeling of the occasion in the following +verses, not hitherto printed. Henry was too much in earnest at the time +to regard the bathos of rhyming "stage waits" with such dignities as +"summoning fates," except for which _naïveté_ the poem is perhaps not a +bad example of sincere, occasional verse: + + _Dear Mike, at last the wishéd hour draws nigh-- + Weary indeed, the watching of a sky + For golden portent tarrying afar; + But here to-night we hail your risen star, + To-night we hear the cry of summoning fates-- + Stage waits! + + Stage waits! and we who love our brother so + Would keep him not; but only ere he go, + Led by the stars along the untried ways, + We'd hold his hand in ours a little space, + With grip of love that girdeth up the heart, + And kiss of eyes that giveth strength to part. + + Some of your lovers may be half afraid + To bid you forth, for fear of pitfalls laid + About your feet; but we have no such fears, + That cry is as a trumpet in our ears; + We dare not, would not, mock those summoning fates-- + Stage waits! + + Stage waits! and shall you fear and make delay? + Yes! when the mariner who long time lay, + Waiting the breeze, shall anchor when it blows; + Yes! when a thirsty summer-flower shall close + Against the rain; or when, in reaping days, + The husbandman shall set his fields ablaze. + + Nay, take your breeze, drink in your strengthening rain, + And, while you can, make harvest of your grain; + The land is fair to which that breeze shall blow. + The flower is sweet the rain shall set aglow, + The grain be rich within your garner gates-- + Stage waits! + + Stage waits! and we must loosen now your hand, + And miss your face's gold in all our land; + But yet we know that in a little while + You come again a conqueror, so smile + Godspeed, not parting, and, with hearts elate, + We wait_. + +Yes, for the second time the die was cast. Henry was already afoot on +the adventure perilous. Now it was Mike's turn. These young people had +passionately invoked those terrible gods who fulfil our dreams, and +already the celestial machinery was beginning to move in answer. Perhaps +it just a little took their breath, to see the great wheels so readily +turning at the touch of their young hands; but they were in for it now, +and with stout hearts must abide the issue. + +This was to be Esther and Mike's first experience of parting, and their +hearts sickened at the thought. Love surely does well in this world, so +full of snares and dangers, to fear to lose from its eyes for a moment +the face of its beloved; and in this respect the courage of love is the +more remarkable. How bravely it takes the appalling risks of life! To +separate for an hour may mean that never as long as the world lasts will +love hear the voice it loves again. "Good-bye," love has called gaily so +often, and waved hands from the threshold, and the beloved has called +"good-bye" and waved, and smiled back--for the last time. And yet love +faces the fears, not only of hours, but of weeks and months; weeks and +months on seas bottomless with danger, in lands rife with unknown evils, +dizzily taking the chances of desperate occupations. And the courage is +the greater, because, finally, in this world, love alone has anything to +lose. Other losses may be more or less repaired; but love's loss is, of +its essence, irreparable. Other fair faces and brave hearts the world +may bring us, but never that one face! Alas! for the most precious of +earthly things, the only precious thing of earth, there is no system of +insurance. The many waters have quenched love, and the floods drowned +it,--yet in the wide world is there no help, no hope, no recompense. + +The love that bound this little circle of young people together was so +strong and warm that it had developed in them an almost painful +sensibility to such risks of loss. So it was that expressions of +affection and outward endearments were more current among them than is +usual in a land where manners, from a proper fear of exaggeration, run +to a silly extreme of unresponsiveness. They never met without showing +their joy to be again together; never parted without that inner fear +that this might be their last chance of showing their love for +each other. + +"You all say good-bye as if you were going to America!" Myrtilla +Williamson had once said; "I suppose it's your Irish grandmother." And +no doubt the _empressement_ had its odd side for those who saw only +the surface. + +Thus for those who love love, who love to watch for it on human faces, +Mike's good-bye at the railway station was a sight worth going far +to see. + +"My word, they seem to be fond of each other, these young people!" said +a lady standing at the door of the next carriage. + +Mike was leaning through the window, and Esther was pressing near to +him. They murmured low to each other, and their eyes were bright with +tears. A little apart stood a small group, in which Henry and Angel and +Ned were conspicuous, and Mike's sisters and Dot and Mat were there. A +callous observer might have laughed, so sad and solemn they were. Mike's +fun tried a rally; but his jests fell spiritless. It was not so much a +parting, one might have thought, as a funeral. Little was said, but eyes +were eloquent, either with tears, or with long strong glances that meant +undying faithfulness all round; and Mike knew that Henry's eyes were +quoting "_Allons_! after the great Companions, and to belong to them!" + +Henry's will to achieve was too strong for him to think of this as a +parting; he could only think of it as a glorious beginning. There is +something impersonal in ambition, and in the absorption of the work to +be done the ambitious man forgets his merely individual sensibilities. +To achieve, though the heavens fall,--that was Henry's ambition for Mike +and for himself. + +No one really believed that the train would have the hard-heartedness to +start; but at last, with deliberate intention, evidently not to be +swayed by human pity, the guard set the estranging whistle to his lips, +cold and inexorable as Nero turning down the thumb of death, and surely +Mike's sad little face began to move away from them. Hands reached out +to him, eyes streamed, handkerchiefs fluttered,--but nothing could hold +him back; and when at last a curve in the line had swallowed the white +speck of his face, they turned away from the dark gulf where the train +had been as though it were a newly opened grave. + +A great to-do to make about a mere parting!--says someone. No doubt, my +dear sir! All depends upon one's standard of value. No doubt these young +people weighed life in fantastic scales. Their standard of value was, no +doubt, uncommon. To love each other was better than rubies; to lose each +other was bitter as death. For others other values,--they had found +their only realities in the human affections. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +ESTHER AND HENRY ONCE MORE + + +Yes, Mike had really gone. Henceforth for ever so long, he would only +exist for Esther in letters, or as a sad little voice at the end of a +wire. It had been arranged that Henry should take Esther with him for +dinner that evening to the brightest restaurant in Tyre. He was a great +believer in being together, and also in dinner, as comforters of your +sad heart. Perhaps, too, he was a little glad to feel Esther leaning +gently upon him once more. Their love was too sure and lasting and +ever-present to have many opportunities of being dramatic. Nature does +not make a fuss about gravitation. One of the most wonderful and +powerful of laws, it is yet of all laws the most retiring. Gravitation +never decks itself in rainbows, nor does it vaunt its undoubted strength +in thunder. It is content to make little show, because it is very +strong; yet you have always to reckon with it. It is undemonstrative, +but it is always there. The love of Esther and Henry was like that. It +has made little show in this history, but few readers can have missed +its presence in the atmosphere. It might go for weeks without its +festival; but there it was all the time, ready for any service, staunch +for any trial. It was one of the laws which kept the little world I have +been describing slung safely in space, and securely shining. + +It was, indeed, something like a perfect relationship,--this love of +Esther and Henry. Had the laws of nature permitted it, it is probable +that Mike and Angel would have been forced to seek their mates +elsewhere. As it was, though it was thus less than marriage, it was more +than friendship--as the holy intercourse of a mother and a son is more +than friendship. Freed from the perturbations of sex, it yet gained +warmth and exhilaration from the unconscious presence of that +stimulating difference. Though they were brother and sister, friend and +friend, Henry and Esther were also man and woman. So satisfying were +they to each other, that when they sat thus together, the truth must be +told, that, for the time at all events, they missed no other man +or woman. + +"I have always you," said Esther. + +"Do I still matter, then?" said Henry. "Are you sure the old love is not +growing old?" + +"You know it can never grow old. There is only one Mike; but there is +only one Henry too. It's a good love to have, Harry, isn't it? It makes +one feel so much safer in the world." + +"Dear little Esther! Do you remember those old beatings, and that night +you brought me the cake? Bless you!"--and Henry reached his hand across +the table, and laid it so kindly on Esther's that a hovering waiter +retreated out of delicacy, mistaking the pair for lovers. It was a +mistake that was often made when they were together; and they had +sometimes laughed, when travelling, at the kind-hearted way passengers +on the point of entering their carriage had suddenly made up their minds +not to disturb the poor newly-married young things. + +"And how we used to hate you once!" said Esther; "one can hardly +understand it now. Do you remember how on Sunday afternoons you would +insist on playing at church, and how, with a tablecloth for a surplice, +you used to be the minister? How you used to storm if we poor things +missed any of the responses!" + +"The monstrous egoism of it all!" said Henry, laughing. "It was all got +up to give me a stage, and nothing else. I didn't care whether you +enjoyed it or not. What dragons children are!" + +"'Dragons of the prime, that tare each other in their slime,'" quoted +Esther. "Yes, we tore each other, and no mistake--" + +"Well, I've made up for it since, haven't I?" said Henry. "I hope I'm a +humble enough brother of the beautiful to please you nowadays." + +"You're the truest, most reliable thing in the world," said Esther; "I +always think of you as something strong and true to come to--" + +"Except Mike!" + +"No, not even except Mike. We'll call it a draw--dear little Mike! To +think of him going further and further away every minute! I wonder where +he is by now. He must have reached Rugby long since." + +At that moment the waiter ventured to approach with a silver tray. A +telegram,--it was indeed a telegram of tears and distance from Mike, +given in at Rugby. Even so long parted and so far away, Mike was still +true. He had not yet forgotten! + +These young people were great extravagants of the emotional telegram. +They were probably among the earliest to apply electricity for +heart-breaking messages. Some lovers feel it a profanation thus to +reveal their souls beneath the eye of a telegraph-operator; but the +objection of delicacy ceases if you can regard the operator in his +actual capacity as a part of the machine. French perhaps is an advisable +medium; though, if the operator misunderstands it, your love is apt to +take strange forms at its destination, and if he understands it, you may +as well use English at once. + +"Dear Mike! God bless him!" and they pledged Mike in Esther's favourite +champagne. The wives of great actor-managers must early inure themselves +to champagne. + +"But if you're jealous of Mike," said Esther, presently, taking up the +dropped thread of their talk; "what about Angel?" + +"Of course it was only nonsense," said Henry. "I know you love Angel far +too much to be jealous of her, as I love Mike; and that's just the +beautiful harmony of it all. We are just a little impregnable world of +four,--four loving hearts against the world." + +"How clever it was of you to find Angel!" + +"I found Mike, too!" said Henry, laughing. + +"Oh, yes, I know; but then I discovered you." + +"Ah, but a still higher honour belongs to me, for I discovered you," +retorted Henry. "When you consider that I discovered three such +wonderful persons as you and Angel and Mike, don't you think, on the +whole, that I'm singularly modest?" + +"Do you love me?" said Esther, presently, quite irrelevantly. + +"Do you love _me_?" + +"I asked first." + +"Well, for the sake of argument, let us say 'yes.'" + +"How much?" + +"As big as the world." + +"Oh, well, then, let's have some Benedictine with the coffee!" said +Esther. + +"I've thought of something better, more 'sacramental,'" said Henry, +smiling, "but you couldn't conscientiously drink it with me. It's the +red drink of perfect love. Will you drink it with me?" + +"Of course I will." + +So the waiter brought a bottle bearing the beautiful words, "_Parfait +Amour_." + +"It's like blood," said Esther; "it makes me a little frightened." + +"Would you rather not drink it?" asked Henry. "You know if you drink it +with me, you must drink it with no one else. It is the law of it that we +can only drink it with one." + +"Not even with Mike?" + +"Not even with Mike." + +"What of Angel?" + +"I will drink it with no one but you as long as I live." + +"I will drink it then." + +They held up their glasses. + +"Dear old Esther!" + +"Dear old Henry!" + +And then they laughed at their solemnity. It was deeply sworn! + +When Esther reached home that evening, she found a further telegram from +Mike, announcing his arrival at Euston; and she had scarcely read it +when she heard her father's voice calling her. She went immediately to +the dining-room. + +"Esther, dear," he said, "your mother and I want a word with you." + +"No, James, you must speak for yourself in this," said Mrs. Mesurier, +evidently a little perturbed. + +"Well, dear, if I must be alone in the matter, I must bear it; I cannot +shrink from my duty on that account." Then, turning to Esther, "I called +you in to speak to you about Mike Laflin--" + +"Yes, father," exclaimed Esther, with a little gasp of surprise. + +"I met Mr. Laflin on the boat this morning, and was much astonished and +grieved to hear of the rash step his son has chosen to take. The matter +has evidently been kept from me,"--strictly speaking, it had; "I +understand, though on that again I have not been consulted, that you and +Mike have for some time been informally engaged to each other. Now you +know my views on the theatre, and I am sure that you must see that +Mike's having taken such a step must at once put an end to any such +idea. Your own sense of propriety would, I am sure, tell you that, +without any words from me--" + +"Father!" cried Esther, in astonishment. + +"You know that I considered Mike a very nice lad. His family is +respectable; and he would have come into a very comfortable business, if +he hadn't taken this foolish freak into his head--" + +"But, father, you have laughed at his recitations, yourself, many a +time, here of an evening. What difference can there be?" + +"There is the difference of the theatre, the contaminating atmosphere, +the people it attracts, the harm it does--your father, as you know, has +never been within a theatre in his life; is it likely that he can look +with calmness upon his daughter marrying a man whose livelihood is to be +gained in a scandalous and debasing profession?" + +"Father, I cannot listen to your talking of Mike like that. If it is +wrong to make people innocently happy, to make them laugh and forget +their troubles, to--to--well, if it's wrong to be Mike--I'm sorry; but, +wrong or right, I love him, and nothing will ever make me give him up." + +Mrs. Mesurier here interrupted, "I told you, James, how it would be. You +cannot change young hearts. The times are not the same as when you and I +were young; and, though I'm sure I don't want to go against you, I +think you are too hard on Esther. Love is love after all--and Mike's one +of the best-hearted lads that ever walked." + +"Thank you, mother," said Esther, impulsively, throwing her arms round +her mother's neck, and bursting into tears, "I--I will never +give--give--him up." + +"No, dear, no; now don't distress yourself. It will all come right. Your +father doesn't quite understand." And then a great tempest of sobbing +came over Esther, and swept her away to her own room. + +The father and mother turned to each other with some anger. + +"James, I'm surprised at your distressing the poor child like that +to-night; you might have known she would be sensitive, with Mike only +gone to-day! You could surely have waited till to-morrow." + +"I am surprised, Mary, that you can encourage her as you did. You cannot +surely uphold the theatre?" + +"Well, James, I don't know,--there are theatres and theatres, and actors +and actors; and there have been some very good men actors after all, and +some very bad men ministers, if it comes to that," she added; "and +theatre or no theatre, love's love in spite of all the fathers and +mothers in the world--" + +"All right, Mary, I would prefer then that we spoke no more on the +matter for this evening," and James Mesurier turned to his diary, to +record, along with the state of the weather, and the engagements of the +day, the undutiful conduct of Esther, and a painful difference with +his wife. + +Strange, that men who have themselves loved and begotten should thus for +a moment imagine that a small social prejudice, or a narrow religious +formula, can break the purpose of a young and vigorous passion. Do they +realise what it is they are proposing to obstruct? This is love--_love_, +my dear sir, at once the mightiest might, and the rightest right in the +universe! This is--Niagara--the Atlantic--the power of the stars--and +the strength of the tides. It is all the winds of the world, and all the +fires of the centre. You surely cannot be serious in asking it to take, +in exchange, some obsolete objection against its beloved! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +MIKE AFAR + + +This collision with her father braced up Esther's nerves, and made +Mike's absence easier to bear. Her father made no more allusion to it. +He was entering that period when fathers, however despotic, content +themselves with protest, where once they have governed by royal +proclamation. He was losing heart to contend with his children. They +must go their own ways--though it must not be without occasional severe +and solemn warnings on his part. + +Mike and Esther wrote to each other twice a week. They had talked of +every day, but a wise instinct prompted them to the less romantic, but +likely the more enduring arrangement. It would be none the less open to +them to write fourteen letters a week if they wished, but to have had to +admit that one letter a day was a serious tax, not only on one's other +occupations, including idleness, but also on the amount of +subject-matter available, would have been a dangerous correction of an +impulsive miscalculation. + +Second-rate London lodgings are not great cheerers of the human spirit, +and Mike was very lonely in his first letter or two; but, as the +rehearsals proceeded, it was evident that he was taking hold of his new +world, and the letter which told of his first night, and of his own +encouraging success in it, was buoyant with the rising tide of the +future. His chief had affectionately laid his hand on his shoulder, as +he came off from his scene, and, in the hearing of the whole company, +prophesied a great future for him. + +Mike had been born under a lucky star; and he had hardly been in London +two months when accident very perceptibly brightened it. The chief +comedian in the company fell ill; and though Mike had had so little +experience, his chief had so much confidence in his native gift, that he +cast him for the vacant part. Mike more than justified the confidence, +and not only pleased him, but succeeded in individualising himself with +the audience. He had only played it for a week, when one Saturday +evening the audience, after calling the manager himself three times, set +up a cry for "Laflin." The obsequious attendant pretended to consider it +as a fourth call for the manager, and made as if to move the curtain +aside for him once more; but, with a magnanimity rare indeed in a "star" +of his magnitude, "No, no!" he said; "it is Mr. Laflin they want. Quick, +lad, and take your first call." + +So little Mike stepped before the curtain, and made his first bow to an +affectionate burst of applause. What happy tears would have glittered in +Esther's eyes had she been there to see it, and in Henry's too, and +particularly, perhaps, in excitable Angel's! + +Even so soon was the blossom giving promise of the fruit. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +A LEGACY MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD + + +Meanwhile, Henry plodded away at Aunt Tipping's, working sometimes on a +volume of essays for the London publisher, and sometimes on his novel, +now and again writing a review, and earning an odd guinea for a poem; +and now and again indulging in a day of richly doing nothing. Otherwise, +one day was like another, with the many exceptions of the days on which +he saw Angel or Esther. With Ned, he spent many of his evenings; and he +soon formed the pleasant habit of dropping in on Gerard, last thing +before bed-time, for a smoke and half an hour's chat. + +There is always a good deal of youth left in any one who genuinely loves +youth; and Gerard always spoke of his youth as Adam, in his declining +years, might have spoken of Paradise. For him life was just youth--and +the rest of it death. + +"After thirty," he would say, "the happiest life is only history +repeating itself. I am no cynic,--far from it; but the worst of life is +the monotony of the bill of fare. To do a thing once, even twice, is +delightful--perhaps even a third time is successfully possible; but to +do it four times, is middle age. If you think of it, what is there to do +after thirty that one ought not to have achieved to perfection before? +You know the literary dictum, that the poet who hasn't written a +masterpiece before he is thirty will never write any after. Of course, +there are exceptions; I am speaking of the rule. In business, for +example, what future is there for the man who has not already a dashing +past at thirty? Of course, the bulk, the massive trunk and the +impressive foliage of his business, must come afterwards; but the tree +must have been firmly rooted and stoutly branched before then, and able +to go on growing on its own account. The work, in fact, must have +been done. + +"Take perhaps the only thing really worth doing in life," and Gerard +perceptibly saddened. "That is, marrying a woman you love, or I +should say _the_ woman, for you only really _love_ one woman--I'm +old-fashioned enough to think that,--well, I say, marrying the woman you +love, and bringing into the world that miracle of miracles,--a child +that shall be something of you and all her: that certainly is something +to have done before thirty, and not to be repeated, perhaps, more than +once before or after. She will want a boy like you, and you will have a +girl like her. That you may easily accomplish before thirty. Afterwards, +however, if you go on repeating each other, what do you do but blur the +individuality of the original masterpieces--though," pursued Gerard, +laughing, always ready to forget his original argument in the +seductiveness of an unexpected development of it, "though, after all, I +admit, there might be a temptation sometimes to improve upon the +originals. 'Agnes, my dear,' we might say, 'I'm not quite satisfied yet +with the shade of Eva's hair. It's nearly yours, but not quite. It's an +improvement on Anna's, whose eyes now are exactly yours. Eva's, +unfortunately, are not so faithful. I'm afraid we'll have to try again.' + +"No, but seriously," he once more began, "for a really vital and +successful life there is no adequate employment of the faculties after +thirty, except, of course, in the repetition of former successes. No; I +even withdraw that,--not the repetition, only the conservation, the +feeding, of former successes. The success is in the creation. When a +world is once created, any fool can keep it spinning. + +"Man's life is at least thirty years too long. Two score years is more +than enough for us to say what we were sent here to say; and if you'll +consider those biographies in which you are most interested, the +biographies of great writers, you cannot but bear me out. What, for +instance, did Keats and Shelley and Burns and Byron lose by dying, all +of them long before they were forty,--Keats even long before he was +thirty; and what did Wordsworth and Coleridge gain by living so long +after? Wordsworth and Coleridge didn't even live to repeat themselves, +else, of course, one would have begged them to go on living for ever; +for some repetitions, it is admitted, are welcome,--for instance, won't +you have a little more whisky?" + +Henry always agreed so completely with Gerard's talk, or at least so +delighted in it, that he had little scope of opportunity to say much +himself; and Gerard was too keen a talker to complain of a rapt +young listener. + +"How old are you?" he said, presently. + +"Twenty-two next month." + +"Twenty-two! How wonderful to be twenty-two! Yet I don't suppose you've +realised it in the least. In your own view, you're an aged philosopher, +white with a past, and bowed down with the cares of a future. Just you +stay in bed all day to-morrow, and ponder on the wonderfulness of being +twenty-two! + +"I'm forty-two. You're beginning--I'm done with. And yet, in some ways, +I believe I'm younger than you--though, perhaps, alas! what I consider +the youth in me is only the wish to be young again, the will to do and +enjoy, without the force and the appetite. But, by the way, when I say +I'm forty-two, I mean that I'm forty-two in the course of next week, +next Thursday, in fact, and if you'll do me that kindness, I should be +grateful if you would join me that evening in celebrating the melancholy +occasion. I've got a great mind to enlist your sympathy in a little +ancient history, if it won't be too great a tax upon your goodness; but +I'll think it over between now and then." + +Gerard's birthday had come; and the ancient history he had spoken of +had proved to be a chapter of his own history, the beauty and sadness of +which had made an impression upon Henry, to be rendered ineffaceable a +very few days after in a sudden and terrible manner. + +One early morning about four, just as it was growing light, he had +suddenly awakened with a strong feeling that some one was bending over +him. He opened his eyes, to see, as he thought, Gerard hastily leaving +his bedside. + +"Gerard!" he cried, "what's the matter?" but the figure gave no answer, +faded away down the long room, and disappeared. Henry sat up in bed and +struck a light, his heart beating violently. But there was no one there, +and the door was closed. It had evidently been one of those dreams that +persist on the eye for a moment after waking. Yet it left him uneasy; +and presently he wondered if Gerard could be ill. He determined to see; +so, slipping on his dressing-gown, he crossed the landing to Gerard's +room, and, softly knocking, opened the door and put in his head. + +"Gerard, old chap, are you all right?--Gerard--" + +There was no answer, and the room seemed unaccountably still. He +listened for the sound of breathing, but he couldn't hear it. + +"Gerard!" he cried, again louder, but there was still no answer; and +then, with the silence, a chill terror began to creep through his blood. +He had never yet seen death; and perhaps if he had the terror in his +thought would not have been lessened. With a heart that had almost +stopped beating, and knees that shook beneath him, he pushed open the +door and walked over to the bed. It was still too dark to see more than +outlines and masses of white and black; but even so he could see that +the stillness with which Gerard was lying was the stillness of death. + +His next thought was to rouse Aunt Tipping; and together the two bent +over the dead face. + +"Yes, he's gone," said Aunt Tipping; "poor gentlemen, how beautiful he +looks!" and they both gazed in silence upon the calm, smiling face. + +"Well, he's better off," she said, presently, leaning over him, and +softly pressing down the lids of his eyes. + +Henry involuntarily drew away. + +"Dear lad, there's nothing to be frightened of," said his aunt. "He's +as harmless as a baby." + +Then she took a handkerchief from a drawer, and spread it gently over +the dead man's face. To Aunt Tipping the dead were indeed as little +children, and inspired her with a strange motherly tenderness. Many had +been the tired silent ones whose eyes she had closed, and whose limbs +she had washed against their last resting place. They were so helpless +now; they could do nothing any more for themselves. + +Later in the day, Henry came again and sat long by the dead man's side. +It seemed uncompanionable to have grown thus suddenly afraid of him, to +leave him thus alone in that still room. And as he sat and watched him, +he gave to his memory a solemn service of faithful thought. Thus it was +he went over again the words in which Gerard had made him the +depository, the legatee, of his most sacred possession. + +Gerard had evidently had some presentiment of his approaching end. + +"I am going," he had said, "to place the greatest confidence in you one +man can place in another, pay you the greatest compliment. I shall die +some day, and something tells me that that divine event is not very far +off. Now I have no one in the world who cares an old 'J' pen for me, and +a new one is perhaps about as much as I care for any one--with one +exception, and that is a woman whom I shall never see again. She is not +dead, but has been worse than dead for me these ten years. I am optimist +enough to believe that her old love for me still survives, making sweet +the secret places of her soul. Never once in all these years to have +doubted her love has been more than most marriages; but were I to live +for another ten years, and still another, I would believe in it still. +But the stars were against us. We met too late. We met when she had long +been engaged to a friend of her youth, a man noble and true, to whom she +owed much, and whom she felt it a kind of murder to desert. It was one +of those fallacious chivalries of feeling which are the danger of +sensitive and imaginative minds. Religion strengthened it, as it is so +apt to strengthen any form of self-destruction, short of technical +suicide. There was but a month to their marriage when we met. For us it +was a month of rapture and agonies, of heaven shot through with hell. I +saw further than she. I begged her at least to wait a year; but the +force of my appeal was weakened by scruples similar to her own. To rob +another of his happiness is an act from which we may well shrink, though +we can clearly see that the happiness was really destined for us, and +can never be his in any like degree. During this time I had received +from her many letters, letters such as a woman only writes in the +May-morning of her passion; and one day I received the last. There was +in it one sentence which when I read it I think my heart broke, 'Do you +believe,' it ran, 'in a love that can lie asleep, as in a trance, in +this world, to awaken again in another, a love that during centuries of +silence can still be true, and be love still in a thousand years? If you +do, go on loving me. For that is the only love I dare give you. I must +love you no more in this world.' + +"Each morning as I have risen, and each night as I have turned to sleep, +those words have repeated themselves again and again in my heart, for +ten years. It was so I became the Ashton Gerard you know to-day. Since +that day, we have never met or written to each other. All I know is that +she is still alive, and still with him, and never would I disturb their +peace. When I die, I would not have her know it. If love _is_ immortal, +we shall meet again--when I am worthier to meet her. Such reunions are +either mere dreams, or they are realities to which the strongest forces +of the universe are pledged." + +Henry's only comment had been to grip Gerard's hand, and give him the +sympathy of silence. + +"Now," said Gerard, once more after a while, "it is about those letters +I want to speak to you. They are here," and he unlocked a drawer and +drew from it a little silver box. "I always keep them here. The key of +the drawer is on this ring, and this little gold key is the key of the +box itself. I tell you this, because I have what you may regard as a +strange request to make. + +"I suppose most men would consider it their duty either to burn these +letters, or leave instructions for them to be buried with them. That is +a gruesome form of sentiment in which I have too much imagination to +indulge. Both my ideas of duty and sentiment take a different form. The +surname of the writer of these letters is nowhere revealed in them, nor +are there any references in them by which she could ever be identified. +Therefore the menace to her fair fame in their preservation is not a +question involved. Now when the simplest woman is in love, she writes +wonderfully; but when a woman of imagination and intellect is caught by +the fire of passion, she becomes a poet. Once in her life, every such +woman is an artist; once, for some one man's unworthy sake, she becomes +inspired, and out of the fulness of her heart writes him letters warm +and real as the love-cries of Sappho. Such are the letters in this +little box. They are the classic of a month's passion, written as no man +has ever yet been able to write his love. Do you think it strange then +that I should shrink from destroying them? I would as soon burn the +songs of Shelley. They are living things. Shall I selfishly bury the +beating heart of them in the silence of the grave? + +"So, Mesurier," he continued, affectionately, "when I met you and +understood something of your nature, I thought that in you I had found +one who was worthy to guard this treasure for me, and perhaps pass it on +again to some other chosen spirit--so that these beautiful words of a +noble woman's heart shall not die--for when a man loves a woman, +Mesurier, as you yourself must know, he is insatiable to hear her +praise, and it is agony for him to think that her memory may suffer +extinction. Therefore, Mesurier,--Henry, let me call you,--I want to +give the memory of my love into your hands. I want you to love it for +me, when perhaps I can love it no more. I want you sometimes to open +this box, and read in these letters, as if they were your own; I want +you sometimes to speak softly the name of 'Helen,' when my lips can +speak it no more." + +Such was the beautiful legacy of which Henry found himself the possessor +by Gerard's death. Early on that day he had remembered his promise to +his dead friend, and had found the silver box, and locked it away among +his own most sacred things. Some day, in an hour and place upon which +none might break, he would open the little box and read Helen's letters, +as Gerard had wished. Already one sentence was fixed unforgettably upon +his mind, and he said it over softly to himself as he sat by Gerard's +silent bed: "Do you believe in a love that can lie asleep, as in a +trance in this world, to awaken again in another,--a love that during +centuries of silence can still be true, and be love still in a thousand +years? If you do, go on loving me. For that is the only love I dare give +you; I must love you no more in this world." + +Strange dreams of the indomitable dust! Already another man's love was +growing dear to him. Already his soul said the name of "Helen" softly +for Gerard's sake. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +LABORIOUS DAYS + + +With Gerard's death, Henry began to find Aunt Tipping's too sad a place +to go on living in. It had become haunted; and when new people moved +into Gerard's rooms, it became still more painful for him. It was as +though Gerard had been dispossessed and driven out. So he cast about for +some new shelter; and, one day, chance having taken him to the shipping +end of the city, he came upon some old offices which seemed full of +anxiety to be let. Inquiring of a chatty little housekeeper's wife, he +discovered, away at the echoing top of the building, a big, well-lighted +room, for which she thought the owner would be glad to take ten pounds a +year. That whole storey was deserted. Henry made up his mind at once, +and broke the news to Aunt Tipping that evening. It was the withering of +one of her few rays of poetry, and she struggled to keep him; but when +she saw how it was, the good woman insisted that he should take +something from her towards furnishing. Receiving was nothing like so +blessed as giving for Aunt Tipping. That old desk,--yes, she had bought +it for him,--that he must certainly take, and think of his old aunt +sometimes as he wrote his great books on it; and some bed-linen she +could well afford. She would take no denial. + +Angel and Esther were then called in to help him in the purchase of a +carpet, a folding-bed, an old sofa, and a few chairs. A carpenter got to +work on the bookshelves, and in a fortnight's time still another +habitation had been built for the Muse,--a habitation from which she was +not destined to remove again, till she and Angel and Henry all moved +into one house together,--a removal which was, as yet, too far off to be +included in this history. + +Ten pounds a year, a folding-bed, and a teapot!--this was Henry's new +formula for the cultivation of literature. He had so far progressed in +his ambitions as to have arrived at the dignity of a garret of his own, +and he liked to pretend that soon he might be romantically fortunate +enough to sit face to face with starvation. He knew, however, that it +would be a starvation mitigated by supplies from three separate, +well-lardered homes. A lad with a sweetheart and a sister, a mother and +an aunt, all in love with him, is not likely to become an authority on +starvation in its severest forms. + +A stern law had been passed that Henry's daytime hours were to be as +strictly respected as those of a man of business; yet quite often, about +eleven o'clock in the morning, there would come a heavenly whisper along +the passage and a little knock on the door, soft as a flower tapping +against a window-pane. + +"Thank goodness, that's Angel! + +"Angel, bless you! How glad I am to see you! I can't get on a bit with +my work this morning." + +"Oh, but I haven't come to interrupt you, dear. I sha'n't keep you five +minutes. Only I thought, dear, you'd be so tired of pressed beef and +tinned tongue, and so I thought I'd make a little hot-pot for you. I +bought the things for it as I came along, and it won't take five +minutes, if Mrs. Glass [the housekeeper] will only lend me a basin to +put it in, and bake it for you in her oven. Now, dear, you mustn't--you +know I mustn't stay. See now, I'll just take off my hat and jacket and +run along to Mrs. Glass, to get what I want. I'll be back in a minute. +Well, then, just one--now that's enough; good-bye," and off she +would skip. + +If you want to know how fairies look when they are making hot-pot, you +should have seen Angel's absorbed little shining face. + +"Now, do be quiet, Henry. I'm busy. Why don't you get on with your work? +I won't speak a word." + +"Angel, dear, you might just as well stay and help me to eat it. I +sha'n't do any work to-day, I know for certain. It's one of my +bad days." + +"Now, Henry, that's lazy. You mustn't give way like that. You'll make me +wish I hadn't come. It's all my fault." + +"No, really, dear, it isn't. I haven't done a stroke all morning--though +I've sat with my pen for two hours. You might stay, Angel, just an +hour or two." + +"No, Henry; mother wants me back soon. She's house-cleaning. And +besides, I mustn't. No--no--you see I've nearly finished now--see! Get +me the salt and pepper. There now--that looks nice, doesn't it? Now +aren't I a good little housewife?" + +"You would be, if you'd only stay. Do stay, Angel. Really, darling, it +will be all the same if you go. I know I shall do nothing. Look at my +morning's work, and he brought her a sheet of paper containing two lines +and a half of new-born prose, one line and a half of which was +plentifully scratched out. To this argument he added two or three +persuasive embraces. + +"It's really true, Henry? Well, of course, I oughtn't; but if you can't +work, of course you can't. And you must have a little rest sometimes, I +know. Well, then, I'll stay; but only till we've finished lunch, you +know, and we must have it early. I won't stay a minute past two o'clock, +do you hear? And now I'll run along with this to Mrs. Glass." + +When Angel had gone promptly at three, as likely as not another step +would be heard coming down the passage, and a feminine rustle, +suggesting a fuller foliage of skirts, pause outside the door, then a +sort of brotherly-sisterly knock. + +"Esther! Why, you've just missed Angel; what a pity!" + +"Well, dear, I only ran up for half-a-minute. I was shopping in town, +and I couldn't resist looking in to see how the poor boy was getting on. +No, dear, I won't take my things off. I must catch the half-past three +boat, and then I'll keep you from your work?" + +Esther always said this with a sort of suggestion in her voice that it +was just possible Henry might have found some new way of both keeping +her there and doing his work at the same time; as though she had said, +"I know you cannot possibly work while I am here; but, of course, if you +can, and talking to me all the time won't interfere with it--well, +I'll stay." + +"Oh, no, you won't really. To tell the truth, I've done none to-day. I +can't get into the mood." + +"So you've been getting Angel to help you. Oh, well, of course, if Angel +can be allowed to interrupt you, I suppose I can too. Well, then, I'll +stay a quarter of an hour." + +"But you may as well take your things off, and I'll make a cup of tea, +eh? That'll be cosey, won't it? And then you can read me Mike's last +letter, eh?" + +"Oh, he's doing splendidly, dear! I had a lovely letter from him this +morning. Would you really care to hear a bit of it?" + +And Esther would proceed to read, picking her way among the endearments +and the diminutives. + +"I _am_ glad, dear. Why, if he goes on at this rate, you'll be able to +get married in no time." + +"Yes; isn't it splendid, dear? I am so happy! What I'd give to see his +little face for five minutes! Wouldn't you?" + +"Rather. Perhaps he'll be able to run up on Bank Holiday." + +"I'm afraid not, dear. He speaks of it in his letter, and just hopes for +it; but rather fears they'll have to play at Brighton, or some other +stupid seaside place." + +"That's a bother. Yes, dear old Mike! To think of him working away there +all by himself--God bless him! Do you know he's never seen this old +room? It struck me yesterday. It doesn't seem quite warmed till he's +seen it. Wouldn't it be lovely to have him here some night?--one of our +old, long evenings. Well, I suppose it will really come one of these +days. And then we shall be having you married, and going off to London +in clouds of glory, while poor old Henry grubs away down here in Tyre." + +"Well, if we do go first, you will not be long after us, dear; and if +only Mike could make a really great hit, why, in five years' time we +might all be quite rich. Won't it be wonderful?" + +Then the kettle boiled, and Henry made the tea; and when it had long +since been drunk, Esther began to think it must be five o'clock, and, +horrified to find it a quarter to six, confessed to being ashamed of +herself, and tried to console her conscience by the haste of +her good-bye. + +"I'm afraid I've wasted your afternoon," she said; "but we don't often +get a chat nowadays, do we? Good-bye, dear. Go on loving me, won't you?" + +After that, Henry would give the day up as a bad job, and begin to +wonder if Ned would be dropping in that evening for a smoke; and as that +was Ned's almost nightly custom about eight o'clock, the chances of +Henry's disappointment were not serious. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +A HEAVIER FOOTFALL + + +One morning, as Henry was really doing a little work, a more ponderous +step broke the silence of his landing, a heavy footfall full of +friendship. Certainly that was not Angel, nor even the more weighty +Esther, though when the knock came it was little and shy as a woman's. + +Henry threw open the door, but for a moment there was no one to be seen; +and then, recalling the idiosyncrasy of a certain new friend whom by +that very token he guessed it might be, he came out on to the landing, +to find a great big friendly man in corpulent blue serge, a rough, dark +beard, and a slouched hat, standing a few feet off in a deprecating +way,--which really meant that if there were any ladies in the room with +Mr. Mesurier, he would prefer to call another time. For though he had +two or three grownup daughters of his own, this giant of a man was as +shy of a bit of a thing like Angel, whom he had met there one day, as +though he were a mere boy. He always felt, he once said in explanation, +as though he might break them in shaking hands. They affected him like +the presence of delicate china, and yet he could hold a baby deftly as +an elephant can nip up a flower; and to see him turn over the pages of a +delicate _édition de luxe_ was a lesson in tenderness. For this big man +who, as he would himself say, looked for all the world like a pirate, +was as insatiable of fine editions as a school-girl of chocolate creams. +He was one of those dearest of God's creatures, a gentle giant; and his +voice, when it wasn't necessary to be angry, was as low and kind as an +old nurse at the cradle's side. + +Henry had come to know him through his little Scotch printer, who +printed circulars and bill-heads, for the business over which Mr. +Fairfax--for that was his name--presided. By day he was the vigorous +brain of a huge emporium, a sort of Tyrian Whiteley's; but day and night +he was a lover of books, and you could never catch him so busy but that +he could spare the time mysteriously to beckon you into his private +office, and with the glee of a child, show you his last large paper. He +not only loved books; but he was rumoured liberally to have assisted one +or two distressed men of genius well-known to the world. The tales of +the surreptitious goodness of his heart were many; but it was known too +that the big kind man had a terribly searching eye under his briery +brows, and could be as stern towards ingratitude as he was soft to +misfortune. Henry once caught a glimpse of this as they spoke of a +mutual friend whom he had helped to no purpose. Mr. Fairfax never used +many words, on this occasion he was grimly laconic. + +"Rat-poison!" he said, shaking his head. "Rat-poison!" It was his way of +saying that that was the only cure for that particular kind of man. + +It was evident that his generous eye had seen how things were with +Henry. He had subscribed for at least a dozen copies of "The Book of +Angelica," and in several ways shown his interest in the struggling +young poet. As has been said, he had seen Angelica one day, and his +shyness had not prevented his heart from going out to these two young +people, and the dream he saw in their eyes. He had determined to do +what he could to help them, and to-day he had come with a plan. + +"I hope you're not too proud to give me a hand, Mr. Mesurier, in a +little idea I've got," he said. + +"I think you know how proud I am, and how proud I'm not, Mr. Fairfax," +said Henry. "I'm sure anything I could do for you would make me proud, +if that's what you mean." + +"Thank you. Thank you. But you mustn't speak too fast. It's +advertising--does the word frighten you? No? Well, it's a scheme I've +thought of for a little really artistic and humorous advertising +combined. I've got a promise from one of the most original artists of +the day, you know his name, to do the pictures; and I want you to do the +verses--at, I may say, your own price. It's not, perhaps, the highest +occupation for a poet; but it's something to be going on with; and if +we've got good posters as advertisements, I don't see why we shouldn't +have good humorous verse. What do you think of it?" + +"I think it's capital," said Henry, who was almost too ready to turn his +hand to anything. "Of course I'll do it; only too glad." + +"Well, that's settled. Now, name your price. Don't be frightened!" + +"Really, I can't. I haven't the least idea what I should get. Wait till +I have done a few of the verses, and you can give me what you please." + +"No, sir," said Mr. Fairfax; "business is business. If you won't name a +figure, I must. Will you consider a hundred pounds sufficient?" + +"A hundred pounds!" Henry gasped out, the tears almost starting to his +eyes. + +Mr. Fairfax did not miss his frank joy, and liked him for his +ingenuousness. + +"All right, then; we'll call it settled. I shall be ready for the verses +as soon as you care to write them." + +"Mr. Fairfax, I will tell you frankly that this is a great deal to me, +and I thank you from my heart." + +"Not a word, not a word, my boy. We want your verses, we want your +verses. That's right, isn't it? Good verses, good money! Now no more of +that," and the good man, in alarm lest he should be thanked further, +made an abrupt and awkward farewell. + +"It will keep the lad going a few months anyhow," he said to himself, +as he tramped downstairs, glad that he'd been able to think of +something; for, while the scheme was admirable as an advertisement, and +would more than repay Messrs. Owens' outlay, its origin had been pure +philanthropy. Such good angels do walk this world in the guise of bulky, +quite unpoetic-looking business-men. + +"One hundred pounds!" said Henry, over and over again to himself. "One +hundred pounds! What news for Angel!" + +He had soon a scheme in his head for the book, which entirely hit Mr. +Fairfax's fancy. It was to make a volume of verse celebrating each of +the various departments of the great store, in metres parodying the +styles of the old English ballads and various poets, ancient and modern, +and was to be called, "Bon Marché Ballads." + +"Something like this, for example," said Henry, a few days later, +pulling an envelope covered with pencil-scribble from his pocket. "This +for the ladies' department,-- + + _"Oh, where do you buy your hats, lady? + And where do you buy your hose? + And where do you buy your shoes, lady? + And where your underclothes?_ + +_"Hats, shoes, and stockings, everything + A lady's heart requires, + Quality good, and prices low, + We are the largest buyers! + + "The stock we bought on Wednesday last + Is fading fast away, + To-morrow it may be too late-- + Oh, come and buy to-day!"_ + +Mr. Fairfax fairly trumpeted approval. "If they're all as good as that," +he said; "you must have more money. Yes, you must. Well, well,--we'll +see, we'll see!" And when the "Bon Marché Ballads" actually appeared, +the generous creature insisted on adding another fifty pounds to +the cheque. + +As many were afterwards of opinion that Henry never again did such good +work as these nonsense rhymes, written thus for a frolic,--and one +hundred and fifty pounds,--and as copies of the "Bon Marché Ballads" are +now exceedingly scarce, it may possibly be of interest to quote two or +three more of its preposterous numbers. This is a lyric illustrative of +cheese, for the provision department:-- + + "_Are you fond of cheese? + Do you sometimes sigh + For a really good + Gorgonzola? Try, + + "Try our one-and-ten, + Wonderfully rotten, + Tasted once, it never can + Be again forgotten_!" + +Here is "a Ballad of Baby's Toys:"-- + + "_Oh, give me a toy" the baby said-- + The babe of three months old,-- + Oh, what shall I buy my little babee, + With silver and with gold?" + + "I would you buy a trumpet fine, + And a rocking-horse for me, + And a bucket and a spade, mother, + To dig beside the sea." + + "But where shall I buy these pretty things?" + The mother's heart inquires. + "Oh, go to Owens!" cried the babe; + "They are the largest buyers."_ + +The subject of our last selection is "Melton Mowbray," which bore +beneath its title due apologies to Mr. Swinburne:-- + + _"Strange pie, that is almost a passion, + O passion immoral, for pie! + Unknown are the ways that they fashion, + Unknown and unseen of the eye, + The pie that is marbled and mottled, + The pie that digests with a sigh: + For all is not Bass that is bottled, + And all is not pork that is pie."_ + +Of all the goodness else that Henry and Angel were to owe in future days +to Mr. Fairfax, there is not room in this book to write. But that +matters little, for is it not written in the Book of Love? + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +STILL ANOTHER CALLER + + +One afternoon the step coming along the corridor was almost light enough +to be Angel's, though a lover's ear told him that hers it was not. Once +more that feminine rustle, the very whisper of romantic mystery; again +the little feminine knock. + +Daintiness and Myrtilla! + +"Well, this is lovely of you, Myrtilla! But what courage! How did you +ever dare venture into this wild and savage spot,--this +mountain-fastness of Bohemia?" + +"Yes, it was brave of me, wasn't it?" said Myrtilla, with a little +laugh, for which the stairs had hardly left her breath. "But what a +climb! It is like having your rooms on the Matterhorn. I think I must +write a magazine article: 'How I climbed the fifty-thousand stairs,' +with illustrations,--and we could have some quite pretty ones," she +said, looking round the room. + +"That big skylight is splendid! As close, dear lad, to the stars as you +can get it? Are you as devoted to them as ever?" + +"Aren't you, Myrtilla?" + +"Oh, yes; but they don't get any nearer, you know." + +"It's awfully good to see you again, Myrtilla," said Henry, going over +to her and taking both her hands. "It's quite a long time, you know, +since we had a talk. It was a sweet thought of you to come. You'll have +some tea, won't you?" + +"Yes, I should love to see you make tea. Bachelors always make such good +tea. What pretty cups! My word, we are dainty! I suppose it was Esther +bought them for you?" + +Henry detected the little trap and smiled. No, it hadn't been Esther. + +"No? Someone else then? eh! I think I can guess her name. It was mean of +you not to tell me about her, Henry. I hear she's called Angel, and that +she looks like one. I wish I could have seen her before I went away." + +"Going away, Myrtilla? why, where? I've heard nothing of it. Tell me +about it." + +The atmosphere perceptibly darkened with the thought of Williamson. + +"Well!" she said, in the little airy melodious way she had when she was +telling something particularly unhappy about herself--a sort of +harpsichord bravado--"Well, you know, he's taken to fancying himself +seriously ill lately, and the doctors have aided and abetted him; and so +we're going to Davos Platz, or some such health-wilderness--and well, +that's all!" + +"And you I suppose are to nurse the--to nurse him?" said Henry, +savagely. + +"Hush, lad! It's no use, not a bit! You won't help me that way," she +said, laying her hand kindly on his, and her eyes growing bright with +suppressed tears. + +"It's a shame, nevertheless, Myrtilla, a cruel shame!" + +"You'd like to say it was a something-else shame, wouldn't you, dear +boy? Well, you can, if you like: but then you must say no more. And if +you really want to help me, you shall send me a long letter now and +again, with some of your new poems enclosed; and tell me what new books +are worth sending for? Will you do that?" + +"Of course, I will. That's precious little to do anyhow." + +"It's a good deal, really. But be sure you do it." + +"And, of course, you'll write to me sometimes. I don't think you know +yet what your letters are to me. I never work so well as when I've had a +letter from you." + +"Really, dear lad, I don't fancy you know how happy that makes me to +hear." + +"Yes, you take just the sort of interest in my work I want, and that no +one else takes." + +"Not even Angel?" said Myrtilla, slily. + +"Angel, bless her, loves my work; and is a brave little critic of it; +but then it isn't disloyal to her to say that she doesn't know as much +as you. Besides, she doesn't approach it in quite the same way. She +cares for it, first, because it is mine, and only secondly for its own +sake. Now you care for it just for what it is--" + +"I care for it, certainly, for what it's going to be," said Myrtilla, +making one of those honest distinctions which made her opinion so +stimulating to Henry. + +"Yes, there you are. You're artistically ambitious for me; you know what +I want to do, even before I know myself. That's why you're so good for +me. No one but you is that for me; and--poor stuff as I know it +is--never write a word without wondering what you will think of it." + +"You're sure it's quite true," said Myrtilla; "don't say so if it isn't. +Because you know you're saying what I care most to hear, perhaps, of +anything you could say. You know how I love literature, and--well, you +know too how fond I am of you, dear lad, don't you?" + +Literary criticism had kindled into emotion; and Henry bent down, and +kissed Myrtilla's hand. In return she let her hand rest a moment lightly +on his hair, and then, rather spasmodically, turned to remark on his +bookshelves with suspicious energy. + +At that moment another step was heard in the corridor, again feminine. +Henry knew it for Angel's; and it may be that his expression grew a +shade embarrassed, as he said: + +"I believe I shall be able to introduce you to Angel after all--for I +think this is she coming along the passage." + +As Henry opened the door, Angel was on the point of throwing her arms +round his neck, when, noticing a certain constraint in his manner of +greeting, she realised that he was not alone. + +"We were just talking of you, dear," said Henry. "This is my friend, +Mrs. Williamson,--'Myrtilla,' of whom you've often heard me speak." + +"Oh, yes, I've often heard of Mrs. Williamson," said Angel, not of +course suffering the irony of her thought to escape into her voice. + +"And I've heard no less of Miss Flower," said Mrs. Williamson, "not +indeed from this faithless boy here,--for I haven't seen him for so long +that I've had to humble myself at last and call,--but from Esther." + +Myrtilla loved the transparent face, pulsing with light, flushing or +fading with her varying mood, answering with exquisite delicacy to any +advance and retreat of the soul within. But an invincible prejudice, or +perhaps rather fear, shut Angel's eyes from the appreciation of +Myrtilla. She was sweet and beautiful, but to the child that Angel still +was she suggested malign artifice. Angel looked at her as an imaginative +child looks at the moon, with suspicion. + +So, in spite of Myrtilla's efforts to make friends, the conversation +sustained a distinct loss in sprightliness by Angel's arrival. + +Myrtilla, perhaps divining a little of the truth, rose to go. + +"Well, I'm afraid it's quite a long good-bye," she said. + +"Oh, you're going away?" said Angel, with a shade of relief +involuntarily in her voice. + +"Oh, yes, perhaps before we meet again, you and Henry will be married. +I'm sure I sincerely hope so." + +"Thank you," said Angel, somewhat coldly. + +"Well, good-bye, Henry," said Myrtilla,--it was rather a strangled +good-bye,--and then, in an evil moment, she caught sight of the Dante's +head which, hidden in a recess, she had not noticed before. "I see +you're still faithful to the Dante," she said; "that's sweet of +you,--good-bye, good-bye, Miss Flower, Angel, perhaps you'll let me say, +good-bye." + +When she had gone there seemed a curious constraint in the air. You +might have said that the consistency of the air had been doubled. +Gravitation was at least twice as many pounds as usual to the square +inch. Every little movement seemed heavy as though the medium had been +water instead of air. As Henry raised his hands to help Angel off with +her jacket, they seemed weighted with lead. + +"No, thank you," said Angel, "I won't take it off. I can't stay long." + +"Why, dear, what do you mean? I thought you were going to stay the +evening with me. I've quite a long new chapter to read to you." + +"I'm sorry, Henry,--but I find I can't." + +"Why, dear, how's that? Won't you tell me the reason? Has anything +happened?" + +Angel stood still in the middle of the room, with her face as firmly +miserable as she could make it. + +"Won't you tell me?" Henry pleaded. "Won't you speak to me? Come, +dear--what's the matter?" + +"You know well enough, Henry, what's the matter!" came an unexpected +flash of speech. + +"Indeed, I don't. I know of no reason whatever. How should I?" + +"Well, then, Mrs. Williamson's the matter!--'Myrtilla,' as you call her. +Something told me it was like this all along, though I couldn't bear to +doubt you, and so I put it away. I wonder how often she's been here when +I have known nothing about it." + +"This is the very first time she has ever set foot in these rooms," +said Henry, growing cold in his turn. "I'll give you my word of honour, +if you need it." + +"I don't want to hear any more. I'm going. Good-bye." + +"Going, Angel?" said Henry, standing between her and the door. "What can +you mean? See now,--give your brains a chance! You're not thinking in +the least. You've just let yourself go--for no reason at all. You'll be +sorry to-morrow." + +"Reason enough, I should think, when I find that you love another +woman!" + +"I love Myrtilla Williamson! It's a lie, Angel--and you ought to be +ashamed to say it. It's unworthy of you." + +"Why have you never told me then who made that sketch of Dante for you? +I suppose I should never have known, if she hadn't let it out. I asked +you once, but you put me off." + +Henry had indeed prevaricated, for Angel had chanced to ask him just +after Myrtilla's letter about his poems. + +"Well, I'll be frank," said Henry. "I didn't tell you, just because I +feared an unreasonable scene like this--" + +"If there had been nothing in it, there was nothing to fear; and, in +any case, why should she paint pictures for you, if she doesn't care for +you?--No, I'm going. Nothing will persuade me otherwise. Henry, please +let pass, if you're a gentleman--" and poor little Angel's face fairly +flamed. "No power on earth will keep me here--" + +"All right, Angel--" and Henry let her have her way. Her feet echoed +down the stairs, further and further away. She was gone; and Henry spent +that evening in torturingly imagining every kind of accident that might +happen to her on the way home. Every hour he expected to be suddenly +called to look at her dead body--his work. And so the night passed, and +the morning dawned in agony. So went the whole of the next day, for he +could be proud too--and the fault had been hers. + +Thus they sat apart for three days, poles of determined silence. And +then at last, on the evening of the third day, Henry, who was half +beside himself with suspense, heard, with wild thankfulness, once more +the little step in the passage--it seemed fainter, he thought, and +dragged a little, and the knock at the door was like a ghost's. + +There, with a wan smile, Angel stood; and with joy, wordless because +unspeakable, they fell almost like dead things into each other's arms. +For an hour they sat thus, and never spoke a word, only stroking each +other's hands and hair. It was so good for each to know that the other +was alive. It took so long for the stored agony in the nerves to relax. + +"I haven't eaten a morsel since Wednesday," said Angel, at last. + +"Nor I," said Henry. + +"Henry, dear, I'm sorry. I know now I was wrong. I give you my word +never to doubt you again." + +"Thank you, Angel. Don't let us even think of it any more." + +"I couldn't live through it again, darling." + +"But it can never happen any more, can it?" + +"No!--but--if you ever love any woman better than you love me, you'll +tell me, won't you? I could bear that better than to be deceived." + +"Yes, Angel, I promise to tell you." + +"Well, we're really happy again now--are we? I can hardly believe it--" + +"You didn't see me outside your house last night, did you?" + +"Henry!" + +"Yes, I was there. And I watched you carry the light into your bedroom, +and when you came to the window to draw down the blind, I thought you +must have seen me. Yes, I waited and waited, till I saw the light go out +and long after--" + +"Oh, Henry--you do love me then?" + +"And we do know how to hate each other sometimes, don't we, child?" said +Henry, laughing into Angel's eyes, all rainbows and tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +THE END OF A BEGINNING + + +And now blow, all ye trumpets, and, all ye organs, tremble with exultant +sound! Bring forth the harp, and the psaltry, and the sackbut! For the +long winter of waiting is at an end, and Mike is flying north to fetch +his bride. Now are the walls of heaven built four-square, and to-day was +the roof-beam hung with garlands. 'Tis but a small heaven, yet is it big +enough for two,--and Mike is flying north, flying north, through the +midnight, to fetch his bride. + +Henry and the morning meet him at Tyre. Blessings on his little wrinkled +face! The wrinkles are deeper and sweeter by a year's hard work. He has +laughed with them every night for full twelve months, laughed to make +others laugh. To-day he shall laugh for himself alone. The very river +seems glad, and tosses its shaggy waves like a faithful dog; and over +yonder in Sidon, where the sun is building a shrine of gold and pearl, +Esther, sleepless too, all night, waits at a window like the +morning-star. + +Oh, Mike! Mike! Mike! is it you at last? + +Oh, Esther, Esther, is it you? + +Their faces were so bright, as they gazed at each other, that it seemed +they might change to stars and wing together away up into the morning. +Henry snatched one look at the brightness and turned away. + +"She looked like a spirit!" said Mike, as they met again further along +the road. + +"He looked like a little angel," said Esther, as she threw herself into +Dot's sympathetic arms. + +A few miles from Sidon there stood an old church, dim with memories, in +a churchyard mossy with many graves. It was hither some few hours after +that unwonted carriages were driving through the snow of that happy +winter's day. In one of them Esther and Henry were sitting,--Esther +apparelled in--but here the local papers shall speak for us: "The +bride," it said, "was attired in a dress of grey velvet trimmed with +beaver, and a large picturesque hat with feathers to match; she carried +a bouquet of white chrysanthemums and hyacinths." + +"The very earth has put on white to be your bridesmaid!" said Henry, +looking out on the sunlit snow. + +"After all, though, of course, I'm sad in one way," said Esther, more +practical in her felicitations, "I'm glad in another that father +wouldn't give me away. For it was really you who gave me to Mike long +ago; wasn't it?--and so it's only as it should be that you should give +me to him to-day." + +"You'll never forget what we've been to each other?" + +"Don't you know?" + +"Yes, but our love has no organs and presents and prayer-books to bind +it together." + +"Do you think it needs it?" + +"Of course not! But it would be fun for us too some day to have a +marriage. Why should only one kind of love have its marriage ceremony? +When Mike's and your wedding is over, let's tell him that we're going +to send out cards for ours!" + +"All right. What form shall the ceremony take--_Parfait Amour_?" + +"You haven't forgotten?" + +"I shall forget just the second after you--not before--and, no, I won't +be mean, I'll not even forget you then." + +"Kiss me, Esther," said Henry. + +"Kiss me again, Esther," he said. "Do you remember?" + +"The cake and the beating?" + +"Yes, that was our marriage." + + * * * * * + +When all the glory of that happy day hung in crimson low down in the +west, like a chariot of fire in which Mike and Esther were speeding to +their paradise, Henry walked with Angel, homeward through the streets of +Tyre, solemn with sunset. In both that happy day still lived like music +richly dying. + +"Well," said Angel, in words far too practical for such a sunset, "I am +so glad it all went off so well. Poor dear Mrs. Mesurier, how bonny she +looked! And your dear old Aunt Tipping! Fancy her hiding there in +the church--" + +"Of course we'd asked her," said Henry; "but, poor old thing, she +didn't feel grand enough, as she would say, to come publicly." + +"And your poor father! Fancy him coming home for the lunch like that!" + +"After all, it was logical of him," said Henry. "I suppose he had made +up his mind that he would resist as long as it was any use, and after +that--gracefully give in. And he was always fond of Mike." + +"But didn't Esther cry, when he kissed her, and said that, since she'd +chosen Mike, he supposed he must choose him too. And Mike was as good as +crying too?" + +"I think every one was. Poor mother was just a mop." + +"Well, they're nearly home by now, I suppose." + +"Yes, another half-hour or so." + +"Oh, Henry, fancy! How wonderful for them! God bless them. I _am_ glad!" + +"I wonder when we shall get our home," said Henry, presently. + +"Oh, Henry, never mind us! I can't think of any one but them to-day." + +"Well, dear, I didn't mean to be selfish--I was only wondering how +long you'd be willing to wait for me?" + +"Suppose I were to say 'for ever!' Would that make you happy?" + +"Well, I think, dear--I might perhaps arrange things by then." + + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Young Lives, by Richard Le Gallienne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUNG LIVES *** + +***** This file should be named 10922-8.txt or 10922-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/2/10922/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Young Lives + +Author: Richard Le Gallienne + +Release Date: February 3, 2004 [EBook #10922] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUNG LIVES *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h2>YOUNG LIVES</h2> + +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>RICHARD LE GALLIENNE</h2> +<br> + +<h3>1899</h3> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h3>TO</h3> + +<h2>ALFRED LEE</h2> + +<h3>IN MEMORY OF ANGEL</h3> + +<h4><i>September, 1898</i>.</h4> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<center> +<i>Let thy soul strive that still the same<br> +Be early friendship's sacred flame;<br> +The affinities have strongest part<br> +In youth, and draw men heart to heart:<br> +As life wears on and finds no rest,<br> +The individual in each breast<br> +Is tyrannous to sunder them</i>.<br> +</center> + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<ul> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I. HARD YOUNG HEARTS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II. CONCERNING THOSE "ATLANTIC LINERS" AND AN OLD DESK.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III. OF THE LOVE OF HENRY AND ESTHER.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV. OF THE PROFESSIONS THAT CHOOSE, AND MIKE LAFLIN.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V. OF THE LOVE OF ESTHER AND MIKE, AND THE MESURIER LAW IN REGARD TO SWEETHEARTS".</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI. THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF HOME.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII. A LINK WITH CIVILISATION.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII. A RHAPSODY OF TYRE.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX. A PENITENTIARY OF THE MATHEMATICS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X. THE GRASS BETWEEN THE FLAG-STONES.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI. HUMANITY IN HIGH PLACES.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS AT THE THEATRE.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV. CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS A GENEALOGY.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV. MERELY A HUMBLE INTERRUPTION AND ILLUSTRATION OF THE LAST.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI. CHAPTER FOURTEEN CONCLUDED.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII. DOT'S DECISION.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII. MIKE AND HIS MILLION POUNDS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX. ON CERTAIN ADVANTAGES OF A BACKWATER.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX. THE MAN IN POSSESSION.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI. LITTLE MISS FLOWER.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII. MIKE'S FIRST LAURELS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII. THE MOTHER OF AN ANGEL.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV. AN ANCIENT THEORY OF HEAVEN.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV. THE LAST CONTINUED, AFTER A BRIEF INTERVAL.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI. CONCERNING THE BEST KIND OF WIFE FOR A POET.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII. THE BOOK OF ANGELICA.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">CHAPTER XXVIII. WHAT COMES OF PUBLISHING A BOOK.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">CHAPTER XXIX. MIKE'S TURN TO MOVE.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">CHAPTER XXX. UNCHARTERED FREEDOM.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXI. A PREPOSTEROUS AUNT.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">CHAPTER XXXII. THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN IN THE BACK PARLOUR.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">CHAPTER XXXIII. "THIS IS LONDON, THIS IS LIFE".</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">CHAPTER XXXIV. THE WITS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">CHAPTER XXXV. BACK TO REALITY.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVI">CHAPTER XXXVI. THE OLD HOME MEANWHILE.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVII">CHAPTER XXXVII. STAGE WAITS, MR. LAFLIN.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXVIII">CHAPTER XXXVIII. ESTHER AND HENRY ONCE MORE.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIX">CHAPTER XXXIX. MIKE AFAR.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XL">CHAPTER XL. A LEGACY MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XLI">CHAPTER XLI. LABORIOUS DAYS.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XLII">CHAPTER XLII. A HEAVIER FOOTFALL.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIII">CHAPTER XLIII. STILL ANOTHER CALLER.</a></li> +<li><a href="#CHAPTER_XLIV">CHAPTER XLIV. THE END OF A BEGINNING.</a></li> +</ul> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>YOUNG LIVES</h2> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> +<br> + +<h3>HARD YOUNG HEARTS</h3> + +<p>Behind the Venetian blinds of a respectable middle-class, +fifty-pound-a-year, "semi-detached," "family" house, in a respectable +middle-class road of the little north-county town of Sidon, midway +between the trees of wealth upon the hill, and the business quarters +that ended in squalor on the bank of the broad and busy river,--a house +boasting a few shabby trees of its own, in its damp little rockeried +slips of front and back gardens,--on a May evening some ten or twelve +years ago, a momentous crisis of contrasts had been reached.</p> + +<p>The house was still as for a battle. It was holding its breath to hear +what was going on in the front parlour, the door of which seemed to wear +an expression of being more than usually closed. A mournful half-light +fell through a little stained-glass vestibule into a hat-racked hall, on +the walls of which hung several pictures of those great steamships known +as "Atlantic liners" in big gilt frames--pictures of a significance +presently to be noted. A beautiful old eight-day clock ticked solemnly +to the flickering of the hall lamp. From below came occasionally a +furtive creaking of the kitchen stairs. The two servants were half way +up them listening. The stairs a flight above the hall also creaked at +intervals. Two young girls, respectively about fourteen and fifteen, +were craning necks out of nightdresses over the balusters in a shadowy +angle of the staircase. On the floor above them three other little girls +of gradually diminishing ages slept, unconscious of the issues being +decided between their big brother and their eldest sister on the one +side, and their father and mother on the other, in the front +parlour below.</p> + +<p>That parlour, a room of good size, was unostentatiously furnished with +good bourgeois mahogany. A buxom mahogany chiffonier, a large square +dining-table, a black marble clock with two dials, one being a +barometer, three large oil landscapes of exceedingly umbrageous trees +and glassy lakes, inoffensively uninteresting, more Atlantic liners, and +a large bookcase, apparently filled with serried lines of bound +magazines, and an excellent Brussels carpet of quiet pattern, were +mainly responsible for a general effect of middle-class comfort, in +which, indeed, if beauty had not been included, it had not been wilfully +violated, but merely unthought of. The young people for whom these +familiar objects meant a symbolism deep-rooted in their earliest +memories could hardly in fairness have declared anything positively +painful in that room--except perhaps those Atlantic liners; their +charges against furniture, which was unconsciously to them accumulating +memories that would some day bring tears of tenderness to their eyes, +could only have been negative. Beauty had been left out, but at least +ugliness had not been ostentatiously called in. There was no bad taste.</p> + +<p>In fact, whatever the individual character of each component object, +there was included in the general effect a certain indefinable dignity, +which had doubtless nothing to do with the mahogany, but was probably +one of those subtle atmospheric impressions which a room takes from the +people who habitually live in it. Had you entered that room when it was +empty, you would instinctively have felt that it was accustomed to the +occupancy of calm and refined people. There was something almost +religious in its quiet. Some one often sat there who, whatever his +commonplace disguises as a provincial man of business, however +inadequate to his powers the work life had given him to do, provincial +and humiliating as were the formulae with which narrowing conditions had +supplied him for expression of himself, was in his central being an +aristocrat,--though that was the very last word James Mesurier would +have thought of applying to himself. He was a man of business, serving +God and his employers with stern uprightness, and bringing up a large +family with something of the Puritan severity which had marked his own +early training; and, as in his own case no such allowance had been made, +making no allowance in his rigid abstract code for the diverse +temperaments of his children,--children in whom certain qualities and +needs of his own nature, dormant from his birth, were awakening, +supplemented by the fuller-fed intelligence and richer nature of the +mother, into expansive and rebellious individualities.</p> + +<p>It was now about eleven o'clock, and the house was thus lit and alive +half-an-hour beyond the rigorously enforced bed-time. An hour before, +James Mesurier had been peacefully engaged on the task which had been +nightly with him at this hour for twenty-five years,--the writing of his +diary, in a shorthand which he wrote with a neatness, almost a +daintiness, that always marked his use of pen and ink, and gave to his +merely commercial correspondence and his quite exquisitely kept +accounts, a certain touch of the scholar,--again an air of distinction +in excess of, and unaccounted for, by the nature of the interests which +it dignified.</p> + +<p>His somewhat narrow range of reading, had you followed it by his careful +markings through those bound volumes of sermons in the bookcase, bore +the same evidence of inherited and inadequately occupied refinement. His +life from boyhood had been too much of a struggle to leave him much +leisure for reading, and such as he had enjoyed had been diverted into +evangelical channels by the influence of a certain pious old lady, with +whom as a young man he had boarded, and for whose memory all his life +he cherished a reverence little short of saint-worship.</p> + +<p>The name of Mrs. Quiggins, whose portrait had still a conspicuous niche +among the <i>lares</i> of the household,--a little thin silvery old +widow-lady, suggesting great sadness, much gentleness, and a little +severity,--had thus become for the family of James Mesurier a symbol of +sanctity, with which a properly accredited saint of the calendar could +certainly not, in that Protestant home, have competed. It was she who +had given him that little well-worn Bible which lay on the table with +his letters and papers, as he wrote under the lamplight, and than which +a world full of sacred relics contains none more sacred. A business-like +elastic band encircled its covers, as a precaution against pages +becoming loose with much turning; and inside you would have found +scarcely a chapter unpencilled,--texts underlined, and sermons of +special helpfulness noted by date and preacher on the margin,--the +itinerary of a devout human soul on its way through this world to +the next.</p> + +<p>The Bible and the sermons of a certain famous Nonconformist Divine of +the day were James Mesurier's favourite and practically his only +reading, at this time; though as a young man he had picked up a fair +education for himself, and had taken a certain interest in modern +history. For novels he had not merely disapproval, but absolutely no +taste. Once in a specially genial mood he had undertaken to try +"Ivanhoe," to please his favourite daughter,--this night in revolt +against him,--and in half-an-hour he had been surprised with laughter, +sound asleep. The sermon that would send him to sleep had never been +written, at all events by his favourite theologian, whose sermons he +read every Sunday afternoon, and annotated with that same loving +appreciation and careful pencil with which a scholar annotates some +classic; so true is it that it is we who dignify our occupations, +not they us.</p> + +<p>Similarly, James Mesurier presided over the destinies of a large +commercial undertaking, with the air of one who had been called rather +to direct an empire than a business. You would say as he went by, "There +goes one accustomed to rule, accustomed to be regarded with great +respect;" but that air had been his long before the authority that once +more inadequately accounted for it.</p> + +<p>Thus this night, as he sat writing, his handsome, rather small, +iron-grey head bent over his papers, his face somewhat French in +character, his short beard slightly pointed; distinguished, refined, +severe; he had the look of a marshal of France engrossed with +documents of state.</p> + +<p>The mother, who sat in an armchair by the fire, reading, was a woman of +about forty-five, with a fine blonde, aquiline face, distinctively +English, and radiating intelligence from its large sympathetic lines. +She was in some respects so different from her husband as at times to +make children precociously wise--but nevertheless, far from knowing +everything--wonder why she had ever married their father, for whom, at +that time, it would be hypocrisy to describe their attitude as one of +love. To them he was not so much a father as the policeman of home,--a +personification of stern negative decrees, a systematic thwarter of +almost everything they most cared to do. He was a sort of embodied "Thou +shalt not," only to be won into acquiescence by one influence,--that of +the mother, whose married life, as she looked back on it, seemed to +consist of little else than bringing children into the world, with a +Christian-like regularity, and interceding with the father for their +varying temperaments when there.</p> + +<p>Though it might have been regarded as certain beforehand, that seven +children would differ each from each other in at least as many ways, it +never seems to have occurred to the father that one inflexible system +for them all could hardly be wise or comfortable. But, indeed, like so +many parents similarly trained and circumstanced, it is questionable +whether he ever realised their possession of separate individualities +till they were pleaded for by the mother, or made, as on this evening, +surprising assertion of themselves.</p> + +<p>Though this system of mediation had been responsible for the only +disagreements in their married life, there had never been any long or +serious difference between husband and wife; for, in spite of natures so +different, they loved each other with that love which is given us for +the very purpose of such situations, the love that no strain can snap, +the love that reconciles all such disparities. Though Mary Mesurier had +also been brought up among Nonconformists, and though the conditions of +her youth, like her husband's, had been far from adequate to the +demands of her nature, yet her religion had been of a gentler character, +broadening instead of narrowing in its effects, and had concerned itself +less with divinity than humanity. Her home life, if humble, had been +genial and rich in love, and there had come into it generous influences +from the outer world,--books with more of the human beat in them than is +to be found in sermons; and particularly an old travelled grandfather +who had been regarded as the rolling stone of his family, but in whom, +at all events, failure and travel had developed a great gentleness and +understanding of the human creature, which in long walks and talks with +his little grand-daughter somehow passed over into her young character, +and proved the best legacy he could have left her. Through him too was +encouraged a native love of poetry, of which in her childhood her memory +acquired a stock which never failed her, and which had often cheered her +lonely hours by successive cradles. She had a fine natural gift of +recitation, and in evening hours when the home was particularly united +in some glow of visitors or birthday celebration, she would be persuaded +to recall some of those old songs and simple apologues, with such charm +that even her husband, to whom verse was naturally an incomprehensible +triviality, was visibly softened, and perhaps, deep in the sadness of +his silent nature, moved to a passing realisation of a certain something +kind and musical in life which he had strangely missed.</p> + +<p>This greater breadth of temperament and training enabled Mary Mesurier +to understand and make allowances for the narrower and harder nature of +her husband, whom she learnt in time rather to pity for the bleakness of +his early days, than to condemn for their effect upon his character. He +was strong, good, clever, and handsome, and exceptionally all those four +good reasons for loving him; and the intellectual sympathy, the sharing +of broader interests, which she sometimes missed in him, she had for +some three or four years come to find in her eldest son, who, to his +father's bewilderment and disappointment, had reincarnated his own +strong will, in connection with literary practices and dreams which +threatened to end in his becoming a poet, instead of the business man +expected of him, for which development that love of poetry in one +parent, and a certain love of books in both, was no doubt to some degree +guiltily responsible.</p> + +<p>James Mesurier, as we have said, was no judge of poetry; and, had he +been so, a reading of his son's early effusions would have made him +still more obdurate in the choice for him of a commercial career; but on +general principles he was quite sufficiently firm against any but the +most non-committing, leisure-hour flirtation with the Muse. The mother, +while agreeing with the father's main proposition of the undesirability, +nay, impossibility, of literature as a livelihood,--had not the great +and successful Sir Walter himself described it as a good walking-stick, +but a poor crutch; a stick applied, since its first application as an +image, to the shoulders of how many generations of youthful genius,--was +naturally more sympathetic towards her son's ambition, and encouraged it +to the extent of helping from her housekeeping money the formation of +his little library, even occasionally proving successful in winning sums +of money from the father for the purchase of some book specially, as the +young man would declare, necessary for his development.</p> + +<p>As this little library had outgrown the accommodation of the common +rooms, a daring scheme had been conceived between mother and son,--no +less than that he should have a small room set apart for himself as a +study. When first broached to the father, this scheme had met with an +absolute denial that seemed to promise no hope of further consideration; +but the mother, accepting defeat at the time, had tried again and again, +with patient dexterity at favourable moments, till at last one proud day +the little room, with its bookshelves, a cast of Dante, and a strange +picture or two, was a beautiful, significant fact--all ready for the +possible visitation of the Muse.</p> + +<p>In such ways had the mother negotiated the needs of all her children; +though the youth of the rest--save the eldest girl, whose music lessons +had meant a battle, and whose growing attractiveness for the boys of the +district, and one in particular, was presently to mean another--made as +yet but small demands. In one question, however, periodically fruitful +of argument, even the youngest was becoming interested,--the question of +the visits to the household of the various friends and playmates of the +children. To these, it must be admitted, James Mesurier was apt to be +hardly less of a figure of fear than to his own children; for, apart +from the fact that such inroads from without were apt to disturb his few +quiet evening hours with rollicking and laughter, he, being entirely +unsocial in his own nature, had a curious idea that the family should be +sufficient to itself, and that the desire for any form of entertainment +outside it was a sign of dissatisfaction with God's gifts of a good +home, and generally a frivolity to be discouraged.</p> + +<p>As a boy he had grown up without companions, and as a man had remained +lonely, till he had met in his wife the one comrade of his days. What +had been good enough for their father should be good enough for his +children, was a formula which he applied all round to their bringing up, +curiously forgetful, for a man at heart so just, of the pleasure one +would have expected it to be to make sure that the errors of his own +training were not repeated in that of his offspring. But, indeed, there +was in him constitutionally something of the Puritan suspicion of, and +aversion from, pleasure, which it had never occurred to him to consider +as the end of, or, indeed, as a considerable element of existence. Life +was somehow too serious for play, spiritually as well as materially; and +much work and a little rest was the eternal and, on the whole, salutary +lot of man.</p> + +<p>Such were some of the conditions among which the young Mesuriers found +themselves, and of which their impatience had become momentously +explosive this February evening.</p> + +<p>For some days there had been an energetic simmer of rebellion among the +four elder children against a new edict of early rising which was surely +somewhat arbitrary. Early rising was one of James Mesurier's articles of +faith; and he was always up and dressed by half-past six, though there +was no breakfast till eight, and absolutely no necessity for his rising +at that hour beyond his own desire. There was still less, indeed none at +all, for his children to rise thus early; but nevertheless he had +recently decreed that such, for the future, must be the rule. The rule +fell heaviest upon the sisters, for the elder brother had always enjoyed +a certain immunity from such edicts. His sense of justice, however, +kindled none the less at this final piece of tyranny. He blazed and +fumed indignantly on behalf of his sisters, in the sanctuary of that +little study,--a spot where the despot seldom set foot; and out of this +comparatively trivial cause had sprung a mighty resolution, which he and +she whom he proudly honoured as "sister and friend" had, after some +girding of the loins, repaired to the front parlour this evening to +communicate.</p> + +<p>They had entered somewhat abruptly, and stood rather dramatically by the +table on which the father was writing,--the son with dark set face, in +which could be seen both the father and mother, and the daughter, timid +and close to him, resolutely keeping back her tears, a slim young copy +of the mother.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dears?" said the father, looking up with a keen, rather +surprised glance, and in a tone which qualified with some severity the +"my dears."</p> + +<p>The son had had some exceedingly fine beginnings in his head, but they +fled ignominiously with the calm that was necessary for their successful +delivery, and he blurted at once to the point.</p> + +<p>"We have come to say that we are no longer comfortable at home, and have +decided to leave it."</p> + +<p>"Henry," exclaimed the mother, hastily, "what do you mean, how can you +be so ungrateful?"</p> + +<p>"Mary, my dear," interrupted the father, "please leave the matter to +me." Then turning to the son: "What is this you are saying? I'm afraid I +don't understand."</p> + +<p>"I mean that Esther and I have decided to leave home and live together; +because it is impossible for us to live here any longer in happiness--"</p> + +<p>"On what do you propose to live?"</p> + +<p>"My salary will be sufficient for the present."</p> + +<p>"Sixty pounds a year!"</p> + +<p>"Yes!"</p> + +<p>"And may I ask what is wrong with your home? You have every comfort--far +more than your mother or father were accustomed to."</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed!" echoed the mother.</p> + +<p>"Yes, we know you are very good and kind, and mean everything for our +good; but you don't understand other needs of our natures, and you make +no allowance for our individualities--"</p> + +<p>"Indeed! Individualities--I should like you to have heard what my +father would have said to talk about individualities. A rope's end would +have been his answer to that--"</p> + +<p>"It would have been a very silly one, and no argument."</p> + +<p>"It would have been effective, at all events."</p> + +<p>"Not with me--"</p> + +<p>"Well, please don't bandy words with me, sir. If you," particularly +addressing his son, "wish to go--then go; but remember that once you +have left your father's roof, you leave it for ever. As for your sister, +she has no power to leave her mother and father without my consent, and +that I shall certainly withhold till she is of a proper age to know what +is best for herself--"</p> + +<p>"She will go then without your consent," defiantly answered the son.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Henry, for shame!" exclaimed Mrs. Mesurier.</p> + +<p>"Mother dear, I'm sorry,--we don't mean to be disrespectful or +undutiful,--but father's petty tyrannies are more than we can bear. He +objects to the friends we care for; he denies us the theatre--"</p> + +<p>"Most certainly, and shall continue to do so. I have never been inside a +theatre in my life; nor, with my consent, shall any child of mine enter +one of them."</p> + +<p>"You can evidently know little about them then, and you'd be a much +finer man if you had," flashed out the son.</p> + +<p>"Your sitting in judgment on your father is certainly very pretty, I +must say,"--answered the father,--"very pretty; and I can only hope that +you will not have cause to regret it some future day. But I cannot allow +you to disturb me," for, with something of a pang, Henry noticed signs +of agitation amid the severity of his parent, though the matter was too +momentous for him to allow the indulgence of pity.</p> + +<p>"You have been a source of much anxiety to your mother and me, a child +of many prayers;" the father continued. "Whether it is the books you +read, or the friends you associate with, that are responsible for your +strange and, to my thinking, impious opinions, I do not know; but this I +know, that your influence on your sister has not of late been for good, +and for her sake, and the sake of your young sisters, it may perhaps be +well that your influence in the home be removed--"</p> + +<p>"Oh, James," exclaimed the wife.</p> + +<p>"Mary, my dear, you must let me finish. If Henry will go, go he shall; +but if he still stays, he must learn that I am master in this house, and +that while I remain so, not he, but I shall dictate how it is to be +carried on."</p> + +<p>It was at this point that Esther ventured to lift the girlish tremor of +her voice.</p> + +<p>"But, father, if you'll forgive my saying so, I think it would be best +for another reason for us to go. There are too many of us. We haven't +room to grow. We get in each other's way. And then it would ease you; it +would be less expense--"</p> + +<p>"When I complain of having to support my children, it will be time to +speak of that--"</p> + +<p>"But you have complained," hotly interrupted the son; "you have +reproached us many a time for what we cost you for clothes and food--"</p> + +<p>"Yes, when you have shown yourselves ungrateful for them, as you do +to-night--"</p> + +<p>"Ungrateful! For what should we be grateful? That you do your bare duty +of feeding and clothing us, and even for that, expect, in my case at all +events, that I shall prove so much business capital invested for the +future. Was it we who asked to come into the world? Did you consult us, +or did you beget us for anything but your own selfish pleasure, without +a thought--"</p> + +<p>Henry got no further. His father had grown white, and, with terrible +anger pointed to the door.</p> + +<p>"Leave the room, sir," he said, "and to-morrow leave my house for ever."</p> + +<p>The son was not cowed. He stood with an unflinching defiance before the +father, in whom he forgot the father and saw only the tyrant. For a +moment it seemed as if some unnatural blow would be struck; but so much +of pain was spared the future memory of the scene, and saying only, "It +is true for all that," he turned and left the room. The sister followed +him in silence, and the door closed.</p> + +<p>Mother and father looked at each other. They had brought up children, +they had suffered and toiled for them,--that they should talk to them +like this! Mrs. Mesurier came over to her husband, and put her arm +tenderly on his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, dear. I'm sure he didn't mean to talk like that. He is a +good boy at heart, but you don't understand each other."</p> + +<p>"Mary dear, we will talk no more of it to-night," he replied; "I will +try and put it from me. You go to bed. I will finish my diary, and be +up in a few minutes."</p> + +<p>When he was alone, he sat still a little while, with a great lonely pain +on his face, and almost visibly upon it too the smart of the wounded +pride of his haughty nature. Never in his life had he been spoken to +like that,--and by his own son! The pang of it was almost more than he +could bear. But presently he had so far mastered himself as to take up +his pen and continue his writing. When that was finished, he opened his +Bible and read his wonted chapter. It was just the simple twenty-third +psalm: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." It was his favourite +psalm, and always had a remarkable tranquillising effect upon him. James +Mesurier's faith in God was very great. Then he knelt down and prayed in +silence,--prayed with a great love for his disobedient children; and, +when he rose from his knees, anger and pain had been washed away from +his face, and a serenity that is not of this world was there instead.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> +<br> + +<h3>CONCERNING THOSE "ATLANTIC LINERS" AND +AN OLD DESK</h3> + +<p>Of all battles in this complicated civil warfare of human life, none is +more painful than that being constantly waged from generation to +generation between young and old, and none, it would appear, more +inevitable, or indeed necessary. "The good gods sigh for the cost and +pain," and as, growing older ourselves, we become spectators of such a +conflict, with eyes able to see the real goodness and truth of both +combatants, how often must we exclaim: "Oh, just for a little touch of +sympathetic comprehension on either side!"</p> + +<p>And yet, after all, it is from the older generation that we have a right +to expect that. If that vaunted "experience" with which they are +accustomed to extinguish the voice of the young means anything, it +should surely include some knowledge of the needs of expanding youth, +and be prepared to meet them, not in a spirit of despotic denial, but in +that of thoughtful provision. The young cannot afford to be generous, +even if they possess the necessary insight. It would mean their losing +their battle,--a battle very necessary for them to win.</p> + +<p>Sometimes it would seem that a very little kindly explanation on the +part of the elder would set the younger at a point of view where greater +sympathy would be possible. The great demand of the young is for some +form of poetry in their lives and surroundings; and it is largely the +fault of the old if the poetry of one generation is almost invariably +the prose of the next.</p> + +<p>Those "Atlantic liners" are an illustration of my meaning. To the young +Mesuriers they were hideous chromo-lithographs in vulgar gilt frames, +arbitrary defacements of home; but undoubtedly even they would have +found a tolerant tenderness for them, had they realised that they +represented the poetry--long since renounced and put behind him--of +James Mesurier's life. He had come of a race of sea-captains, two of his +brothers had been sailors, and deep down in his heart the spirit of +romance answered, with voice fresh and young as ever, to any breath or +association of the sea. But he seldom, if ever, spoke of it, and only in +an anecdote or two was it occasionally brought to mind. Sometimes his +wife would tease him with the vanity which, on holidays by the sea, +would send him forth on blustering tempestuous nights clad in a +greatcoat of blue pilot-cloth and a sealskin cap, and tell how proud he +was on one occasion, as he stood on the wharf, at being addressed as +"captain," and asked what ship he had brought into port. Even the hard +heart of youth must soften at such a reminiscence.</p> + +<p>Then scattered about the house was many a prosaic bit of furniture which +was musical with memories for the parents,--memories of their first +little homes and their early struggles together. This side-board, now +relegated to the children's play-room, had once been their <i>pièce de +resistance</i> in such and such a street, twelve years ago, before their +children had risen up and--not called them blessed.</p> + +<p>A few years, and the light of poetry will be upon these things for their +children too; but, meanwhile, can we blame them that they cannot accept +the poetry of their elders in exchange for that of their own which they +are impatient to make? And when that poetry is made and resident in +similar concrete objects of home--how will it seem, one wonders, to +their children? This old desk which Esther has been allowed to +appropriate, and in a secret drawer of which are already accumulating +certain love-letters and lavender, will it ever, one wonders, turn to +lumber in younger hands? For a little while she leans her sweet young +bosom against it, and writes scented letters in a girlish hand to a +little red-headed boy who has these past weeks begun to love her. Can it +be possible that the desk on which Esther once wrote to her little Mike +will ever hear itself spoken of as "this ugly old thing"? Let us +hope not.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> +<br> + +<h3>OF THE LOVE OF HENRY AND ESTHER</h3> + +<p>Father and son had both meant what they said; and even the mother, for +whom it would be the cruellest wrench of all, knew that Henry was going +to leave home. Not literally on the morrow, for the following evening he +had appeared before his father to apologise for the manner--carefully +for the manner, not <i>the matter</i>,--in which he had spoken to him the +evening before, and asked for a day or two in which to make his +arrangements for departure. James Mesurier was too strong a man to be +resentful, and he accepted his son's apology with a gentleness that, as +each knew, detracted nothing from the resolution which each had come to.</p> + +<p>"My boy," he said, "you will never have such good friends as your father +and mother; but it is best that you go out into the world to learn it."</p> + +<p>There is something terribly winning and unnerving to the blackest +resolution, when the severity of the strong dissolves for a brief moment +into tenderness. The rare kind words of the stern, explain it as we +will, and unjust as the preference must surely be, one values beyond the +frequent forgivenesses of the gentle. Mary Mesurier would have laid down +her life in defence of her son's greatest fault, and James Mesurier +would as readily have court-martialled him for his smallest, and yet, +somehow, a kind word from him brought the tears to his son's eyes.</p> + +<p>He had no longer the heart to stimulate the rebellion of Esther, as he +felt it his duty to do; and, to her disappointment, he announced that, +on the whole, it would perhaps be best for him to go alone.</p> + +<p>"It would almost kill poor mother," he said; "and father means well +after all," he added.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid it would break father's heart," said Esther.</p> + +<p>So these two young people agreed to spare their parents, though--let it +not be otherwise imagined--at a great sacrifice. The little paper on +which they had carefully worked out their housekeeping, skilfully +allotting so much for rent, butcher's meat, milk, coals, and washing, +and making "everything" come most optimistically to <i>£59 17s. 9d.</i> a +year, would be of no use now, at all events for the present. Their +little Charles and Mary Lamb dream must be laid aside--for, of course, +they had thought of Charles and Mary Lamb; and indeed, out beyond this +history of a few youthful years, their friendship was to prove itself +far from unworthy of its famous model.</p> + +<p>Yet at this time it was of no great antiquity; for, but a very few years +back, Henry had been a miniature tyrant too, and ruled it over his +kingdom of six sisters with all the hideous egoism of a pampered "son +and heir." Although in the very middle class of society into which Henry +Mesurier was born, the dignity of eldest son is one but very +contingently connected with tangible inheritance, it is none the less +vigorously kept up; and, no doubt, without any consciousness of +partiality, Henry Mesurier, from his childhood, had been brought up to +regard himself as a sort of young prince, for whom all the privileges of +home were, by divine right, reserved. For example, he took his meals +with his parents fully five years before any of his sisters were +allowed to do so; and for retention of this privilege, when at length +the democratic measure of its extension to his two elder sisters was +proposed, he fought with the bitterest spirit of caste. Indeed, few +oligarchs have been more wildly hated than Henry Mesurier up to the age, +say, of fourteen. That was the age of his last thrashing, and it was in +the gloomy dusk of that momentous occasion, as he lay alone with +smarting back in the twilight of an unusually early bed-time, that a +possible new view of woman--as a creature of like passions and +privileges--presented itself to him.</p> + +<p>His thrashing had been so unjustly severe, that even the granite little +hearts of his sisters had been softened; and Esther, managing to secrete +a cake that he loved from the tea that was lost to him, stole with it to +the top of the house, where he writhed amid lonely echoes and shadows.</p> + +<p>She had brought it to him awkwardly, by no means sure of its reception, +but sure in her heart that she would hate him for ever, if he missed the +meaning of the little solatium. But fortunately his back was far too +sore, and his spirit too broken to remember his pride, and he accepted +the offering with gratitude and tears.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me, Esther," he had said; and a wonderful thrill had gone through +the little girl at this strange softness in the mighty, while the dawn +of a wonderful pity for the lot of woman had, unconsciously, broken in +the soul of the boy.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me again, Esther," he had said, and, with the tears that mingled +in that kiss, an eternal friendship was baptized.</p> + +<p>Henry rose on the morrow a changed being. The grosser pretensions of the +male had fallen from him for ever, and there was at first something +almost awe-inspiring to his sisters in the gentle solicitude for them +and their rights and pleasures which replaced the old despotism. From +that time, Esther and he became closer and closer companions, and as +they more and more formed an oligarchy of two, a rearrangement of +parties in the little parliament of home came about, to be upset again +as Dot and Mat qualified for admission into that exclusive +little circle.</p> + +<p>So soon as Henry had a new dream or a new thought, he shared it with +Esther; and freely as he had received from Carlyle, or Emerson, or +Thoreau, freely he passed it on to her. For the gloomiest occasion he +had some strengthening text, and one of the last things he did before he +left home was to make for her a little book which he called "Faith for +Cloudy Days," consisting of energising and sustaining phrases from +certain great writers,--as it were, a bottle of philosophical phosphates +against seasons of spiritual cowardice or debility. There one opened and +read: "<i>Sudden the worst turns best to the brave</i>" or Thoreau's "<i>I have +yet to hear a single word of wisdom spoken to me by my elders,</i>" or +again Matthew Arnold's</p> + +<blockquote> +"<i>Tasks in hours of insight willed<br> +May be through hours of gloom fulfilled</i>."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>James Mesurier knew nothing of all this; but if he had, he might have +understood that after all his children were not so far from the kingdom +of heaven.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<br> + +<h3>OF THE PROFESSIONS THAT CHOOSE, AND +MIKE LAFLIN</h3> + +<p>However we may hint at its explanation by theories of inheritance, it +still remains curious with what unerring instinct a child of character +will from the first, and when it is so evidently ignorant of the field +of choice, select, out of all life's occupations and distinctions, one +special work it hungers to do, one special distinction that to it seems +the most desirable of earthly honours. That Mary Mesurier loved poetry, +and James Mesurier sermons, in face of the fact that so many mothers and +fathers have done the same with no such result, hardly seems adequate to +account for the peculiar glamour which, almost before he could read, +there was for Henry Mesurier in any form of print. While books were +still being read to him, there had already come into his mind, +unaccountably, as by outside suggestion, that there could be nothing so +splendid in the world as to write a book for one's self. To be either a +soldier, a sailor, an architect, or an engineer, would, doubtless, have +its fascinations as well; but to make a real printed book, with your +name in gilt letters outside, was real romance.</p> + +<p>At that early day, and for a long while after, the boy had no preference +for any particular kind of book. It was an entirely abstract passion for +print and paper. To have been the author of "The Iliad" or of Beeton's +"Book of Household Recipes" would have given him almost the same +exaltation of authorship; and the thrill of worship which came over him +when, one early day, a man who had actually had an article on the sugar +bounties accepted by a commercial magazine was pointed out to him in the +street, was one he never forgot; nor in after years did he ever +encounter that transfigured contributor without an involuntary +recurrence of that old feeling of awe. No subsequent acquaintance with +editorial rooms ever led him into materialistic explanations of that +enchanted piece of work--a newspaper. The editors might do their +best--and succeed surprisingly--in looking like ordinary mortals, you +might even know the leader-writers, and, with the very public, gaze +through gratings into the subterranean printing-rooms,--the mystery none +the less remained. No exposure of editorial staffs or other machinery +could destroy the sense of enchantment, as no amount of anatomy or +biology can destroy the mystery of the human miracle.</p> + +<p>So I suppose Nature first makes us in love with the tools we are to use, +long before we have a thought upon what we shall use them. Perhaps the +first desire of the born writer is to be a compositor. Out of the love +of mere type quickly evolves a love of mere words for their own sake; +but whether we shall make use of them as a historian, novelist, +philosopher, or poet, is a secondary consideration, a mere afterthought. +To Henry Mesurier had already come the time when the face of life began +to Wear a certain aspect, the peculiar attraction of which for himself +he longed to fix, a certain mystical importance attaching to the +commonest every-day objects and circumstances, a certain ecstatic +quality in the simplest experiences; but even so far as it had been +revealed, this dawning vision of the world seemed only to have come to +him, not so much to find expression, as to mock him with his childish +incapacity adequately to use the very tools he loved. He would hang for +hours over some scene in nature, caught in a woodland spell, like a +nympholept of old; but when he tried to put in words what he had seen, +what a poor piece of ornamental gardening the thing was! There were +trees and birds and grass, to be sure; but there was nothing of that +meaning look which they had worn, that look of being tiptoe with +revelation which is one of the most fascinating tricks of the visible +world, and which even a harsh town full of chimneys can sometimes take +on when seen in given moments and lights. And it was astonishing to see +into what lifeless imitative verse his most original and passionate +moments could be transformed.</p> + +<p>Still some unreasonably indulgent spirit of the air, that had evidently +not read his manuscripts, whispered him to be of good cheer: the +lifeless words would not always be lifeless, some day the birds would +sing in his verses too. This sense of failure did not, it must be said, +immediately follow composition; for, for a little while the original +expression of the thing seen reinforced with reflected significance its +pale copy. It was only some weeks after, when the written copy was left +to do all the work itself, that its foolish inadequacy was exposed.</p> + +<p>"However, there is one consolation, they are not worse than Keats and +Shelley wrote at the same age," he said to himself, as he looked through +a bundle of the poor things the evening before his room was to be +dismantled. "Indeed, they couldn't be," he added, with a smile. +Fortunately he was but nineteen as yet; would he venture on a like +comparison were he twenty-five?</p> + +<p>Yes, his little room was to be dismantled on the morrow,--this first +little private chapel of his spirit. This fair order of shelves, this +external harmony answering to an inner harmony of his spirit, were to be +broken up for ever. Often as he had sat in the folioed lamplit nook +which was, as it were, the very chancel of the little church, and gazed +in an ecstasy at the books, each with a great shining name of fame upon +its cover, it had seemed as though he had put his very soul outside him, +externalised it in this little corner of books and pictures. His soul +shivered, as one who must go houseless awhile, at the thought that +to-morrow its home would be no more. When and how would be its +reincarnation? More magnificent, maybe, but never this again. It was +sacrilege,--was it not ingratitude too? When once more the books and the +pictures began to form into a new harmony, there would be no mother's +love to help the work go on....</p> + +<p>But as he mused in this no doubt sentimental fashion, the door opened +and the little red-headed Mike entered. His was a little Flibbertigibbet +of a face, already lined with the practice of mimicry; and there was in +it a very attractive blending of tenderness and humour. Mike was also +one of those whom life at the beginning had impressed with the delight +of one kind of work and no other. When a mere imp of a boy, the +heartless tormentor of a large and sententious stepmother, the despair +of schoolmasters, the most ingenious of truants, a humorous ragamuffin +invulnerable to punishment, it was already revealed to him that his +mission in life was to be the observation and reproduction of human +character, particularly in its humorous aspects. To this end Nature had +gifted him with a face that was capable of every form of transformation, +and at an early age he hastened to put it in training. All day long he +was pulling faces. As an artist will sketch everything he comes across, +so Mike would endeavour to imitate any characteristic expression or +attitude, animate or inanimate, in the world around him. Dogs, little +boys, and grotesque old men were his special delight, and of all his +elders he had, it goes without saying, a private gallery of irreverently +faithful portraits.</p> + +<p>In addition to his plastic face, Nature had given him a larynx which was +capable of imitating every human and inhuman sound. To squeak like a +pig, bark like a dog, low like a cow, and crow like a cock, were the +veriest juvenilia of his attainments; and he could imitate the buzzing +of a fly so cunningly that flies themselves have often been deceived. It +was this delight in imitation for its own sake, and not so much that he +had been caught by the usual allurements of the theatre, that he looked +upon the career of an actor as his natural and ultimate calling. It was +already privately whispered in the little circle that Mike would some +day go on the stage. But don't tell that as yet to old Mr. Laflin, +whatever you do.</p> + +<p>There was a good deal more in Mike than pulling faces, as Esther +recently, and Henry before her, had discovered. His acting was some day +to stir the hearts of audiences, because he had instincts for knowing +human nature inside as well as out, knew the secret springs of tears, as +well as the open secrets of laughter; and it was rather on this common +ground of a rich "many-veined humanity" that these two had met and +become friends, rather than on any real community of tastes and ideas. +Yet Mike loved books too, and had an excellent taste in them, though +perhaps he had hardly loved them, had not Henry and Esther loved them +first, and it is quite certain, and quite proper, that he never found a +page of any book so fascinating as the face of some lined and battered +human being. Over that writing he was never found asleep.</p> + +<p>There was one other literary matter on which he held a very personal and +unshakable opinion,--Henry Mesurier's future as a poet; and on this he +came just in the nick of time to cheer him this evening.</p> + +<p>"The next move will be to London, old fellow," he said; "and then you'll +soon see my prophecies come true. My opinion mayn't be worth much, but +you know what it is. You'll be a great writer some day, never fear."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, dear old boy. And you know what I think about your acting, +don't you?"</p> + +<p>Then it was that Esther appeared, and Henry made some transparent excuse +to leave them awhile together.</p> + +<p>"You dear old thing," said Esther, kissing him, "now don't stay away too +long."</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> +<br> + +<h3>OF THE LOVE OF ESTHER AND MIKE, AND +THE MESURIER LAW IN REGARD TO +"SWEETHEARTS"</h3> + +<p>I'm afraid Esther was little more than fourteen when she had first seen +and fallen in love with Mike. She had heard much of him from her +brother; but, for one reason or another, he had never been to the house. +One evening, however, at a concert, Henry had told her to look in a +certain direction and she would see Mike.</p> + +<p>"I don't suppose you'll call him good looking," he said.</p> + +<p>So Esther had looked round, and seen the pretty curly red hair and the +eager little wistful humorous face for the first time.</p> + +<p>"Why, he's got a lovely little face!" she said, blushing deeply for no +reason at all,--except perhaps that there had seemed something pleading +and shelter-seeking in that little face, something that cried out to be +"mothered," and that instantly there had welled up in her heart a great +warm wish that some day she might be that for it and more.</p> + +<p>And at the same instant it had occurred to the boy, that the face thus +turned to him for a moment was the loveliest face he had ever seen, the +only lovely face he would ever care to see. But with that thought, too, +had come a curious pang of hopelessness into his heart. For Esther +Mesurier was one of those girls who are the prizes of men. With all +those pretty tall fellows about her, it was unlikely indeed that she +would care for a little red-headed, face-pulling ragamuffin like him! +And yet if she never could care for him,--never, never at all, what a +lonely place the world would be!</p> + +<p>When, after the concert, Henry looked round to introduce Mike to his +sister, he had somehow slipped away and was nowhere to be seen.</p> + +<p>However, it was not long after this that Mike paid a visit to Henry's +study one evening, and, coming ostensibly to look at his books, once +more saw his sister, and spoke to her a brief introductory word. His +interest in literature became positively remarkable from this time; and +the enthusiasm with which his actor's mind reflected, and, no doubt in +all good faith, mimicked the various philosophical and literary +enthusiasms of his friend, was, though neither realised it, a sure +earnest of his future. More and more frequent visits to that study +became necessary for its gratification; and, in the course of one of +them, Mike confessed to Henry that he loved his sister, previously +piling upon himself many anticipatory terms of ignominy for daring to do +so presumptuous a thing. Henry, however, was so taken with the idea +that, in his singleness of mind, he suffered no pang of retrospective +suspicion of his friend's love for himself. Pending Esther's +decision,--and of her mind in the matter, he had something more than a +glimmering,--he welcomed Mike with gladness as a prospective +brother-in-law, and, as soon as he found an opportunity, left them alone +together, returning quite a long time afterwards--to find them +extraordinarily happy, it would appear, at his safe return.</p> + +<p>Esther and Mike had thus been fortunate enough to get that important +question of a mate settled quite early in life, and to be saved from +those arduous and desolating experiments in being fitted with a heart +which so many less happy people have to go through. But this happy fact +was as yet a secret beyond this strict circle of three; for, strange as +it may sound, the beautiful attraction of a girl for a boy, the +beautiful worship of a boy for a girl, were matters not even mentionable +as yet in the Mesurier household. For a child, particularly a girl, +under twenty to speak of having a "sweetheart" was an offence which had +a strong savour of disgust in it, even for Mrs. Mesurier, broad-minded +as in most matters she was.</p> + +<p>So far as the only decent theory of the relations of the sexes was +involuntarily explicit, by virtue of certain explosions on the subject, +it was something like this: That, at a certain age, say twenty-one, or, +for leniency, twenty, as it were on the striking of a clock, the young +girl, who previously had been profoundly and inexpressibly unconscious +that the male being existed, would suddenly sit up wide awake in an +attitude of attention to offers of marriage; and that, similarly, the +young man, who had meanwhile lived with his eyes shut and his senses +asleep, would jump up also at the striking of a clock, and, as it were, +with hilarity, say, "It is high time I chose a wife," and thereupon +begin to look about, among the streets and tennis-parties known to him, +for that impossible paragon,--a wife to satisfy both his parents.</p> + +<p>One or two of Henry's earliest troubles and most drastic punishments had +come of a propensity to "sweethearts," developed at an indecorously +early age, and in fact at the time of which I write he could barely +recall the name of Miss This or Miss The Other by the association of +ancient physical pangs suffered for their sake. The greatest danger to +such contraband passions was undoubtedly the post; for, in the Mesurier +household, a more than Russian censorship was exercised over the +incoming and--as far as it could be controlled--the outgoing mail. One +old morning, at family breakfast, which the subsequent events of the +evening were to fix on his mind, Henry Mesurier had grown white with +fear, as the stupid maid had handed him a fat letter addressed in a +sprawling school-girl's hand.</p> + +<p>"Who is your letter from, Henry?" asked the father.</p> + +<p>Henry blushed and boggled.</p> + +<p>"Pass it over to me."</p> + +<p>Resistance was worse than useless. As in war-time a woman will see her +husband set up against a wall and shot before her face, as a +conspirator sees the hands of the police close upon papers of the most +terrible secrecy, so did Henry watch that scented little package pass +with a sense of irrevocable loss into the cold hands of his father. The +father opened it, placed a little white enclosure by the side of his +coffee-cup for further inspection, and then read the letter--full of +"darlings" and "for evers"--with the severe attention he would have +given a business letter. Then he handed it across to the mother without +a word, but with the look one doctor gives another in discovering a new +and terrible symptom in a patient on whom they are consulting. While the +mother read, the father opened the little packet, and out rolled a tiny +plait of silky brown hair tied into a loop with a blue ribbon.</p> + +<p>"Disgusting!" exclaimed the father and mother, simultaneously, to each +other, as though the boy was not there.</p> + +<p>"I am shocked at you, Henry," said the mother.</p> + +<p>"I shall certainly write to the forward little girl's parents," said the +father.</p> + +<p>"Oh, don't do that, father," exclaimed the boy, in terror, and half +wondering if so sweet a thing could really be so criminal.</p> + +<p>"Don't dare to speak to me," said the father. "Leave the +breakfast-table. I will see you again this evening."</p> + +<p>Henry knew too well what the verb "to see" signified under the +circumstances, and the day passed in such apprehensive gloom that it was +a positive relief, when evening had at last come, to feel a walking-cane +about him, at once more snaky and more notched than any previously +applied to his stubborn young frame. Not to cry was, of course, a point +of honour; and as the infuriating absence of tears inflamed the +righteous anger of the parent, the stick splintered and broke with a +crash, in which accident Henry learned he was responsible for a +double offence.</p> + +<p>"I wouldn't have broken that stick for five pounds," said the father, +his interest suddenly withdrawn from his son; "it was given to me by my +old friend Tarporley," which, as can be imagined, was a mighty +satisfaction to the sad small soul, smarting, not merely from the stick, +but from the sense that life held something stupid in its injustice, in +that he was thus being mauled for the most beautiful exalted feeling +that had ever visited his young heart.</p> + +<p>Those dark ages of oppression were long since passed for Henry and +Esther, when Mike began to steal in of an evening to see Esther, and +they were only referred to now and again, anecdotally, as the nineteenth +century looks back at the days of the Holy Inquisition; but still it was +wise to be cautious, for an interdict against Mike's coming to the house +was quite within possibility, even in this comparatively enlightened +epoch; and that would have been even more effective than James +Mesurier's old friend Tarporley's stick of sacred memory.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<br> + +<h3>THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF HOME</h3> + +<p>Recalling for another moment or two the ancient affair of the heart +described in the last chapter, it may pertinently be added that James +Mesurier fulfilled his threat on that occasion, and had in fact written +to the "forward little girl's" parents. Could he have seen the rather +amused reception of his letter, he would have realised with sorrow that +an age of parental leniency, little short of degeneration, was in +certain quarters unmistakably supplanting the stern age of which he was +in a degree an anachronistic survival. That forward little girl's +parents chanced to know James Mesurier enough by sight and reputation to +respect him, while they smiled across to each other at his rather quaint +disciplinarianism. Could Henry Mesurier have seen that smile, he would +not only have felt reassured as to the fate of his little sweetheart, +but have understood that there were temperate zones of childhood, as +well as arctic, when young life waxed gaily to the sound of laughter +and other musical accompaniments.</p> + +<p>This revelation, however, was deferred some few years, till he became +acquainted with the merry family of which Mike Laflin was the +characteristic expression. Old Mr. Laflin was a little, jolly, +bald-headed gentleman, bubbling over with mirth, who liked to have young +people about him, and in his quips and cranks was as young as, and much +cleverer than, any of them. It almost startled Henry on his first +introduction to this family of two daughters and two brothers, where the +father was rather like a brother grown prematurely bald, and the +stepmother supplied with monumental dignity that element of solemnity +without which no properly regulated household is complete, to notice the +<i>camaraderie</i> which prevailed amongst them all. Jokes were flying about +from one to another all the time, and the father made a point of capping +them all. This was home in a liberal sense which the word had never +meant to Henry. Doubtless, it had its own individual restrictions and +censorships; but its surface was at all events debonair, and it was +serviceable to Henry as revealing the existence of more genial social +climates than that in which he had been nurtured--though in making the +comparison with his own atmosphere, he realised that this <i>bonhomie</i> was +nothing more important than a grace.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, nay, very surely, the seriousness, even the severity of, his +own training, had been among the very conditions needed to make him what +he some day hoped to be, though they had seemed so purposely inimical. +Had James Mesurier's religion been more free and easy, a matter less +personally assured and momentous, his son's almost oppressive sense of +the spiritual significance of existence had been less radiant and +constantly supporting. Life might have gained in superficial +liveableness; but it would have lost in intensity, in real importance, +and with that loss would have gone too Henry's chance of being a poet." +The poet in a golden clime was born!"--once and again, maybe, but more +often he comes from a land of iron and tears.</p> + +<p>It is in the nature of things that Henry should begin to appreciate the +services of his home to his development at the moment when he was +leaving it. And the mere pang of the parting from it, when one day the +hour for parting had surely come, was much more deep and complicated +than he could have dreamed. As in our bodies we become conscious of +certain vital centres, certain dependencies of relation and harmony, +only when they have suffered shock, so often in life we may go along +unconscious of the vital dependencies of our human relationships, till +the moment comes to strain or sever them. Then a thousand hidden nerves +quiver at the discovering touch of the knife. Henry's leaving home, +though it had been originally the suggestion of violent feeling, was not +to be an actual severance. His father's "leave my house for ever" had +owed something to the rhetoric of anger, and the expulsion and cutting +off which it had implied had since been so softened as practically to +have disappeared. Henry was certainly not leaving his father's house for +ever, but merely going into lodgings with a friend, with full privileges +to visit his own home as often as he chose.</p> + +<p>Still, he was, all the same, leaving home, and he was the first to leave +it. The mother, at all events, knew that this was the beginning of the +end, knew that, with her first-born's departure (desertion, she may have +called it), a new era had commenced for the home,--the era of +disintegration. For twenty years and more it had been all building and +building; now it would be all just pulling down again; and there was a +dreary sound as of demolition and wind-driven rain in her ears.</p> + +<p>Oh, tragic love of mothers! Of no love is the final loss and doom so +inevitably destined. The husband may desert the wife, but the son is +sure to desert his mother--must, for nature demands the desertion. Put +not your trust in princes--and yet put it rather in princes, oh, fond +and doting parents, than in the blue-eyed flower of childhood for which +year after year, with labours infinite, you would buy all the sunshine +of the world.</p> + +<p>Henry's pang at leaving home was mainly the pang of parting with his +mother. It seemed more than a mere physical parting. It was his +childhood that was parting from her for ever. When he came to see them +he would be something different,--a man, an independent being. As long +ago physically, now spiritually, the umbilical cord had been cut.</p> + +<p>With Esther and Dot and Mat the parting was hardly a parting, as it was +rather a promise of their all meeting together some day in a new place +of freedom, which there was a sense of his going out to prepare for +them. Their way would be his way, as the mother's could not; for theirs +was the highway of youth, which, sooner or later, they would all take +together, singing in the morning sun.</p> + +<p>The three younger sisters, the as yet unopened buds of the family +flower, took Henry's departure with the surface tears and the central +indifference of childhood. When a family is so large, it practically +includes two generations in itself; and these three girls were really to +prove a generation so different in characteristics from their four +elders as to demand a separate chronicle to themselves.</p> + +<p>Thus as Henry drove away amid his trunks from the home of his father +(genealogical poverty denies us the romantic grandiloquence of the +plural), it was his mother's farewell arms and farewell tears, and his +farewell promises to her, of which he was mainly conscious. He had +promised "to take care of himself," and particularly to beware of damp +sheets, and then he too had burst into tears. Indeed, it was generally a +tearful business, after which everybody was glad to retire into corners +to subside privately and dry themselves.</p> + +<p>Henry crouched in the corner of his cab with fully half his cry to +finish out; and, curiously, all the time a sad little story from an old +holiday in the country kept haunting him. It was at once a fact and a +fable concerning a happy little family of swallows, whose sudden tragedy +he had seen with his own boyish, pitying eyes.</p> + +<p>In a little vinery attached to an old country house which the Mesuriers +had rented for a month or so for certain successive summers, two +swallows had built their nest, and, in due course, there were three +young swallows to keep them company. It was understood that the door of +the vinery must be left open, that the parent swallows might fly to and +fro for food; but by some accident it chanced that the door was one day +closed, and the vinery not visited again for several days. When at last +the door was opened again, the sight that met young eyes was one Henry +had never forgotten. Three little starved swallows, hardly bigger than +butterflies, lay upon the floor, and from the nest above hung the long +horse-hairs with which the parents had vainly sought to anchor them +safely to the home. But still sadder details were forthcoming, when the +children, who had been wondering what had become of the parents, had +suddenly discovered their wasted bodies in the grass a yard or two away +from the vinery door. A few days ago this had been a happy, thriving +home, and now it was absolutely desolated, done away with for ever. It +needed no exceptional imagination or sympathy to conceive the agonised +longing of the parents, as they had dashed themselves again and again +upon that cruel, unyielding door, hearing the piteous cries of their +young ones within, and the anguish in which their exhausted little lives +had at last gone out. The young swallows had died for lack of food; but +the old ones had died--for love. Had some other hand brought them food, +would the young ones have missed the old ones like that?</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<h3>A LINK WITH CIVILISATION</h3> +<br> + +<p>On the afternoon following Henry's departure, Esther went out for a +walk, and she came presently to a pretty little house half hidden in its +big garden. A well-kept lawn, richly bathed in sunlight, flashed through +the trees; and, opening the gate and following the tree-shaded path +along one side of the house, Esther presently mounted to a small +terrace, where, as she had hoped, she came upon a dainty little lady +watering her flowers.</p> + +<p>"Why, Esther, it's you! How sweet of you! I was just dying to see you!" +exclaimed the little lady, turning a pretty, but somewhat worn, and +brilliantly sad face from her gardening. "Just let me finish this +thirsty bed, and then you must give me a kiss. There!"</p> + +<p>Then the two embraced; and as Mrs. Myrtilla Williamson held Esther at +arm's length and looked at her admiringly,--</p> + +<p>"How pretty you look to-day!" she exclaimed, generously. "That new +hat's a great success. Didn't I tell you mauve was your colour? Turn +round. Yes, dear, you look charming. Where in the world, I wonder, did +you all get that grand look of yours from?--I don't mean your good looks +merely, but that look of distinction. Your father and mother have it +too; but where did <i>they</i> get it from? You're a puzzle-family--all of +you. But wouldn't you like a cup of tea? Come in," and she led the way +indoors to a tiny, sweet-smelling boudoir on the left of the hall, of +which a dainty glimpse, with its books and water-colours and bibelots, +was to be caught from the terrace.</p> + +<p>Everything about Myrtilla Williamson was scrupulously, determinedly +dainty, from the flowered tea-gown about her slim, girlish figure,--her +predilection for that then novel and suspected garment was regarded as a +sure mark of a certain Parisian levity by her neighbours,--to her just a +little "precious" enunciation. In France, in the seventeenth century, +she would almost certainly have been a visitor at the Hotel Rambouillet, +and to-day she was mysteriously and disapprovingly spoken of as +"aesthetic." She had a look as if she had tripped out of a Japanese fan, +and slept at night in a pot-pourri jar. And she had brains, those good +things--brains.</p> + +<p>Her name was very like her life, one-half of which might be described as +Myrtilla, the other half as Williamson. She was Myrtilla during the day, +dabbling with her water-colours, her flowers, or her books; but at six +o'clock each afternoon, with the sound of aggressive masculine boots in +the hall, her life suddenly changed with a sigh to Williamson. The +Williamson half of her life was so clumsily, so grotesquely ill-matched +with the Myrtilla half that it was, and probably will always remain, a +mystery why she had ever attempted so tasteless and inconvenient an +addition,--a mystery, however, far from unique in the history of those +mysteriously stupid unhappy marriages with evident boors which refined +and charming women will, it is to be feared, go on making to the end of +the human chapter.</p> + +<p>It was perhaps a day hardly less interesting for Myrtilla than for the +young people themselves when she had first met Henry and Esther +Mesurier. Before, in the dull bourgeois society into which Williamson +had transplanted her from London, she had found none with whom she dared +be her natural Myrtilla. There she was expected to be Williamson to the +bone. Henry and Esther, however, were only too grateful for Myrtilla, +through whom was to come to them the revelation of some minor graces of +life for which they had the instincts, but on which they had lacked +instruction; and who, still more important, at least for Henry, was to +be their first fragile link with certain strenuous new northern writers, +translations of whom in every tongue had just then descended, Gothlike, +upon Europe, to the great energising of its various literatures. She it +was too who first handed them the fretted golden key to the enchanted +garden of the Pre-Raphaelites, and the striking head of the young Dante +in sepia, which had hung in a sort of shrine-recess in Henry's study, +had been copied for him from Rossetti's sketch by Myrtilla's own hand.</p> + +<p>She had, too, one of the most precious gifts for friendship, the gift of +unselfish and diligent and progressive appreciation of all a friend's +good points. She never flattered; but she never missed the smallest +opportunity for praise. She was one of those rare people who make you +feel happy in yourself, who send you away somehow dignified, profitably +raised in your own esteem; just as others have a mysterious power of +dejecting you in your proudest moments. If you had any charm, however +shy, Myrtilla Williamson would find it, and send you away with a great +gush of gratitude to her because it had been found at last. This was +perhaps the greatest charm of her clever letters; they were all about +"you,"--not, of course, that you didn't want to hear about her. But +frequently all she told you of herself was her name. Perhaps she would +write in the half-hour that remained between, say, a visit from Esther +and the arrival of Williamson, to fix in a few intimate vivid words the +charm of their afternoon together, and tell Esther in some new +gratifying way what she was to her and why and how she was it; or when +Henry had been there--even more carefully in the absence of +Williamson--to read her his new poem, she would write him a long letter +of literary criticism, just perceptibly vibrating with the emotion she +might have felt for the romantic young poet, whom she allowed to call +himself her "cavaliere servente," had she not been Williamson as well as +Myrtilla, and had she not, as she somewhat unscientifically declared, +been old enough to be his mother.</p> + +<p>"Well," she said, as they sipped their tea, "so Henry's really gone. He +slipped round to bid me a sort of good-bye yesterday, and told me the +whole story. On the whole, I'm glad, though I know how you'll miss each +other. But I'm sorriest for your mother. Yes, yes, I'm sorry for her. +You must try to make it up to her, dear child. I think just that, above +all things, would make me fear to be a mother. One can do without +children," and there was a certain implication in the conversational +atmosphere that children of the name of Williamson had been mercifully +spared the world; "but when once they have come into one's life, it must +be terrible to see them go out again. I should like to come round and +have a little talk with your mother. I wonder if she'd care to see me?"</p> + +<p>"So long as you don't come in your tea-gown," said Esther, with a laugh.</p> + +<p>"Cruel child!" and then with a way she had of suddenly finding +something she wanted to hear of among the interests of her friends, +"Now," she said, "tell me something about Mike. I suppose the course of +true love runs as smoothly as ever. Happy children! Give him my love +when you see him, won't you?"</p> + +<p>Esther told all there was to tell about Mike up-to-date, and wished she +could have repaid her friend's sympathetic interest with a request for +something similar about Williamson. But it was tacitly understood that +there was nothing further to be said on that subject, and that the news +of Myrtilla's life could hardly again take any more excitingly personal +form than the bric-a-brac excitements of art or literature,--though +indeed art and literature were, to be just to them, far more than +bric-a-brac in the life of Myrtilla Williamson. They were, indeed, it +was easy to see, a very sustaining religion for the lonely little woman +who, having no children to study, and having completed her studies of +Williamson, was driven a good deal upon the study and development of +herself. The Williamson half of the day provided her fully with +opportunities for the practice of all the philosophy she was likely to +acquire from writers ancient and modern, and for the absorption of all +the consolation history and biography was likely to afford in the +stories of women similarly circumstanced. It is to be feared that +Myrtilla not only wore tea-gowns in advance of her time, but was also +somewhat prematurely something of a "new" woman; but this was a subject +on which she really did very little to "poison" Esther's "young mind." +Esther's young mind, in common with those of her two subsequent sisters, +was little in need of "poisoning" from outside on such subjects. Indeed, +it was a curious phenomenon to observe how all these young minds, sprung +from a stock of such ancient, unquestioning faith, had, so to say, been +born "poisoned;" or, to state the matter less metaphorically, had all +been born with instincts for the most pitiless and effortless reasoning +on all subjects human and divine.</p> + +<p>As the hour approached when poor Myrtilla must change back to +Williamson, Esther rose to say good-bye.</p> + +<p>"Come again soon, dear girl; you don't know the good you do me."</p> + +<p>The good, dear woman was entirely done by her unwearied, sympathetic +discussion of the affairs and dreams of Esther, Mike, and Henry.</p> + +<p>"Oh, here is a wonderful new book I intended to talk to you about. You +can take it with you; I have finished it. Come next week and tell me +what you think of it."</p> + +<p>As Esther walked down the path, Myrtilla watched her, and, as she passed +out of the gate, waved her a final kiss of parting, and turned indoors. +There seemed something ever so sad about her dainty back as it +disappeared into the doorway.</p> + +<p>"Poor little woman!" said Esther to herself, as she looked to see the +title of the book she was carrying. It included a curious Russian name, +the correct pronunciation of which she foresaw she must ask Myrtilla on +their next meeting. It was "The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff."</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<h3>A RHAPSODY OF TYRE</h3> +<br> + +<p>Sidon, the stage of the moving events so far recorded, though it makes +much of possessing a separate importance, is really a cross-river +residential suburb of Tyre, the great seaport in which all the ships of +the world come to and fro. During the day Sidon is virtually emptied of +its men-folk, and is given up to perambulators and feminine activities +generally; for the men have streamed across the ferries that bridge the +sunny, boisterous river, to the docks and offices of Tyre.</p> + +<p>Though Tyre is not a very old city, it is not so new as to be denied a +few of those associations known as "historical." Tyre had once the +honour to be taken by Prince Rupert, and long before that its nucleus +had existed as a monk's ferry, by which travellers were rowed across the +river to the monastery and posting-house at Sidon. Sometimes of an +evening Henry and Mike would think of those far-off times as they looked +over the ferry-boat at the long lines of river lights, with their +restless heaving reflections; and sometimes they could picture to +themselves the green sloping banks of the virgin fields, and hear the +priory bell calling to them out of the darkness. But such were the +faintest of their visions; and they loved the river banks best as they +are to-day, with their Egyptian walls and swarming lights and +tangled ships.</p> + +<p>And whoso should think that that sordid commercial city, given up to all +the prose of trade day by day, is not a poet at heart, has never seen +her strange smile at evening when the shops are shut, and the offices +empty, and the men who know her not gone home. For then across the +crowded roofs softly comes a strange sweetness, and deep down among the +gloomy wynds of deserted warehouses, still as temples, sudden fairies of +sunset dance and dazzle, and touch the grimy walls with soft hands. In +lonely back rooms, full of desks and dust, haunted lights of evening +stand like splendid apparitions; and sometimes, if you lingered at the +top of High Street, beneath the dark old church, and the moon was out +on the left of the steeple and the sunset dying on the right, dying +beyond the tangled masts and fading from the river, you would forget you +were a city clerk, and you would wonder why the world was so beautiful, +why the moon was made of pearl, and what it was that called to you out +of yonder golden sea; and your heart would fill with a strange gladness, +and you would call back to those unearthly voices, "I am yours, yours, +all yours!"</p> + +<p>Thus would this town of bales and merchants, of office-desks and stools, +make poets at evening that she might stone them at noon. For, of course, +she would have forgotten it all in the morning; and it were well not to +remind her with your dreaming eyes of her last night's softness. She +will look back at you with stony misunderstanding, and her new lover +Reality will sharply box your ears.</p> + +<p>It is no use reminding the Exchange that it looked like a scene from +Romeo and Juliet in the moonlight. It dare not admit it. But wait +patiently till the evening. Tyre will be yours again with the sunset. +She pretends all day that it is the Mayor in the gilded coach and the +pursy merchantmen she cares for; but it is really you, a poor shabby +poet, she loves all the time, for you only does she wear her gauzy silks +at evening!</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<h3>A PENITENTIARY OF THE MATHEMATICS</h3> +<br> + +<p>Yes, Mike was some day to be another Kean, and Henry was to prove a +serious rival to Shakespeare; but, meanwhile, they were clerks in the +offices of Tyre.</p> + +<p>Of the rigours, and therefore too the truancies and humours of the lot +official, Mike was comparatively so comfortably circumstanced as to have +little knowledge. His father was the king of a little flourishing prison +of desks, and Mike was one of the heirs-apparent. Consequently, his lot, +though dull, was seldom bitter; and many mitigations of it were within +his privilege. With Henry it was different. He was a humble unit among +twenty other slaves, chained to that modern substitute for the galleys, +the desk; and, in a wicked bargain, he had contracted to give his +life-blood from nine in the morning till six in the evening, for sixty +pounds a year, with an occasional "rise," which, after thirty years' +service, might end in your having reached a proud annual three hundred +for the rest of your maimed and narrowed days.</p> + +<p>Henry had come to the office straight from school, at the age of +sixteen; and, though classrooms breathe an air sufficiently frigid and +suggestive of inhuman interests and unmeaning discipline, the icy air of +that office had at first almost taken his breath. The place was so +ridiculously serious! There might conceivedly be interests in the world +worthy of so abject an absorption, so bleaching an obeisance of the +individual; but Henry, with the dews of certain classics still upon him, +remembered that anything really Olympian in its importance is always +strong enough to smile. It is a lesser strength that must make the +muscular effort of severity. True dignities, as often as possible, stand +at ease. But here indeed were no true strengths and dignities,--only +prison-strengths and prison-dignities. Here the majesties, the +occupations, the offences, were alike frivolities, fantastically changed +about into solemnities.</p> + +<p>That first impression of abject bowed heads and chains rattled beneath +desks, was roughly correct. For all that was human in a man, this was a +prison. These men who bent over foolish papers were evidently convicts +of the most desperate character; so, at all events, you would judge when +occasionally one or other of the prison-governors, known as "partners," +passed among them with the lash of his eye. Such faint human twittering +as may have grown up amongst even these poor exiles would suddenly die +into a silence white with fear, as when the shadow of a hawk falls +across the song of smaller birds.</p> + +<p>No human relations are acknowledged here. Outside, you may be a husband +wonderfully beloved and tragically important; you may be a man whose +courage has be-medalled your brave breast; you may be a passionate and +subtle musician in your private hours; you may even on Sundays be a much +appreciated vessel of the divine: but all such distinctions are not +current here; here they are foreign coin, diplomas unacknowledged in +this barbarous realm of ink and steel. The more ignorant, the more +narrow, the more mean, the more unnatural, you can contrive to be, the +better will be your lot in this sad monastery of Mammon. When the door +hissed behind you, with that little patent pneumatic device, you ceased +to be a human being, and began to be--the human machine. All the +vitality you have stored within that pale body you are expected to +exhaust here,--you have sold it, don't you remember, for sixty or three +hundred pounds a year; you are not expected to have any left over for +pleasures. That will be robbery. Masters suffer much from peculation +indeed in this way; but a machine is in course of invention which shall +put an end to this, by the application of which to your heart the +task-master will know whether or not you have spent every available +heart-beat in his slavery during the day, or whether you are +endeavouring, you miserable thief, to steal home with a little remnant +of it for your children at night.</p> + +<p>This was the theory of the office, as Henry once heard it expressed, +with a cynicism more brief and direct from the lips of one of his +task-masters; but it must be admitted that in certain respects his +experience was extreme. There are offices which are the ears and eyes of +activities absorbingly and even romantically human. To be in a +shipping-office is not perhaps to be the rose, but it is to live near +it,--the great rose of the sea. You are, so to say, a land-sailor, a +supercargo left on shore. Your office-windows are lashed with +hurricanes; your talk is frequently of cyclones. The names of far +romantic isles are constantly on your lips, and your bills of lading are +threepenny romances in themselves. Strange produce of distant lands are +your daily concern, and the four winds meet at your counter with a +savour of tar. For all you know, a pirate may claim your attention any +minute of the day.</p> + +<p>Or, again, to be, say, in a corn-merchant's, a clearing-house of the +fruitful earth. There at your telephone you may hear the corn-fields +whispering to you, hear the wheat waving in the wind, and the thin +chatter of oats. Or you may sell butter and cheese in an office that +smells of farms. However removed, you are an indirect agent of the +earth, a humble go-between of the seasons and the eternal needs of man.</p> + +<p>Or, once more, you may be one of the thousand clerks of a great +manufacturer, and be humbly related to one of the arts or crafts that +gladden the eye or add to the comforts of man. Or even, though you may +be denied so close an association with the elements, or the arts, you +may be the pen to some subtle legal confidante of human nature. Your +office may be stored with records of human perversity and whimsicality. +You may be the witness to fantastic wills, or assist in the +administration of the estates of lunatics. At all events, you will come +within hearing of the human passions. Misers will visit you at times, +and beautiful ladies in mourning deep as their distress; and from your +desk you will catch a glimpse of the sombre pageantry of litigious man.</p> + +<p>Though it is true that a certain far-off flavour of these legal +excitements occasionally enlivened the business to which Henry had been +sacrificially indentured, for the most part it was an abstract +parasitical thing which had succeeded in persuading other businesses, +more directly fed from the human spring, of its obliging usefulness in +relieving them of detachable burdens. In fact, it had no activity or +interest of its own to account for, so it proposed, in default of any +such original reason for existence, to look after the accounts of +others, as a self-constituted body of financial police. For those +engaged in it, except those who had been born mentally deformed, or +those who had become unnaturally perverted by long usage, it was a sort +of penitentiary of the mathematics.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> +<br> + +<h3>THE GRASS BETWEEN THE FLAG-STONES</h3> + +<p>Yes, it was a curiously unreal world; and, for the first day or two, as +Henry, bent, lonely and bewildered, over his desk, studied it furtively +with questioning eyes, it seemed to him as though he had strayed into +some asylum for the insane, where fantastic interests and mock honours +take the place of the real interests and honours of sane human beings.</p> + +<p>Part of the business of the firm consisted in the collection of +house-rents, frequently entailing visits from tenants and questions of +repairs. A certain Mr. Smith, a wiry little grey-headed man, with a keen +face and a decisive manner, looked after this branch; and the gusto with +which he did it was one of Henry's earliest and most instructive +amazements. House-repairs were quite evidently his poetry, and he never +seemed so happy as when passionately wrangling with a tenant on some +question of drains. The words "cesspool" and "wet-trap"--words to which +I don't pretend to attach any meaning--seemed to be particular +favourites of his. In fact, an hour seldom passed without their falling +from his lips. But Mr. Smith's great opportunity was a gale. For that +always meant an exciting harvest of dislodged chimney-pots, flying +slates, and smashed skylights, which would impart an energetic interest +to his life for days.</p> + +<p>Again, in Henry's department--for the office was cut into two halves, +with about ten clerks in each, the partners having, of course, their own +private offices, from which they might dart out at any moment--there was +a certain little fussy chief clerk who was obviously a person of very +mysterious importance. He was frequently away, evidently on missions of +great moment, for always on his return he would be closeted immediately +with one or other of the partners, who in turn seemed to consider him +important too, and would sometimes treat him almost like one of +themselves, actually condescending to laugh with him now and again over +some joke, evidently as mysterious as all the rest. This Mr. Perkins +seldom noticed the juniors in his department, though occasionally he +would select one of them to accompany him on one of his missions to +clients of the firm; and they would start off together, as you may see a +plumber and his apprentice sometimes in the streets,--the proud +master-plumber in front, and the little apprentice plumber behind, +carrying the lead pipe and the iron smelting-pot.</p> + +<p>Now, did Mr. Smith really take such a heart-interest in cesspools and +wet-traps as he appeared to do? and did Mr. Perkins really think he +mattered all that?</p> + +<p>These were two of the earliest questions which Henry asked himself, and +as time brought the answers to them, and kindred questions, there were +unexpected elements of comfort for the heart of the boy, longing so +desperately in that barren place for any hint of the human touch. One +day Mr. Smith startled him by mentioning Dickens, and even Charles Lamb. +It was a kindly recognition of Mesurier's rumoured interest in +literature. Henry looked at him in amazement. "Oh, you read then!" he +exclaimed. Of anything so human as reading he had suspected no one in +that office.</p> + +<p>Then as to the great Mr. Perkins, the time came when he was to prove +very human indeed. For, dying suddenly one day, his various work had to +pass into other hands; and, bit by bit, it began to leak out that those +missions had not been so industriously devoted to the interests of the +firm, nor been so carefully executed, as had been imagined. For Mr. +Perkins, it transpired, had been fond of his pleasures, could appreciate +wine, and liked an occasional informal holiday. So, posthumously, he +began to wear for Henry a faint halo of humanity.</p> + +<p>Indeed, it did not take Henry many days to realise that, as grass will +force its way even between the flag-stones in a prison-yard, no little +humanity contrived to support its existence even in this dead place. By +degrees, he realised that these apparently colourless and frigid figures +about him had each their separate individuality, engaging or otherwise; +that their interests were by no means centred on the dull pages before +them; and that, for the most part, they were very much in a like case +with himself. Although thus immured from the world of realities, they +still maintained, in vigorous activity, many healthy outdoor interests, +and were quite keen in their enthusiasm for, and remarkably instructed +in, the latest developments of horse-racing, football, and +prize-fighting. Likewise, they had retained an astonishingly fresh and +unimpaired interest in women, and still enjoyed the simple earth-born +pleasures of the glass and the pipe.</p> + +<p>As he understood this, Henry began to feel more at home; and, as the +characters of his associates revealed themselves, he began to see that +there were amongst them several pleasant and indeed merry fellows, and +that, after all, fortune might have thrown him into much worse company. +They, on their side, making like discoveries in him, he presently found +himself admitted to their freemasonry, and initiated into their many +secret ways of mitigating their lot, and shortening their long days. +Thus, this chill, stern world of automata, which, on first sight, looked +as if no human word or smile or jest could escape the detection of its +iron laws, revealed, when you were once inside it, an under-world of +pleasant escapes and exciting truancies, of which, as you grew +accustomed to the risks and general conditions of the life, you were +able skilfully to avail yourself.</p> + +<p>The main principle of these was to seem to spend twice as much time on +each task as it needed, that you might have the other half for such +private uses as were within your reach,--to elongate dinner-hours at +both ends so adroitly, and on such carefully selected propitious +occasions, that the elongation, or at least the whole extent of it, +would pass unobserved; and, in general, to gain time, any waste ends of +five minutes or quarter hours, on all possible occasions. If the reader +calls this shirking and robbery, he must. Technically, no doubt, it was; +but these clerks, without so formulating it, merely exercised the right +of all oppressed beings liberally to interpret to their own advantage, +where possible, the terms of an unjust contract which grinding economic +conditions had compelled them to make. They had been forced to promise +too much in exchange for too little, and they equalised the disparity +where they could.</p> + +<p>Whether they spent the time thus hoarded in a profitable fashion, is a +question of personal definition. It was usually expended in companies of +twos or threes, with a pipe and a pot of beer and much spirited talk, in +the warm corners of adjacent taverns; and, so long as you don't drink +too much, there has perhaps been invented none pleasanter than that +old-fashioned way of spending an hour. Certainly, it was the way for ale +to taste good, and a pipe to seem the most satisfying of all earthly +consolations. It was almost worth the bondage to enjoy the keen relish +of the escape.</p> + +<p>By degrees, though the youngest there, Henry came to be allowed a +certain leadership in these sorties of the human element. He made it his +business to stimulate these unthrifty instincts, and to fan the welcome +sparks of natural idleness; and so successfully that at times there +seemed to have entered with him into that gloomy place a certain Bacchic +influence, which now and again would prompt his comrades to such daring +clutches of animated release, that the spirit of it even pervaded the +penetralia of the senior partner's office, with the result that some +mishap of truancy would undo the genial work of months, and precipitate +upon them for a while the rigours of a ten-fold discipline. It was after +such an occasion that, in writing to James Mesurier as to the progress +of his son, old Mr. Septimus Lingard had paid Henry one of the proudest +compliments of his young days. "I fear that we shall make little of your +son Henry," he wrote. "His head seems full of literature, and he is so +idle that he is demoralising the whole office."</p> + +<p>It took Henry more than a year to win that testimonial; but the odds had +been so great against him that the wonder is he was ever able to win it +at all. Mr. Lingard wrote "demoralise." It was his way of saying +"humanise."</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<br> + +<h3>HUMANITY IN HIGH PLACES</h3> + +<p>One day, however, Henry was to make the still more surprising discovery, +that not only were the clerks human beings, but that one of the +partners--only one of them--was also human. He made this discovery about +the senior partner, whose old-world figure and quaint name, Septimus +Searle Lingard, had, in spite of his severity, attracted him by a +certain musty distinction.</p> + +<p>A stranger figure than Septimus Searle Lingard has seldom walked the +streets of any town. Though not actually much over sixty, you would have +said he must be a thousand; his abnormally long, narrow, shaven face was +so thin and gaunt and hollowed, and his tall, upright figure was so +painfully fragile, that his black broadcloth seemed almost too heavy for +the worn frame inside it. And nothing in the world else was ever so +piercingly solemn as his keen weary old eyes. With his tall silk hat, +his thin white hair, his long white face, long black frock-coat, and +black trousers, he looked for all the world like a distinguished +skeleton. Henry could never be quite sure whether he was to be classed +as a "character," or as a genuine personality. One thing was certain, +that, sometime or other, or many times, in his life he had done +something, or many things, which had won for him a respect as deep as +his solemnity of aspect; and certainly, if gravity of demeanour goes for +anything, all the owls of all the ages in collaboration could not have +produced an expression of time-honoured wisdom so convincing. Sometimes +his old lantern-jaws would emit an uncanny cackle of a laugh, and a +ghastly flicker of humour play across his parchment features; but these +only deepened the general sense of solemnity, as the hoot of a +night-bird deepens the loneliness of some desolate hollow among +the hills.</p> + +<p>It was this strange old ghost of a man that was to be the next to turn +human, and it came about like this. Right away at the top of the +building was a lonely room where the sun never shone, in which were +stored away the old account-books, diaries, and various +dead-and-done-with documents of the firm; and here too was deposited, +from time to time, various wreckage of the same kind from other +businesses whose last offices had been done by the firm, and whose +records were still preserved, in the unlikely event of any chance +resurrection of claim upon, or interest in, their long forgotten names.</p> + +<p>Here crumbled the last relics of many an ambitious enterprise,--great +ledgers, with their covers still fresh, lay like slabs, from which, if +you wiped away the dust, the gilded names of foundered companies would +flash as from gaudy tombstones; letter-books bursting with letters that +no eye would read again so long as the world lasted; yellow title-deeds +from which all the virtue had long since exhaled, and to which no +dangling of enormous seals could any longer lend a convincing air of +importance. Here everything was dead and dusty as an old shoe. The dry +bones in the valley of Askelon were as children skipping in the morning +sun compared with the dusty death that mouldered and mouldered in this +lonely locked-up room,--this catacomb of dead businesses.</p> + +<p>It was seldom necessary to visit this room; but occasionally Henry +would find an excuse to loiter an hour there, for there was a certain +dreary romance about the place, and the almost choking smell of old +leather seemed to promise all sorts of buried secrets. It cannot be said +that the place ever adequately gratified the sense of mystery it +excited; but, after all, to excite the sense of mystery is perhaps +better than to gratify it, and, considering its poor material, this room +was quite a clever old mysteriarch.</p> + +<p>One day, however, Henry came upon some writing that did greatly interest +him, though it was almost contemporary. It was old Mr. Septimus +Lingard's diary for the year preceding, which he had got hold of,--not +his private diary, but the entirely public official diary in which he +kept account of the division of his days among his various clients--for +the most part an unexciting record. But at the end of the book, on one +of the general memoranda pages, Henry noticed a square block of writing +which, to his surprise, proved to be a long quotation from a book which +the old man had been reading,--on the Immortality of the soul!</p> + +<p>Had old Mr. Septimus Lingard a soul too, a soul that troubled him +maybe, a soul that had its moving memories, and its immortal +aspirations? Yes, somewhere hidden in that strange legal document of a +body, there was evidently a soul. Mr. Lingard had a soul!</p> + +<p>But wait a moment, here was an addition of the old man's own! The +passage quoted had been of death and its possible significance, and it +was just a sigh, a fear, the old man had breathed after it: <i>How high +has the winding-sheet encompassed my own bosom</i>!</p> + +<p>Solemn as were the words in themselves, they seemed doubly so in that +lonely room; and Henry was glad to lock the door and return to the +comparatively living world downstairs. But from that moment old Mr. +Lingard was transfigured in his eyes. Beneath all the sternness of his +exterior, the grimness of the business interests which seemed to absorb +him, Henry had discovered the blessed human spring. And he came too to +wear a certain pathos and sanctity in Henry's eyes, as he remembered how +old a man he was, and that secretly all this time, while he seemed so +busy with this public company and another, he was quietly preparing to +die. From this moment tasks done for him came to have a certain joy in +them. For his sake, as it were, he began to understand how you might +take a pride in doing well something that, in your opinion, was not +worth doing; and one day when the old man, well satisfied with some work +he had done, patted him kindly on the back and said, "We'll make a +business man of you after all!" the tears started to his eyes, and for a +moment he almost hoped that they would.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<br> + +<h3>DAMON AND PYTHIAS</h3> + +<p>By an odd coincidence, the night which had seen Henry and Esther +confront their father, had seen, in another household in which the young +people counted another member of their secret society of youth, a +similar but even less seemly clash between the generations. Ned Hazell +would be a poet too, and a painter as well, and perhaps a romantic +actor; but his father's tastes for his son's future lay in none of these +directions, and Ned was for the present in cotton. Now the elder Mr. +Hazell was a man of violently convivial habits, and the <i>bonhomie</i>, with +which he was accustomed to enliven bar-parlours up till eleven of an +evening, was apt to suffer a certain ungenial transformation as he +reached his own front door. There the wit would fail upon his lips, the +twinkle die out of his glance, and an unaccountable ferocity towards the +household that was waiting up for him take their place. When possible, +he would fix upon some trivial reason to give an air of plausibility to +this curious change in him; but if that were not forthcoming, he would, +it appeared, fly into a violent rage for just that very reason.</p> + +<p>However, on this particular night, Heaven had provided him with an +heroic occasion. His son, he discovered, was for once out later than his +father. In what haunt of vice, or low place of drinking, he was at the +moment ensnared, no one better than his father could imagine. The +opportunity was one not to be missed. The outraged parent at last +realised that he had borne with him long enough, borne long enough with +his folderols of art and nonsense; and so determined was he on the +instant that he would have no more of it, that, with a quite remarkable +energy, he had thereupon repaired to his son's room, opened the window, +and begun vigorously to throw his pretty editions, his dainty +water-colours, his drawers full of letters, his cast of the Venus of +Milo, out on to the lawn, upon which at the moment a heavy rain was +also falling.</p> + +<p>In the very whirlwind of his righteous vandalism his son had returned, +and, being a muscular, hot-blooded lad, had taken his father by the +throat, called him a drunken beast, and hurled him to the floor, where +he pinned him down with a knee on his chest, and might conceivably have +made an end of him, but for the interference of mother and sisters, who +succeeded at last in getting the dazed and somewhat sobered parent +to bed.</p> + +<p>Having raked together from the sodden <i>débris</i> beneath his window some +disfigured remains of his poor treasures, Ned Hazell had left the house +in the early hours of the morning, in good earnest for ever.</p> + +<p>When he confided the excitements of the night to Henry at lunch next +day, and heard in return his friend's news, nothing could be more plain +than that they should set up lodgings together; and it was, therefore, +to the rooms of which Ned was already in possession that Henry's cab had +toppled with his various belongings, after those tearful farewells at +his father's door. Esther followed presently to help make the place +straight and dainty for the two boys, and having left them, late that +evening, with flowers in all the jars, and the curtains as they should +be, they were fairly launched on their new life together.</p> + +<p>In Mike Henry had a stanch friend and an admirer against all comers, and +in Henry Mike had a friend and admirer no less loyal; but their +friendship was one for which an on-looker might have found it less easy +to give reasons than for that of Henry and Ned. Mike and Henry loved +each other, it would appear, less for any correspondence in dispositions +or tastes, as just because they were Mike and Henry. Right away down in +their natures there was evidently some central affinity which operated +even in spite of surface contradictions. There was much of this +intrinsic quality in the affection of Henry and Ned also, but it was +much more to be accounted for by evident mutual sympathies. It was +largely the impassioned fellowship of two craftsmen in love with the +same art. Both had their literary ambitions; but, irrespective of those, +they both loved poetry. Yes, how they loved it! Ned was perhaps +particularly a born appreciator; and it was worth seeing how the tears +would come into his fine eyes, as his voice shook with tenderness over a +fine phrase or a noble passage. They had discovered some of the most +thrilling things in English literature together, at that impressionable +age when such things mean most to us. Together they had read Keats for +the first wonderful time; together learned Shakespeare's Sonnets by +heart; together rolled out over tavern-tables the sumptuous cadences of +De Quincey. Wonderful indeed, and never to be forgotten, were those +evenings when, the day at last over, they would leave their offices +behind them, and, while the sunset was turning the buildings of Tyre +into enchanted towers, and a clemency of release breathed upon its +streets, steal to the quiet corner of their favourite tavern; to drink +port and share their last new author, or their own latest rhymes, and +then to emerge again, with high calm hearts and eloquent eyes, beneath +the splendid stars.</p> + +<p>All the arts within their reach they thus shared together,--pictures, +music, theatres,--in a fine comradeship. Together they had bravoed the +great tragedians, and together hopelessly worshipped the beautiful +faces, enskied and sainted, of famous actresses. In fact, they were the +Damon and Pythias of Tyre.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<br> + +<h3>DAMON AND PYTHIAS AT THE THEATRE</h3> +<br> + +<p>Once, long before the beginning of this story, Damon and Pythias were +sitting in a theatre together, with the wonderful overture just +beginning to steal through their senses.</p> + +<p>Ah, violins, whither would you take their souls? You call to them like +the voice of one waiting by the sea, bathed in sunset. What are these +wonderful things you are whispering to their souls? You promise--ah, +what things you promise, strange voices of the string!</p> + +<p>Oh, sirens, have pity! Their hearts are pure, their bodies sweet as +apples. Oh, be faithful, betray them not, beautiful voices of the +wondrous world!</p> + +<p>The overture had succeeded. Their souls had followed it over the +footlights, and, floating in the limelight, shone there awaiting the +fulfilment of the promise.</p> + +<p>The play was "Pygmalion and Galatea," and at the appearance of Galatea +they knew that the overture had not lied. There, in dazzling white +flesh, was all it had promised; and when she called "Pyg-ma-lion!" how +their hearts thumped!--for they knew it was really them she was calling.</p> + +<p>"Pyg-ma-lion! Pyg-ma-lion!"</p> + +<p>It was as though Cleopatra called them from the tomb.</p> + +<p>Their hands met. They could hear each other's blood singing. And was not +the play itself an allegory of their coming lives? Did not Galatea +symbolise all the sleeping beauty of the world that was to awaken, warm +and fragrant, at the kiss of their youth? And somewhere, too, shrouded +in enchanted quiet, such a white white woman waited for their kiss. In a +vision they saw life like the treasure cave of the Arabian thief; and +they said to their beating hearts that they had the secret of the magic +word, that the "open Sesame" was youth.</p> + +<p>No fall of the curtain could hide the vision from their young eyes. It +transfigured the faces of their fellow-playgoers, crowding from the pit; +it made another stage of the embers of the sunset, a distant bridge of +silver far down the street. Then they took it with them to the tavern; +and to write of the solemn libations of that night would be to laugh or +cry. Only youth can be so radiantly ridiculous.</p> + +<p>They had found their own corner. Turning down the gas, the fire played +at day and night with their faces. Imagine them in one of the flashes, +solemnly raising their glasses, hands clasped across the table, earnest +gleaming eyes holding each other above it.</p> + +<p>"Old man, some day, somewhere, a woman like that!"</p> + +<p>But there was still a sequel. At home at last and in bed, how could +Damon sleep! It seemed as if he had got into a rosy sunset cloud in +mistake for his bed. The candle was out, and yet the room was full of +rolling light.</p> + +<p>It was no use; he must get up. So, striking a light, he was presently +deep in the composition of a fiery sonnet. It was evidently that which +had caused all the phosphorescence. But a sonnet is a mere pill-box; it +holds nothing. A mere cockle-shell,--and, oh, the raging sea it could +not hold! Besides being confessedly an art-form, duly licenced to lie, +it was apt to be misunderstood. It could not say in plain words, "Meet +me at the pier to-morrow at three in the afternoon;" it could make no +assignation nearer than the Isles of the Blest, "after life's fitful +fever." Therefore, it seemed well to add a postscript to that effect +in prose.</p> + +<p>But then, how was she to receive it? There was nothing to be hoped from +the post, and Damon's home in Sidon was three miles from the ferry. +Likewise, it was now nearing three in the morning. Just time to catch +the half-past three boat, run up to the theatre, a mile away, and meet +the return boat. So down, down through the creaking house, carefully, as +though he were a Jason picking his way among the coils of the sleeping +dragon; and soon he was shooting through the phantom streets, like +Mercury on a message through Hades.</p> + +<p>At last the river came in sight, growing slate-colour in the earliest +dawn. He could see the boat nuzzling up against the pier, and snoring in +its sleep. He said to himself that this was Styx and the fare an obolus. +As he jumped on board, with hot face and hotter heart, Charon clicked +his signal to the engines; the boat slowly snuffled itself half awake, +and shoved out into the sleepy water.</p> + +<p>As they crossed, the light grew, and the gas-lamps of Tyre beaconed with +fading gleam. Overhead began a restlessness in the clouds, as of a giant +drowsily shuffling off some of his bedclothes; but as yet he slept, and +only the silver bosom of his spouse, the moon, was uncovered.</p> + +<p>When they landed, the streets of Tyre were already light, but empty, as +though they had got up early to meet some one who had not arrived. Damon +sped through them like a sea-gull that has the harbour to itself, and +was not long in reaching the theatre. How desolate the play-bills looked +that had been so companionable but three or four hours before! And there +was her photograph! Surely it was an omen.</p> + +<p>"Ah, my angel! See, I am bringing you my heart in a song. 'All my heart +in this my singing!'"</p> + +<p>He dropped the letter into the box; but, as he turned away, momentarily +glancing up the long street, he caught sight of an approaching figure +that could hardly be mistaken. Good Heavens! it was Pythias, and he too +was carrying a letter.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<br> + +<h3>CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS A GENEALOGY</h3> + +<p>The egregious Miss Bashkirtseff did not greatly fascinate Esther. Her +egotism was too hard, too self-bounded, even for egotism, and there was +generally about her a lack of sympathy. Her passion for fame had +something provincial in its eagerness, and her broadest ideals seemed to +become limited by her very anxiety to compass them. Even her love of art +seemed a form of snobbery. In all these young Mesuriers there was +implicit,--partly as a bye-product of the sense of humour, and partly as +an unconscious mysticism,--a surprising instinct for allowing the +successes of this world their proper value and no more. Even Esther, who +was perhaps the most worldly of them all, and whose ambitions were +largely social, as became a bonny girl whom nature had marked out to be +popular, and on whom, some day when Mike was a great actor,--and had a +theatre of his own!--would devolve the cares of populous "at home" days, +bright after-the-performance suppers, and all the various diplomacies of +the popular wife of fame,--even Esther, however brilliant her life might +become, would never for a moment imagine that such success was a thing +worth winning, at the expense of the smallest loss to such human +realities as the affection she felt for Mike and Henry. To love some one +well and faithfully, to be one of a little circle vowed to eternal +fidelity one to the other,--such was the initial success of these young +lives; and it was to make them all their days safe from the dangers of +more meretricious successes.</p> + +<p>All the same, though the chief performer in Marie Bashkirtseff's +"Confessions" interested her but little, the stage on which for a little +while she had scolded and whimpered did interest her--for should it not +have been her stage too, and Henry's stage, and Dot's stage, father's +and mother's stage too? You had only to look at father to realise that +nature had really meant him for the great stage; here in Sidon, what was +he but a god in exile, bending great powers and a splendid character +upon ridiculously unimportant interests? Indeed, was not his destiny, +more or less, their destiny as a family? Henry would escape from it +through literature, and she through Mike. But what of Dot, what of Mat, +not yet to speak of "the children"?</p> + +<p>All she envied Marie Bashkirtseff was her opportunity. Great Goddess +Opportunity! So much had come to Marie in the cradle, and came daily to +a hundred thousand insignificant aristocratic babes, to approach which +for the Mesuriers, even ten years too late, meant convulsions of the +home, and to attain which in any satisfactory degree was probably +impossible. French, for example, and music! Why, if so disposed, Marie +Bashkirtseff might have read old French romances at ten, and to play +Chopin at an earlier age was not surprising in the opportunitied, +so-called "aristocratic" infant. Oh, why had they not been born like the +other Sidonians, whose natures and ideals had been mercifully calculated +to the meridian of Sidon! Why didn't they think the Proudfoots and the +Wilkinsons and the Wagstaffs, and other local nobody-somebodies, people +of importance, and why did they think the mayor a ludicrous upstart, +and the adjacent J.P. a sententious old idiot? Far better to have rested +content in that state of life to which God had called them. To talk +French, or to play Chopin! What did it matter? In one sense nothing, but +in another it mattered like other convenient facilities of life. To the +immortal soul it mattered nothing, but to the mortal social unit it made +life the easier, made the passage of ideas, the intercourse of +individualities, the readier, and, in general, facilitated spiritual and +intellectual, as well as social, communication. To be first-rate +in your instincts, in all your fibres, and third-rate in your +opportunities,--that was a bitter indignity of circumstance.</p> + +<p>This sub-conscious sense of aristocracy--it must be observed, lest it +should have been insufficiently implied--was almost humorously +dissociated in the minds of the young Mesuriers from any recorded family +distinctions. In so far as it was conscious, it was defiantly +independent of genealogy. Had the Mesuriers possessed a coat-of-arms, +James Mesurier would probably have kept it locked up as a frivolity to +be ashamed of, for it was a part of his Puritanism that such earthly +distinctions were foolishness with God; but, as a matter of fact, +between Adam and the immediate great-grandparents of the young +Mesuriers, there was a void which the Herald's office would have found a +difficulty in filling. This it never occurred to them to mind in +the least.</p> + +<p>It was one of Henry's deep-sunken maxims that "a distinguished product +implied a distinguished process," and that, at all events, the +genealogical process was only illustratively important. It would have +been interesting to know how they, the Mesuriers, came to be what they +were. In the dark night of their history a family portrait or two, or an +occasional reference in history, would have been an entertaining +illumination--but, such not being forthcoming, they were, documentally, +so much the less indebted to their progenitors. Yet if they had only +been able to claim some ancestor with a wig and a degree for the +humanities, or some beautiful ancestress with a romantic reputation! +One's own present is so much more interesting for developing, or even +repeating, some one else's past. And yet how much better it was to be as +they were, than as most scions of aristocratic lineage, whose present +was so often nothing and their past everything. How humiliating to be so +pathetically inadequate an outcome of such long and elaborate +preparation,--the mouse of a genealogical mountain! Yes, it was +immeasurably more satisfactory to one's self-respect to be Something out +of Nothing, than Nothing out of Everything. Here so little had made so +much; here so much had made--hardly even a lord. It was better for your +circumstances to be inadequate for you, than you to be inadequate for +your circumstances.</p> + +<p>Henry had amused himself one day in making a list of all their +"ancestors" to whom any sort of worldly or romantic distinction could +attach, and it ran somewhat as follows:--</p> + +<p>(1) A great-grandmother on the father's side, fabled to live in some +sort of a farm-house château in Guernsey, who once a year, up till two +years ago, when she died, had sent them a hamper of apples from Channel +Island orchards. Said "château" believed by his children to descend to +James Mesurier, but the latter indifferent to the matter, and relatives +on the spot probably able to look after it.</p> + +<p>(2) A great-grandfather on the mother's side given to travel, a +"rolling-stone," fond of books and talk, and rich in humanity. Surviving +still in a high-nosed old silhouette.</p> + +<p>(3) A grand-uncle on the father's side who was one of Napoleon's guard +at St. Helena!</p> + +<p>(4) A grandfather on the mother's side, who used to design and engrave +little wooden blocks for patterns on calico-stuffs, and whose little box +of delicate instruments, evidently made for the tracing of lines and +flowers, was one of the few family heirlooms.</p> + +<p>(5) A grandmother on the father's side of whom nothing was known beyond +the beautiful fact that she was Irish.</p> + +<p>(6) A grandfather on the father's side who was a sea-captain, sailing +his own ship (barque "the Lucretia") to the West Indies, and who died of +yellow fever, and was buried, in the odour of romance, on the Isthmus +of Panama.</p> + +<p>(7) An uncle who had also been a sea-captain, and who, in rescuing a +wrecked crew from an Australian reef, was himself capsized, and after a +long swim finally eaten by a shark,--said shark being captured next day, +and found to contain his head entire, two gold rings still in his ears, +which he wore for near-sightedness, after the manner of common sailors, +and one of which, after its strange vicissitudes, had found a +resting-place in the secretaire of his brother, James Mesurier.</p> + +<p>Such was the only accessible "ancestry" of the Mesuriers, and it is to +be feared that the last state of the family was socially worse than the +first. James Mesurier was unapproachably its present summit, its Alpine +peak; and he was made to suffer for it no little by humble and +impecunious relatives. Still, whatever else they lacked, Henry Mesurier +loved to insist that these various connections were rich in character, +one or two of them inexhaustible in humour; and their rare and somewhat +timorous visits to the castle of their exalted relative, James Mesurier, +were occasions of much mirthful embarrassment to the young people. Here +the reader is requested to excuse a brief parenthetical chapter by way +of illustration, which, if he pleases, he may skip without any loss of +continuity in the narrative, or the least offence in the world to the +writer. This present chapter will be found continued in chapter sixteen.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<br> + +<h3>MERELY A HUMBLE INTERRUPTION AND +ILLUSTRATION OF THE LAST</h3> + +<p>Some peaceable afternoon when Mrs. Mesurier was enjoying a little doze +on the parlour sofa, and her three elder daughters were snatching an +hour or two from housework--they had already left school--for a little +private reading, the drowsy house would suddenly be awakened by one loud +wooden knock at the door.</p> + +<p>"Now, whoever can that be!" the three girls would impatiently exclaim; +and presently the maid would come to Miss Esther to say that there was +an old man at the door asking for Mrs. Mesurier.</p> + +<p>"What's his name, Jane?"</p> + +<p>"He wouldn't give it, miss. He said it would be all right. Mrs. Mesurier +would know him well enough."</p> + +<p>"Whoever can it be? What's he like, Jane?"</p> + +<p>"He looks like a workman, miss,--very old, and rather dotey."</p> + +<p>"Who can it be? Go and ask him his name again."</p> + +<p>Esther would then arouse her mother; and the maid would come in to say +that at last the old man had been persuaded to confide his name as +Clegg--Samuel Clegg.</p> + +<p>"Tell the missus it's Samuel Clegg," the old man had said, with a +certain amusing conceit. "She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg."</p> + +<p>"Why!" said Mrs. Mesurier, "it's your father's poor old uncle, Mr. +Clegg. Now, girls, you mustn't run away, but try and be nice to him. +He's a simple, good, old man."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mesurier was no more interested in Mr. Clegg than her daughters; +but she had a great fund of humanity, and an inexhaustible capacity for +suffering bores brilliantly.</p> + +<p>"Why, I never!" she would say, adapting her idiom to make the old man +feel at home, as he was presently ushered in, chuntering and triumphant; +"you don't mean to say it's Uncle Clegg. Well, we are glad to see you! I +was just having a little nap, and so you must excuse my keeping +you waiting."</p> + +<p>"Ay, Mary. It's right nice of you to make me so welcome. I got a bit +misdoubtful at the door, for the young maid seemed somehow a little +frightened of me; but when I told the name it was all right. 'Samuel +Clegg,' I said. 'She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg,' I said."</p> + +<p>"Glad indeed," murmured Mrs. Mesurier, "I should think so. Find a chair +for your uncle, Esther."</p> + +<p>"Ay, the name did it," chuckled the old man, who as a matter of fact was +anything but a humble old person, and to whom the bare fact of +existence, and the name of Clegg, seemed warrant enough for thinking +quite a lot of yourself.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you don't remember your old uncle," said the old man to +Esther, looking dimly round, and rather bewildered by the fine young +ladies. Actually, he was only a remote courtesy uncle, having married +their father's mother's sister.</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course, Uncle Clegg," said Esther, a true daughter of her +mother; "but, you see, it's a long time since we saw you."</p> + +<p>"And this is Dorcas. Come and kiss your uncle, Dorcas. And this is +Matilda," said Mrs. Mesurier.</p> + +<p>"Ay," said the old man, "and you're all growing up such fine young +ladies. Deary me, Mary, but they must make you feel old."</p> + +<p>"We were just going to have some tea," said Esther; "wouldn't you like a +cup, uncle?"</p> + +<p>"I daresay your uncle would rather have a glass of beer," said Mrs. +Mesurier.</p> + +<p>"Ay, you're right there, Mary," answered the old man, "right there. A +glass of beer is good enough for Samuel Clegg. A glass of beer and some +bread and cheese, as the old saying is, is good enough for a king; but +bread and cheese and water isn't fit for a beggar."</p> + +<p>All laughed obligingly; and the old man turned to a bulging pocket which +had evidently been on his mind from his entrance.</p> + +<p>"I've got a little present here from Esther," he said,--"Esther" being +the aunt after whom Mike's Esther had been named,--bringing out a little +newspaper parcel. "But I must tell you from the beginning.</p> + +<p>"Well, you know, Mary," he continued, "I was feeling rather low +yesterday, and Esther said to me, 'Why not take a day off to-morrow, +Samuel, and see Mary, it'll shake you up a bit, and I'll be bound she's +right glad to see you?' 'Why, lass!' I said, 'it's the very thing. See +if I don't go in the morning.'</p> + +<p>"So this morning," he continued, "she tidies me up--you know her +way--and sends me off. But before I started, she said, 'Here, Samuel, +you must take this, with my love, to Mary.' I've kept it wrapped up in +this drawer for thirty years, and only the other day our Mary Elizabeth +said, 'Mother, you might give me that old jug. It would look nice in our +little parlour.'" "But no!" I says, "Mary Elizabeth, if any one's to have +that jug, it's your Aunt Mary."</p> + +<p>"How kind of her!" murmured Mrs. Mesurier, sympathetically.</p> + +<p>"Yes, those were her words, Mary," said the old man, unfolding the +newspaper parcel, and revealing an ugly little jug of metallically +glistening earthenware, such as were turned out with strange pride from +certain English potteries about seventy years ago. It seemed made in +imitation of metal,--a sort of earthenware pewter; and evidently it had +been a great aesthetic treasure in the eyes of Mrs. Clegg. Mrs. Mesurier +received it accordingly.</p> + +<p>"How pretty," she said, "and how kind of Aunt Esther! They don't make +such things nowadays."</p> + +<p>"No, it's a vallyble relic," said the old man; "but you're worthy of +it, Mary. I'd rather see you have it than any of them. My word, but I'm +glad I've got it here safely. Esther would never have forgiven me.' Now, +Samuel,' she said, as I left, 'mind you get home before dark, and don't +sit on the jug, whatever you do.'"</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the "young ladies" were in imminent danger of convulsions; +and, at that moment, further to enhance the situation, an old lady of +the neighbourhood, who occasionally dropped in for a gossip, was +announced. She was a prim little lady, with "Cranford" curls, and a +certain old-world charm and old-world vanity about her, and very deaf. +She too was a "character" in her way, but so different from old Mr. +Clegg that the entertainment to be expected from their conjunction was +irresistible even to anticipate.</p> + +<p>"This is Mr. Clegg, an uncle of Mr. Mesurier," said poor Mrs. Mesurier, +by way of introduction.</p> + +<p>"Howd'ye do, marm?" said Mr. Clegg, without rising.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Turtle bowed primly. "Are you sure, my dear, I don't interrupt?" +she said to Mrs. Mesurier; "shall I not call in some other day?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, no!" said Mrs. Mesurier. "Esther, get Mrs. Turtle a little +whisky and water."</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Turtle, "only the least little drop in the +world, Esther dear. My heart, you know, my dear. Even so short a walk as +this tires me out."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mesurier responded sympathetically; and then, by way of making +himself pleasant, Mr. Clegg suddenly broke in with such an extraordinary +amenity of old-world gallantry that everybody's hair stood on end.</p> + +<p>"How old do you be?" he said, bowing to the new-comer.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Turtle, putting her hand to her ear; "but +I'm slightly deaf."</p> + +<p>"How old do you be?" shouted the old man.</p> + +<p>Though not unnaturally taken aback at such an unwonted conception of +conversational intercourse, Mrs. Turtle recovered herself with +considerable humour, and, bridling, with an old-world shake of her +head, said,--</p> + +<p>"What would you take me for?"</p> + +<p>"I should say you were seventy, if you're a day," promptly answered the +old man.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, no!" replied Mrs. Turtle, with some pique; "I was only sixty +last January."</p> + +<p>"Well, you carry your age badly," retorted the old man, not to be +beaten.</p> + +<p>"What does he say, my dear?" said the poor old lady turning to Mrs. +Mesurier.</p> + +<p>"You carry your age badly," shouted the determined old man; "she should +see our Esther, shouldn't she, Mary?"</p> + +<p>The silence here of the young people was positively electric with +suppressed laughter. Two of them escaped to explode in another room, and +Esther and her mother were left to save the situation. But on such +occasions as these Mrs. Mesurier grew positively great; and the manner +in which she contrived to "turn the conversation," and smooth over the +terrible hiatus, was a feat that admits of no worthy description.</p> + +<p>Presently the old man rose to go, as the clock neared five. He had +promised to be home before dark, and Esther would think him "benighted" +if he should be late. He evidently had been to America and back in that +short afternoon.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mary, good-bye," he said; "one never knows whether we shall meet +again. I'm getting an old man."</p> + +<p>"Eh, Uncle Clegg, you're worth twenty dead ones yet," said Mrs. +Mesurier, reassuringly.</p> + +<p>"What a strange old gentleman!" said Mrs. Turtle, somewhat bewildered, +as this family apparition left the room.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Uncle Clegg," Esther was heard singing in the hall. +"Good-bye, be careful of the steps. Good-bye. Give our love to +Aunt Esther."</p> + +<p>Then the door would bang, and the whole house breathe a gigantic sigh of +humorous relief.</p> + +<p>(This was the kind of thing girls at home had to put up with!)</p> + +<p>"Well, mother, did you ever see such a funny old person?" said Esther, +on her return to the parlour.</p> + +<p>"You mustn't laugh at him," Mrs. Mesurier would say, laughing herself; +"he's a good old man."</p> + +<p>"No doubt he's good enough, mother dear; but he's unmistakably funny," +Esther would reply, with a whimsical thought of the family tree. Yes, +they were a distinguished race!</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<br> + +<h3>CHAPTER FOURTEEN CONCLUDED</h3> + +<p>No, the Mesuriers had absolutely nothing to hope for from their +relations,--nothing to look back upon, less to look forward to. Most +families, however poor and even <i>bourgeois</i>, had some memories to +dignify them or some one possible contingency of pecuniary inheritance. +At the very least, they had a ghost-story in the family. You seldom read +the biographies of writers or artists without finding references, +however remote, to at least one person of some distinction or substance. +To have had even a curate for an ancestor, or a connection, would have +been something, some frail link with gentility.</p> + +<p>Now if, instead of being a rough old sea-captain of a trading ship, +Grandfather Mesurier had only been a charming old white-headed admiral +living in London, and glad, now and again, to welcome his little country +granddaughters to stay with him! He would probably have been very dull, +but then he would have looked distinguished, and taken one for walks in +the Park, or bought one presents in the Burlington arcade. At least old +admirals always seemed to serve this indulgent purpose in stories. At +all events, he would have been something, some possible link with an +existence of more generous opportunities. Dot and Mat would then at +least have seen a nice boy or two occasionally, and in time got married +as they deserved to be, and thus escape from this little provincial +theatre of Sidon. Who could look at Dot and think that anything short of +a miracle--a miracle like Esther's own meeting with Mike--was going to +find her a worthy mate in Sidon; and, suppose the miracle happened once +more in her case, what of Mat and all the rest? To be the wife of a +Sidonian town-councillor, at the highest,--what a fate!</p> + +<p>Henry and she had often discussed this inadequate outlook for their +younger sisters, quite in the manner of those whose positions of +enlargement were practically achieved. The only thing to be done was for +Henry to make haste to win a name as a writer, and Mike to make his +fortune as an actor. Then another society would be at once opened to +them all. Yes, what wonders were to take place then, particularly when +Mike had made his fortune!--for the financial prospects of the young +people were mainly centred in him. Literature seldom made much +money--except when it wasn't literature. Henry hoped to be too good a +writer to hope to make money as well. But that would be a mere detail, +when Mike was a flourishing manager; for when that had come about, had +not Henry promised him that he would not be too proud to regard him as +his patron to the extent of accepting from him an allowance of, say, a +thousand a year. No, he positively wouldn't agree to more than a +thousand; and Mike had to be content with his promising to take that.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, what could girls at home do, but watch and wait and make home +as pretty as possible, and, by the aid of books and pictures, reflect as +much light from a larger world into their lives as might be.</p> + +<p>On Henry's going away, the three girls had promptly bespoken the +reversion of his study as a little sitting-room for themselves. Here +they concentrated their books, and some few pictures that appealed to +tastes in revolt against Atlantic liners, but not yet developed to the +appreciation of those true classics of art--to which indeed they had yet +to be introduced. Such half-way masters as Leighton, Alma-Tadema, Sant, +and Dicksee were as yet to them something of what Rossetti and +Burne-Jones, and certain old Italian masters, were soon to become. In +books, they had already learnt from Henry a truer, or at all events a +more strenuous, taste; and they would grapple manfully with Carlyle and +Browning, and presently Meredith, long before their lives had use or +understanding for such tremendous nourishment.</p> + +<p>One evening, as they were all three sitting cosily in Henry's study,--as +they still faithfully called it,--Esther was reading "Pride and +Prejudice" aloud, while Dot and Mat busied themselves respectively with +"macramé" work and a tea-cosy against a coming bazaar. Esther's tasks in +the house were somewhat illustrated by her part in the trio this +evening. Her energies were mainly devoted to "the higher nights" of +housekeeping, to the aesthetic activities of the home,--arranging +flowers, dusting vases and pictures, and so on,--and the lightness of +these employments was, it is to be admitted, an occasionally raised +grievance among the sisters. To Dot and Mat fell much more arduous and +manual spheres of labour. Yet all were none the less grateful for the +decorative innovations which Esther, acting on occasional hints from her +friend Myrtilla Williamson, was able to make; and if it were true that +she hardly took her fair share of bed-making and pastry-cooking, it was +equally undeniable that to her was due the introduction of Liberty silk +curtains and cushions in two or three rooms. She too--alas, for the +mistakes of young taste!--had also introduced painted tambourines, and +swathed the lamps in wonderful turbans of puffed tissue paper. Was she +to receive no credit for these services? Then it was she who had dared +to do battle with her mother's somewhat old-fashioned taste in dress; +and whenever the Mesurier sisters came out in something specially pretty +or fashionable, it was due to Esther.</p> + +<p>Well, on this particular evening, she was, as we have said, taking her +share in the housework by reading "Jane Austen" aloud to Dot and Mat; +when the door suddenly opened, and James Mesurier stood there, a little +aloof,--for it was seldom he entered this room, which perhaps had for +him a certain painful association of his son's rebellion. Perhaps, too, +the picture of this happy little corner of his children--a world +evidently so complete in itself, and daily developing more and more away +from the parent world in the front parlour--gave him a certain pang of +estrangement. Perhaps he too felt as he looked on them that same dreary +sense of disintegration which had overtaken the mother on Henry's +departure; and perhaps there was something of that in his voice, as, +looking at them with rather a sad smile, he said,--</p> + +<p>"You look very comfortable here, children. I hope that's a profitable +book you are reading, Esther."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, father. It's 'Jane Austen,' you know."</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I want a few words with Dorcas. +She can join you again soon."</p> + +<p>So Dot, wondering what was in store for her, rose and accompanied her +father to the front parlour, where Mrs. Mesurier was peacefully knitting +in the lamplight.</p> + +<p>"Dorcas, my dear," he said, when the door was closed, "your mother and +I have had a serious talk this evening on the subject of your joining +the church. You are now nearly sixteen, and of an age to think for +yourself in such matters; and we think it is time that you made some +profession of your faith as a Christian before the world."</p> + +<p>The Church James Mesurier referred to was that branch of the English +Nonconformists known as Baptists; and the profession of faith was the +curious rite of baptism by complete immersion, the importance claimed +for which by this sect is, perhaps, from a Christian point of view, made +the less disproportionate by another condition attaching to it,--the +condition that not till years of individual judgment have been reached +is one eligible for the sacred rite. With that rationalism which +religious sects are so skilful in applying to some unimportant point of +ritual, and so careful not to apply to vital questions of dogma, the +Baptists reasonably argue that to baptise an unthinking infant, and, by +an external rite which has no significance except as the symbol of an +internal decision, declare him a Christian, is nothing more than an +idolatrous mummery. Wait till the child is of age to choose for him or +herself, to understand the significance of the Christian revelation and +the nature of the profession it is called upon to make; then if, by the +grace of God, it chooses aright, let him or her be baptised. And for the +manner of that baptism, if symbols are to be made use of by the +Christian church,--and it is held wise among the Baptists to make use of +few, and those the most central,--should they not be designed as nearly +after the fashion set forth in the Bible itself as is possible? The +"Ordinance" of the Lord's Supper--as it is called amongst them--follows +the procedure of the Last Supper as recorded in the Gospels; should not, +therefore, the rite of baptism be in its details similarly faithful to +authority? Now in Scripture, as is well known, baptisms were complete +immersions, symbolic alike of the washing away of sin, and also of the +dying to this world and the resurrection to the Life eternal in +Christ Jesus.</p> + +<p>So much theology was bred in the bone of all the young Mesuriers; and +the youngest of them could as readily have capitulated these articles of +belief as their father, who once more briefly summarised them to-night +for the benefit of his daughter. He ended with something of a personal +appeal. It had been one of the griefs of his life that Henry and Esther +had both refused to join their father's church, though Esther always +dutifully attended it every Sunday morning; and it was thinking of them, +though without naming them, that he said,--</p> + +<p>"I met Mr. Trotter yesterday,"--Mr. Trotter was the local Baptist +minister, and Dot remarked to herself that her father was able to +pronounce his name without the smallest suspicion that such a name, as +belonging to a minister of divine mysteries, was rather ludicrous, +though indeed Baptist ministers seemed always to have names like +that!--"and he asked me when some of my young ladies were going to join +the church. I confess the question made me feel a little ashamed; for, +you know, my dear, out of our large family not one of you has yet come +forward as a Christian."</p> + +<p>"No, father," said Dot, at last.</p> + +<p>"I hope, my dear, you are not going to disappoint me in this matter."</p> + +<p>"No indeed, father," said Dot, whose nature was pliable and +sympathetic, as well as fundamentally religious; "but I'm afraid I +haven't thought quite as much about it as I should like to, and, if you +don't mind, I should like to have a few days to think it out."</p> + +<p>"Of course, my dear. That is a very right feeling; for the step is a +solemn one, and should not be taken without reverent thought. You cannot +do better than to talk it over with Mr. Trotter. If you have any +difficulties, you can tell him; and I'm sure he would be delighted to +help you. Isn't it so, mother? Well, dear," he continued, "you can run +away now; but bear in mind what I have said, and I shall hope to hear +that you have made the right choice before long. Kiss me, dear."</p> + +<p>And so, with something of a lump in her throat, Dot returned to the +interrupted "Jane Austen."</p> + +<p>"Whatever did father want?" asked the two girls, looking up as she +entered the room.</p> + +<p>"What do you think?" said Dot. "He wants me to be baptised!"</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +<br> + +<h3>DOT'S DECISION</h3> + +<p>Now, in thus appealing to Dot, her father had appealed to just the one +out of all his children who was least likely to disappoint him. To Dot +and Henry had unmistakably been transmitted the largest share of their +father's spirituality. Esther was not actively religious, any more than +she was actively poetic. Hers was one of those composite, admirably +balanced natures which include most qualities and faculties, but no one +in excess of another. Such make those engaging good women of the world, +who are able to understand and sympathise with the most diverse +interests and temperaments; as it is the characteristic of a good critic +to understand all those various products of art, which it would be +impossible for him to create. Thus Esther could have delighted a saint +with her sympathetic comprehension, as she could have healed the wounds +of a sinner by her comprehensive sympathy; but it was certain she would +never be, in sufficient excess, spiritually wrought or sensually +rebellious to be one or the other. She was beautifully, buoyantly +normal, with a happy, expansive, enjoying nature, glad in the sunlight, +brave in the shadow, optimistically looking forward to blithe years of +life and love with Mike and her friends, and not feeling the necessity +of being anxious about her soul, or any other world but this. She was +not shallow; but she merely realised life more through her intelligence +than through her feelings. To have become a Baptist would have offended +her intelligence, without bringing any satisfaction to spiritual +instincts not, in any event, clamorous.</p> + +<p>As for Henry, it was not only activity of intelligence, but activity of +spirituality, that made it impossible for him to embrace any such narrow +creed as that proposed to him; and, for the present, that spiritual +activity found ample scope for itself in poetry.</p> + +<p>Dot's, however, was an intermediate case. With an intelligence active +too, she united a spirituality torturingly intense, but for which she +had no such natural creative outlet as Henry. With her loss of the old +creed,--in discarding which these three sisters had followed the lead of +their brother with a curious instinctiveness, almost, it would seem, +independent of reasoning,--her spirituality had been left somewhat +bleakly houseless, and she had often longed for some compromise by which +she could reconcile her intelligence to the acceptance of some +established home of faith, whose kindly enclosing walls should be more +genially habitable to the soul than the cold, star-lit spaces which +Henry declared to be sufficient temple.</p> + +<p>Perhaps Esther's commiseration of her sisters' narrow opportunities was, +so far as it related to Dot, a little unnecessary, for indeed Dot's +ambitions were not social. By nature shy and meditative, and with her +religious bias, had she been born into a Catholic family, she might not +improbably have found the world well lost in a sisterhood. The Puritan +conscience had an uncomfortable preponderance in the deep places of her +nature, and, far down in her soul, like her father, she would ask +herself if pleasure could be the end of life--was there not something +serious each of us could and ought to do, to justify his place in the +world? Were we not all under some mysterious solemn obligation to do +something, however little, in return for life?</p> + +<p>Mat, on the other hand, had no such scruples. She was more like Esther +in nature, with a touch of cynicism curling her dainty lip, arising, +perhaps, from an early divination that she was to lack Esther's +opportunities. Perhaps it was because she was the pessimist--the quite +cheerful pessimist--of the family, that she was by far the cleverest and +most industrious at the housework. If it was her fate to be Cinderella, +she might as well make the best of it, with a cynical endurance and +good-humour, and be Cinderella with a good grace. Probably the only +glass slipper in the family had already fallen to Esther. Never mind, +though her good looks might fade with being a good girl at home, year by +year, what did it matter, after all? Nothing mattered in the end. And +thus, out of a great indifference, Mat developed a great unselfishness; +and if you could name one special angel in the house of the Mesuriers, +she was unmistakably Mat.</p> + +<p>In addition to her religious promptings, Dot had lately developed a +great sympathy for her father. Standing a little aside from the conflict +between him and Henry, she was able to divine something of the feelings +of both; and she had now and again caught a look of loneliness on her +father's face that made her ready to do almost anything to please him.</p> + +<p>Of course the question was one for general consultation. She knew what +Henry would say. It didn't much matter anyhow, he would say, but it was +a pity. How was intellectual freedom to be won, if those who had seen +the light should thus deliberately forego it, time after time, from such +merely sentimental reasons? And when she saw Henry, that was just what +he did say.</p> + +<p>"But," she said, "it would make father so happy."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," he answered; "and it would be very beautiful of you. +Besides, of course, in one way it's only a matter of symbolism; but +then, on the other hand, it's symbolism hardened into dogmatism that has +done all the mischief. Do it, dear, if you like; I hardly know what to +say. As you say, it will make father happy, and I shall quite +understand."</p> + +<p>Dot was one of those natures that like to seek, and are liable to take, +advice; so, after seeing Henry, she thought she would see what Mr. +Trotter had to say; for, in spite of his unfortunate name, Mr. Trotter +was a gentle, cultivated mind, and was indeed somewhat incongruously, +perhaps in a mild way Jesuitically, circumstanced as a Baptist minister. +Henry and he were great friends on literary matters; and Dot and he had +had many talks, greatly helpful to her, on spiritual things. In fact, +Chrysostom Trotter was one of those numerous half-way men between the +old beliefs and their new modifications, which the continuous advance of +scientific discovery and philosophical speculation on the one hand, and +the obstinate survival of Christianity on the other, necessitate--if men +of spiritual intuitions who are not poets and artists are to earn their +living. There was nothing you could say to Chrysostom Trotter, provided +you said it reverently, that would startle him. He knew all that long +ago and far more. For, though obliged to trade in this backwater of +belief, he was in many respects a very modern mind. You were hardly +likely to know your Herbert Spencer as intimately as he, and all the +most exquisite literature of doubt was upon his shelves. Though you +might declare him superficially disingenuous, you could not, unless you +were some commonplace atheist or materialist, gainsay the honest logic +of his position.</p> + +<p>"You believe that the world, that life, is a spiritual mystery?" he +would say.</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"You do not for a moment think that any materialistic science has +remotely approached an adequate explanation of its meaning?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not."</p> + +<p>"You believe too that, however it comes about, and whatever it means, +there is an eternal struggle in man between what, for sake of argument, +we will call the higher and lower natures?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Well, then, this spiritual mystery, this struggle, are hinted at in +various media of human expression, in an ever-changing variety of human +symbols. Art chiefly concerns itself with the sexual mystery, with the +wonderful love of man and woman, in its explanation of which alone +science is so pitifully inadequate. Literature more fully concerns +itself with the mystery of man's indestructibly instinctive relation to +what we call the unseen,--that is, the Whole, the Cosmos, God, or +whatever you please to call it. But more than literature, religion has +for centuries concerned itself with these considerations, has +consciously and industriously sought to make itself the science of what +we call the soul. It has thrown its observations, just as poetry and art +have thrown their observations, into symbolic forms, of which +Christianity is incomparably the most important. You don't reject the +revelation of human love because Hero and Leander are probably creations +of the poet's fancy. Will you reject the revelation of divine love, +because it chances, for its greater efficiency in winning human hearts, +to have found expression in a similar human symbolism? Personally, I +hold that Christ actually lived, and was literally the Son of God; but, +were the human literalness of his divine story discredited, the eternal +verities of human degeneration, and a mysterious regeneration, would be +no whit disproved. Externally, Christianity may be a symbol; +essentially, it is a science of spiritual fact, as really as geology is +a science of material fact.</p> + +<p>"And as for its miraculous, supernatural, side,--are the laws of nature +so easy to understand that we should find such a difficulty in accepting +a few divergencies from them? He who can make laws for so vast a +universe may surely be capable of inventing a few comparatively trivial +exceptions."</p> + +<p>Not perhaps in so many words, but in some such spirit, would Chrysostom +Trotter argue; and it was in some such fashion that he talked in his +charmingly sympathetic way with Dorcas Mesurier, one afternoon, as she +had tea with him in a study breathing on every hand the man of letters, +rather than the minister of a somewhat antiquated sect.</p> + +<p>"My dear Dorcas," he said, "you know me well enough--you know me perhaps +better than your father knows me--know me well enough to believe that I +wouldn't urge you to do this thing if I didn't think it was right <i>for +you</i>--as well as for your father and me. But I know it is right, and for +this reason. You are a deeply religious nature, but you need some +outward symbol to hold on to,--you need, so to say, the magnetising +association of a religious organisation. Henry can get along very well, +as many poets have, with his birds and his sunsets and so forth; but you +need something more authoritative. It happens that the church I +represent, the church of your father, is nearest to you. You might, with +all the goodwill in the world, so far as I am concerned, embrace some +other modification of the Christian faith; but here is a church, so to +say, ready for you, familiar by long association, endeared to your +father. You believe in God, you believe in the spiritual meaning of +life, you believe that we poor human beings need something to keep our +eyes fixed upon that spiritual meaning--well, dear Dorcas," he ended, +abruptly, "what do you think?"</p> + +<p>"I'll do it," said Dot.</p> + +<p>"Good girl," said the minister; "sometimes it is a form of righteousness +to waive our doubts for those who are at once so dear and good as your +father. And don't for a moment think that it will leave you just where +you are. These outward acts are great energisers of the soul. Dear +Dorcas, I welcome you into one of God's many churches."</p> + +<p>So it was that Dot came to be baptised; and, to witness the ceremony, +all the Mesuriers assembled at the chapel that Sunday evening,--even +Henry, who could hardly remember when he used to sit in this +still-familiar pew, and scribble love-verses in the back of his +hymn-book during the sermon.</p> + +<p>To the mere mocker, the rite of baptism by immersion might well seem a +somewhat grotesque antic of sectarianism; but to any one who must needs +find sympathy for any observance into which, in whatsoever forgotten and +superseded time, has passed the prayerful enthusiasm of man, the rite +could hardly fail of a moving solemnity. As Chrysostom Trotter ordered +it, it was certainly made to yield its fullest measure of +impressiveness. To begin with, the chapel was quite a comely edifice +inside and out; and its ministerial end, with its singers' gallery +backed by great organ pipes, and fronted by a handsome pulpit, which Mr. +Trotter had dared to garnish with chrysanthemums on each side of his +Bible, had a modest, sacerdotal effect. Beneath the pulpit on ordinary +occasions stood the Communion-table; but on evenings when the rite of +baptism was prepared, this table, and a boarding on which it stood, +were removed, revealing a tiled baptistry,--that is, a tiled tank, about +eight feet long, and six wide, with steps on each side descending into +about four feet of water.</p> + +<p>Towards the close of the service, the minister would leave his pulpit, +and, during the singing of a hymn, would presently emerge from his +vestry in a long waterproof garment. As the hymn ended, some "sister" or +"brother" that night to be admitted into the church, would timidly join +him at the baptistry side, and together they would go down into +the water.</p> + +<p>Holding the hands of the new communicant, the minister, in a solemn +voice, would say, "Sister," or "Brother, on confession of your faith in +our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I baptise thee in the name of the +Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."</p> + +<p>Then the organ would strike up a triumphant peal, and, to the +accompaniment of its music and the mellow plashing of the water, the +sister or brother would be plunged beneath the symbolic wave.</p> + +<p>Great was the excitement, needless to say, in the Mesurier pew, as +little Dot at last came forth from the vestry, and, stealing down into +the water, took the minister's out-stretched hands.</p> + +<p>"There she is! There's Dot!" passed round the pew, and the hardest young +heart, whoever it belonged to, stopped beating, to hear the minister's +words. They seemed to come with a special personal tenderness,--</p> + +<p>"Sister, on confession of your faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus +Christ, I baptise thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of +the Holy Ghost."</p> + +<p>Once more the organ triumphant, and the mellow splashing of the water.</p> + +<p>Dear little Dot, she had done it!</p> + +<p>"Did you see father's face?" Esther whispered to Henry.</p> + +<p>Yes; perhaps none of them would ever do such a beautiful thing as Dot +had done that night. At least there was one of James Mesurier's children +who had not disappointed him.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<h3>MIKE AND HIS MILLION POUNDS</h3> +<br> + +<p>The most exquisite compliment a man has ever paid to him is worded +something like this: "Well, dear, you certainly know how to make love;" +and this compliment is always the reward, not of passion however +sustained, or sentiment however refined, but of humour whimsically +fantasticating and balancing both. It is the gentle laugh, not +violating, but just humanising, that very solemn kiss; the quip that +just saves passion from toppling over the brink into bathos, that mark +the skilful lover. No lover will long be successful unless he is a +humourist too, and is able to keep the heart of love amused. A lover +should always be something of an actor as well; not, of course, for the +purpose of feigning what he does not feel, but so that he may the better +dramatise his sincerity!</p> + +<p>Mike had therefore many advantages over those merely pretty fellows +whose rivalry he had once been modest enough to fear. He was a master +of all the child's play of love; and to attempt to describe the fancies +which he found to vary the game of love, would be to run the risk of +exposing the limitations of the literary medium. No words can pull those +whimsical faces, or put on those heart-breaking pathetic expressions, +with which he loved to meet Esther after some short absence. Sometimes +he would come into the room, a little forlorn sparrow of a creature, +signifying, by a dejection in which his very clothes took part, that he +was out in the east wind of circumstance and no one in the world cared a +shabby feather for him. He would stand shivering in a corner, and look +timorously from side to side, till at last he would pretend she had +warmed him with her kisses, and generally made him welcome to the world.</p> + +<p>Sometimes he would come in with his collar dismally turned up, and an +old battered hat upon his head, and pretend that he hadn't had a +meal--of kisses--for a whole week; and occasionally he would come +blowing out his cheeks like a king's trumpeter, to announce that Mike +Laflin might be at any moment expected. But for the most part these +impersonations were in a minor key, as Mike had soon discovered that the +more pathetic he was, the more he was hugged and called a "weenty," +which was one of his own sad little names for himself.</p> + +<p>One of his "long-run" fairy-tales, as he would call them, was that each +morning as he went to business, he really started out in search of a +million pounds, which was somewhere awaiting him, and which he might +break his shins over at any moment. It might be here, it might be there, +it might come at any hour of the day. The next post might bring it. It +might be in yonder Parcel Delivery van,--nothing more probable. Or at +any moment it might fall from heaven in a parachute, or be at that +second passing through the dock-gates, wearily home from the Islands of +Sugar and Spice. You never could tell.</p> + +<p>"Well, Mike," said Esther, one evening, as he came in, hopping in a +pitifully wounded way, and explaining that he had been one of the three +ravens sitting on a bough which the cruel huntsman had shot through the +wing, etc., "have you found your million pounds to-day?"</p> + +<p>"No, not my million pounds," said Mike. "I'm told I shall find them +to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Who told you?"</p> + +<p>"The Weenty."</p> + +<p>"You silly old thing! Give me a kiss. Are you a dear? Tell me, aren't +you a dear?"</p> + +<p>"No-p! I'm only a poor little houseless, roofless, windowless, +chimney-less, Esther-less, brainless, +out-in-the-wind-and-the-snow-and-the-rain, Mike!"</p> + +<p>"You're the biggest dear in the world!"</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not. I'm the littlest!"</p> + +<p>"Suppose you found your million pounds, Mike?"</p> + +<p>"Suppose! Didn't I tell you I'm sure of it to-morrow?"</p> + +<p>"Well, when you find it to-morrow, what will you do with it?"</p> + +<p>"I'll buy the moon."</p> + +<p>"The moon?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; as a present for Henry."</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't it be rather dear?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. Twenty thousand would buy it any time this last hundred +years. But the worst of it is, no one wants it but the poets, and they +cannot afford it. Yet if only a poet could get hold of it, why what a +literary property it would be!"</p> + +<p>"You silly old thing!"</p> + +<p>"No! but you don't seem to realise that I'm quite serious. Think of the +money there would be for any poet who had acquired the exclusive +literary rights in the moon! Within a week I'd have it placarded all +over, 'Literary trespassers will be prosecuted!' And then I've no doubt +Henry would lend me the Man in the Moon for my Christmas pantomimes."</p> + +<p>"After all, it's not a bad idea," said Esther.</p> + +<p>"Of course it's not," said Mike; "but be careful not to mention it to +Henry just yet. I shouldn't like to disappoint him--for, of course, +before we took any final steps in the purchase, we'd have to make sure +that it wasn't, as some people think, made of green cheese."</p> + +<p>"But never mind about the moon. Tell us how you got on with The +Sothern."</p> + +<p>The Sothern was an amateur dramatic club in Tyre which took itself very +seriously, and to which Mike was seeking admission, as a first step +towards London management. He had that day passed an examination before +three of the official members, solemn and important as though they had +been the Honourable Directors of Drury Lane, and had been admitted to +membership in the club, with the promise of a small part in their +forthcoming performance.</p> + +<p>"Oh, that's good!" said Esther. "What were they like?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, they were all right,--rather humorous. They gave me 'Eugene Aram' +to read--Me reading 'Eugene Aram'!--and a scene out of 'London +Assurance,' which was, of course, better. Naturally, not one of the men +was the remotest bit like himself. One was a queer kind of Irving, +another a sad sort of Arthur Roberts, and the other was--shall we say, a +Tyrian Wyndham."</p> + +<p>Actors, like poets, have provincial parodists of their styles in even +greater numbers, so adoringly imitative is humanity. Some day, Mike +would have his imitators,--boys who pulled faces like his, and prided +themselves on having the Laflin wrinkles; just as it was once the +fashion for girls to look like Burne-Jones pictures, or young poets to +imitate Mr. Swinburne.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I've got my first part. I've got it in my pocket," said Mike.</p> + +<p>"Oh, really! That's splendid!" exclaimed Esther, with delight.</p> + +<p>"Wait till you see it," said Mike, bringing out a French's acting +edition of some forgotten comedy. "Yes; guess how many words I've got to +say! Just exactly eleven. And such words!"</p> + +<p>"Well, never mind, dear. It's a beginning."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, it's a beginning,--the very beginning of a beginning."</p> + +<p>"Come, let me see it, Mike. What are you supposed to be?"</p> + +<p>At last Mike was persuaded to confess the humble little <i>rôle</i> for which +the eminent actors who had consented to be his colleagues had cast him. +He was to be the comic boy of a pastry-cook's man, and his distinguished +part in the action of the piece was to come in at a certain moment with +the pie that had been ordered, and, as he delivered it, he was to +remark, "That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mike, what a shame!" exclaimed Esther. "How absurd! Why, you're a +better actor with your little finger than any one of them with their +whole body."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but they don't know that yet, you see."</p> + +<p>"Any one could see it if they looked at your face half-a-minute."</p> + +<p>"I wanted to play the part of Snodgrass; but they couldn't think of +giving me that, of course. So, do you know what I pretended, to comfort +myself? I pretended I was Edward Kean waiting in the passages at Drury +Lane, with all the other fine fellows looking down at the shabby little +gloomy man from the provinces. That was conceit for you, wasn't it?"</p> + +<p>The pathos of this was, of course, irresistible to Esther, and Mike was +thereupon hugged and kissed as he expected.</p> + +<p>"Never mind," he said, "you'll see if I don't make something of the poor +little part after all."</p> + +<p>And, thereupon, he described what he laughingly called his "conception," +and how he proposed to dress and make up, so vividly that it was evident +that the pastry-cook's boy was already to him a personality whose +actions and interests were by no means limited to his brief appearance +on the stage, but who, though accidentally he had but few words to speak +before the audience, was a very voluble and vital little person in +scenes where the audience did not follow him.</p> + +<p>"Yes, you see I'll do something with it. The best of a small part," +said Mike, speaking as one of experience, "is that it gives you plenty +of opportunity for making the audience wish there was more of it."</p> + +<p>"From that point of view, you certainly couldn't have a finer part," +laughed Esther.</p> + +<p>Then for a moment Mike skipped out of the room, and presently knocked, +and, putting in a funny face, entered carrying a cushion with alacrity.</p> + +<p>"That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!" he fooled, throwing the +cushion into Esther's lap, where presently his little red head found +its way too.</p> + +<p>"How can you love such a silly little creature?" he said, looking up +into Esther's blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, I'm sure," said Esther; "but I do," and, bending down, +she kissed the wistful boy's face. Was it because Esther was in a way +his mother, as well as his sweetheart, that she seemed to do all +the kissing?</p> + +<p>Thus was Mike's first part rehearsed and rewarded.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<h3>ON CERTAIN ADVANTAGES OF A BACKWATER</h3> +<br> + +<p>Though from a maritime point of view, Tyre was perhaps the chief centre +of conjunction for all the main streams of the world, from the point of +view of literature and any other art, it was an admitted backwater. Take +what art you pleased, Tyre was a dunce. Even to music, the most +persuasive of the arts, it was deaf. Surely, of all cities, it had not +been built to music. It possessed, indeed, one private-spirited +town-councillor, who insisted on presenting it with nude sculptures and +mysterious paintings which it furiously declined. If Tyre was to be +artistically great, it must certainly be with a greatness reluctantly +thrust upon it.</p> + +<p>Still Henry and Ned had sense enough to be glad that they had been born +there. It was from no mere recognition of an inexpensively effective +background; perhaps they hardly knew why they were glad till later on. +But, meanwhile, they instinctively laid hold of the advantages of their +limitations. Had they been London-born and Oxford-bred, they would have +been much more fashionable in their tastes; but their very isolation, +happily, saved them from the passing superstitions of fashion; and they +were thus able to enjoy the antiquities of beauty with the same +freshness of appetite as though they had been novelties. If Henry was to +meet Ned some evening with the announcement that he had a wonderful new +book to share with him, it was just as likely to be Sir Philip Sidney's +"Astrophel and Stella," as any more recent publication--though, indeed, +they contrived to keep in touch with the literary developments of the +day with a remarkable instinct, and perhaps a juster estimate of their +character and value than those who were taking part in them; for it is +seldom that one can be in the movement and at the centre as well.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, there was little that interested them, or which at +all events didn't disappoint and somewhat bewilder. The novel was +groaning under the thraldom of realism; poetry, with one or two +exceptions, was given up to bric-a-brac and metrical ingenuity. To +young men for whom French romanticism was still alive, who were still +content to see the world through the spiritual eyes of Shelley and +Keats, and who had not yet learned to belittle Carlyle, there seemed a +strange lack of generosity and, indeed, vitality in the literary ideals +of the hour. The novel particularly seemed barren and unprofitable to +them, more and more an instrument of science than a branch of +literature. Laughter had deserted it, as clearly as romance or pathos, +and more and more it was becoming the vehicle of cynical biology on the +one hand, and Unitarian theology on the other. Besides, strangest of +all, men were praised for lacking those very qualities which to these +boys had seemed essential to literature. The excellences praised were +the excellences of science, not literature. In fact, there seemed to be +but one excellence, namely, accuracy of observation; and to write a +novel with any eye to beauty of language was to err, as the writer of a +scientific treatise would err who endeavoured to add charm and grace to +the sober record of his investigations. Dull sociological analysts +reigned in the once laughing domain of Cervantes, of Fielding and +Thackeray, of Dumas and Dickens, of Hugo and Gautier and George Sand.</p> + +<p>Were they born too late? Were they anachronisms from the forgotten age +of romanticism, or were they just born in time to assist at the birth of +another romantic, idealistic age? Would dreams and love and beautiful +writing ever come into fashion again? Would the poet be again a creature +of passion, and the novelist once more make you laugh and cry; and would +there be essayists any more, whose pages you would mark and whose +phrases you would roll over and over again on your tongue, with delight +at some mysterious magic in the words?</p> + +<p>History may be held to have answered these questions since then, much in +favour of those young men, or at all events is engaged in answering +them; but, meanwhile, what a miraculous refreshment in a dry and thirsty +land was the new book Henry Mesurier had just discovered, and had +eagerly brought to share with Ned in their tavern corner one summer +evening in 1885.</p> + +<p>Ned was late; but when Henry had sipped a little at his port, and turned +to the new-born exquisite pages, he hardly noticed how the minutes were +going by as he read. Presently he had come to the end of the first +volume, the only one he had with him, and he raised his eyes from the +closing page with that exquisite exaltation, that beatific satisfaction +of mind and spirit,--even almost one might say of body,--which for the +lover of literature nothing in the world like a fine passage can bring.</p> + +<p>He turned again to the closing sentences: "<i>Yes; what was wanting was +the heart that would make it impossible to witness all this; and the +future would be with the forces that would beget a heart like that. His +favourite philosophy had said, Trust the eye. Strive to be right always, +regarding the concrete experience. Never falsify your impressions. And +its sanction had been at least effective here, in saying: It is what I +may not see! Surely, evil was a real thing; and the wise man wanting in +the sense of it, where not to have been, by instinctive election, on the +right side was to have failed in life</i>."</p> + +<p>The passage referred to the Roman gladiatorial shows, and to the +philosophic detachment by which Marcus Aurelius was able to see and yet +not to see them; and the whole book was the spiritual story of a young +Roman's soul, a priestlike artistic temperament, born in the haunted +twilight between the setting sun of pagan religion and philosophy and +the dawn of the Christian idea. The theme presented many fascinating +analogies to the present time; and in the hero's "sensations and ideas" +Henry found many correspondences with his own nature. In him, too, was +united that same joy in the sensuous form, that same adoration of the +spiritual mystery, the temperaments in one of artist and priest. He, +too, in a dim fashion indeed, and under conditions of culture less +favourable, had speculated and experimented in a similar manner upon the +literary art over which as yet he had acquired--how crushingly this +exquisite book taught him--such pathetically uncertain mastery. That +impassioned comradeship in books beautiful, was it not to-day Ned's and +his, as all those years before it had been that of Marius and Flavian?</p> + +<p>And where in the world <i>was</i> Ned? How he would kindle at a passage like +this: "<i>To keep the eye clear by a sort of exquisite personal alacrity +and cleanliness, extending even to his dwelling-place; to discriminate, +ever more and more exactly, select form and colour in things from what +was less select; to meditate much on beautiful visible objects, on +objects, more especially, connected with the period of youth,--on +children at play in the morning, the trees in early spring, on young +animals, on the fashions and amusements of young men; to keep ever by +him, if it were but a single choice flower, a graceful animal or +sea-shell, as a token and representation of the whole kingdom of such +things; to avoid jealously, in his way through the world, everything +repugnant to sight; and, should any circumstance tempt him to a general +converse in the range of such objects, to disentangle himself from that +circumstance at any cost of place, money, or opportunity: such were, in +brief outline, the duties recognised, the rights demanded, in this new +formula of life</i>."</p> + +<p>And again, what gleaming single phrases, whole counsels of existence in +a dozen words! He must copy out some of them for Esther. This, for +example: "<i>Not pleasure, but fulness, completeness of life generally</i>," +or this: "<i>To be able to make use of the flower when the fruit, perhaps, +was useless or poisonous</i>" or again this: "<i>To be absolutely virgin +towards a direct and concrete experience</i>"--and there were a +hundred more.</p> + +<p>Then for the young craftsman what an insight into, what a compassionate, +childish remembrance of the moods and the little foolish accidents of +creation: "<i>His dilettanteism, his assiduous preoccupation with what +might seem but the details of mere form or manner, was, after all, bent +upon the function of bringing to the surface, sincerely and in their +integrity, certain strong personal intuitions, certain visions or +apprehensions of things as being, with important results, in this way +rather than that--apprehensions which the artistic or literary +expression was called upon to follow, with the exactness of wax or clay, +clothing the model within it. Flavian, too, with his fine, clear mastery +of the practically effective, had early laid hold of the principle, as +axiomatic in literature: That 'to know when one's self is interested, is +the first condition of interesting other people'"</i> And once more: "<i>As +it oftenest happens also, with natures of genuinely poetic quality, +those piecemeal beginnings came suddenly to harmonious completeness +among the fortunate incidents, the physical heat and light, of one +singularly happy day</i>."</p> + +<p>And, over all, what a beauty! a beauty at once so sensuous and so +spiritual--the beauty of flowering laurel, the beauty of austerity +aflower. Here the very senses prayed. Surely this was the most +beautiful prose book ever written! It had been compared, he saw, with +Gautier's "Mademoiselle de Maupin;" but was not the beauty of that +masterpiece, in comparison with the beauty of this, as the beauty of a +leopard-skin to the beauty of a statue of Minerva, withdrawn in a +grove of ilex.</p> + +<p>Still Ned delayed, and, meanwhile, the third glass of port had come and +gone, and at length, reluctantly, Henry emerged from his tavern-cloister +upon the warm brilliancy of the streets. All around him the lights +beaconed, and the women called with bright eyes. But to-night there was +no temptation for him in these things. They but recalled another +exquisite quotation from his new-found treasure, which he stopped under +a lamp to fix in his memory: "<i>And, as the fresh, rich evening came on, +there was heard all over Rome, far above a whisper, the whole town +seeming hushed to catch it distinctly, the living, reckless call to +'play,' from the sons and daughters of foolishness to those in whom +their life was still green</i>--Donec virenti canities abest! Donec virenti +canities abest! <i>Marius could hardly doubt how Cornelius would have +taken the call. And as for himself, slight as was the burden of +positive moral obligation with which he had entered Rome, it was to no +wasteful and vagrant affections, such as these, that his Epicureanism +had committed him</i>."</p> + +<p>But what could have happened to Ned?</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<h3>THE MAN IN POSSESSION</h3> +<br> + +<p>One morning, two or three months after Henry had left home, old Mr. +Lingard came to him as he sat bent, drearily industrious, over some +accounts, and said that he wished him in half-an-hour's time to go with +him to a new client; and presently the two set out together, Henry +wondering what it was to be, and welcoming anything that even exchanged +for a while one prison-house for another.</p> + +<p>"I am taking you," said the old man, as they walked along together, "to +a firm of carriers and carters whose affairs have just come into our +hands; there is a dispute arisen between the partners. We represent +certain interests, as I shall presently explain to you, and you are to +be <i>our</i> representative,--our man in possession," and the old gentleman +laughed uncannily.</p> + +<p>"You never expected to be a man in possession, did you?"</p> + +<p>Henry thrilled with a sense of awful intimacy, thus walking and even +jesting with his august employer.</p> + +<p>"It may very likely be a long business," the old man continued; "and I +fear may be a little dull for you. For you must be on the spot all day +long. Your lunch will be served to you from the manager's house; I will +see to that. Actually, there will be very little for you to do, beyond +looking over the day-book and receipts for the day. The main thing is +for you to be there,--so to say, the moral effect of your +presence,"--and the old gentleman laughed again. Then, with an amused +sympathy that seemed almost exquisite to Henry, he chuckled out, looking +at him, from one corner of his eye, like a roguish skeleton--</p> + +<p>"You'll be able to write as much poetry as you like. I see you've got a +book with you. Well, it will keep you awake. I don't mind that,--or even +the poetry,--so long as you don't forget the day-book."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir," said Henry, almost hysterically.</p> + +<p>"I suppose," the old man continued, presently, and in all he said there +was a tone of affectionate banter that quite won Henry's heart, "that +you're still as set on literature as ever. Well, well, far be it from me +to discourage you; but, my dear boy, you'll find out that we can't live +on dreams." (Henry thought, but didn't dare to say, that it was dreams +alone that made it possible to live at all.) "I suppose you think I'm a +dried-up old fellow enough. Well, well, I've had my dreams too. Yes, +I've had my dreams,"--Henry thought of what he had discovered that day +in the old man's diary,--"and I've written my verses to my lady's +eyebrow in my time too. Ah, my boy, we are all young and foolish once in +our lives!" and it was evident what a narrow and desperate escape from +being a poet the old man had had.</p> + +<p>They had some distance to walk, for the stables to which they were bound +were situated in an old and rather disreputable part of the town. "It's +not a nice quarter," said Mr. Lingard, "not particularly salubrious or +refined," as bad smells and dirty women began to cross their path; "but +they are nice people you've got to deal with, and the place itself is +clean and nice enough, when you once get inside."</p> + +<p>"Here we are," he said, presently, as they stopped short of an +old-fashioned house, set in a high red-brick wall which seemed to +enclose quite a considerable area of the district. In the wall, a yard +or two from the house, was set a low door, with a brass bell-pull at the +side which answered to Mr. Lingard's summons with a far-off clang. Soon +was heard the sound of hob-nailed boots, evidently over a paved yard, +and a big carter admitted them to the enclosure, which immediately +impressed them with its sense of country stable-yard cleanliness, and +its country smell of horses and provender. The stones of the courtyard +seemed to have been individually washed and scoured, and a small space +in front of a door evidently leading to the house was chalked over in +the prim, old-fashioned way.</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Flower about?" asked Mr. Lingard; and, as he asked the question, +a handsome, broad-shouldered man of about forty-five came down the yard. +It was a massive country face, a little heavy, a little slow, but +exceptionally gentle and refined.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Mr. Lingard."</p> + +<p>"Good-morning, Mr. Flower. This is our representative, Mr. Mesurier, of +whom I have already spoken to you. I'm sure you will get on well +together; and I'm sure he will give you as little trouble as possible."</p> + +<p>Henry and Mr. Flower shook hands, and, as men sometimes do, took to each +other at once in the grasp of each other's hands, and the glances which +accompanied it.</p> + +<p>Then the three walked further up the yard, to the little office where +Henry was to pass the next few weeks; and as Mr. Lingard turned over +books, and explained to Henry what he was expected to do, the sound of +horses kicking their stalls, and rattling chains in their mangers, came +to him from near at hand with a delightful echo of the country.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Lingard had gone, Mr. Flower asked Henry if he'd care to look +at the horses. Henry sympathetically consented, though his knowledge of +horse-flesh hardly equalled his knowledge of accounts. But with the +healthy animal, in whatever form, one always feels more or less at home, +as one feels at home with the green earth, or that simple creature +the sea.</p> + +<p>Mr. Flower led the way to a long stable where some fifty horses +protruded brown and dappled haunches on either hand. It was all +wonderfully clean and sweet, and the cobbled pavement, the straw beds, +the hay tumbling in sweet-scented bunches into the stalls from the loft +overhead, made you forget that around this bucolic enclosure swarmed and +rotted the foulest slums of the city, garrets where coiners plied their +amateur mints, and cellars where murderers lay hidden in the dark.</p> + +<p>"It's like a breath of the country," said Henry, unconsciously striking +the right note.</p> + +<p>"You're right there," said Mr. Flower, at the same moment heartily +slapping the shining side of a big chestnut mare, after the approved +manner of men who love horses. To thus belabour a horse on its +hinder-parts would seem to be equivalent among the horse-breeding +fraternity to chucking a buxom milkmaid under the chin.</p> + +<p>"You're right there," he said; "and here's a good Derbyshire lass for +you," once more administering a sounding caress upon his sleek +favourite.</p> + +<p>The horse turned its head and whinnied softly at the attention; and it +was evident it loved the very sound of Mr. Flower's voice.</p> + +<p>"Have you ever been to Derbyshire?" asked Mr. Flower, presently, and +Henry immediately scented an idealism in the question.</p> + +<p>"No," he answered; "but I believe it's a beautiful county."</p> + +<p>"Beautiful's no name for it," said Mr. Flower; "it's just a garden."</p> + +<p>And as Henry caught a glance of his eyes, he realised that Derbyshire +was Mr. Flower's poetry,--the poetry of a countryman imprisoned in the +town,--and that when he died he just hoped to go to Derbyshire.</p> + +<p>"Ah, there are places there,--places like Miller's Dale, for +instance,--I'd rather take my hat off to than any bishop,"--and Henry +eagerly scented something of a thinker; "for God made them for sure, and +bishops--well--" and Mr. Flower wisely left the rest unsaid.</p> + +<p>Thus they made the tour of the stables; and though Henry's remarks on +the subject of slapped horse-flesh had been anything but those of an +expert, it was tacitly agreed that Mr. Flower and he had taken to each +other. Nor, as he presently found, were Mr. Flower's interests limited +to horses.</p> + +<p>"You're a reader, I see," he said, presently, when they had returned to +the office. "Well, I don't get much time to read nowadays; but there's +nothing I enjoy better, when I've got a pipe lit of an evening, than to +sit and listen to my little daughter reading Thackeray or +George Eliot."</p> + +<p>Of course Henry was interested.</p> + +<p>"Now there was a woman who knew country life," Mr. Flower continued. +"'Silas Marner,' or 'Adam Bede.' How wonderfully she gets at the very +heart of the people! And not only that, but the very smell of +country air."</p> + +<p>And Mr. Flower drew a long breath of longing for Miller's Dale.</p> + +<p>Henry mentally furbished up his George Eliot to reply.</p> + +<p>"And 'The Mill on the Floss'?" he said.</p> + +<p>"And 'Scenes from Clerical Life,'" said Mr. Flower. "There are some rare +strokes of nature there."</p> + +<p>And so they went on comparing notes, till a little blue-eyed girl of +about seventeen appeared, carrying a dainty lunch for Henry, and telling +Mr. Flower that his own lunch was ready.</p> + +<p>"This is my daughter of whom I spoke," said Mr. Flower.</p> + +<p>"She who reads Thackeray and George Eliot to you?" said the Man in +Possession; and, when they had gone, he said to himself "What a bright +little face!"</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<h3>LITTLE MISS FLOWER</h3> +<br> + +<p>Little Miss Flower continued to bring Henry his lunch with great +punctuality each day; and each day he found himself more and more +interested in its arrival, though when it had come he ate it with no +special haste. Indeed, sometimes it almost seemed that it had served its +purpose in merely having been brought, judging by the moments of reverie +in which Henry seemed to have forgotten it, and to be thinking of +something else.</p> + +<p>Yes, he had soon begun to watch for that bright little face, and it was +hardly to be wondered at; for, particularly come upon against such a +background, the face had something of the surprise of an apparition. It +seemed all made of light; and when one o'clock had come, and Henry heard +the expected footsteps of his little waiting-maid, and the tinkle of the +tray she carried, coming up the yard, her entrance was as though some +one had carried a lamp into the dark office. Surely it was more like +the face of a spirit than that of a little human girl, and you would +almost have expected it to shine in the dark. When you got used to the +light of it, you realised that the radiance poured from singularly, even +disproportionately, large blue eyes, set beneath a broad white brow of +great purity, and that what at first had seemed rays of light around her +head was a mass of sunny gold-brown hair which glinted even in shadow.</p> + +<p>Strange indeed are the vagaries of the Spirit of Beauty! From how many +high places will she turn away, yet delight to waste herself upon a slum +like this! How fantastic the accident that had brought such a face to +flower in such a spot!--and yet hardly more fantastic, he reflected, +than that which had sown his own family haphazard where they were. Was +it the ironic fate of power to be always a god in exile, turning mean +wheels with mighty hands; and was Cinderella the fable of the eternal +lot of beauty in this capriciously ordered world?</p> + +<p>Yes, what chance wind, blowing all the way from Derbyshire, had set down +Mr. Flower with his little garden of girls in this uncongenial spot? +For by this Henry had made the acquaintance of the whole family: Mr. and +Mrs. Flower and four daughters in all,--all pretty girls, but not one of +the others with a face like that,--which was another puzzle. How is it +that out of one family one will be chosen by the Spirit of Beauty or +genius, and the others so unmistakably left? There could be no doubt as +to whom had been chosen here.</p> + +<p>One day the step coming up the yard at one o'clock seemed to be +different, and when the door opened it was another sister who had +brought his lunch that day. Her eldest sister was ill, she explained, +and in bed; and it was so for the next day, and again the next. Could it +be possible that Henry had watched so eagerly for that little face, that +he missed it so much already?</p> + +<p>The next morning he bought some roses on his way through town, and +begged that they might be allowed to brighten her room; and the next day +surely it was the same light little tread once more coming up the yard. +Joy! she was better again. She looked pale, he said anxiously, and +ventured to say too that he had missed her. As she blushed and looked +down, he saw that she wore one of his roses in her bosom.</p> + +<p>He had already begun to lend her books, which she returned, always with +some clever little criticism, often girlishly naïve, but never merely +conventional. There were brains under her bright hair. One day Henry had +run out of literature, and asked her if she could lend him a book. +Anything,--some novel he had read before; it didn't matter. Oh, yes, he +hadn't read George Eliot for ever so long. Had she "The Mill on the +Floss"? Yes, it had been a present from her father. She would bring +that. As she lingered a moment, while Henry looked at the book, his eye +fell upon a name on the title-page: "Angel Flower."</p> + +<p>"Is that your name, Miss Flower?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Yes; father wrote it there. My real name is Angelica; but they call me +Angel, for short," she answered, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Are you surprised?" said Henry, suddenly blushing like a girl, as +though he had never ventured on such a small gallantry before. +"Angelica! How did you come to get such a beautiful name?"</p> + +<p>"Father loves beautiful names, and his grandmother was called +Angelica."</p> + +<p>"I wonder if I might call you Angelica?" presently ventured Henry, in a +low voice.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you know me well enough?" said Angelica, with a little +gasp, which was really joy, in her breath.</p> + +<p>Henry didn't answer; but their eyes met in a long, still look. In each +heart behind the stillness was a storm of indescribable sweetness. Henry +leaned forward, his face grown very pale, and impulsively took +Angelica's hand,--</p> + +<p>"I think, after all, I'd rather call you Angel," he said.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<h3>MIKE'S FIRST LAURELS</h3> +<br> + +<p>The gardens of Sidon had a curious habit of growing laurel-trees; +laurels and rhododendrons were the only wear in shrubs. Rhododendrons +one can understand. They are to the garden what mahogany is to the front +parlour,--the <i>bourgeoisie</i> of the vegetable kingdom. But the +laurel,--what use could they have for laurel in Sidon? Possibly they +supplied it to the rest of the world,--market-gardeners, so to say, to +the Temple of Fame; it could hardly be for home consumption. Well, at +all events, it was a peculiarity fortunate for Esther's purpose, as one +morning, soon after breakfast, she went about the garden cutting the +glossiest branches of the distinguished tree. As she filled her arms +with them, she recalled with a smile the different purpose for which, +dragged at the heels of one of Henry's enthusiasms, she had gathered +them several years before.</p> + +<p>At that period Henry had been a mighty entomologist; and, as the late +summer came on, he and all available sisters would set out, armed with +butterfly-nets and other paraphernalia, just before twilight, to the +nearest woodland, where they would proceed to daub the trees with an +intoxicating preparation of honey and rum,--a temptation to which moths +were declared in text-books to be incapable of resistance. Then, as +night fell, Henry would light his bull's-eye, and cautiously visit the +various snares. It was a sight worth seeing to come upon those little +night-clubs of drunken and bewildered moths, hanging on to the sweetness +with tragic gluttony,--an easy prey for Henry's eager fingers, which, as +greedy of them as they of the honey, would seize and thrust them into +the lethal chamber, in the form of a cigar-box loosely filled with +bruised laurel leaves, which hung by a strap from his shoulder.</p> + +<p>It was for such exciting employment that Esther had once gathered laurel +leaves. And, once again, she remembered gathering them one Shakespeare's +birthday, to crown a little bust in Henry's study. The sacred head had +worn them proudly all day, and they all had a feeling that somehow +Shakespeare must know about it, and appreciate the little offering; just +as even to-day one might bring roses and myrtle, or the blood of a +maiden dove to Venus, and expect her to smile upon our affairs of +the heart.</p> + +<p>But it was for a dearer purpose that Esther was gathering them this +morning. That coming evening Mike was to utter his first stage-words in +public. The laurel was to crown the occasion on which Mike was to make +that memorable utterance: "That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!"</p> + +<p>Now while Esther was busily weaving this laurel into a wreath, Henry was +busily weaving the best words he could find into a sonnet to accompany +the wreath. When Angel duly brought him his lunch, it was finished, and +lay about on his desk in rags and tatters of composition. Angel was +going to the performance with her sisters,--for all these young people +were fond of advertising each other, and he had soon told her about +Mike,--so she was interested to hear the sonnet. Whatever other +qualities poetry may lack, the presence of generous sincerity will +always give it a certain value, to all but the merely supercilious; and +this sonnet, boyish in its touches of grandiloquence, had yet a certain +pathos of strong feeling about it.</p> + +<blockquote> +Not unto him alone whom loud acclaim<br> + Declares the victor does the meed belong,<br> + For others, standing silent in the throng,<br> +May well be worthier of a nobler fame;<br> +And so, dear friend, although unknown thy name<br> + Unto the shouting herd, we would give tongue<br> + To our deep thought, and the world's great among<br> +By this symbolic laurel thee proclaim.<br><br> + +And if, perchance, the herd shall find thee out<br> + In coming time, and many a nobler crown<br> + To one they love to honour gladly throw;<br> +Wilt thou not turn thee from their eager shout,<br> + And whisper o'er these leaves, then sere and brown:<br> + 'Thou'rt late, O world! love knew it long ago?'<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>The reader will probably agree with Angel in considering the last line +the best. But, of course, she thought the whole was wonderful.</p> + +<p>"How wonderful it must be to be able to write!" she said, with a look in +her face which was worth all the books ever written.</p> + +<p>"And how wonderful even to have something written to one like that!"</p> + +<p>"Surely that must have happened to you," said Henry, slyly.</p> + +<p>"You're only laughing at me."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not. You don't know what may have been written to you. Poems +may quite well have been written to you without your having heard of +them. The poet mayn't have thought them worthy of you."</p> + +<p>"What nonsense! Why, I don't know any poets!"</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Henry.</p> + +<p>"I mean, except you."</p> + +<p>"And how do you know that I haven't written a whole book full of poems +to you? I've known you--how long now?"</p> + +<p>"Two months next Monday," said Angel, with that chronological accuracy +on such matters which seems to be a special gift of women in love. Men +in love are nothing like so accurate.</p> + +<p>"Well, that's long enough, isn't it? And I've had nothing else to do, +you know."</p> + +<p>"But you don't care enough about me?"</p> + +<p>"You never know."</p> + +<p>"But tell me really, have you written something for me?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, you'd like to know now, wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I would. Tell me. It would make me very happy."</p> + +<p>"It really would?"</p> + +<p>"You know it would."</p> + +<p>"But why?"</p> + +<p>"It would."</p> + +<p>"But you couldn't care for the poetry, unless you cared for the poet?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know. Poetry's poetry, isn't it, whoever makes it? But what +if I did care a little for the poet?"</p> + +<p>"Do you mean you do, Angel?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, you want to know now, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Tell me. Do tell me."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you when you read me my poem," and as Angel prepared to run +off with a laugh, Henry called after her,--</p> + +<p>"You will really? It's a bargain?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it's a bargain," she called back, as she tripped off again down +the yard.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>Mike's <i>début</i> was as great a success as so small a part could make it; +and the main point about it was the excitement of knowing that this was +an actual beginning. He had made them all laugh and cry in drawing-rooms +for ever so long; but to-night he was on the stage, the real +stage--real, at all events, for him, for Mike could never be an +amateur. Esther's eyes filled with glad tears as the well-loved little +figure popped in, with a baker's paper hat on his head, and delivered +the absurd words; and if you had looked at Henry's face too, you would +have been at a loss to know which loved the little pastry-cook's +boy best.</p> + +<p>When Mike returned to his dressing-room, a mysterious box was awaiting +him. He opened it, and found Esther's wreath and Henry's sonnet.</p> + +<p>"God bless them," he said.</p> + +<p>No doubt it was very childish and sentimental, and old-fashioned; but +these young people certainly loved each other.</p> + +<p>As Mike had left the stage, Henry had turned round and smiled at some +one a few seats away. Esther had noticed him, and looked in the same +direction.</p> + +<p>"Who was that you bowed to, Henry?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you another time," he said; for he had a good deal to tell +her about Angel Flower.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<h3>THE MOTHER OF AN ANGEL</h3> +<br> + +<p>The Man in Possession was becoming more and more a favourite at Mr. +Flower's. One day Mr. Flower, taking pity on his loneliness, suggested +that he might possibly prefer to have his lunch in company with them all +down at the house. Henry gladly embraced the proposal, and thus became +the daily honoured guest of a family, each member of which had some +simple human attraction for him. He had already won the heart of simple +Mrs. Flower, few and brief as had been his encounters with her, and that +heart she had several times coined in unexpected cakes and other +dainties of her own making; but when he thus became partially domiciled +with the family, she was his slave outright. There was a reason for +this, which will need, and may perhaps excuse, a few lines entirely +devoted to Mrs. Flower, who, on her own peculiar merits, deserves them.</p> + +<p>Perhaps to introduce Eliza Flower in this way is to take her more +seriously than any of her affectionate acquaintance were able to do. +For, somehow, people had a bad habit of laughing at Mrs. Flower, though +they admitted she was the hardest-working, best-hearted little housewife +in the world. Housewife in fact she was <i>in excelsis</i>, not to say <i>ad +absurdum</i>. No little woman who worked herself to skin-and-bone to keep +things straight, and the home comfortable, was ever a more typical +"squaw." Whatever her religious opinions, which, one may be sure, were +inflexibly orthodox, there can be no question that Mr. Flower was her +god, and, as the hymn says, heaven was her home. To serve God and Mr. +Flower were to her the same thing; and there can be little doubt that a +god who had no socks to darn, or linen to keep spotless, was a god whom +Mrs. Flower would have found it impossible to conceive.</p> + +<p>A more complete and delighted absorption in the physical comforts and +nourishments of the human creature than Mrs. Flower's, it would be +impossible for dreamer to imagine. Such an absolute adjustment between a +being of presumably infinite aspirations and immortal discontents and +its environment, is a happiness seldom encountered by philosophers. To +think of death for poor Mrs. Flower was to conceive a homelessness +peculiarly pathetic; unless, indeed, there are kitcheners to +superintend, beds to make, rooms to "turn out," and four +spring-cleanings a year in heaven. Of what use else was the bewildering +gift of immortality to one who was touchingly mortal in all her tastes? +Indeed, Henry used to say that Mrs. Flower was the most convincing +argument against the immortality of the soul that he had ever met.</p> + +<p>Yet, though it was quite evident that there was nothing in the world +else she cared so much to do, and though indeed it was equally evident +that she was one of the best-natured little creatures in the world, she +did not deny herself a certain more or less constant asperity of +reference to occupations which kept her on her feet from morning till +night, and made her the slave of the whole house, in spite of four big +idle daughters. And she with rheumatism too, so bad that she could +hardly get up and down stairs!</p> + +<p>Probably nothing so much as Henry's respectful sympathy for this +immemorial rheumatism had contributed to win Mrs. Flower's heart. As to +the precise amount of rheumatism from which Mrs. Flower suffered, Henry +soon realised that there seemed to be an irreverent scepticism in the +family, nothing short of heartless; for rheumatism so poignantly +expressive, so movingly dramatised, he never remembered to have met. +Mrs. Flower could not walk across the floor without grimaces of pain, or +piteous indrawings of her breath; and yet demonstrations that you might +have thought would have softened stones, left her unfeeling audience not +only unmoved, but apparently even unobservant. From sheer decency, Henry +would flute out something to show that her suffering was not lost on +him; but it is to be feared the young ones would only wink at each other +at this sign of unsophistication.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you unfeeling child!" Mrs. Flower would exclaim, as sometimes she +caught them exchanging comments in this way. "And your father, there, is +just as bad," she would say, impatient to provoke somebody.</p> + +<p>This remark would probably prompt Mr. Flower to the indulgence of a form +of matrimonial banter which was not unlike the endearments he bestowed +upon his horses, and which, when you knew that he loved the little +quaint woman with all his heart, you were able to translate into more +customary modes of affection.</p> + +<p>"Yes, indeed," he would say, "it's evidently time I was looking out for +some active young woman, Eliza--when you begin limping about like that. +It's a pity, but the best of us must wear out some day--"</p> + +<p>This superficially heartless pleasantry he would deliver with a sweeping +wink at Henry and his four girls; but Mrs. Flower would see nothing to +laugh at, for humour was not her strong point.</p> + +<p>"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Ralph," she said, "before the +children. I was once young and active enough to take your fancy, anyhow. +Mr. Mesurier, won't you have a little more spinach? Do; it's fresh from +the country this morning. You mustn't mind Mr. Flower. He's fond of his +joke; and, whatever he likes to say, he'd get on pretty badly without +his old Eliza."</p> + +<p>"Gracious, no!" Mr. Flower would retort. "Don't flatter yourself, old +girl. I've got my eye on two or three fine young women who'll be glad +of the job, I assure you;" but this, perhaps, proving too much for poor +Mrs. Flower, whose tears were never far away, and apt to require +smelling-salts, he would change his tone in an instant and say, dropping +into his Derbyshire "thous,"--</p> + +<p>"Nonsense, lass, can't thee take a bit of a joke? Come now, come. Don't +be silly. Thou knowest well enough what thou art to me, and so do the +girls. See, let's have a drive out to Livingstone Cemetery this +afternoon. Thou'rt a bit out o' sorts. It'll cheer thee up a bit."</p> + +<p>And so Mrs. Flower would recover, and harmony would be restored, and +nobody would wink for a quarter of an hour. Certainly it was a quaint +little mother for an Angel.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<h3>AN ANCIENT THEORY OF HEAVEN</h3> +<br> + +<p>"When are you going to read me my poem?" said Angelica, one day.</p> + +<p>"When are you going to tell me what I asked?" replied Henry.</p> + +<p>"Whenever you read me my poem," retorted Angelica.</p> + +<p>"All right. When would you like to hear it?"</p> + +<p>"Now."</p> + +<p>"But I haven't got it with me to-day."</p> + +<p>"Can't you remember it?"</p> + +<p>"No, not to-day."</p> + +<p>"When will you bring it?"</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what. Come with me to Woodside Meadows on Saturday +afternoon. Your father won't mind?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no; father likes you."</p> + +<p>"I'm glad, because I'm very fond of him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's a dear; and he's got far more in him than perhaps you think, +under his country ways. If you could see him in the country, it would +make you cry. He loves it so."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I could tell that by the way he talked of Derbyshire the first day +we met. But you'll come on Saturday?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'll come."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>Angel! Yes, it was the face of an angel; but, bright as it had seemed on +that dark background, it seemed almost brighter still as it moved by +Henry's side among the green lanes. He had never known Angel till then, +never known what primal ecstasy her nature was capable of. In the town, +her soul was like a flame in a lamp of pearl; here in the country, it +was like a star in a vase of dew. To be near trees, to touch their rough +barks, to fill one's hands with green leaves, to hear birds, to listen +to running water, to look up into the sky,--oh, this was to come +home!--and Angel's joy in these things was that of some wood-spirit who +you might expect any moment, like Undine, to slip out of your hands in +some laughing brook, or change to a shower of blossom over your head.</p> + +<p>"Oh, how good the country is! I wish father were here. I could eat the +grass. And I just want to take the sky in my arms." As she swept across +meadow and through woodland, with the eagerness of a child, greedily +hastening from room to room of some inexhaustible palace, her little +tense body seemed like a transparent garment fluttering round the flying +feet of her soul.</p> + +<p>At length she flung herself down, almost breathless, at the grassy foot +of a great tree.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you think I'm mad," she said. "And really I think I must be; +for why should mere green grass and blue sky and a few birds make one +so happy?"</p> + +<p>"Why should anything make us happy?"</p> + +<p>"Or sad?"</p> + +<p>"But now you're going to read my poem," she said, presently.</p> + +<p>"Yes; but something has to happen before I can read it," said Henry, +growing unaccountably serious; "for it is in the nature of a prophecy, +or at all events of an anticipation. You have to fulfil that +prophecy first."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me a very mysterious poem. But what have I to do?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know whether you can do it."</p> + +<p>"Well, what is it? Try me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Angel, I care nothing about poems. Can't you see how I love you? +That's all poetry will ever mean to me. Just to say over and over again, +'I love Angel.' Just to find new and wonderful ways of saying that--"</p> + +<p>"Listen, Henry. I've loved you from the first moment I saw you that day +talking to father, and I shall love you till I die."</p> + +<p>"Dear, dear Angel!"</p> + +<p>"Henry!"</p> + +<p>Then Henry's arms enfolded Angel with wonderful love, and her fresh +young lips were on his, and the world faded away like a dream within +a dream.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"Now perhaps you can read me your poem," said Angel, after a while; and +she noticed a curious something different in her way of speaking to him, +as in his way of speaking to her,--something blissfully homelike, as it +were, as though they had sat like this for ever and ever, and were quite +used to it, though at the same time it remained thrillingly new.</p> + +<p>"It's only a silly little childish rhyme," said Henry; "some day I'll +write you far better."</p> + +<p>Then, coming close to Angel, he whispered,--</p> + +<blockquote> +This is Angelica,<br> + Fallen from heaven,<br> +Fallen from heaven<br> + Into my arms.<br><br> + +Will you go back again,<br> + Little Angelica,<br> +Back up to heaven,<br> + Out of my arms!<br><br> + +"No," said Angelica,<br> + "Here is my heaven,<br> +Here is my heaven,<br> + Here in your arms.<br><br> + +"Not out of heaven,<br> + But into my heaven,<br> +Here have I fallen,<br> + Here in your arms."<br> +</blockquote> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<h3>THE LAST CONTINUED, AFTER A BRIEF INTERVAL</h3> +<br> + +<p>After the long happy silence which followed Henry's recitation of his +verses, Angel at length spoke,--</p> + +<p>"Shall I tell <i>you</i> something now?" she said. "I'm almost ashamed to, +for I know you'll laugh at me, and call me superstitious."</p> + +<p>"Go on, little child," said Henry.</p> + +<p>"You remember the day," said Angel, in a hushed little impressive voice, +"I first saw you in father's office?"</p> + +<p>Henry was able to remember it.</p> + +<p>"Well, that was not the first time I had seen you."</p> + +<p>"Really, Angel! Why didn't you tell me before? Where was it, then? In +the street, or where?"</p> + +<p>"No, it was much stranger than that," said Angel. "Do you believe the +future can be foretold to us?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was in a dream, you funny Angel; was that it?" said Henry, +whose rationalism at this period was the chief danger to his +imagination.</p> + +<p>"No, not a dream. Something stranger than that."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, I give it up."</p> + +<p>"It was like this," Angel continued; "there's a strange old gipsy woman +who lives near us--"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see, your hand--palmistry," said Henry, with a touch of gentle +impatience.</p> + +<p>"Henry, dear, I said you would laugh at me. I won't tell you now, if +you're going to take it in that spirit."</p> + +<p>Henry promptly locked up his reason for the moment, with apologies, and +professed himself open to conviction.</p> + +<p>"Well, mother sometimes helps this poor old woman, and, one day, when +she happened to call, Alice and Edith and I were in the kitchen helping +mother. 'God bless you, lady,' she said,--you know how they +talk,--'you've got a kind heart; and how are all the young ladies? It's +time, I'm thinking, they had their fortunes told.' 'Oh, yes,' we all +said, 'tell us our fortunes, mother,'--we always called her mother. +'I'll tell you yours, my dear,' she said, taking hold of my hand. 'Your +fortunes are too young yet, ladies,' she said to Alice and Edith; 'come +to me in a year's time and, maybe, I'll tell you all about him.'"</p> + +<p>"You dear!" said Henry, by way of interruption.</p> + +<p>"Then," continued Angel, "she took me aside, and looked at my hand; and +she told me first what had happened to me, and then what was to come. +What she told me of the past"--as if dear Angel, whose life was as yet +all future, could as yet have had any past to speak of!--"was so true, +that I couldn't help half believing in what she said of the future. Now +you're laughing again!"</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, I'm not," said Henry, perfectly solemn.</p> + +<p>"She told me that just before I was twenty, I would meet a young man +with dark hair and blue eyes, very unexpectedly,--I shall be twenty in +six weeks,--and that he would be my fate. But the strangest is yet to +come. 'Would you like to see his face?' she said. She made me a little +frightened; but, of course, I said, 'Yes,' and then she brought out of +her pocket a sort of glass egg, and told me to look in it, and tell her +what I saw. So I looked, but for a long time I could see nothing; but +suddenly there seemed to be something moving in the centre of the glass, +like clouds breaking when the sun is coming out; and presently I could +see a lamp burning on a table; and then round the lamp shelves of books +began to grow out of the mist; then I saw a picture hanging in a recess, +a bowed head with a strange sort of head-dress on it, a dark thin face, +very sad-looking--"</p> + +<p>"Why, that must have been my Dante!" said Henry, astonished in spite of +himself.</p> + +<p>The exclamation was a "score" for Angel; and she continued, with greater +confidence, "And then I seemed to see some one sitting there; but, +though I tried and tried, I couldn't catch sight of his face. I told the +old woman what I saw. 'Wait a minute,' she said, 'then try again.' So I +waited, and presently tried again. This time I hadn't so long to wait +before I saw a room again; but it was quite different, a big desk ran +along in front of a window, and there were two tall office-stools. 'Why, +it's father's office,' I said. 'Go on looking,' said the old woman, 'and +tell me what you see.' In a moment or two, I saw some one sitting on +one of the stools, first dimly and then clearer and clearer. 'Why,' I +almost cried out, for I felt more and more frightened, 'I see a young +man sitting at a desk, with a pen behind his ear.' 'Can you see him +clearly?' 'Yes,' I said; 'he's got dark curly hair and blue eyes.' +'You're sure you won't forget his face? You'd know him if you saw him +again?' 'Indeed, I would,' I said. 'All right,' said the old woman, 'you +can give me back the crystal. You keep a look out for that young +man,--you will see him some day, mark my words, and that young man will +be your fate.'</p> + +<p>"Now, surely, you won't deny that was strange, will you?" asked Angel, +in conclusion. "And I shall never forget the start it gave me that day +when I came in, quite unsuspecting, with your lunch-tray, and saw you +talking to father, with your pen behind your ear, and your blue eyes and +dark hair. Now, isn't it strange? How can one help being superstitious +after a thing like that?"</p> + +<p>"Are you quite sure it was I?" Henry asked, quizzically. "It appears to +me that any presentable young man with a pen behind his ear would have +answered nearly enough to the vision. You would hardly have been quite +sure of the colour of the eyes, would you, now, if the old woman hadn't +mentioned it first, as she looked at your hand?"</p> + +<p>"You are horrid!" said Angel; "I wish I hadn't told you now. But it +wasn't merely the colour of the eyes. It was the look in them."</p> + +<p>"Look again, and see if you haven't made a mistake. Look very +carefully," said Henry.</p> + +<p>"I won't," said Angel; "I think you're cruel."</p> + +<p>"Angel, if you'll only look, and say you are quite sure, I'll believe +every word the old woman said."</p> + +<p>At last Angel was persuaded to look, and to look again, and the old +woman's credit rose at each look.</p> + +<p>"Yes, Henry, whatever happens, I know it is true. My life is in your +hands."</p> + +<p>Those are solemn words for one human being to hear uttered by another; +and a shiver of new responsibility involuntarily ran through +Henry's veins.</p> + +<p>"May the hands be always strong and clean enough to hold so precious a +gift," he answered, gravely.</p> + +<p>"Are you sad, dear?" asked Angel, presently, with a sort of divination.</p> + +<p>"Not sad, dear, but serious," he answered.</p> + +<p>"Have I turned to a responsibility so soon?"</p> + +<p>"You strange, wise child, I believe you are a witch."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I was right then."</p> + +<p>"Right in one way, but perhaps wrong in another. Don't you know that +some responsibilities are the most dearly coveted of mortal honours? But +then we shouldn't be worthy of them, if they didn't make us feel a +little serious. Can't you imagine that to hear another say that her life +is in one's hands makes one feel just a little solemn?"</p> + +<p>"But isn't your life in mine, Henry?" asked Angel, simply.</p> + +<p>"Of course it is, dear," answered Henry.</p> + +<p>And then the moon began to rise through the trees, pouring enchantment +over the sleeping woods, and the meadows half-submerged in lakes +of mist.</p> + +<p>Angel drew close to Henry, and watched it with big eyes.</p> + +<p>"What a wonderful world it is! How beautiful and how sad!" she said, +half to herself.</p> + +<p>"Yes; there is nothing in the world so sad as beauty," answered Henry.</p> + +<p>"If only to-night could last forever! If only we could die now, sitting +just like this, with the moon rising yonder."</p> + +<p>"But we shall have many nights like this together," said Henry.</p> + +<p>"No; we shall never have this night again. We may have other wonderful +nights, but they will be different. This will never come again."</p> + +<p>Henry instinctively realised that here was a mystical side to Angel's +nature which, however it might charm him, was not to be indiscriminately +encouraged, and he tried to rally her out of her sadness, but her +feeling was too much his own for him to persist; and as the moonlight +moved in its ascension from one beautiful change to another, now woven +by branches and leaves into weird tapestries of light and darkness, now +hanging like some golden fruit from the boughs, and now uplifted like a +lamp in some window of space, they sat together, alike held by the +ancient spell; and, presently, Henry so far lost himself in it as to +quote some lines entirely in Angel's mood:</p> + +<blockquote> +"She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die;<br> + And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips<br> +Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,<br> + Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:<br> +Ay, in the very temple of Delight<br> + Veiled Melancholy has her sov'ran shrine,<br> +Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue<br> + Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;<br> +His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,<br> + And be among her cloudy trophies hung."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>"What wonderful lines!" said Angel; "who wrote them? Are they your own?"</p> + +<p>"Ah, Angel, what would I give if they were! No, they are by John Keats. +You must let me give you his poems."</p> + +<p>Presently, the moonlight began to lose its lustre. It grew pale, and, as +it were, anxious; dark billows of clouds threatened to swallow up its +silver coracle, and presently the world grew suddenly black with its +submergence, the woods and meadows disappeared, and Henry and Angel +began playfully to strike matches to see each other's faces. Thus they +suddenly flared up to each other out of the darkness, like Rembrandts +seen by lightning, and then they were lost again, and were only voices +fumbling for each other in the dark.</p> + +<p>Yet, even so, lips and arms found each other without much difficulty, +and when they began to think of the last train, and fear they would miss +it, but waited for just one last good-night kiss under their sacred +tree, the world suddenly lit up again, for the moon had triumphed over +its enemies, and come out just in time to give them its blessing.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<h3>CONCERNING THE BEST KIND OF WIFE FOR A POET</h3> +<br> + +<p>We are apt sometimes to complain that so much of importance in our lives +is at the dispensation of accident, yet how often too are we compelled +to confess that some of the happiest and most fruitful circumstances of +our lives are due to the far-seeing diplomacies of chance.</p> + +<p>Among no set of circumstances is this more true than in the fateful +relations of men and women. While, in a blind sort of way, we may be +said to choose for ourselves the man or woman with whom we are to share +the joys and sorrows of our years, yet the choice is only superficially +ours. Frequently our brains, our antecedent plans, have no part in the +decision. The woman we choose appears at the wrong time, in the wrong +place, in an undesirable environment, with hair and eyes and general +complexion different in colour from what we had predestined for +ourselves, short when we had made up our minds for tall, and tall when +we had hoped for short. Yet, in in spite of all our preconceptions, we +choose her. This is not properly a choice in which the intelligence +confessedly submits to violence. It is the compulsion of mysterious +instincts that know better than our brains or our tastes.</p> + +<p>Now had she been asked beforehand, Esther might not have sketched out a +Mike as the ideal of her maiden dreams, nor indeed might Henry have +described an Angelica, any more than perhaps Mike an Esther, or Angelica +a Henry. Yet chance has only to place Esther and Mike, and Angelica and +Henry in the same room together for less than a minute of time, and they +fly into the arms of each other's souls with an instant recognition. +This is a mystery which it will take more than biology to explain.</p> + +<p>A young man's dreams of the woman he will some day marry are apt to be +meretricious, or at all events conventional. A young poet, especially, +is likely to err in the direction of paragons of beauty, or fame, or +romance. Perhaps he dreams of a great singer, or an illustrious beauty, +ignorant of the natural law which makes great singers and illustrious +beauties, in common with all artists, incapable of loving really any one +but themselves. Or perhaps it will be some woman of great and exquisite +culture. But chance knows that women of great and exquisite culture are +usually beings lacking in those plastic elemental qualities which a +poet, above all men, needs in the woman he shall love. Their very +culture, while it may seem to broaden, really narrows them, limits them +to a caste of mind, and, for an infinite suggestiveness, substitutes a +few finite accomplishments.</p> + +<p>Critics without understanding have wondered now and again at attachments +such as that of Heine for his Mathilde. Yet in some ways Mathilde was +the type of wife best suited for a poet. She was just a wondering child, +a bit of unspoiled chaos. She meant as little intellectually, and as +much spiritually, as a wave of the sea, a bird of the air, a star in +the sky.</p> + +<p>Another great poet always kept in his room a growing plant in a big tub +of earth, and another tub full of fresh water. With the fire going, he +used to say that he had the four elements within his four walls; and to +people unaccustomed to talk with the elements these no doubt seemed dull +and even remarkable companions,--like Heine's Mathilde.</p> + +<p>Now Angel, though far more than a goose intellectually, having, indeed, +a very keen and subtle mind, was only secondarily intellectual, being +primarily something far more important. You no more asked of her to be +intellectual, than you expect a spirit to be mathematical. She was just +a dream-child, thrilling with wonder and love before the strange world +in which she had been mysteriously placed,--a dream-child and an +excellent housewife in one, as full of common-sense on the one hand, as +she was filled with fairy "nonsense" on the other. She was just, in +fact, the wife for a poet.</p> + +<p>The interest taken in each other by Angel and the Man in Possession had +not been unobserved by Angel's family. Her sisters had teased her +considerably on the subject.</p> + +<p>"Why have you changed the way of wearing your hair, Angel?" they would +say, "Does Mr. Mesurier like it that way?" or, "My word! we are getting +smart and particular, now a certain gentleman has come into the +office!" or again, "How small your writing is nowadays, Angel! What have +you changed it for? I like your big old writing best; but I suppose--" +and then they would retreat to a safe distance to finish--"Mr. Mesurier +isn't of the same opinion!"</p> + +<p>Sometimes Esther would start in pursuit, and playful scrimmages would +ensue, the hilarious uproar of which would turn poor Mrs. +Flower's brain.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Flower had certainly not been unobservant, and one may perhaps +suspect that those cakes and other delicacies which she had so often +sent up the yard, had not been sent entirely without those ulterior +designs which every thoughtful mother may becomingly cherish for her +daughters.</p> + +<p>After Angel and Henry's excursion to the country together, Henry felt +that some official announcement of the state of his heart was demanded +of him, and lost no time in finding Mr. Flower alone for that tremulous +purpose. However, it was soon over. There were no questions of <i>dots</i> +and marriage settlements to discuss. Genealogically, both sides were +about equally distinguished, and, socially, belonged to that large +undefined class called "respectable"--though it must not be supposed +that, when so minded, families of that "respectable" zone do not +occasionally make nice distinctions. "Do you know what you are asking +for?" once said a retired tradesman's wife in Sidon to her daughter's +suitor. "Do you know that both Katie's grandfathers were mayors?"</p> + +<p>But there were no traditional mayoralties to keep these two young hearts +asunder. It was understood on both sides that they had nothing to bring +but each other, and they asked nothing better. Angel was going to marry +a poet, and Henry a fairy; and not only they themselves, but the whole +family, was more than satisfied. Mr. Flower was undisguisedly pleased, +and the tears stood in his eyes as he gripped Henry's hand.</p> + +<p>"I've liked you," he said, "since the first time we shook hands. There +was something honest about your grip I liked, and I go a good deal by +these things. It is not many men I would trust with my little Angel; for +when you take her, you take her father's great treasure. Guard her well, +dear lad, guard her well."</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<h3>THE BOOK OF ANGELICA</h3> +<br> + +<p>The first duty of a poet's wife is to inspire him. When she ceases to do +that--but that is a consideration which need not occupy us in this +unsophisticated story. We have already seen that Angelica in this +respect early began her wifely duties towards Henry; and that little +song he read in chapter twenty-five was but one of many he had written +to her in his capacity of man in possession.</p> + +<p>The feminine inspirations of his early youth had been numerous, but +mediocre in quality. Even in love, as in all else, his opportunities had +been second and even third-rate. He had broken his boy's heart, time +after time, for some commonplace, little provincial miss who knew not +"the god's wonder or his woe." But, at last, in circumstances so +unforeseen, the maiden of the Lord had been revealed to him, and with +the revelation a great impulse of metrical expression had come upon the +young poet. All day long rhythms and fancies were effervescing within +him, till at length he had quite a publishable mass of verse for which, +it is to be feared, Angelica must be counted responsible.</p> + +<p>Of these he was busily making a surreptitious fair copy one morning, +when old Mr. Septimus Lingard suddenly visited his seclusion, with the +announcement that his task there was at an end, so that he might now +return to his regular office. Though, of course, Henry had realised that +the present happy arrangement could not go on for ever, the news brought +temporary desolation to the two young lovers. For four months their days +had been spent within a few yards of each other; and though Angel's +excursions up the yard to Henry's desk could not be many, or long, each +day, yet each was conscious that the other was near at hand. When Angel +sang at her housework, it was from the secure sense that Henry was close +by. Their separation was little more than that of a husband and wife +working in different rooms of the same house. But now their meetings +would have to be arranged out somewhere in a cold world, little +considerate of the convenience of lovers, and, for whole days of warm +proximity, they would have to exchange occasional snatched +precarious hours.</p> + +<p>Well, the only thing to do was for Henry to work away at their dream of +a home together--home together, however little, just four walls to love +each other in, away from the gaze of prying eyes, none daring to make +them afraid. How that home was to be compassed was far from clear in +either of their minds; but vaguely it was felt that it would be brought +about by the powerful enchantments of literature. Henry had recently had +one of Angel's poems accepted by a rather good magazine, and the trance +of joy in which for fully two hours he had sat gazing at that, his +first, proof-sheet, was hardly less rapturous than that into which he +had fallen after seeing Angel for the first time,--so dear are the +emblems of his craft to the artist, at the beginning, and still at the +end, of his career.</p> + +<p>So Henry had to finish the fair copy of his poems at home in his +lodgings of an evening, for so ambitious a private enterprise could not +be carried on in his own office without perilous interruptions. He was +making the copy with especial care, in the form of a real book; and when +it was made, he daintily bound it in vellum with his own hands. Then he +wrapped it lovingly in tissue paper, and kept it by him two or three +days, in readiness for Angel's birthday, on the morning of which day he +hid it in a box of flowers and sent it to Angel. The sympathetic reader +can imagine her delight, as she discovered among the flowers a dainty +little white volume, bearing the title-page, "The Book of Angelica, by +Henry Mesurier. Tyre, 1886. Edition limited to one copy."</p> + +<p>Now this little book presently began to enjoy a certain very carefully +limited circulation among Angel's friends. Of course they were not +allowed to take it away. They were only allowed to look at it now and +again for a few minutes, Angel anxiously standing by to see that they +did not soil her treasure. Sometimes Mr. Flower would ask Angel to show +it to one of the family friends; and thus one evening it came beneath +the eyes of a little Scotch printer who had a great love for poetry and +some taste in it.</p> + +<p>"The man's a genius," he said, with all that authority with which a +strong Scotch accent mysteriously endows the humblest Scot.</p> + +<p>"The man's a genius," he repeated; "his poems must be printed."</p> + +<p>Henry had already found that this was easier said than done, for he had +already tried several London publishers who professed their willingness +to publish--at his expense. This little Scotch printer, however, was to +prove more venturesome. He forthwith communicated a proposal to Henry +through the Flowers. If Henry would provide him with a list of a certain +number of friends he could rely on for subscriptions, he would take the +risk of printing an edition, and give Henry half the profits,--a +proposal as generous as it was rash. Angel communicated the offer in an +excited little letter, with the result that Mr. Leith and Henry met one +morning in the bar-parlour of "The Green Man Still," and parted an hour +or so after in a high state of friendship, and deeply pledged together +to a mutual adventure of three hundred copies of a book to be called +"The Book of Angelica," and to be printed in so dainty a fashion that +the mere outside should attract buyers.</p> + +<p>Mr. Leith worked under difficulties, for his business, small as it was, +was much saddled with pecuniary obligations which it but inadequately +supported. His printing of Henry's poems was really a work of sheer +idealism which none but a Scotsman, or perhaps an Irishman, would have +undertaken; and it was a work that might at any moment be interrupted by +bailiffs, empowered to carry away the presses and the very types over +which Henry loved to hang in his spare hours, trying to read in the +lines of mysteriously carved metal, his "Madrigal to Angelica singing," +or his "Sonnet on first beholding Angelica."</p> + +<p>Then Mr. Leith was of a convivial disposition; and Henry and he must +have spent more hours drinking to the success of the little book than +would have sufficed to print it twice over. However, the day did at last +come when it was a living, breathing reality, and when Angel and Henry +sat with tears of joy over the little new-born "Book of Angelica." Was +it not, they told each other, the little spirit-child of their love? How +wonderful it all was! How wonderful their future was going to be!</p> + +<p>"What does it feel like?" said Henry, playfully recalling their old +talk, "to have a book written all about one's self?"</p> + +<p>"It is to feel the happiest and proudest girl in the world."</p> + +<p>That all the other young people were hardly less happy and excited +about the little book goes without saying. Mike spent quite a large sum +in copies, and for a while employed his luncheon-hour in asking at +book-shops with a nonchalant air, as though he had barely heard of the +author, if they sold a little book called "The Book of Angelica." Mrs. +Mesurier seemed to see her faith in her boy beginning to be justified; +and when James Mesurier opened his local paper one morning, and found a +long and appreciative article on a certain "fellow-townsman," he cut it +out to paste in his diary. Perhaps the lad would prove right, after all.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<h3>WHAT COMES OF PUBLISHING A BOOK</h3> +<br> + +<p>It is only just to Tyre to acknowledge that it behaved quite +sympathetically towards the young poet thus discovered in its midst. Its +newspapers reviewed him with marked kindness,--a kindness which in a few +years' time, when he had long since grown out of his baby volume, he was +obliged to set to the credit of the general goodness of human nature, +rather than to the poetic quality of his own verses. In many unexpected +quarters also he met with recognition which, if not always intelligent, +was at least gratifying. For praise, or at least some form of notice, is +breath in the nostrils of the young poet. He hungers to feel that his +personality counts for something, though it be merely to anger his +fellow-men. It was perhaps no very culpable vanity on his part to be +pleased that people began to point him out in the streets, and whisper +that that was the young poet; and that distant acquaintances seemed +more ready to smile at him than before. Now and again one of these would +stop him to say how pleased he had been to see the kind article about +him in <i>The Tyrian Daily Mail</i>, and that he intended to buy "the work" +as soon as possible. Henry smiled to himself, to hear his frail little +flower of a volume spoken of as a "work," as though it had been the +Encyclopaedia Britannica; and he rather wondered what that would-be +purchaser would make of it, as he turned over pages of which so large a +proportion was reserved for a spotless frame of margin. No doubt he +would decide that the margin had been left for the purpose of making +notes,--making notes on those abstruse rose-petals of boyish song!</p> + +<p>Even in far-away London,--which was as yet merely a sounding name to +these young people,--hard-worked reviewers, contemptuously disposing of +batches of new poetry in a few lines, found a kind word or two to say +for the little provincial volume; and, through one agency or another, +Mr. Leith, within six weeks of the publication, was able to announce +that the edition was exhausted and that there was something like forty +pounds profit to share between them.</p> + +<p>That poetry could be exchanged for real money, Henry had heard, but had +never hoped to work the miracle in his own case. It was like selling +moonlight, or Angelica's smiles. Was it not, indeed, Angelica's smiles +turned from one kind of gold into another? One more change they should +undergo, and then return to her from whom they had come. From minted +gold of the realm they should change into the gold of a ring, and thus +Angel should wear upon her finger the ornament of her own smiles. +Setting aside a small proportion of his gains to buy Esther and Mike, +Dot and Mat and his mother, a little memorial present each, he then +spent the rest on Angel's ring. Angel pretended to scold him for his +extravagance; but, as no woman can resist a ring, her remonstrance was +not convincing, and then, as Henry said, was it not their betrothal +ring, and, therefore, one of the legitimate expenses of love?</p> + +<p>Three other acknowledgments his poems brought him. The first was a +delightful letter from Myrtilla Williamson. How much men of talent owe +to the letters of women has never been sufficiently acknowledged, as +the debt can never be adequately repaid. Of the many branches of woman's +unselfishness, this is perhaps the most important to the world. Always +behind the flaming renown of some great soldier, statesman, or poet, +there is a woman's hand, or the hands, maybe, of many women, pouring, +unseen, the nutritive oil of praise.</p> + +<p>This letter Henry, in the gladness of his heart, ingenuously showed to +Angel, with the result that it provoked their first quarrel. With the +charms of a child, Angel, it now appeared, united also the faults. She +had it in her to be bitterly and unreasonably jealous. She read the +letter coldly.</p> + +<p>"You seem very proud of her praise," she said; "is it so very valuable?"</p> + +<p>"I value it a good deal, at all events," answered Henry.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I see!" retorted Angel; "I suppose my praise is nothing to hers."</p> + +<p>"Angel dear, what <i>do</i> you mean?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, nothing, of course; but I'm sure you must regret caring for an +ignorant girl like me, when there are such clever, talented women in the +world as your Mrs. Williamson. I hate your learned women!"</p> + +<p>"Angel, I'm surprised you can talk like that. Because we love each +other, are we to have no other friends?"</p> + +<p>"Have as many as you like, dear. Don't think I mind. But I don't want to +see their letters."</p> + +<p>"Very well, Angel," answered Henry, quietly. He was making one of those +discoveries of temperament which have to be made, and have to be +accepted, in all close relationships. This was evidently one of Angel's +faults. He must try to help her with it, as he must try and let her help +him with his.</p> + +<p>The second was a letter, forwarded care of his printer, by one of the +London reviews which had noticed his verses. It was from a rising young +London publisher who, it appeared from an envelope enclosed, had already +tried to reach him direct at Tyre. "Henry Mesurier, Esqre, Author of +'The Book of Angelica,' Tyre," the address had run, but the post-office +of Tyre had returned it to the sender, with the words "Not known" +officially stamped upon it.</p> + +<p>He was as yet "not known," even in Tyre! "In another five years he shall +try again," said Henry, savagely, to himself, "and we shall see whether +it will be 'not known' then!"</p> + +<p>The letter expressed the writer's pleasure in the extracts he had seen +from Mr. Mesurier's book, and hoped that when his next book was ready, +he would give the writer an opportunity of publishing it. Fortune was +beginning already to smile.</p> + +<p>But the third acknowledgment was something more like a frown, and was, +at all events, by far the most momentous outcome of Henry's first +publication. One morning, soon after Mr. Leith had paid over to him his +twenty pounds profit, he found himself unexpectedly requested to step +into "the private office." There, at Mr. Lingard's table, he found the +three partners seated in solemn conclave, as for a court-martial. Mr. +Lingard, as senior partner, was the spokesman.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Mesurier," he began, "the firm has been having a very serious +consultation in regard to you, and has been obliged, very reluctantly, I +would have you believe, to come to a painful conclusion. We gladly +acknowledge that during the last few months your work has given us more +satisfaction than at one time we expected it to give. But, +unfortunately, that is not all. Your attention to your duties, we admit, +has been very satisfactory. It is not a sin of omission, but one of +commission, of which we have to complain. What we have to complain of as +business men is a matter which perhaps you will say does not concern us, +though on that point we must respectfully differ from you. Mr. Mesurier, +you have recently published a book."</p> + +<p>Henry drew himself up haughtily. Surely that was nothing to be ashamed +of.</p> + +<p>"It is quite a pretty little book," continued Mr. Lingard, with one of +his grim smiles. "It contains some quite pretty verses. Oh, yes, I have +seen it," and Henry noticed a copy of the offending little volume lying, +like a rose, among some legal papers at Mr. Lingard's left hand; "but +its excellence as poetry is not to the point here. Our difficulty is +that you are now branded so unmistakably as a poet, that it is no use +our any longer pretending to our clients that you are a clerk. So long +as you were only suspected of being a poet," and the old man smiled +again, "it did not so much matter; but now that all Tyre knows you, by +your own act and deed, as a poet, the case is different. We can no +longer, without risk of losing confidence with our clients, send an +acknowledged poet to inspect their books--though, personally, we may +have every faith in your capacity. No doubt they will be glad enough to +buy your books in the future; but they will be nervous of trusting you +with theirs at the moment." And the old man laughed heartily at his +own humour.</p> + +<p>"You mean, then, sir, that you will have no further need for my +services?" said Henry, looking somewhat pale; for it is one thing to +hate the means of one's livelihood, and another to exchange it for none.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid, my dear lad, that that is what it comes to. We are, I hope +you will believe, exceedingly sorry to come to such a conclusion, both +for our own sakes and yours, as well as that of your father,--who is an +old and valued friend of ours; but we are able to see no other way out +of the difficulty. Of course, you will not leave us this minute; but +take what time you need to look round and arrange your future plans; and +so far as we are concerned, we shall part from you as good friends and +sincere well-wishers."</p> + +<p>The old man held out his hand, and Henry took it, with a grateful sense +of the friendly manner in which Mr. Lingard had performed a painful +task, and a certain recognition that, after all, a poet must be +something of a nuisance to business-men.</p> + +<p>When he returned to his desk, he sat for a long time thoughtful, divided +in mind between exultation that he was soon to be free to take the +adventurous highway of literature, and anxiety as to where in a month's +time his preliminary meals were to come from.</p> + +<p>Yet, after all, the main thing was to be free of this servitude. Out of +freedom all things might be hoped.</p> + +<p>Still, as Henry looked round at the familiar faces of his fellow-clerks, +and realised that in a month's time his comradeship with them would be +at an end, he was surprised to feel a certain pang of separation. Mere +custom has so great a part in our affections, that though a routine may +have been dull and distasteful, if it has any extenuating circumstances +at all, we change it with a certain irrational regret. After all, his +office-life was associated with much contraband merriment; and, +unconsciously, his associates had taken a valuable part in his training, +humanised him in certain directions, as he had humanised them in others. +They had saved him from dilettanteism, and whatever he wrote in future +would owe something warm and kindly to the years he had spent with them.</p> + +<p>His very desk took on a pathetic expression, as of a place that was so +soon to know him no more for ever; and Mr. Smith, wrangling over +wet-traps and cesspools at the counter, just as on the first day he had +heard him, almost moved him to tears. Perhaps in ten years' time, were +he to come back, he would find him still at his post, fervidly engaged +in the same altercations, with only a little additional greyness at the +temples to mark the lapse of time.</p> + +<p>And Jenkins would still be sitting in the little screened-off cupboard, +with "cashier" painted on the glass window. As three o'clock approached, +he would still be heard loudly counting his cash and shovelling the gold +into wash-leather bags, and the silver into little paper-bags marked £5 +apiece, in a wild rush to reach the bank before it closed.</p> + +<p>And would the same good fellows, a little more serious, because long +since married, be cracking jokes and loafing near the fire-guard, in +some rare safe hour, of the afternoon when all the partners were out, to +make a spring for the desks, as the carefully learnt tread of one or +another of those partners followed the opening of the front door.</p> + +<p>The very work that he hated seemed to wear an unwonted look of +tenderness. Who would keep the books he had kept--with something of his +father's neatness; who would look after the accounts of "the Rev. Thomas +Salthouse," or take charge of "Ex'ors James Shuttleworth, Esqre"?</p> + +<p>Of course, it was absurd--absurd, perhaps, just because it was human. +For was he not going to be free, free to fulfil his dreams, free to +follow those voices that had so often called him from beyond the sunset? +Soon he would be able to cry out to them, with literal truth, "I am +yours, yours--all yours!" And in those ten years which were to pass so +invariably for Mr. Smith, and for Jenkins and the rest, what various and +dazzling changes might be, must be, in store for him. Long before the +end of them he must have written masterpieces and become famous, and +Angel and he be long settled together in their paradise of home.</p> + +<p>Henry was pleased to find that his chums were to miss him no less than +he was to miss them. As an unofficial master of their pale revels, his +place would not be easy to fill; and he was much touched, when, a day or +two before the end of the month, which was the time mutually agreed upon +for Henry to look round, they intimated their desire to give a little +dinner in his honour at "The Jovial Clerks" tavern.</p> + +<p>Henry was nothing loth, and the evening came and went with no little +emotion and no little wine, on either side. He had bidden good-bye to +his employers in the afternoon, and Mr. Lingard had shaken his hand, and +admonished him as to his future with something of paternal affection.</p> + +<p>Toward the close of the dinner, Bob Cherry, who acted as chairman, rose, +with an unaccustomed blush upon his cheek, to propose the toast of the +evening. They had had the honour and pleasure, he said, to be associated +for several years past with a gentleman to whom that evening they were +to say good-bye. No better fellow had ever graced the offices of Lingard +and Fields, and his would be a real loss to the gaiety of their little +world. They understood that he was a poet; and indeed had he not already +published a charming volume with which they were all acquainted!--still +this made no difference to them. Certain high powers might object, but +they liked him none the less; and whether he was a poet or not, he was +certainly a jolly good fellow, and wherever his new career might take +him, the good wishes of his old chums would certainly follow him. The +chairman concluded his speech by requesting his acceptance of a copy of +the "Works of Lord Macaulay," as a small remembrance of the days they +had spent together.</p> + +<p>The toast having been seconded and drunk with resounding cordiality, +Henry responded in a speech of mingled playfulness and emotion, assuring +them, on his part, that though they might not be poets, he thought no +worse of them for that, but should always remember them as the best +fellows he had ever known. The talk then became general, and tender with +reminiscence. After all, what a lot of pleasant things those hard years +had given them to remember! So they kept the evening going, and it was +not till an early hour of the following day that this important volume +of Henry's life was finally closed.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<h3>MIKE'S TURN TO MOVE</h3> +<br> + +<p>While Henry had been busily engaged in winning Angelica and writing and +printing his little book, Mike's fortunes had not been idle. Meanwhile, +the Sothern Dramatic Club had given two more performances, in which his +parts had been considerable, and been played by him with such success as +to make the former pieman's apprentice one of the chief members of the +club. Mike and his friends therefore became more and more eager for him +to try his talents on the great stage. But this was an experiment not so +easy to make.</p> + +<p>However unknown a writer may be, he can still at least write his book in +his obscurity, and, when done, bring it to market, with a reasonable +hope of its finding a publisher; moreover, though he may remain for +years unappreciated, his writings still go on fighting for him till his +due recognition is won. He has not to find his publisher before he +begins to write. Yet it is actually such a disability under which the +unproved and often the proved actor must labour. Unless some one engages +him to act, and provides an audience for him, he has no opportunity of +showing his powers. And such opportunities are difficult to find, unless +you are a dissolute young lord, or belong to one of the traditional +theatrical families,--whose members are brought up to the stage, as the +sons of a lawyer are brought up to law. For the avenues to the stage are +blocked by perhaps more frivolous incompetents than any other +profession. Any idle girl with good looks, and any idle gentleman with +something of a good carriage, deem themselves qualified for one of the +most arduous of the arts.</p> + +<p>Mike's plan had been to try every considerable actor that came to Tyre, +who might possibly have a vacant place in his company; but he had tried +many in vain. While one or two were unable to see him at all, most of +them treated him with a kindness remarkable in men daily besieged by the +innumerable hopeless. They gave him good advice; they wished him well; +but already they had long lists of experienced applicants waiting their +turn for the coveted vacancy. At last, however, there came to Tyre a +famous romantic actor who was said to be more sympathetic towards the +youthful aspirant than the other heads of his profession, and as, too, +he was rumoured to be vulnerable on the side of literature, Mike and +Henry agreed to make a joint attack upon him. Mike should write a brief +note asking for an interview, and Henry should follow it up with another +letter to the same effect, and at the same time send him a copy of "The +Book of Angelica."</p> + +<p>The plan was carried out. Both letters and the book were sent, and the +young men awaited with impatience the result. Henry had adopted a very +lofty tone. "In granting my friend an interview," he had said, "you may +be giving his first chance to an actor of genius. Of course you may not; +but at least you will have had the satisfaction of giving to possible +genius that benefit of the doubt which we have a right to expect from +the creator of ----," and he named one of the actor's most famous rôles.</p> + +<p>A cordial answer came by return, enclosing two stalls for the following +evening, when, said the great actor, he would be glad to see Mr. Laflin +during or after the performance. The two young men were in their places +as the curtain rose, and it goes without saying that their enthusiasm +was unequalled in the audience. Between the third and fourth acts there +was a considerable interval, and early in the performance it had been +notified to Mike that the great actor would see him then. So when the +time came, with a whispered "good luck" from Henry, he left his place +and was led through a little mysterious iron door at the back of the +boxes, on to the stage and into the great man's dressing-room. Opening +suddenly out of the darkness at one side of the stage, it was more like +a brilliantly lighted cave hung with mirrors than a room. Mirrors and +lights and laurel wreaths with cards attached, and many photographs with +huge signatures scrawled across them, and a magnificent being reading a +book, while his dresser laced up some high boots he was to wear in the +following act,--made Mike's first impression. Then the magnificent being +looked up with a charming smile.</p> + +<p>"Good-evening, Mr. Laflin. I am delighted to see you. I hope you will +excuse my rising."</p> + +<p>He said "Mr. Laflin" with a captivating familiarity of intonation, as +though Mike was something between an old friend and a distinguished +stranger.</p> + +<p>"So you are thinking of joining our profession. I hope you liked the +performance. I saw you in front, or at least I thought it was you. And +your friend? I hope he will come and see me some other time. I have been +delighted with his poems."</p> + +<p>There is something dazzling and disconcerting to an average layman about +an actor's dressing-room, even though the dressing-room be that of an +intimate friend. He feels like a being on the confines of two worlds and +belonging to neither, awkwardly suspended 'twixt fact and fancy. The +actor for a while has laid aside his part and forgotten his wig and his +make-up. As he talks to you, he is thinking of himself merely as a +private individual; whereas his visitor cannot forget that in appearance +he is a king, or an eighteenth-century dandy, or--though you know him +well enough as a clean-shaven young man of thirty--a bowed and wrinkled +greybeard. The visitor's voice rings thin and hestitating. It cannot +strike the right pitch, and generally he does himself no sort +of justice.</p> + +<p>Perhaps, however, it was because Mike had been born for this world in +which now for the first time he found himself, that he suffered from +none of this embarrassment; perhaps, too, it was some half-conscious +instinct of his own gifts that made him quite self-contained in the +presence of acknowledged distinction, so self-contained that you might +have thought he had no reverence. As he had passed across the stage, he +had eyed that mysterious behind-the-scenes rather with the eye of a +future stage-manager, than of a youth all whose dreams converged at this +point, and at this moment.</p> + +<p>One touch of the poetry of contrast caught his eye, of which custom +would probably have made him unobservant. In an alcove of the stage, a +"scene-dock," as Mike knew already to call it, a beautiful spirit in +gauze and tights was silently rehearsing to herself a dance which she +had to perform in the next act. Softly and silently she danced, +absorbed in the evolutions of her lithe young body, paying as little +heed to the rough stage-hands who hurried scenery about her on every +side, as those hardened stage-hands paid to her dancing. Henry or Ned +would probably have fallen madly in love with her on the spot. To Mike, +she was but a part of the economy of the stage; and had she been +Cleopatra herself, eyes filled to overflowing with the beauty of Esther +would have taken no more intimate note of her. So, it is said, painters +and sculptors regard their models with cold, artistic eyes.</p> + +<p>This self-possession enabled Mike to show to the best advantage; and +while they talked, the great actor, with an eye accustomed to read +faces, soon made up his mind about him.</p> + +<p>"I believe you and your friend are right, Mr. Laflin," he said. "I am +much mistaken if you are not a born actor. But if you are that, you will +not need to be told that the way is long and difficult, nor will you +mind that it is so. Every true artist rather loves than fears the +drudgery of his art. It is one of the tests of his being an artist. Art +is undoubtedly the pleasantest of all work; but it is work for all +that, and none of the easiest. Perhaps it is the pleasantest because it +is the hardest. So if you really want to be an artist, you won't object +to beginning your journey to the top right away at the bottom."</p> + +<p>"Anywhere at all, sir," said Mike, his heart beating at this hint of +what was coming.</p> + +<p>"Well, in that case," continued the other, "I can perhaps do something, +though a very little, for you."</p> + +<p>Mike eagerly murmured his gratitude.</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry to say I have no vacancy in my own company at present; but +would you be willing to take a part in my Christmas pantomime? I may say +that I myself began life as harlequin."</p> + +<p>"I will gladly take anything you can offer me," said Mike.</p> + +<p>"Shall we call it settled then? But I sha'n't need you for another four +months. Meanwhile I will have a contract made out and sent to you--"</p> + +<p>"Curtain rising for fourth act, sir," cried the call-boy, putting his +head in at the door at that moment.</p> + +<p>"You see I shall have to say good-bye," said the good-natured manager, +rising and moving towards the door; "but I shall look forward to seeing +you in October. My good wishes to your friend;" and so the happiest +person in that theatre slipped back to his seat by the side of a friend +who was surely as happy at his good news as though it had been his own.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile Esther had been counting the hours till ten, when she made a +pretence of going to bed with the rest. But there was no sleep for her +till she had heard Mike's news. Her bedroom looked out from the top of +the house into the front garden, and she had arranged to have a lamp +burning at the window, so that Mike, on his way home, should understand +that all was safe for a snatched five minutes' talk in the porch. She +sat trying to read till about midnight, when through her half-opened +windows came the soft whistle she had been waiting for. Turning down the +lamp to show that she had heard, she stole down through the quiet house +and cautiously opened the front door, fastened, it seemed, with a +hundred bolts and chains.</p> + +<p>"Is that you, Mike?"</p> + +<p>For answer two arms, which she didn't mistake for a burglar's, were +thrown round her.</p> + +<p>"Esther, I've found my million pounds."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mike! He's really going to help you?"</p> + +<p>And here there is no further necessity for eaves-dropping. All persons +except Mike and Esther will please leave the porch.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX</h2> + +<h3>UNCHARTERED FREEDOM</h3> +<br> + +<p>On the morning after the dinner with which he bade farewell to Messrs. +Lingard and Fields, Henry awoke at his usual hour to a very unusual +feeling. For the first time in his life he could stay in bed as long as +he pleased.</p> + +<p>On the other side of the room Ned Hazell lay sleeping the deep sleep of +the unpunctual clerk; and Henry, when he had for a moment or two dwelt +upon his own happiness, took a malicious joy in arousing him.</p> + +<p>"Ned," he shouted, "get up! You'll be late for the office."</p> + +<p>Ned gave out a deep sound, something between a snore, a moan, and an +imprecation.</p> + +<p>"Ned!" his tormentor persisted, drawing the clothes warmly round him, in +a luxury of indifference to the time of day.</p> + +<p>Ned presently began rubbing his head vigorously, which was one of his +preliminaries of awakening, and then mournfully raised himself in bed, a +pillar of somnolence.</p> + +<p>"You might let a fellow have his sleep out," he said; "why don't you get +up yourself?--oh, I remember, you're a literary gentleman from to-day. +That's why you're so mighty ready to root me out," and he aimed a pillow +at Henry's bed in derision.</p> + +<p>Yes, Henry was free, an independent gentleman of time and space. The +clock might strike itself hoarse, yet, if he wished, he might go on +staying in bed. He was free! His late task-masters had no jurisdiction +here. It would even be in his power here to order Mr. Fields out of the +room, and, if he refused, forcibly to eject him into the street. Why +didn't Mr. Fields appear to gratify him in this matter?</p> + +<p>So he indulged his imagination, while Ned dressed in haste, with the +fear of the tyrant evident upon him. Poor fellow, he would have to +choose between two cups of coffee and two eggs and five minutes late! +Probably he would split the difference, bolt one cup of coffee and one +egg, and arrive two and a half minutes late. Henry watched him with +compassion; and when he had gone his ways, himself rose languidly and +dressed indolently, as with the aid of an invisible valet. At length he +sauntered down to breakfast, and sent out for a morning paper, which he +on no account ever read. He could imagine no more insulting waste of +time. He looked it through, but found no reference to the real +significance of the day.</p> + +<p>Breakfast over, he wondered what he should do with himself, how he +should spend the day. His clear duty was to begin being a great man on +the spot, and work at being a great man every day punctually from nine +till six. But where should he begin? Should he sit down in a +business-like way and begin his long romantic poem, or should he write +an essay, or again should he make a start on his novel?</p> + +<p>Romantic poems, he felt, however, are only well begun on special days +not easy to define; essays are only written on days when we have +determined to be idle,--and this, after the opening flirtation with +indolence, must be a busy day,--and it is not every day that one can +begin a novel. He might arrange his books, but really they were very +well arranged already. Or suppose he went out for a walk. Walking +quickened the brain. He might go and look in at the Art Gallery, where +he hadn't been for a long while, and see the new picture the morning +paper was talking about. It was by a painter whose poems he already knew +and loved. That might inspire him. So, by an accident of idleness, he +presently found himself standing rapt before the most wonderful picture +he had ever seen,--a picture to see which, he said to himself, men would +make pilgrimages to Tyre, when Tyre was a moss-grown, ruinous seaport, +from which the traffic of the world had long since passed away.</p> + +<p>Henry at this time had visited none of the great galleries and, except +in a few reproductions, knew nothing of the great Italian masters. +Therefore to him this picture was Italy, the Renaissance, and +Catholicism, all concentrated into one enthralling canvas. But it was +something greater than that. It was the terrible meeting of Youth and +Love and Death in one tremendous moment of infinite loss. Infinite +passion and infinite loss were here pictured, in a medium which +combined all that was spiritual and all that was sensual in a harmony +of beauty that was in the same moment delirium and peace. The +irresistible cry of the colour to the senses, the spheral call of the +theme and its agony to the soul. Beatrice dead, and Dante taken in a +dream across the strewn poppies of her death-chamber, to look his last +on the sleeping face, yet a little smiling in the after-glow of life; +her soul already carried by angels far over the curved and fluted roofs +of the Florentine houses, on its way to Paradise. Little Beatrice! Not +till they meet again in Paradise shall he see again that holy face. In a +dream of loss he gazes upon her, as the angels lift up the +flower-garnished sheet; and not only her face, but every detail of that +room of death is etched in tears upon his eyes,--the distant winding +stair, the pallid death-lamps, the intruding light of day. All Passion +and all Loss, all Youth, all Love, and all Death met together in an +everlasting requiem of tragic colour.</p> + +<p>Henry sat long before this picture, enveloped, as it were, in its rich +gloom, as the painted profundity of a church absorbs one in its depths. +And with the impression of its solemn beauty was blent a despairing awe +of the artist who, of a little coloured earth, had created such a +masterpiece of vitality, thrown on to a thin screen of canvas so +enduringly palpable, so sumptuous, and so poignantly dominating a +reflection of his visions. What a passionate energy of beauty must have +been in this man's soul; what a constant fury of meditation upon +things divine!</p> + +<p>When Henry came back to himself, his first thought was to share it with +Angel. Little soul, how her face would flame, how her body would tremble +with the wonder of it! In the minutiae, the technicalities of +appreciation, Angel, like Henry himself, might be lacking; but in the +motive fervour of appreciation, who was like her! It was almost painful +to see the joy which certain simple wonders gave her. Anything intense +or prodigal in nature, any splendidly fluent outpouring of the +elements,--the fierce life of streaming fire, water in gliding or +tumultuous masses, the vivid gold of crocus and daffodil spouting up +through the earth in spring, the exquisite liquidity of a bird +singing,--these, as with all elemental poetic natures, gave her the +same keen joy which we fable for those who, in the intense morning of +the world, first heard them; fable, indeed, for why should we suppose +that because ears deaf a thousand years heard the nightingale too, it +should therefore be less new for those who to-night hear it for the +first time? Rather shall it be more than less for us, by the memories +transmitted in our blood from all the generations who before have +listened and gone their way.</p> + +<p>So Henry sought out Angel, and they both stood in front of the great +picture for a long while without a word. Presently Angel put the feeling +of both of them into a single phrase,--</p> + +<p>"Henry, dear, we have found our church."</p> + +<p>And indeed for many months henceforth this picture was to be their +altar, their place of prayer. Often hereafter when their hopes were +overcast, or life grew mean with little cares, they would slip, singly, +or together, into that gallery, and--</p> + +<blockquote> + "let the beauty of Eternity<br> +Smooth from their brows the little frets of time."<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Thus Henry's first day of freedom had begun auspiciously with the +unexpected discovery of an inalienable possession of beauty. Yet the +little cares were not far off, waiting their time; and that night, Henry +lay long awake asking himself what he was going to do? Whence was to +come the material gold and silver by which this impetuous spirit was to +be sustained? A sum not exceeding five pounds represented his +accumulated resources, and they would not last longer than--five pounds. +He needed little, but that little he needed emphatically. Soon a new +book and other literary projects would keep him going, but--meanwhile! +How were the next two or three months to be bridged? Return to his +father's house, he neither would, nor perhaps, indeed, could.</p> + +<p>So he lay awake a long while, fruitlessly thinking; but, just before he +slept, a thought that made him laugh himself awake suggested itself: +"Why not go and ask Aunt Tipping to take pity on you?"</p> + +<p>So he went to sleep, resolved, if only for the fun of it, to pay a visit +to Aunt Tipping on the morrow.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + +<h3>A PREPOSTEROUS AUNT</h3> +<br> + +<p>No doubt it has been surmised from what has gone before, that when Henry +said to himself that he would go and see Aunt Tipping, he did not +propose to himself a visit to the country seat of some quaint old lady +of quality. Baronial towers and stately avenues of ancestral elm did not +make a picturesque background for his thoughts as he recalled +Aunt Tipping.</p> + +<p>Poor kind Aunt Tipping, it is a shame to banter her memory even in so +obvious a fashion; for if ever there was a kind heart, it was hers. In +fact she possessed, in a degree that amounted to genius, one of the +rarest of human qualities,--unconditional pity for the unhappy human +creature. Within her narrow and squalid sphere, she was never known to +fail of such succour as was hers to give to misfortune, however +well-merited, or misery however self-made.</p> + +<p>No religion or philosophy has ever yet been merciful enough to human +weakness. Matilda Tipping repaired the lack so far as she went. In fact, +she had unconsciously realised that weakness <i>is</i> human nature. It would +be difficult to fix upon an offence that would disqualify you for Aunt +Tipping's pity. To the prodigalities of the passions, and the appetites +disastrously indulged, she was accustomed by a long succession of those +sad and shady lodgers to whom it was part of her precarious livelihood +to let her rooms, and, not infrequently, to forgive them their rent. +That men and women should drink too much, and love too many, was, her +experience told her, one of those laws of nature that seemed to make a +good deal of unnecessary inconvenience in mortal affairs, but against +which mere preaching or punishment availed nothing. All that was to be +done was, so far as possible, to repair their ravages in particular +instances, and heal the wounds of human passion with simple +human kindness.</p> + +<p>Of two vessels, one for honour and the other for dishonour, surely +nature never made so complete a contrast as Matilda Tipping and her +sister, Mary Mesurier. Both country girls, born in a humble, though +defiantly respectable, stratum of society, the ways of the two sisters +had already parted in childhood. Mary was studious, neat, and religious; +Matilda was tomboyish, impatient of restraint, and fond of unedifying +associates.</p> + +<p>"Your aunt never aspired," Mrs. Mesurier would say of Aunt Tipping +sometimes to her children; and, while still a child, she had often +reproached her with her fondness for gossiping with companions "beneath +her." Matilda could never be persuaded to care for books. She was +naturally illiterate, and even late in life had a fixed aversion to +writing her own letters; whereas, at the age of seven, Mary had been +public scrivener for the whole village. But with these regrettable +instincts, from the first Matilda had also manifested a whimsical +liveliness, an unconquerable lightheartedness which made you forgive her +anything, and for which, poor soul, she had use enough before she was +done with life. At seventeen, added to good looks, of which at fifty +there was scarcely a trace in the thin and meanly worn face, this +vivacity had proved a tragic snare. A certain young capitalist--known as +a great gentleman--of that countryside had pounced down on the gay and +careless young Matilda, and had at once provided her life with its +formative tragedy and its deathless romance. Even at fifty, hopelessly +buried among the back streets and pawnshops of life, heaven still opened +in the heart of Matilda Tipping at the mention of the name of William +Allsopp. For several years she had lived with the Mesuriers, as general +help to her sister, between whom and her, in spite of surface +disparities, there was an indissoluble bond of affection; till, at +thirty-five or so, she had suddenly won the heart of a sad old widower +of fifty-five, named Samuel Tipping.</p> + +<p>Samuel Tipping was no ordinary widower. As you looked at his severe, +thoughtful face, surmounted by a shock of beautiful white hair, you +instinctively respected him; and when you heard that he lived by +cobbling shoes by day and playing a violin in the Theatre Royal +orchestra by night, occasionally putting off his leather apron to give a +music lesson in the front parlour of an afternoon, you respected him +all the more. There had been but one thing against Mr. Tipping's +eligibility for marriage, Matilda Tipping would tell you, even years +after, with a lowering of her voice: he was said to be an "atheist," and +a reader of strange books. Yet he seemed a quiet, manageable man, and +likely--again in Mrs. Tipping's phrase--to prove a "good provider;" so +she had risked his heterodoxy, which indeed was a somewhat fanciful +objection on her part, and made him, as he declared with his dying +breath, the best of wives.</p> + +<p>It chanced that when Henry, in pursuance of his over-night resolve, made +his way the following afternoon through a dingy little street, and +knocked on the door of a dingy little house, bearing upon a brass plate +the legend "Boots neatly repaired," Mr. Tipping was engaged in giving +one of those very music lessons. A dingy little maid-of-all-work opened +the door, and said that Mrs. Tipping was out shopping, but would be back +soon. From the front parlour came the lifeless tum-tumming of the piano, +and Mr. Tipping's voice gruffly counting time to the cheerless +five-finger exercises of a very evident beginner.</p> + +<p>"One--two--three! One--two--three! One--two--three!" went Mr. Tipping's +voice, with an occasional infusion of savagery.</p> + +<p>"But Mr. Tipping is at home?" said Henry. "I will wait till he is +disengaged. I will make myself comfortable in the kitchen," (Henry knew +his way about at Aunt Tipping's, and remembered there was only one front +parlour) adding, with something of pride, "I'm Mrs. Tipping's nephew, +you know."</p> + +<p>Presently the torture in the front parlour was at an end; and, as Mr. +Tipping was about to turn upstairs to the little back room where he +mended his shoes, Henry emerged upon him from the kitchen. They had had +some talks on books and the general misgovernment of the universe,--for +Mr. Tipping really was something of an "atheist,"--on Henry's occasional +visits, and were no strangers to each other.</p> + +<p>"Why, Henry, lad, whoever expected to see you! Your aunt's out at +present; but she'll be back soon. Come into the parlour."</p> + +<p>"If you don't mind, Uncle Tipping, I'd rather come upstairs with you. I +love the smell of the leather and the sight of all those sharp little +knives, and the black, shiny 'dubbin,' do you call it? And we can have a +talk about books till aunt comes home."</p> + +<p>"All right, lad. But it's a dusty place, and there's hardly a corner to +sit down in."</p> + +<p>So up they went to a little room where, in a chaos of boots mended on +one hand, and boots to mend on the other, sheets of leather lying about, +in one corner a great tubfull of water in which the leather was +soaked,--an old boyish fascination of Henry's,--Mr. Tipping spent the +greater part of his days. He sat on a low bench near a window, along +which ran a broad sill full of tools. On this, too, lay an opened book, +into which Mr. Tipping would dip now and again, when he could safely +leave the boot he was engaged upon to the mechanical skill of his hands. +At one end of the tool-shelf was a small collection of books, a dozen or +so shabby volumes, though these were far from constituting Mr. Tipping's +complete library.</p> + +<p>Mr. Tipping belonged to that pathetic army of book-lovers who subsist on +the refuse of the stalls, which he hunted not for rare editions, but for +the sheer bread of life, or rather the stale crusts of knowledge. His +tastes were not literary in the special sense of the word. For +belles-lettres he had no fancy, and fine passages, except in so far as +they were controversial, left him cold. His mind was primarily +scientific, secondarily philosophic, and occasionally historic. Travels +and books of physical science were the finds for which, mainly, he +rummaged the stalls. At the moment his pet study was astronomy; and a +curious apparatus in one of the corners, which Henry had noticed as he +entered, was his sad attempt to rig up a telescope for himself.</p> + +<p>"It's not so bad as it looks," he said, pointing it out; "but then," he +added, with a smile half sad and half humorous, "there are not many +stars to be seen from Tichborne Street."</p> + +<p>It was a touching characteristic of the type of bookman to which Mr. +Tipping belonged, that the astronomy from which he was reading by no +means embodied the latest discoveries. In fact, it narrowly escaped +being eighteenth-century science, for it was dated very early in the +eighteen hundreds. But an astronomy was an astronomy to Mr. Tipping; and +had Copernicus been born late enough, he would most certainly have +imbibed Ptolemaic doctrines with grateful unsuspicion. Indeed, had it +been put to him: "This astronomy after Copernicus at half-a-crown, and +this after Ptolemy for sixpence," his means alone would have left him no +choice. It is so the old clothes of the mind, like the old clothes of +the body,--superseded science, forgotten philosophy,--find a market, and +a book remains a book, with the power of comforting or diverting some +indigent, poor soul, so long as the stitching holds it together.</p> + +<p>Presently there was a knock at the front door.</p> + +<p>"There's your aunt," said Mr. Tipping; and, as the door opened, the +little maid-of-all-work was to be heard whispering her mistress that a +young gentleman who said he was her nephew had come and was upstairs +with "the master."</p> + +<p>"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Tipping, immediately starting upstairs +towards the open door of the cobblery.</p> + +<p>Henry was standing on the threshold, and the warm-hearted little woman +gave him a hearty hug of welcome.</p> + +<p>"Well, I <i>am</i> glad to see you! And how are they all at home?" and she +ran over the list, name for name. "We mustn't forget your father. But +he's a hard 'un and no mistake," said the aunt, putting on a mimic +expression of severity.</p> + +<p>"He's an upright man, is James Mesurier," said Mr. Tipping, rather +severely.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, yes; we know that, crosspatch. I'm saying nothing against +him. He's good at heart, I know; but he's a little hard on the +surface--like some other folks I know," making a face at her husband. +"But you must come down and talk to me a bit, lad; you'll have had +enough of him and his old books. You never saw the like of him! Here he +sits day after day over his musty books, and you can hardly get him away +for his meals. He's no company for any one."</p> + +<p>"Talk of something you can understand, lass," retorted the husband, in a +voice that took any unkindness from the words, rather like a father than +a husband. "You don't ail much for lack of company, I'm sure."</p> + +<p>"Now if it was only a good novel," his wife persisted; "but nothing but +travels, geographies, and such like. Last thing he's taken up with is +the stars. I suppose he's been telling you about them--" and she said +this half as though it were a new form of lunacy Mr. Tipping had +developed, and half as though he had been opening up new realms of +knowledge--original but useless. She was far indeed from understanding +that lonely mind and its tragedy, thirsting so hopelessly for +knowledge, and to die athirst. She heard him knock, knock all day +upstairs; but the knocking told her nothing of his loneliness. He was +just a good, hard-working, rather cross old man, unaccountably fond of +printed matter, whom she liked to be good to, and if in her time that +knocking upstairs should stop for ever--well! she wasn't one to meet +trouble half way, but she would miss it a good deal, old man as he was.</p> + +<p>She was herself nearing fifty; but her slim little wiry body and her +elfish, wrinkled face, never still, but ever alive with the same +vivacity that years ago had attracted William Allsopp, made her seem +younger than her years; and her husband treated her as though she were +still a child, a wilful child.</p> + +<p>"Eh, Matilda," he said, "you're just a child. No more nor less,--just a +child. The years haven't tamed you one bit--"</p> + +<p>"Get out with you and your old stars!" she said, laughing. "Henry, come +along and have a talk with your old aunt."</p> + +<p>Though invincibly cheerful through it all, Aunt Tipping was always in +trouble, if not for herself, for somebody else. To-day, it was for +herself, though it was but a minor reverse in the guerilla warfare of +her life. A distressed lodger who had just left had begged her to +accept, in lieu of rent, the pawn-ticket of a handsome clock which had +been hers in happier days; and Mrs. Tipping, moved as she always was by +any tale of woe, however elaborate, had consented. Nor in her world was +such a way of settling accounts very exceptional, for pawn-tickets were +there looked upon as legitimately negotiable securities. Indeed, Aunt +Tipping was seldom without a selection of such securities upon her +hands; and, if a neighbour should chance to be in need, say, of a new +set of chimney ornaments, as likely as not Aunt Tipping had in her purse +a pledge for the very thing. This she would sell at a reasonable profit, +which would probably amount to but a small proportion of the original +debt for which she had accepted it. It was not a lucrative business, +though there were occasional "bargains" in it.</p> + +<p>In that word "bargains," all the active romance of Aunt Tipping's life +was now centred. In all departments of the cast-off and the second-hand +she was a daring speculator; and a spirited "auction" now and again +exhilarated her as much as a fortnight by the sea. That house which she +fought so desperately to keep tidy and respectable, had been furnished +almost entirely in this way. There was hardly an article in it that had +not already lived other lives in other houses, before it had been picked +up, "dirt cheap," by Aunt Tipping.</p> + +<p>But this afternoon her confidence in human nature had received a cruel +wound. When, after an hour's weary drag to a remote end of the town, she +had arrived at the pawnshop where was preserved the handsome clock of +the distressed lady, and had confidently presented the ticket and the +necessary money, the man had looked awhile perplexed. They had no such +clock, he said. And then, as he further examined the ticket, a light +broke in upon him.</p> + +<p>"My dear lady," he said, "look here. The year on this ticket has been +changed."</p> + +<p>So indeed it had, and poor Aunt Tipping was at least a year too late.</p> + +<p>"Did you ever hear of such treatment?" she said to Henry; "and such a +nice lady she was. 'I shall never forget your goodness to me, Mrs. +Tipping,' she said as she went away, 'never, if I live to be a hundred.' +I'll 'goodness' her, if ever I catch her. Cheating honest folks like +that! Such people oughtn't to be allowed. I don't know how people can +behave so!"</p> + +<p>Aunt Tipping's indignation seldom outlived a few plaintive words of this +sort; and had the offending lady of the clock appeared next moment, and +given some Arabian Nights' explanation, there is little doubt that Aunt +Tipping would have forgiven her on the spot. A tendency to do so was +already active in her next remark,--</p> + +<p>"Well, poor soul, we mustn't be too hard on her. We never know what we +may be brought to ourselves." For it was Aunt Tipping's unformulated +axiom that, whatever cock-and-bull stories misfortune may tell, there is +always some truth in human misery.</p> + +<p>When Henry had told Aunt Tipping his story, and ventured to hint a +suggestion that, if it should not be inconvenient for her, he would like +to take sanctuary with her for a month or two, till he got his hopes +into working order, her little sharp face fairly gleamed with delight. +You would have thought that he was bringing her some great benefit, +instead of proposing to take something from her. That he should have +thought of <i>her</i>, such a little humble aunt; that, added to the love +she had for any one with any tincture of her family's blood running in +their veins, plus her general weakness for any one in trouble, brought +tears to her eyes that made her look quite young again.</p> + +<p>"I should think so indeed!" she said. "The best your poor old auntie's +got is yours with all her heart--Ah, your father never understood you. +You've got too much of our side of the family in you. You're a bit wild, +you know, lad; but you're none the worse for that, eh?"</p> + +<p>There is no need to say that Aunt Tipping's understanding of the tastes +and ambitions which had driven Henry momentarily to take refuge with her +was of the vaguest; but all she needed to know of such a situation was +that: here on the one hand was something somebody very much wanted to +do, and here on the other were certain stern powers ranked against his +doing it. That was enough for her. Her sympathy with all forms of revolt +was instantaneous. For law and order, as such, she had an instinctive +antipathy, as in all contests whatsoever her one general rule was: "Side +with the weaker." And it cannot but have been perceived that so much +sympathy with weakness could hardly have been in the gift of weakness. +No; Aunt Tipping was entirely impersonal in these charities of feeling, +and it was because there was so much sterling honesty and strength +hidden in her little wiry frame, that she could afford so much succour +to those who were neither honest nor strong.</p> + +<p>"Well, it was nice of you to think of your poor old aunt," she repeated +again and again; and then she remarked on the good fortune which had +caused the vacation of the front room over the parlour, her grievance +against the lady of the handsome clock quite forgotten.</p> + +<p>"It's a nice airy room," she said; and then she began planning how she +might best arrange it for his comfort.</p> + +<p>"Dear little aunt," said Henry, taking the little wisp of a woman into +his arms, "you're the salt of the earth."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>"Why ever didn't I think of it before!" exclaimed Aunt Tipping, +presently. "I've got the very gentleman to help you with your writing."</p> + +<p>"Indeed," said Henry, somewhat sceptical.</p> + +<p>"Yes; he's down there in the back parlour. They say he's a great +writer," continued Aunt Tipping; "but he's not very well the last day or +two, and doesn't see anybody. To tell the truth, poor gentleman," she +confided, lowering her voice, "he's just a little too fond of his glass. +But he's as good and kind a gentleman as ever stepped, and always +regular with his rent every Monday morning."</p> + +<p>There was usually something mysterious about Aunt Tipping's lodgers. At +their best, she had known them as elaborately wronged bye-products of +aristocracy. Many of them were lawful expectants of illegally delayed +fortunes, and at the very least they always drank romantically.</p> + +<p>Thus it was that to the somewhat amused surprise of his family, Henry +came to take up his abode for a while with Aunt Tipping, and that his +books and the cast of Dante, and the sketch of the young Dante done in +sepia by Myrtilla Williamson's own fair hand, came to find themselves in +the incongruous environment of Tichborne Street.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + +<h3>THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN IN THE BACK PARLOUR</h3> +<br> + +<p>Aunt Tipping proved not so ludicrously out of it after all in regard to +the literary gentleman in the back parlour. Henry had hardly known what +to expect; but certainly he had pictured no one so interesting as Ashton +Gerard proved to be. For a dark den smelling strongly of whisky and +water, and some slovenly creature of the under-world crouched in a dirty +armchair over the fire, he found instead a pleasant little room, very +neatly kept, with books, two or three good pictures, and general +evidence of cultivated tastes; and on Mr. Gerard's refined sad face, +which, being shaven, and surmounted by a tuft of vigorous curly hair, +once black but now curiously splashed with vivid flakes of white, +retained something of boyish beauty even at forty, you looked in vain +for the marks of one who was in the grip of an imperious vice. Only by +the marked dimness and weariness of his blue eyes, which gave the face a +rather helpless, dreamy expression, might the experienced observer have +understood. So to speak, the ocular will had gone out of them; they no +longer grasped the visible, but glided listlessly over it; nor did they +seem to be looking on things invisible. They were the eyes of +the drowned.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gerard had exceedingly gentle manners. It was easy to understand +that a landlady would worship him. He gave little trouble, asked for the +most necessary service as though it were a courtesy, and never forgot an +interest in Aunt Tipping's affairs. On bright days he revealed a vein of +quite boyish gaiety; and in his talk with Henry he flashed out a strange +paradoxical humour, too often morbid in its themes, which, as usually +the case with such humour, was really sadness coming to the surface in +a jest.</p> + +<p>It soon transpired that a favourite subject of his talk was that very +weakness which most men would have been at pains to hide.</p> + +<p>"So you're going to be a poet, Mr. Mesurier," he said. "Well, so was I +once, so was I--but," he continued, "all too early another Muse took +hold of me, a terrible Muse--yet a Muse who never forsakes you--" and +he laid his hand on a decanter which stood near him on the table,--"yes, +Mr. Mesurier, the terrible Muse of Drink! You may be surprised to hear +me talk so; yet were this laudanum instead of brandy, there would seem +to you a certain element of the poetic in the service of such a Muse. +Drinks with Oriental or unfamiliar names have a romantic sound. Thus +Alfred de Musset as the slave to absinthe sounds much more poetic than, +say, Alfred de Musset as a slave to rum or gin, or even this brandy +here. Yet this, too, is no less the stuff that dreams are made of; and +the opium-eater, the absinthe-sipper, the brandy-drinker, are all +members of the same great brotherhood of tragic idealists--"</p> + +<p>He talked deliberately; but there was a smile playing at the corners of +the mouth which took from his talk the sense of a painful +self-revelation, and gave it the air of a playful fantasia upon a +paradox that for the moment amused him.</p> + +<p>"Idealists! Yes," he continued; "for what few understand is that drink +is an idealism--and," he presently added with a laugh, "and, of course, +like all idealisms, it has its dangers."</p> + +<p>With a monomaniac, conversation is apt to limit itself to monologue; +so, while Henry was greatly interested in this odd talk, it left him but +little to say.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I shock you a little, Mr. Mesurier, perhaps even--disgust +you," said Mr. Gerard.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, no!" exclaimed Henry; "but both the subject and your way of +treating it are, I confess, a little new to me."</p> + +<p>"You are surprised to find one who is what is popularly known as a +drunkard not so much ashamed of as interested in himself; isn't that it? +Well, that comes of the introspective literary temperament. It is only +the oyster fascinated by the pearl that is killing it."</p> + +<p>"You should write some 'Confessions' after the manner of De Quincey," +said Henry.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I've often thought of it, for there's so much that needs saying +on the subject. There is nothing with which we are at once so familiar +and of which we know so little. For example"--and now he was quite +plainly off again--"for example, the passion for, I might say the dream +of, drink is usually regarded as a sensual appetite, a physical +indulgence. No doubt in its first crude stages it often is so; but soon +it becomes something much more strange and abstract. It becomes a +mysterious command, issuing we know not whence. It is hardly a desire, +and it is not so much a joyless, as a quite colourless, obedience to an +imperious necessity, decreed by some unknown will. You might well +imagine that I like the taste of this brandy there, as a child is +greedily fond of sweetstuff; but it would be quite a mistake. For my own +personal taste, there is no drink like a cup of tea; it is the demon, +the strange will that has imposed itself upon me, that has a taste +for brandy.</p> + +<p>"I sometimes wonder whether we poor drunkards are not the victims of +disembodied powers of the air who, by some chance, have contracted a +craving for earthly liquors, and can only satisfy that craving by +fastening themselves upon some unhappy human organism. At times there +comes an intermission of the command, as mysterious almost as the +command itself. For weeks together we give no thought to our tyrant. We +grow gay and young and innocent again. We are free,--so free, we seem to +have forgotten that we were ever enslaved. Then suddenly one day we hear +the call again. We cry for mercy; we throw ourselves on our knees in +prayer. We clutch sacred relics; we conjure the aid of holy memories; we +say over to ourselves the names of the dead we have loved: but it is all +in vain--surely we are dragged to the feet of that inexorable will, +surely we submit ourselves once more to the dark dominion."</p> + +<p>Henry listened, fascinated, and a little frightened.</p> + +<p>"The longer I live, the more I grow convinced that this is no mere +fancy, but actual science," Mr. Gerard continued; "for, again, you might +well imagine that one drinks for the dreams or other illusory effects it +is said to produce. At first, perhaps, yes; but such effects speedily +pass away, they pass away indeed before the tyranny has established +itself, while it would still be possible to shake it off. No, the dreams +of drink are poor things, not worth having at the best. Indeed, there +are no dreams worth having, believe me, but those of youth and health +and spring-water."</p> + +<p>And Mr. Gerard passed for awhile in silence into some hidden country of +his lost dreams.</p> + +<p>Henry gazed at him with a curious wonder. Here was a man evidently of +considerable gifts, a man of ideals, of humour, a man witty and gentle, +who surely could have easily made his mark in the world, and yet he had +thrown all away for a mechanical habit which he himself did not pretend +to be a passion,--a mere abstract attraction: as though a man should +say, "I care not for the joys or successes of this world. My destiny is +to sit alone all day and count my fingers and toes, count them over and +over and over again. There is not much pleasure in it, and I should be +glad to break off the habit,--but there it is. It is imposed upon me by +a will stronger than mine which I must obey. It is my destiny."</p> + +<p>"Yes, idealists!" said Mr. Gerard, presently coming back from his dreams +to his great subject, with a laugh. "That reminds me of a story a +business friend of mine told me the other day. A clerk in his office was +an incorrigible drunkard. He was quite alone in the world, and had no +one dependent upon him. The firm had been lenient to him, and again and +again forgiven his outbreaks. But one morning they called him in and +said: 'Look here, Jones, we have had a great deal of patience with you; +but the time has come when you must choose between the drink and the +office.' To their surprise, Jones, instead of eagerly promising reform, +looked up gravely, and replied, 'Will you give me a week to think it +over, sir? It is a very serious matter.' Drink was all the poor fellow +had outside his drudgery; was it to be expected that he should thus +lightly sacrifice it?--</p> + +<p>"But, to talk about something else, your aunt, Mrs. Tipping, who has a +great idea of my literary importance, has a notion that I may be of some +help to you, Mr. Mesurier. Well, I'll tell you the whole extent of my +present literary engagements, and you are perfectly at liberty to laugh. +At the present time I do the sporting notes for the <i>Tyrian Daily Mail</i>, +and I write the theological reviews for <i>The Fleet Street Review</i>. These +apparently incongruous occupations are the relics of an old taste for +sport, which as a boy in the country I had ample opportunity for +indulging, and of an interrupted training for the Church--'twixt then +and now there is an eventful gap which, if you don't mind, we won't +sadden each other by filling--Let us fill our glasses and our pipes +instead; and, having failed so entirely myself, I will give you minute +directions how to succeed in literature."</p> + +<p>Mr. Gerard's discourse on how to succeed in literature was partly +practical and partly ironical, and probably too technical to interest +the general reader, who has no intention of being a great or a little +writer, and who perhaps has already found Mr. Gerard's previous +discourse a little too special in its character. Suffice it that Henry +heard much to remember, and much to laugh over, and that Mr. Gerard +concluded with a practical offer of kindness.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how much use it may be to you," he said; "but if you care +to have it, I should be very glad to give you a letter to the editor of +<i>The Fleet Street Review</i>. He has, I think, a certain regard for me, and +he might send you a book to do now and again. At all events, it would be +something."</p> + +<p>Henry embraced the offer gratefully; and it occurred to him that in a +day or two's time there was a five days' excursion running from Tyre to +London and back, for half-a-guinea. Why not take it, and expend his last +five pounds in a stimulating glimpse of the city he some day hoped to +conquer? He could then see his friend the publisher, present his letter +to the editor, and perhaps bring home with him some little work and a +renewed stock of hopes.</p> + +<p>So, before they parted that night, Mr. Gerard wrote him the letter.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> + +<h3>"THIS IS LONDON, THIS IS LIFE"</h3> +<br> + +<p>Thus it was that, all unexpectedly, Henry found himself set down one +autumn morning at the homeless hour of a quarter-to-seven, in Euston +station. He was going to stay in some street off the Strand, and +chartered a hansom to take him there. Few great cities are impressive in +the neighbourhood of their railway termini. You enter them, so to speak, +by the back door; and London waves no banners of bright welcome to the +stranger who first enters it by the Euston Road.</p> + +<p>But there was an interesting church presently, and on a dust-cart close +by Henry read "Vestry of St. Pancras."</p> + +<p>"Can that be the St. Pancras' Church," he said to himself, "where Mary +Wollstonecraft lies buried, and Browning was married?"</p> + +<p>Then as they drove along through Bloomsbury, the name "Great Coram +Street" caught his eye, and he exclaimed with delight: "Why, that's +where Thackeray lived for a time!"</p> + +<p>Great Coram Street is little accustomed to create such excitement in the +breast of the passer-by. But to the stranger London is necessarily first +a museum, till he begins to love it as a home, and, in addition to dead +men's associations, begins to people it with memories of his own. When +you have lived awhile in Gray's Inn, you grow to forget that Bacon's +ghost is your fellow-tenant; and it is the kind-hearted provincial who +from time to time lays those flowers on Goldsmith's tomb. When you are +caught in a block on Westminster Bridge, with only five minutes to get +to Waterloo, you forget to say to yourself: "Ah, this is the bridge on +which Wordsworth wrote his famous sonnet." You usually say something +quite different.</p> + +<p>The mere names of the streets,--how laden with immemorial poetry they +were! "Chancery Lane!" How wonderful! Yet the poor wretch standing +outside the public-house at the corner seemed to derive small +consolation from the fact that he was starving in Chancery Lane.</p> + +<p>But to Henry, as yet, London was an extended Westminster Abbey, and +every other street was Poet's Corner. He had hardly patience to +breakfast, so eager was he to be out in the streets; and while he ate, +his eyes were out of the windows all the time, and his ears drinking in +all the London morning sounds like music. At the foot of the street ran +the Thames; he had caught a thrilling glimpse of it as he stepped from +his cab, and had had a childish impulse to rush down to it before +entering his hotel.</p> + +<p>At last, free of food and baggage, light of heart, and brimming over +with youth, he stepped into the street. It was but little past eight +o'clock. He had just heard the hour chimed, in various tones of +sweetness and solemnity, from several mellow clocks, evidently hidden +high in the air in his near vicinity. For two or three hours there would +be no editor or publisher to be seen, and meanwhile he had London to +himself. He stepped out into it as into a garden,--a garden of those +old-time flowers in which antiquity has become a perfume full +of pictures.</p> + +<p>Yes, there was the Thames! "Sweet Themmes, run softly till I end my +song!" he quoted to himself. Chaucer's, Spenser's, Elizabeth's Thames!</p> + +<p>It was a bright morning and the river gleamed to advantage. The tall +tower of Westminster glittered richly in the sun, and the long front of +Somerset House wore a lordly smile. The embankment gardens sparkled and +rustled in morning freshness. Henry drew in the air of London as though +it had been a rose. Here was the Thames at the foot of the street, and +there at the head was the Strand, a stream of omnibuses and cabs, and +city-faring men and women. The Temple must be somewhere close by. Of +course it was here to his left. But he would first walk quietly by the +Thames side to Westminster, and then come back by the Strand. As he +walked, he stepped lightly and gently, as though reverent to the very +stones of so sacred a city, and all the time from every prospect and +every other street-corner came streaming like strains of music magnetic +memories,--"streets with the names of old kings, strong earls, and +warrior saints." If for no other reason, how important for the future of +a nation is it to preserve in such ancient cities as London and Oxford +the energising spectacle of a noble and strenuous antiquity; for there +are no such inspirers of young men as these old places! So much strength +and youth went into them long ago that even yet they have strength and +youth to give, and from them, as from the strong hills, pours out an +inexhaustible potency of bracing influence.</p> + +<p>At last Henry found himself back at the top-end of his street. He had +walked the Strand with deliberate enjoyment. Fleet Street he still +reserved, but, as according to the tower of Clement Danes it was only +just ten o'clock, it seemed still a little early to attack his business. +A florist's close by suggested a charming commonplace way of filling the +time. He would buy some flowers and carry them to Goldsmith's grave. Why +Goldsmith's grave should thus be specially honoured, he a little +wondered. He was conscious of loving several writers quite as well. But +it was a Johnsonian tradition to love Goldy, and the accessibility of +his resting-place made sentiment easy.</p> + +<p>He repented this momentary flippancy of thought as he stood in the +cloistered corner where Goldsmith sleeps under the eye of the law; and, +when he laid his little wreath on the worn stone, it was a genuine +offering. From it he turned away to his own personal dreams.</p> + +<p>By eleven he had found his friend the publisher, in a dainty little +place of business crammed with pottery, Rowlandsons, and books, and +more like a curiosity-shop than a publishing-house, for the publisher +proved an enthusiast in everything that was beautiful or curious, and +had indeed taken to publishing from that rare motive in a +publisher,--the love of books, rather than the love of money. He was +aiming to make his little shop the rallying-point of all the young +talent of the day, and as young talent has never too many publishers on +the look-out for it, his task was not difficult, though it was one of +those real services to literature which such publishers and booksellers +have occasionally done in our literary history, with but scant +acknowledgment.</p> + +<p>Henry was pleased to find that he looked upon him to make one of his +little band of youth; and as the publisher understood the art of +encouragement, Henry already felt it had been worth while to come to +London just to see him. He knew the editor to whom Henry had a letter +and volunteered him another. The afternoon would be the best time; +meanwhile, they must lunch together. He smiled when Henry suggested the +Cheshire Cheese. Henry had a sort of vague idea that literary men could +hardly think of taking their meals anywhere else. There had been an +attempt to bring it into fashion again, the publisher said; but it had +come to nothing--though he, for one, loved those old chop-houses, with +their tankards, and their sanded floors. So to the Cheshire Cheese they +repaired, and drank to a long friendship in foaming pewters of porter.</p> + +<p>"Alas!" said Henry, "we are fallen on smaller times. Once it was 'the +poet's pint of port.' Now we must be content with the poetaster's +half-a-pint of porter!"</p> + +<p>"You must come to my rooms to-night," said the publisher, "and be +introduced to some of our young men. I have one or two of our older +critics coming too."</p> + +<p>Henry's fortune was evidently made.</p> + +<p>He found the editor in a dim back room at the top of a high building, so +lost in a world of books and dust that at first Henry could hardly make +him out, writing by a window with his back to the door. Then an alert +head turned round to him, and a rather peevish gesture bade him be +seated, while the editor resumed his work. This hardly came up to +Henry's magnificent dreams of the editorial dignity. Perhaps he had a +vague idea that editors lived in palaces, and sat on thrones.</p> + +<p>Presently the editor put down his pen with an exclamation of +satisfaction; and the first impression of peevishness vanished in the +cordiality with which he now turned to his visitor.</p> + +<p>"You must excuse my absorption. It was a rather tough piece of +proof-reading. A subject I'm rather interested in,--new Welsh +dictionary. Don't suppose it's in your line, eh, eh?"--and the tall, +spare man laughed a boyish laugh like a mischievous bird, and tossed his +head at the jest.</p> + +<p>His face was small and sallow and tired; but the dark eyes were full of +fun and kindness. Presently, he rose and began to walk up and down the +room with a curious, prancing walk, rolling himself a cigarette, and +talking away in a rapid, jerky fashion with his continual, "eh, eh?" +coming in all the time.</p> + +<p>"Poor Gerard! So you know him? How is he now?" and he lowered his voice +with the suggestion of a mutual confidence, and stopped in his walk till +Henry should answer. "Poor Gerard! And he might have been--well, +well,--never mind. We were together at King's. Brilliant fellow. So you +know Gerard. Dear me! Dear me!"</p> + +<p>Then he turned to the subject of Henry's visit.</p> + +<p>"Well, my poor boy, nothing will satisfy you but literature? You are +determined to be a literary man, eh, eh?" Then he stopped in front of +Henry and laid his hand kindly on his shoulder, "Is it too late to say, +'Go back while there is yet time'? Perhaps--of course--you're going to +be a very great man," and he broke off into his walk again, with one of +his mischievous laughs. "But unless you are, take my word, it's a poor +game--Yet, I suppose, it's no use talking. I know, wasted breath, wasted +breath--Well, now, what can you do? and, by the way, you won't grow fat +on <i>The Fleet Street Review</i>. Ten shillings a column is our magnificent +rate of payment, and we can hardly afford that--"</p> + +<p>Then he began pulling out one book and another from the piles of all +sorts that lay around him. "I suppose, like the rest, you'd better begin +on poetry. There's a tableful over there--go and take your pick of it, +unless, of course, you've got some special subject. You're not, I +suppose, an authority on Assyriology, eh, eh?"</p> + +<p>Henry feared not, and then a new fit of industry came upon the editor, +and he begged Henry to take a look at the books while he ran through +another proof for the post.</p> + +<p>That dusty table--evidently the rubbish-heap of the room--was Henry's +first object-lesson in the half tragical, half farcical, over-production +of modern literature. Such a mass of foolishness and ineptitude he had +never conceived of; such pretentiousness too--and while he made various +melancholy reflections upon human vanity, what should he unearth +suddenly from the heap, but his own little volume. He could but half +suppress a cry of recognition.</p> + +<p>"What's that?" asked the editor, not turning round. "Found anything?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Henry; "nothing--for a moment I thought I had."</p> + +<p>Presently he had made a small pile of the most promising volumes, and +turned to take his leave. The editor took up one or two of them +carelessly.</p> + +<p>"Not much here, I'm afraid," he said. "Never mind; see what you can make +of them. Not more than three columns at the most, you know. And come and +see me again. I'm glad to have seen you."</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Henry, on the point of leaving, and laying his hand on his +own little book, "may I take this one too? It's not worth reviewing, but +it rather interested me just now."</p> + +<p>"God bless me, yes, certainly," said the editor; "you're welcome to the +lot, if you care to bring a hand-cart. Good-bye, good-bye."</p> + +<p>And Henry slipped his poor little neglected volume into his pocket. On +how many dusty tables, he wondered, was it then lying ignominiously +disregarded. Well, the day would come! Meanwhile, he had his first batch +of books for review.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> + +<h3>THE WITS</h3> +<br> + +<p>There now remained the gathering of wits fixed for the evening. His +publisher had asked him to dinner, but he had declined, from a secret +and absurd desire to dine at "The Cock." This he gratified, and with his +mind full of the spacious times of the early Victorians, he turned into +the publisher's little room about nine o'clock to meet some of +the later.</p> + +<p>There was no great muster as yet. Some half-a-dozen rather shy young men +spasmodically picked up strange drawings or odd-looking books, lying +about on the publisher's tables, struggled maidenly with cigars, sipped +a little whisky and soda; but little was said.</p> + +<p>Among them a pale-faced lad of about fifteen, miraculously +self-possessed, stood with his back to the chimney-piece. But soon +others began to turn in, and by ten the room was as full of chatter and +smoke as it could hold. Not least conspicuous among the talkers was the +pale-faced boy of fifteen. Henry had been sitting near to him, and had +been suddenly startled by his unexpectedly breaking out into a volley of +learning, delivered in a voice impressively deliberate and sententious.</p> + +<p>"What a remarkable boy that is!" said Henry, innocently, to the +publisher.</p> + +<p>"Yes; but he's not quite a boy,--though he's young enough. A curious +little creature, morbidly learned. A friend of mine says that he would +like to catch him and keep him in a bottle, and label it 'the learned +homunculus.'"</p> + +<p>"What dialect is it he is talking in?" said Henry; "I don't remember to +have heard it before."</p> + +<p>The publisher smiled: "My dear fellow, you must be careful what you say. +That is what we call 'the Oxford voice.'"</p> + +<p>"How remarkable!" said Henry, his attention called off by a being with a +face that half suggested a faun, and half suggested a flower,--a small, +olive-skinned face crowned with purply black hair, that kept falling in +an elflock over his forehead, and violet eyes set slant-wise. He was +talking earnestly of fairies, in a beautiful Irish accent, and Henry +liked him. The attraction seemed mutual, and Henry found himself drawn +into a remarkable relation about a fairy-hill in Connemara, and fairy +lights that for several nights had been seen glimmering about it; and +how at last he--that is, the narrator--and a particularly hard-headed +friend of his had kept watch one moonlit night, with the result that +they had actually seen and talked with the queen of the fairies and +learned many secrets of the ----. The narrator here made use of a long, +unpronounceable Irish word, which Henry could not catch.</p> + +<p>"I should have explained some of these phenomena to you," whispered the +publisher presently, noticing that Henry looked a little bewildered. +"This is a young Irish poet, who, in the intervals of his raising the +devil, writes very beautiful lyrics that he may well have learned from +the fairies. It is his method to seem mad on magic and such things. You +will meet with many strange methods here to-night. Don't be alarmed if +some one comes and talks to you about strange sins. You have come to +London in the 'strange sins' period. I will explain afterwards."</p> + +<p>He had hardly spoken when a pallid young man, with a preternatural +length and narrowness of face, began to talk to him about the sins of +the Borgias.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you never committed a murder yourself?" he asked Henry, +languidly.</p> + +<p>"No," said Henry, catching the spirit of the foolishness; "no, not yet. +I am keeping that--" implying that he was reserving so extreme a +stimulant till all his other vices failed him.</p> + +<p>Presently there entered a tall young man with a long, thin face, +curtained on either side with enormous masses of black hair, like a slip +of the young moon glimmering through a pine-wood.</p> + +<p>At the same moment there entered, as if by design, his very antithesis: +a short, firmly built, clerkly fellow, with a head like a billiard-ball +in need of a shave, a big brown moustache, and enormous spectacles.</p> + +<p>"That," said the publisher, referring to the moon-in-the-pine-wood young +man, "is our young apostle of sentiment, our new man of feeling, the +best-hated man we have; and the other is our young apostle of blood. He +is all for muscle and brutality--and he makes all the money. It is one +of our many fashions just now to sing 'Britain and Brutality.' But my +impression is that our young man of feeling will have his day,--though +he will have to wait for it. He would hasten it if he would cut his +hair; but that, he says, he will never do. His hair, he says, is his +battle-cry. Well, he enjoys himself--and loves a fight, though you +mightn't think it to look at him."</p> + +<p>A supercilious young man, with pink cheeks, and a voice which his +admirers compared to Shelley's, then came up to Henry and asked him what +he thought of Mallarmé's latest sonnet; but finding Henry confessedly at +sea, turned the conversation to the Empire ballet, of which, +unfortunately, Henry knew as little. The conversation then languished, +and the Shelley-voiced young man turned elsewhere for sympathy, with a +shrug at your country bumpkins who know nothing later than Rossetti.</p> + +<p>In the thick of the conversational turmoil, Henry's attention had from +time to time been attracted by the noise proceeding from a blustering, +red-headed man, with a face of fire.</p> + +<p>"Who is that?" at last he found opportunity to ask his friend.</p> + +<p>"That is our greatest critic," said the publisher.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Henry, "I must try and hear what he is saying. It seems +important from the way he is listened to."</p> + +<p>So Henry listened, and heard how the fire-faced man said the word "damn" +with great volubility and variety of cadence, and other words to the +same effect, and how the little group around him hung upon his words and +said to each other, "How brilliant!" "How absolute!"</p> + +<p>Henry turned to his friend. "The only word I can catch is the word +'damn,'" he said.</p> + +<p>"That," said the publisher, with a laugh, "is the master-word of +fashionable criticism."</p> + +<p>Presently a little talkative man came up, and said that he hoped Mr. +Mesurier was an adherent of the rightful king.</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course!" said Henry.</p> + +<p>"And do you belong to any secret society?" asked the little man.</p> + +<p>Henry couldn't say that he did.</p> + +<p>"Well, you must join us!" he said.</p> + +<p>"I suppose there won't be a rising just yet?" asked Henry, realising +that this was the Jacobite method.</p> + +<p>"Not just yet," said the little man, reassuringly. So Henry was +enrolled.</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>And so it went on till past midnight, when Henry at last escaped, to +talk it all over with the stars. The evening had naturally puzzled him, +as a man will always be puzzled who has developed under the influence of +the main tendencies of his generation, and who finds himself suddenly in +a backwater of fanciful reaction. Henry, in his simple way, was a +thinker and a radical, and he had nourished himself on the great +main-road masters of English literature. He had followed the lead of +modern philosophers and scientists, and had arrived at a mystical +agnosticism,--the first step of which was to banish the dogmas of the +church as old wives' tales. He considered that he had inherited the +hard-won gains of the rationalists. But he came to London and found +young men feebly playing with the fire of that Romanism which he +regarded as at once the most childish and the most dangerous of all +intellectual obsessions. In an age of great biologists and electricians, +he came upon children prettily talking about fairies and the +philosopher's stone. In one of the greatest ages of English poetry, he +came to London to find young English poets falling on their knees to the +metrical mathematicians of France. In the great age of democracy, a fool +had come and asked him if he were not a supporter of the house of +Stuart, a Jacobite of charades. But only once had he heard the name of +Milton; it was the learned boy of fifteen who had quoted him,--a +lifelong debt of gratitude; and never once had he heard the voice of +simple human feeling, nor heard one speak of beauty, simply, +passionately, with his heart in his mouth; nor of love with his heart +upon his sleeve. Much cleverness, much learning, much charm, there had +been, but he had missed the generous human impulse. No one seemed to be +doing anything because he must. These were pleasant eddies, dainty with +lilies and curiously starred water-grasses, but the great warm stream of +English literature was not flowing here.</p> + +<p>As he neared his hotel, he thought of his morning visit to Goldsmith's +tomb, and ten-fold he repented the little half-sneer with which he had +bought the flowers. In a boyish impulse, he rang the Temple bell, and +found his way again to the lonely corner. His flowers were lying there +in the moonlight, and again he read: "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith."</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, Goldy," he murmured. "Well may men bring you flowers,--for +you wrote, not as those yonder; you wrote for the human heart."</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV</h2> + +<h3>BACK TO REALITY</h3> +<br> + +<p>It was good to get back to reality, with Angel's blue eyes, Mike's +laugh, and Esther's common sense.</p> + +<p>"Let me look deep into them, Angel--deep--deep. It is so good to get +back to something true."</p> + +<p>"Are they true?" said Angel, opening them very wide.</p> + +<p>"Something that will never forsake one, something we can never forsake! +Something in all the wide world's change that will never change. +Something that will still be Angel even in a thousand years."</p> + +<p>"I hope to be a real angel long before that," said Angel, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Do you think you can promise to be true so long, Angel?" asked Henry.</p> + +<p>"Dear, you know that so long as there is one little part of me left +anywhere in the world, that part will be true to you.--But come, tell +me about London. I'm afraid you didn't enjoy it very much."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I loved London,--that is, old London; but new London made me a +little sad. I expect it was only because I didn't quite understand the +conditions."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps so," said Angel. "But tell me,--did you go to the Zoo?"</p> + +<p>"You dear child! Yes! I went out of pure love for you."</p> + +<p>"Now you needn't be so grown up. You know you wanted to go just for +yourself as well. And you saw the monkey-house?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And the lions?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"And the snakes?"</p> + +<p>"Yes!"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I'd give anything to see the snakes! Did they eat any rabbits when +you were there,--fascinate them, and then draw them slowly, slowly in?"</p> + +<p>"Angel, what terrible interests you are developing! No, thank goodness, +they didn't."</p> + +<p>"Why, wouldn't it fascinate you to see something wonderfully killed?" +asked Angel. "It is dreadful and wicked, of course. But it would be so +thrillingly real."</p> + +<p>"I think I must introduce you to a young man I met in London," said +Henry, "who solemnly asked me if I had ever murdered anyone. You savage +little wild thing! I suppose this is what you mean by saying sometimes +that you are a gipsy, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Well, and you went to the Tower, and Westminster Abbey, and everything, +and it was really wonderful?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I saw everything--including the Queen."</p> + +<p>For young people of Tyre and Sidon to go to London was like what it once +was to make the pilgrimage to Rome.</p> + +<p>Mike created some valuable nonsense on the occasion, which unfortunately +has not been preserved, and Esther was disgusted with Henry because he +could give no intelligible description of the latest London hats; and +all examined with due reverence those wonderful books for review.</p> + +<p>In Tichborne Street Aunt Tipping had taken advantage of his absence to +enrich his room with a bargain in the shape of an old desk, which was +the very thing he wanted. Dear old Aunt Tipping! And Gerard, it is to +be feared, took a little more brandy than usual in honour of his young +friend's adventures in the capital.</p> + +<p>These excitements over, Henry sat down at his old desk to write his +first review; and there for the present we may leave him, for he took it +very seriously and was dangerous to interrupt.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> + +<h3>THE OLD HOME MEANWHILE</h3> +<br> + +<p>More than a year had now gone by since Henry left home, and meanwhile, +with the exception of Dot's baptism, there had been no exciting changes +to record. Perhaps uneventfulness is part of the security of a +real home. Every morning James Mesurier had risen at half-past +six,--though he no longer imposed that hour of rising upon his +daughters,--breakfasted at eight, and reached his office at nine. Every +evening during those months, punctually at half-past six his latch-key +had rattled in the front-door lock, and one or other of his daughters +had hurried out at the sound to bid him welcome home.</p> + +<p>"Home at last, father dear!" they had said, helping him off with his +coat; and sometimes when he felt bright he would answer,--</p> + +<p>"Yes, my dear, night brings crows home."</p> + +<p>"Home again, James!" his wife would say, as he next entered the front +parlour, and bent down to kiss her where she sat. "It's a long day. +Isn't it time you were pulling in a bit? Surely some of the younger +heads should begin to relieve you."</p> + +<p>"Responsibility, Mary dear! We cannot delegate responsibility," he would +answer.</p> + +<p>"But we see nothing of you. You just sacrifice your whole life for the +business."</p> + +<p>If he were in a good humour, he might answer with one of his rare sweet +laughs, and jokingly make one of his few French quotations: "<i>Telle est +la vie</i>! my dear, <i>Telle est la vie</i>! That's the French for it, +isn't it, Dot?"</p> + +<p>James Mesurier was just perceptibly softening. Perhaps it was that he +was growing a little tired, that he was no longer quite the stern +disciplinarian we met in the first chapter; perhaps the influence of his +wife, and his experiences with his children, were beginning to hint to +him what it takes so long for a strong individual nature to learn, that +the law of one temperament cannot justly or fruitfully be enforced as +the law of another.</p> + +<p>The younger children--Esther and Dot and Mat used sometimes to say to +each other--would grow up in a more clement atmosphere of home than had +been Henry's and theirs. Already they were quietly assuming privileges, +and nothing said, that would have meant beatings for their elders. For +these things had Henry and Esther gladly faced martyrdom. Henry had +looked on the Promised Land, but been denied an entrance there. By his +stripes this younger generation would be healed.</p> + +<p>The elder girls hastened to draw close to their father in gratitude, and +home breathed a kinder, freer air than ever had been known before. +Between Esther and her father particularly a kind of comradeship began +to spring up, which perhaps more than ever made the mother miss her boy.</p> + +<p>But, all the same, home was growing old. This was the kindness of the +setting sun!</p> + +<p>Childless middle age is no doubt often dreary to contemplate, yet is it +an egoistical bias which leads one to find in such limitation, or one +might rather say preservation, of the ego, a certain compensation? The +childless man or woman has at least preserved his or her individuality, +as few fathers and mothers of large families are suffered to do. By the +time you are fifty, with a family of half a dozen children, you have +become comparatively impersonal as "father" or "mother." It is tacitly +recognised that your life-work is finished, that your ambitions are +accomplished or not, and that your hopes are at an end.</p> + +<p>The young Mesuriers, for example, were all eagerly hastening towards +their several futures. They were garrulous over them at every meal. But +to what future in this world were James and Mary Mesurier looking +forward? Love had blossomed and brought forth fruit, but the fruit was +quickly ripening, and stranger hands would soon pluck it from the +boughs. In a very few years they would sit under a roof-tree bared of +fruit and blossom, and sad with falling leaves. They had dreamed their +dream, and there is only one such dream for a lifetime; now they must +sit and listen to the dreams of their children, help them to build +theirs. They mattered now no longer for themselves, but just as so much +aid and sympathy on which their children might draw. Too well in their +hearts they knew that their children only heard them with patience so +long as they talked of their to-morrows. Should they sometimes dwell +wistfully on their own yesterdays, they could too plainly see how long +the story seemed.</p> + +<p><i>Telle est la vie!</i> as James Mesurier said, and, that being so, no +wonder life is a sad business. Better perhaps be childless and retain +one's own personal hopes and fears for life, than be so relegated to +history in the very zenith of one's days. If only this younger +generation at the door were always, as it assumes, stronger and better +than its elder! but, though the careless assumption that it is so is +somewhat general, history alone shows how false and impudent the +assumption often is. Too often genius itself must submit to the silly +presumption of its noisy and fatuous children, and it is the young fool +who too often knocks imperiously at the door of wise and active +middle age.</p> + +<p>That all this is inevitable makes it none the less sad. The young +Mesuriers were neither fools nor hard of heart; and sometimes, in +moments of sympathy, their parents would be revealed to them in sudden +lights of pathos and old romance. They would listen to some old +love-affair of their mother's as though it had been their own, or go out +of their way to make their father tell once more the epic of the great +business over which he presided, and which, as he conceived it, was +doubtless a greater poem than his son would ever write. Yet still even +in such genuine sympathy, there was a certain imaginative effort to be +made. The gulf between the generations, however hidden for the moment, +was always there.</p> + +<p>Yet, after all, James and Mary Mesurier possessed an incorruptible +treasure, which their children had neither given nor could take away. To +regard them as without future would be a shallow observation,--for love +has always a future, however old in mortal years it may have grown; and +as they grew older, their love seemed to grow stronger. Involuntarily +they seemed to draw closer together, as by an instinct of +self-preservation. Their love had been before their children; were they +to be spared, it would still be the same love, sweeter by trial, when +their children had passed from them. In this love had been wise for +them. Some parents love their children so unwisely that they forget to +love each other; and, when the children forsake them, are left +disconsolate. One has heard young mothers say that now their boy has +come, their husbands may take a second place; and often of late we have +heard the woman say: "Give me but the child, and the lover can go his +ways." Foolish, unprophetic women! Let but twenty years go by, and how +glad you will be of that rejected lover; for, though a son may suffice +for his mother, what mother has ever sufficed for her son?</p> + +<p>But though sometimes, as they looked at their parents, the young +Mesuriers caught a glimpse of the infinite sadness of a life-work +accomplished, yet it failed to warn them against the eager haste with +which they were hurrying on towards a like conclusion. Too late they +would understand that all the joy was in the doing; too soon say to +themselves: "Was it for this that our little world shook with such fiery +commotion and molten ardours, that this present should be so firm and +insensitive beneath our feet? This habit--why, it was once a passion! +This fact--why, it was once a dream!"</p> + +<p>Oh, why shake off youth's fragile blossoms with the very speed of your +own impatience! Why make such haste towards autumn! Who ever thought the +ruddiest lapful of apples a fair exchange for a cloud of sunlit blossom? +Whose maturity, however laden with prosperity or gilded with honour, +ever kept the fairy promise of his youth? For so brief a space youth +glitters like a dewdrop on the tree of life, glitters and is gone. For +one desperate instant of perfection it hangs poised, and is seen +no more.</p> + +<p>But, alas! the art of enjoying youth with a wise economy is only learnt +when youth is over. It is perhaps too paradoxical an accomplishment to +be learnt before; for a youth that economised itself would be already +middle age. It is just the wasteful flare of it that leaves such a +dazzle in old eyes, as they look back in fancy to the conflagration of +fragrant fire which once bourgeoned and sang where these white ashes now +slowly smoulder towards extinction.</p> + +<p>When Mike has a theatre of his own and can send boxes to his friends, +when Henry maybe is an editor of power, when Esther and Angel are the +enthroned wives of famous men, and the new heaven and the new earth are +quite finished,--will they never sigh sometimes to have the making of +them all over again? Then they will have everything to enjoy, so there +will be nothing left to hope for. Then there will be no spice of peril +in their loves, no keen edge that comes of enforced denial; and the game +of life will be too sure for ambition to keep its savour. "There is no +thrill, no excitement nowadays," one can almost fancy their saying, and, +like children playing with their bricks, "Now let us knock it all down, +and build another, one. It will be such fun."</p> + +<p>However, these are intrusive, autumnal thoughts in this book of simple +youth, and our young people knew them not. They were far indeed from +Esther's mind as she talked with Dot of the future one afternoon. +Instead, her words were full of impatience with the slow march of +events, and the enforced inactivity of a girl's life at home.</p> + +<p>"It is so much easier for the boys," she was saying. "There is something +for them to do. But we can do nothing but sit at home and wait, darn +their socks, and clap our hands at their successes. I wish I were +a man!"</p> + +<p>"No, you don't," said Dot; "for then you couldn't marry Mike. And you +couldn't wear pretty dresses--Oh! and lots of things. I don't much envy +a man's life, after all. It's all very well talking about hard work when +you haven't got to do it; and it's not so much the work as the +responsibility. It must be such a responsibility to be a man."</p> + +<p>"Of course you're right, Dot--but, oh! this waiting is so stupid, all +the same. If only I could be doing something--anything!"</p> + +<p>"Well, you <i>are</i> doing something. Is it nothing to be all the world to a +man?" said Dot, wistfully; "nothing to be his heaven upon earth? Nothing +to be the prize he is working for, and nothing to sustain and cheer him +on, as you do Mike, and as Angel cheers Henry? Would Henry have been the +same without Angel, or Mike the same without you? No, the man's work +makes more noise, but the woman's work is none the less real and useful +because it is quiet and underground."</p> + +<p>"Dear Dot, what a wise old thing you're growing! But you know you're +longing all the time for some work to do yourself. Didn't you say the +other day that you seemed to be wasting your life here, making beds and +doing housework?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; but I'm different. Don't you see?" retorted Dot, sadly. "I've got +no Mike. Your work is to help Mike be a great actor, but I've got no one +to help be anything. You may be sure I wouldn't complain of being idle +if I had. I think you're a bit forgetful sometimes how happy you are."</p> + +<p>"Poor old Dot! you needn't talk as if you're such a desperate old +maid,--you're not twenty yet. And I'm sure it's a good thing for you +that you haven't got any of the young men about here--to help be +aldermen! Wait till you come and stay with us in London, then you'll +soon find some one to work for, as you call it."</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Dot, thoughtfully; "somehow I think I shall never +marry."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you mean you'd rather be a nun or something serious of that +sort."</p> + +<p>"Well, to tell the truth, I have been thinking lately if perhaps I +couldn't do something,--perhaps go into a hospital, or something of +that sort."</p> + +<p>"Oh, nonsense, Dot! Think of all the horrible, dirty people you'd have +to attend to. Ugh!"</p> + +<p>"Christ didn't think of that when He washed the feet of His disciples," +said little Dot, sententiously.</p> + +<p>"Why, Dot, how dreadfully religious you're getting! You want a good +shaking! Besides, isn't it a little impious to imply that the apostles +were horrible, dirty people?"</p> + +<p>"You know what I meant," said Dot, flushing.</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course, dear; and I think I know where you've been. You've been +to see that dear Sister Agatha."</p> + +<p>"You admit she's a dear?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I do; but I don't know whether she's quite good for you."</p> + +<p>"If you'd only seen her among the poor little children the other day, +how beautiful and how happy she looked, you might have thought +differently," said Dot.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, dear; but then you mustn't forget that her point of view is +different. She's renounced the world; she's one of those women," Esther +couldn't resist adding, maliciously, "who've given up hope of man, and +so have set all their hopes on God."</p> + +<p>"Esther, that's unworthy of you--though what if it is as you say, is it +so great a failure after all to dedicate one's self to God rather than +to one little individual man?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, come," said Esther, rather wilfully misunderstanding, and suddenly +flushing up, "Mike is not so little as all that!"</p> + +<p>"Why, you goose, how earthly you are! I never thought of dear +Mike--though it would have served you right for saying such a mean thing +about Sister Agatha."</p> + +<p>"Forgive me. I know it was mean, but I couldn't resist it. And it is +true, you'll admit, of some of those pious women, though I withdraw it +about Sister Agatha."</p> + +<p>"Of course I couldn't be a sister like Sister Agatha," said Dot, +"without being a Catholic as well; but I might be a nurse at one of the +ordinary hospitals."</p> + +<p>"It would be dreadfully hard work!" said Esther.</p> + +<p>"Harder than being a man, do you think?" asked Dot, laughing.</p> + +<p>"For goodness' sake, don't turn Catholic!" said Esther, in some alarm. +"<i>That</i> would break father's heart, if you like."</p> + +<p>A horror of Catholicism ran in the very marrow of these young people. +It was one of the few relics of their father's Puritanism surviving in +them. Of "Catholics" they had been accustomed to speak since childhood +as of nightmares and Red Indians with bloody scalps at their waists; and +perhaps that instinctive terror of the subtle heart of Rome is the +religious prejudice which we will do well to part with last.</p> + +<p>Dot had not, indeed, contemplated an apostacy so unnatural; but beneath +these comparatively trivial words there was an ever-growing impulse to +fulfil that old longing of her nature to do something, as the Christians +would say, "for God," something serious, in return for the solemn and +beautiful gift of life. By an accident, she had met Sister Agatha one +day in the house of an old Irish servant of theirs, who had been +compelled to leave them on account of ill-health, and on whom she had +called with a little present of fruit. She had been struck by the +sweetness of the Sister's face, as the Sister had been struck by hers. +Sister Agatha had invited Dot to visit her some day at the home for +orphan children of which she had charge; and, with some misgiving as to +whether it was right thus to visit a Catholic, whether even it was +safe, Dot had accepted. So an acquaintance had grown up and ripened into +a friendship; and Sister Agatha, while making no attempt to turn the +friendship to the account of her church, was a great consolation to the +lonely, religious girl.</p> + +<p>Dot retained too much rationalism ever to become a Catholic, but the +longing to do something grew and grew. At a certain moment, with each +new generation of girls, there comes an epidemical desire in maiden +bosoms to dedicate their sweet young lives to the service of what Esther +called "horrible dirty people." At these periods the hospitals are +flooded with applications from young girls whom the vernal equinox urges +first to be mothers, and, failing motherhood, nurses. Just before she +met Henry, Angel had done her best to miss him by frantic endeavours to +nurse people whom the hospital doctors decided she was far too slight a +thing to lift,--for unless you can lift your patients, not to say throw +them about, you fail in the muscular qualifications of a hospital nurse. +Dot, as we have seen, was impelled in this direction from no merely +sentimental impulse, unless the religious impulse, which paradoxically +makes nuns of disappointed mothers, may so be called. Perhaps, +unacknowledged, deep down in her heart, she longed to be the nurse--of +one little wonderful child. Had this been granted her, it is probable +that the maimed and the halt would have had less attraction for her +pitying imagination. As it was, however, she persuaded herself that she +loved them. Was it because, at the moment, no one else seemed to +need her love?</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> + +<h3>STAGE WAITS, MR. LAFLIN</h3> +<br> + +<p>Esther's impatience was to be appeased, perhaps a little to her regret +after all, by an unexpected remission of the time appointed between Mike +and his first real engagement. Suddenly one day came an exciting letter +from the great actor, saying that he saw his way to giving him a part in +his own London company, if he could join him for rehearsal in a +week's time.</p> + +<p>Here was news! At last a foundation-stone of the new heaven was to be +laid! In a week's time Mike would be working at one of the alabaster +walls. Perhaps in two years' time, perhaps even in a year, with good +fortune, the roof would be on, the door wreathed with garlands, and a +modest little heaven ready for occupation.</p> + +<p>Now all that remained was to make the momentous break with the old life. +Old Mr. Laflin had been left in peaceful ignorance of the mine which +must now be exploded beneath his evening armchair. Mike loved his +father, and this had been a dread long and wisely postponed. But now, +when the moment for inevitable decision had come, Mike remembered, with +a certain shrinking, that responsibility of which Dot had spoken,--the +responsibility of being a man. It was his dream to be an actor, to earn +his bread with joy. To earn it with less than joy seemed unworthy of +man. Yet there was another dream for him, still more, immeasurably more, +important--to be Esther's husband. If he stayed where he was, in slow +revolutions of a dull business, his father's place and income would +become his. If he renounced that certain prospect, he committed himself +to a destiny of brilliant chances; and for the first time he realised +that among those chances lurked, too, the chance of failure. Esther must +decide; and Henry's counsel, too, must be taken. Mike thought he knew +what the decision and the counsel would be; and, of course, he was +not mistaken.</p> + +<p>"Why, Mike, how can you hesitate?" said Esther. "Fail, if you like, and +I shall still love you; but you don't surely think I could go on loving +a man who was frightened to try?"</p> + +<p>That was a little hard of Esther, for Mike's fear had been for her sake, +not his own. However, that and the even more vehement counsel of Henry +had the desired bracing effect; and Mike nerved himself to deal the +necessary blow at his father's tranquillity.</p> + +<p>As the writer of this book takes no special joy in heart-breaking scenes +with fathers, the painful and somewhat violent scene with Mr. Laflin is +here omitted, and left to the imagination of any reader with a taste for +such unnatural collisions. Any one over thirty will agree that all the +reason was on Mr. Laflin's side, as all the instinct was on his son's. +Luckily for Mike, the instinct was to prove genuine, and his father to +live to be prouder of his rebellion than ever he would have been of his +obedience.</p> + +<p>This scene over, it was only a matter of days--five alone were +left--before Mike must up and away in right good earnest.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mike," said Esther, "you're sure you'll go on loving me? I'm +awfully frightened of those pretty girls in ----'s company."</p> + +<p>"You needn't be," said Mike; "there's only one girl in the world will +look at a funny bit of a thing like me."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," said Esther, laughing, "some big girls have such +strange tastes."</p> + +<p>"Well, let's hope that before many months you can come and look after +me."</p> + +<p>"If we'd only a certain five pounds a week, we could get +along,--anything to be together. Of course, we'd have to be +economical--" said Esther, thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>On the last night but one before his leaving, it was Mike's turn for a +farewell dinner. Half-a-dozen of his best friends assembled at the +"Golden Bee," and toasts and tears were mingled to do him honour. Henry +happily caught the general feeling of the occasion in the following +verses, not hitherto printed. Henry was too much in earnest at the time +to regard the bathos of rhyming "stage waits" with such dignities as +"summoning fates," except for which <i>naïveté</i> the poem is perhaps not a +bad example of sincere, occasional verse:</p> + +<blockquote> +<i>Dear Mike, at last the wishéd hour draws nigh--<br> +Weary indeed, the watching of a sky<br> +For golden portent tarrying afar;<br> +But here to-night we hail your risen star,<br> +To-night we hear the cry of summoning fates--<br> + Stage waits!</i><br><br> + +<i>Stage waits! and we who love our brother so<br> +Would keep him not; but only ere he go,<br> +Led by the stars along the untried ways,<br> +We'd hold his hand in ours a little space,<br> +With grip of love that girdeth up the heart,<br> +And kiss of eyes that giveth strength to part.</i><br><br> + +<i>Some of your lovers may be half afraid<br> +To bid you forth, for fear of pitfalls laid<br> +About your feet; but we have no such fears,<br> +That cry is as a trumpet in our ears;<br> +We dare not, would not, mock those summoning fates--<br> + Stage waits!</i><br><br> + +<i>Stage waits! and shall you fear and make delay?<br> +Yes! when the mariner who long time lay,<br> +Waiting the breeze, shall anchor when it blows;<br> +Yes! when a thirsty summer-flower shall close<br> +Against the rain; or when, in reaping days,<br> +The husbandman shall set his fields ablaze.</i><br><br> + +<i>Nay, take your breeze, drink in your strengthening rain,<br> +And, while you can, make harvest of your grain;<br> +The land is fair to which that breeze shall blow.<br> +The flower is sweet the rain shall set aglow,<br> +The grain be rich within your garner gates--<br> + Stage waits!</i><br><br> + +<i>Stage waits! and we must loosen now your hand,<br> +And miss your face's gold in all our land;<br> +But yet we know that in a little while<br> +You come again a conqueror, so smile<br> +Godspeed, not parting, and, with hearts elate,<br> + We wait</i>.<br><br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Yes, for the second time the die was cast. Henry was already afoot on +the adventure perilous. Now it was Mike's turn. These young people had +passionately invoked those terrible gods who fulfil our dreams, and +already the celestial machinery was beginning to move in answer. Perhaps +it just a little took their breath, to see the great wheels so readily +turning at the touch of their young hands; but they were in for it now, +and with stout hearts must abide the issue.</p> + +<p>This was to be Esther and Mike's first experience of parting, and their +hearts sickened at the thought. Love surely does well in this world, so +full of snares and dangers, to fear to lose from its eyes for a moment +the face of its beloved; and in this respect the courage of love is the +more remarkable. How bravely it takes the appalling risks of life! To +separate for an hour may mean that never as long as the world lasts will +love hear the voice it loves again. "Good-bye," love has called gaily so +often, and waved hands from the threshold, and the beloved has called +"good-bye" and waved, and smiled back--for the last time. And yet love +faces the fears, not only of hours, but of weeks and months; weeks and +months on seas bottomless with danger, in lands rife with unknown evils, +dizzily taking the chances of desperate occupations. And the courage is +the greater, because, finally, in this world, love alone has anything to +lose. Other losses may be more or less repaired; but love's loss is, of +its essence, irreparable. Other fair faces and brave hearts the world +may bring us, but never that one face! Alas! for the most precious of +earthly things, the only precious thing of earth, there is no system of +insurance. The many waters have quenched love, and the floods drowned +it,--yet in the wide world is there no help, no hope, no recompense.</p> + +<p>The love that bound this little circle of young people together was so +strong and warm that it had developed in them an almost painful +sensibility to such risks of loss. So it was that expressions of +affection and outward endearments were more current among them than is +usual in a land where manners, from a proper fear of exaggeration, run +to a silly extreme of unresponsiveness. They never met without showing +their joy to be again together; never parted without that inner fear +that this might be their last chance of showing their love for +each other.</p> + +<p>"You all say good-bye as if you were going to America!" Myrtilla +Williamson had once said; "I suppose it's your Irish grandmother." And +no doubt the <i>empressement</i> had its odd side for those who saw only +the surface.</p> + +<p>Thus for those who love love, who love to watch for it on human faces, +Mike's good-bye at the railway station was a sight worth going far +to see.</p> + +<p>"My word, they seem to be fond of each other, these young people!" said +a lady standing at the door of the next carriage.</p> + +<p>Mike was leaning through the window, and Esther was pressing near to +him. They murmured low to each other, and their eyes were bright with +tears. A little apart stood a small group, in which Henry and Angel and +Ned were conspicuous, and Mike's sisters and Dot and Mat were there. A +callous observer might have laughed, so sad and solemn they were. Mike's +fun tried a rally; but his jests fell spiritless. It was not so much a +parting, one might have thought, as a funeral. Little was said, but eyes +were eloquent, either with tears, or with long strong glances that meant +undying faithfulness all round; and Mike knew that Henry's eyes were +quoting "<i>Allons</i>! after the great Companions, and to belong to them!"</p> + +<p>Henry's will to achieve was too strong for him to think of this as a +parting; he could only think of it as a glorious beginning. There is +something impersonal in ambition, and in the absorption of the work to +be done the ambitious man forgets his merely individual sensibilities. +To achieve, though the heavens fall,--that was Henry's ambition for Mike +and for himself.</p> + +<p>No one really believed that the train would have the hard-heartedness to +start; but at last, with deliberate intention, evidently not to be +swayed by human pity, the guard set the estranging whistle to his lips, +cold and inexorable as Nero turning down the thumb of death, and surely +Mike's sad little face began to move away from them. Hands reached out +to him, eyes streamed, handkerchiefs fluttered,--but nothing could hold +him back; and when at last a curve in the line had swallowed the white +speck of his face, they turned away from the dark gulf where the train +had been as though it were a newly opened grave.</p> + +<p>A great to-do to make about a mere parting!--says someone. No doubt, my +dear sir! All depends upon one's standard of value. No doubt these young +people weighed life in fantastic scales. Their standard of value was, no +doubt, uncommon. To love each other was better than rubies; to lose each +other was bitter as death. For others other values,--they had found +their only realities in the human affections.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> + +<h3>ESTHER AND HENRY ONCE MORE</h3> +<br> + +<p>Yes, Mike had really gone. Henceforth for ever so long, he would only +exist for Esther in letters, or as a sad little voice at the end of a +wire. It had been arranged that Henry should take Esther with him for +dinner that evening to the brightest restaurant in Tyre. He was a great +believer in being together, and also in dinner, as comforters of your +sad heart. Perhaps, too, he was a little glad to feel Esther leaning +gently upon him once more. Their love was too sure and lasting and +ever-present to have many opportunities of being dramatic. Nature does +not make a fuss about gravitation. One of the most wonderful and +powerful of laws, it is yet of all laws the most retiring. Gravitation +never decks itself in rainbows, nor does it vaunt its undoubted strength +in thunder. It is content to make little show, because it is very +strong; yet you have always to reckon with it. It is undemonstrative, +but it is always there. The love of Esther and Henry was like that. It +has made little show in this history, but few readers can have missed +its presence in the atmosphere. It might go for weeks without its +festival; but there it was all the time, ready for any service, staunch +for any trial. It was one of the laws which kept the little world I have +been describing slung safely in space, and securely shining.</p> + +<p>It was, indeed, something like a perfect relationship,--this love of +Esther and Henry. Had the laws of nature permitted it, it is probable +that Mike and Angel would have been forced to seek their mates +elsewhere. As it was, though it was thus less than marriage, it was more +than friendship--as the holy intercourse of a mother and a son is more +than friendship. Freed from the perturbations of sex, it yet gained +warmth and exhilaration from the unconscious presence of that +stimulating difference. Though they were brother and sister, friend and +friend, Henry and Esther were also man and woman. So satisfying were +they to each other, that when they sat thus together, the truth must be +told, that, for the time at all events, they missed no other man +or woman.</p> + +<p>"I have always you," said Esther.</p> + +<p>"Do I still matter, then?" said Henry. "Are you sure the old love is not +growing old?"</p> + +<p>"You know it can never grow old. There is only one Mike; but there is +only one Henry too. It's a good love to have, Harry, isn't it? It makes +one feel so much safer in the world."</p> + +<p>"Dear little Esther! Do you remember those old beatings, and that night +you brought me the cake? Bless you!"--and Henry reached his hand across +the table, and laid it so kindly on Esther's that a hovering waiter +retreated out of delicacy, mistaking the pair for lovers. It was a +mistake that was often made when they were together; and they had +sometimes laughed, when travelling, at the kind-hearted way passengers +on the point of entering their carriage had suddenly made up their minds +not to disturb the poor newly-married young things.</p> + +<p>"And how we used to hate you once!" said Esther; "one can hardly +understand it now. Do you remember how on Sunday afternoons you would +insist on playing at church, and how, with a tablecloth for a surplice, +you used to be the minister? How you used to storm if we poor things +missed any of the responses!"</p> + +<p>"The monstrous egoism of it all!" said Henry, laughing. "It was all got +up to give me a stage, and nothing else. I didn't care whether you +enjoyed it or not. What dragons children are!"</p> + +<p>"'Dragons of the prime, that tare each other in their slime,'" quoted +Esther. "Yes, we tore each other, and no mistake--"</p> + +<p>"Well, I've made up for it since, haven't I?" said Henry. "I hope I'm a +humble enough brother of the beautiful to please you nowadays."</p> + +<p>"You're the truest, most reliable thing in the world," said Esther; "I +always think of you as something strong and true to come to--"</p> + +<p>"Except Mike!"</p> + +<p>"No, not even except Mike. We'll call it a draw--dear little Mike! To +think of him going further and further away every minute! I wonder where +he is by now. He must have reached Rugby long since."</p> + +<p>At that moment the waiter ventured to approach with a silver tray. A +telegram,--it was indeed a telegram of tears and distance from Mike, +given in at Rugby. Even so long parted and so far away, Mike was still +true. He had not yet forgotten!</p> + +<p>These young people were great extravagants of the emotional telegram. +They were probably among the earliest to apply electricity for +heart-breaking messages. Some lovers feel it a profanation thus to +reveal their souls beneath the eye of a telegraph-operator; but the +objection of delicacy ceases if you can regard the operator in his +actual capacity as a part of the machine. French perhaps is an advisable +medium; though, if the operator misunderstands it, your love is apt to +take strange forms at its destination, and if he understands it, you may +as well use English at once.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mike! God bless him!" and they pledged Mike in Esther's favourite +champagne. The wives of great actor-managers must early inure themselves +to champagne.</p> + +<p>"But if you're jealous of Mike," said Esther, presently, taking up the +dropped thread of their talk; "what about Angel?"</p> + +<p>"Of course it was only nonsense," said Henry. "I know you love Angel far +too much to be jealous of her, as I love Mike; and that's just the +beautiful harmony of it all. We are just a little impregnable world of +four,--four loving hearts against the world."</p> + +<p>"How clever it was of you to find Angel!"</p> + +<p>"I found Mike, too!" said Henry, laughing.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I know; but then I discovered you."</p> + +<p>"Ah, but a still higher honour belongs to me, for I discovered you," +retorted Henry. "When you consider that I discovered three such +wonderful persons as you and Angel and Mike, don't you think, on the +whole, that I'm singularly modest?"</p> + +<p>"Do you love me?" said Esther, presently, quite irrelevantly.</p> + +<p>"Do you love <i>me</i>?"</p> + +<p>"I asked first."</p> + +<p>"Well, for the sake of argument, let us say 'yes.'"</p> + +<p>"How much?"</p> + +<p>"As big as the world."</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, then, let's have some Benedictine with the coffee!" said +Esther.</p> + +<p>"I've thought of something better, more 'sacramental,'" said Henry, +smiling, "but you couldn't conscientiously drink it with me. It's the +red drink of perfect love. Will you drink it with me?"</p> + +<p>"Of course I will."</p> + +<p>So the waiter brought a bottle bearing the beautiful words, "<i>Parfait +Amour</i>."</p> + +<p>"It's like blood," said Esther; "it makes me a little frightened."</p> + +<p>"Would you rather not drink it?" asked Henry. "You know if you drink it +with me, you must drink it with no one else. It is the law of it that we +can only drink it with one."</p> + +<p>"Not even with Mike?"</p> + +<p>"Not even with Mike."</p> + +<p>"What of Angel?"</p> + +<p>"I will drink it with no one but you as long as I live."</p> + +<p>"I will drink it then."</p> + +<p>They held up their glasses.</p> + +<p>"Dear old Esther!"</p> + +<p>"Dear old Henry!"</p> + +<p>And then they laughed at their solemnity. It was deeply sworn!</p> + +<p>When Esther reached home that evening, she found a further telegram from +Mike, announcing his arrival at Euston; and she had scarcely read it +when she heard her father's voice calling her. She went immediately to +the dining-room.</p> + +<p>"Esther, dear," he said, "your mother and I want a word with you."</p> + +<p>"No, James, you must speak for yourself in this," said Mrs. Mesurier, +evidently a little perturbed.</p> + +<p>"Well, dear, if I must be alone in the matter, I must bear it; I cannot +shrink from my duty on that account." Then, turning to Esther, "I called +you in to speak to you about Mike Laflin--"</p> + +<p>"Yes, father," exclaimed Esther, with a little gasp of surprise.</p> + +<p>"I met Mr. Laflin on the boat this morning, and was much astonished and +grieved to hear of the rash step his son has chosen to take. The matter +has evidently been kept from me,"--strictly speaking, it had; "I +understand, though on that again I have not been consulted, that you and +Mike have for some time been informally engaged to each other. Now you +know my views on the theatre, and I am sure that you must see that +Mike's having taken such a step must at once put an end to any such +idea. Your own sense of propriety would, I am sure, tell you that, +without any words from me--"</p> + +<p>"Father!" cried Esther, in astonishment.</p> + +<p>"You know that I considered Mike a very nice lad. His family is +respectable; and he would have come into a very comfortable business, if +he hadn't taken this foolish freak into his head--"</p> + +<p>"But, father, you have laughed at his recitations, yourself, many a +time, here of an evening. What difference can there be?"</p> + +<p>"There is the difference of the theatre, the contaminating atmosphere, +the people it attracts, the harm it does--your father, as you know, has +never been within a theatre in his life; is it likely that he can look +with calmness upon his daughter marrying a man whose livelihood is to be +gained in a scandalous and debasing profession?"</p> + +<p>"Father, I cannot listen to your talking of Mike like that. If it is +wrong to make people innocently happy, to make them laugh and forget +their troubles, to--to--well, if it's wrong to be Mike--I'm sorry; but, +wrong or right, I love him, and nothing will ever make me give him up."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mesurier here interrupted, "I told you, James, how it would be. You +cannot change young hearts. The times are not the same as when you and I +were young; and, though I'm sure I don't want to go against you, I +think you are too hard on Esther. Love is love after all--and Mike's one +of the best-hearted lads that ever walked."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, mother," said Esther, impulsively, throwing her arms round +her mother's neck, and bursting into tears, "I--I will never +give--give--him up."</p> + +<p>"No, dear, no; now don't distress yourself. It will all come right. Your +father doesn't quite understand." And then a great tempest of sobbing +came over Esther, and swept her away to her own room.</p> + +<p>The father and mother turned to each other with some anger.</p> + +<p>"James, I'm surprised at your distressing the poor child like that +to-night; you might have known she would be sensitive, with Mike only +gone to-day! You could surely have waited till to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"I am surprised, Mary, that you can encourage her as you did. You cannot +surely uphold the theatre?"</p> + +<p>"Well, James, I don't know,--there are theatres and theatres, and actors +and actors; and there have been some very good men actors after all, and +some very bad men ministers, if it comes to that," she added; "and +theatre or no theatre, love's love in spite of all the fathers and +mothers in the world--"</p> + +<p>"All right, Mary, I would prefer then that we spoke no more on the +matter for this evening," and James Mesurier turned to his diary, to +record, along with the state of the weather, and the engagements of the +day, the undutiful conduct of Esther, and a painful difference with +his wife.</p> + +<p>Strange, that men who have themselves loved and begotten should thus for +a moment imagine that a small social prejudice, or a narrow religious +formula, can break the purpose of a young and vigorous passion. Do they +realise what it is they are proposing to obstruct? This is love--<i>love</i>, +my dear sir, at once the mightiest might, and the rightest right in the +universe! This is--Niagara--the Atlantic--the power of the stars--and +the strength of the tides. It is all the winds of the world, and all the +fires of the centre. You surely cannot be serious in asking it to take, +in exchange, some obsolete objection against its beloved!</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXXIX</h2> + +<h3>MIKE AFAR</h3> +<br> + +<p>This collision with her father braced up Esther's nerves, and made +Mike's absence easier to bear. Her father made no more allusion to it. +He was entering that period when fathers, however despotic, content +themselves with protest, where once they have governed by royal +proclamation. He was losing heart to contend with his children. They +must go their own ways--though it must not be without occasional severe +and solemn warnings on his part.</p> + +<p>Mike and Esther wrote to each other twice a week. They had talked of +every day, but a wise instinct prompted them to the less romantic, but +likely the more enduring arrangement. It would be none the less open to +them to write fourteen letters a week if they wished, but to have had to +admit that one letter a day was a serious tax, not only on one's other +occupations, including idleness, but also on the amount of +subject-matter available, would have been a dangerous correction of an +impulsive miscalculation.</p> + +<p>Second-rate London lodgings are not great cheerers of the human spirit, +and Mike was very lonely in his first letter or two; but, as the +rehearsals proceeded, it was evident that he was taking hold of his new +world, and the letter which told of his first night, and of his own +encouraging success in it, was buoyant with the rising tide of the +future. His chief had affectionately laid his hand on his shoulder, as +he came off from his scene, and, in the hearing of the whole company, +prophesied a great future for him.</p> + +<p>Mike had been born under a lucky star; and he had hardly been in London +two months when accident very perceptibly brightened it. The chief +comedian in the company fell ill; and though Mike had had so little +experience, his chief had so much confidence in his native gift, that he +cast him for the vacant part. Mike more than justified the confidence, +and not only pleased him, but succeeded in individualising himself with +the audience. He had only played it for a week, when one Saturday +evening the audience, after calling the manager himself three times, set +up a cry for "Laflin." The obsequious attendant pretended to consider it +as a fourth call for the manager, and made as if to move the curtain +aside for him once more; but, with a magnanimity rare indeed in a "star" +of his magnitude, "No, no!" he said; "it is Mr. Laflin they want. Quick, +lad, and take your first call."</p> + +<p>So little Mike stepped before the curtain, and made his first bow to an +affectionate burst of applause. What happy tears would have glittered in +Esther's eyes had she been there to see it, and in Henry's too, and +particularly, perhaps, in excitable Angel's!</p> + +<p>Even so soon was the blossom giving promise of the fruit.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XL"></a>CHAPTER XL</h2> + +<h3>A LEGACY MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD</h3> +<br> + +<p>Meanwhile, Henry plodded away at Aunt Tipping's, working sometimes on a +volume of essays for the London publisher, and sometimes on his novel, +now and again writing a review, and earning an odd guinea for a poem; +and now and again indulging in a day of richly doing nothing. Otherwise, +one day was like another, with the many exceptions of the days on which +he saw Angel or Esther. With Ned, he spent many of his evenings; and he +soon formed the pleasant habit of dropping in on Gerard, last thing +before bed-time, for a smoke and half an hour's chat.</p> + +<p>There is always a good deal of youth left in any one who genuinely loves +youth; and Gerard always spoke of his youth as Adam, in his declining +years, might have spoken of Paradise. For him life was just youth--and +the rest of it death.</p> + +<p>"After thirty," he would say, "the happiest life is only history +repeating itself. I am no cynic,--far from it; but the worst of life is +the monotony of the bill of fare. To do a thing once, even twice, is +delightful--perhaps even a third time is successfully possible; but to +do it four times, is middle age. If you think of it, what is there to do +after thirty that one ought not to have achieved to perfection before? +You know the literary dictum, that the poet who hasn't written a +masterpiece before he is thirty will never write any after. Of course, +there are exceptions; I am speaking of the rule. In business, for +example, what future is there for the man who has not already a dashing +past at thirty? Of course, the bulk, the massive trunk and the +impressive foliage of his business, must come afterwards; but the tree +must have been firmly rooted and stoutly branched before then, and able +to go on growing on its own account. The work, in fact, must have +been done.</p> + +<p>"Take perhaps the only thing really worth doing in life," and Gerard +perceptibly saddened. "That is, marrying a woman you love, or I +should say <i>the</i> woman, for you only really <i>love</i> one woman--I'm +old-fashioned enough to think that,--well, I say, marrying the woman you +love, and bringing into the world that miracle of miracles,--a child +that shall be something of you and all her: that certainly is something +to have done before thirty, and not to be repeated, perhaps, more than +once before or after. She will want a boy like you, and you will have a +girl like her. That you may easily accomplish before thirty. Afterwards, +however, if you go on repeating each other, what do you do but blur the +individuality of the original masterpieces--though," pursued Gerard, +laughing, always ready to forget his original argument in the +seductiveness of an unexpected development of it, "though, after all, I +admit, there might be a temptation sometimes to improve upon the +originals. 'Agnes, my dear,' we might say, 'I'm not quite satisfied yet +with the shade of Eva's hair. It's nearly yours, but not quite. It's an +improvement on Anna's, whose eyes now are exactly yours. Eva's, +unfortunately, are not so faithful. I'm afraid we'll have to try again.'</p> + +<p>"No, but seriously," he once more began, "for a really vital and +successful life there is no adequate employment of the faculties after +thirty, except, of course, in the repetition of former successes. No; I +even withdraw that,--not the repetition, only the conservation, the +feeding, of former successes. The success is in the creation. When a +world is once created, any fool can keep it spinning.</p> + +<p>"Man's life is at least thirty years too long. Two score years is more +than enough for us to say what we were sent here to say; and if you'll +consider those biographies in which you are most interested, the +biographies of great writers, you cannot but bear me out. What, for +instance, did Keats and Shelley and Burns and Byron lose by dying, all +of them long before they were forty,--Keats even long before he was +thirty; and what did Wordsworth and Coleridge gain by living so long +after? Wordsworth and Coleridge didn't even live to repeat themselves, +else, of course, one would have begged them to go on living for ever; +for some repetitions, it is admitted, are welcome,--for instance, won't +you have a little more whisky?"</p> + +<p>Henry always agreed so completely with Gerard's talk, or at least so +delighted in it, that he had little scope of opportunity to say much +himself; and Gerard was too keen a talker to complain of a rapt +young listener.</p> + +<p>"How old are you?" he said, presently.</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two next month."</p> + +<p>"Twenty-two! How wonderful to be twenty-two! Yet I don't suppose you've +realised it in the least. In your own view, you're an aged philosopher, +white with a past, and bowed down with the cares of a future. Just you +stay in bed all day to-morrow, and ponder on the wonderfulness of being +twenty-two!</p> + +<p>"I'm forty-two. You're beginning--I'm done with. And yet, in some ways, +I believe I'm younger than you--though, perhaps, alas! what I consider +the youth in me is only the wish to be young again, the will to do and +enjoy, without the force and the appetite. But, by the way, when I say +I'm forty-two, I mean that I'm forty-two in the course of next week, +next Thursday, in fact, and if you'll do me that kindness, I should be +grateful if you would join me that evening in celebrating the melancholy +occasion. I've got a great mind to enlist your sympathy in a little +ancient history, if it won't be too great a tax upon your goodness; but +I'll think it over between now and then."</p> + +<p>Gerard's birthday had come; and the ancient history he had spoken of +had proved to be a chapter of his own history, the beauty and sadness of +which had made an impression upon Henry, to be rendered ineffaceable a +very few days after in a sudden and terrible manner.</p> + +<p>One early morning about four, just as it was growing light, he had +suddenly awakened with a strong feeling that some one was bending over +him. He opened his eyes, to see, as he thought, Gerard hastily leaving +his bedside.</p> + +<p>"Gerard!" he cried, "what's the matter?" but the figure gave no answer, +faded away down the long room, and disappeared. Henry sat up in bed and +struck a light, his heart beating violently. But there was no one there, +and the door was closed. It had evidently been one of those dreams that +persist on the eye for a moment after waking. Yet it left him uneasy; +and presently he wondered if Gerard could be ill. He determined to see; +so, slipping on his dressing-gown, he crossed the landing to Gerard's +room, and, softly knocking, opened the door and put in his head.</p> + +<p>"Gerard, old chap, are you all right?--Gerard--"</p> + +<p>There was no answer, and the room seemed unaccountably still. He +listened for the sound of breathing, but he couldn't hear it.</p> + +<p>"Gerard!" he cried, again louder, but there was still no answer; and +then, with the silence, a chill terror began to creep through his blood. +He had never yet seen death; and perhaps if he had the terror in his +thought would not have been lessened. With a heart that had almost +stopped beating, and knees that shook beneath him, he pushed open the +door and walked over to the bed. It was still too dark to see more than +outlines and masses of white and black; but even so he could see that +the stillness with which Gerard was lying was the stillness of death.</p> + +<p>His next thought was to rouse Aunt Tipping; and together the two bent +over the dead face.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he's gone," said Aunt Tipping; "poor gentlemen, how beautiful he +looks!" and they both gazed in silence upon the calm, smiling face.</p> + +<p>"Well, he's better off," she said, presently, leaning over him, and +softly pressing down the lids of his eyes.</p> + +<p>Henry involuntarily drew away.</p> + +<p>"Dear lad, there's nothing to be frightened of," said his aunt. "He's +as harmless as a baby."</p> + +<p>Then she took a handkerchief from a drawer, and spread it gently over +the dead man's face. To Aunt Tipping the dead were indeed as little +children, and inspired her with a strange motherly tenderness. Many had +been the tired silent ones whose eyes she had closed, and whose limbs +she had washed against their last resting place. They were so helpless +now; they could do nothing any more for themselves.</p> + +<p>Later in the day, Henry came again and sat long by the dead man's side. +It seemed uncompanionable to have grown thus suddenly afraid of him, to +leave him thus alone in that still room. And as he sat and watched him, +he gave to his memory a solemn service of faithful thought. Thus it was +he went over again the words in which Gerard had made him the +depository, the legatee, of his most sacred possession.</p> + +<p>Gerard had evidently had some presentiment of his approaching end.</p> + +<p>"I am going," he had said, "to place the greatest confidence in you one +man can place in another, pay you the greatest compliment. I shall die +some day, and something tells me that that divine event is not very far +off. Now I have no one in the world who cares an old 'J' pen for me, and +a new one is perhaps about as much as I care for any one--with one +exception, and that is a woman whom I shall never see again. She is not +dead, but has been worse than dead for me these ten years. I am optimist +enough to believe that her old love for me still survives, making sweet +the secret places of her soul. Never once in all these years to have +doubted her love has been more than most marriages; but were I to live +for another ten years, and still another, I would believe in it still. +But the stars were against us. We met too late. We met when she had long +been engaged to a friend of her youth, a man noble and true, to whom she +owed much, and whom she felt it a kind of murder to desert. It was one +of those fallacious chivalries of feeling which are the danger of +sensitive and imaginative minds. Religion strengthened it, as it is so +apt to strengthen any form of self-destruction, short of technical +suicide. There was but a month to their marriage when we met. For us it +was a month of rapture and agonies, of heaven shot through with hell. I +saw further than she. I begged her at least to wait a year; but the +force of my appeal was weakened by scruples similar to her own. To rob +another of his happiness is an act from which we may well shrink, though +we can clearly see that the happiness was really destined for us, and +can never be his in any like degree. During this time I had received +from her many letters, letters such as a woman only writes in the +May-morning of her passion; and one day I received the last. There was +in it one sentence which when I read it I think my heart broke, 'Do you +believe,' it ran, 'in a love that can lie asleep, as in a trance, in +this world, to awaken again in another, a love that during centuries of +silence can still be true, and be love still in a thousand years? If you +do, go on loving me. For that is the only love I dare give you. I must +love you no more in this world.'</p> + +<p>"Each morning as I have risen, and each night as I have turned to sleep, +those words have repeated themselves again and again in my heart, for +ten years. It was so I became the Ashton Gerard you know to-day. Since +that day, we have never met or written to each other. All I know is that +she is still alive, and still with him, and never would I disturb their +peace. When I die, I would not have her know it. If love <i>is</i> immortal, +we shall meet again--when I am worthier to meet her. Such reunions are +either mere dreams, or they are realities to which the strongest forces +of the universe are pledged."</p> + +<p>Henry's only comment had been to grip Gerard's hand, and give him the +sympathy of silence.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Gerard, once more after a while, "it is about those letters +I want to speak to you. They are here," and he unlocked a drawer and +drew from it a little silver box. "I always keep them here. The key of +the drawer is on this ring, and this little gold key is the key of the +box itself. I tell you this, because I have what you may regard as a +strange request to make.</p> + +<p>"I suppose most men would consider it their duty either to burn these +letters, or leave instructions for them to be buried with them. That is +a gruesome form of sentiment in which I have too much imagination to +indulge. Both my ideas of duty and sentiment take a different form. The +surname of the writer of these letters is nowhere revealed in them, nor +are there any references in them by which she could ever be identified. +Therefore the menace to her fair fame in their preservation is not a +question involved. Now when the simplest woman is in love, she writes +wonderfully; but when a woman of imagination and intellect is caught by +the fire of passion, she becomes a poet. Once in her life, every such +woman is an artist; once, for some one man's unworthy sake, she becomes +inspired, and out of the fulness of her heart writes him letters warm +and real as the love-cries of Sappho. Such are the letters in this +little box. They are the classic of a month's passion, written as no man +has ever yet been able to write his love. Do you think it strange then +that I should shrink from destroying them? I would as soon burn the +songs of Shelley. They are living things. Shall I selfishly bury the +beating heart of them in the silence of the grave?</p> + +<p>"So, Mesurier," he continued, affectionately, "when I met you and +understood something of your nature, I thought that in you I had found +one who was worthy to guard this treasure for me, and perhaps pass it on +again to some other chosen spirit--so that these beautiful words of a +noble woman's heart shall not die--for when a man loves a woman, +Mesurier, as you yourself must know, he is insatiable to hear her +praise, and it is agony for him to think that her memory may suffer +extinction. Therefore, Mesurier,--Henry, let me call you,--I want to +give the memory of my love into your hands. I want you to love it for +me, when perhaps I can love it no more. I want you sometimes to open +this box, and read in these letters, as if they were your own; I want +you sometimes to speak softly the name of 'Helen,' when my lips can +speak it no more."</p> + +<p>Such was the beautiful legacy of which Henry found himself the possessor +by Gerard's death. Early on that day he had remembered his promise to +his dead friend, and had found the silver box, and locked it away among +his own most sacred things. Some day, in an hour and place upon which +none might break, he would open the little box and read Helen's letters, +as Gerard had wished. Already one sentence was fixed unforgettably upon +his mind, and he said it over softly to himself as he sat by Gerard's +silent bed: "Do you believe in a love that can lie asleep, as in a +trance in this world, to awaken again in another,--a love that during +centuries of silence can still be true, and be love still in a thousand +years? If you do, go on loving me. For that is the only love I dare give +you; I must love you no more in this world."</p> + +<p>Strange dreams of the indomitable dust! Already another man's love was +growing dear to him. Already his soul said the name of "Helen" softly +for Gerard's sake.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLI"></a>CHAPTER XLI</h2> + +<h3>LABORIOUS DAYS</h3> +<br> + +<p>With Gerard's death, Henry began to find Aunt Tipping's too sad a place +to go on living in. It had become haunted; and when new people moved +into Gerard's rooms, it became still more painful for him. It was as +though Gerard had been dispossessed and driven out. So he cast about for +some new shelter; and, one day, chance having taken him to the shipping +end of the city, he came upon some old offices which seemed full of +anxiety to be let. Inquiring of a chatty little housekeeper's wife, he +discovered, away at the echoing top of the building, a big, well-lighted +room, for which she thought the owner would be glad to take ten pounds a +year. That whole storey was deserted. Henry made up his mind at once, +and broke the news to Aunt Tipping that evening. It was the withering of +one of her few rays of poetry, and she struggled to keep him; but when +she saw how it was, the good woman insisted that he should take +something from her towards furnishing. Receiving was nothing like so +blessed as giving for Aunt Tipping. That old desk,--yes, she had bought +it for him,--that he must certainly take, and think of his old aunt +sometimes as he wrote his great books on it; and some bed-linen she +could well afford. She would take no denial.</p> + +<p>Angel and Esther were then called in to help him in the purchase of a +carpet, a folding-bed, an old sofa, and a few chairs. A carpenter got to +work on the bookshelves, and in a fortnight's time still another +habitation had been built for the Muse,--a habitation from which she was +not destined to remove again, till she and Angel and Henry all moved +into one house together,--a removal which was, as yet, too far off to be +included in this history.</p> + +<p>Ten pounds a year, a folding-bed, and a teapot!--this was Henry's new +formula for the cultivation of literature. He had so far progressed in +his ambitions as to have arrived at the dignity of a garret of his own, +and he liked to pretend that soon he might be romantically fortunate +enough to sit face to face with starvation. He knew, however, that it +would be a starvation mitigated by supplies from three separate, +well-lardered homes. A lad with a sweetheart and a sister, a mother and +an aunt, all in love with him, is not likely to become an authority on +starvation in its severest forms.</p> + +<p>A stern law had been passed that Henry's daytime hours were to be as +strictly respected as those of a man of business; yet quite often, about +eleven o'clock in the morning, there would come a heavenly whisper along +the passage and a little knock on the door, soft as a flower tapping +against a window-pane.</p> + +<p>"Thank goodness, that's Angel!</p> + +<p>"Angel, bless you! How glad I am to see you! I can't get on a bit with +my work this morning."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I haven't come to interrupt you, dear. I sha'n't keep you five +minutes. Only I thought, dear, you'd be so tired of pressed beef and +tinned tongue, and so I thought I'd make a little hot-pot for you. I +bought the things for it as I came along, and it won't take five +minutes, if Mrs. Glass [the housekeeper] will only lend me a basin to +put it in, and bake it for you in her oven. Now, dear, you mustn't--you +know I mustn't stay. See now, I'll just take off my hat and jacket and +run along to Mrs. Glass, to get what I want. I'll be back in a minute. +Well, then, just one--now that's enough; good-bye," and off she +would skip.</p> + +<p>If you want to know how fairies look when they are making hot-pot, you +should have seen Angel's absorbed little shining face.</p> + +<p>"Now, do be quiet, Henry. I'm busy. Why don't you get on with your work? +I won't speak a word."</p> + +<p>"Angel, dear, you might just as well stay and help me to eat it. I +sha'n't do any work to-day, I know for certain. It's one of my +bad days."</p> + +<p>"Now, Henry, that's lazy. You mustn't give way like that. You'll make me +wish I hadn't come. It's all my fault."</p> + +<p>"No, really, dear, it isn't. I haven't done a stroke all morning--though +I've sat with my pen for two hours. You might stay, Angel, just an +hour or two."</p> + +<p>"No, Henry; mother wants me back soon. She's house-cleaning. And +besides, I mustn't. No--no--you see I've nearly finished now--see! Get +me the salt and pepper. There now--that looks nice, doesn't it? Now +aren't I a good little housewife?"</p> + +<p>"You would be, if you'd only stay. Do stay, Angel. Really, darling, it +will be all the same if you go. I know I shall do nothing. Look at my +morning's work, and he brought her a sheet of paper containing two lines +and a half of new-born prose, one line and a half of which was +plentifully scratched out. To this argument he added two or three +persuasive embraces.</p> + +<p>"It's really true, Henry? Well, of course, I oughtn't; but if you can't +work, of course you can't. And you must have a little rest sometimes, I +know. Well, then, I'll stay; but only till we've finished lunch, you +know, and we must have it early. I won't stay a minute past two o'clock, +do you hear? And now I'll run along with this to Mrs. Glass."</p> + +<p>When Angel had gone promptly at three, as likely as not another step +would be heard coming down the passage, and a feminine rustle, +suggesting a fuller foliage of skirts, pause outside the door, then a +sort of brotherly-sisterly knock.</p> + +<p>"Esther! Why, you've just missed Angel; what a pity!"</p> + +<p>"Well, dear, I only ran up for half-a-minute. I was shopping in town, +and I couldn't resist looking in to see how the poor boy was getting on. +No, dear, I won't take my things off. I must catch the half-past three +boat, and then I'll keep you from your work?"</p> + +<p>Esther always said this with a sort of suggestion in her voice that it +was just possible Henry might have found some new way of both keeping +her there and doing his work at the same time; as though she had said, +"I know you cannot possibly work while I am here; but, of course, if you +can, and talking to me all the time won't interfere with it--well, +I'll stay."</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, you won't really. To tell the truth, I've done none to-day. I +can't get into the mood."</p> + +<p>"So you've been getting Angel to help you. Oh, well, of course, if Angel +can be allowed to interrupt you, I suppose I can too. Well, then, I'll +stay a quarter of an hour."</p> + +<p>"But you may as well take your things off, and I'll make a cup of tea, +eh? That'll be cosey, won't it? And then you can read me Mike's last +letter, eh?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, he's doing splendidly, dear! I had a lovely letter from him this +morning. Would you really care to hear a bit of it?"</p> + +<p>And Esther would proceed to read, picking her way among the endearments +and the diminutives.</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> glad, dear. Why, if he goes on at this rate, you'll be able to +get married in no time."</p> + +<p>"Yes; isn't it splendid, dear? I am so happy! What I'd give to see his +little face for five minutes! Wouldn't you?"</p> + +<p>"Rather. Perhaps he'll be able to run up on Bank Holiday."</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid not, dear. He speaks of it in his letter, and just hopes for +it; but rather fears they'll have to play at Brighton, or some other +stupid seaside place."</p> + +<p>"That's a bother. Yes, dear old Mike! To think of him working away there +all by himself--God bless him! Do you know he's never seen this old +room? It struck me yesterday. It doesn't seem quite warmed till he's +seen it. Wouldn't it be lovely to have him here some night?--one of our +old, long evenings. Well, I suppose it will really come one of these +days. And then we shall be having you married, and going off to London +in clouds of glory, while poor old Henry grubs away down here in Tyre."</p> + +<p>"Well, if we do go first, you will not be long after us, dear; and if +only Mike could make a really great hit, why, in five years' time we +might all be quite rich. Won't it be wonderful?"</p> + +<p>Then the kettle boiled, and Henry made the tea; and when it had long +since been drunk, Esther began to think it must be five o'clock, and, +horrified to find it a quarter to six, confessed to being ashamed of +herself, and tried to console her conscience by the haste of +her good-bye.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I've wasted your afternoon," she said; "but we don't often +get a chat nowadays, do we? Good-bye, dear. Go on loving me, won't you?"</p> + +<p>After that, Henry would give the day up as a bad job, and begin to +wonder if Ned would be dropping in that evening for a smoke; and as that +was Ned's almost nightly custom about eight o'clock, the chances of +Henry's disappointment were not serious.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLII"></a>CHAPTER XLII</h2> + +<h3>A HEAVIER FOOTFALL</h3> +<br> + +<p>One morning, as Henry was really doing a little work, a more ponderous +step broke the silence of his landing, a heavy footfall full of +friendship. Certainly that was not Angel, nor even the more weighty +Esther, though when the knock came it was little and shy as a woman's.</p> + +<p>Henry threw open the door, but for a moment there was no one to be seen; +and then, recalling the idiosyncrasy of a certain new friend whom by +that very token he guessed it might be, he came out on to the landing, +to find a great big friendly man in corpulent blue serge, a rough, dark +beard, and a slouched hat, standing a few feet off in a deprecating +way,--which really meant that if there were any ladies in the room with +Mr. Mesurier, he would prefer to call another time. For though he had +two or three grownup daughters of his own, this giant of a man was as +shy of a bit of a thing like Angel, whom he had met there one day, as +though he were a mere boy. He always felt, he once said in explanation, +as though he might break them in shaking hands. They affected him like +the presence of delicate china, and yet he could hold a baby deftly as +an elephant can nip up a flower; and to see him turn over the pages of a +delicate <i>édition de luxe</i> was a lesson in tenderness. For this big man +who, as he would himself say, looked for all the world like a pirate, +was as insatiable of fine editions as a school-girl of chocolate creams. +He was one of those dearest of God's creatures, a gentle giant; and his +voice, when it wasn't necessary to be angry, was as low and kind as an +old nurse at the cradle's side.</p> + +<p>Henry had come to know him through his little Scotch printer, who +printed circulars and bill-heads, for the business over which Mr. +Fairfax--for that was his name--presided. By day he was the vigorous +brain of a huge emporium, a sort of Tyrian Whiteley's; but day and night +he was a lover of books, and you could never catch him so busy but that +he could spare the time mysteriously to beckon you into his private +office, and with the glee of a child, show you his last large paper. He +not only loved books; but he was rumoured liberally to have assisted one +or two distressed men of genius well-known to the world. The tales of +the surreptitious goodness of his heart were many; but it was known too +that the big kind man had a terribly searching eye under his briery +brows, and could be as stern towards ingratitude as he was soft to +misfortune. Henry once caught a glimpse of this as they spoke of a +mutual friend whom he had helped to no purpose. Mr. Fairfax never used +many words, on this occasion he was grimly laconic.</p> + +<p>"Rat-poison!" he said, shaking his head. "Rat-poison!" It was his way of +saying that that was the only cure for that particular kind of man.</p> + +<p>It was evident that his generous eye had seen how things were with +Henry. He had subscribed for at least a dozen copies of "The Book of +Angelica," and in several ways shown his interest in the struggling +young poet. As has been said, he had seen Angelica one day, and his +shyness had not prevented his heart from going out to these two young +people, and the dream he saw in their eyes. He had determined to do +what he could to help them, and to-day he had come with a plan.</p> + +<p>"I hope you're not too proud to give me a hand, Mr. Mesurier, in a +little idea I've got," he said.</p> + +<p>"I think you know how proud I am, and how proud I'm not, Mr. Fairfax," +said Henry. "I'm sure anything I could do for you would make me proud, +if that's what you mean."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. Thank you. But you mustn't speak too fast. It's +advertising--does the word frighten you? No? Well, it's a scheme I've +thought of for a little really artistic and humorous advertising +combined. I've got a promise from one of the most original artists of +the day, you know his name, to do the pictures; and I want you to do the +verses--at, I may say, your own price. It's not, perhaps, the highest +occupation for a poet; but it's something to be going on with; and if +we've got good posters as advertisements, I don't see why we shouldn't +have good humorous verse. What do you think of it?"</p> + +<p>"I think it's capital," said Henry, who was almost too ready to turn his +hand to anything. "Of course I'll do it; only too glad."</p> + +<p>"Well, that's settled. Now, name your price. Don't be frightened!"</p> + +<p>"Really, I can't. I haven't the least idea what I should get. Wait till +I have done a few of the verses, and you can give me what you please."</p> + +<p>"No, sir," said Mr. Fairfax; "business is business. If you won't name a +figure, I must. Will you consider a hundred pounds sufficient?"</p> + +<p>"A hundred pounds!" Henry gasped out, the tears almost starting to his +eyes.</p> + +<p>Mr. Fairfax did not miss his frank joy, and liked him for his +ingenuousness.</p> + +<p>"All right, then; we'll call it settled. I shall be ready for the verses +as soon as you care to write them."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Fairfax, I will tell you frankly that this is a great deal to me, +and I thank you from my heart."</p> + +<p>"Not a word, not a word, my boy. We want your verses, we want your +verses. That's right, isn't it? Good verses, good money! Now no more of +that," and the good man, in alarm lest he should be thanked further, +made an abrupt and awkward farewell.</p> + +<p>"It will keep the lad going a few months anyhow," he said to himself, +as he tramped downstairs, glad that he'd been able to think of +something; for, while the scheme was admirable as an advertisement, and +would more than repay Messrs. Owens' outlay, its origin had been pure +philanthropy. Such good angels do walk this world in the guise of bulky, +quite unpoetic-looking business-men.</p> + +<p>"One hundred pounds!" said Henry, over and over again to himself. "One +hundred pounds! What news for Angel!"</p> + +<p>He had soon a scheme in his head for the book, which entirely hit Mr. +Fairfax's fancy. It was to make a volume of verse celebrating each of +the various departments of the great store, in metres parodying the +styles of the old English ballads and various poets, ancient and modern, +and was to be called, "Bon Marché Ballads."</p> + +<p>"Something like this, for example," said Henry, a few days later, +pulling an envelope covered with pencil-scribble from his pocket. "This +for the ladies' department,--</p> + +<blockquote> +<i>"Oh, where do you buy your hats, lady?<br> + And where do you buy your hose?<br> + And where do you buy your shoes, lady?<br> + And where your underclothes?</i><br><br> + +<i>"Hats, shoes, and stockings, everything<br> + A lady's heart requires,<br> +Quality good, and prices low,<br> + We are the largest buyers!</i><br><br> + +<i>"The stock we bought on Wednesday last<br> + Is fading fast away,<br> +To-morrow it may be too late--<br> + Oh, come and buy to-day!"</i><br><br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Mr. Fairfax fairly trumpeted approval. "If they're all as good as that," +he said; "you must have more money. Yes, you must. Well, well,--we'll +see, we'll see!" And when the "Bon Marché Ballads" actually appeared, +the generous creature insisted on adding another fifty pounds to +the cheque.</p> + +<p>As many were afterwards of opinion that Henry never again did such good +work as these nonsense rhymes, written thus for a frolic,--and one +hundred and fifty pounds,--and as copies of the "Bon Marché Ballads" are +now exceedingly scarce, it may possibly be of interest to quote two or +three more of its preposterous numbers. This is a lyric illustrative of +cheese, for the provision department:--</p> + +<blockquote> +"<i>Are you fond of cheese?<br> + Do you sometimes sigh<br> +For a really good<br> + Gorgonzola? Try,</i><br><br> + +"<i>Try our one-and-ten,<br> + Wonderfully rotten,<br> +Tasted once, it never can<br> + Be again forgotten</i>!"<br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Here is "a Ballad of Baby's Toys:"--</p> + +<blockquote> +"<i>Oh, give me a toy" the baby said--<br> + The babe of three months old,--<br> +Oh, what shall I buy my little babee,<br> + With silver and with gold?</i>"<br><br> + +"<i>I would you buy a trumpet fine,<br> + And a rocking-horse for me,<br> +And a bucket and a spade, mother,<br> + To dig beside the sea.</i>"<br><br> + +"<i>But where shall I buy these pretty things?"<br> + The mother's heart inquires.<br> +"Oh, go to Owens!" cried the babe;<br> + "They are the largest buyers."</i><br> +</blockquote> + +<p>The subject of our last selection is "Melton Mowbray," which bore +beneath its title due apologies to Mr. Swinburne:--</p> + +<blockquote> +<i>"Strange pie, that is almost a passion,<br> + O passion immoral, for pie!<br> +Unknown are the ways that they fashion,<br> + Unknown and unseen of the eye,<br> +The pie that is marbled and mottled,<br> + The pie that digests with a sigh:<br> +For all is not Bass that is bottled,<br> + And all is not pork that is pie."</i><br> +</blockquote> + +<p>Of all the goodness else that Henry and Angel were to owe in future days +to Mr. Fairfax, there is not room in this book to write. But that +matters little, for is it not written in the Book of Love?</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIII"></a>CHAPTER XLIII</h2> + +<h3>STILL ANOTHER CALLER</h3> +<br> + +<p>One afternoon the step coming along the corridor was almost light enough +to be Angel's, though a lover's ear told him that hers it was not. Once +more that feminine rustle, the very whisper of romantic mystery; again +the little feminine knock.</p> + +<p>Daintiness and Myrtilla!</p> + +<p>"Well, this is lovely of you, Myrtilla! But what courage! How did you +ever dare venture into this wild and savage spot,--this +mountain-fastness of Bohemia?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it was brave of me, wasn't it?" said Myrtilla, with a little +laugh, for which the stairs had hardly left her breath. "But what a +climb! It is like having your rooms on the Matterhorn. I think I must +write a magazine article: 'How I climbed the fifty-thousand stairs,' +with illustrations,--and we could have some quite pretty ones," she +said, looking round the room.</p> + +<p>"That big skylight is splendid! As close, dear lad, to the stars as you +can get it? Are you as devoted to them as ever?"</p> + +<p>"Aren't you, Myrtilla?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes; but they don't get any nearer, you know."</p> + +<p>"It's awfully good to see you again, Myrtilla," said Henry, going over +to her and taking both her hands. "It's quite a long time, you know, +since we had a talk. It was a sweet thought of you to come. You'll have +some tea, won't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I should love to see you make tea. Bachelors always make such good +tea. What pretty cups! My word, we are dainty! I suppose it was Esther +bought them for you?"</p> + +<p>Henry detected the little trap and smiled. No, it hadn't been Esther.</p> + +<p>"No? Someone else then? eh! I think I can guess her name. It was mean of +you not to tell me about her, Henry. I hear she's called Angel, and that +she looks like one. I wish I could have seen her before I went away."</p> + +<p>"Going away, Myrtilla? why, where? I've heard nothing of it. Tell me +about it."</p> + +<p>The atmosphere perceptibly darkened with the thought of Williamson.</p> + +<p>"Well!" she said, in the little airy melodious way she had when she was +telling something particularly unhappy about herself--a sort of +harpsichord bravado--"Well, you know, he's taken to fancying himself +seriously ill lately, and the doctors have aided and abetted him; and so +we're going to Davos Platz, or some such health-wilderness--and well, +that's all!"</p> + +<p>"And you I suppose are to nurse the--to nurse him?" said Henry, +savagely.</p> + +<p>"Hush, lad! It's no use, not a bit! You won't help me that way," she +said, laying her hand kindly on his, and her eyes growing bright with +suppressed tears.</p> + +<p>"It's a shame, nevertheless, Myrtilla, a cruel shame!"</p> + +<p>"You'd like to say it was a something-else shame, wouldn't you, dear +boy? Well, you can, if you like: but then you must say no more. And if +you really want to help me, you shall send me a long letter now and +again, with some of your new poems enclosed; and tell me what new books +are worth sending for? Will you do that?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, I will. That's precious little to do anyhow."</p> + +<p>"It's a good deal, really. But be sure you do it."</p> + +<p>"And, of course, you'll write to me sometimes. I don't think you know +yet what your letters are to me. I never work so well as when I've had a +letter from you."</p> + +<p>"Really, dear lad, I don't fancy you know how happy that makes me to +hear."</p> + +<p>"Yes, you take just the sort of interest in my work I want, and that no +one else takes."</p> + +<p>"Not even Angel?" said Myrtilla, slily.</p> + +<p>"Angel, bless her, loves my work; and is a brave little critic of it; +but then it isn't disloyal to her to say that she doesn't know as much +as you. Besides, she doesn't approach it in quite the same way. She +cares for it, first, because it is mine, and only secondly for its own +sake. Now you care for it just for what it is--"</p> + +<p>"I care for it, certainly, for what it's going to be," said Myrtilla, +making one of those honest distinctions which made her opinion so +stimulating to Henry.</p> + +<p>"Yes, there you are. You're artistically ambitious for me; you know what +I want to do, even before I know myself. That's why you're so good for +me. No one but you is that for me; and--poor stuff as I know it +is--never write a word without wondering what you will think of it."</p> + +<p>"You're sure it's quite true," said Myrtilla; "don't say so if it isn't. +Because you know you're saying what I care most to hear, perhaps, of +anything you could say. You know how I love literature, and--well, you +know too how fond I am of you, dear lad, don't you?"</p> + +<p>Literary criticism had kindled into emotion; and Henry bent down, and +kissed Myrtilla's hand. In return she let her hand rest a moment lightly +on his hair, and then, rather spasmodically, turned to remark on his +bookshelves with suspicious energy.</p> + +<p>At that moment another step was heard in the corridor, again feminine. +Henry knew it for Angel's; and it may be that his expression grew a +shade embarrassed, as he said:</p> + +<p>"I believe I shall be able to introduce you to Angel after all--for I +think this is she coming along the passage."</p> + +<p>As Henry opened the door, Angel was on the point of throwing her arms +round his neck, when, noticing a certain constraint in his manner of +greeting, she realised that he was not alone.</p> + +<p>"We were just talking of you, dear," said Henry. "This is my friend, +Mrs. Williamson,--'Myrtilla,' of whom you've often heard me speak."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, I've often heard of Mrs. Williamson," said Angel, not of +course suffering the irony of her thought to escape into her voice.</p> + +<p>"And I've heard no less of Miss Flower," said Mrs. Williamson, "not +indeed from this faithless boy here,--for I haven't seen him for so long +that I've had to humble myself at last and call,--but from Esther."</p> + +<p>Myrtilla loved the transparent face, pulsing with light, flushing or +fading with her varying mood, answering with exquisite delicacy to any +advance and retreat of the soul within. But an invincible prejudice, or +perhaps rather fear, shut Angel's eyes from the appreciation of +Myrtilla. She was sweet and beautiful, but to the child that Angel still +was she suggested malign artifice. Angel looked at her as an imaginative +child looks at the moon, with suspicion.</p> + +<p>So, in spite of Myrtilla's efforts to make friends, the conversation +sustained a distinct loss in sprightliness by Angel's arrival.</p> + +<p>Myrtilla, perhaps divining a little of the truth, rose to go.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'm afraid it's quite a long good-bye," she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you're going away?" said Angel, with a shade of relief +involuntarily in her voice.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, perhaps before we meet again, you and Henry will be married. +I'm sure I sincerely hope so."</p> + +<p>"Thank you," said Angel, somewhat coldly.</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye, Henry," said Myrtilla,--it was rather a strangled +good-bye,--and then, in an evil moment, she caught sight of the Dante's +head which, hidden in a recess, she had not noticed before. "I see +you're still faithful to the Dante," she said; "that's sweet of +you,--good-bye, good-bye, Miss Flower, Angel, perhaps you'll let me say, +good-bye."</p> + +<p>When she had gone there seemed a curious constraint in the air. You +might have said that the consistency of the air had been doubled. +Gravitation was at least twice as many pounds as usual to the square +inch. Every little movement seemed heavy as though the medium had been +water instead of air. As Henry raised his hands to help Angel off with +her jacket, they seemed weighted with lead.</p> + +<p>"No, thank you," said Angel, "I won't take it off. I can't stay long."</p> + +<p>"Why, dear, what do you mean? I thought you were going to stay the +evening with me. I've quite a long new chapter to read to you."</p> + +<p>"I'm sorry, Henry,--but I find I can't."</p> + +<p>"Why, dear, how's that? Won't you tell me the reason? Has anything +happened?"</p> + +<p>Angel stood still in the middle of the room, with her face as firmly +miserable as she could make it.</p> + +<p>"Won't you tell me?" Henry pleaded. "Won't you speak to me? Come, +dear--what's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"You know well enough, Henry, what's the matter!" came an unexpected +flash of speech.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I don't. I know of no reason whatever. How should I?"</p> + +<p>"Well, then, Mrs. Williamson's the matter!--'Myrtilla,' as you call her. +Something told me it was like this all along, though I couldn't bear to +doubt you, and so I put it away. I wonder how often she's been here when +I have known nothing about it."</p> + +<p>"This is the very first time she has ever set foot in these rooms," +said Henry, growing cold in his turn. "I'll give you my word of honour, +if you need it."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to hear any more. I'm going. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>"Going, Angel?" said Henry, standing between her and the door. "What can +you mean? See now,--give your brains a chance! You're not thinking in +the least. You've just let yourself go--for no reason at all. You'll be +sorry to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Reason enough, I should think, when I find that you love another +woman!"</p> + +<p>"I love Myrtilla Williamson! It's a lie, Angel--and you ought to be +ashamed to say it. It's unworthy of you."</p> + +<p>"Why have you never told me then who made that sketch of Dante for you? +I suppose I should never have known, if she hadn't let it out. I asked +you once, but you put me off."</p> + +<p>Henry had indeed prevaricated, for Angel had chanced to ask him just +after Myrtilla's letter about his poems.</p> + +<p>"Well, I'll be frank," said Henry. "I didn't tell you, just because I +feared an unreasonable scene like this--"</p> + +<p>"If there had been nothing in it, there was nothing to fear; and, in +any case, why should she paint pictures for you, if she doesn't care for +you?--No, I'm going. Nothing will persuade me otherwise. Henry, please +let pass, if you're a gentleman--" and poor little Angel's face fairly +flamed. "No power on earth will keep me here--"</p> + +<p>"All right, Angel--" and Henry let her have her way. Her feet echoed +down the stairs, further and further away. She was gone; and Henry spent +that evening in torturingly imagining every kind of accident that might +happen to her on the way home. Every hour he expected to be suddenly +called to look at her dead body--his work. And so the night passed, and +the morning dawned in agony. So went the whole of the next day, for he +could be proud too--and the fault had been hers.</p> + +<p>Thus they sat apart for three days, poles of determined silence. And +then at last, on the evening of the third day, Henry, who was half +beside himself with suspense, heard, with wild thankfulness, once more +the little step in the passage--it seemed fainter, he thought, and +dragged a little, and the knock at the door was like a ghost's.</p> + +<p>There, with a wan smile, Angel stood; and with joy, wordless because +unspeakable, they fell almost like dead things into each other's arms. +For an hour they sat thus, and never spoke a word, only stroking each +other's hands and hair. It was so good for each to know that the other +was alive. It took so long for the stored agony in the nerves to relax.</p> + +<p>"I haven't eaten a morsel since Wednesday," said Angel, at last.</p> + +<p>"Nor I," said Henry.</p> + +<p>"Henry, dear, I'm sorry. I know now I was wrong. I give you my word +never to doubt you again."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Angel. Don't let us even think of it any more."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't live through it again, darling."</p> + +<p>"But it can never happen any more, can it?"</p> + +<p>"No!--but--if you ever love any woman better than you love me, you'll +tell me, won't you? I could bear that better than to be deceived."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Angel, I promise to tell you."</p> + +<p>"Well, we're really happy again now--are we? I can hardly believe it--"</p> + +<p>"You didn't see me outside your house last night, did you?"</p> + +<p>"Henry!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was there. And I watched you carry the light into your bedroom, +and when you came to the window to draw down the blind, I thought you +must have seen me. Yes, I waited and waited, till I saw the light go out +and long after--"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Henry--you do love me then?"</p> + +<p>"And we do know how to hate each other sometimes, don't we, child?" said +Henry, laughing into Angel's eyes, all rainbows and tears.</p> + + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XLIV"></a>CHAPTER XLIV</h2> + +<h3>THE END OF A BEGINNING</h3> +<br> + +<p>And now blow, all ye trumpets, and, all ye organs, tremble with exultant +sound! Bring forth the harp, and the psaltry, and the sackbut! For the +long winter of waiting is at an end, and Mike is flying north to fetch +his bride. Now are the walls of heaven built four-square, and to-day was +the roof-beam hung with garlands. 'Tis but a small heaven, yet is it big +enough for two,--and Mike is flying north, flying north, through the +midnight, to fetch his bride.</p> + +<p>Henry and the morning meet him at Tyre. Blessings on his little wrinkled +face! The wrinkles are deeper and sweeter by a year's hard work. He has +laughed with them every night for full twelve months, laughed to make +others laugh. To-day he shall laugh for himself alone. The very river +seems glad, and tosses its shaggy waves like a faithful dog; and over +yonder in Sidon, where the sun is building a shrine of gold and pearl, +Esther, sleepless too, all night, waits at a window like the +morning-star.</p> + +<p>Oh, Mike! Mike! Mike! is it you at last?</p> + +<p>Oh, Esther, Esther, is it you?</p> + +<p>Their faces were so bright, as they gazed at each other, that it seemed +they might change to stars and wing together away up into the morning. +Henry snatched one look at the brightness and turned away.</p> + +<p>"She looked like a spirit!" said Mike, as they met again further along +the road.</p> + +<p>"He looked like a little angel," said Esther, as she threw herself into +Dot's sympathetic arms.</p> + +<p>A few miles from Sidon there stood an old church, dim with memories, in +a churchyard mossy with many graves. It was hither some few hours after +that unwonted carriages were driving through the snow of that happy +winter's day. In one of them Esther and Henry were sitting,--Esther +apparelled in--but here the local papers shall speak for us: "The +bride," it said, "was attired in a dress of grey velvet trimmed with +beaver, and a large picturesque hat with feathers to match; she carried +a bouquet of white chrysanthemums and hyacinths."</p> + +<p>"The very earth has put on white to be your bridesmaid!" said Henry, +looking out on the sunlit snow.</p> + +<p>"After all, though, of course, I'm sad in one way," said Esther, more +practical in her felicitations, "I'm glad in another that father +wouldn't give me away. For it was really you who gave me to Mike long +ago; wasn't it?--and so it's only as it should be that you should give +me to him to-day."</p> + +<p>"You'll never forget what we've been to each other?"</p> + +<p>"Don't you know?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, but our love has no organs and presents and prayer-books to bind +it together."</p> + +<p>"Do you think it needs it?"</p> + +<p>"Of course not! But it would be fun for us too some day to have a +marriage. Why should only one kind of love have its marriage ceremony? +When Mike's and your wedding is over, let's tell him that we're going +to send out cards for ours!"</p> + +<p>"All right. What form shall the ceremony take--<i>Parfait Amour</i>?"</p> + +<p>"You haven't forgotten?"</p> + +<p>"I shall forget just the second after you--not before--and, no, I won't +be mean, I'll not even forget you then."</p> + +<p>"Kiss me, Esther," said Henry.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me again, Esther," he said. "Do you remember?"</p> + +<p>"The cake and the beating?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that was our marriage."</p> + +<hr style="width: 25%;"> + +<p>When all the glory of that happy day hung in crimson low down in the +west, like a chariot of fire in which Mike and Esther were speeding to +their paradise, Henry walked with Angel, homeward through the streets of +Tyre, solemn with sunset. In both that happy day still lived like music +richly dying.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Angel, in words far too practical for such a sunset, "I am +so glad it all went off so well. Poor dear Mrs. Mesurier, how bonny she +looked! And your dear old Aunt Tipping! Fancy her hiding there in +the church--"</p> + +<p>"Of course we'd asked her," said Henry; "but, poor old thing, she +didn't feel grand enough, as she would say, to come publicly."</p> + +<p>"And your poor father! Fancy him coming home for the lunch like that!"</p> + +<p>"After all, it was logical of him," said Henry. "I suppose he had made +up his mind that he would resist as long as it was any use, and after +that--gracefully give in. And he was always fond of Mike."</p> + +<p>"But didn't Esther cry, when he kissed her, and said that, since she'd +chosen Mike, he supposed he must choose him too. And Mike was as good as +crying too?"</p> + +<p>"I think every one was. Poor mother was just a mop."</p> + +<p>"Well, they're nearly home by now, I suppose."</p> + +<p>"Yes, another half-hour or so."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Henry, fancy! How wonderful for them! God bless them. I <i>am</i> glad!"</p> + +<p>"I wonder when we shall get our home," said Henry, presently.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Henry, never mind us! I can't think of any one but them to-day."</p> + +<p>"Well, dear, I didn't mean to be selfish--I was only wondering how +long you'd be willing to wait for me?"</p> + +<p>"Suppose I were to say 'for ever!' Would that make you happy?"</p> + +<p>"Well, I think, dear--I might perhaps arrange things by then."</p> + + +<br><br><hr style="width: 35%;"><br><br> +<h2>THE END</h2> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Young Lives, by Richard Le Gallienne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUNG LIVES *** + +***** This file should be named 10922-h.htm or 10922-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/2/10922/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Young Lives + +Author: Richard Le Gallienne + +Release Date: February 3, 2004 [EBook #10922] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUNG LIVES *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +YOUNG LIVES + +BY + +RICHARD LE GALLIENNE + + +1899 + + + + +TO + +ALFRED LEE + +IN MEMORY OF ANGEL + +_September, 1898_. + + _Let thy soul strive that still the same + Be early friendship's sacred flame; + The affinities have strongest part + In youth, and draw men heart to heart: + As life wears on and finds no rest, + The individual in each breast + Is tyrannous to sunder them_. + + + + +CONTENTS + +Chapter + I. HARD YOUNG HEARTS. + II. CONCERNING THOSE "ATLANTIC LINERS" AND AN OLD DESK. + III. OF THE LOVE OF HENRY AND ESTHER. + IV. OF THE PROFESSIONS THAT CHOOSE, AND MIKE LAFLIN. + V. OF THE LOVE OF ESTHER AND MIKE, AND THE MESURIER LAW IN REGARD TO + "SWEETHEARTS". + VI. THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF HOME. + VII. A LINK WITH CIVILISATION. + VIII. A RHAPSODY OF TYRE. + IX. A PENITENTIARY OF THE MATHEMATICS. + X. THE GRASS BETWEEN THE FLAG-STONES. + XI. HUMANITY IN HIGH PLACES. + XII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS. + XIII. DAMON AND PYTHIAS AT THE THEATRE. + XIV. CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS A GENEALOGY. + XV. MERELY A HUMBLE INTERRUPTION AND ILLUSTRATION OF THE LAST. + XVI. CHAPTER FOURTEEN CONCLUDED. + XVII. DOT'S DECISION. + XVIII. MIKE AND HIS MILLION POUNDS. + XIX. ON CERTAIN ADVANTAGES OF A BACKWATER. + XX. THE MAN IN POSSESSION. + XXI. LITTLE MISS FLOWER. + XXII. MIKE'S FIRST LAURELS. + XXIII. THE MOTHER OF AN ANGEL. + XXIV. AN ANCIENT THEORY OF HEAVEN. + XXV. THE LAST CONTINUED, AFTER A BRIEF INTERVAL. + XXVI. CONCERNING THE BEST KIND OF WIFE FOR A POET. + XXVII. THE BOOK OF ANGELICA. + XXVIII. WHAT COMES OF PUBLISHING A BOOK. + XXIX. MIKE'S TURN TO MOVE. + XXX. UNCHARTERED FREEDOM. + XXXI. A PREPOSTEROUS AUNT. + XXXII. THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN IN THE BACK PARLOUR. + XXXIII. "THIS IS LONDON, THIS IS LIFE". + XXXIV. THE WITS. + XXXV. BACK TO REALITY. + XXXVI. THE OLD HOME MEANWHILE. + XXXVII. STAGE WAITS, MR. LAFLIN. +XXXVIII. ESTHER AND HENRY ONCE MORE. + XXXIX. MIKE AFAR. + XL. A LEGACY MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD. + XLI. LABORIOUS DAYS. + XLII. A HEAVIER FOOTFALL. + XLIII. STILL ANOTHER CALLER. + XLIV. THE END OF A BEGINNING. + + + + +YOUNG LIVES + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +HARD YOUNG HEARTS + +Behind the Venetian blinds of a respectable middle-class, +fifty-pound-a-year, "semi-detached," "family" house, in a respectable +middle-class road of the little north-county town of Sidon, midway +between the trees of wealth upon the hill, and the business quarters +that ended in squalor on the bank of the broad and busy river,--a house +boasting a few shabby trees of its own, in its damp little rockeried +slips of front and back gardens,--on a May evening some ten or twelve +years ago, a momentous crisis of contrasts had been reached. + +The house was still as for a battle. It was holding its breath to hear +what was going on in the front parlour, the door of which seemed to wear +an expression of being more than usually closed. A mournful half-light +fell through a little stained-glass vestibule into a hat-racked hall, on +the walls of which hung several pictures of those great steamships known +as "Atlantic liners" in big gilt frames--pictures of a significance +presently to be noted. A beautiful old eight-day clock ticked solemnly +to the flickering of the hall lamp. From below came occasionally a +furtive creaking of the kitchen stairs. The two servants were half way +up them listening. The stairs a flight above the hall also creaked at +intervals. Two young girls, respectively about fourteen and fifteen, +were craning necks out of nightdresses over the balusters in a shadowy +angle of the staircase. On the floor above them three other little girls +of gradually diminishing ages slept, unconscious of the issues being +decided between their big brother and their eldest sister on the one +side, and their father and mother on the other, in the front +parlour below. + +That parlour, a room of good size, was unostentatiously furnished with +good bourgeois mahogany. A buxom mahogany chiffonier, a large square +dining-table, a black marble clock with two dials, one being a +barometer, three large oil landscapes of exceedingly umbrageous trees +and glassy lakes, inoffensively uninteresting, more Atlantic liners, and +a large bookcase, apparently filled with serried lines of bound +magazines, and an excellent Brussels carpet of quiet pattern, were +mainly responsible for a general effect of middle-class comfort, in +which, indeed, if beauty had not been included, it had not been wilfully +violated, but merely unthought of. The young people for whom these +familiar objects meant a symbolism deep-rooted in their earliest +memories could hardly in fairness have declared anything positively +painful in that room--except perhaps those Atlantic liners; their +charges against furniture, which was unconsciously to them accumulating +memories that would some day bring tears of tenderness to their eyes, +could only have been negative. Beauty had been left out, but at least +ugliness had not been ostentatiously called in. There was no bad taste. + +In fact, whatever the individual character of each component object, +there was included in the general effect a certain indefinable dignity, +which had doubtless nothing to do with the mahogany, but was probably +one of those subtle atmospheric impressions which a room takes from the +people who habitually live in it. Had you entered that room when it was +empty, you would instinctively have felt that it was accustomed to the +occupancy of calm and refined people. There was something almost +religious in its quiet. Some one often sat there who, whatever his +commonplace disguises as a provincial man of business, however +inadequate to his powers the work life had given him to do, provincial +and humiliating as were the formulae with which narrowing conditions had +supplied him for expression of himself, was in his central being an +aristocrat,--though that was the very last word James Mesurier would +have thought of applying to himself. He was a man of business, serving +God and his employers with stern uprightness, and bringing up a large +family with something of the Puritan severity which had marked his own +early training; and, as in his own case no such allowance had been made, +making no allowance in his rigid abstract code for the diverse +temperaments of his children,--children in whom certain qualities and +needs of his own nature, dormant from his birth, were awakening, +supplemented by the fuller-fed intelligence and richer nature of the +mother, into expansive and rebellious individualities. + +It was now about eleven o'clock, and the house was thus lit and alive +half-an-hour beyond the rigorously enforced bed-time. An hour before, +James Mesurier had been peacefully engaged on the task which had been +nightly with him at this hour for twenty-five years,--the writing of his +diary, in a shorthand which he wrote with a neatness, almost a +daintiness, that always marked his use of pen and ink, and gave to his +merely commercial correspondence and his quite exquisitely kept +accounts, a certain touch of the scholar,--again an air of distinction +in excess of, and unaccounted for, by the nature of the interests which +it dignified. + +His somewhat narrow range of reading, had you followed it by his careful +markings through those bound volumes of sermons in the bookcase, bore +the same evidence of inherited and inadequately occupied refinement. His +life from boyhood had been too much of a struggle to leave him much +leisure for reading, and such as he had enjoyed had been diverted into +evangelical channels by the influence of a certain pious old lady, with +whom as a young man he had boarded, and for whose memory all his life +he cherished a reverence little short of saint-worship. + +The name of Mrs. Quiggins, whose portrait had still a conspicuous niche +among the _lares_ of the household,--a little thin silvery old +widow-lady, suggesting great sadness, much gentleness, and a little +severity,--had thus become for the family of James Mesurier a symbol of +sanctity, with which a properly accredited saint of the calendar could +certainly not, in that Protestant home, have competed. It was she who +had given him that little well-worn Bible which lay on the table with +his letters and papers, as he wrote under the lamplight, and than which +a world full of sacred relics contains none more sacred. A business-like +elastic band encircled its covers, as a precaution against pages +becoming loose with much turning; and inside you would have found +scarcely a chapter unpencilled,--texts underlined, and sermons of +special helpfulness noted by date and preacher on the margin,--the +itinerary of a devout human soul on its way through this world to +the next. + +The Bible and the sermons of a certain famous Nonconformist Divine of +the day were James Mesurier's favourite and practically his only +reading, at this time; though as a young man he had picked up a fair +education for himself, and had taken a certain interest in modern +history. For novels he had not merely disapproval, but absolutely no +taste. Once in a specially genial mood he had undertaken to try +"Ivanhoe," to please his favourite daughter,--this night in revolt +against him,--and in half-an-hour he had been surprised with laughter, +sound asleep. The sermon that would send him to sleep had never been +written, at all events by his favourite theologian, whose sermons he +read every Sunday afternoon, and annotated with that same loving +appreciation and careful pencil with which a scholar annotates some +classic; so true is it that it is we who dignify our occupations, +not they us. + +Similarly, James Mesurier presided over the destinies of a large +commercial undertaking, with the air of one who had been called rather +to direct an empire than a business. You would say as he went by, "There +goes one accustomed to rule, accustomed to be regarded with great +respect;" but that air had been his long before the authority that once +more inadequately accounted for it. + +Thus this night, as he sat writing, his handsome, rather small, +iron-grey head bent over his papers, his face somewhat French in +character, his short beard slightly pointed; distinguished, refined, +severe; he had the look of a marshal of France engrossed with +documents of state. + +The mother, who sat in an armchair by the fire, reading, was a woman of +about forty-five, with a fine blonde, aquiline face, distinctively +English, and radiating intelligence from its large sympathetic lines. +She was in some respects so different from her husband as at times to +make children precociously wise--but nevertheless, far from knowing +everything--wonder why she had ever married their father, for whom, at +that time, it would be hypocrisy to describe their attitude as one of +love. To them he was not so much a father as the policeman of home,--a +personification of stern negative decrees, a systematic thwarter of +almost everything they most cared to do. He was a sort of embodied "Thou +shalt not," only to be won into acquiescence by one influence,--that of +the mother, whose married life, as she looked back on it, seemed to +consist of little else than bringing children into the world, with a +Christian-like regularity, and interceding with the father for their +varying temperaments when there. + +Though it might have been regarded as certain beforehand, that seven +children would differ each from each other in at least as many ways, it +never seems to have occurred to the father that one inflexible system +for them all could hardly be wise or comfortable. But, indeed, like so +many parents similarly trained and circumstanced, it is questionable +whether he ever realised their possession of separate individualities +till they were pleaded for by the mother, or made, as on this evening, +surprising assertion of themselves. + +Though this system of mediation had been responsible for the only +disagreements in their married life, there had never been any long or +serious difference between husband and wife; for, in spite of natures so +different, they loved each other with that love which is given us for +the very purpose of such situations, the love that no strain can snap, +the love that reconciles all such disparities. Though Mary Mesurier had +also been brought up among Nonconformists, and though the conditions of +her youth, like her husband's, had been far from adequate to the +demands of her nature, yet her religion had been of a gentler character, +broadening instead of narrowing in its effects, and had concerned itself +less with divinity than humanity. Her home life, if humble, had been +genial and rich in love, and there had come into it generous influences +from the outer world,--books with more of the human beat in them than is +to be found in sermons; and particularly an old travelled grandfather +who had been regarded as the rolling stone of his family, but in whom, +at all events, failure and travel had developed a great gentleness and +understanding of the human creature, which in long walks and talks with +his little grand-daughter somehow passed over into her young character, +and proved the best legacy he could have left her. Through him too was +encouraged a native love of poetry, of which in her childhood her memory +acquired a stock which never failed her, and which had often cheered her +lonely hours by successive cradles. She had a fine natural gift of +recitation, and in evening hours when the home was particularly united +in some glow of visitors or birthday celebration, she would be persuaded +to recall some of those old songs and simple apologues, with such charm +that even her husband, to whom verse was naturally an incomprehensible +triviality, was visibly softened, and perhaps, deep in the sadness of +his silent nature, moved to a passing realisation of a certain something +kind and musical in life which he had strangely missed. + +This greater breadth of temperament and training enabled Mary Mesurier +to understand and make allowances for the narrower and harder nature of +her husband, whom she learnt in time rather to pity for the bleakness of +his early days, than to condemn for their effect upon his character. He +was strong, good, clever, and handsome, and exceptionally all those four +good reasons for loving him; and the intellectual sympathy, the sharing +of broader interests, which she sometimes missed in him, she had for +some three or four years come to find in her eldest son, who, to his +father's bewilderment and disappointment, had reincarnated his own +strong will, in connection with literary practices and dreams which +threatened to end in his becoming a poet, instead of the business man +expected of him, for which development that love of poetry in one +parent, and a certain love of books in both, was no doubt to some degree +guiltily responsible. + +James Mesurier, as we have said, was no judge of poetry; and, had he +been so, a reading of his son's early effusions would have made him +still more obdurate in the choice for him of a commercial career; but on +general principles he was quite sufficiently firm against any but the +most non-committing, leisure-hour flirtation with the Muse. The mother, +while agreeing with the father's main proposition of the undesirability, +nay, impossibility, of literature as a livelihood,--had not the great +and successful Sir Walter himself described it as a good walking-stick, +but a poor crutch; a stick applied, since its first application as an +image, to the shoulders of how many generations of youthful genius,--was +naturally more sympathetic towards her son's ambition, and encouraged it +to the extent of helping from her housekeeping money the formation of +his little library, even occasionally proving successful in winning sums +of money from the father for the purchase of some book specially, as the +young man would declare, necessary for his development. + +As this little library had outgrown the accommodation of the common +rooms, a daring scheme had been conceived between mother and son,--no +less than that he should have a small room set apart for himself as a +study. When first broached to the father, this scheme had met with an +absolute denial that seemed to promise no hope of further consideration; +but the mother, accepting defeat at the time, had tried again and again, +with patient dexterity at favourable moments, till at last one proud day +the little room, with its bookshelves, a cast of Dante, and a strange +picture or two, was a beautiful, significant fact--all ready for the +possible visitation of the Muse. + +In such ways had the mother negotiated the needs of all her children; +though the youth of the rest--save the eldest girl, whose music lessons +had meant a battle, and whose growing attractiveness for the boys of the +district, and one in particular, was presently to mean another--made as +yet but small demands. In one question, however, periodically fruitful +of argument, even the youngest was becoming interested,--the question of +the visits to the household of the various friends and playmates of the +children. To these, it must be admitted, James Mesurier was apt to be +hardly less of a figure of fear than to his own children; for, apart +from the fact that such inroads from without were apt to disturb his few +quiet evening hours with rollicking and laughter, he, being entirely +unsocial in his own nature, had a curious idea that the family should be +sufficient to itself, and that the desire for any form of entertainment +outside it was a sign of dissatisfaction with God's gifts of a good +home, and generally a frivolity to be discouraged. + +As a boy he had grown up without companions, and as a man had remained +lonely, till he had met in his wife the one comrade of his days. What +had been good enough for their father should be good enough for his +children, was a formula which he applied all round to their bringing up, +curiously forgetful, for a man at heart so just, of the pleasure one +would have expected it to be to make sure that the errors of his own +training were not repeated in that of his offspring. But, indeed, there +was in him constitutionally something of the Puritan suspicion of, and +aversion from, pleasure, which it had never occurred to him to consider +as the end of, or, indeed, as a considerable element of existence. Life +was somehow too serious for play, spiritually as well as materially; and +much work and a little rest was the eternal and, on the whole, salutary +lot of man. + +Such were some of the conditions among which the young Mesuriers found +themselves, and of which their impatience had become momentously +explosive this February evening. + +For some days there had been an energetic simmer of rebellion among the +four elder children against a new edict of early rising which was surely +somewhat arbitrary. Early rising was one of James Mesurier's articles of +faith; and he was always up and dressed by half-past six, though there +was no breakfast till eight, and absolutely no necessity for his rising +at that hour beyond his own desire. There was still less, indeed none at +all, for his children to rise thus early; but nevertheless he had +recently decreed that such, for the future, must be the rule. The rule +fell heaviest upon the sisters, for the elder brother had always enjoyed +a certain immunity from such edicts. His sense of justice, however, +kindled none the less at this final piece of tyranny. He blazed and +fumed indignantly on behalf of his sisters, in the sanctuary of that +little study,--a spot where the despot seldom set foot; and out of this +comparatively trivial cause had sprung a mighty resolution, which he and +she whom he proudly honoured as "sister and friend" had, after some +girding of the loins, repaired to the front parlour this evening to +communicate. + +They had entered somewhat abruptly, and stood rather dramatically by the +table on which the father was writing,--the son with dark set face, in +which could be seen both the father and mother, and the daughter, timid +and close to him, resolutely keeping back her tears, a slim young copy +of the mother. + +"Well, my dears?" said the father, looking up with a keen, rather +surprised glance, and in a tone which qualified with some severity the +"my dears." + +The son had had some exceedingly fine beginnings in his head, but they +fled ignominiously with the calm that was necessary for their successful +delivery, and he blurted at once to the point. + +"We have come to say that we are no longer comfortable at home, and have +decided to leave it." + +"Henry," exclaimed the mother, hastily, "what do you mean, how can you +be so ungrateful?" + +"Mary, my dear," interrupted the father, "please leave the matter to +me." Then turning to the son: "What is this you are saying? I'm afraid I +don't understand." + +"I mean that Esther and I have decided to leave home and live together; +because it is impossible for us to live here any longer in happiness--" + +"On what do you propose to live?" + +"My salary will be sufficient for the present." + +"Sixty pounds a year!" + +"Yes!" + +"And may I ask what is wrong with your home? You have every comfort--far +more than your mother or father were accustomed to." + +"Yes, indeed!" echoed the mother. + +"Yes, we know you are very good and kind, and mean everything for our +good; but you don't understand other needs of our natures, and you make +no allowance for our individualities--" + +"Indeed! Individualities--I should like you to have heard what my +father would have said to talk about individualities. A rope's end would +have been his answer to that--" + +"It would have been a very silly one, and no argument." + +"It would have been effective, at all events." + +"Not with me--" + +"Well, please don't bandy words with me, sir. If you," particularly +addressing his son, "wish to go--then go; but remember that once you +have left your father's roof, you leave it for ever. As for your sister, +she has no power to leave her mother and father without my consent, and +that I shall certainly withhold till she is of a proper age to know what +is best for herself--" + +"She will go then without your consent," defiantly answered the son. + +"Oh, Henry, for shame!" exclaimed Mrs. Mesurier. + +"Mother dear, I'm sorry,--we don't mean to be disrespectful or +undutiful,--but father's petty tyrannies are more than we can bear. He +objects to the friends we care for; he denies us the theatre--" + +"Most certainly, and shall continue to do so. I have never been inside a +theatre in my life; nor, with my consent, shall any child of mine enter +one of them." + +"You can evidently know little about them then, and you'd be a much +finer man if you had," flashed out the son. + +"Your sitting in judgment on your father is certainly very pretty, I +must say,"--answered the father,--"very pretty; and I can only hope that +you will not have cause to regret it some future day. But I cannot allow +you to disturb me," for, with something of a pang, Henry noticed signs +of agitation amid the severity of his parent, though the matter was too +momentous for him to allow the indulgence of pity. + +"You have been a source of much anxiety to your mother and me, a child +of many prayers;" the father continued. "Whether it is the books you +read, or the friends you associate with, that are responsible for your +strange and, to my thinking, impious opinions, I do not know; but this I +know, that your influence on your sister has not of late been for good, +and for her sake, and the sake of your young sisters, it may perhaps be +well that your influence in the home be removed--" + +"Oh, James," exclaimed the wife. + +"Mary, my dear, you must let me finish. If Henry will go, go he shall; +but if he still stays, he must learn that I am master in this house, and +that while I remain so, not he, but I shall dictate how it is to be +carried on." + +It was at this point that Esther ventured to lift the girlish tremor of +her voice. + +"But, father, if you'll forgive my saying so, I think it would be best +for another reason for us to go. There are too many of us. We haven't +room to grow. We get in each other's way. And then it would ease you; it +would be less expense--" + +"When I complain of having to support my children, it will be time to +speak of that--" + +"But you have complained," hotly interrupted the son; "you have +reproached us many a time for what we cost you for clothes and food--" + +"Yes, when you have shown yourselves ungrateful for them, as you do +to-night--" + +"Ungrateful! For what should we be grateful? That you do your bare duty +of feeding and clothing us, and even for that, expect, in my case at all +events, that I shall prove so much business capital invested for the +future. Was it we who asked to come into the world? Did you consult us, +or did you beget us for anything but your own selfish pleasure, without +a thought--" + +Henry got no further. His father had grown white, and, with terrible +anger pointed to the door. + +"Leave the room, sir," he said, "and to-morrow leave my house for ever." + +The son was not cowed. He stood with an unflinching defiance before the +father, in whom he forgot the father and saw only the tyrant. For a +moment it seemed as if some unnatural blow would be struck; but so much +of pain was spared the future memory of the scene, and saying only, "It +is true for all that," he turned and left the room. The sister followed +him in silence, and the door closed. + +Mother and father looked at each other. They had brought up children, +they had suffered and toiled for them,--that they should talk to them +like this! Mrs. Mesurier came over to her husband, and put her arm +tenderly on his shoulder. + +"Never mind, dear. I'm sure he didn't mean to talk like that. He is a +good boy at heart, but you don't understand each other." + +"Mary dear, we will talk no more of it to-night," he replied; "I will +try and put it from me. You go to bed. I will finish my diary, and be +up in a few minutes." + +When he was alone, he sat still a little while, with a great lonely pain +on his face, and almost visibly upon it too the smart of the wounded +pride of his haughty nature. Never in his life had he been spoken to +like that,--and by his own son! The pang of it was almost more than he +could bear. But presently he had so far mastered himself as to take up +his pen and continue his writing. When that was finished, he opened his +Bible and read his wonted chapter. It was just the simple twenty-third +psalm: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." It was his favourite +psalm, and always had a remarkable tranquillising effect upon him. James +Mesurier's faith in God was very great. Then he knelt down and prayed in +silence,--prayed with a great love for his disobedient children; and, +when he rose from his knees, anger and pain had been washed away from +his face, and a serenity that is not of this world was there instead. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +CONCERNING THOSE "ATLANTIC LINERS" AND +AN OLD DESK + +Of all battles in this complicated civil warfare of human life, none is +more painful than that being constantly waged from generation to +generation between young and old, and none, it would appear, more +inevitable, or indeed necessary. "The good gods sigh for the cost and +pain," and as, growing older ourselves, we become spectators of such a +conflict, with eyes able to see the real goodness and truth of both +combatants, how often must we exclaim: "Oh, just for a little touch of +sympathetic comprehension on either side!" + +And yet, after all, it is from the older generation that we have a right +to expect that. If that vaunted "experience" with which they are +accustomed to extinguish the voice of the young means anything, it +should surely include some knowledge of the needs of expanding youth, +and be prepared to meet them, not in a spirit of despotic denial, but in +that of thoughtful provision. The young cannot afford to be generous, +even if they possess the necessary insight. It would mean their losing +their battle,--a battle very necessary for them to win. + +Sometimes it would seem that a very little kindly explanation on the +part of the elder would set the younger at a point of view where greater +sympathy would be possible. The great demand of the young is for some +form of poetry in their lives and surroundings; and it is largely the +fault of the old if the poetry of one generation is almost invariably +the prose of the next. + +Those "Atlantic liners" are an illustration of my meaning. To the young +Mesuriers they were hideous chromo-lithographs in vulgar gilt frames, +arbitrary defacements of home; but undoubtedly even they would have +found a tolerant tenderness for them, had they realised that they +represented the poetry--long since renounced and put behind him--of +James Mesurier's life. He had come of a race of sea-captains, two of his +brothers had been sailors, and deep down in his heart the spirit of +romance answered, with voice fresh and young as ever, to any breath or +association of the sea. But he seldom, if ever, spoke of it, and only in +an anecdote or two was it occasionally brought to mind. Sometimes his +wife would tease him with the vanity which, on holidays by the sea, +would send him forth on blustering tempestuous nights clad in a +greatcoat of blue pilot-cloth and a sealskin cap, and tell how proud he +was on one occasion, as he stood on the wharf, at being addressed as +"captain," and asked what ship he had brought into port. Even the hard +heart of youth must soften at such a reminiscence. + +Then scattered about the house was many a prosaic bit of furniture which +was musical with memories for the parents,--memories of their first +little homes and their early struggles together. This side-board, now +relegated to the children's play-room, had once been their _piece de +resistance_ in such and such a street, twelve years ago, before their +children had risen up and--not called them blessed. + +A few years, and the light of poetry will be upon these things for their +children too; but, meanwhile, can we blame them that they cannot accept +the poetry of their elders in exchange for that of their own which they +are impatient to make? And when that poetry is made and resident in +similar concrete objects of home--how will it seem, one wonders, to +their children? This old desk which Esther has been allowed to +appropriate, and in a secret drawer of which are already accumulating +certain love-letters and lavender, will it ever, one wonders, turn to +lumber in younger hands? For a little while she leans her sweet young +bosom against it, and writes scented letters in a girlish hand to a +little red-headed boy who has these past weeks begun to love her. Can it +be possible that the desk on which Esther once wrote to her little Mike +will ever hear itself spoken of as "this ugly old thing"? Let us +hope not. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +OF THE LOVE OF HENRY AND ESTHER + +Father and son had both meant what they said; and even the mother, for +whom it would be the cruellest wrench of all, knew that Henry was going +to leave home. Not literally on the morrow, for the following evening he +had appeared before his father to apologise for the manner--carefully +for the manner, not _the matter_,--in which he had spoken to him the +evening before, and asked for a day or two in which to make his +arrangements for departure. James Mesurier was too strong a man to be +resentful, and he accepted his son's apology with a gentleness that, as +each knew, detracted nothing from the resolution which each had come to. + +"My boy," he said, "you will never have such good friends as your father +and mother; but it is best that you go out into the world to learn it." + +There is something terribly winning and unnerving to the blackest +resolution, when the severity of the strong dissolves for a brief moment +into tenderness. The rare kind words of the stern, explain it as we +will, and unjust as the preference must surely be, one values beyond the +frequent forgivenesses of the gentle. Mary Mesurier would have laid down +her life in defence of her son's greatest fault, and James Mesurier +would as readily have court-martialled him for his smallest, and yet, +somehow, a kind word from him brought the tears to his son's eyes. + +He had no longer the heart to stimulate the rebellion of Esther, as he +felt it his duty to do; and, to her disappointment, he announced that, +on the whole, it would perhaps be best for him to go alone. + +"It would almost kill poor mother," he said; "and father means well +after all," he added. + +"I'm afraid it would break father's heart," said Esther. + +So these two young people agreed to spare their parents, though--let it +not be otherwise imagined--at a great sacrifice. The little paper on +which they had carefully worked out their housekeeping, skilfully +allotting so much for rent, butcher's meat, milk, coals, and washing, +and making "everything" come most optimistically to _L59 17s. 9d._ a +year, would be of no use now, at all events for the present. Their +little Charles and Mary Lamb dream must be laid aside--for, of course, +they had thought of Charles and Mary Lamb; and indeed, out beyond this +history of a few youthful years, their friendship was to prove itself +far from unworthy of its famous model. + +Yet at this time it was of no great antiquity; for, but a very few years +back, Henry had been a miniature tyrant too, and ruled it over his +kingdom of six sisters with all the hideous egoism of a pampered "son +and heir." Although in the very middle class of society into which Henry +Mesurier was born, the dignity of eldest son is one but very +contingently connected with tangible inheritance, it is none the less +vigorously kept up; and, no doubt, without any consciousness of +partiality, Henry Mesurier, from his childhood, had been brought up to +regard himself as a sort of young prince, for whom all the privileges of +home were, by divine right, reserved. For example, he took his meals +with his parents fully five years before any of his sisters were +allowed to do so; and for retention of this privilege, when at length +the democratic measure of its extension to his two elder sisters was +proposed, he fought with the bitterest spirit of caste. Indeed, few +oligarchs have been more wildly hated than Henry Mesurier up to the age, +say, of fourteen. That was the age of his last thrashing, and it was in +the gloomy dusk of that momentous occasion, as he lay alone with +smarting back in the twilight of an unusually early bed-time, that a +possible new view of woman--as a creature of like passions and +privileges--presented itself to him. + +His thrashing had been so unjustly severe, that even the granite little +hearts of his sisters had been softened; and Esther, managing to secrete +a cake that he loved from the tea that was lost to him, stole with it to +the top of the house, where he writhed amid lonely echoes and shadows. + +She had brought it to him awkwardly, by no means sure of its reception, +but sure in her heart that she would hate him for ever, if he missed the +meaning of the little solatium. But fortunately his back was far too +sore, and his spirit too broken to remember his pride, and he accepted +the offering with gratitude and tears. + +"Kiss me, Esther," he had said; and a wonderful thrill had gone through +the little girl at this strange softness in the mighty, while the dawn +of a wonderful pity for the lot of woman had, unconsciously, broken in +the soul of the boy. + +"Kiss me again, Esther," he had said, and, with the tears that mingled +in that kiss, an eternal friendship was baptized. + +Henry rose on the morrow a changed being. The grosser pretensions of the +male had fallen from him for ever, and there was at first something +almost awe-inspiring to his sisters in the gentle solicitude for them +and their rights and pleasures which replaced the old despotism. From +that time, Esther and he became closer and closer companions, and as +they more and more formed an oligarchy of two, a rearrangement of +parties in the little parliament of home came about, to be upset again +as Dot and Mat qualified for admission into that exclusive +little circle. + +So soon as Henry had a new dream or a new thought, he shared it with +Esther; and freely as he had received from Carlyle, or Emerson, or +Thoreau, freely he passed it on to her. For the gloomiest occasion he +had some strengthening text, and one of the last things he did before he +left home was to make for her a little book which he called "Faith for +Cloudy Days," consisting of energising and sustaining phrases from +certain great writers,--as it were, a bottle of philosophical phosphates +against seasons of spiritual cowardice or debility. There one opened and +read: "_Sudden the worst turns best to the brave_" or Thoreau's "_I have +yet to hear a single word of wisdom spoken to me by my elders,_" or +again Matthew Arnold's + + "_Tasks in hours of insight willed + May be through hours of gloom fulfilled_." + +James Mesurier knew nothing of all this; but if he had, he might have +understood that after all his children were not so far from the kingdom +of heaven. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +OF THE PROFESSIONS THAT CHOOSE, AND +MIKE LAFLIN + +However we may hint at its explanation by theories of inheritance, it +still remains curious with what unerring instinct a child of character +will from the first, and when it is so evidently ignorant of the field +of choice, select, out of all life's occupations and distinctions, one +special work it hungers to do, one special distinction that to it seems +the most desirable of earthly honours. That Mary Mesurier loved poetry, +and James Mesurier sermons, in face of the fact that so many mothers and +fathers have done the same with no such result, hardly seems adequate to +account for the peculiar glamour which, almost before he could read, +there was for Henry Mesurier in any form of print. While books were +still being read to him, there had already come into his mind, +unaccountably, as by outside suggestion, that there could be nothing so +splendid in the world as to write a book for one's self. To be either a +soldier, a sailor, an architect, or an engineer, would, doubtless, have +its fascinations as well; but to make a real printed book, with your +name in gilt letters outside, was real romance. + +At that early day, and for a long while after, the boy had no preference +for any particular kind of book. It was an entirely abstract passion for +print and paper. To have been the author of "The Iliad" or of Beeton's +"Book of Household Recipes" would have given him almost the same +exaltation of authorship; and the thrill of worship which came over him +when, one early day, a man who had actually had an article on the sugar +bounties accepted by a commercial magazine was pointed out to him in the +street, was one he never forgot; nor in after years did he ever +encounter that transfigured contributor without an involuntary +recurrence of that old feeling of awe. No subsequent acquaintance with +editorial rooms ever led him into materialistic explanations of that +enchanted piece of work--a newspaper. The editors might do their +best--and succeed surprisingly--in looking like ordinary mortals, you +might even know the leader-writers, and, with the very public, gaze +through gratings into the subterranean printing-rooms,--the mystery none +the less remained. No exposure of editorial staffs or other machinery +could destroy the sense of enchantment, as no amount of anatomy or +biology can destroy the mystery of the human miracle. + +So I suppose Nature first makes us in love with the tools we are to use, +long before we have a thought upon what we shall use them. Perhaps the +first desire of the born writer is to be a compositor. Out of the love +of mere type quickly evolves a love of mere words for their own sake; +but whether we shall make use of them as a historian, novelist, +philosopher, or poet, is a secondary consideration, a mere afterthought. +To Henry Mesurier had already come the time when the face of life began +to Wear a certain aspect, the peculiar attraction of which for himself +he longed to fix, a certain mystical importance attaching to the +commonest every-day objects and circumstances, a certain ecstatic +quality in the simplest experiences; but even so far as it had been +revealed, this dawning vision of the world seemed only to have come to +him, not so much to find expression, as to mock him with his childish +incapacity adequately to use the very tools he loved. He would hang for +hours over some scene in nature, caught in a woodland spell, like a +nympholept of old; but when he tried to put in words what he had seen, +what a poor piece of ornamental gardening the thing was! There were +trees and birds and grass, to be sure; but there was nothing of that +meaning look which they had worn, that look of being tiptoe with +revelation which is one of the most fascinating tricks of the visible +world, and which even a harsh town full of chimneys can sometimes take +on when seen in given moments and lights. And it was astonishing to see +into what lifeless imitative verse his most original and passionate +moments could be transformed. + +Still some unreasonably indulgent spirit of the air, that had evidently +not read his manuscripts, whispered him to be of good cheer: the +lifeless words would not always be lifeless, some day the birds would +sing in his verses too. This sense of failure did not, it must be said, +immediately follow composition; for, for a little while the original +expression of the thing seen reinforced with reflected significance its +pale copy. It was only some weeks after, when the written copy was left +to do all the work itself, that its foolish inadequacy was exposed. + +"However, there is one consolation, they are not worse than Keats and +Shelley wrote at the same age," he said to himself, as he looked through +a bundle of the poor things the evening before his room was to be +dismantled. "Indeed, they couldn't be," he added, with a smile. +Fortunately he was but nineteen as yet; would he venture on a like +comparison were he twenty-five? + +Yes, his little room was to be dismantled on the morrow,--this first +little private chapel of his spirit. This fair order of shelves, this +external harmony answering to an inner harmony of his spirit, were to be +broken up for ever. Often as he had sat in the folioed lamplit nook +which was, as it were, the very chancel of the little church, and gazed +in an ecstasy at the books, each with a great shining name of fame upon +its cover, it had seemed as though he had put his very soul outside him, +externalised it in this little corner of books and pictures. His soul +shivered, as one who must go houseless awhile, at the thought that +to-morrow its home would be no more. When and how would be its +reincarnation? More magnificent, maybe, but never this again. It was +sacrilege,--was it not ingratitude too? When once more the books and the +pictures began to form into a new harmony, there would be no mother's +love to help the work go on.... + +But as he mused in this no doubt sentimental fashion, the door opened +and the little red-headed Mike entered. His was a little Flibbertigibbet +of a face, already lined with the practice of mimicry; and there was in +it a very attractive blending of tenderness and humour. Mike was also +one of those whom life at the beginning had impressed with the delight +of one kind of work and no other. When a mere imp of a boy, the +heartless tormentor of a large and sententious stepmother, the despair +of schoolmasters, the most ingenious of truants, a humorous ragamuffin +invulnerable to punishment, it was already revealed to him that his +mission in life was to be the observation and reproduction of human +character, particularly in its humorous aspects. To this end Nature had +gifted him with a face that was capable of every form of transformation, +and at an early age he hastened to put it in training. All day long he +was pulling faces. As an artist will sketch everything he comes across, +so Mike would endeavour to imitate any characteristic expression or +attitude, animate or inanimate, in the world around him. Dogs, little +boys, and grotesque old men were his special delight, and of all his +elders he had, it goes without saying, a private gallery of irreverently +faithful portraits. + +In addition to his plastic face, Nature had given him a larynx which was +capable of imitating every human and inhuman sound. To squeak like a +pig, bark like a dog, low like a cow, and crow like a cock, were the +veriest juvenilia of his attainments; and he could imitate the buzzing +of a fly so cunningly that flies themselves have often been deceived. It +was this delight in imitation for its own sake, and not so much that he +had been caught by the usual allurements of the theatre, that he looked +upon the career of an actor as his natural and ultimate calling. It was +already privately whispered in the little circle that Mike would some +day go on the stage. But don't tell that as yet to old Mr. Laflin, +whatever you do. + +There was a good deal more in Mike than pulling faces, as Esther +recently, and Henry before her, had discovered. His acting was some day +to stir the hearts of audiences, because he had instincts for knowing +human nature inside as well as out, knew the secret springs of tears, as +well as the open secrets of laughter; and it was rather on this common +ground of a rich "many-veined humanity" that these two had met and +become friends, rather than on any real community of tastes and ideas. +Yet Mike loved books too, and had an excellent taste in them, though +perhaps he had hardly loved them, had not Henry and Esther loved them +first, and it is quite certain, and quite proper, that he never found a +page of any book so fascinating as the face of some lined and battered +human being. Over that writing he was never found asleep. + +There was one other literary matter on which he held a very personal and +unshakable opinion,--Henry Mesurier's future as a poet; and on this he +came just in the nick of time to cheer him this evening. + +"The next move will be to London, old fellow," he said; "and then you'll +soon see my prophecies come true. My opinion mayn't be worth much, but +you know what it is. You'll be a great writer some day, never fear." + +"Thank you, dear old boy. And you know what I think about your acting, +don't you?" + +Then it was that Esther appeared, and Henry made some transparent excuse +to leave them awhile together. + +"You dear old thing," said Esther, kissing him, "now don't stay away too +long." + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +OF THE LOVE OF ESTHER AND MIKE, AND +THE MESURIER LAW IN REGARD TO +"SWEETHEARTS" + +I'm afraid Esther was little more than fourteen when she had first seen +and fallen in love with Mike. She had heard much of him from her +brother; but, for one reason or another, he had never been to the house. +One evening, however, at a concert, Henry had told her to look in a +certain direction and she would see Mike. + +"I don't suppose you'll call him good looking," he said. + +So Esther had looked round, and seen the pretty curly red hair and the +eager little wistful humorous face for the first time. + +"Why, he's got a lovely little face!" she said, blushing deeply for no +reason at all,--except perhaps that there had seemed something pleading +and shelter-seeking in that little face, something that cried out to be +"mothered," and that instantly there had welled up in her heart a great +warm wish that some day she might be that for it and more. + +And at the same instant it had occurred to the boy, that the face thus +turned to him for a moment was the loveliest face he had ever seen, the +only lovely face he would ever care to see. But with that thought, too, +had come a curious pang of hopelessness into his heart. For Esther +Mesurier was one of those girls who are the prizes of men. With all +those pretty tall fellows about her, it was unlikely indeed that she +would care for a little red-headed, face-pulling ragamuffin like him! +And yet if she never could care for him,--never, never at all, what a +lonely place the world would be! + +When, after the concert, Henry looked round to introduce Mike to his +sister, he had somehow slipped away and was nowhere to be seen. + +However, it was not long after this that Mike paid a visit to Henry's +study one evening, and, coming ostensibly to look at his books, once +more saw his sister, and spoke to her a brief introductory word. His +interest in literature became positively remarkable from this time; and +the enthusiasm with which his actor's mind reflected, and, no doubt in +all good faith, mimicked the various philosophical and literary +enthusiasms of his friend, was, though neither realised it, a sure +earnest of his future. More and more frequent visits to that study +became necessary for its gratification; and, in the course of one of +them, Mike confessed to Henry that he loved his sister, previously +piling upon himself many anticipatory terms of ignominy for daring to do +so presumptuous a thing. Henry, however, was so taken with the idea +that, in his singleness of mind, he suffered no pang of retrospective +suspicion of his friend's love for himself. Pending Esther's +decision,--and of her mind in the matter, he had something more than a +glimmering,--he welcomed Mike with gladness as a prospective +brother-in-law, and, as soon as he found an opportunity, left them alone +together, returning quite a long time afterwards--to find them +extraordinarily happy, it would appear, at his safe return. + +Esther and Mike had thus been fortunate enough to get that important +question of a mate settled quite early in life, and to be saved from +those arduous and desolating experiments in being fitted with a heart +which so many less happy people have to go through. But this happy fact +was as yet a secret beyond this strict circle of three; for, strange as +it may sound, the beautiful attraction of a girl for a boy, the +beautiful worship of a boy for a girl, were matters not even mentionable +as yet in the Mesurier household. For a child, particularly a girl, +under twenty to speak of having a "sweetheart" was an offence which had +a strong savour of disgust in it, even for Mrs. Mesurier, broad-minded +as in most matters she was. + +So far as the only decent theory of the relations of the sexes was +involuntarily explicit, by virtue of certain explosions on the subject, +it was something like this: That, at a certain age, say twenty-one, or, +for leniency, twenty, as it were on the striking of a clock, the young +girl, who previously had been profoundly and inexpressibly unconscious +that the male being existed, would suddenly sit up wide awake in an +attitude of attention to offers of marriage; and that, similarly, the +young man, who had meanwhile lived with his eyes shut and his senses +asleep, would jump up also at the striking of a clock, and, as it were, +with hilarity, say, "It is high time I chose a wife," and thereupon +begin to look about, among the streets and tennis-parties known to him, +for that impossible paragon,--a wife to satisfy both his parents. + +One or two of Henry's earliest troubles and most drastic punishments had +come of a propensity to "sweethearts," developed at an indecorously +early age, and in fact at the time of which I write he could barely +recall the name of Miss This or Miss The Other by the association of +ancient physical pangs suffered for their sake. The greatest danger to +such contraband passions was undoubtedly the post; for, in the Mesurier +household, a more than Russian censorship was exercised over the +incoming and--as far as it could be controlled--the outgoing mail. One +old morning, at family breakfast, which the subsequent events of the +evening were to fix on his mind, Henry Mesurier had grown white with +fear, as the stupid maid had handed him a fat letter addressed in a +sprawling school-girl's hand. + +"Who is your letter from, Henry?" asked the father. + +Henry blushed and boggled. + +"Pass it over to me." + +Resistance was worse than useless. As in war-time a woman will see her +husband set up against a wall and shot before her face, as a +conspirator sees the hands of the police close upon papers of the most +terrible secrecy, so did Henry watch that scented little package pass +with a sense of irrevocable loss into the cold hands of his father. The +father opened it, placed a little white enclosure by the side of his +coffee-cup for further inspection, and then read the letter--full of +"darlings" and "for evers"--with the severe attention he would have +given a business letter. Then he handed it across to the mother without +a word, but with the look one doctor gives another in discovering a new +and terrible symptom in a patient on whom they are consulting. While the +mother read, the father opened the little packet, and out rolled a tiny +plait of silky brown hair tied into a loop with a blue ribbon. + +"Disgusting!" exclaimed the father and mother, simultaneously, to each +other, as though the boy was not there. + +"I am shocked at you, Henry," said the mother. + +"I shall certainly write to the forward little girl's parents," said the +father. + +"Oh, don't do that, father," exclaimed the boy, in terror, and half +wondering if so sweet a thing could really be so criminal. + +"Don't dare to speak to me," said the father. "Leave the +breakfast-table. I will see you again this evening." + +Henry knew too well what the verb "to see" signified under the +circumstances, and the day passed in such apprehensive gloom that it was +a positive relief, when evening had at last come, to feel a walking-cane +about him, at once more snaky and more notched than any previously +applied to his stubborn young frame. Not to cry was, of course, a point +of honour; and as the infuriating absence of tears inflamed the +righteous anger of the parent, the stick splintered and broke with a +crash, in which accident Henry learned he was responsible for a +double offence. + +"I wouldn't have broken that stick for five pounds," said the father, +his interest suddenly withdrawn from his son; "it was given to me by my +old friend Tarporley," which, as can be imagined, was a mighty +satisfaction to the sad small soul, smarting, not merely from the stick, +but from the sense that life held something stupid in its injustice, in +that he was thus being mauled for the most beautiful exalted feeling +that had ever visited his young heart. + +Those dark ages of oppression were long since passed for Henry and +Esther, when Mike began to steal in of an evening to see Esther, and +they were only referred to now and again, anecdotally, as the nineteenth +century looks back at the days of the Holy Inquisition; but still it was +wise to be cautious, for an interdict against Mike's coming to the house +was quite within possibility, even in this comparatively enlightened +epoch; and that would have been even more effective than James +Mesurier's old friend Tarporley's stick of sacred memory. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF HOME + +Recalling for another moment or two the ancient affair of the heart +described in the last chapter, it may pertinently be added that James +Mesurier fulfilled his threat on that occasion, and had in fact written +to the "forward little girl's" parents. Could he have seen the rather +amused reception of his letter, he would have realised with sorrow that +an age of parental leniency, little short of degeneration, was in +certain quarters unmistakably supplanting the stern age of which he was +in a degree an anachronistic survival. That forward little girl's +parents chanced to know James Mesurier enough by sight and reputation to +respect him, while they smiled across to each other at his rather quaint +disciplinarianism. Could Henry Mesurier have seen that smile, he would +not only have felt reassured as to the fate of his little sweetheart, +but have understood that there were temperate zones of childhood, as +well as arctic, when young life waxed gaily to the sound of laughter +and other musical accompaniments. + +This revelation, however, was deferred some few years, till he became +acquainted with the merry family of which Mike Laflin was the +characteristic expression. Old Mr. Laflin was a little, jolly, +bald-headed gentleman, bubbling over with mirth, who liked to have young +people about him, and in his quips and cranks was as young as, and much +cleverer than, any of them. It almost startled Henry on his first +introduction to this family of two daughters and two brothers, where the +father was rather like a brother grown prematurely bald, and the +stepmother supplied with monumental dignity that element of solemnity +without which no properly regulated household is complete, to notice the +_camaraderie_ which prevailed amongst them all. Jokes were flying about +from one to another all the time, and the father made a point of capping +them all. This was home in a liberal sense which the word had never +meant to Henry. Doubtless, it had its own individual restrictions and +censorships; but its surface was at all events debonair, and it was +serviceable to Henry as revealing the existence of more genial social +climates than that in which he had been nurtured--though in making the +comparison with his own atmosphere, he realised that this _bonhomie_ was +nothing more important than a grace. + +Perhaps, nay, very surely, the seriousness, even the severity of, his +own training, had been among the very conditions needed to make him what +he some day hoped to be, though they had seemed so purposely inimical. +Had James Mesurier's religion been more free and easy, a matter less +personally assured and momentous, his son's almost oppressive sense of +the spiritual significance of existence had been less radiant and +constantly supporting. Life might have gained in superficial +liveableness; but it would have lost in intensity, in real importance, +and with that loss would have gone too Henry's chance of being a poet." +The poet in a golden clime was born!"--once and again, maybe, but more +often he comes from a land of iron and tears. + +It is in the nature of things that Henry should begin to appreciate the +services of his home to his development at the moment when he was +leaving it. And the mere pang of the parting from it, when one day the +hour for parting had surely come, was much more deep and complicated +than he could have dreamed. As in our bodies we become conscious of +certain vital centres, certain dependencies of relation and harmony, +only when they have suffered shock, so often in life we may go along +unconscious of the vital dependencies of our human relationships, till +the moment comes to strain or sever them. Then a thousand hidden nerves +quiver at the discovering touch of the knife. Henry's leaving home, +though it had been originally the suggestion of violent feeling, was not +to be an actual severance. His father's "leave my house for ever" had +owed something to the rhetoric of anger, and the expulsion and cutting +off which it had implied had since been so softened as practically to +have disappeared. Henry was certainly not leaving his father's house for +ever, but merely going into lodgings with a friend, with full privileges +to visit his own home as often as he chose. + +Still, he was, all the same, leaving home, and he was the first to leave +it. The mother, at all events, knew that this was the beginning of the +end, knew that, with her first-born's departure (desertion, she may have +called it), a new era had commenced for the home,--the era of +disintegration. For twenty years and more it had been all building and +building; now it would be all just pulling down again; and there was a +dreary sound as of demolition and wind-driven rain in her ears. + +Oh, tragic love of mothers! Of no love is the final loss and doom so +inevitably destined. The husband may desert the wife, but the son is +sure to desert his mother--must, for nature demands the desertion. Put +not your trust in princes--and yet put it rather in princes, oh, fond +and doting parents, than in the blue-eyed flower of childhood for which +year after year, with labours infinite, you would buy all the sunshine +of the world. + +Henry's pang at leaving home was mainly the pang of parting with his +mother. It seemed more than a mere physical parting. It was his +childhood that was parting from her for ever. When he came to see them +he would be something different,--a man, an independent being. As long +ago physically, now spiritually, the umbilical cord had been cut. + +With Esther and Dot and Mat the parting was hardly a parting, as it was +rather a promise of their all meeting together some day in a new place +of freedom, which there was a sense of his going out to prepare for +them. Their way would be his way, as the mother's could not; for theirs +was the highway of youth, which, sooner or later, they would all take +together, singing in the morning sun. + +The three younger sisters, the as yet unopened buds of the family +flower, took Henry's departure with the surface tears and the central +indifference of childhood. When a family is so large, it practically +includes two generations in itself; and these three girls were really to +prove a generation so different in characteristics from their four +elders as to demand a separate chronicle to themselves. + +Thus as Henry drove away amid his trunks from the home of his father +(genealogical poverty denies us the romantic grandiloquence of the +plural), it was his mother's farewell arms and farewell tears, and his +farewell promises to her, of which he was mainly conscious. He had +promised "to take care of himself," and particularly to beware of damp +sheets, and then he too had burst into tears. Indeed, it was generally a +tearful business, after which everybody was glad to retire into corners +to subside privately and dry themselves. + +Henry crouched in the corner of his cab with fully half his cry to +finish out; and, curiously, all the time a sad little story from an old +holiday in the country kept haunting him. It was at once a fact and a +fable concerning a happy little family of swallows, whose sudden tragedy +he had seen with his own boyish, pitying eyes. + +In a little vinery attached to an old country house which the Mesuriers +had rented for a month or so for certain successive summers, two +swallows had built their nest, and, in due course, there were three +young swallows to keep them company. It was understood that the door of +the vinery must be left open, that the parent swallows might fly to and +fro for food; but by some accident it chanced that the door was one day +closed, and the vinery not visited again for several days. When at last +the door was opened again, the sight that met young eyes was one Henry +had never forgotten. Three little starved swallows, hardly bigger than +butterflies, lay upon the floor, and from the nest above hung the long +horse-hairs with which the parents had vainly sought to anchor them +safely to the home. But still sadder details were forthcoming, when the +children, who had been wondering what had become of the parents, had +suddenly discovered their wasted bodies in the grass a yard or two away +from the vinery door. A few days ago this had been a happy, thriving +home, and now it was absolutely desolated, done away with for ever. It +needed no exceptional imagination or sympathy to conceive the agonised +longing of the parents, as they had dashed themselves again and again +upon that cruel, unyielding door, hearing the piteous cries of their +young ones within, and the anguish in which their exhausted little lives +had at last gone out. The young swallows had died for lack of food; but +the old ones had died--for love. Had some other hand brought them food, +would the young ones have missed the old ones like that? + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A LINK WITH CIVILISATION + + +On the afternoon following Henry's departure, Esther went out for a +walk, and she came presently to a pretty little house half hidden in its +big garden. A well-kept lawn, richly bathed in sunlight, flashed through +the trees; and, opening the gate and following the tree-shaded path +along one side of the house, Esther presently mounted to a small +terrace, where, as she had hoped, she came upon a dainty little lady +watering her flowers. + +"Why, Esther, it's you! How sweet of you! I was just dying to see you!" +exclaimed the little lady, turning a pretty, but somewhat worn, and +brilliantly sad face from her gardening. "Just let me finish this +thirsty bed, and then you must give me a kiss. There!" + +Then the two embraced; and as Mrs. Myrtilla Williamson held Esther at +arm's length and looked at her admiringly,-- + +"How pretty you look to-day!" she exclaimed, generously. "That new +hat's a great success. Didn't I tell you mauve was your colour? Turn +round. Yes, dear, you look charming. Where in the world, I wonder, did +you all get that grand look of yours from?--I don't mean your good looks +merely, but that look of distinction. Your father and mother have it +too; but where did _they_ get it from? You're a puzzle-family--all of +you. But wouldn't you like a cup of tea? Come in," and she led the way +indoors to a tiny, sweet-smelling boudoir on the left of the hall, of +which a dainty glimpse, with its books and water-colours and bibelots, +was to be caught from the terrace. + +Everything about Myrtilla Williamson was scrupulously, determinedly +dainty, from the flowered tea-gown about her slim, girlish figure,--her +predilection for that then novel and suspected garment was regarded as a +sure mark of a certain Parisian levity by her neighbours,--to her just a +little "precious" enunciation. In France, in the seventeenth century, +she would almost certainly have been a visitor at the Hotel Rambouillet, +and to-day she was mysteriously and disapprovingly spoken of as +"aesthetic." She had a look as if she had tripped out of a Japanese fan, +and slept at night in a pot-pourri jar. And she had brains, those good +things--brains. + +Her name was very like her life, one-half of which might be described as +Myrtilla, the other half as Williamson. She was Myrtilla during the day, +dabbling with her water-colours, her flowers, or her books; but at six +o'clock each afternoon, with the sound of aggressive masculine boots in +the hall, her life suddenly changed with a sigh to Williamson. The +Williamson half of her life was so clumsily, so grotesquely ill-matched +with the Myrtilla half that it was, and probably will always remain, a +mystery why she had ever attempted so tasteless and inconvenient an +addition,--a mystery, however, far from unique in the history of those +mysteriously stupid unhappy marriages with evident boors which refined +and charming women will, it is to be feared, go on making to the end of +the human chapter. + +It was perhaps a day hardly less interesting for Myrtilla than for the +young people themselves when she had first met Henry and Esther +Mesurier. Before, in the dull bourgeois society into which Williamson +had transplanted her from London, she had found none with whom she dared +be her natural Myrtilla. There she was expected to be Williamson to the +bone. Henry and Esther, however, were only too grateful for Myrtilla, +through whom was to come to them the revelation of some minor graces of +life for which they had the instincts, but on which they had lacked +instruction; and who, still more important, at least for Henry, was to +be their first fragile link with certain strenuous new northern writers, +translations of whom in every tongue had just then descended, Gothlike, +upon Europe, to the great energising of its various literatures. She it +was too who first handed them the fretted golden key to the enchanted +garden of the Pre-Raphaelites, and the striking head of the young Dante +in sepia, which had hung in a sort of shrine-recess in Henry's study, +had been copied for him from Rossetti's sketch by Myrtilla's own hand. + +She had, too, one of the most precious gifts for friendship, the gift of +unselfish and diligent and progressive appreciation of all a friend's +good points. She never flattered; but she never missed the smallest +opportunity for praise. She was one of those rare people who make you +feel happy in yourself, who send you away somehow dignified, profitably +raised in your own esteem; just as others have a mysterious power of +dejecting you in your proudest moments. If you had any charm, however +shy, Myrtilla Williamson would find it, and send you away with a great +gush of gratitude to her because it had been found at last. This was +perhaps the greatest charm of her clever letters; they were all about +"you,"--not, of course, that you didn't want to hear about her. But +frequently all she told you of herself was her name. Perhaps she would +write in the half-hour that remained between, say, a visit from Esther +and the arrival of Williamson, to fix in a few intimate vivid words the +charm of their afternoon together, and tell Esther in some new +gratifying way what she was to her and why and how she was it; or when +Henry had been there--even more carefully in the absence of +Williamson--to read her his new poem, she would write him a long letter +of literary criticism, just perceptibly vibrating with the emotion she +might have felt for the romantic young poet, whom she allowed to call +himself her "cavaliere servente," had she not been Williamson as well as +Myrtilla, and had she not, as she somewhat unscientifically declared, +been old enough to be his mother. + +"Well," she said, as they sipped their tea, "so Henry's really gone. He +slipped round to bid me a sort of good-bye yesterday, and told me the +whole story. On the whole, I'm glad, though I know how you'll miss each +other. But I'm sorriest for your mother. Yes, yes, I'm sorry for her. +You must try to make it up to her, dear child. I think just that, above +all things, would make me fear to be a mother. One can do without +children," and there was a certain implication in the conversational +atmosphere that children of the name of Williamson had been mercifully +spared the world; "but when once they have come into one's life, it must +be terrible to see them go out again. I should like to come round and +have a little talk with your mother. I wonder if she'd care to see me?" + +"So long as you don't come in your tea-gown," said Esther, with a laugh. + +"Cruel child!" and then with a way she had of suddenly finding +something she wanted to hear of among the interests of her friends, +"Now," she said, "tell me something about Mike. I suppose the course of +true love runs as smoothly as ever. Happy children! Give him my love +when you see him, won't you?" + +Esther told all there was to tell about Mike up-to-date, and wished she +could have repaid her friend's sympathetic interest with a request for +something similar about Williamson. But it was tacitly understood that +there was nothing further to be said on that subject, and that the news +of Myrtilla's life could hardly again take any more excitingly personal +form than the bric-a-brac excitements of art or literature,--though +indeed art and literature were, to be just to them, far more than +bric-a-brac in the life of Myrtilla Williamson. They were, indeed, it +was easy to see, a very sustaining religion for the lonely little woman +who, having no children to study, and having completed her studies of +Williamson, was driven a good deal upon the study and development of +herself. The Williamson half of the day provided her fully with +opportunities for the practice of all the philosophy she was likely to +acquire from writers ancient and modern, and for the absorption of all +the consolation history and biography was likely to afford in the +stories of women similarly circumstanced. It is to be feared that +Myrtilla not only wore tea-gowns in advance of her time, but was also +somewhat prematurely something of a "new" woman; but this was a subject +on which she really did very little to "poison" Esther's "young mind." +Esther's young mind, in common with those of her two subsequent sisters, +was little in need of "poisoning" from outside on such subjects. Indeed, +it was a curious phenomenon to observe how all these young minds, sprung +from a stock of such ancient, unquestioning faith, had, so to say, been +born "poisoned;" or, to state the matter less metaphorically, had all +been born with instincts for the most pitiless and effortless reasoning +on all subjects human and divine. + +As the hour approached when poor Myrtilla must change back to +Williamson, Esther rose to say good-bye. + +"Come again soon, dear girl; you don't know the good you do me." + +The good, dear woman was entirely done by her unwearied, sympathetic +discussion of the affairs and dreams of Esther, Mike, and Henry. + +"Oh, here is a wonderful new book I intended to talk to you about. You +can take it with you; I have finished it. Come next week and tell me +what you think of it." + +As Esther walked down the path, Myrtilla watched her, and, as she passed +out of the gate, waved her a final kiss of parting, and turned indoors. +There seemed something ever so sad about her dainty back as it +disappeared into the doorway. + +"Poor little woman!" said Esther to herself, as she looked to see the +title of the book she was carrying. It included a curious Russian name, +the correct pronunciation of which she foresaw she must ask Myrtilla on +their next meeting. It was "The Journal of Marie Bashkirtseff." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A RHAPSODY OF TYRE + + +Sidon, the stage of the moving events so far recorded, though it makes +much of possessing a separate importance, is really a cross-river +residential suburb of Tyre, the great seaport in which all the ships of +the world come to and fro. During the day Sidon is virtually emptied of +its men-folk, and is given up to perambulators and feminine activities +generally; for the men have streamed across the ferries that bridge the +sunny, boisterous river, to the docks and offices of Tyre. + +Though Tyre is not a very old city, it is not so new as to be denied a +few of those associations known as "historical." Tyre had once the +honour to be taken by Prince Rupert, and long before that its nucleus +had existed as a monk's ferry, by which travellers were rowed across the +river to the monastery and posting-house at Sidon. Sometimes of an +evening Henry and Mike would think of those far-off times as they looked +over the ferry-boat at the long lines of river lights, with their +restless heaving reflections; and sometimes they could picture to +themselves the green sloping banks of the virgin fields, and hear the +priory bell calling to them out of the darkness. But such were the +faintest of their visions; and they loved the river banks best as they +are to-day, with their Egyptian walls and swarming lights and +tangled ships. + +And whoso should think that that sordid commercial city, given up to all +the prose of trade day by day, is not a poet at heart, has never seen +her strange smile at evening when the shops are shut, and the offices +empty, and the men who know her not gone home. For then across the +crowded roofs softly comes a strange sweetness, and deep down among the +gloomy wynds of deserted warehouses, still as temples, sudden fairies of +sunset dance and dazzle, and touch the grimy walls with soft hands. In +lonely back rooms, full of desks and dust, haunted lights of evening +stand like splendid apparitions; and sometimes, if you lingered at the +top of High Street, beneath the dark old church, and the moon was out +on the left of the steeple and the sunset dying on the right, dying +beyond the tangled masts and fading from the river, you would forget you +were a city clerk, and you would wonder why the world was so beautiful, +why the moon was made of pearl, and what it was that called to you out +of yonder golden sea; and your heart would fill with a strange gladness, +and you would call back to those unearthly voices, "I am yours, yours, +all yours!" + +Thus would this town of bales and merchants, of office-desks and stools, +make poets at evening that she might stone them at noon. For, of course, +she would have forgotten it all in the morning; and it were well not to +remind her with your dreaming eyes of her last night's softness. She +will look back at you with stony misunderstanding, and her new lover +Reality will sharply box your ears. + +It is no use reminding the Exchange that it looked like a scene from +Romeo and Juliet in the moonlight. It dare not admit it. But wait +patiently till the evening. Tyre will be yours again with the sunset. +She pretends all day that it is the Mayor in the gilded coach and the +pursy merchantmen she cares for; but it is really you, a poor shabby +poet, she loves all the time, for you only does she wear her gauzy silks +at evening! + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +A PENITENTIARY OF THE MATHEMATICS + + +Yes, Mike was some day to be another Kean, and Henry was to prove a +serious rival to Shakespeare; but, meanwhile, they were clerks in the +offices of Tyre. + +Of the rigours, and therefore too the truancies and humours of the lot +official, Mike was comparatively so comfortably circumstanced as to have +little knowledge. His father was the king of a little flourishing prison +of desks, and Mike was one of the heirs-apparent. Consequently, his lot, +though dull, was seldom bitter; and many mitigations of it were within +his privilege. With Henry it was different. He was a humble unit among +twenty other slaves, chained to that modern substitute for the galleys, +the desk; and, in a wicked bargain, he had contracted to give his +life-blood from nine in the morning till six in the evening, for sixty +pounds a year, with an occasional "rise," which, after thirty years' +service, might end in your having reached a proud annual three hundred +for the rest of your maimed and narrowed days. + +Henry had come to the office straight from school, at the age of +sixteen; and, though classrooms breathe an air sufficiently frigid and +suggestive of inhuman interests and unmeaning discipline, the icy air of +that office had at first almost taken his breath. The place was so +ridiculously serious! There might conceivedly be interests in the world +worthy of so abject an absorption, so bleaching an obeisance of the +individual; but Henry, with the dews of certain classics still upon him, +remembered that anything really Olympian in its importance is always +strong enough to smile. It is a lesser strength that must make the +muscular effort of severity. True dignities, as often as possible, stand +at ease. But here indeed were no true strengths and dignities,--only +prison-strengths and prison-dignities. Here the majesties, the +occupations, the offences, were alike frivolities, fantastically changed +about into solemnities. + +That first impression of abject bowed heads and chains rattled beneath +desks, was roughly correct. For all that was human in a man, this was a +prison. These men who bent over foolish papers were evidently convicts +of the most desperate character; so, at all events, you would judge when +occasionally one or other of the prison-governors, known as "partners," +passed among them with the lash of his eye. Such faint human twittering +as may have grown up amongst even these poor exiles would suddenly die +into a silence white with fear, as when the shadow of a hawk falls +across the song of smaller birds. + +No human relations are acknowledged here. Outside, you may be a husband +wonderfully beloved and tragically important; you may be a man whose +courage has be-medalled your brave breast; you may be a passionate and +subtle musician in your private hours; you may even on Sundays be a much +appreciated vessel of the divine: but all such distinctions are not +current here; here they are foreign coin, diplomas unacknowledged in +this barbarous realm of ink and steel. The more ignorant, the more +narrow, the more mean, the more unnatural, you can contrive to be, the +better will be your lot in this sad monastery of Mammon. When the door +hissed behind you, with that little patent pneumatic device, you ceased +to be a human being, and began to be--the human machine. All the +vitality you have stored within that pale body you are expected to +exhaust here,--you have sold it, don't you remember, for sixty or three +hundred pounds a year; you are not expected to have any left over for +pleasures. That will be robbery. Masters suffer much from peculation +indeed in this way; but a machine is in course of invention which shall +put an end to this, by the application of which to your heart the +task-master will know whether or not you have spent every available +heart-beat in his slavery during the day, or whether you are +endeavouring, you miserable thief, to steal home with a little remnant +of it for your children at night. + +This was the theory of the office, as Henry once heard it expressed, +with a cynicism more brief and direct from the lips of one of his +task-masters; but it must be admitted that in certain respects his +experience was extreme. There are offices which are the ears and eyes of +activities absorbingly and even romantically human. To be in a +shipping-office is not perhaps to be the rose, but it is to live near +it,--the great rose of the sea. You are, so to say, a land-sailor, a +supercargo left on shore. Your office-windows are lashed with +hurricanes; your talk is frequently of cyclones. The names of far +romantic isles are constantly on your lips, and your bills of lading are +threepenny romances in themselves. Strange produce of distant lands are +your daily concern, and the four winds meet at your counter with a +savour of tar. For all you know, a pirate may claim your attention any +minute of the day. + +Or, again, to be, say, in a corn-merchant's, a clearing-house of the +fruitful earth. There at your telephone you may hear the corn-fields +whispering to you, hear the wheat waving in the wind, and the thin +chatter of oats. Or you may sell butter and cheese in an office that +smells of farms. However removed, you are an indirect agent of the +earth, a humble go-between of the seasons and the eternal needs of man. + +Or, once more, you may be one of the thousand clerks of a great +manufacturer, and be humbly related to one of the arts or crafts that +gladden the eye or add to the comforts of man. Or even, though you may +be denied so close an association with the elements, or the arts, you +may be the pen to some subtle legal confidante of human nature. Your +office may be stored with records of human perversity and whimsicality. +You may be the witness to fantastic wills, or assist in the +administration of the estates of lunatics. At all events, you will come +within hearing of the human passions. Misers will visit you at times, +and beautiful ladies in mourning deep as their distress; and from your +desk you will catch a glimpse of the sombre pageantry of litigious man. + +Though it is true that a certain far-off flavour of these legal +excitements occasionally enlivened the business to which Henry had been +sacrificially indentured, for the most part it was an abstract +parasitical thing which had succeeded in persuading other businesses, +more directly fed from the human spring, of its obliging usefulness in +relieving them of detachable burdens. In fact, it had no activity or +interest of its own to account for, so it proposed, in default of any +such original reason for existence, to look after the accounts of +others, as a self-constituted body of financial police. For those +engaged in it, except those who had been born mentally deformed, or +those who had become unnaturally perverted by long usage, it was a sort +of penitentiary of the mathematics. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +THE GRASS BETWEEN THE FLAG-STONES + +Yes, it was a curiously unreal world; and, for the first day or two, as +Henry, bent, lonely and bewildered, over his desk, studied it furtively +with questioning eyes, it seemed to him as though he had strayed into +some asylum for the insane, where fantastic interests and mock honours +take the place of the real interests and honours of sane human beings. + +Part of the business of the firm consisted in the collection of +house-rents, frequently entailing visits from tenants and questions of +repairs. A certain Mr. Smith, a wiry little grey-headed man, with a keen +face and a decisive manner, looked after this branch; and the gusto with +which he did it was one of Henry's earliest and most instructive +amazements. House-repairs were quite evidently his poetry, and he never +seemed so happy as when passionately wrangling with a tenant on some +question of drains. The words "cesspool" and "wet-trap"--words to which +I don't pretend to attach any meaning--seemed to be particular +favourites of his. In fact, an hour seldom passed without their falling +from his lips. But Mr. Smith's great opportunity was a gale. For that +always meant an exciting harvest of dislodged chimney-pots, flying +slates, and smashed skylights, which would impart an energetic interest +to his life for days. + +Again, in Henry's department--for the office was cut into two halves, +with about ten clerks in each, the partners having, of course, their own +private offices, from which they might dart out at any moment--there was +a certain little fussy chief clerk who was obviously a person of very +mysterious importance. He was frequently away, evidently on missions of +great moment, for always on his return he would be closeted immediately +with one or other of the partners, who in turn seemed to consider him +important too, and would sometimes treat him almost like one of +themselves, actually condescending to laugh with him now and again over +some joke, evidently as mysterious as all the rest. This Mr. Perkins +seldom noticed the juniors in his department, though occasionally he +would select one of them to accompany him on one of his missions to +clients of the firm; and they would start off together, as you may see a +plumber and his apprentice sometimes in the streets,--the proud +master-plumber in front, and the little apprentice plumber behind, +carrying the lead pipe and the iron smelting-pot. + +Now, did Mr. Smith really take such a heart-interest in cesspools and +wet-traps as he appeared to do? and did Mr. Perkins really think he +mattered all that? + +These were two of the earliest questions which Henry asked himself, and +as time brought the answers to them, and kindred questions, there were +unexpected elements of comfort for the heart of the boy, longing so +desperately in that barren place for any hint of the human touch. One +day Mr. Smith startled him by mentioning Dickens, and even Charles Lamb. +It was a kindly recognition of Mesurier's rumoured interest in +literature. Henry looked at him in amazement. "Oh, you read then!" he +exclaimed. Of anything so human as reading he had suspected no one in +that office. + +Then as to the great Mr. Perkins, the time came when he was to prove +very human indeed. For, dying suddenly one day, his various work had to +pass into other hands; and, bit by bit, it began to leak out that those +missions had not been so industriously devoted to the interests of the +firm, nor been so carefully executed, as had been imagined. For Mr. +Perkins, it transpired, had been fond of his pleasures, could appreciate +wine, and liked an occasional informal holiday. So, posthumously, he +began to wear for Henry a faint halo of humanity. + +Indeed, it did not take Henry many days to realise that, as grass will +force its way even between the flag-stones in a prison-yard, no little +humanity contrived to support its existence even in this dead place. By +degrees, he realised that these apparently colourless and frigid figures +about him had each their separate individuality, engaging or otherwise; +that their interests were by no means centred on the dull pages before +them; and that, for the most part, they were very much in a like case +with himself. Although thus immured from the world of realities, they +still maintained, in vigorous activity, many healthy outdoor interests, +and were quite keen in their enthusiasm for, and remarkably instructed +in, the latest developments of horse-racing, football, and +prize-fighting. Likewise, they had retained an astonishingly fresh and +unimpaired interest in women, and still enjoyed the simple earth-born +pleasures of the glass and the pipe. + +As he understood this, Henry began to feel more at home; and, as the +characters of his associates revealed themselves, he began to see that +there were amongst them several pleasant and indeed merry fellows, and +that, after all, fortune might have thrown him into much worse company. +They, on their side, making like discoveries in him, he presently found +himself admitted to their freemasonry, and initiated into their many +secret ways of mitigating their lot, and shortening their long days. +Thus, this chill, stern world of automata, which, on first sight, looked +as if no human word or smile or jest could escape the detection of its +iron laws, revealed, when you were once inside it, an under-world of +pleasant escapes and exciting truancies, of which, as you grew +accustomed to the risks and general conditions of the life, you were +able skilfully to avail yourself. + +The main principle of these was to seem to spend twice as much time on +each task as it needed, that you might have the other half for such +private uses as were within your reach,--to elongate dinner-hours at +both ends so adroitly, and on such carefully selected propitious +occasions, that the elongation, or at least the whole extent of it, +would pass unobserved; and, in general, to gain time, any waste ends of +five minutes or quarter hours, on all possible occasions. If the reader +calls this shirking and robbery, he must. Technically, no doubt, it was; +but these clerks, without so formulating it, merely exercised the right +of all oppressed beings liberally to interpret to their own advantage, +where possible, the terms of an unjust contract which grinding economic +conditions had compelled them to make. They had been forced to promise +too much in exchange for too little, and they equalised the disparity +where they could. + +Whether they spent the time thus hoarded in a profitable fashion, is a +question of personal definition. It was usually expended in companies of +twos or threes, with a pipe and a pot of beer and much spirited talk, in +the warm corners of adjacent taverns; and, so long as you don't drink +too much, there has perhaps been invented none pleasanter than that +old-fashioned way of spending an hour. Certainly, it was the way for ale +to taste good, and a pipe to seem the most satisfying of all earthly +consolations. It was almost worth the bondage to enjoy the keen relish +of the escape. + +By degrees, though the youngest there, Henry came to be allowed a +certain leadership in these sorties of the human element. He made it his +business to stimulate these unthrifty instincts, and to fan the welcome +sparks of natural idleness; and so successfully that at times there +seemed to have entered with him into that gloomy place a certain Bacchic +influence, which now and again would prompt his comrades to such daring +clutches of animated release, that the spirit of it even pervaded the +penetralia of the senior partner's office, with the result that some +mishap of truancy would undo the genial work of months, and precipitate +upon them for a while the rigours of a ten-fold discipline. It was after +such an occasion that, in writing to James Mesurier as to the progress +of his son, old Mr. Septimus Lingard had paid Henry one of the proudest +compliments of his young days. "I fear that we shall make little of your +son Henry," he wrote. "His head seems full of literature, and he is so +idle that he is demoralising the whole office." + +It took Henry more than a year to win that testimonial; but the odds had +been so great against him that the wonder is he was ever able to win it +at all. Mr. Lingard wrote "demoralise." It was his way of saying +"humanise." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +HUMANITY IN HIGH PLACES + +One day, however, Henry was to make the still more surprising discovery, +that not only were the clerks human beings, but that one of the +partners--only one of them--was also human. He made this discovery about +the senior partner, whose old-world figure and quaint name, Septimus +Searle Lingard, had, in spite of his severity, attracted him by a +certain musty distinction. + +A stranger figure than Septimus Searle Lingard has seldom walked the +streets of any town. Though not actually much over sixty, you would have +said he must be a thousand; his abnormally long, narrow, shaven face was +so thin and gaunt and hollowed, and his tall, upright figure was so +painfully fragile, that his black broadcloth seemed almost too heavy for +the worn frame inside it. And nothing in the world else was ever so +piercingly solemn as his keen weary old eyes. With his tall silk hat, +his thin white hair, his long white face, long black frock-coat, and +black trousers, he looked for all the world like a distinguished +skeleton. Henry could never be quite sure whether he was to be classed +as a "character," or as a genuine personality. One thing was certain, +that, sometime or other, or many times, in his life he had done +something, or many things, which had won for him a respect as deep as +his solemnity of aspect; and certainly, if gravity of demeanour goes for +anything, all the owls of all the ages in collaboration could not have +produced an expression of time-honoured wisdom so convincing. Sometimes +his old lantern-jaws would emit an uncanny cackle of a laugh, and a +ghastly flicker of humour play across his parchment features; but these +only deepened the general sense of solemnity, as the hoot of a +night-bird deepens the loneliness of some desolate hollow among +the hills. + +It was this strange old ghost of a man that was to be the next to turn +human, and it came about like this. Right away at the top of the +building was a lonely room where the sun never shone, in which were +stored away the old account-books, diaries, and various +dead-and-done-with documents of the firm; and here too was deposited, +from time to time, various wreckage of the same kind from other +businesses whose last offices had been done by the firm, and whose +records were still preserved, in the unlikely event of any chance +resurrection of claim upon, or interest in, their long forgotten names. + +Here crumbled the last relics of many an ambitious enterprise,--great +ledgers, with their covers still fresh, lay like slabs, from which, if +you wiped away the dust, the gilded names of foundered companies would +flash as from gaudy tombstones; letter-books bursting with letters that +no eye would read again so long as the world lasted; yellow title-deeds +from which all the virtue had long since exhaled, and to which no +dangling of enormous seals could any longer lend a convincing air of +importance. Here everything was dead and dusty as an old shoe. The dry +bones in the valley of Askelon were as children skipping in the morning +sun compared with the dusty death that mouldered and mouldered in this +lonely locked-up room,--this catacomb of dead businesses. + +It was seldom necessary to visit this room; but occasionally Henry +would find an excuse to loiter an hour there, for there was a certain +dreary romance about the place, and the almost choking smell of old +leather seemed to promise all sorts of buried secrets. It cannot be said +that the place ever adequately gratified the sense of mystery it +excited; but, after all, to excite the sense of mystery is perhaps +better than to gratify it, and, considering its poor material, this room +was quite a clever old mysteriarch. + +One day, however, Henry came upon some writing that did greatly interest +him, though it was almost contemporary. It was old Mr. Septimus +Lingard's diary for the year preceding, which he had got hold of,--not +his private diary, but the entirely public official diary in which he +kept account of the division of his days among his various clients--for +the most part an unexciting record. But at the end of the book, on one +of the general memoranda pages, Henry noticed a square block of writing +which, to his surprise, proved to be a long quotation from a book which +the old man had been reading,--on the Immortality of the soul! + +Had old Mr. Septimus Lingard a soul too, a soul that troubled him +maybe, a soul that had its moving memories, and its immortal +aspirations? Yes, somewhere hidden in that strange legal document of a +body, there was evidently a soul. Mr. Lingard had a soul! + +But wait a moment, here was an addition of the old man's own! The +passage quoted had been of death and its possible significance, and it +was just a sigh, a fear, the old man had breathed after it: _How high +has the winding-sheet encompassed my own bosom_! + +Solemn as were the words in themselves, they seemed doubly so in that +lonely room; and Henry was glad to lock the door and return to the +comparatively living world downstairs. But from that moment old Mr. +Lingard was transfigured in his eyes. Beneath all the sternness of his +exterior, the grimness of the business interests which seemed to absorb +him, Henry had discovered the blessed human spring. And he came too to +wear a certain pathos and sanctity in Henry's eyes, as he remembered how +old a man he was, and that secretly all this time, while he seemed so +busy with this public company and another, he was quietly preparing to +die. From this moment tasks done for him came to have a certain joy in +them. For his sake, as it were, he began to understand how you might +take a pride in doing well something that, in your opinion, was not +worth doing; and one day when the old man, well satisfied with some work +he had done, patted him kindly on the back and said, "We'll make a +business man of you after all!" the tears started to his eyes, and for a +moment he almost hoped that they would. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +DAMON AND PYTHIAS + +By an odd coincidence, the night which had seen Henry and Esther +confront their father, had seen, in another household in which the young +people counted another member of their secret society of youth, a +similar but even less seemly clash between the generations. Ned Hazell +would be a poet too, and a painter as well, and perhaps a romantic +actor; but his father's tastes for his son's future lay in none of these +directions, and Ned was for the present in cotton. Now the elder Mr. +Hazell was a man of violently convivial habits, and the _bonhomie_, with +which he was accustomed to enliven bar-parlours up till eleven of an +evening, was apt to suffer a certain ungenial transformation as he +reached his own front door. There the wit would fail upon his lips, the +twinkle die out of his glance, and an unaccountable ferocity towards the +household that was waiting up for him take their place. When possible, +he would fix upon some trivial reason to give an air of plausibility to +this curious change in him; but if that were not forthcoming, he would, +it appeared, fly into a violent rage for just that very reason. + +However, on this particular night, Heaven had provided him with an +heroic occasion. His son, he discovered, was for once out later than his +father. In what haunt of vice, or low place of drinking, he was at the +moment ensnared, no one better than his father could imagine. The +opportunity was one not to be missed. The outraged parent at last +realised that he had borne with him long enough, borne long enough with +his folderols of art and nonsense; and so determined was he on the +instant that he would have no more of it, that, with a quite remarkable +energy, he had thereupon repaired to his son's room, opened the window, +and begun vigorously to throw his pretty editions, his dainty +water-colours, his drawers full of letters, his cast of the Venus of +Milo, out on to the lawn, upon which at the moment a heavy rain was +also falling. + +In the very whirlwind of his righteous vandalism his son had returned, +and, being a muscular, hot-blooded lad, had taken his father by the +throat, called him a drunken beast, and hurled him to the floor, where +he pinned him down with a knee on his chest, and might conceivably have +made an end of him, but for the interference of mother and sisters, who +succeeded at last in getting the dazed and somewhat sobered parent +to bed. + +Having raked together from the sodden _debris_ beneath his window some +disfigured remains of his poor treasures, Ned Hazell had left the house +in the early hours of the morning, in good earnest for ever. + +When he confided the excitements of the night to Henry at lunch next +day, and heard in return his friend's news, nothing could be more plain +than that they should set up lodgings together; and it was, therefore, +to the rooms of which Ned was already in possession that Henry's cab had +toppled with his various belongings, after those tearful farewells at +his father's door. Esther followed presently to help make the place +straight and dainty for the two boys, and having left them, late that +evening, with flowers in all the jars, and the curtains as they should +be, they were fairly launched on their new life together. + +In Mike Henry had a stanch friend and an admirer against all comers, and +in Henry Mike had a friend and admirer no less loyal; but their +friendship was one for which an on-looker might have found it less easy +to give reasons than for that of Henry and Ned. Mike and Henry loved +each other, it would appear, less for any correspondence in dispositions +or tastes, as just because they were Mike and Henry. Right away down in +their natures there was evidently some central affinity which operated +even in spite of surface contradictions. There was much of this +intrinsic quality in the affection of Henry and Ned also, but it was +much more to be accounted for by evident mutual sympathies. It was +largely the impassioned fellowship of two craftsmen in love with the +same art. Both had their literary ambitions; but, irrespective of those, +they both loved poetry. Yes, how they loved it! Ned was perhaps +particularly a born appreciator; and it was worth seeing how the tears +would come into his fine eyes, as his voice shook with tenderness over a +fine phrase or a noble passage. They had discovered some of the most +thrilling things in English literature together, at that impressionable +age when such things mean most to us. Together they had read Keats for +the first wonderful time; together learned Shakespeare's Sonnets by +heart; together rolled out over tavern-tables the sumptuous cadences of +De Quincey. Wonderful indeed, and never to be forgotten, were those +evenings when, the day at last over, they would leave their offices +behind them, and, while the sunset was turning the buildings of Tyre +into enchanted towers, and a clemency of release breathed upon its +streets, steal to the quiet corner of their favourite tavern; to drink +port and share their last new author, or their own latest rhymes, and +then to emerge again, with high calm hearts and eloquent eyes, beneath +the splendid stars. + +All the arts within their reach they thus shared together,--pictures, +music, theatres,--in a fine comradeship. Together they had bravoed the +great tragedians, and together hopelessly worshipped the beautiful +faces, enskied and sainted, of famous actresses. In fact, they were the +Damon and Pythias of Tyre. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +DAMON AND PYTHIAS AT THE THEATRE + + +Once, long before the beginning of this story, Damon and Pythias were +sitting in a theatre together, with the wonderful overture just +beginning to steal through their senses. + +Ah, violins, whither would you take their souls? You call to them like +the voice of one waiting by the sea, bathed in sunset. What are these +wonderful things you are whispering to their souls? You promise--ah, +what things you promise, strange voices of the string! + +Oh, sirens, have pity! Their hearts are pure, their bodies sweet as +apples. Oh, be faithful, betray them not, beautiful voices of the +wondrous world! + +The overture had succeeded. Their souls had followed it over the +footlights, and, floating in the limelight, shone there awaiting the +fulfilment of the promise. + +The play was "Pygmalion and Galatea," and at the appearance of Galatea +they knew that the overture had not lied. There, in dazzling white +flesh, was all it had promised; and when she called "Pyg-ma-lion!" how +their hearts thumped!--for they knew it was really them she was calling. + +"Pyg-ma-lion! Pyg-ma-lion!" + +It was as though Cleopatra called them from the tomb. + +Their hands met. They could hear each other's blood singing. And was not +the play itself an allegory of their coming lives? Did not Galatea +symbolise all the sleeping beauty of the world that was to awaken, warm +and fragrant, at the kiss of their youth? And somewhere, too, shrouded +in enchanted quiet, such a white white woman waited for their kiss. In a +vision they saw life like the treasure cave of the Arabian thief; and +they said to their beating hearts that they had the secret of the magic +word, that the "open Sesame" was youth. + +No fall of the curtain could hide the vision from their young eyes. It +transfigured the faces of their fellow-playgoers, crowding from the pit; +it made another stage of the embers of the sunset, a distant bridge of +silver far down the street. Then they took it with them to the tavern; +and to write of the solemn libations of that night would be to laugh or +cry. Only youth can be so radiantly ridiculous. + +They had found their own corner. Turning down the gas, the fire played +at day and night with their faces. Imagine them in one of the flashes, +solemnly raising their glasses, hands clasped across the table, earnest +gleaming eyes holding each other above it. + +"Old man, some day, somewhere, a woman like that!" + +But there was still a sequel. At home at last and in bed, how could +Damon sleep! It seemed as if he had got into a rosy sunset cloud in +mistake for his bed. The candle was out, and yet the room was full of +rolling light. + +It was no use; he must get up. So, striking a light, he was presently +deep in the composition of a fiery sonnet. It was evidently that which +had caused all the phosphorescence. But a sonnet is a mere pill-box; it +holds nothing. A mere cockle-shell,--and, oh, the raging sea it could +not hold! Besides being confessedly an art-form, duly licenced to lie, +it was apt to be misunderstood. It could not say in plain words, "Meet +me at the pier to-morrow at three in the afternoon;" it could make no +assignation nearer than the Isles of the Blest, "after life's fitful +fever." Therefore, it seemed well to add a postscript to that effect +in prose. + +But then, how was she to receive it? There was nothing to be hoped from +the post, and Damon's home in Sidon was three miles from the ferry. +Likewise, it was now nearing three in the morning. Just time to catch +the half-past three boat, run up to the theatre, a mile away, and meet +the return boat. So down, down through the creaking house, carefully, as +though he were a Jason picking his way among the coils of the sleeping +dragon; and soon he was shooting through the phantom streets, like +Mercury on a message through Hades. + +At last the river came in sight, growing slate-colour in the earliest +dawn. He could see the boat nuzzling up against the pier, and snoring in +its sleep. He said to himself that this was Styx and the fare an obolus. +As he jumped on board, with hot face and hotter heart, Charon clicked +his signal to the engines; the boat slowly snuffled itself half awake, +and shoved out into the sleepy water. + +As they crossed, the light grew, and the gas-lamps of Tyre beaconed with +fading gleam. Overhead began a restlessness in the clouds, as of a giant +drowsily shuffling off some of his bedclothes; but as yet he slept, and +only the silver bosom of his spouse, the moon, was uncovered. + +When they landed, the streets of Tyre were already light, but empty, as +though they had got up early to meet some one who had not arrived. Damon +sped through them like a sea-gull that has the harbour to itself, and +was not long in reaching the theatre. How desolate the play-bills looked +that had been so companionable but three or four hours before! And there +was her photograph! Surely it was an omen. + +"Ah, my angel! See, I am bringing you my heart in a song. 'All my heart +in this my singing!'" + +He dropped the letter into the box; but, as he turned away, momentarily +glancing up the long street, he caught sight of an approaching figure +that could hardly be mistaken. Good Heavens! it was Pythias, and he too +was carrying a letter. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +CONTRIBUTIONS TOWARDS A GENEALOGY + +The egregious Miss Bashkirtseff did not greatly fascinate Esther. Her +egotism was too hard, too self-bounded, even for egotism, and there was +generally about her a lack of sympathy. Her passion for fame had +something provincial in its eagerness, and her broadest ideals seemed to +become limited by her very anxiety to compass them. Even her love of art +seemed a form of snobbery. In all these young Mesuriers there was +implicit,--partly as a bye-product of the sense of humour, and partly as +an unconscious mysticism,--a surprising instinct for allowing the +successes of this world their proper value and no more. Even Esther, who +was perhaps the most worldly of them all, and whose ambitions were +largely social, as became a bonny girl whom nature had marked out to be +popular, and on whom, some day when Mike was a great actor,--and had a +theatre of his own!--would devolve the cares of populous "at home" days, +bright after-the-performance suppers, and all the various diplomacies of +the popular wife of fame,--even Esther, however brilliant her life might +become, would never for a moment imagine that such success was a thing +worth winning, at the expense of the smallest loss to such human +realities as the affection she felt for Mike and Henry. To love some one +well and faithfully, to be one of a little circle vowed to eternal +fidelity one to the other,--such was the initial success of these young +lives; and it was to make them all their days safe from the dangers of +more meretricious successes. + +All the same, though the chief performer in Marie Bashkirtseff's +"Confessions" interested her but little, the stage on which for a little +while she had scolded and whimpered did interest her--for should it not +have been her stage too, and Henry's stage, and Dot's stage, father's +and mother's stage too? You had only to look at father to realise that +nature had really meant him for the great stage; here in Sidon, what was +he but a god in exile, bending great powers and a splendid character +upon ridiculously unimportant interests? Indeed, was not his destiny, +more or less, their destiny as a family? Henry would escape from it +through literature, and she through Mike. But what of Dot, what of Mat, +not yet to speak of "the children"? + +All she envied Marie Bashkirtseff was her opportunity. Great Goddess +Opportunity! So much had come to Marie in the cradle, and came daily to +a hundred thousand insignificant aristocratic babes, to approach which +for the Mesuriers, even ten years too late, meant convulsions of the +home, and to attain which in any satisfactory degree was probably +impossible. French, for example, and music! Why, if so disposed, Marie +Bashkirtseff might have read old French romances at ten, and to play +Chopin at an earlier age was not surprising in the opportunitied, +so-called "aristocratic" infant. Oh, why had they not been born like the +other Sidonians, whose natures and ideals had been mercifully calculated +to the meridian of Sidon! Why didn't they think the Proudfoots and the +Wilkinsons and the Wagstaffs, and other local nobody-somebodies, people +of importance, and why did they think the mayor a ludicrous upstart, +and the adjacent J.P. a sententious old idiot? Far better to have rested +content in that state of life to which God had called them. To talk +French, or to play Chopin! What did it matter? In one sense nothing, but +in another it mattered like other convenient facilities of life. To the +immortal soul it mattered nothing, but to the mortal social unit it made +life the easier, made the passage of ideas, the intercourse of +individualities, the readier, and, in general, facilitated spiritual and +intellectual, as well as social, communication. To be first-rate +in your instincts, in all your fibres, and third-rate in your +opportunities,--that was a bitter indignity of circumstance. + +This sub-conscious sense of aristocracy--it must be observed, lest it +should have been insufficiently implied--was almost humorously +dissociated in the minds of the young Mesuriers from any recorded family +distinctions. In so far as it was conscious, it was defiantly +independent of genealogy. Had the Mesuriers possessed a coat-of-arms, +James Mesurier would probably have kept it locked up as a frivolity to +be ashamed of, for it was a part of his Puritanism that such earthly +distinctions were foolishness with God; but, as a matter of fact, +between Adam and the immediate great-grandparents of the young +Mesuriers, there was a void which the Herald's office would have found a +difficulty in filling. This it never occurred to them to mind in +the least. + +It was one of Henry's deep-sunken maxims that "a distinguished product +implied a distinguished process," and that, at all events, the +genealogical process was only illustratively important. It would have +been interesting to know how they, the Mesuriers, came to be what they +were. In the dark night of their history a family portrait or two, or an +occasional reference in history, would have been an entertaining +illumination--but, such not being forthcoming, they were, documentally, +so much the less indebted to their progenitors. Yet if they had only +been able to claim some ancestor with a wig and a degree for the +humanities, or some beautiful ancestress with a romantic reputation! +One's own present is so much more interesting for developing, or even +repeating, some one else's past. And yet how much better it was to be as +they were, than as most scions of aristocratic lineage, whose present +was so often nothing and their past everything. How humiliating to be so +pathetically inadequate an outcome of such long and elaborate +preparation,--the mouse of a genealogical mountain! Yes, it was +immeasurably more satisfactory to one's self-respect to be Something out +of Nothing, than Nothing out of Everything. Here so little had made so +much; here so much had made--hardly even a lord. It was better for your +circumstances to be inadequate for you, than you to be inadequate for +your circumstances. + +Henry had amused himself one day in making a list of all their +"ancestors" to whom any sort of worldly or romantic distinction could +attach, and it ran somewhat as follows:-- + +(1) A great-grandmother on the father's side, fabled to live in some +sort of a farm-house chateau in Guernsey, who once a year, up till two +years ago, when she died, had sent them a hamper of apples from Channel +Island orchards. Said "chateau" believed by his children to descend to +James Mesurier, but the latter indifferent to the matter, and relatives +on the spot probably able to look after it. + +(2) A great-grandfather on the mother's side given to travel, a +"rolling-stone," fond of books and talk, and rich in humanity. Surviving +still in a high-nosed old silhouette. + +(3) A grand-uncle on the father's side who was one of Napoleon's guard +at St. Helena! + +(4) A grandfather on the mother's side, who used to design and engrave +little wooden blocks for patterns on calico-stuffs, and whose little box +of delicate instruments, evidently made for the tracing of lines and +flowers, was one of the few family heirlooms. + +(5) A grandmother on the father's side of whom nothing was known beyond +the beautiful fact that she was Irish. + +(6) A grandfather on the father's side who was a sea-captain, sailing +his own ship (barque "the Lucretia") to the West Indies, and who died of +yellow fever, and was buried, in the odour of romance, on the Isthmus +of Panama. + +(7) An uncle who had also been a sea-captain, and who, in rescuing a +wrecked crew from an Australian reef, was himself capsized, and after a +long swim finally eaten by a shark,--said shark being captured next day, +and found to contain his head entire, two gold rings still in his ears, +which he wore for near-sightedness, after the manner of common sailors, +and one of which, after its strange vicissitudes, had found a +resting-place in the secretaire of his brother, James Mesurier. + +Such was the only accessible "ancestry" of the Mesuriers, and it is to +be feared that the last state of the family was socially worse than the +first. James Mesurier was unapproachably its present summit, its Alpine +peak; and he was made to suffer for it no little by humble and +impecunious relatives. Still, whatever else they lacked, Henry Mesurier +loved to insist that these various connections were rich in character, +one or two of them inexhaustible in humour; and their rare and somewhat +timorous visits to the castle of their exalted relative, James Mesurier, +were occasions of much mirthful embarrassment to the young people. Here +the reader is requested to excuse a brief parenthetical chapter by way +of illustration, which, if he pleases, he may skip without any loss of +continuity in the narrative, or the least offence in the world to the +writer. This present chapter will be found continued in chapter sixteen. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +MERELY A HUMBLE INTERRUPTION AND +ILLUSTRATION OF THE LAST + +Some peaceable afternoon when Mrs. Mesurier was enjoying a little doze +on the parlour sofa, and her three elder daughters were snatching an +hour or two from housework--they had already left school--for a little +private reading, the drowsy house would suddenly be awakened by one loud +wooden knock at the door. + +"Now, whoever can that be!" the three girls would impatiently exclaim; +and presently the maid would come to Miss Esther to say that there was +an old man at the door asking for Mrs. Mesurier. + +"What's his name, Jane?" + +"He wouldn't give it, miss. He said it would be all right. Mrs. Mesurier +would know him well enough." + +"Whoever can it be? What's he like, Jane?" + +"He looks like a workman, miss,--very old, and rather dotey." + +"Who can it be? Go and ask him his name again." + +Esther would then arouse her mother; and the maid would come in to say +that at last the old man had been persuaded to confide his name as +Clegg--Samuel Clegg. + +"Tell the missus it's Samuel Clegg," the old man had said, with a +certain amusing conceit. "She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg." + +"Why!" said Mrs. Mesurier, "it's your father's poor old uncle, Mr. +Clegg. Now, girls, you mustn't run away, but try and be nice to him. +He's a simple, good, old man." + +Mrs. Mesurier was no more interested in Mr. Clegg than her daughters; +but she had a great fund of humanity, and an inexhaustible capacity for +suffering bores brilliantly. + +"Why, I never!" she would say, adapting her idiom to make the old man +feel at home, as he was presently ushered in, chuntering and triumphant; +"you don't mean to say it's Uncle Clegg. Well, we are glad to see you! I +was just having a little nap, and so you must excuse my keeping +you waiting." + +"Ay, Mary. It's right nice of you to make me so welcome. I got a bit +misdoubtful at the door, for the young maid seemed somehow a little +frightened of me; but when I told the name it was all right. 'Samuel +Clegg,' I said. 'She'll be glad enough to see Samuel Clegg,' I said." + +"Glad indeed," murmured Mrs. Mesurier, "I should think so. Find a chair +for your uncle, Esther." + +"Ay, the name did it," chuckled the old man, who as a matter of fact was +anything but a humble old person, and to whom the bare fact of +existence, and the name of Clegg, seemed warrant enough for thinking +quite a lot of yourself. + +"I'm afraid you don't remember your old uncle," said the old man to +Esther, looking dimly round, and rather bewildered by the fine young +ladies. Actually, he was only a remote courtesy uncle, having married +their father's mother's sister. + +"Oh, of course, Uncle Clegg," said Esther, a true daughter of her +mother; "but, you see, it's a long time since we saw you." + +"And this is Dorcas. Come and kiss your uncle, Dorcas. And this is +Matilda," said Mrs. Mesurier. + +"Ay," said the old man, "and you're all growing up such fine young +ladies. Deary me, Mary, but they must make you feel old." + +"We were just going to have some tea," said Esther; "wouldn't you like a +cup, uncle?" + +"I daresay your uncle would rather have a glass of beer," said Mrs. +Mesurier. + +"Ay, you're right there, Mary," answered the old man, "right there. A +glass of beer is good enough for Samuel Clegg. A glass of beer and some +bread and cheese, as the old saying is, is good enough for a king; but +bread and cheese and water isn't fit for a beggar." + +All laughed obligingly; and the old man turned to a bulging pocket which +had evidently been on his mind from his entrance. + +"I've got a little present here from Esther," he said,--"Esther" being +the aunt after whom Mike's Esther had been named,--bringing out a little +newspaper parcel. "But I must tell you from the beginning. + +"Well, you know, Mary," he continued, "I was feeling rather low +yesterday, and Esther said to me, 'Why not take a day off to-morrow, +Samuel, and see Mary, it'll shake you up a bit, and I'll be bound she's +right glad to see you?' 'Why, lass!' I said, 'it's the very thing. See +if I don't go in the morning.' + +"So this morning," he continued, "she tidies me up--you know her +way--and sends me off. But before I started, she said, 'Here, Samuel, +you must take this, with my love, to Mary.' I've kept it wrapped up in +this drawer for thirty years, and only the other day our Mary Elizabeth +said, 'Mother, you might give me that old jug. It would look nice in our +little parlour.'" "But no!" I says, "Mary Elizabeth, if any one's to have +that jug, it's your Aunt Mary." + +"How kind of her!" murmured Mrs. Mesurier, sympathetically. + +"Yes, those were her words, Mary," said the old man, unfolding the +newspaper parcel, and revealing an ugly little jug of metallically +glistening earthenware, such as were turned out with strange pride from +certain English potteries about seventy years ago. It seemed made in +imitation of metal,--a sort of earthenware pewter; and evidently it had +been a great aesthetic treasure in the eyes of Mrs. Clegg. Mrs. Mesurier +received it accordingly. + +"How pretty," she said, "and how kind of Aunt Esther! They don't make +such things nowadays." + +"No, it's a vallyble relic," said the old man; "but you're worthy of +it, Mary. I'd rather see you have it than any of them. My word, but I'm +glad I've got it here safely. Esther would never have forgiven me.' Now, +Samuel,' she said, as I left, 'mind you get home before dark, and don't +sit on the jug, whatever you do.'" + +Meanwhile the "young ladies" were in imminent danger of convulsions; +and, at that moment, further to enhance the situation, an old lady of +the neighbourhood, who occasionally dropped in for a gossip, was +announced. She was a prim little lady, with "Cranford" curls, and a +certain old-world charm and old-world vanity about her, and very deaf. +She too was a "character" in her way, but so different from old Mr. +Clegg that the entertainment to be expected from their conjunction was +irresistible even to anticipate. + +"This is Mr. Clegg, an uncle of Mr. Mesurier," said poor Mrs. Mesurier, +by way of introduction. + +"Howd'ye do, marm?" said Mr. Clegg, without rising. + +Mrs. Turtle bowed primly. "Are you sure, my dear, I don't interrupt?" +she said to Mrs. Mesurier; "shall I not call in some other day?" + +"Oh, dear, no!" said Mrs. Mesurier. "Esther, get Mrs. Turtle a little +whisky and water." + +"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Turtle, "only the least little drop in the +world, Esther dear. My heart, you know, my dear. Even so short a walk as +this tires me out." + +Mrs. Mesurier responded sympathetically; and then, by way of making +himself pleasant, Mr. Clegg suddenly broke in with such an extraordinary +amenity of old-world gallantry that everybody's hair stood on end. + +"How old do you be?" he said, bowing to the new-comer. + +"I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Turtle, putting her hand to her ear; "but +I'm slightly deaf." + +"How old do you be?" shouted the old man. + +Though not unnaturally taken aback at such an unwonted conception of +conversational intercourse, Mrs. Turtle recovered herself with +considerable humour, and, bridling, with an old-world shake of her +head, said,-- + +"What would you take me for?" + +"I should say you were seventy, if you're a day," promptly answered the +old man. + +"Oh, dear, no!" replied Mrs. Turtle, with some pique; "I was only sixty +last January." + +"Well, you carry your age badly," retorted the old man, not to be +beaten. + +"What does he say, my dear?" said the poor old lady turning to Mrs. +Mesurier. + +"You carry your age badly," shouted the determined old man; "she should +see our Esther, shouldn't she, Mary?" + +The silence here of the young people was positively electric with +suppressed laughter. Two of them escaped to explode in another room, and +Esther and her mother were left to save the situation. But on such +occasions as these Mrs. Mesurier grew positively great; and the manner +in which she contrived to "turn the conversation," and smooth over the +terrible hiatus, was a feat that admits of no worthy description. + +Presently the old man rose to go, as the clock neared five. He had +promised to be home before dark, and Esther would think him "benighted" +if he should be late. He evidently had been to America and back in that +short afternoon. + +"Well, Mary, good-bye," he said; "one never knows whether we shall meet +again. I'm getting an old man." + +"Eh, Uncle Clegg, you're worth twenty dead ones yet," said Mrs. +Mesurier, reassuringly. + +"What a strange old gentleman!" said Mrs. Turtle, somewhat bewildered, +as this family apparition left the room. + +"Good-bye, Uncle Clegg," Esther was heard singing in the hall. +"Good-bye, be careful of the steps. Good-bye. Give our love to +Aunt Esther." + +Then the door would bang, and the whole house breathe a gigantic sigh of +humorous relief. + +(This was the kind of thing girls at home had to put up with!) + +"Well, mother, did you ever see such a funny old person?" said Esther, +on her return to the parlour. + +"You mustn't laugh at him," Mrs. Mesurier would say, laughing herself; +"he's a good old man." + +"No doubt he's good enough, mother dear; but he's unmistakably funny," +Esther would reply, with a whimsical thought of the family tree. Yes, +they were a distinguished race! + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN CONCLUDED + +No, the Mesuriers had absolutely nothing to hope for from their +relations,--nothing to look back upon, less to look forward to. Most +families, however poor and even _bourgeois_, had some memories to +dignify them or some one possible contingency of pecuniary inheritance. +At the very least, they had a ghost-story in the family. You seldom read +the biographies of writers or artists without finding references, +however remote, to at least one person of some distinction or substance. +To have had even a curate for an ancestor, or a connection, would have +been something, some frail link with gentility. + +Now if, instead of being a rough old sea-captain of a trading ship, +Grandfather Mesurier had only been a charming old white-headed admiral +living in London, and glad, now and again, to welcome his little country +granddaughters to stay with him! He would probably have been very dull, +but then he would have looked distinguished, and taken one for walks in +the Park, or bought one presents in the Burlington arcade. At least old +admirals always seemed to serve this indulgent purpose in stories. At +all events, he would have been something, some possible link with an +existence of more generous opportunities. Dot and Mat would then at +least have seen a nice boy or two occasionally, and in time got married +as they deserved to be, and thus escape from this little provincial +theatre of Sidon. Who could look at Dot and think that anything short of +a miracle--a miracle like Esther's own meeting with Mike--was going to +find her a worthy mate in Sidon; and, suppose the miracle happened once +more in her case, what of Mat and all the rest? To be the wife of a +Sidonian town-councillor, at the highest,--what a fate! + +Henry and she had often discussed this inadequate outlook for their +younger sisters, quite in the manner of those whose positions of +enlargement were practically achieved. The only thing to be done was for +Henry to make haste to win a name as a writer, and Mike to make his +fortune as an actor. Then another society would be at once opened to +them all. Yes, what wonders were to take place then, particularly when +Mike had made his fortune!--for the financial prospects of the young +people were mainly centred in him. Literature seldom made much +money--except when it wasn't literature. Henry hoped to be too good a +writer to hope to make money as well. But that would be a mere detail, +when Mike was a flourishing manager; for when that had come about, had +not Henry promised him that he would not be too proud to regard him as +his patron to the extent of accepting from him an allowance of, say, a +thousand a year. No, he positively wouldn't agree to more than a +thousand; and Mike had to be content with his promising to take that. + +Meanwhile, what could girls at home do, but watch and wait and make home +as pretty as possible, and, by the aid of books and pictures, reflect as +much light from a larger world into their lives as might be. + +On Henry's going away, the three girls had promptly bespoken the +reversion of his study as a little sitting-room for themselves. Here +they concentrated their books, and some few pictures that appealed to +tastes in revolt against Atlantic liners, but not yet developed to the +appreciation of those true classics of art--to which indeed they had yet +to be introduced. Such half-way masters as Leighton, Alma-Tadema, Sant, +and Dicksee were as yet to them something of what Rossetti and +Burne-Jones, and certain old Italian masters, were soon to become. In +books, they had already learnt from Henry a truer, or at all events a +more strenuous, taste; and they would grapple manfully with Carlyle and +Browning, and presently Meredith, long before their lives had use or +understanding for such tremendous nourishment. + +One evening, as they were all three sitting cosily in Henry's study,--as +they still faithfully called it,--Esther was reading "Pride and +Prejudice" aloud, while Dot and Mat busied themselves respectively with +"macrame" work and a tea-cosy against a coming bazaar. Esther's tasks in +the house were somewhat illustrated by her part in the trio this +evening. Her energies were mainly devoted to "the higher nights" of +housekeeping, to the aesthetic activities of the home,--arranging +flowers, dusting vases and pictures, and so on,--and the lightness of +these employments was, it is to be admitted, an occasionally raised +grievance among the sisters. To Dot and Mat fell much more arduous and +manual spheres of labour. Yet all were none the less grateful for the +decorative innovations which Esther, acting on occasional hints from her +friend Myrtilla Williamson, was able to make; and if it were true that +she hardly took her fair share of bed-making and pastry-cooking, it was +equally undeniable that to her was due the introduction of Liberty silk +curtains and cushions in two or three rooms. She too--alas, for the +mistakes of young taste!--had also introduced painted tambourines, and +swathed the lamps in wonderful turbans of puffed tissue paper. Was she +to receive no credit for these services? Then it was she who had dared +to do battle with her mother's somewhat old-fashioned taste in dress; +and whenever the Mesurier sisters came out in something specially pretty +or fashionable, it was due to Esther. + +Well, on this particular evening, she was, as we have said, taking her +share in the housework by reading "Jane Austen" aloud to Dot and Mat; +when the door suddenly opened, and James Mesurier stood there, a little +aloof,--for it was seldom he entered this room, which perhaps had for +him a certain painful association of his son's rebellion. Perhaps, too, +the picture of this happy little corner of his children--a world +evidently so complete in itself, and daily developing more and more away +from the parent world in the front parlour--gave him a certain pang of +estrangement. Perhaps he too felt as he looked on them that same dreary +sense of disintegration which had overtaken the mother on Henry's +departure; and perhaps there was something of that in his voice, as, +looking at them with rather a sad smile, he said,-- + +"You look very comfortable here, children. I hope that's a profitable +book you are reading, Esther." + +"Oh, yes, father. It's 'Jane Austen,' you know." + +"Well, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I want a few words with Dorcas. +She can join you again soon." + +So Dot, wondering what was in store for her, rose and accompanied her +father to the front parlour, where Mrs. Mesurier was peacefully knitting +in the lamplight. + +"Dorcas, my dear," he said, when the door was closed, "your mother and +I have had a serious talk this evening on the subject of your joining +the church. You are now nearly sixteen, and of an age to think for +yourself in such matters; and we think it is time that you made some +profession of your faith as a Christian before the world." + +The Church James Mesurier referred to was that branch of the English +Nonconformists known as Baptists; and the profession of faith was the +curious rite of baptism by complete immersion, the importance claimed +for which by this sect is, perhaps, from a Christian point of view, made +the less disproportionate by another condition attaching to it,--the +condition that not till years of individual judgment have been reached +is one eligible for the sacred rite. With that rationalism which +religious sects are so skilful in applying to some unimportant point of +ritual, and so careful not to apply to vital questions of dogma, the +Baptists reasonably argue that to baptise an unthinking infant, and, by +an external rite which has no significance except as the symbol of an +internal decision, declare him a Christian, is nothing more than an +idolatrous mummery. Wait till the child is of age to choose for him or +herself, to understand the significance of the Christian revelation and +the nature of the profession it is called upon to make; then if, by the +grace of God, it chooses aright, let him or her be baptised. And for the +manner of that baptism, if symbols are to be made use of by the +Christian church,--and it is held wise among the Baptists to make use of +few, and those the most central,--should they not be designed as nearly +after the fashion set forth in the Bible itself as is possible? The +"Ordinance" of the Lord's Supper--as it is called amongst them--follows +the procedure of the Last Supper as recorded in the Gospels; should not, +therefore, the rite of baptism be in its details similarly faithful to +authority? Now in Scripture, as is well known, baptisms were complete +immersions, symbolic alike of the washing away of sin, and also of the +dying to this world and the resurrection to the Life eternal in +Christ Jesus. + +So much theology was bred in the bone of all the young Mesuriers; and +the youngest of them could as readily have capitulated these articles of +belief as their father, who once more briefly summarised them to-night +for the benefit of his daughter. He ended with something of a personal +appeal. It had been one of the griefs of his life that Henry and Esther +had both refused to join their father's church, though Esther always +dutifully attended it every Sunday morning; and it was thinking of them, +though without naming them, that he said,-- + +"I met Mr. Trotter yesterday,"--Mr. Trotter was the local Baptist +minister, and Dot remarked to herself that her father was able to +pronounce his name without the smallest suspicion that such a name, as +belonging to a minister of divine mysteries, was rather ludicrous, +though indeed Baptist ministers seemed always to have names like +that!--"and he asked me when some of my young ladies were going to join +the church. I confess the question made me feel a little ashamed; for, +you know, my dear, out of our large family not one of you has yet come +forward as a Christian." + +"No, father," said Dot, at last. + +"I hope, my dear, you are not going to disappoint me in this matter." + +"No indeed, father," said Dot, whose nature was pliable and +sympathetic, as well as fundamentally religious; "but I'm afraid I +haven't thought quite as much about it as I should like to, and, if you +don't mind, I should like to have a few days to think it out." + +"Of course, my dear. That is a very right feeling; for the step is a +solemn one, and should not be taken without reverent thought. You cannot +do better than to talk it over with Mr. Trotter. If you have any +difficulties, you can tell him; and I'm sure he would be delighted to +help you. Isn't it so, mother? Well, dear," he continued, "you can run +away now; but bear in mind what I have said, and I shall hope to hear +that you have made the right choice before long. Kiss me, dear." + +And so, with something of a lump in her throat, Dot returned to the +interrupted "Jane Austen." + +"Whatever did father want?" asked the two girls, looking up as she +entered the room. + +"What do you think?" said Dot. "He wants me to be baptised!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +DOT'S DECISION + +Now, in thus appealing to Dot, her father had appealed to just the one +out of all his children who was least likely to disappoint him. To Dot +and Henry had unmistakably been transmitted the largest share of their +father's spirituality. Esther was not actively religious, any more than +she was actively poetic. Hers was one of those composite, admirably +balanced natures which include most qualities and faculties, but no one +in excess of another. Such make those engaging good women of the world, +who are able to understand and sympathise with the most diverse +interests and temperaments; as it is the characteristic of a good critic +to understand all those various products of art, which it would be +impossible for him to create. Thus Esther could have delighted a saint +with her sympathetic comprehension, as she could have healed the wounds +of a sinner by her comprehensive sympathy; but it was certain she would +never be, in sufficient excess, spiritually wrought or sensually +rebellious to be one or the other. She was beautifully, buoyantly +normal, with a happy, expansive, enjoying nature, glad in the sunlight, +brave in the shadow, optimistically looking forward to blithe years of +life and love with Mike and her friends, and not feeling the necessity +of being anxious about her soul, or any other world but this. She was +not shallow; but she merely realised life more through her intelligence +than through her feelings. To have become a Baptist would have offended +her intelligence, without bringing any satisfaction to spiritual +instincts not, in any event, clamorous. + +As for Henry, it was not only activity of intelligence, but activity of +spirituality, that made it impossible for him to embrace any such narrow +creed as that proposed to him; and, for the present, that spiritual +activity found ample scope for itself in poetry. + +Dot's, however, was an intermediate case. With an intelligence active +too, she united a spirituality torturingly intense, but for which she +had no such natural creative outlet as Henry. With her loss of the old +creed,--in discarding which these three sisters had followed the lead of +their brother with a curious instinctiveness, almost, it would seem, +independent of reasoning,--her spirituality had been left somewhat +bleakly houseless, and she had often longed for some compromise by which +she could reconcile her intelligence to the acceptance of some +established home of faith, whose kindly enclosing walls should be more +genially habitable to the soul than the cold, star-lit spaces which +Henry declared to be sufficient temple. + +Perhaps Esther's commiseration of her sisters' narrow opportunities was, +so far as it related to Dot, a little unnecessary, for indeed Dot's +ambitions were not social. By nature shy and meditative, and with her +religious bias, had she been born into a Catholic family, she might not +improbably have found the world well lost in a sisterhood. The Puritan +conscience had an uncomfortable preponderance in the deep places of her +nature, and, far down in her soul, like her father, she would ask +herself if pleasure could be the end of life--was there not something +serious each of us could and ought to do, to justify his place in the +world? Were we not all under some mysterious solemn obligation to do +something, however little, in return for life? + +Mat, on the other hand, had no such scruples. She was more like Esther +in nature, with a touch of cynicism curling her dainty lip, arising, +perhaps, from an early divination that she was to lack Esther's +opportunities. Perhaps it was because she was the pessimist--the quite +cheerful pessimist--of the family, that she was by far the cleverest and +most industrious at the housework. If it was her fate to be Cinderella, +she might as well make the best of it, with a cynical endurance and +good-humour, and be Cinderella with a good grace. Probably the only +glass slipper in the family had already fallen to Esther. Never mind, +though her good looks might fade with being a good girl at home, year by +year, what did it matter, after all? Nothing mattered in the end. And +thus, out of a great indifference, Mat developed a great unselfishness; +and if you could name one special angel in the house of the Mesuriers, +she was unmistakably Mat. + +In addition to her religious promptings, Dot had lately developed a +great sympathy for her father. Standing a little aside from the conflict +between him and Henry, she was able to divine something of the feelings +of both; and she had now and again caught a look of loneliness on her +father's face that made her ready to do almost anything to please him. + +Of course the question was one for general consultation. She knew what +Henry would say. It didn't much matter anyhow, he would say, but it was +a pity. How was intellectual freedom to be won, if those who had seen +the light should thus deliberately forego it, time after time, from such +merely sentimental reasons? And when she saw Henry, that was just what +he did say. + +"But," she said, "it would make father so happy." + +"Yes, I know," he answered; "and it would be very beautiful of you. +Besides, of course, in one way it's only a matter of symbolism; but +then, on the other hand, it's symbolism hardened into dogmatism that has +done all the mischief. Do it, dear, if you like; I hardly know what to +say. As you say, it will make father happy, and I shall quite +understand." + +Dot was one of those natures that like to seek, and are liable to take, +advice; so, after seeing Henry, she thought she would see what Mr. +Trotter had to say; for, in spite of his unfortunate name, Mr. Trotter +was a gentle, cultivated mind, and was indeed somewhat incongruously, +perhaps in a mild way Jesuitically, circumstanced as a Baptist minister. +Henry and he were great friends on literary matters; and Dot and he had +had many talks, greatly helpful to her, on spiritual things. In fact, +Chrysostom Trotter was one of those numerous half-way men between the +old beliefs and their new modifications, which the continuous advance of +scientific discovery and philosophical speculation on the one hand, and +the obstinate survival of Christianity on the other, necessitate--if men +of spiritual intuitions who are not poets and artists are to earn their +living. There was nothing you could say to Chrysostom Trotter, provided +you said it reverently, that would startle him. He knew all that long +ago and far more. For, though obliged to trade in this backwater of +belief, he was in many respects a very modern mind. You were hardly +likely to know your Herbert Spencer as intimately as he, and all the +most exquisite literature of doubt was upon his shelves. Though you +might declare him superficially disingenuous, you could not, unless you +were some commonplace atheist or materialist, gainsay the honest logic +of his position. + +"You believe that the world, that life, is a spiritual mystery?" he +would say. + +"Yes." + +"You do not for a moment think that any materialistic science has +remotely approached an adequate explanation of its meaning?" + +"Certainly not." + +"You believe too that, however it comes about, and whatever it means, +there is an eternal struggle in man between what, for sake of argument, +we will call the higher and lower natures?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, then, this spiritual mystery, this struggle, are hinted at in +various media of human expression, in an ever-changing variety of human +symbols. Art chiefly concerns itself with the sexual mystery, with the +wonderful love of man and woman, in its explanation of which alone +science is so pitifully inadequate. Literature more fully concerns +itself with the mystery of man's indestructibly instinctive relation to +what we call the unseen,--that is, the Whole, the Cosmos, God, or +whatever you please to call it. But more than literature, religion has +for centuries concerned itself with these considerations, has +consciously and industriously sought to make itself the science of what +we call the soul. It has thrown its observations, just as poetry and art +have thrown their observations, into symbolic forms, of which +Christianity is incomparably the most important. You don't reject the +revelation of human love because Hero and Leander are probably creations +of the poet's fancy. Will you reject the revelation of divine love, +because it chances, for its greater efficiency in winning human hearts, +to have found expression in a similar human symbolism? Personally, I +hold that Christ actually lived, and was literally the Son of God; but, +were the human literalness of his divine story discredited, the eternal +verities of human degeneration, and a mysterious regeneration, would be +no whit disproved. Externally, Christianity may be a symbol; +essentially, it is a science of spiritual fact, as really as geology is +a science of material fact. + +"And as for its miraculous, supernatural, side,--are the laws of nature +so easy to understand that we should find such a difficulty in accepting +a few divergencies from them? He who can make laws for so vast a +universe may surely be capable of inventing a few comparatively trivial +exceptions." + +Not perhaps in so many words, but in some such spirit, would Chrysostom +Trotter argue; and it was in some such fashion that he talked in his +charmingly sympathetic way with Dorcas Mesurier, one afternoon, as she +had tea with him in a study breathing on every hand the man of letters, +rather than the minister of a somewhat antiquated sect. + +"My dear Dorcas," he said, "you know me well enough--you know me perhaps +better than your father knows me--know me well enough to believe that I +wouldn't urge you to do this thing if I didn't think it was right _for +you_--as well as for your father and me. But I know it is right, and for +this reason. You are a deeply religious nature, but you need some +outward symbol to hold on to,--you need, so to say, the magnetising +association of a religious organisation. Henry can get along very well, +as many poets have, with his birds and his sunsets and so forth; but you +need something more authoritative. It happens that the church I +represent, the church of your father, is nearest to you. You might, with +all the goodwill in the world, so far as I am concerned, embrace some +other modification of the Christian faith; but here is a church, so to +say, ready for you, familiar by long association, endeared to your +father. You believe in God, you believe in the spiritual meaning of +life, you believe that we poor human beings need something to keep our +eyes fixed upon that spiritual meaning--well, dear Dorcas," he ended, +abruptly, "what do you think?" + +"I'll do it," said Dot. + +"Good girl," said the minister; "sometimes it is a form of righteousness +to waive our doubts for those who are at once so dear and good as your +father. And don't for a moment think that it will leave you just where +you are. These outward acts are great energisers of the soul. Dear +Dorcas, I welcome you into one of God's many churches." + +So it was that Dot came to be baptised; and, to witness the ceremony, +all the Mesuriers assembled at the chapel that Sunday evening,--even +Henry, who could hardly remember when he used to sit in this +still-familiar pew, and scribble love-verses in the back of his +hymn-book during the sermon. + +To the mere mocker, the rite of baptism by immersion might well seem a +somewhat grotesque antic of sectarianism; but to any one who must needs +find sympathy for any observance into which, in whatsoever forgotten and +superseded time, has passed the prayerful enthusiasm of man, the rite +could hardly fail of a moving solemnity. As Chrysostom Trotter ordered +it, it was certainly made to yield its fullest measure of +impressiveness. To begin with, the chapel was quite a comely edifice +inside and out; and its ministerial end, with its singers' gallery +backed by great organ pipes, and fronted by a handsome pulpit, which Mr. +Trotter had dared to garnish with chrysanthemums on each side of his +Bible, had a modest, sacerdotal effect. Beneath the pulpit on ordinary +occasions stood the Communion-table; but on evenings when the rite of +baptism was prepared, this table, and a boarding on which it stood, +were removed, revealing a tiled baptistry,--that is, a tiled tank, about +eight feet long, and six wide, with steps on each side descending into +about four feet of water. + +Towards the close of the service, the minister would leave his pulpit, +and, during the singing of a hymn, would presently emerge from his +vestry in a long waterproof garment. As the hymn ended, some "sister" or +"brother" that night to be admitted into the church, would timidly join +him at the baptistry side, and together they would go down into +the water. + +Holding the hands of the new communicant, the minister, in a solemn +voice, would say, "Sister," or "Brother, on confession of your faith in +our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I baptise thee in the name of the +Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." + +Then the organ would strike up a triumphant peal, and, to the +accompaniment of its music and the mellow plashing of the water, the +sister or brother would be plunged beneath the symbolic wave. + +Great was the excitement, needless to say, in the Mesurier pew, as +little Dot at last came forth from the vestry, and, stealing down into +the water, took the minister's out-stretched hands. + +"There she is! There's Dot!" passed round the pew, and the hardest young +heart, whoever it belonged to, stopped beating, to hear the minister's +words. They seemed to come with a special personal tenderness,-- + +"Sister, on confession of your faith in our Lord and Saviour Jesus +Christ, I baptise thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of +the Holy Ghost." + +Once more the organ triumphant, and the mellow splashing of the water. + +Dear little Dot, she had done it! + +"Did you see father's face?" Esther whispered to Henry. + +Yes; perhaps none of them would ever do such a beautiful thing as Dot +had done that night. At least there was one of James Mesurier's children +who had not disappointed him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +MIKE AND HIS MILLION POUNDS + + +The most exquisite compliment a man has ever paid to him is worded +something like this: "Well, dear, you certainly know how to make love;" +and this compliment is always the reward, not of passion however +sustained, or sentiment however refined, but of humour whimsically +fantasticating and balancing both. It is the gentle laugh, not +violating, but just humanising, that very solemn kiss; the quip that +just saves passion from toppling over the brink into bathos, that mark +the skilful lover. No lover will long be successful unless he is a +humourist too, and is able to keep the heart of love amused. A lover +should always be something of an actor as well; not, of course, for the +purpose of feigning what he does not feel, but so that he may the better +dramatise his sincerity! + +Mike had therefore many advantages over those merely pretty fellows +whose rivalry he had once been modest enough to fear. He was a master +of all the child's play of love; and to attempt to describe the fancies +which he found to vary the game of love, would be to run the risk of +exposing the limitations of the literary medium. No words can pull those +whimsical faces, or put on those heart-breaking pathetic expressions, +with which he loved to meet Esther after some short absence. Sometimes +he would come into the room, a little forlorn sparrow of a creature, +signifying, by a dejection in which his very clothes took part, that he +was out in the east wind of circumstance and no one in the world cared a +shabby feather for him. He would stand shivering in a corner, and look +timorously from side to side, till at last he would pretend she had +warmed him with her kisses, and generally made him welcome to the world. + +Sometimes he would come in with his collar dismally turned up, and an +old battered hat upon his head, and pretend that he hadn't had a +meal--of kisses--for a whole week; and occasionally he would come +blowing out his cheeks like a king's trumpeter, to announce that Mike +Laflin might be at any moment expected. But for the most part these +impersonations were in a minor key, as Mike had soon discovered that the +more pathetic he was, the more he was hugged and called a "weenty," +which was one of his own sad little names for himself. + +One of his "long-run" fairy-tales, as he would call them, was that each +morning as he went to business, he really started out in search of a +million pounds, which was somewhere awaiting him, and which he might +break his shins over at any moment. It might be here, it might be there, +it might come at any hour of the day. The next post might bring it. It +might be in yonder Parcel Delivery van,--nothing more probable. Or at +any moment it might fall from heaven in a parachute, or be at that +second passing through the dock-gates, wearily home from the Islands of +Sugar and Spice. You never could tell. + +"Well, Mike," said Esther, one evening, as he came in, hopping in a +pitifully wounded way, and explaining that he had been one of the three +ravens sitting on a bough which the cruel huntsman had shot through the +wing, etc., "have you found your million pounds to-day?" + +"No, not my million pounds," said Mike. "I'm told I shall find them +to-morrow." + +"Who told you?" + +"The Weenty." + +"You silly old thing! Give me a kiss. Are you a dear? Tell me, aren't +you a dear?" + +"No-p! I'm only a poor little houseless, roofless, windowless, +chimney-less, Esther-less, brainless, +out-in-the-wind-and-the-snow-and-the-rain, Mike!" + +"You're the biggest dear in the world!" + +"No, I'm not. I'm the littlest!" + +"Suppose you found your million pounds, Mike?" + +"Suppose! Didn't I tell you I'm sure of it to-morrow?" + +"Well, when you find it to-morrow, what will you do with it?" + +"I'll buy the moon." + +"The moon?" + +"Yes; as a present for Henry." + +"Wouldn't it be rather dear?" + +"Not at all. Twenty thousand would buy it any time this last hundred +years. But the worst of it is, no one wants it but the poets, and they +cannot afford it. Yet if only a poet could get hold of it, why what a +literary property it would be!" + +"You silly old thing!" + +"No! but you don't seem to realise that I'm quite serious. Think of the +money there would be for any poet who had acquired the exclusive +literary rights in the moon! Within a week I'd have it placarded all +over, 'Literary trespassers will be prosecuted!' And then I've no doubt +Henry would lend me the Man in the Moon for my Christmas pantomimes." + +"After all, it's not a bad idea," said Esther. + +"Of course it's not," said Mike; "but be careful not to mention it to +Henry just yet. I shouldn't like to disappoint him--for, of course, +before we took any final steps in the purchase, we'd have to make sure +that it wasn't, as some people think, made of green cheese." + +"But never mind about the moon. Tell us how you got on with The +Sothern." + +The Sothern was an amateur dramatic club in Tyre which took itself very +seriously, and to which Mike was seeking admission, as a first step +towards London management. He had that day passed an examination before +three of the official members, solemn and important as though they had +been the Honourable Directors of Drury Lane, and had been admitted to +membership in the club, with the promise of a small part in their +forthcoming performance. + +"Oh, that's good!" said Esther. "What were they like?" + +"Oh, they were all right,--rather humorous. They gave me 'Eugene Aram' +to read--Me reading 'Eugene Aram'!--and a scene out of 'London +Assurance,' which was, of course, better. Naturally, not one of the men +was the remotest bit like himself. One was a queer kind of Irving, +another a sad sort of Arthur Roberts, and the other was--shall we say, a +Tyrian Wyndham." + +Actors, like poets, have provincial parodists of their styles in even +greater numbers, so adoringly imitative is humanity. Some day, Mike +would have his imitators,--boys who pulled faces like his, and prided +themselves on having the Laflin wrinkles; just as it was once the +fashion for girls to look like Burne-Jones pictures, or young poets to +imitate Mr. Swinburne. + +"Yes, I've got my first part. I've got it in my pocket," said Mike. + +"Oh, really! That's splendid!" exclaimed Esther, with delight. + +"Wait till you see it," said Mike, bringing out a French's acting +edition of some forgotten comedy. "Yes; guess how many words I've got to +say! Just exactly eleven. And such words!" + +"Well, never mind, dear. It's a beginning." + +"Certainly, it's a beginning,--the very beginning of a beginning." + +"Come, let me see it, Mike. What are you supposed to be?" + +At last Mike was persuaded to confess the humble little _role_ for which +the eminent actors who had consented to be his colleagues had cast him. +He was to be the comic boy of a pastry-cook's man, and his distinguished +part in the action of the piece was to come in at a certain moment with +the pie that had been ordered, and, as he delivered it, he was to +remark, "That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!" + +"Oh, Mike, what a shame!" exclaimed Esther. "How absurd! Why, you're a +better actor with your little finger than any one of them with their +whole body." + +"Ah, but they don't know that yet, you see." + +"Any one could see it if they looked at your face half-a-minute." + +"I wanted to play the part of Snodgrass; but they couldn't think of +giving me that, of course. So, do you know what I pretended, to comfort +myself? I pretended I was Edward Kean waiting in the passages at Drury +Lane, with all the other fine fellows looking down at the shabby little +gloomy man from the provinces. That was conceit for you, wasn't it?" + +The pathos of this was, of course, irresistible to Esther, and Mike was +thereupon hugged and kissed as he expected. + +"Never mind," he said, "you'll see if I don't make something of the poor +little part after all." + +And, thereupon, he described what he laughingly called his "conception," +and how he proposed to dress and make up, so vividly that it was evident +that the pastry-cook's boy was already to him a personality whose +actions and interests were by no means limited to his brief appearance +on the stage, but who, though accidentally he had but few words to speak +before the audience, was a very voluble and vital little person in +scenes where the audience did not follow him. + +"Yes, you see I'll do something with it. The best of a small part," +said Mike, speaking as one of experience, "is that it gives you plenty +of opportunity for making the audience wish there was more of it." + +"From that point of view, you certainly couldn't have a finer part," +laughed Esther. + +Then for a moment Mike skipped out of the room, and presently knocked, +and, putting in a funny face, entered carrying a cushion with alacrity. + +"That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!" he fooled, throwing the +cushion into Esther's lap, where presently his little red head found +its way too. + +"How can you love such a silly little creature?" he said, looking up +into Esther's blue eyes. + +"I don't know, I'm sure," said Esther; "but I do," and, bending down, +she kissed the wistful boy's face. Was it because Esther was in a way +his mother, as well as his sweetheart, that she seemed to do all +the kissing? + +Thus was Mike's first part rehearsed and rewarded. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +ON CERTAIN ADVANTAGES OF A BACKWATER + + +Though from a maritime point of view, Tyre was perhaps the chief centre +of conjunction for all the main streams of the world, from the point of +view of literature and any other art, it was an admitted backwater. Take +what art you pleased, Tyre was a dunce. Even to music, the most +persuasive of the arts, it was deaf. Surely, of all cities, it had not +been built to music. It possessed, indeed, one private-spirited +town-councillor, who insisted on presenting it with nude sculptures and +mysterious paintings which it furiously declined. If Tyre was to be +artistically great, it must certainly be with a greatness reluctantly +thrust upon it. + +Still Henry and Ned had sense enough to be glad that they had been born +there. It was from no mere recognition of an inexpensively effective +background; perhaps they hardly knew why they were glad till later on. +But, meanwhile, they instinctively laid hold of the advantages of their +limitations. Had they been London-born and Oxford-bred, they would have +been much more fashionable in their tastes; but their very isolation, +happily, saved them from the passing superstitions of fashion; and they +were thus able to enjoy the antiquities of beauty with the same +freshness of appetite as though they had been novelties. If Henry was to +meet Ned some evening with the announcement that he had a wonderful new +book to share with him, it was just as likely to be Sir Philip Sidney's +"Astrophel and Stella," as any more recent publication--though, indeed, +they contrived to keep in touch with the literary developments of the +day with a remarkable instinct, and perhaps a juster estimate of their +character and value than those who were taking part in them; for it is +seldom that one can be in the movement and at the centre as well. + +As a matter of fact, there was little that interested them, or which at +all events didn't disappoint and somewhat bewilder. The novel was +groaning under the thraldom of realism; poetry, with one or two +exceptions, was given up to bric-a-brac and metrical ingenuity. To +young men for whom French romanticism was still alive, who were still +content to see the world through the spiritual eyes of Shelley and +Keats, and who had not yet learned to belittle Carlyle, there seemed a +strange lack of generosity and, indeed, vitality in the literary ideals +of the hour. The novel particularly seemed barren and unprofitable to +them, more and more an instrument of science than a branch of +literature. Laughter had deserted it, as clearly as romance or pathos, +and more and more it was becoming the vehicle of cynical biology on the +one hand, and Unitarian theology on the other. Besides, strangest of +all, men were praised for lacking those very qualities which to these +boys had seemed essential to literature. The excellences praised were +the excellences of science, not literature. In fact, there seemed to be +but one excellence, namely, accuracy of observation; and to write a +novel with any eye to beauty of language was to err, as the writer of a +scientific treatise would err who endeavoured to add charm and grace to +the sober record of his investigations. Dull sociological analysts +reigned in the once laughing domain of Cervantes, of Fielding and +Thackeray, of Dumas and Dickens, of Hugo and Gautier and George Sand. + +Were they born too late? Were they anachronisms from the forgotten age +of romanticism, or were they just born in time to assist at the birth of +another romantic, idealistic age? Would dreams and love and beautiful +writing ever come into fashion again? Would the poet be again a creature +of passion, and the novelist once more make you laugh and cry; and would +there be essayists any more, whose pages you would mark and whose +phrases you would roll over and over again on your tongue, with delight +at some mysterious magic in the words? + +History may be held to have answered these questions since then, much in +favour of those young men, or at all events is engaged in answering +them; but, meanwhile, what a miraculous refreshment in a dry and thirsty +land was the new book Henry Mesurier had just discovered, and had +eagerly brought to share with Ned in their tavern corner one summer +evening in 1885. + +Ned was late; but when Henry had sipped a little at his port, and turned +to the new-born exquisite pages, he hardly noticed how the minutes were +going by as he read. Presently he had come to the end of the first +volume, the only one he had with him, and he raised his eyes from the +closing page with that exquisite exaltation, that beatific satisfaction +of mind and spirit,--even almost one might say of body,--which for the +lover of literature nothing in the world like a fine passage can bring. + +He turned again to the closing sentences: "_Yes; what was wanting was +the heart that would make it impossible to witness all this; and the +future would be with the forces that would beget a heart like that. His +favourite philosophy had said, Trust the eye. Strive to be right always, +regarding the concrete experience. Never falsify your impressions. And +its sanction had been at least effective here, in saying: It is what I +may not see! Surely, evil was a real thing; and the wise man wanting in +the sense of it, where not to have been, by instinctive election, on the +right side was to have failed in life_." + +The passage referred to the Roman gladiatorial shows, and to the +philosophic detachment by which Marcus Aurelius was able to see and yet +not to see them; and the whole book was the spiritual story of a young +Roman's soul, a priestlike artistic temperament, born in the haunted +twilight between the setting sun of pagan religion and philosophy and +the dawn of the Christian idea. The theme presented many fascinating +analogies to the present time; and in the hero's "sensations and ideas" +Henry found many correspondences with his own nature. In him, too, was +united that same joy in the sensuous form, that same adoration of the +spiritual mystery, the temperaments in one of artist and priest. He, +too, in a dim fashion indeed, and under conditions of culture less +favourable, had speculated and experimented in a similar manner upon the +literary art over which as yet he had acquired--how crushingly this +exquisite book taught him--such pathetically uncertain mastery. That +impassioned comradeship in books beautiful, was it not to-day Ned's and +his, as all those years before it had been that of Marius and Flavian? + +And where in the world _was_ Ned? How he would kindle at a passage like +this: "_To keep the eye clear by a sort of exquisite personal alacrity +and cleanliness, extending even to his dwelling-place; to discriminate, +ever more and more exactly, select form and colour in things from what +was less select; to meditate much on beautiful visible objects, on +objects, more especially, connected with the period of youth,--on +children at play in the morning, the trees in early spring, on young +animals, on the fashions and amusements of young men; to keep ever by +him, if it were but a single choice flower, a graceful animal or +sea-shell, as a token and representation of the whole kingdom of such +things; to avoid jealously, in his way through the world, everything +repugnant to sight; and, should any circumstance tempt him to a general +converse in the range of such objects, to disentangle himself from that +circumstance at any cost of place, money, or opportunity: such were, in +brief outline, the duties recognised, the rights demanded, in this new +formula of life_." + +And again, what gleaming single phrases, whole counsels of existence in +a dozen words! He must copy out some of them for Esther. This, for +example: "_Not pleasure, but fulness, completeness of life generally_," +or this: "_To be able to make use of the flower when the fruit, perhaps, +was useless or poisonous_" or again this: "_To be absolutely virgin +towards a direct and concrete experience_"--and there were a +hundred more. + +Then for the young craftsman what an insight into, what a compassionate, +childish remembrance of the moods and the little foolish accidents of +creation: "_His dilettanteism, his assiduous preoccupation with what +might seem but the details of mere form or manner, was, after all, bent +upon the function of bringing to the surface, sincerely and in their +integrity, certain strong personal intuitions, certain visions or +apprehensions of things as being, with important results, in this way +rather than that--apprehensions which the artistic or literary +expression was called upon to follow, with the exactness of wax or clay, +clothing the model within it. Flavian, too, with his fine, clear mastery +of the practically effective, had early laid hold of the principle, as +axiomatic in literature: That 'to know when one's self is interested, is +the first condition of interesting other people'"_ And once more: "_As +it oftenest happens also, with natures of genuinely poetic quality, +those piecemeal beginnings came suddenly to harmonious completeness +among the fortunate incidents, the physical heat and light, of one +singularly happy day_." + +And, over all, what a beauty! a beauty at once so sensuous and so +spiritual--the beauty of flowering laurel, the beauty of austerity +aflower. Here the very senses prayed. Surely this was the most +beautiful prose book ever written! It had been compared, he saw, with +Gautier's "Mademoiselle de Maupin;" but was not the beauty of that +masterpiece, in comparison with the beauty of this, as the beauty of a +leopard-skin to the beauty of a statue of Minerva, withdrawn in a +grove of ilex. + +Still Ned delayed, and, meanwhile, the third glass of port had come and +gone, and at length, reluctantly, Henry emerged from his tavern-cloister +upon the warm brilliancy of the streets. All around him the lights +beaconed, and the women called with bright eyes. But to-night there was +no temptation for him in these things. They but recalled another +exquisite quotation from his new-found treasure, which he stopped under +a lamp to fix in his memory: "_And, as the fresh, rich evening came on, +there was heard all over Rome, far above a whisper, the whole town +seeming hushed to catch it distinctly, the living, reckless call to +'play,' from the sons and daughters of foolishness to those in whom +their life was still green_--Donec virenti canities abest! Donec virenti +canities abest! _Marius could hardly doubt how Cornelius would have +taken the call. And as for himself, slight as was the burden of +positive moral obligation with which he had entered Rome, it was to no +wasteful and vagrant affections, such as these, that his Epicureanism +had committed him_." + +But what could have happened to Ned? + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE MAN IN POSSESSION + + +One morning, two or three months after Henry had left home, old Mr. +Lingard came to him as he sat bent, drearily industrious, over some +accounts, and said that he wished him in half-an-hour's time to go with +him to a new client; and presently the two set out together, Henry +wondering what it was to be, and welcoming anything that even exchanged +for a while one prison-house for another. + +"I am taking you," said the old man, as they walked along together, "to +a firm of carriers and carters whose affairs have just come into our +hands; there is a dispute arisen between the partners. We represent +certain interests, as I shall presently explain to you, and you are to +be _our_ representative,--our man in possession," and the old gentleman +laughed uncannily. + +"You never expected to be a man in possession, did you?" + +Henry thrilled with a sense of awful intimacy, thus walking and even +jesting with his august employer. + +"It may very likely be a long business," the old man continued; "and I +fear may be a little dull for you. For you must be on the spot all day +long. Your lunch will be served to you from the manager's house; I will +see to that. Actually, there will be very little for you to do, beyond +looking over the day-book and receipts for the day. The main thing is +for you to be there,--so to say, the moral effect of your +presence,"--and the old gentleman laughed again. Then, with an amused +sympathy that seemed almost exquisite to Henry, he chuckled out, looking +at him, from one corner of his eye, like a roguish skeleton-- + +"You'll be able to write as much poetry as you like. I see you've got a +book with you. Well, it will keep you awake. I don't mind that,--or even +the poetry,--so long as you don't forget the day-book." + +"Thank you, sir," said Henry, almost hysterically. + +"I suppose," the old man continued, presently, and in all he said there +was a tone of affectionate banter that quite won Henry's heart, "that +you're still as set on literature as ever. Well, well, far be it from me +to discourage you; but, my dear boy, you'll find out that we can't live +on dreams." (Henry thought, but didn't dare to say, that it was dreams +alone that made it possible to live at all.) "I suppose you think I'm a +dried-up old fellow enough. Well, well, I've had my dreams too. Yes, +I've had my dreams,"--Henry thought of what he had discovered that day +in the old man's diary,--"and I've written my verses to my lady's +eyebrow in my time too. Ah, my boy, we are all young and foolish once in +our lives!" and it was evident what a narrow and desperate escape from +being a poet the old man had had. + +They had some distance to walk, for the stables to which they were bound +were situated in an old and rather disreputable part of the town. "It's +not a nice quarter," said Mr. Lingard, "not particularly salubrious or +refined," as bad smells and dirty women began to cross their path; "but +they are nice people you've got to deal with, and the place itself is +clean and nice enough, when you once get inside." + +"Here we are," he said, presently, as they stopped short of an +old-fashioned house, set in a high red-brick wall which seemed to +enclose quite a considerable area of the district. In the wall, a yard +or two from the house, was set a low door, with a brass bell-pull at the +side which answered to Mr. Lingard's summons with a far-off clang. Soon +was heard the sound of hob-nailed boots, evidently over a paved yard, +and a big carter admitted them to the enclosure, which immediately +impressed them with its sense of country stable-yard cleanliness, and +its country smell of horses and provender. The stones of the courtyard +seemed to have been individually washed and scoured, and a small space +in front of a door evidently leading to the house was chalked over in +the prim, old-fashioned way. + +"Is Mr. Flower about?" asked Mr. Lingard; and, as he asked the question, +a handsome, broad-shouldered man of about forty-five came down the yard. +It was a massive country face, a little heavy, a little slow, but +exceptionally gentle and refined. + +"Good-morning, Mr. Lingard." + +"Good-morning, Mr. Flower. This is our representative, Mr. Mesurier, of +whom I have already spoken to you. I'm sure you will get on well +together; and I'm sure he will give you as little trouble as possible." + +Henry and Mr. Flower shook hands, and, as men sometimes do, took to each +other at once in the grasp of each other's hands, and the glances which +accompanied it. + +Then the three walked further up the yard, to the little office where +Henry was to pass the next few weeks; and as Mr. Lingard turned over +books, and explained to Henry what he was expected to do, the sound of +horses kicking their stalls, and rattling chains in their mangers, came +to him from near at hand with a delightful echo of the country. + +When Mr. Lingard had gone, Mr. Flower asked Henry if he'd care to look +at the horses. Henry sympathetically consented, though his knowledge of +horse-flesh hardly equalled his knowledge of accounts. But with the +healthy animal, in whatever form, one always feels more or less at home, +as one feels at home with the green earth, or that simple creature +the sea. + +Mr. Flower led the way to a long stable where some fifty horses +protruded brown and dappled haunches on either hand. It was all +wonderfully clean and sweet, and the cobbled pavement, the straw beds, +the hay tumbling in sweet-scented bunches into the stalls from the loft +overhead, made you forget that around this bucolic enclosure swarmed and +rotted the foulest slums of the city, garrets where coiners plied their +amateur mints, and cellars where murderers lay hidden in the dark. + +"It's like a breath of the country," said Henry, unconsciously striking +the right note. + +"You're right there," said Mr. Flower, at the same moment heartily +slapping the shining side of a big chestnut mare, after the approved +manner of men who love horses. To thus belabour a horse on its +hinder-parts would seem to be equivalent among the horse-breeding +fraternity to chucking a buxom milkmaid under the chin. + +"You're right there," he said; "and here's a good Derbyshire lass for +you," once more administering a sounding caress upon his sleek +favourite. + +The horse turned its head and whinnied softly at the attention; and it +was evident it loved the very sound of Mr. Flower's voice. + +"Have you ever been to Derbyshire?" asked Mr. Flower, presently, and +Henry immediately scented an idealism in the question. + +"No," he answered; "but I believe it's a beautiful county." + +"Beautiful's no name for it," said Mr. Flower; "it's just a garden." + +And as Henry caught a glance of his eyes, he realised that Derbyshire +was Mr. Flower's poetry,--the poetry of a countryman imprisoned in the +town,--and that when he died he just hoped to go to Derbyshire. + +"Ah, there are places there,--places like Miller's Dale, for +instance,--I'd rather take my hat off to than any bishop,"--and Henry +eagerly scented something of a thinker; "for God made them for sure, and +bishops--well--" and Mr. Flower wisely left the rest unsaid. + +Thus they made the tour of the stables; and though Henry's remarks on +the subject of slapped horse-flesh had been anything but those of an +expert, it was tacitly agreed that Mr. Flower and he had taken to each +other. Nor, as he presently found, were Mr. Flower's interests limited +to horses. + +"You're a reader, I see," he said, presently, when they had returned to +the office. "Well, I don't get much time to read nowadays; but there's +nothing I enjoy better, when I've got a pipe lit of an evening, than to +sit and listen to my little daughter reading Thackeray or +George Eliot." + +Of course Henry was interested. + +"Now there was a woman who knew country life," Mr. Flower continued. +"'Silas Marner,' or 'Adam Bede.' How wonderfully she gets at the very +heart of the people! And not only that, but the very smell of +country air." + +And Mr. Flower drew a long breath of longing for Miller's Dale. + +Henry mentally furbished up his George Eliot to reply. + +"And 'The Mill on the Floss'?" he said. + +"And 'Scenes from Clerical Life,'" said Mr. Flower. "There are some rare +strokes of nature there." + +And so they went on comparing notes, till a little blue-eyed girl of +about seventeen appeared, carrying a dainty lunch for Henry, and telling +Mr. Flower that his own lunch was ready. + +"This is my daughter of whom I spoke," said Mr. Flower. + +"She who reads Thackeray and George Eliot to you?" said the Man in +Possession; and, when they had gone, he said to himself "What a bright +little face!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +LITTLE MISS FLOWER + + +Little Miss Flower continued to bring Henry his lunch with great +punctuality each day; and each day he found himself more and more +interested in its arrival, though when it had come he ate it with no +special haste. Indeed, sometimes it almost seemed that it had served its +purpose in merely having been brought, judging by the moments of reverie +in which Henry seemed to have forgotten it, and to be thinking of +something else. + +Yes, he had soon begun to watch for that bright little face, and it was +hardly to be wondered at; for, particularly come upon against such a +background, the face had something of the surprise of an apparition. It +seemed all made of light; and when one o'clock had come, and Henry heard +the expected footsteps of his little waiting-maid, and the tinkle of the +tray she carried, coming up the yard, her entrance was as though some +one had carried a lamp into the dark office. Surely it was more like +the face of a spirit than that of a little human girl, and you would +almost have expected it to shine in the dark. When you got used to the +light of it, you realised that the radiance poured from singularly, even +disproportionately, large blue eyes, set beneath a broad white brow of +great purity, and that what at first had seemed rays of light around her +head was a mass of sunny gold-brown hair which glinted even in shadow. + +Strange indeed are the vagaries of the Spirit of Beauty! From how many +high places will she turn away, yet delight to waste herself upon a slum +like this! How fantastic the accident that had brought such a face to +flower in such a spot!--and yet hardly more fantastic, he reflected, +than that which had sown his own family haphazard where they were. Was +it the ironic fate of power to be always a god in exile, turning mean +wheels with mighty hands; and was Cinderella the fable of the eternal +lot of beauty in this capriciously ordered world? + +Yes, what chance wind, blowing all the way from Derbyshire, had set down +Mr. Flower with his little garden of girls in this uncongenial spot? +For by this Henry had made the acquaintance of the whole family: Mr. and +Mrs. Flower and four daughters in all,--all pretty girls, but not one of +the others with a face like that,--which was another puzzle. How is it +that out of one family one will be chosen by the Spirit of Beauty or +genius, and the others so unmistakably left? There could be no doubt as +to whom had been chosen here. + +One day the step coming up the yard at one o'clock seemed to be +different, and when the door opened it was another sister who had +brought his lunch that day. Her eldest sister was ill, she explained, +and in bed; and it was so for the next day, and again the next. Could it +be possible that Henry had watched so eagerly for that little face, that +he missed it so much already? + +The next morning he bought some roses on his way through town, and +begged that they might be allowed to brighten her room; and the next day +surely it was the same light little tread once more coming up the yard. +Joy! she was better again. She looked pale, he said anxiously, and +ventured to say too that he had missed her. As she blushed and looked +down, he saw that she wore one of his roses in her bosom. + +He had already begun to lend her books, which she returned, always with +some clever little criticism, often girlishly naive, but never merely +conventional. There were brains under her bright hair. One day Henry had +run out of literature, and asked her if she could lend him a book. +Anything,--some novel he had read before; it didn't matter. Oh, yes, he +hadn't read George Eliot for ever so long. Had she "The Mill on the +Floss"? Yes, it had been a present from her father. She would bring +that. As she lingered a moment, while Henry looked at the book, his eye +fell upon a name on the title-page: "Angel Flower." + +"Is that your name, Miss Flower?" he said. + +"Yes; father wrote it there. My real name is Angelica; but they call me +Angel, for short," she answered, smiling. + +"Are you surprised?" said Henry, suddenly blushing like a girl, as +though he had never ventured on such a small gallantry before. +"Angelica! How did you come to get such a beautiful name?" + +"Father loves beautiful names, and his grandmother was called +Angelica." + +"I wonder if I might call you Angelica?" presently ventured Henry, in a +low voice. + +"Do you think you know me well enough?" said Angelica, with a little +gasp, which was really joy, in her breath. + +Henry didn't answer; but their eyes met in a long, still look. In each +heart behind the stillness was a storm of indescribable sweetness. Henry +leaned forward, his face grown very pale, and impulsively took +Angelica's hand,-- + +"I think, after all, I'd rather call you Angel," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +MIKE'S FIRST LAURELS + + +The gardens of Sidon had a curious habit of growing laurel-trees; +laurels and rhododendrons were the only wear in shrubs. Rhododendrons +one can understand. They are to the garden what mahogany is to the front +parlour,--the _bourgeoisie_ of the vegetable kingdom. But the +laurel,--what use could they have for laurel in Sidon? Possibly they +supplied it to the rest of the world,--market-gardeners, so to say, to +the Temple of Fame; it could hardly be for home consumption. Well, at +all events, it was a peculiarity fortunate for Esther's purpose, as one +morning, soon after breakfast, she went about the garden cutting the +glossiest branches of the distinguished tree. As she filled her arms +with them, she recalled with a smile the different purpose for which, +dragged at the heels of one of Henry's enthusiasms, she had gathered +them several years before. + +At that period Henry had been a mighty entomologist; and, as the late +summer came on, he and all available sisters would set out, armed with +butterfly-nets and other paraphernalia, just before twilight, to the +nearest woodland, where they would proceed to daub the trees with an +intoxicating preparation of honey and rum,--a temptation to which moths +were declared in text-books to be incapable of resistance. Then, as +night fell, Henry would light his bull's-eye, and cautiously visit the +various snares. It was a sight worth seeing to come upon those little +night-clubs of drunken and bewildered moths, hanging on to the sweetness +with tragic gluttony,--an easy prey for Henry's eager fingers, which, as +greedy of them as they of the honey, would seize and thrust them into +the lethal chamber, in the form of a cigar-box loosely filled with +bruised laurel leaves, which hung by a strap from his shoulder. + +It was for such exciting employment that Esther had once gathered laurel +leaves. And, once again, she remembered gathering them one Shakespeare's +birthday, to crown a little bust in Henry's study. The sacred head had +worn them proudly all day, and they all had a feeling that somehow +Shakespeare must know about it, and appreciate the little offering; just +as even to-day one might bring roses and myrtle, or the blood of a +maiden dove to Venus, and expect her to smile upon our affairs of +the heart. + +But it was for a dearer purpose that Esther was gathering them this +morning. That coming evening Mike was to utter his first stage-words in +public. The laurel was to crown the occasion on which Mike was to make +that memorable utterance: "That's a pie as is a pie, is that there pie!" + +Now while Esther was busily weaving this laurel into a wreath, Henry was +busily weaving the best words he could find into a sonnet to accompany +the wreath. When Angel duly brought him his lunch, it was finished, and +lay about on his desk in rags and tatters of composition. Angel was +going to the performance with her sisters,--for all these young people +were fond of advertising each other, and he had soon told her about +Mike,--so she was interested to hear the sonnet. Whatever other +qualities poetry may lack, the presence of generous sincerity will +always give it a certain value, to all but the merely supercilious; and +this sonnet, boyish in its touches of grandiloquence, had yet a certain +pathos of strong feeling about it. + + Not unto him alone whom loud acclaim + Declares the victor does the meed belong, + For others, standing silent in the throng, + May well be worthier of a nobler fame; + And so, dear friend, although unknown thy name + Unto the shouting herd, we would give tongue + To our deep thought, and the world's great among + By this symbolic laurel thee proclaim. + + And if, perchance, the herd shall find thee out + In coming time, and many a nobler crown + To one they love to honour gladly throw; + Wilt thou not turn thee from their eager shout, + And whisper o'er these leaves, then sere and brown: + 'Thou'rt late, O world! love knew it long ago?' + +The reader will probably agree with Angel in considering the last line +the best. But, of course, she thought the whole was wonderful. + +"How wonderful it must be to be able to write!" she said, with a look in +her face which was worth all the books ever written. + +"And how wonderful even to have something written to one like that!" + +"Surely that must have happened to you," said Henry, slyly. + +"You're only laughing at me." + +"No, I'm not. You don't know what may have been written to you. Poems +may quite well have been written to you without your having heard of +them. The poet mayn't have thought them worthy of you." + +"What nonsense! Why, I don't know any poets!" + +"Oh!" said Henry. + +"I mean, except you." + +"And how do you know that I haven't written a whole book full of poems +to you? I've known you--how long now?" + +"Two months next Monday," said Angel, with that chronological accuracy +on such matters which seems to be a special gift of women in love. Men +in love are nothing like so accurate. + +"Well, that's long enough, isn't it? And I've had nothing else to do, +you know." + +"But you don't care enough about me?" + +"You never know." + +"But tell me really, have you written something for me?" + +"Ah, you'd like to know now, wouldn't you?" + +"Of course I would. Tell me. It would make me very happy." + +"It really would?" + +"You know it would." + +"But why?" + +"It would." + +"But you couldn't care for the poetry, unless you cared for the poet?" + +"Oh, I don't know. Poetry's poetry, isn't it, whoever makes it? But what +if I did care a little for the poet?" + +"Do you mean you do, Angel?" + +"Ah, you want to know now, don't you?" + +"Tell me. Do tell me." + +"I'll tell you when you read me my poem," and as Angel prepared to run +off with a laugh, Henry called after her,-- + +"You will really? It's a bargain?" + +"Yes, it's a bargain," she called back, as she tripped off again down +the yard. + + * * * * * + +Mike's _debut_ was as great a success as so small a part could make it; +and the main point about it was the excitement of knowing that this was +an actual beginning. He had made them all laugh and cry in drawing-rooms +for ever so long; but to-night he was on the stage, the real +stage--real, at all events, for him, for Mike could never be an +amateur. Esther's eyes filled with glad tears as the well-loved little +figure popped in, with a baker's paper hat on his head, and delivered +the absurd words; and if you had looked at Henry's face too, you would +have been at a loss to know which loved the little pastry-cook's +boy best. + +When Mike returned to his dressing-room, a mysterious box was awaiting +him. He opened it, and found Esther's wreath and Henry's sonnet. + +"God bless them," he said. + +No doubt it was very childish and sentimental, and old-fashioned; but +these young people certainly loved each other. + +As Mike had left the stage, Henry had turned round and smiled at some +one a few seats away. Esther had noticed him, and looked in the same +direction. + +"Who was that you bowed to, Henry?" + +"I'll tell you another time," he said; for he had a good deal to tell +her about Angel Flower. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +THE MOTHER OF AN ANGEL + + +The Man in Possession was becoming more and more a favourite at Mr. +Flower's. One day Mr. Flower, taking pity on his loneliness, suggested +that he might possibly prefer to have his lunch in company with them all +down at the house. Henry gladly embraced the proposal, and thus became +the daily honoured guest of a family, each member of which had some +simple human attraction for him. He had already won the heart of simple +Mrs. Flower, few and brief as had been his encounters with her, and that +heart she had several times coined in unexpected cakes and other +dainties of her own making; but when he thus became partially domiciled +with the family, she was his slave outright. There was a reason for +this, which will need, and may perhaps excuse, a few lines entirely +devoted to Mrs. Flower, who, on her own peculiar merits, deserves them. + +Perhaps to introduce Eliza Flower in this way is to take her more +seriously than any of her affectionate acquaintance were able to do. +For, somehow, people had a bad habit of laughing at Mrs. Flower, though +they admitted she was the hardest-working, best-hearted little housewife +in the world. Housewife in fact she was _in excelsis_, not to say _ad +absurdum_. No little woman who worked herself to skin-and-bone to keep +things straight, and the home comfortable, was ever a more typical +"squaw." Whatever her religious opinions, which, one may be sure, were +inflexibly orthodox, there can be no question that Mr. Flower was her +god, and, as the hymn says, heaven was her home. To serve God and Mr. +Flower were to her the same thing; and there can be little doubt that a +god who had no socks to darn, or linen to keep spotless, was a god whom +Mrs. Flower would have found it impossible to conceive. + +A more complete and delighted absorption in the physical comforts and +nourishments of the human creature than Mrs. Flower's, it would be +impossible for dreamer to imagine. Such an absolute adjustment between a +being of presumably infinite aspirations and immortal discontents and +its environment, is a happiness seldom encountered by philosophers. To +think of death for poor Mrs. Flower was to conceive a homelessness +peculiarly pathetic; unless, indeed, there are kitcheners to +superintend, beds to make, rooms to "turn out," and four +spring-cleanings a year in heaven. Of what use else was the bewildering +gift of immortality to one who was touchingly mortal in all her tastes? +Indeed, Henry used to say that Mrs. Flower was the most convincing +argument against the immortality of the soul that he had ever met. + +Yet, though it was quite evident that there was nothing in the world +else she cared so much to do, and though indeed it was equally evident +that she was one of the best-natured little creatures in the world, she +did not deny herself a certain more or less constant asperity of +reference to occupations which kept her on her feet from morning till +night, and made her the slave of the whole house, in spite of four big +idle daughters. And she with rheumatism too, so bad that she could +hardly get up and down stairs! + +Probably nothing so much as Henry's respectful sympathy for this +immemorial rheumatism had contributed to win Mrs. Flower's heart. As to +the precise amount of rheumatism from which Mrs. Flower suffered, Henry +soon realised that there seemed to be an irreverent scepticism in the +family, nothing short of heartless; for rheumatism so poignantly +expressive, so movingly dramatised, he never remembered to have met. +Mrs. Flower could not walk across the floor without grimaces of pain, or +piteous indrawings of her breath; and yet demonstrations that you might +have thought would have softened stones, left her unfeeling audience not +only unmoved, but apparently even unobservant. From sheer decency, Henry +would flute out something to show that her suffering was not lost on +him; but it is to be feared the young ones would only wink at each other +at this sign of unsophistication. + +"Oh, you unfeeling child!" Mrs. Flower would exclaim, as sometimes she +caught them exchanging comments in this way. "And your father, there, is +just as bad," she would say, impatient to provoke somebody. + +This remark would probably prompt Mr. Flower to the indulgence of a form +of matrimonial banter which was not unlike the endearments he bestowed +upon his horses, and which, when you knew that he loved the little +quaint woman with all his heart, you were able to translate into more +customary modes of affection. + +"Yes, indeed," he would say, "it's evidently time I was looking out for +some active young woman, Eliza--when you begin limping about like that. +It's a pity, but the best of us must wear out some day--" + +This superficially heartless pleasantry he would deliver with a sweeping +wink at Henry and his four girls; but Mrs. Flower would see nothing to +laugh at, for humour was not her strong point. + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Ralph," she said, "before the +children. I was once young and active enough to take your fancy, anyhow. +Mr. Mesurier, won't you have a little more spinach? Do; it's fresh from +the country this morning. You mustn't mind Mr. Flower. He's fond of his +joke; and, whatever he likes to say, he'd get on pretty badly without +his old Eliza." + +"Gracious, no!" Mr. Flower would retort. "Don't flatter yourself, old +girl. I've got my eye on two or three fine young women who'll be glad +of the job, I assure you;" but this, perhaps, proving too much for poor +Mrs. Flower, whose tears were never far away, and apt to require +smelling-salts, he would change his tone in an instant and say, dropping +into his Derbyshire "thous,"-- + +"Nonsense, lass, can't thee take a bit of a joke? Come now, come. Don't +be silly. Thou knowest well enough what thou art to me, and so do the +girls. See, let's have a drive out to Livingstone Cemetery this +afternoon. Thou'rt a bit out o' sorts. It'll cheer thee up a bit." + +And so Mrs. Flower would recover, and harmony would be restored, and +nobody would wink for a quarter of an hour. Certainly it was a quaint +little mother for an Angel. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +AN ANCIENT THEORY OF HEAVEN + + +"When are you going to read me my poem?" said Angelica, one day. + +"When are you going to tell me what I asked?" replied Henry. + +"Whenever you read me my poem," retorted Angelica. + +"All right. When would you like to hear it?" + +"Now." + +"But I haven't got it with me to-day." + +"Can't you remember it?" + +"No, not to-day." + +"When will you bring it?" + +"I'll tell you what. Come with me to Woodside Meadows on Saturday +afternoon. Your father won't mind?" + +"Oh, no; father likes you." + +"I'm glad, because I'm very fond of him." + +"Yes, he's a dear; and he's got far more in him than perhaps you think, +under his country ways. If you could see him in the country, it would +make you cry. He loves it so." + +"Yes, I could tell that by the way he talked of Derbyshire the first day +we met. But you'll come on Saturday?" + +"Yes, I'll come." + + * * * * * + +Angel! Yes, it was the face of an angel; but, bright as it had seemed on +that dark background, it seemed almost brighter still as it moved by +Henry's side among the green lanes. He had never known Angel till then, +never known what primal ecstasy her nature was capable of. In the town, +her soul was like a flame in a lamp of pearl; here in the country, it +was like a star in a vase of dew. To be near trees, to touch their rough +barks, to fill one's hands with green leaves, to hear birds, to listen +to running water, to look up into the sky,--oh, this was to come +home!--and Angel's joy in these things was that of some wood-spirit who +you might expect any moment, like Undine, to slip out of your hands in +some laughing brook, or change to a shower of blossom over your head. + +"Oh, how good the country is! I wish father were here. I could eat the +grass. And I just want to take the sky in my arms." As she swept across +meadow and through woodland, with the eagerness of a child, greedily +hastening from room to room of some inexhaustible palace, her little +tense body seemed like a transparent garment fluttering round the flying +feet of her soul. + +At length she flung herself down, almost breathless, at the grassy foot +of a great tree. + +"I suppose you think I'm mad," she said. "And really I think I must be; +for why should mere green grass and blue sky and a few birds make one +so happy?" + +"Why should anything make us happy?" + +"Or sad?" + +"But now you're going to read my poem," she said, presently. + +"Yes; but something has to happen before I can read it," said Henry, +growing unaccountably serious; "for it is in the nature of a prophecy, +or at all events of an anticipation. You have to fulfil that +prophecy first." + +"It seems to me a very mysterious poem. But what have I to do?" + +"I don't know whether you can do it." + +"Well, what is it? Try me." + +"Oh, Angel, I care nothing about poems. Can't you see how I love you? +That's all poetry will ever mean to me. Just to say over and over again, +'I love Angel.' Just to find new and wonderful ways of saying that--" + +"Listen, Henry. I've loved you from the first moment I saw you that day +talking to father, and I shall love you till I die." + +"Dear, dear Angel!" + +"Henry!" + +Then Henry's arms enfolded Angel with wonderful love, and her fresh +young lips were on his, and the world faded away like a dream within +a dream. + + * * * * * + +"Now perhaps you can read me your poem," said Angel, after a while; and +she noticed a curious something different in her way of speaking to him, +as in his way of speaking to her,--something blissfully homelike, as it +were, as though they had sat like this for ever and ever, and were quite +used to it, though at the same time it remained thrillingly new. + +"It's only a silly little childish rhyme," said Henry; "some day I'll +write you far better." + +Then, coming close to Angel, he whispered,-- + + This is Angelica, + Fallen from heaven, + Fallen from heaven + Into my arms. + + Will you go back again, + Little Angelica, + Back up to heaven, + Out of my arms! + + "No," said Angelica, + "Here is my heaven, + Here is my heaven, + Here in your arms. + + "Not out of heaven, + But into my heaven, + Here have I fallen, + Here in your arms." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THE LAST CONTINUED, AFTER A BRIEF INTERVAL + + +After the long happy silence which followed Henry's recitation of his +verses, Angel at length spoke,-- + +"Shall I tell _you_ something now?" she said. "I'm almost ashamed to, +for I know you'll laugh at me, and call me superstitious." + +"Go on, little child," said Henry. + +"You remember the day," said Angel, in a hushed little impressive voice, +"I first saw you in father's office?" + +Henry was able to remember it. + +"Well, that was not the first time I had seen you." + +"Really, Angel! Why didn't you tell me before? Where was it, then? In +the street, or where?" + +"No, it was much stranger than that," said Angel. "Do you believe the +future can be foretold to us?" + +"Oh, it was in a dream, you funny Angel; was that it?" said Henry, +whose rationalism at this period was the chief danger to his +imagination. + +"No, not a dream. Something stranger than that." + +"Oh, well, I give it up." + +"It was like this," Angel continued; "there's a strange old gipsy woman +who lives near us--" + +"Oh, I see, your hand--palmistry," said Henry, with a touch of gentle +impatience. + +"Henry, dear, I said you would laugh at me. I won't tell you now, if +you're going to take it in that spirit." + +Henry promptly locked up his reason for the moment, with apologies, and +professed himself open to conviction. + +"Well, mother sometimes helps this poor old woman, and, one day, when +she happened to call, Alice and Edith and I were in the kitchen helping +mother. 'God bless you, lady,' she said,--you know how they +talk,--'you've got a kind heart; and how are all the young ladies? It's +time, I'm thinking, they had their fortunes told.' 'Oh, yes,' we all +said, 'tell us our fortunes, mother,'--we always called her mother. +'I'll tell you yours, my dear,' she said, taking hold of my hand. 'Your +fortunes are too young yet, ladies,' she said to Alice and Edith; 'come +to me in a year's time and, maybe, I'll tell you all about him.'" + +"You dear!" said Henry, by way of interruption. + +"Then," continued Angel, "she took me aside, and looked at my hand; and +she told me first what had happened to me, and then what was to come. +What she told me of the past"--as if dear Angel, whose life was as yet +all future, could as yet have had any past to speak of!--"was so true, +that I couldn't help half believing in what she said of the future. Now +you're laughing again!" + +"No, indeed, I'm not," said Henry, perfectly solemn. + +"She told me that just before I was twenty, I would meet a young man +with dark hair and blue eyes, very unexpectedly,--I shall be twenty in +six weeks,--and that he would be my fate. But the strangest is yet to +come. 'Would you like to see his face?' she said. She made me a little +frightened; but, of course, I said, 'Yes,' and then she brought out of +her pocket a sort of glass egg, and told me to look in it, and tell her +what I saw. So I looked, but for a long time I could see nothing; but +suddenly there seemed to be something moving in the centre of the glass, +like clouds breaking when the sun is coming out; and presently I could +see a lamp burning on a table; and then round the lamp shelves of books +began to grow out of the mist; then I saw a picture hanging in a recess, +a bowed head with a strange sort of head-dress on it, a dark thin face, +very sad-looking--" + +"Why, that must have been my Dante!" said Henry, astonished in spite of +himself. + +The exclamation was a "score" for Angel; and she continued, with greater +confidence, "And then I seemed to see some one sitting there; but, +though I tried and tried, I couldn't catch sight of his face. I told the +old woman what I saw. 'Wait a minute,' she said, 'then try again.' So I +waited, and presently tried again. This time I hadn't so long to wait +before I saw a room again; but it was quite different, a big desk ran +along in front of a window, and there were two tall office-stools. 'Why, +it's father's office,' I said. 'Go on looking,' said the old woman, 'and +tell me what you see.' In a moment or two, I saw some one sitting on +one of the stools, first dimly and then clearer and clearer. 'Why,' I +almost cried out, for I felt more and more frightened, 'I see a young +man sitting at a desk, with a pen behind his ear.' 'Can you see him +clearly?' 'Yes,' I said; 'he's got dark curly hair and blue eyes.' +'You're sure you won't forget his face? You'd know him if you saw him +again?' 'Indeed, I would,' I said. 'All right,' said the old woman, 'you +can give me back the crystal. You keep a look out for that young +man,--you will see him some day, mark my words, and that young man will +be your fate.' + +"Now, surely, you won't deny that was strange, will you?" asked Angel, +in conclusion. "And I shall never forget the start it gave me that day +when I came in, quite unsuspecting, with your lunch-tray, and saw you +talking to father, with your pen behind your ear, and your blue eyes and +dark hair. Now, isn't it strange? How can one help being superstitious +after a thing like that?" + +"Are you quite sure it was I?" Henry asked, quizzically. "It appears to +me that any presentable young man with a pen behind his ear would have +answered nearly enough to the vision. You would hardly have been quite +sure of the colour of the eyes, would you, now, if the old woman hadn't +mentioned it first, as she looked at your hand?" + +"You are horrid!" said Angel; "I wish I hadn't told you now. But it +wasn't merely the colour of the eyes. It was the look in them." + +"Look again, and see if you haven't made a mistake. Look very +carefully," said Henry. + +"I won't," said Angel; "I think you're cruel." + +"Angel, if you'll only look, and say you are quite sure, I'll believe +every word the old woman said." + +At last Angel was persuaded to look, and to look again, and the old +woman's credit rose at each look. + +"Yes, Henry, whatever happens, I know it is true. My life is in your +hands." + +Those are solemn words for one human being to hear uttered by another; +and a shiver of new responsibility involuntarily ran through +Henry's veins. + +"May the hands be always strong and clean enough to hold so precious a +gift," he answered, gravely. + +"Are you sad, dear?" asked Angel, presently, with a sort of divination. + +"Not sad, dear, but serious," he answered. + +"Have I turned to a responsibility so soon?" + +"You strange, wise child, I believe you are a witch." + +"Oh, I was right then." + +"Right in one way, but perhaps wrong in another. Don't you know that +some responsibilities are the most dearly coveted of mortal honours? But +then we shouldn't be worthy of them, if they didn't make us feel a +little serious. Can't you imagine that to hear another say that her life +is in one's hands makes one feel just a little solemn?" + +"But isn't your life in mine, Henry?" asked Angel, simply. + +"Of course it is, dear," answered Henry. + +And then the moon began to rise through the trees, pouring enchantment +over the sleeping woods, and the meadows half-submerged in lakes +of mist. + +Angel drew close to Henry, and watched it with big eyes. + +"What a wonderful world it is! How beautiful and how sad!" she said, +half to herself. + +"Yes; there is nothing in the world so sad as beauty," answered Henry. + +"If only to-night could last forever! If only we could die now, sitting +just like this, with the moon rising yonder." + +"But we shall have many nights like this together," said Henry. + +"No; we shall never have this night again. We may have other wonderful +nights, but they will be different. This will never come again." + +Henry instinctively realised that here was a mystical side to Angel's +nature which, however it might charm him, was not to be indiscriminately +encouraged, and he tried to rally her out of her sadness, but her +feeling was too much his own for him to persist; and as the moonlight +moved in its ascension from one beautiful change to another, now woven +by branches and leaves into weird tapestries of light and darkness, now +hanging like some golden fruit from the boughs, and now uplifted like a +lamp in some window of space, they sat together, alike held by the +ancient spell; and, presently, Henry so far lost himself in it as to +quote some lines entirely in Angel's mood: + + "She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die; + And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips + Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, + Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: + Ay, in the very temple of Delight + Veiled Melancholy has her sov'ran shrine, + Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue + Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; + His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, + And be among her cloudy trophies hung." + +"What wonderful lines!" said Angel; "who wrote them? Are they your own?" + +"Ah, Angel, what would I give if they were! No, they are by John Keats. +You must let me give you his poems." + +Presently, the moonlight began to lose its lustre. It grew pale, and, as +it were, anxious; dark billows of clouds threatened to swallow up its +silver coracle, and presently the world grew suddenly black with its +submergence, the woods and meadows disappeared, and Henry and Angel +began playfully to strike matches to see each other's faces. Thus they +suddenly flared up to each other out of the darkness, like Rembrandts +seen by lightning, and then they were lost again, and were only voices +fumbling for each other in the dark. + +Yet, even so, lips and arms found each other without much difficulty, +and when they began to think of the last train, and fear they would miss +it, but waited for just one last good-night kiss under their sacred +tree, the world suddenly lit up again, for the moon had triumphed over +its enemies, and come out just in time to give them its blessing. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +CONCERNING THE BEST KIND OF WIFE FOR A POET + + +We are apt sometimes to complain that so much of importance in our lives +is at the dispensation of accident, yet how often too are we compelled +to confess that some of the happiest and most fruitful circumstances of +our lives are due to the far-seeing diplomacies of chance. + +Among no set of circumstances is this more true than in the fateful +relations of men and women. While, in a blind sort of way, we may be +said to choose for ourselves the man or woman with whom we are to share +the joys and sorrows of our years, yet the choice is only superficially +ours. Frequently our brains, our antecedent plans, have no part in the +decision. The woman we choose appears at the wrong time, in the wrong +place, in an undesirable environment, with hair and eyes and general +complexion different in colour from what we had predestined for +ourselves, short when we had made up our minds for tall, and tall when +we had hoped for short. Yet, in in spite of all our preconceptions, we +choose her. This is not properly a choice in which the intelligence +confessedly submits to violence. It is the compulsion of mysterious +instincts that know better than our brains or our tastes. + +Now had she been asked beforehand, Esther might not have sketched out a +Mike as the ideal of her maiden dreams, nor indeed might Henry have +described an Angelica, any more than perhaps Mike an Esther, or Angelica +a Henry. Yet chance has only to place Esther and Mike, and Angelica and +Henry in the same room together for less than a minute of time, and they +fly into the arms of each other's souls with an instant recognition. +This is a mystery which it will take more than biology to explain. + +A young man's dreams of the woman he will some day marry are apt to be +meretricious, or at all events conventional. A young poet, especially, +is likely to err in the direction of paragons of beauty, or fame, or +romance. Perhaps he dreams of a great singer, or an illustrious beauty, +ignorant of the natural law which makes great singers and illustrious +beauties, in common with all artists, incapable of loving really any one +but themselves. Or perhaps it will be some woman of great and exquisite +culture. But chance knows that women of great and exquisite culture are +usually beings lacking in those plastic elemental qualities which a +poet, above all men, needs in the woman he shall love. Their very +culture, while it may seem to broaden, really narrows them, limits them +to a caste of mind, and, for an infinite suggestiveness, substitutes a +few finite accomplishments. + +Critics without understanding have wondered now and again at attachments +such as that of Heine for his Mathilde. Yet in some ways Mathilde was +the type of wife best suited for a poet. She was just a wondering child, +a bit of unspoiled chaos. She meant as little intellectually, and as +much spiritually, as a wave of the sea, a bird of the air, a star in +the sky. + +Another great poet always kept in his room a growing plant in a big tub +of earth, and another tub full of fresh water. With the fire going, he +used to say that he had the four elements within his four walls; and to +people unaccustomed to talk with the elements these no doubt seemed dull +and even remarkable companions,--like Heine's Mathilde. + +Now Angel, though far more than a goose intellectually, having, indeed, +a very keen and subtle mind, was only secondarily intellectual, being +primarily something far more important. You no more asked of her to be +intellectual, than you expect a spirit to be mathematical. She was just +a dream-child, thrilling with wonder and love before the strange world +in which she had been mysteriously placed,--a dream-child and an +excellent housewife in one, as full of common-sense on the one hand, as +she was filled with fairy "nonsense" on the other. She was just, in +fact, the wife for a poet. + +The interest taken in each other by Angel and the Man in Possession had +not been unobserved by Angel's family. Her sisters had teased her +considerably on the subject. + +"Why have you changed the way of wearing your hair, Angel?" they would +say, "Does Mr. Mesurier like it that way?" or, "My word! we are getting +smart and particular, now a certain gentleman has come into the +office!" or again, "How small your writing is nowadays, Angel! What have +you changed it for? I like your big old writing best; but I suppose--" +and then they would retreat to a safe distance to finish--"Mr. Mesurier +isn't of the same opinion!" + +Sometimes Esther would start in pursuit, and playful scrimmages would +ensue, the hilarious uproar of which would turn poor Mrs. +Flower's brain. + +Mrs. Flower had certainly not been unobservant, and one may perhaps +suspect that those cakes and other delicacies which she had so often +sent up the yard, had not been sent entirely without those ulterior +designs which every thoughtful mother may becomingly cherish for her +daughters. + +After Angel and Henry's excursion to the country together, Henry felt +that some official announcement of the state of his heart was demanded +of him, and lost no time in finding Mr. Flower alone for that tremulous +purpose. However, it was soon over. There were no questions of _dots_ +and marriage settlements to discuss. Genealogically, both sides were +about equally distinguished, and, socially, belonged to that large +undefined class called "respectable"--though it must not be supposed +that, when so minded, families of that "respectable" zone do not +occasionally make nice distinctions. "Do you know what you are asking +for?" once said a retired tradesman's wife in Sidon to her daughter's +suitor. "Do you know that both Katie's grandfathers were mayors?" + +But there were no traditional mayoralties to keep these two young hearts +asunder. It was understood on both sides that they had nothing to bring +but each other, and they asked nothing better. Angel was going to marry +a poet, and Henry a fairy; and not only they themselves, but the whole +family, was more than satisfied. Mr. Flower was undisguisedly pleased, +and the tears stood in his eyes as he gripped Henry's hand. + +"I've liked you," he said, "since the first time we shook hands. There +was something honest about your grip I liked, and I go a good deal by +these things. It is not many men I would trust with my little Angel; for +when you take her, you take her father's great treasure. Guard her well, +dear lad, guard her well." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE BOOK OF ANGELICA + + +The first duty of a poet's wife is to inspire him. When she ceases to do +that--but that is a consideration which need not occupy us in this +unsophisticated story. We have already seen that Angelica in this +respect early began her wifely duties towards Henry; and that little +song he read in chapter twenty-five was but one of many he had written +to her in his capacity of man in possession. + +The feminine inspirations of his early youth had been numerous, but +mediocre in quality. Even in love, as in all else, his opportunities had +been second and even third-rate. He had broken his boy's heart, time +after time, for some commonplace, little provincial miss who knew not +"the god's wonder or his woe." But, at last, in circumstances so +unforeseen, the maiden of the Lord had been revealed to him, and with +the revelation a great impulse of metrical expression had come upon the +young poet. All day long rhythms and fancies were effervescing within +him, till at length he had quite a publishable mass of verse for which, +it is to be feared, Angelica must be counted responsible. + +Of these he was busily making a surreptitious fair copy one morning, +when old Mr. Septimus Lingard suddenly visited his seclusion, with the +announcement that his task there was at an end, so that he might now +return to his regular office. Though, of course, Henry had realised that +the present happy arrangement could not go on for ever, the news brought +temporary desolation to the two young lovers. For four months their days +had been spent within a few yards of each other; and though Angel's +excursions up the yard to Henry's desk could not be many, or long, each +day, yet each was conscious that the other was near at hand. When Angel +sang at her housework, it was from the secure sense that Henry was close +by. Their separation was little more than that of a husband and wife +working in different rooms of the same house. But now their meetings +would have to be arranged out somewhere in a cold world, little +considerate of the convenience of lovers, and, for whole days of warm +proximity, they would have to exchange occasional snatched +precarious hours. + +Well, the only thing to do was for Henry to work away at their dream of +a home together--home together, however little, just four walls to love +each other in, away from the gaze of prying eyes, none daring to make +them afraid. How that home was to be compassed was far from clear in +either of their minds; but vaguely it was felt that it would be brought +about by the powerful enchantments of literature. Henry had recently had +one of Angel's poems accepted by a rather good magazine, and the trance +of joy in which for fully two hours he had sat gazing at that, his +first, proof-sheet, was hardly less rapturous than that into which he +had fallen after seeing Angel for the first time,--so dear are the +emblems of his craft to the artist, at the beginning, and still at the +end, of his career. + +So Henry had to finish the fair copy of his poems at home in his +lodgings of an evening, for so ambitious a private enterprise could not +be carried on in his own office without perilous interruptions. He was +making the copy with especial care, in the form of a real book; and when +it was made, he daintily bound it in vellum with his own hands. Then he +wrapped it lovingly in tissue paper, and kept it by him two or three +days, in readiness for Angel's birthday, on the morning of which day he +hid it in a box of flowers and sent it to Angel. The sympathetic reader +can imagine her delight, as she discovered among the flowers a dainty +little white volume, bearing the title-page, "The Book of Angelica, by +Henry Mesurier. Tyre, 1886. Edition limited to one copy." + +Now this little book presently began to enjoy a certain very carefully +limited circulation among Angel's friends. Of course they were not +allowed to take it away. They were only allowed to look at it now and +again for a few minutes, Angel anxiously standing by to see that they +did not soil her treasure. Sometimes Mr. Flower would ask Angel to show +it to one of the family friends; and thus one evening it came beneath +the eyes of a little Scotch printer who had a great love for poetry and +some taste in it. + +"The man's a genius," he said, with all that authority with which a +strong Scotch accent mysteriously endows the humblest Scot. + +"The man's a genius," he repeated; "his poems must be printed." + +Henry had already found that this was easier said than done, for he had +already tried several London publishers who professed their willingness +to publish--at his expense. This little Scotch printer, however, was to +prove more venturesome. He forthwith communicated a proposal to Henry +through the Flowers. If Henry would provide him with a list of a certain +number of friends he could rely on for subscriptions, he would take the +risk of printing an edition, and give Henry half the profits,--a +proposal as generous as it was rash. Angel communicated the offer in an +excited little letter, with the result that Mr. Leith and Henry met one +morning in the bar-parlour of "The Green Man Still," and parted an hour +or so after in a high state of friendship, and deeply pledged together +to a mutual adventure of three hundred copies of a book to be called +"The Book of Angelica," and to be printed in so dainty a fashion that +the mere outside should attract buyers. + +Mr. Leith worked under difficulties, for his business, small as it was, +was much saddled with pecuniary obligations which it but inadequately +supported. His printing of Henry's poems was really a work of sheer +idealism which none but a Scotsman, or perhaps an Irishman, would have +undertaken; and it was a work that might at any moment be interrupted by +bailiffs, empowered to carry away the presses and the very types over +which Henry loved to hang in his spare hours, trying to read in the +lines of mysteriously carved metal, his "Madrigal to Angelica singing," +or his "Sonnet on first beholding Angelica." + +Then Mr. Leith was of a convivial disposition; and Henry and he must +have spent more hours drinking to the success of the little book than +would have sufficed to print it twice over. However, the day did at last +come when it was a living, breathing reality, and when Angel and Henry +sat with tears of joy over the little new-born "Book of Angelica." Was +it not, they told each other, the little spirit-child of their love? How +wonderful it all was! How wonderful their future was going to be! + +"What does it feel like?" said Henry, playfully recalling their old +talk, "to have a book written all about one's self?" + +"It is to feel the happiest and proudest girl in the world." + +That all the other young people were hardly less happy and excited +about the little book goes without saying. Mike spent quite a large sum +in copies, and for a while employed his luncheon-hour in asking at +book-shops with a nonchalant air, as though he had barely heard of the +author, if they sold a little book called "The Book of Angelica." Mrs. +Mesurier seemed to see her faith in her boy beginning to be justified; +and when James Mesurier opened his local paper one morning, and found a +long and appreciative article on a certain "fellow-townsman," he cut it +out to paste in his diary. Perhaps the lad would prove right, after all. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +WHAT COMES OF PUBLISHING A BOOK + + +It is only just to Tyre to acknowledge that it behaved quite +sympathetically towards the young poet thus discovered in its midst. Its +newspapers reviewed him with marked kindness,--a kindness which in a few +years' time, when he had long since grown out of his baby volume, he was +obliged to set to the credit of the general goodness of human nature, +rather than to the poetic quality of his own verses. In many unexpected +quarters also he met with recognition which, if not always intelligent, +was at least gratifying. For praise, or at least some form of notice, is +breath in the nostrils of the young poet. He hungers to feel that his +personality counts for something, though it be merely to anger his +fellow-men. It was perhaps no very culpable vanity on his part to be +pleased that people began to point him out in the streets, and whisper +that that was the young poet; and that distant acquaintances seemed +more ready to smile at him than before. Now and again one of these would +stop him to say how pleased he had been to see the kind article about +him in _The Tyrian Daily Mail_, and that he intended to buy "the work" +as soon as possible. Henry smiled to himself, to hear his frail little +flower of a volume spoken of as a "work," as though it had been the +Encyclopaedia Britannica; and he rather wondered what that would-be +purchaser would make of it, as he turned over pages of which so large a +proportion was reserved for a spotless frame of margin. No doubt he +would decide that the margin had been left for the purpose of making +notes,--making notes on those abstruse rose-petals of boyish song! + +Even in far-away London,--which was as yet merely a sounding name to +these young people,--hard-worked reviewers, contemptuously disposing of +batches of new poetry in a few lines, found a kind word or two to say +for the little provincial volume; and, through one agency or another, +Mr. Leith, within six weeks of the publication, was able to announce +that the edition was exhausted and that there was something like forty +pounds profit to share between them. + +That poetry could be exchanged for real money, Henry had heard, but had +never hoped to work the miracle in his own case. It was like selling +moonlight, or Angelica's smiles. Was it not, indeed, Angelica's smiles +turned from one kind of gold into another? One more change they should +undergo, and then return to her from whom they had come. From minted +gold of the realm they should change into the gold of a ring, and thus +Angel should wear upon her finger the ornament of her own smiles. +Setting aside a small proportion of his gains to buy Esther and Mike, +Dot and Mat and his mother, a little memorial present each, he then +spent the rest on Angel's ring. Angel pretended to scold him for his +extravagance; but, as no woman can resist a ring, her remonstrance was +not convincing, and then, as Henry said, was it not their betrothal +ring, and, therefore, one of the legitimate expenses of love? + +Three other acknowledgments his poems brought him. The first was a +delightful letter from Myrtilla Williamson. How much men of talent owe +to the letters of women has never been sufficiently acknowledged, as +the debt can never be adequately repaid. Of the many branches of woman's +unselfishness, this is perhaps the most important to the world. Always +behind the flaming renown of some great soldier, statesman, or poet, +there is a woman's hand, or the hands, maybe, of many women, pouring, +unseen, the nutritive oil of praise. + +This letter Henry, in the gladness of his heart, ingenuously showed to +Angel, with the result that it provoked their first quarrel. With the +charms of a child, Angel, it now appeared, united also the faults. She +had it in her to be bitterly and unreasonably jealous. She read the +letter coldly. + +"You seem very proud of her praise," she said; "is it so very valuable?" + +"I value it a good deal, at all events," answered Henry. + +"Oh, I see!" retorted Angel; "I suppose my praise is nothing to hers." + +"Angel dear, what _do_ you mean?" + +"Oh, nothing, of course; but I'm sure you must regret caring for an +ignorant girl like me, when there are such clever, talented women in the +world as your Mrs. Williamson. I hate your learned women!" + +"Angel, I'm surprised you can talk like that. Because we love each +other, are we to have no other friends?" + +"Have as many as you like, dear. Don't think I mind. But I don't want to +see their letters." + +"Very well, Angel," answered Henry, quietly. He was making one of those +discoveries of temperament which have to be made, and have to be +accepted, in all close relationships. This was evidently one of Angel's +faults. He must try to help her with it, as he must try and let her help +him with his. + +The second was a letter, forwarded care of his printer, by one of the +London reviews which had noticed his verses. It was from a rising young +London publisher who, it appeared from an envelope enclosed, had already +tried to reach him direct at Tyre. "Henry Mesurier, Esqre, Author of +'The Book of Angelica,' Tyre," the address had run, but the post-office +of Tyre had returned it to the sender, with the words "Not known" +officially stamped upon it. + +He was as yet "not known," even in Tyre! "In another five years he shall +try again," said Henry, savagely, to himself, "and we shall see whether +it will be 'not known' then!" + +The letter expressed the writer's pleasure in the extracts he had seen +from Mr. Mesurier's book, and hoped that when his next book was ready, +he would give the writer an opportunity of publishing it. Fortune was +beginning already to smile. + +But the third acknowledgment was something more like a frown, and was, +at all events, by far the most momentous outcome of Henry's first +publication. One morning, soon after Mr. Leith had paid over to him his +twenty pounds profit, he found himself unexpectedly requested to step +into "the private office." There, at Mr. Lingard's table, he found the +three partners seated in solemn conclave, as for a court-martial. Mr. +Lingard, as senior partner, was the spokesman. + +"Mr. Mesurier," he began, "the firm has been having a very serious +consultation in regard to you, and has been obliged, very reluctantly, I +would have you believe, to come to a painful conclusion. We gladly +acknowledge that during the last few months your work has given us more +satisfaction than at one time we expected it to give. But, +unfortunately, that is not all. Your attention to your duties, we admit, +has been very satisfactory. It is not a sin of omission, but one of +commission, of which we have to complain. What we have to complain of as +business men is a matter which perhaps you will say does not concern us, +though on that point we must respectfully differ from you. Mr. Mesurier, +you have recently published a book." + +Henry drew himself up haughtily. Surely that was nothing to be ashamed +of. + +"It is quite a pretty little book," continued Mr. Lingard, with one of +his grim smiles. "It contains some quite pretty verses. Oh, yes, I have +seen it," and Henry noticed a copy of the offending little volume lying, +like a rose, among some legal papers at Mr. Lingard's left hand; "but +its excellence as poetry is not to the point here. Our difficulty is +that you are now branded so unmistakably as a poet, that it is no use +our any longer pretending to our clients that you are a clerk. So long +as you were only suspected of being a poet," and the old man smiled +again, "it did not so much matter; but now that all Tyre knows you, by +your own act and deed, as a poet, the case is different. We can no +longer, without risk of losing confidence with our clients, send an +acknowledged poet to inspect their books--though, personally, we may +have every faith in your capacity. No doubt they will be glad enough to +buy your books in the future; but they will be nervous of trusting you +with theirs at the moment." And the old man laughed heartily at his +own humour. + +"You mean, then, sir, that you will have no further need for my +services?" said Henry, looking somewhat pale; for it is one thing to +hate the means of one's livelihood, and another to exchange it for none. + +"I'm afraid, my dear lad, that that is what it comes to. We are, I hope +you will believe, exceedingly sorry to come to such a conclusion, both +for our own sakes and yours, as well as that of your father,--who is an +old and valued friend of ours; but we are able to see no other way out +of the difficulty. Of course, you will not leave us this minute; but +take what time you need to look round and arrange your future plans; and +so far as we are concerned, we shall part from you as good friends and +sincere well-wishers." + +The old man held out his hand, and Henry took it, with a grateful sense +of the friendly manner in which Mr. Lingard had performed a painful +task, and a certain recognition that, after all, a poet must be +something of a nuisance to business-men. + +When he returned to his desk, he sat for a long time thoughtful, divided +in mind between exultation that he was soon to be free to take the +adventurous highway of literature, and anxiety as to where in a month's +time his preliminary meals were to come from. + +Yet, after all, the main thing was to be free of this servitude. Out of +freedom all things might be hoped. + +Still, as Henry looked round at the familiar faces of his fellow-clerks, +and realised that in a month's time his comradeship with them would be +at an end, he was surprised to feel a certain pang of separation. Mere +custom has so great a part in our affections, that though a routine may +have been dull and distasteful, if it has any extenuating circumstances +at all, we change it with a certain irrational regret. After all, his +office-life was associated with much contraband merriment; and, +unconsciously, his associates had taken a valuable part in his training, +humanised him in certain directions, as he had humanised them in others. +They had saved him from dilettanteism, and whatever he wrote in future +would owe something warm and kindly to the years he had spent with them. + +His very desk took on a pathetic expression, as of a place that was so +soon to know him no more for ever; and Mr. Smith, wrangling over +wet-traps and cesspools at the counter, just as on the first day he had +heard him, almost moved him to tears. Perhaps in ten years' time, were +he to come back, he would find him still at his post, fervidly engaged +in the same altercations, with only a little additional greyness at the +temples to mark the lapse of time. + +And Jenkins would still be sitting in the little screened-off cupboard, +with "cashier" painted on the glass window. As three o'clock approached, +he would still be heard loudly counting his cash and shovelling the gold +into wash-leather bags, and the silver into little paper-bags marked L5 +apiece, in a wild rush to reach the bank before it closed. + +And would the same good fellows, a little more serious, because long +since married, be cracking jokes and loafing near the fire-guard, in +some rare safe hour, of the afternoon when all the partners were out, to +make a spring for the desks, as the carefully learnt tread of one or +another of those partners followed the opening of the front door. + +The very work that he hated seemed to wear an unwonted look of +tenderness. Who would keep the books he had kept--with something of his +father's neatness; who would look after the accounts of "the Rev. Thomas +Salthouse," or take charge of "Ex'ors James Shuttleworth, Esqre"? + +Of course, it was absurd--absurd, perhaps, just because it was human. +For was he not going to be free, free to fulfil his dreams, free to +follow those voices that had so often called him from beyond the sunset? +Soon he would be able to cry out to them, with literal truth, "I am +yours, yours--all yours!" And in those ten years which were to pass so +invariably for Mr. Smith, and for Jenkins and the rest, what various and +dazzling changes might be, must be, in store for him. Long before the +end of them he must have written masterpieces and become famous, and +Angel and he be long settled together in their paradise of home. + +Henry was pleased to find that his chums were to miss him no less than +he was to miss them. As an unofficial master of their pale revels, his +place would not be easy to fill; and he was much touched, when, a day or +two before the end of the month, which was the time mutually agreed upon +for Henry to look round, they intimated their desire to give a little +dinner in his honour at "The Jovial Clerks" tavern. + +Henry was nothing loth, and the evening came and went with no little +emotion and no little wine, on either side. He had bidden good-bye to +his employers in the afternoon, and Mr. Lingard had shaken his hand, and +admonished him as to his future with something of paternal affection. + +Toward the close of the dinner, Bob Cherry, who acted as chairman, rose, +with an unaccustomed blush upon his cheek, to propose the toast of the +evening. They had had the honour and pleasure, he said, to be associated +for several years past with a gentleman to whom that evening they were +to say good-bye. No better fellow had ever graced the offices of Lingard +and Fields, and his would be a real loss to the gaiety of their little +world. They understood that he was a poet; and indeed had he not already +published a charming volume with which they were all acquainted!--still +this made no difference to them. Certain high powers might object, but +they liked him none the less; and whether he was a poet or not, he was +certainly a jolly good fellow, and wherever his new career might take +him, the good wishes of his old chums would certainly follow him. The +chairman concluded his speech by requesting his acceptance of a copy of +the "Works of Lord Macaulay," as a small remembrance of the days they +had spent together. + +The toast having been seconded and drunk with resounding cordiality, +Henry responded in a speech of mingled playfulness and emotion, assuring +them, on his part, that though they might not be poets, he thought no +worse of them for that, but should always remember them as the best +fellows he had ever known. The talk then became general, and tender with +reminiscence. After all, what a lot of pleasant things those hard years +had given them to remember! So they kept the evening going, and it was +not till an early hour of the following day that this important volume +of Henry's life was finally closed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +MIKE'S TURN TO MOVE + + +While Henry had been busily engaged in winning Angelica and writing and +printing his little book, Mike's fortunes had not been idle. Meanwhile, +the Sothern Dramatic Club had given two more performances, in which his +parts had been considerable, and been played by him with such success as +to make the former pieman's apprentice one of the chief members of the +club. Mike and his friends therefore became more and more eager for him +to try his talents on the great stage. But this was an experiment not so +easy to make. + +However unknown a writer may be, he can still at least write his book in +his obscurity, and, when done, bring it to market, with a reasonable +hope of its finding a publisher; moreover, though he may remain for +years unappreciated, his writings still go on fighting for him till his +due recognition is won. He has not to find his publisher before he +begins to write. Yet it is actually such a disability under which the +unproved and often the proved actor must labour. Unless some one engages +him to act, and provides an audience for him, he has no opportunity of +showing his powers. And such opportunities are difficult to find, unless +you are a dissolute young lord, or belong to one of the traditional +theatrical families,--whose members are brought up to the stage, as the +sons of a lawyer are brought up to law. For the avenues to the stage are +blocked by perhaps more frivolous incompetents than any other +profession. Any idle girl with good looks, and any idle gentleman with +something of a good carriage, deem themselves qualified for one of the +most arduous of the arts. + +Mike's plan had been to try every considerable actor that came to Tyre, +who might possibly have a vacant place in his company; but he had tried +many in vain. While one or two were unable to see him at all, most of +them treated him with a kindness remarkable in men daily besieged by the +innumerable hopeless. They gave him good advice; they wished him well; +but already they had long lists of experienced applicants waiting their +turn for the coveted vacancy. At last, however, there came to Tyre a +famous romantic actor who was said to be more sympathetic towards the +youthful aspirant than the other heads of his profession, and as, too, +he was rumoured to be vulnerable on the side of literature, Mike and +Henry agreed to make a joint attack upon him. Mike should write a brief +note asking for an interview, and Henry should follow it up with another +letter to the same effect, and at the same time send him a copy of "The +Book of Angelica." + +The plan was carried out. Both letters and the book were sent, and the +young men awaited with impatience the result. Henry had adopted a very +lofty tone. "In granting my friend an interview," he had said, "you may +be giving his first chance to an actor of genius. Of course you may not; +but at least you will have had the satisfaction of giving to possible +genius that benefit of the doubt which we have a right to expect from +the creator of ----," and he named one of the actor's most famous roles. + +A cordial answer came by return, enclosing two stalls for the following +evening, when, said the great actor, he would be glad to see Mr. Laflin +during or after the performance. The two young men were in their places +as the curtain rose, and it goes without saying that their enthusiasm +was unequalled in the audience. Between the third and fourth acts there +was a considerable interval, and early in the performance it had been +notified to Mike that the great actor would see him then. So when the +time came, with a whispered "good luck" from Henry, he left his place +and was led through a little mysterious iron door at the back of the +boxes, on to the stage and into the great man's dressing-room. Opening +suddenly out of the darkness at one side of the stage, it was more like +a brilliantly lighted cave hung with mirrors than a room. Mirrors and +lights and laurel wreaths with cards attached, and many photographs with +huge signatures scrawled across them, and a magnificent being reading a +book, while his dresser laced up some high boots he was to wear in the +following act,--made Mike's first impression. Then the magnificent being +looked up with a charming smile. + +"Good-evening, Mr. Laflin. I am delighted to see you. I hope you will +excuse my rising." + +He said "Mr. Laflin" with a captivating familiarity of intonation, as +though Mike was something between an old friend and a distinguished +stranger. + +"So you are thinking of joining our profession. I hope you liked the +performance. I saw you in front, or at least I thought it was you. And +your friend? I hope he will come and see me some other time. I have been +delighted with his poems." + +There is something dazzling and disconcerting to an average layman about +an actor's dressing-room, even though the dressing-room be that of an +intimate friend. He feels like a being on the confines of two worlds and +belonging to neither, awkwardly suspended 'twixt fact and fancy. The +actor for a while has laid aside his part and forgotten his wig and his +make-up. As he talks to you, he is thinking of himself merely as a +private individual; whereas his visitor cannot forget that in appearance +he is a king, or an eighteenth-century dandy, or--though you know him +well enough as a clean-shaven young man of thirty--a bowed and wrinkled +greybeard. The visitor's voice rings thin and hestitating. It cannot +strike the right pitch, and generally he does himself no sort +of justice. + +Perhaps, however, it was because Mike had been born for this world in +which now for the first time he found himself, that he suffered from +none of this embarrassment; perhaps, too, it was some half-conscious +instinct of his own gifts that made him quite self-contained in the +presence of acknowledged distinction, so self-contained that you might +have thought he had no reverence. As he had passed across the stage, he +had eyed that mysterious behind-the-scenes rather with the eye of a +future stage-manager, than of a youth all whose dreams converged at this +point, and at this moment. + +One touch of the poetry of contrast caught his eye, of which custom +would probably have made him unobservant. In an alcove of the stage, a +"scene-dock," as Mike knew already to call it, a beautiful spirit in +gauze and tights was silently rehearsing to herself a dance which she +had to perform in the next act. Softly and silently she danced, +absorbed in the evolutions of her lithe young body, paying as little +heed to the rough stage-hands who hurried scenery about her on every +side, as those hardened stage-hands paid to her dancing. Henry or Ned +would probably have fallen madly in love with her on the spot. To Mike, +she was but a part of the economy of the stage; and had she been +Cleopatra herself, eyes filled to overflowing with the beauty of Esther +would have taken no more intimate note of her. So, it is said, painters +and sculptors regard their models with cold, artistic eyes. + +This self-possession enabled Mike to show to the best advantage; and +while they talked, the great actor, with an eye accustomed to read +faces, soon made up his mind about him. + +"I believe you and your friend are right, Mr. Laflin," he said. "I am +much mistaken if you are not a born actor. But if you are that, you will +not need to be told that the way is long and difficult, nor will you +mind that it is so. Every true artist rather loves than fears the +drudgery of his art. It is one of the tests of his being an artist. Art +is undoubtedly the pleasantest of all work; but it is work for all +that, and none of the easiest. Perhaps it is the pleasantest because it +is the hardest. So if you really want to be an artist, you won't object +to beginning your journey to the top right away at the bottom." + +"Anywhere at all, sir," said Mike, his heart beating at this hint of +what was coming. + +"Well, in that case," continued the other, "I can perhaps do something, +though a very little, for you." + +Mike eagerly murmured his gratitude. + +"I'm sorry to say I have no vacancy in my own company at present; but +would you be willing to take a part in my Christmas pantomime? I may say +that I myself began life as harlequin." + +"I will gladly take anything you can offer me," said Mike. + +"Shall we call it settled then? But I sha'n't need you for another four +months. Meanwhile I will have a contract made out and sent to you--" + +"Curtain rising for fourth act, sir," cried the call-boy, putting his +head in at the door at that moment. + +"You see I shall have to say good-bye," said the good-natured manager, +rising and moving towards the door; "but I shall look forward to seeing +you in October. My good wishes to your friend;" and so the happiest +person in that theatre slipped back to his seat by the side of a friend +who was surely as happy at his good news as though it had been his own. + +Meanwhile Esther had been counting the hours till ten, when she made a +pretence of going to bed with the rest. But there was no sleep for her +till she had heard Mike's news. Her bedroom looked out from the top of +the house into the front garden, and she had arranged to have a lamp +burning at the window, so that Mike, on his way home, should understand +that all was safe for a snatched five minutes' talk in the porch. She +sat trying to read till about midnight, when through her half-opened +windows came the soft whistle she had been waiting for. Turning down the +lamp to show that she had heard, she stole down through the quiet house +and cautiously opened the front door, fastened, it seemed, with a +hundred bolts and chains. + +"Is that you, Mike?" + +For answer two arms, which she didn't mistake for a burglar's, were +thrown round her. + +"Esther, I've found my million pounds." + +"Oh, Mike! He's really going to help you?" + +And here there is no further necessity for eaves-dropping. All persons +except Mike and Esther will please leave the porch. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +UNCHARTERED FREEDOM + + +On the morning after the dinner with which he bade farewell to Messrs. +Lingard and Fields, Henry awoke at his usual hour to a very unusual +feeling. For the first time in his life he could stay in bed as long as +he pleased. + +On the other side of the room Ned Hazell lay sleeping the deep sleep of +the unpunctual clerk; and Henry, when he had for a moment or two dwelt +upon his own happiness, took a malicious joy in arousing him. + +"Ned," he shouted, "get up! You'll be late for the office." + +Ned gave out a deep sound, something between a snore, a moan, and an +imprecation. + +"Ned!" his tormentor persisted, drawing the clothes warmly round him, in +a luxury of indifference to the time of day. + +Ned presently began rubbing his head vigorously, which was one of his +preliminaries of awakening, and then mournfully raised himself in bed, a +pillar of somnolence. + +"You might let a fellow have his sleep out," he said; "why don't you get +up yourself?--oh, I remember, you're a literary gentleman from to-day. +That's why you're so mighty ready to root me out," and he aimed a pillow +at Henry's bed in derision. + +Yes, Henry was free, an independent gentleman of time and space. The +clock might strike itself hoarse, yet, if he wished, he might go on +staying in bed. He was free! His late task-masters had no jurisdiction +here. It would even be in his power here to order Mr. Fields out of the +room, and, if he refused, forcibly to eject him into the street. Why +didn't Mr. Fields appear to gratify him in this matter? + +So he indulged his imagination, while Ned dressed in haste, with the +fear of the tyrant evident upon him. Poor fellow, he would have to +choose between two cups of coffee and two eggs and five minutes late! +Probably he would split the difference, bolt one cup of coffee and one +egg, and arrive two and a half minutes late. Henry watched him with +compassion; and when he had gone his ways, himself rose languidly and +dressed indolently, as with the aid of an invisible valet. At length he +sauntered down to breakfast, and sent out for a morning paper, which he +on no account ever read. He could imagine no more insulting waste of +time. He looked it through, but found no reference to the real +significance of the day. + +Breakfast over, he wondered what he should do with himself, how he +should spend the day. His clear duty was to begin being a great man on +the spot, and work at being a great man every day punctually from nine +till six. But where should he begin? Should he sit down in a +business-like way and begin his long romantic poem, or should he write +an essay, or again should he make a start on his novel? + +Romantic poems, he felt, however, are only well begun on special days +not easy to define; essays are only written on days when we have +determined to be idle,--and this, after the opening flirtation with +indolence, must be a busy day,--and it is not every day that one can +begin a novel. He might arrange his books, but really they were very +well arranged already. Or suppose he went out for a walk. Walking +quickened the brain. He might go and look in at the Art Gallery, where +he hadn't been for a long while, and see the new picture the morning +paper was talking about. It was by a painter whose poems he already knew +and loved. That might inspire him. So, by an accident of idleness, he +presently found himself standing rapt before the most wonderful picture +he had ever seen,--a picture to see which, he said to himself, men would +make pilgrimages to Tyre, when Tyre was a moss-grown, ruinous seaport, +from which the traffic of the world had long since passed away. + +Henry at this time had visited none of the great galleries and, except +in a few reproductions, knew nothing of the great Italian masters. +Therefore to him this picture was Italy, the Renaissance, and +Catholicism, all concentrated into one enthralling canvas. But it was +something greater than that. It was the terrible meeting of Youth and +Love and Death in one tremendous moment of infinite loss. Infinite +passion and infinite loss were here pictured, in a medium which +combined all that was spiritual and all that was sensual in a harmony +of beauty that was in the same moment delirium and peace. The +irresistible cry of the colour to the senses, the spheral call of the +theme and its agony to the soul. Beatrice dead, and Dante taken in a +dream across the strewn poppies of her death-chamber, to look his last +on the sleeping face, yet a little smiling in the after-glow of life; +her soul already carried by angels far over the curved and fluted roofs +of the Florentine houses, on its way to Paradise. Little Beatrice! Not +till they meet again in Paradise shall he see again that holy face. In a +dream of loss he gazes upon her, as the angels lift up the +flower-garnished sheet; and not only her face, but every detail of that +room of death is etched in tears upon his eyes,--the distant winding +stair, the pallid death-lamps, the intruding light of day. All Passion +and all Loss, all Youth, all Love, and all Death met together in an +everlasting requiem of tragic colour. + +Henry sat long before this picture, enveloped, as it were, in its rich +gloom, as the painted profundity of a church absorbs one in its depths. +And with the impression of its solemn beauty was blent a despairing awe +of the artist who, of a little coloured earth, had created such a +masterpiece of vitality, thrown on to a thin screen of canvas so +enduringly palpable, so sumptuous, and so poignantly dominating a +reflection of his visions. What a passionate energy of beauty must have +been in this man's soul; what a constant fury of meditation upon +things divine! + +When Henry came back to himself, his first thought was to share it with +Angel. Little soul, how her face would flame, how her body would tremble +with the wonder of it! In the minutiae, the technicalities of +appreciation, Angel, like Henry himself, might be lacking; but in the +motive fervour of appreciation, who was like her! It was almost painful +to see the joy which certain simple wonders gave her. Anything intense +or prodigal in nature, any splendidly fluent outpouring of the +elements,--the fierce life of streaming fire, water in gliding or +tumultuous masses, the vivid gold of crocus and daffodil spouting up +through the earth in spring, the exquisite liquidity of a bird +singing,--these, as with all elemental poetic natures, gave her the +same keen joy which we fable for those who, in the intense morning of +the world, first heard them; fable, indeed, for why should we suppose +that because ears deaf a thousand years heard the nightingale too, it +should therefore be less new for those who to-night hear it for the +first time? Rather shall it be more than less for us, by the memories +transmitted in our blood from all the generations who before have +listened and gone their way. + +So Henry sought out Angel, and they both stood in front of the great +picture for a long while without a word. Presently Angel put the feeling +of both of them into a single phrase,-- + +"Henry, dear, we have found our church." + +And indeed for many months henceforth this picture was to be their +altar, their place of prayer. Often hereafter when their hopes were +overcast, or life grew mean with little cares, they would slip, singly, +or together, into that gallery, and-- + + "let the beauty of Eternity + Smooth from their brows the little frets of time." + +Thus Henry's first day of freedom had begun auspiciously with the +unexpected discovery of an inalienable possession of beauty. Yet the +little cares were not far off, waiting their time; and that night, Henry +lay long awake asking himself what he was going to do? Whence was to +come the material gold and silver by which this impetuous spirit was to +be sustained? A sum not exceeding five pounds represented his +accumulated resources, and they would not last longer than--five pounds. +He needed little, but that little he needed emphatically. Soon a new +book and other literary projects would keep him going, but--meanwhile! +How were the next two or three months to be bridged? Return to his +father's house, he neither would, nor perhaps, indeed, could. + +So he lay awake a long while, fruitlessly thinking; but, just before he +slept, a thought that made him laugh himself awake suggested itself: +"Why not go and ask Aunt Tipping to take pity on you?" + +So he went to sleep, resolved, if only for the fun of it, to pay a visit +to Aunt Tipping on the morrow. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +A PREPOSTEROUS AUNT + + +No doubt it has been surmised from what has gone before, that when Henry +said to himself that he would go and see Aunt Tipping, he did not +propose to himself a visit to the country seat of some quaint old lady +of quality. Baronial towers and stately avenues of ancestral elm did not +make a picturesque background for his thoughts as he recalled +Aunt Tipping. + +Poor kind Aunt Tipping, it is a shame to banter her memory even in so +obvious a fashion; for if ever there was a kind heart, it was hers. In +fact she possessed, in a degree that amounted to genius, one of the +rarest of human qualities,--unconditional pity for the unhappy human +creature. Within her narrow and squalid sphere, she was never known to +fail of such succour as was hers to give to misfortune, however +well-merited, or misery however self-made. + +No religion or philosophy has ever yet been merciful enough to human +weakness. Matilda Tipping repaired the lack so far as she went. In fact, +she had unconsciously realised that weakness _is_ human nature. It would +be difficult to fix upon an offence that would disqualify you for Aunt +Tipping's pity. To the prodigalities of the passions, and the appetites +disastrously indulged, she was accustomed by a long succession of those +sad and shady lodgers to whom it was part of her precarious livelihood +to let her rooms, and, not infrequently, to forgive them their rent. +That men and women should drink too much, and love too many, was, her +experience told her, one of those laws of nature that seemed to make a +good deal of unnecessary inconvenience in mortal affairs, but against +which mere preaching or punishment availed nothing. All that was to be +done was, so far as possible, to repair their ravages in particular +instances, and heal the wounds of human passion with simple +human kindness. + +Of two vessels, one for honour and the other for dishonour, surely +nature never made so complete a contrast as Matilda Tipping and her +sister, Mary Mesurier. Both country girls, born in a humble, though +defiantly respectable, stratum of society, the ways of the two sisters +had already parted in childhood. Mary was studious, neat, and religious; +Matilda was tomboyish, impatient of restraint, and fond of unedifying +associates. + +"Your aunt never aspired," Mrs. Mesurier would say of Aunt Tipping +sometimes to her children; and, while still a child, she had often +reproached her with her fondness for gossiping with companions "beneath +her." Matilda could never be persuaded to care for books. She was +naturally illiterate, and even late in life had a fixed aversion to +writing her own letters; whereas, at the age of seven, Mary had been +public scrivener for the whole village. But with these regrettable +instincts, from the first Matilda had also manifested a whimsical +liveliness, an unconquerable lightheartedness which made you forgive her +anything, and for which, poor soul, she had use enough before she was +done with life. At seventeen, added to good looks, of which at fifty +there was scarcely a trace in the thin and meanly worn face, this +vivacity had proved a tragic snare. A certain young capitalist--known as +a great gentleman--of that countryside had pounced down on the gay and +careless young Matilda, and had at once provided her life with its +formative tragedy and its deathless romance. Even at fifty, hopelessly +buried among the back streets and pawnshops of life, heaven still opened +in the heart of Matilda Tipping at the mention of the name of William +Allsopp. For several years she had lived with the Mesuriers, as general +help to her sister, between whom and her, in spite of surface +disparities, there was an indissoluble bond of affection; till, at +thirty-five or so, she had suddenly won the heart of a sad old widower +of fifty-five, named Samuel Tipping. + +Samuel Tipping was no ordinary widower. As you looked at his severe, +thoughtful face, surmounted by a shock of beautiful white hair, you +instinctively respected him; and when you heard that he lived by +cobbling shoes by day and playing a violin in the Theatre Royal +orchestra by night, occasionally putting off his leather apron to give a +music lesson in the front parlour of an afternoon, you respected him +all the more. There had been but one thing against Mr. Tipping's +eligibility for marriage, Matilda Tipping would tell you, even years +after, with a lowering of her voice: he was said to be an "atheist," and +a reader of strange books. Yet he seemed a quiet, manageable man, and +likely--again in Mrs. Tipping's phrase--to prove a "good provider;" so +she had risked his heterodoxy, which indeed was a somewhat fanciful +objection on her part, and made him, as he declared with his dying +breath, the best of wives. + +It chanced that when Henry, in pursuance of his over-night resolve, made +his way the following afternoon through a dingy little street, and +knocked on the door of a dingy little house, bearing upon a brass plate +the legend "Boots neatly repaired," Mr. Tipping was engaged in giving +one of those very music lessons. A dingy little maid-of-all-work opened +the door, and said that Mrs. Tipping was out shopping, but would be back +soon. From the front parlour came the lifeless tum-tumming of the piano, +and Mr. Tipping's voice gruffly counting time to the cheerless +five-finger exercises of a very evident beginner. + +"One--two--three! One--two--three! One--two--three!" went Mr. Tipping's +voice, with an occasional infusion of savagery. + +"But Mr. Tipping is at home?" said Henry. "I will wait till he is +disengaged. I will make myself comfortable in the kitchen," (Henry knew +his way about at Aunt Tipping's, and remembered there was only one front +parlour) adding, with something of pride, "I'm Mrs. Tipping's nephew, +you know." + +Presently the torture in the front parlour was at an end; and, as Mr. +Tipping was about to turn upstairs to the little back room where he +mended his shoes, Henry emerged upon him from the kitchen. They had had +some talks on books and the general misgovernment of the universe,--for +Mr. Tipping really was something of an "atheist,"--on Henry's occasional +visits, and were no strangers to each other. + +"Why, Henry, lad, whoever expected to see you! Your aunt's out at +present; but she'll be back soon. Come into the parlour." + +"If you don't mind, Uncle Tipping, I'd rather come upstairs with you. I +love the smell of the leather and the sight of all those sharp little +knives, and the black, shiny 'dubbin,' do you call it? And we can have a +talk about books till aunt comes home." + +"All right, lad. But it's a dusty place, and there's hardly a corner to +sit down in." + +So up they went to a little room where, in a chaos of boots mended on +one hand, and boots to mend on the other, sheets of leather lying about, +in one corner a great tubfull of water in which the leather was +soaked,--an old boyish fascination of Henry's,--Mr. Tipping spent the +greater part of his days. He sat on a low bench near a window, along +which ran a broad sill full of tools. On this, too, lay an opened book, +into which Mr. Tipping would dip now and again, when he could safely +leave the boot he was engaged upon to the mechanical skill of his hands. +At one end of the tool-shelf was a small collection of books, a dozen or +so shabby volumes, though these were far from constituting Mr. Tipping's +complete library. + +Mr. Tipping belonged to that pathetic army of book-lovers who subsist on +the refuse of the stalls, which he hunted not for rare editions, but for +the sheer bread of life, or rather the stale crusts of knowledge. His +tastes were not literary in the special sense of the word. For +belles-lettres he had no fancy, and fine passages, except in so far as +they were controversial, left him cold. His mind was primarily +scientific, secondarily philosophic, and occasionally historic. Travels +and books of physical science were the finds for which, mainly, he +rummaged the stalls. At the moment his pet study was astronomy; and a +curious apparatus in one of the corners, which Henry had noticed as he +entered, was his sad attempt to rig up a telescope for himself. + +"It's not so bad as it looks," he said, pointing it out; "but then," he +added, with a smile half sad and half humorous, "there are not many +stars to be seen from Tichborne Street." + +It was a touching characteristic of the type of bookman to which Mr. +Tipping belonged, that the astronomy from which he was reading by no +means embodied the latest discoveries. In fact, it narrowly escaped +being eighteenth-century science, for it was dated very early in the +eighteen hundreds. But an astronomy was an astronomy to Mr. Tipping; and +had Copernicus been born late enough, he would most certainly have +imbibed Ptolemaic doctrines with grateful unsuspicion. Indeed, had it +been put to him: "This astronomy after Copernicus at half-a-crown, and +this after Ptolemy for sixpence," his means alone would have left him no +choice. It is so the old clothes of the mind, like the old clothes of +the body,--superseded science, forgotten philosophy,--find a market, and +a book remains a book, with the power of comforting or diverting some +indigent, poor soul, so long as the stitching holds it together. + +Presently there was a knock at the front door. + +"There's your aunt," said Mr. Tipping; and, as the door opened, the +little maid-of-all-work was to be heard whispering her mistress that a +young gentleman who said he was her nephew had come and was upstairs +with "the master." + +"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Tipping, immediately starting upstairs +towards the open door of the cobblery. + +Henry was standing on the threshold, and the warm-hearted little woman +gave him a hearty hug of welcome. + +"Well, I _am_ glad to see you! And how are they all at home?" and she +ran over the list, name for name. "We mustn't forget your father. But +he's a hard 'un and no mistake," said the aunt, putting on a mimic +expression of severity. + +"He's an upright man, is James Mesurier," said Mr. Tipping, rather +severely. + +"Oh, yes, yes; we know that, crosspatch. I'm saying nothing against +him. He's good at heart, I know; but he's a little hard on the +surface--like some other folks I know," making a face at her husband. +"But you must come down and talk to me a bit, lad; you'll have had +enough of him and his old books. You never saw the like of him! Here he +sits day after day over his musty books, and you can hardly get him away +for his meals. He's no company for any one." + +"Talk of something you can understand, lass," retorted the husband, in a +voice that took any unkindness from the words, rather like a father than +a husband. "You don't ail much for lack of company, I'm sure." + +"Now if it was only a good novel," his wife persisted; "but nothing but +travels, geographies, and such like. Last thing he's taken up with is +the stars. I suppose he's been telling you about them--" and she said +this half as though it were a new form of lunacy Mr. Tipping had +developed, and half as though he had been opening up new realms of +knowledge--original but useless. She was far indeed from understanding +that lonely mind and its tragedy, thirsting so hopelessly for +knowledge, and to die athirst. She heard him knock, knock all day +upstairs; but the knocking told her nothing of his loneliness. He was +just a good, hard-working, rather cross old man, unaccountably fond of +printed matter, whom she liked to be good to, and if in her time that +knocking upstairs should stop for ever--well! she wasn't one to meet +trouble half way, but she would miss it a good deal, old man as he was. + +She was herself nearing fifty; but her slim little wiry body and her +elfish, wrinkled face, never still, but ever alive with the same +vivacity that years ago had attracted William Allsopp, made her seem +younger than her years; and her husband treated her as though she were +still a child, a wilful child. + +"Eh, Matilda," he said, "you're just a child. No more nor less,--just a +child. The years haven't tamed you one bit--" + +"Get out with you and your old stars!" she said, laughing. "Henry, come +along and have a talk with your old aunt." + +Though invincibly cheerful through it all, Aunt Tipping was always in +trouble, if not for herself, for somebody else. To-day, it was for +herself, though it was but a minor reverse in the guerilla warfare of +her life. A distressed lodger who had just left had begged her to +accept, in lieu of rent, the pawn-ticket of a handsome clock which had +been hers in happier days; and Mrs. Tipping, moved as she always was by +any tale of woe, however elaborate, had consented. Nor in her world was +such a way of settling accounts very exceptional, for pawn-tickets were +there looked upon as legitimately negotiable securities. Indeed, Aunt +Tipping was seldom without a selection of such securities upon her +hands; and, if a neighbour should chance to be in need, say, of a new +set of chimney ornaments, as likely as not Aunt Tipping had in her purse +a pledge for the very thing. This she would sell at a reasonable profit, +which would probably amount to but a small proportion of the original +debt for which she had accepted it. It was not a lucrative business, +though there were occasional "bargains" in it. + +In that word "bargains," all the active romance of Aunt Tipping's life +was now centred. In all departments of the cast-off and the second-hand +she was a daring speculator; and a spirited "auction" now and again +exhilarated her as much as a fortnight by the sea. That house which she +fought so desperately to keep tidy and respectable, had been furnished +almost entirely in this way. There was hardly an article in it that had +not already lived other lives in other houses, before it had been picked +up, "dirt cheap," by Aunt Tipping. + +But this afternoon her confidence in human nature had received a cruel +wound. When, after an hour's weary drag to a remote end of the town, she +had arrived at the pawnshop where was preserved the handsome clock of +the distressed lady, and had confidently presented the ticket and the +necessary money, the man had looked awhile perplexed. They had no such +clock, he said. And then, as he further examined the ticket, a light +broke in upon him. + +"My dear lady," he said, "look here. The year on this ticket has been +changed." + +So indeed it had, and poor Aunt Tipping was at least a year too late. + +"Did you ever hear of such treatment?" she said to Henry; "and such a +nice lady she was. 'I shall never forget your goodness to me, Mrs. +Tipping,' she said as she went away, 'never, if I live to be a hundred.' +I'll 'goodness' her, if ever I catch her. Cheating honest folks like +that! Such people oughtn't to be allowed. I don't know how people can +behave so!" + +Aunt Tipping's indignation seldom outlived a few plaintive words of this +sort; and had the offending lady of the clock appeared next moment, and +given some Arabian Nights' explanation, there is little doubt that Aunt +Tipping would have forgiven her on the spot. A tendency to do so was +already active in her next remark,-- + +"Well, poor soul, we mustn't be too hard on her. We never know what we +may be brought to ourselves." For it was Aunt Tipping's unformulated +axiom that, whatever cock-and-bull stories misfortune may tell, there is +always some truth in human misery. + +When Henry had told Aunt Tipping his story, and ventured to hint a +suggestion that, if it should not be inconvenient for her, he would like +to take sanctuary with her for a month or two, till he got his hopes +into working order, her little sharp face fairly gleamed with delight. +You would have thought that he was bringing her some great benefit, +instead of proposing to take something from her. That he should have +thought of _her_, such a little humble aunt; that, added to the love +she had for any one with any tincture of her family's blood running in +their veins, plus her general weakness for any one in trouble, brought +tears to her eyes that made her look quite young again. + +"I should think so indeed!" she said. "The best your poor old auntie's +got is yours with all her heart--Ah, your father never understood you. +You've got too much of our side of the family in you. You're a bit wild, +you know, lad; but you're none the worse for that, eh?" + +There is no need to say that Aunt Tipping's understanding of the tastes +and ambitions which had driven Henry momentarily to take refuge with her +was of the vaguest; but all she needed to know of such a situation was +that: here on the one hand was something somebody very much wanted to +do, and here on the other were certain stern powers ranked against his +doing it. That was enough for her. Her sympathy with all forms of revolt +was instantaneous. For law and order, as such, she had an instinctive +antipathy, as in all contests whatsoever her one general rule was: "Side +with the weaker." And it cannot but have been perceived that so much +sympathy with weakness could hardly have been in the gift of weakness. +No; Aunt Tipping was entirely impersonal in these charities of feeling, +and it was because there was so much sterling honesty and strength +hidden in her little wiry frame, that she could afford so much succour +to those who were neither honest nor strong. + +"Well, it was nice of you to think of your poor old aunt," she repeated +again and again; and then she remarked on the good fortune which had +caused the vacation of the front room over the parlour, her grievance +against the lady of the handsome clock quite forgotten. + +"It's a nice airy room," she said; and then she began planning how she +might best arrange it for his comfort. + +"Dear little aunt," said Henry, taking the little wisp of a woman into +his arms, "you're the salt of the earth." + + * * * * * + +"Why ever didn't I think of it before!" exclaimed Aunt Tipping, +presently. "I've got the very gentleman to help you with your writing." + +"Indeed," said Henry, somewhat sceptical. + +"Yes; he's down there in the back parlour. They say he's a great +writer," continued Aunt Tipping; "but he's not very well the last day or +two, and doesn't see anybody. To tell the truth, poor gentleman," she +confided, lowering her voice, "he's just a little too fond of his glass. +But he's as good and kind a gentleman as ever stepped, and always +regular with his rent every Monday morning." + +There was usually something mysterious about Aunt Tipping's lodgers. At +their best, she had known them as elaborately wronged bye-products of +aristocracy. Many of them were lawful expectants of illegally delayed +fortunes, and at the very least they always drank romantically. + +Thus it was that to the somewhat amused surprise of his family, Henry +came to take up his abode for a while with Aunt Tipping, and that his +books and the cast of Dante, and the sketch of the young Dante done in +sepia by Myrtilla Williamson's own fair hand, came to find themselves in +the incongruous environment of Tichborne Street. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +THE LITERARY GENTLEMAN IN THE BACK PARLOUR + + +Aunt Tipping proved not so ludicrously out of it after all in regard to +the literary gentleman in the back parlour. Henry had hardly known what +to expect; but certainly he had pictured no one so interesting as Ashton +Gerard proved to be. For a dark den smelling strongly of whisky and +water, and some slovenly creature of the under-world crouched in a dirty +armchair over the fire, he found instead a pleasant little room, very +neatly kept, with books, two or three good pictures, and general +evidence of cultivated tastes; and on Mr. Gerard's refined sad face, +which, being shaven, and surmounted by a tuft of vigorous curly hair, +once black but now curiously splashed with vivid flakes of white, +retained something of boyish beauty even at forty, you looked in vain +for the marks of one who was in the grip of an imperious vice. Only by +the marked dimness and weariness of his blue eyes, which gave the face a +rather helpless, dreamy expression, might the experienced observer have +understood. So to speak, the ocular will had gone out of them; they no +longer grasped the visible, but glided listlessly over it; nor did they +seem to be looking on things invisible. They were the eyes of +the drowned. + +Mr. Gerard had exceedingly gentle manners. It was easy to understand +that a landlady would worship him. He gave little trouble, asked for the +most necessary service as though it were a courtesy, and never forgot an +interest in Aunt Tipping's affairs. On bright days he revealed a vein of +quite boyish gaiety; and in his talk with Henry he flashed out a strange +paradoxical humour, too often morbid in its themes, which, as usually +the case with such humour, was really sadness coming to the surface in +a jest. + +It soon transpired that a favourite subject of his talk was that very +weakness which most men would have been at pains to hide. + +"So you're going to be a poet, Mr. Mesurier," he said. "Well, so was I +once, so was I--but," he continued, "all too early another Muse took +hold of me, a terrible Muse--yet a Muse who never forsakes you--" and +he laid his hand on a decanter which stood near him on the table,--"yes, +Mr. Mesurier, the terrible Muse of Drink! You may be surprised to hear +me talk so; yet were this laudanum instead of brandy, there would seem +to you a certain element of the poetic in the service of such a Muse. +Drinks with Oriental or unfamiliar names have a romantic sound. Thus +Alfred de Musset as the slave to absinthe sounds much more poetic than, +say, Alfred de Musset as a slave to rum or gin, or even this brandy +here. Yet this, too, is no less the stuff that dreams are made of; and +the opium-eater, the absinthe-sipper, the brandy-drinker, are all +members of the same great brotherhood of tragic idealists--" + +He talked deliberately; but there was a smile playing at the corners of +the mouth which took from his talk the sense of a painful +self-revelation, and gave it the air of a playful fantasia upon a +paradox that for the moment amused him. + +"Idealists! Yes," he continued; "for what few understand is that drink +is an idealism--and," he presently added with a laugh, "and, of course, +like all idealisms, it has its dangers." + +With a monomaniac, conversation is apt to limit itself to monologue; +so, while Henry was greatly interested in this odd talk, it left him but +little to say. + +"I'm afraid I shock you a little, Mr. Mesurier, perhaps even--disgust +you," said Mr. Gerard. + +"Indeed, no!" exclaimed Henry; "but both the subject and your way of +treating it are, I confess, a little new to me." + +"You are surprised to find one who is what is popularly known as a +drunkard not so much ashamed of as interested in himself; isn't that it? +Well, that comes of the introspective literary temperament. It is only +the oyster fascinated by the pearl that is killing it." + +"You should write some 'Confessions' after the manner of De Quincey," +said Henry. + +"Indeed, I've often thought of it, for there's so much that needs saying +on the subject. There is nothing with which we are at once so familiar +and of which we know so little. For example"--and now he was quite +plainly off again--"for example, the passion for, I might say the dream +of, drink is usually regarded as a sensual appetite, a physical +indulgence. No doubt in its first crude stages it often is so; but soon +it becomes something much more strange and abstract. It becomes a +mysterious command, issuing we know not whence. It is hardly a desire, +and it is not so much a joyless, as a quite colourless, obedience to an +imperious necessity, decreed by some unknown will. You might well +imagine that I like the taste of this brandy there, as a child is +greedily fond of sweetstuff; but it would be quite a mistake. For my own +personal taste, there is no drink like a cup of tea; it is the demon, +the strange will that has imposed itself upon me, that has a taste +for brandy. + +"I sometimes wonder whether we poor drunkards are not the victims of +disembodied powers of the air who, by some chance, have contracted a +craving for earthly liquors, and can only satisfy that craving by +fastening themselves upon some unhappy human organism. At times there +comes an intermission of the command, as mysterious almost as the +command itself. For weeks together we give no thought to our tyrant. We +grow gay and young and innocent again. We are free,--so free, we seem to +have forgotten that we were ever enslaved. Then suddenly one day we hear +the call again. We cry for mercy; we throw ourselves on our knees in +prayer. We clutch sacred relics; we conjure the aid of holy memories; we +say over to ourselves the names of the dead we have loved: but it is all +in vain--surely we are dragged to the feet of that inexorable will, +surely we submit ourselves once more to the dark dominion." + +Henry listened, fascinated, and a little frightened. + +"The longer I live, the more I grow convinced that this is no mere +fancy, but actual science," Mr. Gerard continued; "for, again, you might +well imagine that one drinks for the dreams or other illusory effects it +is said to produce. At first, perhaps, yes; but such effects speedily +pass away, they pass away indeed before the tyranny has established +itself, while it would still be possible to shake it off. No, the dreams +of drink are poor things, not worth having at the best. Indeed, there +are no dreams worth having, believe me, but those of youth and health +and spring-water." + +And Mr. Gerard passed for awhile in silence into some hidden country of +his lost dreams. + +Henry gazed at him with a curious wonder. Here was a man evidently of +considerable gifts, a man of ideals, of humour, a man witty and gentle, +who surely could have easily made his mark in the world, and yet he had +thrown all away for a mechanical habit which he himself did not pretend +to be a passion,--a mere abstract attraction: as though a man should +say, "I care not for the joys or successes of this world. My destiny is +to sit alone all day and count my fingers and toes, count them over and +over and over again. There is not much pleasure in it, and I should be +glad to break off the habit,--but there it is. It is imposed upon me by +a will stronger than mine which I must obey. It is my destiny." + +"Yes, idealists!" said Mr. Gerard, presently coming back from his dreams +to his great subject, with a laugh. "That reminds me of a story a +business friend of mine told me the other day. A clerk in his office was +an incorrigible drunkard. He was quite alone in the world, and had no +one dependent upon him. The firm had been lenient to him, and again and +again forgiven his outbreaks. But one morning they called him in and +said: 'Look here, Jones, we have had a great deal of patience with you; +but the time has come when you must choose between the drink and the +office.' To their surprise, Jones, instead of eagerly promising reform, +looked up gravely, and replied, 'Will you give me a week to think it +over, sir? It is a very serious matter.' Drink was all the poor fellow +had outside his drudgery; was it to be expected that he should thus +lightly sacrifice it?-- + +"But, to talk about something else, your aunt, Mrs. Tipping, who has a +great idea of my literary importance, has a notion that I may be of some +help to you, Mr. Mesurier. Well, I'll tell you the whole extent of my +present literary engagements, and you are perfectly at liberty to laugh. +At the present time I do the sporting notes for the _Tyrian Daily Mail_, +and I write the theological reviews for _The Fleet Street Review_. These +apparently incongruous occupations are the relics of an old taste for +sport, which as a boy in the country I had ample opportunity for +indulging, and of an interrupted training for the Church--'twixt then +and now there is an eventful gap which, if you don't mind, we won't +sadden each other by filling--Let us fill our glasses and our pipes +instead; and, having failed so entirely myself, I will give you minute +directions how to succeed in literature." + +Mr. Gerard's discourse on how to succeed in literature was partly +practical and partly ironical, and probably too technical to interest +the general reader, who has no intention of being a great or a little +writer, and who perhaps has already found Mr. Gerard's previous +discourse a little too special in its character. Suffice it that Henry +heard much to remember, and much to laugh over, and that Mr. Gerard +concluded with a practical offer of kindness. + +"I don't know how much use it may be to you," he said; "but if you care +to have it, I should be very glad to give you a letter to the editor of +_The Fleet Street Review_. He has, I think, a certain regard for me, and +he might send you a book to do now and again. At all events, it would be +something." + +Henry embraced the offer gratefully; and it occurred to him that in a +day or two's time there was a five days' excursion running from Tyre to +London and back, for half-a-guinea. Why not take it, and expend his last +five pounds in a stimulating glimpse of the city he some day hoped to +conquer? He could then see his friend the publisher, present his letter +to the editor, and perhaps bring home with him some little work and a +renewed stock of hopes. + +So, before they parted that night, Mr. Gerard wrote him the letter. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +"THIS IS LONDON, THIS IS LIFE" + + +Thus it was that, all unexpectedly, Henry found himself set down one +autumn morning at the homeless hour of a quarter-to-seven, in Euston +station. He was going to stay in some street off the Strand, and +chartered a hansom to take him there. Few great cities are impressive in +the neighbourhood of their railway termini. You enter them, so to speak, +by the back door; and London waves no banners of bright welcome to the +stranger who first enters it by the Euston Road. + +But there was an interesting church presently, and on a dust-cart close +by Henry read "Vestry of St. Pancras." + +"Can that be the St. Pancras' Church," he said to himself, "where Mary +Wollstonecraft lies buried, and Browning was married?" + +Then as they drove along through Bloomsbury, the name "Great Coram +Street" caught his eye, and he exclaimed with delight: "Why, that's +where Thackeray lived for a time!" + +Great Coram Street is little accustomed to create such excitement in the +breast of the passer-by. But to the stranger London is necessarily first +a museum, till he begins to love it as a home, and, in addition to dead +men's associations, begins to people it with memories of his own. When +you have lived awhile in Gray's Inn, you grow to forget that Bacon's +ghost is your fellow-tenant; and it is the kind-hearted provincial who +from time to time lays those flowers on Goldsmith's tomb. When you are +caught in a block on Westminster Bridge, with only five minutes to get +to Waterloo, you forget to say to yourself: "Ah, this is the bridge on +which Wordsworth wrote his famous sonnet." You usually say something +quite different. + +The mere names of the streets,--how laden with immemorial poetry they +were! "Chancery Lane!" How wonderful! Yet the poor wretch standing +outside the public-house at the corner seemed to derive small +consolation from the fact that he was starving in Chancery Lane. + +But to Henry, as yet, London was an extended Westminster Abbey, and +every other street was Poet's Corner. He had hardly patience to +breakfast, so eager was he to be out in the streets; and while he ate, +his eyes were out of the windows all the time, and his ears drinking in +all the London morning sounds like music. At the foot of the street ran +the Thames; he had caught a thrilling glimpse of it as he stepped from +his cab, and had had a childish impulse to rush down to it before +entering his hotel. + +At last, free of food and baggage, light of heart, and brimming over +with youth, he stepped into the street. It was but little past eight +o'clock. He had just heard the hour chimed, in various tones of +sweetness and solemnity, from several mellow clocks, evidently hidden +high in the air in his near vicinity. For two or three hours there would +be no editor or publisher to be seen, and meanwhile he had London to +himself. He stepped out into it as into a garden,--a garden of those +old-time flowers in which antiquity has become a perfume full +of pictures. + +Yes, there was the Thames! "Sweet Themmes, run softly till I end my +song!" he quoted to himself. Chaucer's, Spenser's, Elizabeth's Thames! + +It was a bright morning and the river gleamed to advantage. The tall +tower of Westminster glittered richly in the sun, and the long front of +Somerset House wore a lordly smile. The embankment gardens sparkled and +rustled in morning freshness. Henry drew in the air of London as though +it had been a rose. Here was the Thames at the foot of the street, and +there at the head was the Strand, a stream of omnibuses and cabs, and +city-faring men and women. The Temple must be somewhere close by. Of +course it was here to his left. But he would first walk quietly by the +Thames side to Westminster, and then come back by the Strand. As he +walked, he stepped lightly and gently, as though reverent to the very +stones of so sacred a city, and all the time from every prospect and +every other street-corner came streaming like strains of music magnetic +memories,--"streets with the names of old kings, strong earls, and +warrior saints." If for no other reason, how important for the future of +a nation is it to preserve in such ancient cities as London and Oxford +the energising spectacle of a noble and strenuous antiquity; for there +are no such inspirers of young men as these old places! So much strength +and youth went into them long ago that even yet they have strength and +youth to give, and from them, as from the strong hills, pours out an +inexhaustible potency of bracing influence. + +At last Henry found himself back at the top-end of his street. He had +walked the Strand with deliberate enjoyment. Fleet Street he still +reserved, but, as according to the tower of Clement Danes it was only +just ten o'clock, it seemed still a little early to attack his business. +A florist's close by suggested a charming commonplace way of filling the +time. He would buy some flowers and carry them to Goldsmith's grave. Why +Goldsmith's grave should thus be specially honoured, he a little +wondered. He was conscious of loving several writers quite as well. But +it was a Johnsonian tradition to love Goldy, and the accessibility of +his resting-place made sentiment easy. + +He repented this momentary flippancy of thought as he stood in the +cloistered corner where Goldsmith sleeps under the eye of the law; and, +when he laid his little wreath on the worn stone, it was a genuine +offering. From it he turned away to his own personal dreams. + +By eleven he had found his friend the publisher, in a dainty little +place of business crammed with pottery, Rowlandsons, and books, and +more like a curiosity-shop than a publishing-house, for the publisher +proved an enthusiast in everything that was beautiful or curious, and +had indeed taken to publishing from that rare motive in a +publisher,--the love of books, rather than the love of money. He was +aiming to make his little shop the rallying-point of all the young +talent of the day, and as young talent has never too many publishers on +the look-out for it, his task was not difficult, though it was one of +those real services to literature which such publishers and booksellers +have occasionally done in our literary history, with but scant +acknowledgment. + +Henry was pleased to find that he looked upon him to make one of his +little band of youth; and as the publisher understood the art of +encouragement, Henry already felt it had been worth while to come to +London just to see him. He knew the editor to whom Henry had a letter +and volunteered him another. The afternoon would be the best time; +meanwhile, they must lunch together. He smiled when Henry suggested the +Cheshire Cheese. Henry had a sort of vague idea that literary men could +hardly think of taking their meals anywhere else. There had been an +attempt to bring it into fashion again, the publisher said; but it had +come to nothing--though he, for one, loved those old chop-houses, with +their tankards, and their sanded floors. So to the Cheshire Cheese they +repaired, and drank to a long friendship in foaming pewters of porter. + +"Alas!" said Henry, "we are fallen on smaller times. Once it was 'the +poet's pint of port.' Now we must be content with the poetaster's +half-a-pint of porter!" + +"You must come to my rooms to-night," said the publisher, "and be +introduced to some of our young men. I have one or two of our older +critics coming too." + +Henry's fortune was evidently made. + +He found the editor in a dim back room at the top of a high building, so +lost in a world of books and dust that at first Henry could hardly make +him out, writing by a window with his back to the door. Then an alert +head turned round to him, and a rather peevish gesture bade him be +seated, while the editor resumed his work. This hardly came up to +Henry's magnificent dreams of the editorial dignity. Perhaps he had a +vague idea that editors lived in palaces, and sat on thrones. + +Presently the editor put down his pen with an exclamation of +satisfaction; and the first impression of peevishness vanished in the +cordiality with which he now turned to his visitor. + +"You must excuse my absorption. It was a rather tough piece of +proof-reading. A subject I'm rather interested in,--new Welsh +dictionary. Don't suppose it's in your line, eh, eh?"--and the tall, +spare man laughed a boyish laugh like a mischievous bird, and tossed his +head at the jest. + +His face was small and sallow and tired; but the dark eyes were full of +fun and kindness. Presently, he rose and began to walk up and down the +room with a curious, prancing walk, rolling himself a cigarette, and +talking away in a rapid, jerky fashion with his continual, "eh, eh?" +coming in all the time. + +"Poor Gerard! So you know him? How is he now?" and he lowered his voice +with the suggestion of a mutual confidence, and stopped in his walk till +Henry should answer. "Poor Gerard! And he might have been--well, +well,--never mind. We were together at King's. Brilliant fellow. So you +know Gerard. Dear me! Dear me!" + +Then he turned to the subject of Henry's visit. + +"Well, my poor boy, nothing will satisfy you but literature? You are +determined to be a literary man, eh, eh?" Then he stopped in front of +Henry and laid his hand kindly on his shoulder, "Is it too late to say, +'Go back while there is yet time'? Perhaps--of course--you're going to +be a very great man," and he broke off into his walk again, with one of +his mischievous laughs. "But unless you are, take my word, it's a poor +game--Yet, I suppose, it's no use talking. I know, wasted breath, wasted +breath--Well, now, what can you do? and, by the way, you won't grow fat +on _The Fleet Street Review_. Ten shillings a column is our magnificent +rate of payment, and we can hardly afford that--" + +Then he began pulling out one book and another from the piles of all +sorts that lay around him. "I suppose, like the rest, you'd better begin +on poetry. There's a tableful over there--go and take your pick of it, +unless, of course, you've got some special subject. You're not, I +suppose, an authority on Assyriology, eh, eh?" + +Henry feared not, and then a new fit of industry came upon the editor, +and he begged Henry to take a look at the books while he ran through +another proof for the post. + +That dusty table--evidently the rubbish-heap of the room--was Henry's +first object-lesson in the half tragical, half farcical, over-production +of modern literature. Such a mass of foolishness and ineptitude he had +never conceived of; such pretentiousness too--and while he made various +melancholy reflections upon human vanity, what should he unearth +suddenly from the heap, but his own little volume. He could but half +suppress a cry of recognition. + +"What's that?" asked the editor, not turning round. "Found anything?" + +"No," said Henry; "nothing--for a moment I thought I had." + +Presently he had made a small pile of the most promising volumes, and +turned to take his leave. The editor took up one or two of them +carelessly. + +"Not much here, I'm afraid," he said. "Never mind; see what you can make +of them. Not more than three columns at the most, you know. And come and +see me again. I'm glad to have seen you." + +"Oh," said Henry, on the point of leaving, and laying his hand on his +own little book, "may I take this one too? It's not worth reviewing, but +it rather interested me just now." + +"God bless me, yes, certainly," said the editor; "you're welcome to the +lot, if you care to bring a hand-cart. Good-bye, good-bye." + +And Henry slipped his poor little neglected volume into his pocket. On +how many dusty tables, he wondered, was it then lying ignominiously +disregarded. Well, the day would come! Meanwhile, he had his first batch +of books for review. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +THE WITS + + +There now remained the gathering of wits fixed for the evening. His +publisher had asked him to dinner, but he had declined, from a secret +and absurd desire to dine at "The Cock." This he gratified, and with his +mind full of the spacious times of the early Victorians, he turned into +the publisher's little room about nine o'clock to meet some of +the later. + +There was no great muster as yet. Some half-a-dozen rather shy young men +spasmodically picked up strange drawings or odd-looking books, lying +about on the publisher's tables, struggled maidenly with cigars, sipped +a little whisky and soda; but little was said. + +Among them a pale-faced lad of about fifteen, miraculously +self-possessed, stood with his back to the chimney-piece. But soon +others began to turn in, and by ten the room was as full of chatter and +smoke as it could hold. Not least conspicuous among the talkers was the +pale-faced boy of fifteen. Henry had been sitting near to him, and had +been suddenly startled by his unexpectedly breaking out into a volley of +learning, delivered in a voice impressively deliberate and sententious. + +"What a remarkable boy that is!" said Henry, innocently, to the +publisher. + +"Yes; but he's not quite a boy,--though he's young enough. A curious +little creature, morbidly learned. A friend of mine says that he would +like to catch him and keep him in a bottle, and label it 'the learned +homunculus.'" + +"What dialect is it he is talking in?" said Henry; "I don't remember to +have heard it before." + +The publisher smiled: "My dear fellow, you must be careful what you say. +That is what we call 'the Oxford voice.'" + +"How remarkable!" said Henry, his attention called off by a being with a +face that half suggested a faun, and half suggested a flower,--a small, +olive-skinned face crowned with purply black hair, that kept falling in +an elflock over his forehead, and violet eyes set slant-wise. He was +talking earnestly of fairies, in a beautiful Irish accent, and Henry +liked him. The attraction seemed mutual, and Henry found himself drawn +into a remarkable relation about a fairy-hill in Connemara, and fairy +lights that for several nights had been seen glimmering about it; and +how at last he--that is, the narrator--and a particularly hard-headed +friend of his had kept watch one moonlit night, with the result that +they had actually seen and talked with the queen of the fairies and +learned many secrets of the ----. The narrator here made use of a long, +unpronounceable Irish word, which Henry could not catch. + +"I should have explained some of these phenomena to you," whispered the +publisher presently, noticing that Henry looked a little bewildered. +"This is a young Irish poet, who, in the intervals of his raising the +devil, writes very beautiful lyrics that he may well have learned from +the fairies. It is his method to seem mad on magic and such things. You +will meet with many strange methods here to-night. Don't be alarmed if +some one comes and talks to you about strange sins. You have come to +London in the 'strange sins' period. I will explain afterwards." + +He had hardly spoken when a pallid young man, with a preternatural +length and narrowness of face, began to talk to him about the sins of +the Borgias. + +"I suppose you never committed a murder yourself?" he asked Henry, +languidly. + +"No," said Henry, catching the spirit of the foolishness; "no, not yet. +I am keeping that--" implying that he was reserving so extreme a +stimulant till all his other vices failed him. + +Presently there entered a tall young man with a long, thin face, +curtained on either side with enormous masses of black hair, like a slip +of the young moon glimmering through a pine-wood. + +At the same moment there entered, as if by design, his very antithesis: +a short, firmly built, clerkly fellow, with a head like a billiard-ball +in need of a shave, a big brown moustache, and enormous spectacles. + +"That," said the publisher, referring to the moon-in-the-pine-wood young +man, "is our young apostle of sentiment, our new man of feeling, the +best-hated man we have; and the other is our young apostle of blood. He +is all for muscle and brutality--and he makes all the money. It is one +of our many fashions just now to sing 'Britain and Brutality.' But my +impression is that our young man of feeling will have his day,--though +he will have to wait for it. He would hasten it if he would cut his +hair; but that, he says, he will never do. His hair, he says, is his +battle-cry. Well, he enjoys himself--and loves a fight, though you +mightn't think it to look at him." + +A supercilious young man, with pink cheeks, and a voice which his +admirers compared to Shelley's, then came up to Henry and asked him what +he thought of Mallarme's latest sonnet; but finding Henry confessedly at +sea, turned the conversation to the Empire ballet, of which, +unfortunately, Henry knew as little. The conversation then languished, +and the Shelley-voiced young man turned elsewhere for sympathy, with a +shrug at your country bumpkins who know nothing later than Rossetti. + +In the thick of the conversational turmoil, Henry's attention had from +time to time been attracted by the noise proceeding from a blustering, +red-headed man, with a face of fire. + +"Who is that?" at last he found opportunity to ask his friend. + +"That is our greatest critic," said the publisher. + +"Oh!" said Henry, "I must try and hear what he is saying. It seems +important from the way he is listened to." + +So Henry listened, and heard how the fire-faced man said the word "damn" +with great volubility and variety of cadence, and other words to the +same effect, and how the little group around him hung upon his words and +said to each other, "How brilliant!" "How absolute!" + +Henry turned to his friend. "The only word I can catch is the word +'damn,'" he said. + +"That," said the publisher, with a laugh, "is the master-word of +fashionable criticism." + +Presently a little talkative man came up, and said that he hoped Mr. +Mesurier was an adherent of the rightful king. + +"Oh, of course!" said Henry. + +"And do you belong to any secret society?" asked the little man. + +Henry couldn't say that he did. + +"Well, you must join us!" he said. + +"I suppose there won't be a rising just yet?" asked Henry, realising +that this was the Jacobite method. + +"Not just yet," said the little man, reassuringly. So Henry was +enrolled. + + * * * * * + +And so it went on till past midnight, when Henry at last escaped, to +talk it all over with the stars. The evening had naturally puzzled him, +as a man will always be puzzled who has developed under the influence of +the main tendencies of his generation, and who finds himself suddenly in +a backwater of fanciful reaction. Henry, in his simple way, was a +thinker and a radical, and he had nourished himself on the great +main-road masters of English literature. He had followed the lead of +modern philosophers and scientists, and had arrived at a mystical +agnosticism,--the first step of which was to banish the dogmas of the +church as old wives' tales. He considered that he had inherited the +hard-won gains of the rationalists. But he came to London and found +young men feebly playing with the fire of that Romanism which he +regarded as at once the most childish and the most dangerous of all +intellectual obsessions. In an age of great biologists and electricians, +he came upon children prettily talking about fairies and the +philosopher's stone. In one of the greatest ages of English poetry, he +came to London to find young English poets falling on their knees to the +metrical mathematicians of France. In the great age of democracy, a fool +had come and asked him if he were not a supporter of the house of +Stuart, a Jacobite of charades. But only once had he heard the name of +Milton; it was the learned boy of fifteen who had quoted him,--a +lifelong debt of gratitude; and never once had he heard the voice of +simple human feeling, nor heard one speak of beauty, simply, +passionately, with his heart in his mouth; nor of love with his heart +upon his sleeve. Much cleverness, much learning, much charm, there had +been, but he had missed the generous human impulse. No one seemed to be +doing anything because he must. These were pleasant eddies, dainty with +lilies and curiously starred water-grasses, but the great warm stream of +English literature was not flowing here. + +As he neared his hotel, he thought of his morning visit to Goldsmith's +tomb, and ten-fold he repented the little half-sneer with which he had +bought the flowers. In a boyish impulse, he rang the Temple bell, and +found his way again to the lonely corner. His flowers were lying there +in the moonlight, and again he read: "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith." + +"Forgive me, Goldy," he murmured. "Well may men bring you flowers,--for +you wrote, not as those yonder; you wrote for the human heart." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +BACK TO REALITY + + +It was good to get back to reality, with Angel's blue eyes, Mike's +laugh, and Esther's common sense. + +"Let me look deep into them, Angel--deep--deep. It is so good to get +back to something true." + +"Are they true?" said Angel, opening them very wide. + +"Something that will never forsake one, something we can never forsake! +Something in all the wide world's change that will never change. +Something that will still be Angel even in a thousand years." + +"I hope to be a real angel long before that," said Angel, laughing. + +"Do you think you can promise to be true so long, Angel?" asked Henry. + +"Dear, you know that so long as there is one little part of me left +anywhere in the world, that part will be true to you.--But come, tell +me about London. I'm afraid you didn't enjoy it very much." + +"Oh, yes, I loved London,--that is, old London; but new London made me a +little sad. I expect it was only because I didn't quite understand the +conditions." + +"Perhaps so," said Angel. "But tell me,--did you go to the Zoo?" + +"You dear child! Yes! I went out of pure love for you." + +"Now you needn't be so grown up. You know you wanted to go just for +yourself as well. And you saw the monkey-house?" + +"Yes." + +"And the lions?" + +"Yes." + +"And the snakes?" + +"Yes!" + +"Oh, I'd give anything to see the snakes! Did they eat any rabbits when +you were there,--fascinate them, and then draw them slowly, slowly in?" + +"Angel, what terrible interests you are developing! No, thank goodness, +they didn't." + +"Why, wouldn't it fascinate you to see something wonderfully killed?" +asked Angel. "It is dreadful and wicked, of course. But it would be so +thrillingly real." + +"I think I must introduce you to a young man I met in London," said +Henry, "who solemnly asked me if I had ever murdered anyone. You savage +little wild thing! I suppose this is what you mean by saying sometimes +that you are a gipsy, eh?" + +"Well, and you went to the Tower, and Westminster Abbey, and everything, +and it was really wonderful?" + +"Yes, I saw everything--including the Queen." + +For young people of Tyre and Sidon to go to London was like what it once +was to make the pilgrimage to Rome. + +Mike created some valuable nonsense on the occasion, which unfortunately +has not been preserved, and Esther was disgusted with Henry because he +could give no intelligible description of the latest London hats; and +all examined with due reverence those wonderful books for review. + +In Tichborne Street Aunt Tipping had taken advantage of his absence to +enrich his room with a bargain in the shape of an old desk, which was +the very thing he wanted. Dear old Aunt Tipping! And Gerard, it is to +be feared, took a little more brandy than usual in honour of his young +friend's adventures in the capital. + +These excitements over, Henry sat down at his old desk to write his +first review; and there for the present we may leave him, for he took it +very seriously and was dangerous to interrupt. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +THE OLD HOME MEANWHILE + + +More than a year had now gone by since Henry left home, and meanwhile, +with the exception of Dot's baptism, there had been no exciting changes +to record. Perhaps uneventfulness is part of the security of a +real home. Every morning James Mesurier had risen at half-past +six,--though he no longer imposed that hour of rising upon his +daughters,--breakfasted at eight, and reached his office at nine. Every +evening during those months, punctually at half-past six his latch-key +had rattled in the front-door lock, and one or other of his daughters +had hurried out at the sound to bid him welcome home. + +"Home at last, father dear!" they had said, helping him off with his +coat; and sometimes when he felt bright he would answer,-- + +"Yes, my dear, night brings crows home." + +"Home again, James!" his wife would say, as he next entered the front +parlour, and bent down to kiss her where she sat. "It's a long day. +Isn't it time you were pulling in a bit? Surely some of the younger +heads should begin to relieve you." + +"Responsibility, Mary dear! We cannot delegate responsibility," he would +answer. + +"But we see nothing of you. You just sacrifice your whole life for the +business." + +If he were in a good humour, he might answer with one of his rare sweet +laughs, and jokingly make one of his few French quotations: "_Telle est +la vie_! my dear, _Telle est la vie_! That's the French for it, +isn't it, Dot?" + +James Mesurier was just perceptibly softening. Perhaps it was that he +was growing a little tired, that he was no longer quite the stern +disciplinarian we met in the first chapter; perhaps the influence of his +wife, and his experiences with his children, were beginning to hint to +him what it takes so long for a strong individual nature to learn, that +the law of one temperament cannot justly or fruitfully be enforced as +the law of another. + +The younger children--Esther and Dot and Mat used sometimes to say to +each other--would grow up in a more clement atmosphere of home than had +been Henry's and theirs. Already they were quietly assuming privileges, +and nothing said, that would have meant beatings for their elders. For +these things had Henry and Esther gladly faced martyrdom. Henry had +looked on the Promised Land, but been denied an entrance there. By his +stripes this younger generation would be healed. + +The elder girls hastened to draw close to their father in gratitude, and +home breathed a kinder, freer air than ever had been known before. +Between Esther and her father particularly a kind of comradeship began +to spring up, which perhaps more than ever made the mother miss her boy. + +But, all the same, home was growing old. This was the kindness of the +setting sun! + +Childless middle age is no doubt often dreary to contemplate, yet is it +an egoistical bias which leads one to find in such limitation, or one +might rather say preservation, of the ego, a certain compensation? The +childless man or woman has at least preserved his or her individuality, +as few fathers and mothers of large families are suffered to do. By the +time you are fifty, with a family of half a dozen children, you have +become comparatively impersonal as "father" or "mother." It is tacitly +recognised that your life-work is finished, that your ambitions are +accomplished or not, and that your hopes are at an end. + +The young Mesuriers, for example, were all eagerly hastening towards +their several futures. They were garrulous over them at every meal. But +to what future in this world were James and Mary Mesurier looking +forward? Love had blossomed and brought forth fruit, but the fruit was +quickly ripening, and stranger hands would soon pluck it from the +boughs. In a very few years they would sit under a roof-tree bared of +fruit and blossom, and sad with falling leaves. They had dreamed their +dream, and there is only one such dream for a lifetime; now they must +sit and listen to the dreams of their children, help them to build +theirs. They mattered now no longer for themselves, but just as so much +aid and sympathy on which their children might draw. Too well in their +hearts they knew that their children only heard them with patience so +long as they talked of their to-morrows. Should they sometimes dwell +wistfully on their own yesterdays, they could too plainly see how long +the story seemed. + +_Telle est la vie!_ as James Mesurier said, and, that being so, no +wonder life is a sad business. Better perhaps be childless and retain +one's own personal hopes and fears for life, than be so relegated to +history in the very zenith of one's days. If only this younger +generation at the door were always, as it assumes, stronger and better +than its elder! but, though the careless assumption that it is so is +somewhat general, history alone shows how false and impudent the +assumption often is. Too often genius itself must submit to the silly +presumption of its noisy and fatuous children, and it is the young fool +who too often knocks imperiously at the door of wise and active +middle age. + +That all this is inevitable makes it none the less sad. The young +Mesuriers were neither fools nor hard of heart; and sometimes, in +moments of sympathy, their parents would be revealed to them in sudden +lights of pathos and old romance. They would listen to some old +love-affair of their mother's as though it had been their own, or go out +of their way to make their father tell once more the epic of the great +business over which he presided, and which, as he conceived it, was +doubtless a greater poem than his son would ever write. Yet still even +in such genuine sympathy, there was a certain imaginative effort to be +made. The gulf between the generations, however hidden for the moment, +was always there. + +Yet, after all, James and Mary Mesurier possessed an incorruptible +treasure, which their children had neither given nor could take away. To +regard them as without future would be a shallow observation,--for love +has always a future, however old in mortal years it may have grown; and +as they grew older, their love seemed to grow stronger. Involuntarily +they seemed to draw closer together, as by an instinct of +self-preservation. Their love had been before their children; were they +to be spared, it would still be the same love, sweeter by trial, when +their children had passed from them. In this love had been wise for +them. Some parents love their children so unwisely that they forget to +love each other; and, when the children forsake them, are left +disconsolate. One has heard young mothers say that now their boy has +come, their husbands may take a second place; and often of late we have +heard the woman say: "Give me but the child, and the lover can go his +ways." Foolish, unprophetic women! Let but twenty years go by, and how +glad you will be of that rejected lover; for, though a son may suffice +for his mother, what mother has ever sufficed for her son? + +But though sometimes, as they looked at their parents, the young +Mesuriers caught a glimpse of the infinite sadness of a life-work +accomplished, yet it failed to warn them against the eager haste with +which they were hurrying on towards a like conclusion. Too late they +would understand that all the joy was in the doing; too soon say to +themselves: "Was it for this that our little world shook with such fiery +commotion and molten ardours, that this present should be so firm and +insensitive beneath our feet? This habit--why, it was once a passion! +This fact--why, it was once a dream!" + +Oh, why shake off youth's fragile blossoms with the very speed of your +own impatience! Why make such haste towards autumn! Who ever thought the +ruddiest lapful of apples a fair exchange for a cloud of sunlit blossom? +Whose maturity, however laden with prosperity or gilded with honour, +ever kept the fairy promise of his youth? For so brief a space youth +glitters like a dewdrop on the tree of life, glitters and is gone. For +one desperate instant of perfection it hangs poised, and is seen +no more. + +But, alas! the art of enjoying youth with a wise economy is only learnt +when youth is over. It is perhaps too paradoxical an accomplishment to +be learnt before; for a youth that economised itself would be already +middle age. It is just the wasteful flare of it that leaves such a +dazzle in old eyes, as they look back in fancy to the conflagration of +fragrant fire which once bourgeoned and sang where these white ashes now +slowly smoulder towards extinction. + +When Mike has a theatre of his own and can send boxes to his friends, +when Henry maybe is an editor of power, when Esther and Angel are the +enthroned wives of famous men, and the new heaven and the new earth are +quite finished,--will they never sigh sometimes to have the making of +them all over again? Then they will have everything to enjoy, so there +will be nothing left to hope for. Then there will be no spice of peril +in their loves, no keen edge that comes of enforced denial; and the game +of life will be too sure for ambition to keep its savour. "There is no +thrill, no excitement nowadays," one can almost fancy their saying, and, +like children playing with their bricks, "Now let us knock it all down, +and build another, one. It will be such fun." + +However, these are intrusive, autumnal thoughts in this book of simple +youth, and our young people knew them not. They were far indeed from +Esther's mind as she talked with Dot of the future one afternoon. +Instead, her words were full of impatience with the slow march of +events, and the enforced inactivity of a girl's life at home. + +"It is so much easier for the boys," she was saying. "There is something +for them to do. But we can do nothing but sit at home and wait, darn +their socks, and clap our hands at their successes. I wish I were +a man!" + +"No, you don't," said Dot; "for then you couldn't marry Mike. And you +couldn't wear pretty dresses--Oh! and lots of things. I don't much envy +a man's life, after all. It's all very well talking about hard work when +you haven't got to do it; and it's not so much the work as the +responsibility. It must be such a responsibility to be a man." + +"Of course you're right, Dot--but, oh! this waiting is so stupid, all +the same. If only I could be doing something--anything!" + +"Well, you _are_ doing something. Is it nothing to be all the world to a +man?" said Dot, wistfully; "nothing to be his heaven upon earth? Nothing +to be the prize he is working for, and nothing to sustain and cheer him +on, as you do Mike, and as Angel cheers Henry? Would Henry have been the +same without Angel, or Mike the same without you? No, the man's work +makes more noise, but the woman's work is none the less real and useful +because it is quiet and underground." + +"Dear Dot, what a wise old thing you're growing! But you know you're +longing all the time for some work to do yourself. Didn't you say the +other day that you seemed to be wasting your life here, making beds and +doing housework?" + +"Yes; but I'm different. Don't you see?" retorted Dot, sadly. "I've got +no Mike. Your work is to help Mike be a great actor, but I've got no one +to help be anything. You may be sure I wouldn't complain of being idle +if I had. I think you're a bit forgetful sometimes how happy you are." + +"Poor old Dot! you needn't talk as if you're such a desperate old +maid,--you're not twenty yet. And I'm sure it's a good thing for you +that you haven't got any of the young men about here--to help be +aldermen! Wait till you come and stay with us in London, then you'll +soon find some one to work for, as you call it." + +"I don't know," said Dot, thoughtfully; "somehow I think I shall never +marry." + +"I suppose you mean you'd rather be a nun or something serious of that +sort." + +"Well, to tell the truth, I have been thinking lately if perhaps I +couldn't do something,--perhaps go into a hospital, or something of +that sort." + +"Oh, nonsense, Dot! Think of all the horrible, dirty people you'd have +to attend to. Ugh!" + +"Christ didn't think of that when He washed the feet of His disciples," +said little Dot, sententiously. + +"Why, Dot, how dreadfully religious you're getting! You want a good +shaking! Besides, isn't it a little impious to imply that the apostles +were horrible, dirty people?" + +"You know what I meant," said Dot, flushing. + +"Yes, of course, dear; and I think I know where you've been. You've been +to see that dear Sister Agatha." + +"You admit she's a dear?" + +"Of course I do; but I don't know whether she's quite good for you." + +"If you'd only seen her among the poor little children the other day, +how beautiful and how happy she looked, you might have thought +differently," said Dot. + +"Oh, yes, dear; but then you mustn't forget that her point of view is +different. She's renounced the world; she's one of those women," Esther +couldn't resist adding, maliciously, "who've given up hope of man, and +so have set all their hopes on God." + +"Esther, that's unworthy of you--though what if it is as you say, is it +so great a failure after all to dedicate one's self to God rather than +to one little individual man?" + +"Oh, come," said Esther, rather wilfully misunderstanding, and suddenly +flushing up, "Mike is not so little as all that!" + +"Why, you goose, how earthly you are! I never thought of dear +Mike--though it would have served you right for saying such a mean thing +about Sister Agatha." + +"Forgive me. I know it was mean, but I couldn't resist it. And it is +true, you'll admit, of some of those pious women, though I withdraw it +about Sister Agatha." + +"Of course I couldn't be a sister like Sister Agatha," said Dot, +"without being a Catholic as well; but I might be a nurse at one of the +ordinary hospitals." + +"It would be dreadfully hard work!" said Esther. + +"Harder than being a man, do you think?" asked Dot, laughing. + +"For goodness' sake, don't turn Catholic!" said Esther, in some alarm. +"_That_ would break father's heart, if you like." + +A horror of Catholicism ran in the very marrow of these young people. +It was one of the few relics of their father's Puritanism surviving in +them. Of "Catholics" they had been accustomed to speak since childhood +as of nightmares and Red Indians with bloody scalps at their waists; and +perhaps that instinctive terror of the subtle heart of Rome is the +religious prejudice which we will do well to part with last. + +Dot had not, indeed, contemplated an apostacy so unnatural; but beneath +these comparatively trivial words there was an ever-growing impulse to +fulfil that old longing of her nature to do something, as the Christians +would say, "for God," something serious, in return for the solemn and +beautiful gift of life. By an accident, she had met Sister Agatha one +day in the house of an old Irish servant of theirs, who had been +compelled to leave them on account of ill-health, and on whom she had +called with a little present of fruit. She had been struck by the +sweetness of the Sister's face, as the Sister had been struck by hers. +Sister Agatha had invited Dot to visit her some day at the home for +orphan children of which she had charge; and, with some misgiving as to +whether it was right thus to visit a Catholic, whether even it was +safe, Dot had accepted. So an acquaintance had grown up and ripened into +a friendship; and Sister Agatha, while making no attempt to turn the +friendship to the account of her church, was a great consolation to the +lonely, religious girl. + +Dot retained too much rationalism ever to become a Catholic, but the +longing to do something grew and grew. At a certain moment, with each +new generation of girls, there comes an epidemical desire in maiden +bosoms to dedicate their sweet young lives to the service of what Esther +called "horrible dirty people." At these periods the hospitals are +flooded with applications from young girls whom the vernal equinox urges +first to be mothers, and, failing motherhood, nurses. Just before she +met Henry, Angel had done her best to miss him by frantic endeavours to +nurse people whom the hospital doctors decided she was far too slight a +thing to lift,--for unless you can lift your patients, not to say throw +them about, you fail in the muscular qualifications of a hospital nurse. +Dot, as we have seen, was impelled in this direction from no merely +sentimental impulse, unless the religious impulse, which paradoxically +makes nuns of disappointed mothers, may so be called. Perhaps, +unacknowledged, deep down in her heart, she longed to be the nurse--of +one little wonderful child. Had this been granted her, it is probable +that the maimed and the halt would have had less attraction for her +pitying imagination. As it was, however, she persuaded herself that she +loved them. Was it because, at the moment, no one else seemed to +need her love? + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +STAGE WAITS, MR. LAFLIN + + +Esther's impatience was to be appeased, perhaps a little to her regret +after all, by an unexpected remission of the time appointed between Mike +and his first real engagement. Suddenly one day came an exciting letter +from the great actor, saying that he saw his way to giving him a part in +his own London company, if he could join him for rehearsal in a +week's time. + +Here was news! At last a foundation-stone of the new heaven was to be +laid! In a week's time Mike would be working at one of the alabaster +walls. Perhaps in two years' time, perhaps even in a year, with good +fortune, the roof would be on, the door wreathed with garlands, and a +modest little heaven ready for occupation. + +Now all that remained was to make the momentous break with the old life. +Old Mr. Laflin had been left in peaceful ignorance of the mine which +must now be exploded beneath his evening armchair. Mike loved his +father, and this had been a dread long and wisely postponed. But now, +when the moment for inevitable decision had come, Mike remembered, with +a certain shrinking, that responsibility of which Dot had spoken,--the +responsibility of being a man. It was his dream to be an actor, to earn +his bread with joy. To earn it with less than joy seemed unworthy of +man. Yet there was another dream for him, still more, immeasurably more, +important--to be Esther's husband. If he stayed where he was, in slow +revolutions of a dull business, his father's place and income would +become his. If he renounced that certain prospect, he committed himself +to a destiny of brilliant chances; and for the first time he realised +that among those chances lurked, too, the chance of failure. Esther must +decide; and Henry's counsel, too, must be taken. Mike thought he knew +what the decision and the counsel would be; and, of course, he was +not mistaken. + +"Why, Mike, how can you hesitate?" said Esther. "Fail, if you like, and +I shall still love you; but you don't surely think I could go on loving +a man who was frightened to try?" + +That was a little hard of Esther, for Mike's fear had been for her sake, +not his own. However, that and the even more vehement counsel of Henry +had the desired bracing effect; and Mike nerved himself to deal the +necessary blow at his father's tranquillity. + +As the writer of this book takes no special joy in heart-breaking scenes +with fathers, the painful and somewhat violent scene with Mr. Laflin is +here omitted, and left to the imagination of any reader with a taste for +such unnatural collisions. Any one over thirty will agree that all the +reason was on Mr. Laflin's side, as all the instinct was on his son's. +Luckily for Mike, the instinct was to prove genuine, and his father to +live to be prouder of his rebellion than ever he would have been of his +obedience. + +This scene over, it was only a matter of days--five alone were +left--before Mike must up and away in right good earnest. + +"Oh, Mike," said Esther, "you're sure you'll go on loving me? I'm +awfully frightened of those pretty girls in ----'s company." + +"You needn't be," said Mike; "there's only one girl in the world will +look at a funny bit of a thing like me." + +"Oh, I don't know," said Esther, laughing, "some big girls have such +strange tastes." + +"Well, let's hope that before many months you can come and look after +me." + +"If we'd only a certain five pounds a week, we could get +along,--anything to be together. Of course, we'd have to be +economical--" said Esther, thoughtfully. + +On the last night but one before his leaving, it was Mike's turn for a +farewell dinner. Half-a-dozen of his best friends assembled at the +"Golden Bee," and toasts and tears were mingled to do him honour. Henry +happily caught the general feeling of the occasion in the following +verses, not hitherto printed. Henry was too much in earnest at the time +to regard the bathos of rhyming "stage waits" with such dignities as +"summoning fates," except for which _naivete_ the poem is perhaps not a +bad example of sincere, occasional verse: + + _Dear Mike, at last the wished hour draws nigh-- + Weary indeed, the watching of a sky + For golden portent tarrying afar; + But here to-night we hail your risen star, + To-night we hear the cry of summoning fates-- + Stage waits! + + Stage waits! and we who love our brother so + Would keep him not; but only ere he go, + Led by the stars along the untried ways, + We'd hold his hand in ours a little space, + With grip of love that girdeth up the heart, + And kiss of eyes that giveth strength to part. + + Some of your lovers may be half afraid + To bid you forth, for fear of pitfalls laid + About your feet; but we have no such fears, + That cry is as a trumpet in our ears; + We dare not, would not, mock those summoning fates-- + Stage waits! + + Stage waits! and shall you fear and make delay? + Yes! when the mariner who long time lay, + Waiting the breeze, shall anchor when it blows; + Yes! when a thirsty summer-flower shall close + Against the rain; or when, in reaping days, + The husbandman shall set his fields ablaze. + + Nay, take your breeze, drink in your strengthening rain, + And, while you can, make harvest of your grain; + The land is fair to which that breeze shall blow. + The flower is sweet the rain shall set aglow, + The grain be rich within your garner gates-- + Stage waits! + + Stage waits! and we must loosen now your hand, + And miss your face's gold in all our land; + But yet we know that in a little while + You come again a conqueror, so smile + Godspeed, not parting, and, with hearts elate, + We wait_. + +Yes, for the second time the die was cast. Henry was already afoot on +the adventure perilous. Now it was Mike's turn. These young people had +passionately invoked those terrible gods who fulfil our dreams, and +already the celestial machinery was beginning to move in answer. Perhaps +it just a little took their breath, to see the great wheels so readily +turning at the touch of their young hands; but they were in for it now, +and with stout hearts must abide the issue. + +This was to be Esther and Mike's first experience of parting, and their +hearts sickened at the thought. Love surely does well in this world, so +full of snares and dangers, to fear to lose from its eyes for a moment +the face of its beloved; and in this respect the courage of love is the +more remarkable. How bravely it takes the appalling risks of life! To +separate for an hour may mean that never as long as the world lasts will +love hear the voice it loves again. "Good-bye," love has called gaily so +often, and waved hands from the threshold, and the beloved has called +"good-bye" and waved, and smiled back--for the last time. And yet love +faces the fears, not only of hours, but of weeks and months; weeks and +months on seas bottomless with danger, in lands rife with unknown evils, +dizzily taking the chances of desperate occupations. And the courage is +the greater, because, finally, in this world, love alone has anything to +lose. Other losses may be more or less repaired; but love's loss is, of +its essence, irreparable. Other fair faces and brave hearts the world +may bring us, but never that one face! Alas! for the most precious of +earthly things, the only precious thing of earth, there is no system of +insurance. The many waters have quenched love, and the floods drowned +it,--yet in the wide world is there no help, no hope, no recompense. + +The love that bound this little circle of young people together was so +strong and warm that it had developed in them an almost painful +sensibility to such risks of loss. So it was that expressions of +affection and outward endearments were more current among them than is +usual in a land where manners, from a proper fear of exaggeration, run +to a silly extreme of unresponsiveness. They never met without showing +their joy to be again together; never parted without that inner fear +that this might be their last chance of showing their love for +each other. + +"You all say good-bye as if you were going to America!" Myrtilla +Williamson had once said; "I suppose it's your Irish grandmother." And +no doubt the _empressement_ had its odd side for those who saw only +the surface. + +Thus for those who love love, who love to watch for it on human faces, +Mike's good-bye at the railway station was a sight worth going far +to see. + +"My word, they seem to be fond of each other, these young people!" said +a lady standing at the door of the next carriage. + +Mike was leaning through the window, and Esther was pressing near to +him. They murmured low to each other, and their eyes were bright with +tears. A little apart stood a small group, in which Henry and Angel and +Ned were conspicuous, and Mike's sisters and Dot and Mat were there. A +callous observer might have laughed, so sad and solemn they were. Mike's +fun tried a rally; but his jests fell spiritless. It was not so much a +parting, one might have thought, as a funeral. Little was said, but eyes +were eloquent, either with tears, or with long strong glances that meant +undying faithfulness all round; and Mike knew that Henry's eyes were +quoting "_Allons_! after the great Companions, and to belong to them!" + +Henry's will to achieve was too strong for him to think of this as a +parting; he could only think of it as a glorious beginning. There is +something impersonal in ambition, and in the absorption of the work to +be done the ambitious man forgets his merely individual sensibilities. +To achieve, though the heavens fall,--that was Henry's ambition for Mike +and for himself. + +No one really believed that the train would have the hard-heartedness to +start; but at last, with deliberate intention, evidently not to be +swayed by human pity, the guard set the estranging whistle to his lips, +cold and inexorable as Nero turning down the thumb of death, and surely +Mike's sad little face began to move away from them. Hands reached out +to him, eyes streamed, handkerchiefs fluttered,--but nothing could hold +him back; and when at last a curve in the line had swallowed the white +speck of his face, they turned away from the dark gulf where the train +had been as though it were a newly opened grave. + +A great to-do to make about a mere parting!--says someone. No doubt, my +dear sir! All depends upon one's standard of value. No doubt these young +people weighed life in fantastic scales. Their standard of value was, no +doubt, uncommon. To love each other was better than rubies; to lose each +other was bitter as death. For others other values,--they had found +their only realities in the human affections. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +ESTHER AND HENRY ONCE MORE + + +Yes, Mike had really gone. Henceforth for ever so long, he would only +exist for Esther in letters, or as a sad little voice at the end of a +wire. It had been arranged that Henry should take Esther with him for +dinner that evening to the brightest restaurant in Tyre. He was a great +believer in being together, and also in dinner, as comforters of your +sad heart. Perhaps, too, he was a little glad to feel Esther leaning +gently upon him once more. Their love was too sure and lasting and +ever-present to have many opportunities of being dramatic. Nature does +not make a fuss about gravitation. One of the most wonderful and +powerful of laws, it is yet of all laws the most retiring. Gravitation +never decks itself in rainbows, nor does it vaunt its undoubted strength +in thunder. It is content to make little show, because it is very +strong; yet you have always to reckon with it. It is undemonstrative, +but it is always there. The love of Esther and Henry was like that. It +has made little show in this history, but few readers can have missed +its presence in the atmosphere. It might go for weeks without its +festival; but there it was all the time, ready for any service, staunch +for any trial. It was one of the laws which kept the little world I have +been describing slung safely in space, and securely shining. + +It was, indeed, something like a perfect relationship,--this love of +Esther and Henry. Had the laws of nature permitted it, it is probable +that Mike and Angel would have been forced to seek their mates +elsewhere. As it was, though it was thus less than marriage, it was more +than friendship--as the holy intercourse of a mother and a son is more +than friendship. Freed from the perturbations of sex, it yet gained +warmth and exhilaration from the unconscious presence of that +stimulating difference. Though they were brother and sister, friend and +friend, Henry and Esther were also man and woman. So satisfying were +they to each other, that when they sat thus together, the truth must be +told, that, for the time at all events, they missed no other man +or woman. + +"I have always you," said Esther. + +"Do I still matter, then?" said Henry. "Are you sure the old love is not +growing old?" + +"You know it can never grow old. There is only one Mike; but there is +only one Henry too. It's a good love to have, Harry, isn't it? It makes +one feel so much safer in the world." + +"Dear little Esther! Do you remember those old beatings, and that night +you brought me the cake? Bless you!"--and Henry reached his hand across +the table, and laid it so kindly on Esther's that a hovering waiter +retreated out of delicacy, mistaking the pair for lovers. It was a +mistake that was often made when they were together; and they had +sometimes laughed, when travelling, at the kind-hearted way passengers +on the point of entering their carriage had suddenly made up their minds +not to disturb the poor newly-married young things. + +"And how we used to hate you once!" said Esther; "one can hardly +understand it now. Do you remember how on Sunday afternoons you would +insist on playing at church, and how, with a tablecloth for a surplice, +you used to be the minister? How you used to storm if we poor things +missed any of the responses!" + +"The monstrous egoism of it all!" said Henry, laughing. "It was all got +up to give me a stage, and nothing else. I didn't care whether you +enjoyed it or not. What dragons children are!" + +"'Dragons of the prime, that tare each other in their slime,'" quoted +Esther. "Yes, we tore each other, and no mistake--" + +"Well, I've made up for it since, haven't I?" said Henry. "I hope I'm a +humble enough brother of the beautiful to please you nowadays." + +"You're the truest, most reliable thing in the world," said Esther; "I +always think of you as something strong and true to come to--" + +"Except Mike!" + +"No, not even except Mike. We'll call it a draw--dear little Mike! To +think of him going further and further away every minute! I wonder where +he is by now. He must have reached Rugby long since." + +At that moment the waiter ventured to approach with a silver tray. A +telegram,--it was indeed a telegram of tears and distance from Mike, +given in at Rugby. Even so long parted and so far away, Mike was still +true. He had not yet forgotten! + +These young people were great extravagants of the emotional telegram. +They were probably among the earliest to apply electricity for +heart-breaking messages. Some lovers feel it a profanation thus to +reveal their souls beneath the eye of a telegraph-operator; but the +objection of delicacy ceases if you can regard the operator in his +actual capacity as a part of the machine. French perhaps is an advisable +medium; though, if the operator misunderstands it, your love is apt to +take strange forms at its destination, and if he understands it, you may +as well use English at once. + +"Dear Mike! God bless him!" and they pledged Mike in Esther's favourite +champagne. The wives of great actor-managers must early inure themselves +to champagne. + +"But if you're jealous of Mike," said Esther, presently, taking up the +dropped thread of their talk; "what about Angel?" + +"Of course it was only nonsense," said Henry. "I know you love Angel far +too much to be jealous of her, as I love Mike; and that's just the +beautiful harmony of it all. We are just a little impregnable world of +four,--four loving hearts against the world." + +"How clever it was of you to find Angel!" + +"I found Mike, too!" said Henry, laughing. + +"Oh, yes, I know; but then I discovered you." + +"Ah, but a still higher honour belongs to me, for I discovered you," +retorted Henry. "When you consider that I discovered three such +wonderful persons as you and Angel and Mike, don't you think, on the +whole, that I'm singularly modest?" + +"Do you love me?" said Esther, presently, quite irrelevantly. + +"Do you love _me_?" + +"I asked first." + +"Well, for the sake of argument, let us say 'yes.'" + +"How much?" + +"As big as the world." + +"Oh, well, then, let's have some Benedictine with the coffee!" said +Esther. + +"I've thought of something better, more 'sacramental,'" said Henry, +smiling, "but you couldn't conscientiously drink it with me. It's the +red drink of perfect love. Will you drink it with me?" + +"Of course I will." + +So the waiter brought a bottle bearing the beautiful words, "_Parfait +Amour_." + +"It's like blood," said Esther; "it makes me a little frightened." + +"Would you rather not drink it?" asked Henry. "You know if you drink it +with me, you must drink it with no one else. It is the law of it that we +can only drink it with one." + +"Not even with Mike?" + +"Not even with Mike." + +"What of Angel?" + +"I will drink it with no one but you as long as I live." + +"I will drink it then." + +They held up their glasses. + +"Dear old Esther!" + +"Dear old Henry!" + +And then they laughed at their solemnity. It was deeply sworn! + +When Esther reached home that evening, she found a further telegram from +Mike, announcing his arrival at Euston; and she had scarcely read it +when she heard her father's voice calling her. She went immediately to +the dining-room. + +"Esther, dear," he said, "your mother and I want a word with you." + +"No, James, you must speak for yourself in this," said Mrs. Mesurier, +evidently a little perturbed. + +"Well, dear, if I must be alone in the matter, I must bear it; I cannot +shrink from my duty on that account." Then, turning to Esther, "I called +you in to speak to you about Mike Laflin--" + +"Yes, father," exclaimed Esther, with a little gasp of surprise. + +"I met Mr. Laflin on the boat this morning, and was much astonished and +grieved to hear of the rash step his son has chosen to take. The matter +has evidently been kept from me,"--strictly speaking, it had; "I +understand, though on that again I have not been consulted, that you and +Mike have for some time been informally engaged to each other. Now you +know my views on the theatre, and I am sure that you must see that +Mike's having taken such a step must at once put an end to any such +idea. Your own sense of propriety would, I am sure, tell you that, +without any words from me--" + +"Father!" cried Esther, in astonishment. + +"You know that I considered Mike a very nice lad. His family is +respectable; and he would have come into a very comfortable business, if +he hadn't taken this foolish freak into his head--" + +"But, father, you have laughed at his recitations, yourself, many a +time, here of an evening. What difference can there be?" + +"There is the difference of the theatre, the contaminating atmosphere, +the people it attracts, the harm it does--your father, as you know, has +never been within a theatre in his life; is it likely that he can look +with calmness upon his daughter marrying a man whose livelihood is to be +gained in a scandalous and debasing profession?" + +"Father, I cannot listen to your talking of Mike like that. If it is +wrong to make people innocently happy, to make them laugh and forget +their troubles, to--to--well, if it's wrong to be Mike--I'm sorry; but, +wrong or right, I love him, and nothing will ever make me give him up." + +Mrs. Mesurier here interrupted, "I told you, James, how it would be. You +cannot change young hearts. The times are not the same as when you and I +were young; and, though I'm sure I don't want to go against you, I +think you are too hard on Esther. Love is love after all--and Mike's one +of the best-hearted lads that ever walked." + +"Thank you, mother," said Esther, impulsively, throwing her arms round +her mother's neck, and bursting into tears, "I--I will never +give--give--him up." + +"No, dear, no; now don't distress yourself. It will all come right. Your +father doesn't quite understand." And then a great tempest of sobbing +came over Esther, and swept her away to her own room. + +The father and mother turned to each other with some anger. + +"James, I'm surprised at your distressing the poor child like that +to-night; you might have known she would be sensitive, with Mike only +gone to-day! You could surely have waited till to-morrow." + +"I am surprised, Mary, that you can encourage her as you did. You cannot +surely uphold the theatre?" + +"Well, James, I don't know,--there are theatres and theatres, and actors +and actors; and there have been some very good men actors after all, and +some very bad men ministers, if it comes to that," she added; "and +theatre or no theatre, love's love in spite of all the fathers and +mothers in the world--" + +"All right, Mary, I would prefer then that we spoke no more on the +matter for this evening," and James Mesurier turned to his diary, to +record, along with the state of the weather, and the engagements of the +day, the undutiful conduct of Esther, and a painful difference with +his wife. + +Strange, that men who have themselves loved and begotten should thus for +a moment imagine that a small social prejudice, or a narrow religious +formula, can break the purpose of a young and vigorous passion. Do they +realise what it is they are proposing to obstruct? This is love--_love_, +my dear sir, at once the mightiest might, and the rightest right in the +universe! This is--Niagara--the Atlantic--the power of the stars--and +the strength of the tides. It is all the winds of the world, and all the +fires of the centre. You surely cannot be serious in asking it to take, +in exchange, some obsolete objection against its beloved! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +MIKE AFAR + + +This collision with her father braced up Esther's nerves, and made +Mike's absence easier to bear. Her father made no more allusion to it. +He was entering that period when fathers, however despotic, content +themselves with protest, where once they have governed by royal +proclamation. He was losing heart to contend with his children. They +must go their own ways--though it must not be without occasional severe +and solemn warnings on his part. + +Mike and Esther wrote to each other twice a week. They had talked of +every day, but a wise instinct prompted them to the less romantic, but +likely the more enduring arrangement. It would be none the less open to +them to write fourteen letters a week if they wished, but to have had to +admit that one letter a day was a serious tax, not only on one's other +occupations, including idleness, but also on the amount of +subject-matter available, would have been a dangerous correction of an +impulsive miscalculation. + +Second-rate London lodgings are not great cheerers of the human spirit, +and Mike was very lonely in his first letter or two; but, as the +rehearsals proceeded, it was evident that he was taking hold of his new +world, and the letter which told of his first night, and of his own +encouraging success in it, was buoyant with the rising tide of the +future. His chief had affectionately laid his hand on his shoulder, as +he came off from his scene, and, in the hearing of the whole company, +prophesied a great future for him. + +Mike had been born under a lucky star; and he had hardly been in London +two months when accident very perceptibly brightened it. The chief +comedian in the company fell ill; and though Mike had had so little +experience, his chief had so much confidence in his native gift, that he +cast him for the vacant part. Mike more than justified the confidence, +and not only pleased him, but succeeded in individualising himself with +the audience. He had only played it for a week, when one Saturday +evening the audience, after calling the manager himself three times, set +up a cry for "Laflin." The obsequious attendant pretended to consider it +as a fourth call for the manager, and made as if to move the curtain +aside for him once more; but, with a magnanimity rare indeed in a "star" +of his magnitude, "No, no!" he said; "it is Mr. Laflin they want. Quick, +lad, and take your first call." + +So little Mike stepped before the curtain, and made his first bow to an +affectionate burst of applause. What happy tears would have glittered in +Esther's eyes had she been there to see it, and in Henry's too, and +particularly, perhaps, in excitable Angel's! + +Even so soon was the blossom giving promise of the fruit. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + +A LEGACY MORE PRECIOUS THAN GOLD + + +Meanwhile, Henry plodded away at Aunt Tipping's, working sometimes on a +volume of essays for the London publisher, and sometimes on his novel, +now and again writing a review, and earning an odd guinea for a poem; +and now and again indulging in a day of richly doing nothing. Otherwise, +one day was like another, with the many exceptions of the days on which +he saw Angel or Esther. With Ned, he spent many of his evenings; and he +soon formed the pleasant habit of dropping in on Gerard, last thing +before bed-time, for a smoke and half an hour's chat. + +There is always a good deal of youth left in any one who genuinely loves +youth; and Gerard always spoke of his youth as Adam, in his declining +years, might have spoken of Paradise. For him life was just youth--and +the rest of it death. + +"After thirty," he would say, "the happiest life is only history +repeating itself. I am no cynic,--far from it; but the worst of life is +the monotony of the bill of fare. To do a thing once, even twice, is +delightful--perhaps even a third time is successfully possible; but to +do it four times, is middle age. If you think of it, what is there to do +after thirty that one ought not to have achieved to perfection before? +You know the literary dictum, that the poet who hasn't written a +masterpiece before he is thirty will never write any after. Of course, +there are exceptions; I am speaking of the rule. In business, for +example, what future is there for the man who has not already a dashing +past at thirty? Of course, the bulk, the massive trunk and the +impressive foliage of his business, must come afterwards; but the tree +must have been firmly rooted and stoutly branched before then, and able +to go on growing on its own account. The work, in fact, must have +been done. + +"Take perhaps the only thing really worth doing in life," and Gerard +perceptibly saddened. "That is, marrying a woman you love, or I +should say _the_ woman, for you only really _love_ one woman--I'm +old-fashioned enough to think that,--well, I say, marrying the woman you +love, and bringing into the world that miracle of miracles,--a child +that shall be something of you and all her: that certainly is something +to have done before thirty, and not to be repeated, perhaps, more than +once before or after. She will want a boy like you, and you will have a +girl like her. That you may easily accomplish before thirty. Afterwards, +however, if you go on repeating each other, what do you do but blur the +individuality of the original masterpieces--though," pursued Gerard, +laughing, always ready to forget his original argument in the +seductiveness of an unexpected development of it, "though, after all, I +admit, there might be a temptation sometimes to improve upon the +originals. 'Agnes, my dear,' we might say, 'I'm not quite satisfied yet +with the shade of Eva's hair. It's nearly yours, but not quite. It's an +improvement on Anna's, whose eyes now are exactly yours. Eva's, +unfortunately, are not so faithful. I'm afraid we'll have to try again.' + +"No, but seriously," he once more began, "for a really vital and +successful life there is no adequate employment of the faculties after +thirty, except, of course, in the repetition of former successes. No; I +even withdraw that,--not the repetition, only the conservation, the +feeding, of former successes. The success is in the creation. When a +world is once created, any fool can keep it spinning. + +"Man's life is at least thirty years too long. Two score years is more +than enough for us to say what we were sent here to say; and if you'll +consider those biographies in which you are most interested, the +biographies of great writers, you cannot but bear me out. What, for +instance, did Keats and Shelley and Burns and Byron lose by dying, all +of them long before they were forty,--Keats even long before he was +thirty; and what did Wordsworth and Coleridge gain by living so long +after? Wordsworth and Coleridge didn't even live to repeat themselves, +else, of course, one would have begged them to go on living for ever; +for some repetitions, it is admitted, are welcome,--for instance, won't +you have a little more whisky?" + +Henry always agreed so completely with Gerard's talk, or at least so +delighted in it, that he had little scope of opportunity to say much +himself; and Gerard was too keen a talker to complain of a rapt +young listener. + +"How old are you?" he said, presently. + +"Twenty-two next month." + +"Twenty-two! How wonderful to be twenty-two! Yet I don't suppose you've +realised it in the least. In your own view, you're an aged philosopher, +white with a past, and bowed down with the cares of a future. Just you +stay in bed all day to-morrow, and ponder on the wonderfulness of being +twenty-two! + +"I'm forty-two. You're beginning--I'm done with. And yet, in some ways, +I believe I'm younger than you--though, perhaps, alas! what I consider +the youth in me is only the wish to be young again, the will to do and +enjoy, without the force and the appetite. But, by the way, when I say +I'm forty-two, I mean that I'm forty-two in the course of next week, +next Thursday, in fact, and if you'll do me that kindness, I should be +grateful if you would join me that evening in celebrating the melancholy +occasion. I've got a great mind to enlist your sympathy in a little +ancient history, if it won't be too great a tax upon your goodness; but +I'll think it over between now and then." + +Gerard's birthday had come; and the ancient history he had spoken of +had proved to be a chapter of his own history, the beauty and sadness of +which had made an impression upon Henry, to be rendered ineffaceable a +very few days after in a sudden and terrible manner. + +One early morning about four, just as it was growing light, he had +suddenly awakened with a strong feeling that some one was bending over +him. He opened his eyes, to see, as he thought, Gerard hastily leaving +his bedside. + +"Gerard!" he cried, "what's the matter?" but the figure gave no answer, +faded away down the long room, and disappeared. Henry sat up in bed and +struck a light, his heart beating violently. But there was no one there, +and the door was closed. It had evidently been one of those dreams that +persist on the eye for a moment after waking. Yet it left him uneasy; +and presently he wondered if Gerard could be ill. He determined to see; +so, slipping on his dressing-gown, he crossed the landing to Gerard's +room, and, softly knocking, opened the door and put in his head. + +"Gerard, old chap, are you all right?--Gerard--" + +There was no answer, and the room seemed unaccountably still. He +listened for the sound of breathing, but he couldn't hear it. + +"Gerard!" he cried, again louder, but there was still no answer; and +then, with the silence, a chill terror began to creep through his blood. +He had never yet seen death; and perhaps if he had the terror in his +thought would not have been lessened. With a heart that had almost +stopped beating, and knees that shook beneath him, he pushed open the +door and walked over to the bed. It was still too dark to see more than +outlines and masses of white and black; but even so he could see that +the stillness with which Gerard was lying was the stillness of death. + +His next thought was to rouse Aunt Tipping; and together the two bent +over the dead face. + +"Yes, he's gone," said Aunt Tipping; "poor gentlemen, how beautiful he +looks!" and they both gazed in silence upon the calm, smiling face. + +"Well, he's better off," she said, presently, leaning over him, and +softly pressing down the lids of his eyes. + +Henry involuntarily drew away. + +"Dear lad, there's nothing to be frightened of," said his aunt. "He's +as harmless as a baby." + +Then she took a handkerchief from a drawer, and spread it gently over +the dead man's face. To Aunt Tipping the dead were indeed as little +children, and inspired her with a strange motherly tenderness. Many had +been the tired silent ones whose eyes she had closed, and whose limbs +she had washed against their last resting place. They were so helpless +now; they could do nothing any more for themselves. + +Later in the day, Henry came again and sat long by the dead man's side. +It seemed uncompanionable to have grown thus suddenly afraid of him, to +leave him thus alone in that still room. And as he sat and watched him, +he gave to his memory a solemn service of faithful thought. Thus it was +he went over again the words in which Gerard had made him the +depository, the legatee, of his most sacred possession. + +Gerard had evidently had some presentiment of his approaching end. + +"I am going," he had said, "to place the greatest confidence in you one +man can place in another, pay you the greatest compliment. I shall die +some day, and something tells me that that divine event is not very far +off. Now I have no one in the world who cares an old 'J' pen for me, and +a new one is perhaps about as much as I care for any one--with one +exception, and that is a woman whom I shall never see again. She is not +dead, but has been worse than dead for me these ten years. I am optimist +enough to believe that her old love for me still survives, making sweet +the secret places of her soul. Never once in all these years to have +doubted her love has been more than most marriages; but were I to live +for another ten years, and still another, I would believe in it still. +But the stars were against us. We met too late. We met when she had long +been engaged to a friend of her youth, a man noble and true, to whom she +owed much, and whom she felt it a kind of murder to desert. It was one +of those fallacious chivalries of feeling which are the danger of +sensitive and imaginative minds. Religion strengthened it, as it is so +apt to strengthen any form of self-destruction, short of technical +suicide. There was but a month to their marriage when we met. For us it +was a month of rapture and agonies, of heaven shot through with hell. I +saw further than she. I begged her at least to wait a year; but the +force of my appeal was weakened by scruples similar to her own. To rob +another of his happiness is an act from which we may well shrink, though +we can clearly see that the happiness was really destined for us, and +can never be his in any like degree. During this time I had received +from her many letters, letters such as a woman only writes in the +May-morning of her passion; and one day I received the last. There was +in it one sentence which when I read it I think my heart broke, 'Do you +believe,' it ran, 'in a love that can lie asleep, as in a trance, in +this world, to awaken again in another, a love that during centuries of +silence can still be true, and be love still in a thousand years? If you +do, go on loving me. For that is the only love I dare give you. I must +love you no more in this world.' + +"Each morning as I have risen, and each night as I have turned to sleep, +those words have repeated themselves again and again in my heart, for +ten years. It was so I became the Ashton Gerard you know to-day. Since +that day, we have never met or written to each other. All I know is that +she is still alive, and still with him, and never would I disturb their +peace. When I die, I would not have her know it. If love _is_ immortal, +we shall meet again--when I am worthier to meet her. Such reunions are +either mere dreams, or they are realities to which the strongest forces +of the universe are pledged." + +Henry's only comment had been to grip Gerard's hand, and give him the +sympathy of silence. + +"Now," said Gerard, once more after a while, "it is about those letters +I want to speak to you. They are here," and he unlocked a drawer and +drew from it a little silver box. "I always keep them here. The key of +the drawer is on this ring, and this little gold key is the key of the +box itself. I tell you this, because I have what you may regard as a +strange request to make. + +"I suppose most men would consider it their duty either to burn these +letters, or leave instructions for them to be buried with them. That is +a gruesome form of sentiment in which I have too much imagination to +indulge. Both my ideas of duty and sentiment take a different form. The +surname of the writer of these letters is nowhere revealed in them, nor +are there any references in them by which she could ever be identified. +Therefore the menace to her fair fame in their preservation is not a +question involved. Now when the simplest woman is in love, she writes +wonderfully; but when a woman of imagination and intellect is caught by +the fire of passion, she becomes a poet. Once in her life, every such +woman is an artist; once, for some one man's unworthy sake, she becomes +inspired, and out of the fulness of her heart writes him letters warm +and real as the love-cries of Sappho. Such are the letters in this +little box. They are the classic of a month's passion, written as no man +has ever yet been able to write his love. Do you think it strange then +that I should shrink from destroying them? I would as soon burn the +songs of Shelley. They are living things. Shall I selfishly bury the +beating heart of them in the silence of the grave? + +"So, Mesurier," he continued, affectionately, "when I met you and +understood something of your nature, I thought that in you I had found +one who was worthy to guard this treasure for me, and perhaps pass it on +again to some other chosen spirit--so that these beautiful words of a +noble woman's heart shall not die--for when a man loves a woman, +Mesurier, as you yourself must know, he is insatiable to hear her +praise, and it is agony for him to think that her memory may suffer +extinction. Therefore, Mesurier,--Henry, let me call you,--I want to +give the memory of my love into your hands. I want you to love it for +me, when perhaps I can love it no more. I want you sometimes to open +this box, and read in these letters, as if they were your own; I want +you sometimes to speak softly the name of 'Helen,' when my lips can +speak it no more." + +Such was the beautiful legacy of which Henry found himself the possessor +by Gerard's death. Early on that day he had remembered his promise to +his dead friend, and had found the silver box, and locked it away among +his own most sacred things. Some day, in an hour and place upon which +none might break, he would open the little box and read Helen's letters, +as Gerard had wished. Already one sentence was fixed unforgettably upon +his mind, and he said it over softly to himself as he sat by Gerard's +silent bed: "Do you believe in a love that can lie asleep, as in a +trance in this world, to awaken again in another,--a love that during +centuries of silence can still be true, and be love still in a thousand +years? If you do, go on loving me. For that is the only love I dare give +you; I must love you no more in this world." + +Strange dreams of the indomitable dust! Already another man's love was +growing dear to him. Already his soul said the name of "Helen" softly +for Gerard's sake. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + +LABORIOUS DAYS + + +With Gerard's death, Henry began to find Aunt Tipping's too sad a place +to go on living in. It had become haunted; and when new people moved +into Gerard's rooms, it became still more painful for him. It was as +though Gerard had been dispossessed and driven out. So he cast about for +some new shelter; and, one day, chance having taken him to the shipping +end of the city, he came upon some old offices which seemed full of +anxiety to be let. Inquiring of a chatty little housekeeper's wife, he +discovered, away at the echoing top of the building, a big, well-lighted +room, for which she thought the owner would be glad to take ten pounds a +year. That whole storey was deserted. Henry made up his mind at once, +and broke the news to Aunt Tipping that evening. It was the withering of +one of her few rays of poetry, and she struggled to keep him; but when +she saw how it was, the good woman insisted that he should take +something from her towards furnishing. Receiving was nothing like so +blessed as giving for Aunt Tipping. That old desk,--yes, she had bought +it for him,--that he must certainly take, and think of his old aunt +sometimes as he wrote his great books on it; and some bed-linen she +could well afford. She would take no denial. + +Angel and Esther were then called in to help him in the purchase of a +carpet, a folding-bed, an old sofa, and a few chairs. A carpenter got to +work on the bookshelves, and in a fortnight's time still another +habitation had been built for the Muse,--a habitation from which she was +not destined to remove again, till she and Angel and Henry all moved +into one house together,--a removal which was, as yet, too far off to be +included in this history. + +Ten pounds a year, a folding-bed, and a teapot!--this was Henry's new +formula for the cultivation of literature. He had so far progressed in +his ambitions as to have arrived at the dignity of a garret of his own, +and he liked to pretend that soon he might be romantically fortunate +enough to sit face to face with starvation. He knew, however, that it +would be a starvation mitigated by supplies from three separate, +well-lardered homes. A lad with a sweetheart and a sister, a mother and +an aunt, all in love with him, is not likely to become an authority on +starvation in its severest forms. + +A stern law had been passed that Henry's daytime hours were to be as +strictly respected as those of a man of business; yet quite often, about +eleven o'clock in the morning, there would come a heavenly whisper along +the passage and a little knock on the door, soft as a flower tapping +against a window-pane. + +"Thank goodness, that's Angel! + +"Angel, bless you! How glad I am to see you! I can't get on a bit with +my work this morning." + +"Oh, but I haven't come to interrupt you, dear. I sha'n't keep you five +minutes. Only I thought, dear, you'd be so tired of pressed beef and +tinned tongue, and so I thought I'd make a little hot-pot for you. I +bought the things for it as I came along, and it won't take five +minutes, if Mrs. Glass [the housekeeper] will only lend me a basin to +put it in, and bake it for you in her oven. Now, dear, you mustn't--you +know I mustn't stay. See now, I'll just take off my hat and jacket and +run along to Mrs. Glass, to get what I want. I'll be back in a minute. +Well, then, just one--now that's enough; good-bye," and off she +would skip. + +If you want to know how fairies look when they are making hot-pot, you +should have seen Angel's absorbed little shining face. + +"Now, do be quiet, Henry. I'm busy. Why don't you get on with your work? +I won't speak a word." + +"Angel, dear, you might just as well stay and help me to eat it. I +sha'n't do any work to-day, I know for certain. It's one of my +bad days." + +"Now, Henry, that's lazy. You mustn't give way like that. You'll make me +wish I hadn't come. It's all my fault." + +"No, really, dear, it isn't. I haven't done a stroke all morning--though +I've sat with my pen for two hours. You might stay, Angel, just an +hour or two." + +"No, Henry; mother wants me back soon. She's house-cleaning. And +besides, I mustn't. No--no--you see I've nearly finished now--see! Get +me the salt and pepper. There now--that looks nice, doesn't it? Now +aren't I a good little housewife?" + +"You would be, if you'd only stay. Do stay, Angel. Really, darling, it +will be all the same if you go. I know I shall do nothing. Look at my +morning's work, and he brought her a sheet of paper containing two lines +and a half of new-born prose, one line and a half of which was +plentifully scratched out. To this argument he added two or three +persuasive embraces. + +"It's really true, Henry? Well, of course, I oughtn't; but if you can't +work, of course you can't. And you must have a little rest sometimes, I +know. Well, then, I'll stay; but only till we've finished lunch, you +know, and we must have it early. I won't stay a minute past two o'clock, +do you hear? And now I'll run along with this to Mrs. Glass." + +When Angel had gone promptly at three, as likely as not another step +would be heard coming down the passage, and a feminine rustle, +suggesting a fuller foliage of skirts, pause outside the door, then a +sort of brotherly-sisterly knock. + +"Esther! Why, you've just missed Angel; what a pity!" + +"Well, dear, I only ran up for half-a-minute. I was shopping in town, +and I couldn't resist looking in to see how the poor boy was getting on. +No, dear, I won't take my things off. I must catch the half-past three +boat, and then I'll keep you from your work?" + +Esther always said this with a sort of suggestion in her voice that it +was just possible Henry might have found some new way of both keeping +her there and doing his work at the same time; as though she had said, +"I know you cannot possibly work while I am here; but, of course, if you +can, and talking to me all the time won't interfere with it--well, +I'll stay." + +"Oh, no, you won't really. To tell the truth, I've done none to-day. I +can't get into the mood." + +"So you've been getting Angel to help you. Oh, well, of course, if Angel +can be allowed to interrupt you, I suppose I can too. Well, then, I'll +stay a quarter of an hour." + +"But you may as well take your things off, and I'll make a cup of tea, +eh? That'll be cosey, won't it? And then you can read me Mike's last +letter, eh?" + +"Oh, he's doing splendidly, dear! I had a lovely letter from him this +morning. Would you really care to hear a bit of it?" + +And Esther would proceed to read, picking her way among the endearments +and the diminutives. + +"I _am_ glad, dear. Why, if he goes on at this rate, you'll be able to +get married in no time." + +"Yes; isn't it splendid, dear? I am so happy! What I'd give to see his +little face for five minutes! Wouldn't you?" + +"Rather. Perhaps he'll be able to run up on Bank Holiday." + +"I'm afraid not, dear. He speaks of it in his letter, and just hopes for +it; but rather fears they'll have to play at Brighton, or some other +stupid seaside place." + +"That's a bother. Yes, dear old Mike! To think of him working away there +all by himself--God bless him! Do you know he's never seen this old +room? It struck me yesterday. It doesn't seem quite warmed till he's +seen it. Wouldn't it be lovely to have him here some night?--one of our +old, long evenings. Well, I suppose it will really come one of these +days. And then we shall be having you married, and going off to London +in clouds of glory, while poor old Henry grubs away down here in Tyre." + +"Well, if we do go first, you will not be long after us, dear; and if +only Mike could make a really great hit, why, in five years' time we +might all be quite rich. Won't it be wonderful?" + +Then the kettle boiled, and Henry made the tea; and when it had long +since been drunk, Esther began to think it must be five o'clock, and, +horrified to find it a quarter to six, confessed to being ashamed of +herself, and tried to console her conscience by the haste of +her good-bye. + +"I'm afraid I've wasted your afternoon," she said; "but we don't often +get a chat nowadays, do we? Good-bye, dear. Go on loving me, won't you?" + +After that, Henry would give the day up as a bad job, and begin to +wonder if Ned would be dropping in that evening for a smoke; and as that +was Ned's almost nightly custom about eight o'clock, the chances of +Henry's disappointment were not serious. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +A HEAVIER FOOTFALL + + +One morning, as Henry was really doing a little work, a more ponderous +step broke the silence of his landing, a heavy footfall full of +friendship. Certainly that was not Angel, nor even the more weighty +Esther, though when the knock came it was little and shy as a woman's. + +Henry threw open the door, but for a moment there was no one to be seen; +and then, recalling the idiosyncrasy of a certain new friend whom by +that very token he guessed it might be, he came out on to the landing, +to find a great big friendly man in corpulent blue serge, a rough, dark +beard, and a slouched hat, standing a few feet off in a deprecating +way,--which really meant that if there were any ladies in the room with +Mr. Mesurier, he would prefer to call another time. For though he had +two or three grownup daughters of his own, this giant of a man was as +shy of a bit of a thing like Angel, whom he had met there one day, as +though he were a mere boy. He always felt, he once said in explanation, +as though he might break them in shaking hands. They affected him like +the presence of delicate china, and yet he could hold a baby deftly as +an elephant can nip up a flower; and to see him turn over the pages of a +delicate _edition de luxe_ was a lesson in tenderness. For this big man +who, as he would himself say, looked for all the world like a pirate, +was as insatiable of fine editions as a school-girl of chocolate creams. +He was one of those dearest of God's creatures, a gentle giant; and his +voice, when it wasn't necessary to be angry, was as low and kind as an +old nurse at the cradle's side. + +Henry had come to know him through his little Scotch printer, who +printed circulars and bill-heads, for the business over which Mr. +Fairfax--for that was his name--presided. By day he was the vigorous +brain of a huge emporium, a sort of Tyrian Whiteley's; but day and night +he was a lover of books, and you could never catch him so busy but that +he could spare the time mysteriously to beckon you into his private +office, and with the glee of a child, show you his last large paper. He +not only loved books; but he was rumoured liberally to have assisted one +or two distressed men of genius well-known to the world. The tales of +the surreptitious goodness of his heart were many; but it was known too +that the big kind man had a terribly searching eye under his briery +brows, and could be as stern towards ingratitude as he was soft to +misfortune. Henry once caught a glimpse of this as they spoke of a +mutual friend whom he had helped to no purpose. Mr. Fairfax never used +many words, on this occasion he was grimly laconic. + +"Rat-poison!" he said, shaking his head. "Rat-poison!" It was his way of +saying that that was the only cure for that particular kind of man. + +It was evident that his generous eye had seen how things were with +Henry. He had subscribed for at least a dozen copies of "The Book of +Angelica," and in several ways shown his interest in the struggling +young poet. As has been said, he had seen Angelica one day, and his +shyness had not prevented his heart from going out to these two young +people, and the dream he saw in their eyes. He had determined to do +what he could to help them, and to-day he had come with a plan. + +"I hope you're not too proud to give me a hand, Mr. Mesurier, in a +little idea I've got," he said. + +"I think you know how proud I am, and how proud I'm not, Mr. Fairfax," +said Henry. "I'm sure anything I could do for you would make me proud, +if that's what you mean." + +"Thank you. Thank you. But you mustn't speak too fast. It's +advertising--does the word frighten you? No? Well, it's a scheme I've +thought of for a little really artistic and humorous advertising +combined. I've got a promise from one of the most original artists of +the day, you know his name, to do the pictures; and I want you to do the +verses--at, I may say, your own price. It's not, perhaps, the highest +occupation for a poet; but it's something to be going on with; and if +we've got good posters as advertisements, I don't see why we shouldn't +have good humorous verse. What do you think of it?" + +"I think it's capital," said Henry, who was almost too ready to turn his +hand to anything. "Of course I'll do it; only too glad." + +"Well, that's settled. Now, name your price. Don't be frightened!" + +"Really, I can't. I haven't the least idea what I should get. Wait till +I have done a few of the verses, and you can give me what you please." + +"No, sir," said Mr. Fairfax; "business is business. If you won't name a +figure, I must. Will you consider a hundred pounds sufficient?" + +"A hundred pounds!" Henry gasped out, the tears almost starting to his +eyes. + +Mr. Fairfax did not miss his frank joy, and liked him for his +ingenuousness. + +"All right, then; we'll call it settled. I shall be ready for the verses +as soon as you care to write them." + +"Mr. Fairfax, I will tell you frankly that this is a great deal to me, +and I thank you from my heart." + +"Not a word, not a word, my boy. We want your verses, we want your +verses. That's right, isn't it? Good verses, good money! Now no more of +that," and the good man, in alarm lest he should be thanked further, +made an abrupt and awkward farewell. + +"It will keep the lad going a few months anyhow," he said to himself, +as he tramped downstairs, glad that he'd been able to think of +something; for, while the scheme was admirable as an advertisement, and +would more than repay Messrs. Owens' outlay, its origin had been pure +philanthropy. Such good angels do walk this world in the guise of bulky, +quite unpoetic-looking business-men. + +"One hundred pounds!" said Henry, over and over again to himself. "One +hundred pounds! What news for Angel!" + +He had soon a scheme in his head for the book, which entirely hit Mr. +Fairfax's fancy. It was to make a volume of verse celebrating each of +the various departments of the great store, in metres parodying the +styles of the old English ballads and various poets, ancient and modern, +and was to be called, "Bon Marche Ballads." + +"Something like this, for example," said Henry, a few days later, +pulling an envelope covered with pencil-scribble from his pocket. "This +for the ladies' department,-- + + _"Oh, where do you buy your hats, lady? + And where do you buy your hose? + And where do you buy your shoes, lady? + And where your underclothes?_ + +_"Hats, shoes, and stockings, everything + A lady's heart requires, + Quality good, and prices low, + We are the largest buyers! + + "The stock we bought on Wednesday last + Is fading fast away, + To-morrow it may be too late-- + Oh, come and buy to-day!"_ + +Mr. Fairfax fairly trumpeted approval. "If they're all as good as that," +he said; "you must have more money. Yes, you must. Well, well,--we'll +see, we'll see!" And when the "Bon Marche Ballads" actually appeared, +the generous creature insisted on adding another fifty pounds to +the cheque. + +As many were afterwards of opinion that Henry never again did such good +work as these nonsense rhymes, written thus for a frolic,--and one +hundred and fifty pounds,--and as copies of the "Bon Marche Ballads" are +now exceedingly scarce, it may possibly be of interest to quote two or +three more of its preposterous numbers. This is a lyric illustrative of +cheese, for the provision department:-- + + "_Are you fond of cheese? + Do you sometimes sigh + For a really good + Gorgonzola? Try, + + "Try our one-and-ten, + Wonderfully rotten, + Tasted once, it never can + Be again forgotten_!" + +Here is "a Ballad of Baby's Toys:"-- + + "_Oh, give me a toy" the baby said-- + The babe of three months old,-- + Oh, what shall I buy my little babee, + With silver and with gold?" + + "I would you buy a trumpet fine, + And a rocking-horse for me, + And a bucket and a spade, mother, + To dig beside the sea." + + "But where shall I buy these pretty things?" + The mother's heart inquires. + "Oh, go to Owens!" cried the babe; + "They are the largest buyers."_ + +The subject of our last selection is "Melton Mowbray," which bore +beneath its title due apologies to Mr. Swinburne:-- + + _"Strange pie, that is almost a passion, + O passion immoral, for pie! + Unknown are the ways that they fashion, + Unknown and unseen of the eye, + The pie that is marbled and mottled, + The pie that digests with a sigh: + For all is not Bass that is bottled, + And all is not pork that is pie."_ + +Of all the goodness else that Henry and Angel were to owe in future days +to Mr. Fairfax, there is not room in this book to write. But that +matters little, for is it not written in the Book of Love? + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +STILL ANOTHER CALLER + + +One afternoon the step coming along the corridor was almost light enough +to be Angel's, though a lover's ear told him that hers it was not. Once +more that feminine rustle, the very whisper of romantic mystery; again +the little feminine knock. + +Daintiness and Myrtilla! + +"Well, this is lovely of you, Myrtilla! But what courage! How did you +ever dare venture into this wild and savage spot,--this +mountain-fastness of Bohemia?" + +"Yes, it was brave of me, wasn't it?" said Myrtilla, with a little +laugh, for which the stairs had hardly left her breath. "But what a +climb! It is like having your rooms on the Matterhorn. I think I must +write a magazine article: 'How I climbed the fifty-thousand stairs,' +with illustrations,--and we could have some quite pretty ones," she +said, looking round the room. + +"That big skylight is splendid! As close, dear lad, to the stars as you +can get it? Are you as devoted to them as ever?" + +"Aren't you, Myrtilla?" + +"Oh, yes; but they don't get any nearer, you know." + +"It's awfully good to see you again, Myrtilla," said Henry, going over +to her and taking both her hands. "It's quite a long time, you know, +since we had a talk. It was a sweet thought of you to come. You'll have +some tea, won't you?" + +"Yes, I should love to see you make tea. Bachelors always make such good +tea. What pretty cups! My word, we are dainty! I suppose it was Esther +bought them for you?" + +Henry detected the little trap and smiled. No, it hadn't been Esther. + +"No? Someone else then? eh! I think I can guess her name. It was mean of +you not to tell me about her, Henry. I hear she's called Angel, and that +she looks like one. I wish I could have seen her before I went away." + +"Going away, Myrtilla? why, where? I've heard nothing of it. Tell me +about it." + +The atmosphere perceptibly darkened with the thought of Williamson. + +"Well!" she said, in the little airy melodious way she had when she was +telling something particularly unhappy about herself--a sort of +harpsichord bravado--"Well, you know, he's taken to fancying himself +seriously ill lately, and the doctors have aided and abetted him; and so +we're going to Davos Platz, or some such health-wilderness--and well, +that's all!" + +"And you I suppose are to nurse the--to nurse him?" said Henry, +savagely. + +"Hush, lad! It's no use, not a bit! You won't help me that way," she +said, laying her hand kindly on his, and her eyes growing bright with +suppressed tears. + +"It's a shame, nevertheless, Myrtilla, a cruel shame!" + +"You'd like to say it was a something-else shame, wouldn't you, dear +boy? Well, you can, if you like: but then you must say no more. And if +you really want to help me, you shall send me a long letter now and +again, with some of your new poems enclosed; and tell me what new books +are worth sending for? Will you do that?" + +"Of course, I will. That's precious little to do anyhow." + +"It's a good deal, really. But be sure you do it." + +"And, of course, you'll write to me sometimes. I don't think you know +yet what your letters are to me. I never work so well as when I've had a +letter from you." + +"Really, dear lad, I don't fancy you know how happy that makes me to +hear." + +"Yes, you take just the sort of interest in my work I want, and that no +one else takes." + +"Not even Angel?" said Myrtilla, slily. + +"Angel, bless her, loves my work; and is a brave little critic of it; +but then it isn't disloyal to her to say that she doesn't know as much +as you. Besides, she doesn't approach it in quite the same way. She +cares for it, first, because it is mine, and only secondly for its own +sake. Now you care for it just for what it is--" + +"I care for it, certainly, for what it's going to be," said Myrtilla, +making one of those honest distinctions which made her opinion so +stimulating to Henry. + +"Yes, there you are. You're artistically ambitious for me; you know what +I want to do, even before I know myself. That's why you're so good for +me. No one but you is that for me; and--poor stuff as I know it +is--never write a word without wondering what you will think of it." + +"You're sure it's quite true," said Myrtilla; "don't say so if it isn't. +Because you know you're saying what I care most to hear, perhaps, of +anything you could say. You know how I love literature, and--well, you +know too how fond I am of you, dear lad, don't you?" + +Literary criticism had kindled into emotion; and Henry bent down, and +kissed Myrtilla's hand. In return she let her hand rest a moment lightly +on his hair, and then, rather spasmodically, turned to remark on his +bookshelves with suspicious energy. + +At that moment another step was heard in the corridor, again feminine. +Henry knew it for Angel's; and it may be that his expression grew a +shade embarrassed, as he said: + +"I believe I shall be able to introduce you to Angel after all--for I +think this is she coming along the passage." + +As Henry opened the door, Angel was on the point of throwing her arms +round his neck, when, noticing a certain constraint in his manner of +greeting, she realised that he was not alone. + +"We were just talking of you, dear," said Henry. "This is my friend, +Mrs. Williamson,--'Myrtilla,' of whom you've often heard me speak." + +"Oh, yes, I've often heard of Mrs. Williamson," said Angel, not of +course suffering the irony of her thought to escape into her voice. + +"And I've heard no less of Miss Flower," said Mrs. Williamson, "not +indeed from this faithless boy here,--for I haven't seen him for so long +that I've had to humble myself at last and call,--but from Esther." + +Myrtilla loved the transparent face, pulsing with light, flushing or +fading with her varying mood, answering with exquisite delicacy to any +advance and retreat of the soul within. But an invincible prejudice, or +perhaps rather fear, shut Angel's eyes from the appreciation of +Myrtilla. She was sweet and beautiful, but to the child that Angel still +was she suggested malign artifice. Angel looked at her as an imaginative +child looks at the moon, with suspicion. + +So, in spite of Myrtilla's efforts to make friends, the conversation +sustained a distinct loss in sprightliness by Angel's arrival. + +Myrtilla, perhaps divining a little of the truth, rose to go. + +"Well, I'm afraid it's quite a long good-bye," she said. + +"Oh, you're going away?" said Angel, with a shade of relief +involuntarily in her voice. + +"Oh, yes, perhaps before we meet again, you and Henry will be married. +I'm sure I sincerely hope so." + +"Thank you," said Angel, somewhat coldly. + +"Well, good-bye, Henry," said Myrtilla,--it was rather a strangled +good-bye,--and then, in an evil moment, she caught sight of the Dante's +head which, hidden in a recess, she had not noticed before. "I see +you're still faithful to the Dante," she said; "that's sweet of +you,--good-bye, good-bye, Miss Flower, Angel, perhaps you'll let me say, +good-bye." + +When she had gone there seemed a curious constraint in the air. You +might have said that the consistency of the air had been doubled. +Gravitation was at least twice as many pounds as usual to the square +inch. Every little movement seemed heavy as though the medium had been +water instead of air. As Henry raised his hands to help Angel off with +her jacket, they seemed weighted with lead. + +"No, thank you," said Angel, "I won't take it off. I can't stay long." + +"Why, dear, what do you mean? I thought you were going to stay the +evening with me. I've quite a long new chapter to read to you." + +"I'm sorry, Henry,--but I find I can't." + +"Why, dear, how's that? Won't you tell me the reason? Has anything +happened?" + +Angel stood still in the middle of the room, with her face as firmly +miserable as she could make it. + +"Won't you tell me?" Henry pleaded. "Won't you speak to me? Come, +dear--what's the matter?" + +"You know well enough, Henry, what's the matter!" came an unexpected +flash of speech. + +"Indeed, I don't. I know of no reason whatever. How should I?" + +"Well, then, Mrs. Williamson's the matter!--'Myrtilla,' as you call her. +Something told me it was like this all along, though I couldn't bear to +doubt you, and so I put it away. I wonder how often she's been here when +I have known nothing about it." + +"This is the very first time she has ever set foot in these rooms," +said Henry, growing cold in his turn. "I'll give you my word of honour, +if you need it." + +"I don't want to hear any more. I'm going. Good-bye." + +"Going, Angel?" said Henry, standing between her and the door. "What can +you mean? See now,--give your brains a chance! You're not thinking in +the least. You've just let yourself go--for no reason at all. You'll be +sorry to-morrow." + +"Reason enough, I should think, when I find that you love another +woman!" + +"I love Myrtilla Williamson! It's a lie, Angel--and you ought to be +ashamed to say it. It's unworthy of you." + +"Why have you never told me then who made that sketch of Dante for you? +I suppose I should never have known, if she hadn't let it out. I asked +you once, but you put me off." + +Henry had indeed prevaricated, for Angel had chanced to ask him just +after Myrtilla's letter about his poems. + +"Well, I'll be frank," said Henry. "I didn't tell you, just because I +feared an unreasonable scene like this--" + +"If there had been nothing in it, there was nothing to fear; and, in +any case, why should she paint pictures for you, if she doesn't care for +you?--No, I'm going. Nothing will persuade me otherwise. Henry, please +let pass, if you're a gentleman--" and poor little Angel's face fairly +flamed. "No power on earth will keep me here--" + +"All right, Angel--" and Henry let her have her way. Her feet echoed +down the stairs, further and further away. She was gone; and Henry spent +that evening in torturingly imagining every kind of accident that might +happen to her on the way home. Every hour he expected to be suddenly +called to look at her dead body--his work. And so the night passed, and +the morning dawned in agony. So went the whole of the next day, for he +could be proud too--and the fault had been hers. + +Thus they sat apart for three days, poles of determined silence. And +then at last, on the evening of the third day, Henry, who was half +beside himself with suspense, heard, with wild thankfulness, once more +the little step in the passage--it seemed fainter, he thought, and +dragged a little, and the knock at the door was like a ghost's. + +There, with a wan smile, Angel stood; and with joy, wordless because +unspeakable, they fell almost like dead things into each other's arms. +For an hour they sat thus, and never spoke a word, only stroking each +other's hands and hair. It was so good for each to know that the other +was alive. It took so long for the stored agony in the nerves to relax. + +"I haven't eaten a morsel since Wednesday," said Angel, at last. + +"Nor I," said Henry. + +"Henry, dear, I'm sorry. I know now I was wrong. I give you my word +never to doubt you again." + +"Thank you, Angel. Don't let us even think of it any more." + +"I couldn't live through it again, darling." + +"But it can never happen any more, can it?" + +"No!--but--if you ever love any woman better than you love me, you'll +tell me, won't you? I could bear that better than to be deceived." + +"Yes, Angel, I promise to tell you." + +"Well, we're really happy again now--are we? I can hardly believe it--" + +"You didn't see me outside your house last night, did you?" + +"Henry!" + +"Yes, I was there. And I watched you carry the light into your bedroom, +and when you came to the window to draw down the blind, I thought you +must have seen me. Yes, I waited and waited, till I saw the light go out +and long after--" + +"Oh, Henry--you do love me then?" + +"And we do know how to hate each other sometimes, don't we, child?" said +Henry, laughing into Angel's eyes, all rainbows and tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +THE END OF A BEGINNING + + +And now blow, all ye trumpets, and, all ye organs, tremble with exultant +sound! Bring forth the harp, and the psaltry, and the sackbut! For the +long winter of waiting is at an end, and Mike is flying north to fetch +his bride. Now are the walls of heaven built four-square, and to-day was +the roof-beam hung with garlands. 'Tis but a small heaven, yet is it big +enough for two,--and Mike is flying north, flying north, through the +midnight, to fetch his bride. + +Henry and the morning meet him at Tyre. Blessings on his little wrinkled +face! The wrinkles are deeper and sweeter by a year's hard work. He has +laughed with them every night for full twelve months, laughed to make +others laugh. To-day he shall laugh for himself alone. The very river +seems glad, and tosses its shaggy waves like a faithful dog; and over +yonder in Sidon, where the sun is building a shrine of gold and pearl, +Esther, sleepless too, all night, waits at a window like the +morning-star. + +Oh, Mike! Mike! Mike! is it you at last? + +Oh, Esther, Esther, is it you? + +Their faces were so bright, as they gazed at each other, that it seemed +they might change to stars and wing together away up into the morning. +Henry snatched one look at the brightness and turned away. + +"She looked like a spirit!" said Mike, as they met again further along +the road. + +"He looked like a little angel," said Esther, as she threw herself into +Dot's sympathetic arms. + +A few miles from Sidon there stood an old church, dim with memories, in +a churchyard mossy with many graves. It was hither some few hours after +that unwonted carriages were driving through the snow of that happy +winter's day. In one of them Esther and Henry were sitting,--Esther +apparelled in--but here the local papers shall speak for us: "The +bride," it said, "was attired in a dress of grey velvet trimmed with +beaver, and a large picturesque hat with feathers to match; she carried +a bouquet of white chrysanthemums and hyacinths." + +"The very earth has put on white to be your bridesmaid!" said Henry, +looking out on the sunlit snow. + +"After all, though, of course, I'm sad in one way," said Esther, more +practical in her felicitations, "I'm glad in another that father +wouldn't give me away. For it was really you who gave me to Mike long +ago; wasn't it?--and so it's only as it should be that you should give +me to him to-day." + +"You'll never forget what we've been to each other?" + +"Don't you know?" + +"Yes, but our love has no organs and presents and prayer-books to bind +it together." + +"Do you think it needs it?" + +"Of course not! But it would be fun for us too some day to have a +marriage. Why should only one kind of love have its marriage ceremony? +When Mike's and your wedding is over, let's tell him that we're going +to send out cards for ours!" + +"All right. What form shall the ceremony take--_Parfait Amour_?" + +"You haven't forgotten?" + +"I shall forget just the second after you--not before--and, no, I won't +be mean, I'll not even forget you then." + +"Kiss me, Esther," said Henry. + +"Kiss me again, Esther," he said. "Do you remember?" + +"The cake and the beating?" + +"Yes, that was our marriage." + + * * * * * + +When all the glory of that happy day hung in crimson low down in the +west, like a chariot of fire in which Mike and Esther were speeding to +their paradise, Henry walked with Angel, homeward through the streets of +Tyre, solemn with sunset. In both that happy day still lived like music +richly dying. + +"Well," said Angel, in words far too practical for such a sunset, "I am +so glad it all went off so well. Poor dear Mrs. Mesurier, how bonny she +looked! And your dear old Aunt Tipping! Fancy her hiding there in +the church--" + +"Of course we'd asked her," said Henry; "but, poor old thing, she +didn't feel grand enough, as she would say, to come publicly." + +"And your poor father! Fancy him coming home for the lunch like that!" + +"After all, it was logical of him," said Henry. "I suppose he had made +up his mind that he would resist as long as it was any use, and after +that--gracefully give in. And he was always fond of Mike." + +"But didn't Esther cry, when he kissed her, and said that, since she'd +chosen Mike, he supposed he must choose him too. And Mike was as good as +crying too?" + +"I think every one was. Poor mother was just a mop." + +"Well, they're nearly home by now, I suppose." + +"Yes, another half-hour or so." + +"Oh, Henry, fancy! How wonderful for them! God bless them. I _am_ glad!" + +"I wonder when we shall get our home," said Henry, presently. + +"Oh, Henry, never mind us! I can't think of any one but them to-day." + +"Well, dear, I didn't mean to be selfish--I was only wondering how +long you'd be willing to wait for me?" + +"Suppose I were to say 'for ever!' Would that make you happy?" + +"Well, I think, dear--I might perhaps arrange things by then." + + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Young Lives, by Richard Le Gallienne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YOUNG LIVES *** + +***** This file should be named 10922.txt or 10922.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/2/10922/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane, Charlie Kirschner and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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