in the fifth chapter of the second part of henry galleon's three magicians there is this passage (the three magicians appeared in 1892):
when he looked at the drydens, father, daughter, and son, he would wonder, as he had often in earlier days wondered, why writers on english character so resolutely persisted in omitting the dryden type from their definitions? these analyses were perhaps too sarcastic, too cynical to include anything as artless, as simple as the dryden character without giving the whole case away . . . and yet it was, he fancied in that very character that the whole strength and splendour of the english spirit persisted. watching cynthia and tony dryden he was reminded of a picture in a fairy-tale book read and loved by him in his youth, now forgotten to the very name of its author, lingering only with a few faded colours of the original illustration. he fancied that it had been a book of danish fairy romances. . . . this picture of which he thought was a landscape—dawn was breaking over a great champigné of country, country that had hills and woods and forests, streams and cottages all laid out in that detailed fancy that, as a child, he had loved so deeply. the sun was rising over the hill; heavy dark clouds were rolling back on to the horizon and everywhere the life of the day, fresh in the sparkling daylight was beginning. the creatures of the night were vanishing; dragons with scaly tails were creeping back reluctantly into their caves, giants were brandishing their iron clubs defiantly for the last time before the rising sun; the hydras and gryphons and five-headed tortoises were slinking into the dusky forests, deep into the waters of the green lakes the slimy three-pronged alligators writhed deep down into the filth that was their proper home.
the flowers were thick on the hills, and in the valleys, the birds sang, butterflies and dragon-flies flashed against the blue, the smoke curled up from the cottage chimneys and over all the world was hung a haze of beauty, of new life and the wonder of the coming day.
in the foreground of this picture were two figures, a girl and[pg 29] a boy, and the painter, clumsy and amateurish, though his art may have been, had with the sincerity and fervour of his own belief put into their eyes all their amazement and wonder at the beauty of this new world.
they saw it all; the dragons and the gryphons, the heavy clouds rolling back above the hill were not hidden from them; that they would return they knew. the acceptance of the whole of life was in their eyes. their joy was in all of it; their youth made them take it all full-handed. . . .
i have thought of them sometimes—i think of the drydens now—as the young enchanted. and it seems to me that england is especially the country of such men and women as these. all the other peoples of the world carry in their souls age and sophistication. they are too old for that sense of enchantment, but in england that wonder that is so far from common sense and yet is the highest kind of common sense in the world has always flourished. it is not imagination; the english have less imagination than any other race, it is not joy of life nor animal spirits, but the child's trust in life before it has grown old enough for life to deceive it. i think adam and eve before the fall were english.
that sense of enchantment remains with the english long after it dies with the men and women of other nations, perhaps because the english have not the imagination to perceive how subtle, how dangerous, how cynical life can be. their art comes straight from their enchantment. the novels of fielding and scott and thackeray and dickens and meredith, the poetry of wordsworth and keats and shelley, the pictures of hogarth and constable and turner. the music of purcell, the characters of nelson and wellington and gordon. . . .
and think what that sense of enchantment might do for them if only their background would change. for generations gone that has not moved. one day when the earthquake comes and the upheaval and all the old landmarks are gone and there is a new world of social disorder and tumbling indecency for their startled gaze to rest upon then you will see what these children of enchantment will do!
so much, for galleon who is already now so shortly after his death looked upon as an old sentimental fogy. sentimental? why certainly. what in the world could be more absurd than his picture of the english gazing wide-eyed at the wonder of life? they of all peoples!
and yet he was no fool. he was a cosmopolitan. he had lived as much in rome, in paris, in vicenza, as in london.[pg 30] and why should i apologize for one of the greatest artists england possesses? other times, other names . . . and you can't catch either henry trenchard or millicent—no, nor peter either—and i venture to say that you cannot catch that strange, restless, broken, romantic, aspiring, adventurous, disappointing, encouraging, enthralling, life-is-just-beginning-at-last period in which they had these adventures simply with the salt of sheer realism—not salt enough for that bird's tail.
i should like to find that little picture of henry galleon's fairy book and place it as a frontispiece to this story. but heaven alone knows where that old book has gone to! it was perhaps galleon's own invention; he was a queer old man and went his own way and had his own fancies, possessions that many writers to-day are chary of keeping because they have been told on so many occasions by so many wise professors that they've got to stick to the truth. truth? who knows what truth may be? platitudinous pilate failed over that question many years ago, and to-day we are certainly as far as ever from an answer. there are a million truths about henry and millicent and the times they lived in. galleon's is at least one of them, and it's the one i've chosen because it happens to be the way i see them. but of course there are others.
"the whole truth and nothing but the truth." what absurdity for any story-teller in the world to think that he can get that—and what arrogance! this book is the truth about these children as near as i can get to it, and the truth about that strange year 1920 in that strange town, london, as faithfully as i can recollect, but it isn't everybody's truth. far from it—and a good thing too.
henry's rooms were at the top of 24 panton street. to get to them you placed a yale key in the lock of an old brown door, brushed your way through a dim passage, climbed a shabby staircase past the doors of the hon. nigel bruce, captain d'arcy sinclair, claude bottome, the singer, and old sir henry bristow, who painted his face and wore stays. this was distinguished company for henry who was at the beginning of his independent life in london, and the knowledge that he was in the very centre of the metropolis, that the comedy theatre was nearly opposite his door and piccadilly only a minute away[pg 31] gratified him so much that he did not object to paying three guineas a week for a small bed-sitting room without breakfast. it was a very small room, just under the roof, and henry who was long and bony spent a good deal of his time in a doubled-up position that was neither aesthetic nor healthy. three guineas a week is twelve pounds twelve shillings a month, and one hundred and fifty-one pounds four shillings a year. he had a hundred and fifty pounds a year of his own, left to him by his old grandfather, and by eager and even optimistic calculation he reckoned that from his literary labours he would earn at least another hundred pounds in his london twelve months. even then, however, he would not have risked these handsome lodgings had he not only a month ago, through the kind services of his priggish brother-in-law, philip mark, obtained a secretaryship with sir charles duncombe, bart., at exactly one hundred and fifty pounds per annum.
with inky fingers and a beating heart he produced this estimate:
￡ s. d.
income from grandfather 150 0 0
literary earnings 100 0 0
sir ronald d. 150 0 0
_____ _____ _____
grand total ￡400 0 0
and against this he set:
￡ s. d.
rooms 163 16 0
food 100 0 0
clothes 50 0 0
etceteras 50 0 0
______ ______ _____
363 16 0
saved in first year in london 36 4 0
there were certain risks about this estimate. for one thing literature might, conceivably, not contribute her hundred pounds quite so completely as he hoped. on the other hand, she might contribute more. . . .
again henry was on trial with sir charles, was going into his service the day after to-morrow for the first time, had never[pg 32] been secretary to any one in his life before, and was not by temperament fitted entirely for work that needed those two most damnable and soul destroying of attributes, accuracy and method. he had seen sir charles only once, and the grim austerity of that gentleman's aristocratic features had not been encouraging.
never mind. it was all enchanting. what was life for if one did not take risks? every one was taking risks, from mr. lloyd george down to (or possibly up to) georges carpentier and mr. dempsey—henry did not wish to be behind the rest.
mr. king, his landlord, had suggested to him that he might possibly be willing to lay a new wall-paper and a handsome rug or carpet. there was no doubt at all that the room needed these things; the wall-paper had once been green, was now in many places yellow and gave an exact account of the precise spots where the sporting prints of the last tenant (young nigel frost bellingham) had hung. the carpet, red many years ago, resembled nothing so much as a map of europe with lakes, rivers, hills, and valleys clearly defined in grey and brown outline. henry explained to mr. king that he would wish to wait for a month or two to see how his fortunes progressed before he made further purchases, upon which mr. king, staring just over henry's shoulder at the green wall-paper, remarked that it was usual for gentlemen to pay a month's rent in advance, upon which henry, blushing, suggested that an improvement in his fortunes was perfectly certain and that he was private secretary to sir charles duncombe, bart., of whom mr. king had doubtless heard. mr. king, bowing his head as of one who would say that there was no baronet in the united kingdom of whom he had not heard, nevertheless regretted that the rule concerning the month's rent was constant, unchanging and could, in no circumstances whatever, be altered.
this mr. king was little in stature, but great in demeanour. his head was bald save for a few black hairs very carefully arranged upon it, as specimens are laid out in the natural history museum. his face also was bald, in the strictest sense of the word; that is, not only did no hairs grow upon it[pg 33] but it seemed impossible that any hairs ever had grown upon it. his eyes were sharp, his mouth deprecating and his chin insignificant. he wore, it seemed, the same suit of black, the same black tie, the same stiff white shirt from year's end to year's end. he showed no human emotion whether of anger, regret, disappointment, expectation or sorrow.
he told no jolly stories of other tenants nor of life about town such as henry would have liked him to tell. he had, henry was sure, a great contempt for henry. he was not, from any point of view, a lovable human being.
henry did what he could for his room, he was proud of it, felt very kindly towards it and wanted to clothe it with beauty. it is difficult, however, to make a room beautiful unless the wall-paper and the carpet contribute something. henry had a nice writing-table that his uncle timothy had given him, a gate-legged table from his sister katherine and a fine regency bookcase stolen by him from his westminster home. he had three pictures, a japanese print, a copy of mr. belcher's drawing of pat o'keefe, "the wild irishman," and a little water-colour by lovat frazer of a king and queen marching into a banquet-hall and attended by their courtiers. this last, splendid in gold and blue, green and red was the joy of henry's heart and had been given him by his sister millicent on his last birthday.
in the bookcase there were, on the whole, the books that you would expect—the poems of swinburne, dowson, and baudelaire, some of the 1890 novelists and one or two moderns. but he was also beginning to collect a few rare editions, and he had clarissa and the mysteries of udulpho and the monk in their original bindings, and an early pilgrim's progress, a rather rare donne and a second vicar of wakefield. these were his greatest treasures. he had only two photographs in his room—his sisters and that of his greatest and perhaps his only friend. these stood one on either side of the very plain alarm-clock that took the middle of the mantelpiece.
henry, as he sat on his bed, looking before him out of the little window across to the corner gables of the comedy theatre, appeared very much the same crude and callow youth that he had seemed on going up to oxford just before the war.
[pg 34]
he had not yet caught up to his size which had leapt ahead of his years when he was about sixteen. he was still long, lean, and untidy, his black hair refusing any kind of control, his complexion poor with a suspicion of incipient pimple, his ears too red, his hands never quite clean. the same and yet not at all the same.
the hint of beauty that there had been when he was nineteen in the eyes and mouth and carriage of neck and shoulders was now, when he was twenty-six, more clearly emphasized. at first sight henry seemed an untidy and rather uncleanly youth; look again and you would see quite clearly that he would be, one day, a distinguished man. his untidiness, the way that his trousers bagged at the knee, that he carried, like some knight with his lady's favour, the inevitable patch of white on his sleeve, that his boots were not rightly laced and his socks not sufficiently "suspended"—these things only indicated that he was in the last division of the intermediate class, between youth and manhood.
the war had very nearly made him a man, and had not the authorities discovered, after his first wound in 1915, that he was quite hopeless in command of other men but not at all a fool at intelligence he would have been a man complete by this time. the war smartened him a little but not very much, and the moment he was free he slipped back into his old ways and his old customs with a sigh of relief.
but there again not entirely. like his cousin john, who was killed in galicia in 1915, stretcher-bearing for the russians, he was awkward in body but clean in soul. the war had only emphasized something in him that was there before it, and the year and a half that he spent with his family in the westminster house after the armistice was the most terrible time of his life. no one knew what to do with him. his mother had had a stroke in the spring of 1917 and now lay like a corpse at the top of the old house, watching, listening, suffering an agony of rebellion in her proud and obstinate soul. with her influence gone, his grandfather and his great-aunt sarah dead, his two aunts betty and anne living in the country down at walton-on-thames, his father more and more living his own life in his study, his sister katherine married and involved now entirely[pg 35] in her own affairs, henry felt the big house a mausoleum of all his hopes and ambitions. return to oxford he would not. strike out and live on his one hundred and fifty pounds he would at the first possible moment, but one thing after another prevented him. he remained in that grim and chilly house mainly because of his sister millicent, whom he loved with all his heart and soul, and for whom he would do anything in the world.
she also had a little money of her own, but the striking out was a little difficult for her. her father and mother, all the relations said, needed her, and it wanted all the year and a half to prove to the relations that this was not so. her father scarcely saw her except at breakfast and, although he regarded her with a kindly patronage, he preferred greatly his books, his club, and his daily newspaper. her mother did not need her at all, having been angered before the war at the action that millie took in the great family quarrel of katherine v. mrs. trenchard, and being now completely under the control of a hard and tyrannical woman, nurse bennett, whose word now was law in the house, whose slightest look was a command.
millicent and henry determined that when they escaped it should be together. millicent had her own plans, and after some months of mysterious advertising in the newspaper, of interviews and secret correspondences, she secured the post of secretary companion to a certain miss victoria platt who lived at 85 cromwell road, kensington. at the very same time philip found for henry the secretaryship of which i have already spoken. they escaped then together—millicent to rooms at the top of baker street that she shared with a girl friend, mary cass, and henry to the hospitality of mr. king. their engagements also were to begin together, millicent going to miss platt for the first time on the morning after the day of which i am writing, henry to go to his baronet on the day after that.
they were beginning the world together. there was surely a fine omen in that. apart they would do great things—but, together, was there anything they could not do?
at 7.15 that evening, bathed in the blue dusk that filtered[pg 36] in through the little attic window henry was sitting on his bed staring, wide-eyed, in front of him.
at 8.15 on that same evening, hidden now by the purple shades of night he was still sitting there, his mouth open, staring in front of him. it is desperately platitudinous—it is also desperately true, that there is no falling in love like the first falling in love. and henry was fortunate in this—that he had fallen in love for the first time at a comparatively ripe age. to some it is the governess or the music-master, to some even the nurse or the gardener's boy. but henry had in the absolute truth of the absolute word never been in love before to-night.
he had loved—yes. first his mother, then his sister katherine, then his sister millicent, then his friend westcott. these affections had been loyal and true and profound but they had been of the heart and the brain, and for true love the lust of the flesh must be added to the lust of the mind and the heart.
he had tumbled in then, to-day, head foremost, right in, with all his hero-worship, his adoration, his ignorance, his purity, his trust and confidence, fresh, clean, unsullied to offer as acceptable gifts. he could not, sitting on his bed, think it out clearly at all. he could only see everything in a rosy mist and in the heart of the mist a flaming feather, and piccadilly boiling and bubbling and mrs. tenssen with her bright green dress and the stable-yard and the teapot with the flowers and there—somewhere behind these things—that girl with her fair hair, her unhappy gaze beyond him, far far beyond him, into worlds that were not as yet his but that one day might be. and with all this his heart pounding in a strange suffocating manner, his eyes burning, his throat choking, his brain refusing to bring before him two connected thoughts.
at last, when st. james's church struck half-past eight a thought did penetrate.
he had promised to go to the hunters' evening party. never less did he want to go to a party than to-night. he would wish to continue to sit on his bed and study the rosy mist. "i will sit here," he said, "and perhaps soon the face will come to me just as it was. i can't see it now, but if i wait. . . ." then he had cramp in his leg and the sudden jerk shot him from the bed and forced him to stand in the middle of the floor in an[pg 37] extraordinary attitude with one leg stiff and the other bent as though he were nijinsky practising for the "spectre de la rose."
the shock of his agony drove him to consider two very good reasons for going to the hunters' party. one was material—namely, that he had had nothing to eat since mrs. tenssen's pink cake, that he was very hungry in spite of his love and that there would be free sandwiches at the hunters. the other reason was a better one—namely, that it was possible that his friend westcott would be there and to westcott, above all human beings, save only millicent, he wished to confide the history of his adventure.
concerning his friendship with westcott a word must be said. about a year ago at the house of a friend of philip's he had been introduced to a thick-set saturnine man who had been sitting by himself in a corner and appearing entirely bored with the evening's proceedings. his host had thrown henry at this unattractive guest's head as though he would say: "i dare not offer up any of my more important guests to this cerberus of a fellow, but here's a young ass who doesn't matter and i don't care whether his feelings are hurt or no." henry himself was at this time cultivating a supercilious air in public, partly from shyness and partly because he did not wish to reveal how deeply pleased he was at being invited to parties. he liked at once westcott's broad shoulders, close-cropped hair and nonchalant attitude. the first ten minutes of their conversation was not a success, and then henry discovered that westcott had, in the days of his youth, actually known, spoken to, had tea with the god of his, henry's, idolatry, henry galleon. westcott was perhaps touched by young henry's ingenuous delight, his eager questions, his complete forgetfulness of himself and his surroundings at this piece of information. he in his turn launched out and talked of the london of fifteen years ago and of the heroes of that time, a time that the war had made historic, curious, picturesque, a time that was already older than crinolines, almost as romantic as the regency. their host left them together for the remainder of the evening, feeling that he had most skilfully killed two dull birds with one stone. they departed together, walked from hyde park corner together and[pg 38] by the time that they parted were already friends. that friendship had held firm throughout the succeeding year. as a friendship it was good for both of them. westcott was very lonely and too proud to go out and draw men in. henry needed just such an influence as westcott's, the influence of a man who had known life at its hardest and bitterest, who had come through betrayal, disappointed ambition, poverty and loneliness without losing his courage and belief in life, a man whose heart was still warm towards his fellowmen although he kept it guarded now lest he should too easily be again betrayed.
there was no need to keep it guarded from henry whose transparent honesty could not be mistaken. henry restored something of westcott's lost confidence in himself. henry believed profoundly in what he insisted on calling westcott's "genius," and that even the simplest soul on earth should believe in us gives some support to our doubting hopes and wavering ambitions. henry admitted quite frankly to westcott that he had not heard of him before he met him. peter's novels—reuben hallard, the stone house, mortimer stant and two others—had been before henry's time and the little stir that reuben had made had not penetrated the thick indifference of his school-days. westcott was not at all sensitive to this ignorance. before the war he had broken entirely with the literary life and his five years' war service abroad had not encouraged him to renew that intimacy. he had had hard starving days since the armistice and had been driven back almost against his will to some reviewing and writing of articles.
all men had not forgotten him he discovered with a strange dim pleasure that beat like a regret deep into his soul—the younger men especially because he had been a commercial failure were inclined to believe that he had been an artistic success. mysterious allusions were made in strange new variegated publications to reuben hallard and mortimer stant.
he began to review regularly for the athen?um and the new statesman, and he did some dramatic criticism for the nation. he soon found to his own surprise that he was making income enough to live without anxiety in two small rooms in the marylebone high street, where he was cared for by a kindly widow, mrs. sunning, who found that he resembled her son[pg 39] who was killed in the war and therefore adored him. even, against his will, all his hopes, there were faint stirrings of a novel in his brain. he did not wish to revive that ambition again, but the thing would come and settle there and stir a little and grow day by day, night by night, in spite of his reluctance and even hostility.
perhaps in this henry had some responsibility. henry was so sure that peter had only to begin again and the world would be at his feet. one night, the two of them sitting over a small grumbling fire in the coventry street attic, peter spoke a little in detail of his book.
after that henry never left him alone. the book was born now in henry's brain as well as in peter's; it knew its own power and that its time would come.
peter had by no means confided all his life's history to henry. the boy only knew that there had been a great tragedy, that westcott was married but did not know where his wife was or even whether she were still alive. of all this he spoke to no man.
gabriel hunter was a painter of the new and extravagant kind; his wife wore bobbed hair, wrote poetry and cultivated a little salon in barton street, westminster, where they lived.
the hunters were poor and their house was very small and quite a small number of people caused it to overflow, but to henry during the last year the hunter gatherings had stood to him for everything in life that was worth while. it was one of his real griefs that millicent wouldn't go to that house, declaring that she hated the new poets and the new painters and the new novelists, that she liked tennyson and trollope and john everett millais and that as soon as she had a house of her own she was going to collect wax flowers and fruit and horsehair sofas. she said many of these things to irritate henry and irritate him she did, being able to separate him from his very volcanic temper within the space of two minutes if she tried hard enough.
on every other occasion going to the hunter's had been synonymous to henry with going to paradise. to-night for the first time it seemed to be simply going to westminster. at last, however, hunger drove him, and at a quarter-past nine he[pg 40] found himself in the hunters' little hall, all painted green with red stripes and a curtain covered with purple bananas and bright crimson oranges hanging in front of the kitchen stairs.
the noise above was deafening and had that peculiarly shrill sound which the new literature seems to carry with it in its train, just as a new baby enjoys its new rattle. when henry peered into the little drawing-room he could see very little because of the smoke. the scene outlined from the doorway must have seemed to an unprepared stranger to resemble nothing so much as a little study in the inferno painted by one of the younger artists. behind and through the smoke there were visions of a wall of bright orange and curtains of a brilliant purple. on the mantelpiece staring through the room and grinning malevolently was the cast of a negro's head.
a large globe hanging from the ceiling concealed the electric light behind patterns of every conceivable colour. the guests were sitting on the floor, on a crimson sofa, and standing against the wall. henry soon discovered that to-night's was a very representative gathering.
standing just inside the door he felt for the first time in the hunters' house perfectly detached from the whole affair. always before he had loved the sensation of plunging in, of that sudden immersion in light and colour and noise, of swimming with all the others towards some ideally fantastic island of culture that would be entirely, triumphantly their own. but to-night the intense personal experience that he had just passed through kept him apart, led him to criticize and inspect as though he were a visitor from another planet. was that in itself a criticism of the whole world of art and literature proving to him that that must always crumble before real life, or was it simply a criticism of some of the crudity and newness of this especial gathering? peering through the smoke and relieved that no one appeared to take the slightest notice of him, he saw that this was indeed a representative gathering because all the three graces were here together. never before had he seen them all at one time in the same place. whether it were because of the exhaustion that five years' war had entailed upon the men of the country or simply that the complete emancipation of women during the last decade had brought many new positions within women's[pg 41] power it was certain that just at this period, that is at the beginning of 1920, much of the contemporary judgement on art and letters was delivered by women—and in letters by three women especially, miss talbot, miss jane ross and miss martha proctor. these three ladies had certain attributes in common—a healthy and invigorating contempt for the abilities of the opposite sex, a sure and certain confidence in their own powers and a love of novelty and originality. miss talbot, seated now upon the red sofa, was the reviewer of fiction in the planet. she was the most feminine of the three, slight in stature, fair-haired and blue-eyed, languid and even timid in appearance. her timidity was a disguise; week after week did she destroy the novels before her, adroitly, dispassionately and with a fine disregard for the humaner feelings. in her there burnt, however, a truer and finer love of literature than either jane ross or martha proctor would ever know. she had ever before her young vision her picture of the perfect novel, and week after week she showed her scorn in italicized staccato prose for the poor specimens that so brazenly ventured to interfere between her vision and herself.
had she her way no novelist alive should remain ungoaded, so vile a sin had he committed in thus with his soiled and clumsy fingers desecrating the power, beauty and wisdom of an impossible ideal.
meanwhile she made a very good income out of her unending disappointment.
far other jane ross.
jane ross was plain, pasty-faced, hook-nosed, squat-figured, beetle-browed, and she was the cleverest journalist at that time alive in england. originally, ten years ago when she came from the midlands with a penny in her pocket and a determination to make her way, it may have been that she cared for literature with a passion as pure and undeviating as grace talbot's own. but great success, a surprised discovery of men's weakness and sloth, a talent for epigrams unequalled by any of her contemporaries had led her to sacrifice all her permanent standards for temporary brilliance. she was also something of a cat, being possessed suddenly to her own discontent by little personal animosities and grievances that she might have con[pg 42]trolled quite easily had not her tongue so brilliantly led her away. she had, deep down in her soul, noble intentions, but the daily pettinesses of life were too strong fer her; she won all her battles so easily that she did not perceive that she was meanwhile losing the only battle that really mattered. as her journalism grew more and more brilliant her real influence grew less and less. when her brain was inactive her heart, suddenly released, could be wonderfully kind. a little more stupidity and she would have been a real power.
for both grace talbot and jane ross the new thing was the only thing that mattered. when you listened to them, or read them you would suppose that printing had been discovered for the first time somewhere about 1890 and in manchester. martha proctor, less brilliant than the other two, had a wider culture than either of them. the first glance at her told you that she was a journalist, tall, straight-backed, her black hair brushed back from a high forehead, dressed in tweeds, stiff white collars, and cuffs, wearing pince-nez, she seemed to have nothing to do with the prevalent fashion. and she had not. older than the other two she had come in with the yellow book and promised to go out with universal suffrage. she had fought her battles; in politics her finest time had been in the years just before the war when she had bitten a policeman's leg in whitehall and broken a shop-window in bond street with her little hammer. in literature her great period had been during the romantic tushery of 1895 to 1905. how she had torn and scarified the kailyard novelists, how the cloak and sword romances had bled beneath her whip. now none of these remained and the modern realism had gone far beyond her most confident anticipations. she knew in her heart that her day was over; there was even, deep down within her, a faint alarm at the times that were coming upon the world. she knew that she seemed old-fashioned to jane ross and her only comfort was that in ten years' time jane ross would undoubtedly in her turn seem old-fashioned to somebody else. because her horizon was wider than that of her two companions she was able to judge in finer proportion than they. fashions passed, men died, kingdoms fell. what re[pg 43]mained? not, as she had once fondly imagined, martha proctor.
two children and a cottage in the country might after all be worth more than literary criticism. she was beginning to wonder about many things for the first time in her life. . . .
i have outlined these ladies in some detail because for the past year and a half henry had worshipped at their shrines. how he had revelled in grace talbot's cynical judgments, in jane ross's epigrams, in martha proctor's measured comparisons! to-night for the first time a new vision was upon him. he could only see them, as he stared at them through the smoke, with physical eyes—grace talbot's languid indifference, white hands and faint blue eyes. jane ross's sallow complexion and crinkled black hair; martha proctor's pince-nez and large brown boots.
then, as his short-sighted eyes penetrated yet more clearly he saw—— could it be? indeed it was. his heart beat quickly. there seated uncomfortably upon an orange chair from heal's was no less a person than the great k. wiggs himself. henry had seen him on two other occasions, had once indeed spoken to him.
that earlier glorious moment was strong with him now, the thrill of it, the almost passionate excitement of touching that small podgy hand, the very hand that had written mr. whippet and old cain and abel and the slumber family.
what then to-night had happened to henry? why was it that with every longing to recover that earlier thrill he could not? why was it that again, as just now with the three graces, he could see only mr. wiggs's physical presence and nothing at all of his splendid and aspiring soul? mr. wiggs certainly did not look his best on an orange chair with a stiff back.
and then surely he had fattened and coarsened, even since henry's last vision of him? his squat figure perched on the chair, his little fat legs crossed, his bulging stomach, his two chins, his ragged moustache, his eyes coloured a faint purple, his thin whispy hair—these things did not speak for beauty. nor did the voice that penetrated through the clamour to[pg 44] henry's corner, with its shrill piping clamour, give full reassurance.
it was not, no alas, it was not the voice of a just soul; there was, moreover, a snuffle behind the pipe—that spoke of adenoids—it is very hard to reconcile adenoids with greatness.
and yet wiggs was a great man! you knew that if only by the virulence with which certain sections of the press attacked him whenever he made a public appearance.
he was a great man. he is a great man. henry repeated the words over to himself with a desperate determination to recover the earlier rapture. he had written great books; he was even then writing them. he was, as henry knew, a kindly man, a generous man, a man with noble and generous ambitions, a man honest in his resolves and courageous in his utterances. why then did he look like that and why was henry so stupidly conscious of his body and of his body only? could it be that the adventure of the afternoon had filled his young soul with so high and splendid an ideal of beauty that everything else in the world was sordid and ugly? he moved restlessly. he did not want to think life sordid and ugly. but was this life? or at any rate was it not simply a very, very small part of life? was he moving at last from a small ante-room into a large and spacious chamber? (i have said before that picturesque images occurred to him with the utmost frequency.)
he caught fragments of conversation. a lady quite close to him was saying—"but there's no form in the thing—no form at all. he hadn't thought the thing out—it's all just anyhow. . . ."
somewhere else he heard a man's deep bass voice—"oh, he's no good. he'll always be an amateur. of course it's obvious you miss truth the moment you go outside the narrator's brain. now truth . . ."
and wigg's shrill pipe—"ow, no. that isn't history. that's fable. what do facts matter?"
there was a little stir by the door. henry turned and found peter westcott standing at his side.
he was instantly delighted to perceive that the change that had crept over him since the afternoon did not include peter.[pg 45] his feeling for peter was the same that it had ever been, intensified if possible. he loved peter as he stood there, strong, apart, independent, resolute. that was the kind of independence that henry himself must achieve so that he would not be swayed by every little emotional and critical wind that blew.
"hallo, peter," he said, "i was looking for you."
"you haven't been looking very hard," said peter. "i've been here a long time."
"there's so much smoke," said henry.
"yes, there is. and i've had enough of it. and i'm going."
"i'm going too," said henry. "mrs. hunter has looked at me twice and i don't believe that she's the least idea who i am."
"you're going?" said westcott astonished. "why, you love these parties. i expected you to be here all night."
"i don't love it to-night," said henry solemnly. "it all seems silly. let's go."
they went down into the hall, found their coats and passed into the serenity and peace of barton street.
"do you mind walking a bit?" asked henry.
"as a matter of fact," said westcott, "i'm going to walk all the way home. i'll take you up through coventry street if you like and drop you at your palace."
"i only went there to-night to see you," said henry. "i've got something very important to tell you."
they walked in silence into whitehall. henry found it difficult to begin and westcott never spoke unless he had something that he really wanted to say—a reason sufficient for the reputation of sulkiness that many people gave him. the beauty of the night too kept them silent. after that hot, over-coloured room london was like some vast, gently moving lake upon whose bosom floated towers and lamps and swinging barges—myriads of stars were faint behind a spring mist that veiled, revealed and veiled again an orange moon.
only the towers of the houses of parliament were sharp and distinct and they too seemed to move with the gentle rhythm as though they were the bulwarks of some giant ship sailing towards some certain destination.
so quiet was the world that all life seemed to be hypnotized into wondering expectation.
[pg 46]
"well now, henry, what is it?" asked peter at last.
"it's the most extraordinary thing," said henry. "i suppose you'll laugh at me. anybody would. but i just couldn't help myself. it didn't seem like myself doing it."
"doing what?"
"why, before i knew i was following them. and i hadn't any reason to follow them. that's the funny thing. only i'd just fallen down."
peter turned upon him. "for god's sake, henry, get it straight, whom were you following and where? and where did you fall down?"
"in piccadilly circus. i was just staring around and some one pushed me and i fell on to my knees and when i'd picked myself up again they'd got half-way across——"
"they? who?"
"why the woman and her daughter. at least of course i didn't know she was her daughter then. it was only afterwards——"
peter was irritable. "look here, if you don't straighten everything out and tell me it all quite simply from the beginning with names and dates and everything i leave you instantly and never see you again."
henry tried again and, staring in front of him so that he stumbled and walked like a man in a dream, he recovered it all, seeing freshly as though he were acting in it once more and giving it to westcott with such vivid drama that they had arrived outside the door in panton street as though they had been carried there on a magic carpet. "and after that," finished henry, "i just came home and i've been thinking about her ever since."
the street was very quiet. within the theatre rows and rows of human beings were at that moment sitting, their mouths open and their knees pressed together while "the ruined lady" went through incredible antics for their benefit. outside the theatre a few cars were standing, a man or two lounged against the wall, and the stars and the orange moon released now from their entangling mist, shone like lights through a tattered awning down upon the glassy surface of the street. peter put his hand upon henry's shoulder; the boy was trembling.
[pg 47]
"take my advice," he said, "and drop it."
"what do you mean?" asked henry fiercely.
"of course you won't follow my advice, but i'm older than you are. you asked me to advise you and i'm going to. don't you see what those two women are? if you don't you're even more of an ass than i know you to be."
"what do you mean?" said henry again.
"well, just ask yourself, what kind of a woman is it who when a strange man bursts in through her window smiles and asks him to tea?"
"if she's like that," said henry angrily, "then all the more i've got to get the girl out of it."
peter shrugged his shoulders, "i bet the girl knows what she's about," he said.
henry laughed scornfully. "that's the worst of you, peter," he said. "you're a cynic. you don't believe in anybody or in anything. you always see things at their worst."
peter smiled. "that's as may be," he said. "i believe in you anyway. you know quite well that if you get in a mess i've got to pull you out of it. i'm only warning you. if you like, i'll go with you next time and see the girl."
henry looked up at the moon. "i know i'm an ass about some things," he said. "but i'm not an ass about this. i'll save her if i die for it."
peter was touched.
"you're bewitched," he said, "i was once. i don't want to wake you up. the only trouble with these things is that the enchantment doesn't last but the things we do under the enchantment do.
"however, it's better to have been enchanted, whatever comes of it, than never to have been enchanted at all. will you promise me one thing?"
"what's that?" asked henry.
"to tell me everything, exactly, truthfully."
"yes, if you don't laugh at me."
"no, i won't—unless you can laugh as well. but you're going to get into a mess over this as sure as you're henry trenchard, and if i don't know all about it, i shan't be able to help you when the time comes that you need me."
[pg 48]
"i'll tell you everything," said henry fervently.
"when do you go to your old baronet?"
"the day after to-morrow."
"well, i'll come in and see you here that afternoon about five and get your news. is that all right?"
"yes," said henry. "isn't it a wonderful night? i think i'll walk about a bit."
"you're going to look up at her window?"
henry blushed, a thing he did very easily. "you can't see her window from the street," he said. "it's quite true i might go round that way."
westcott went off laughing. the moon and henry were left alone together.
