meanwhile henry's plunge into a cold and hostile world was of quite another kind.
one of the deep differences between brother and sister was that while millie was realistic henry was romantic. he could not help but see things in a coloured light, and now when he started out for his first morning with his baronet london was all lit up like a birthday cake. he had fallen during the last year under the spell of the very newest of the vers librists, and it had become a passion with him to find fantastic images for everything that he saw. moreover, the ease of it all fascinated him. he was, god knows, no poet, but quite simply, without any trouble at all, lines came tumbling into his head:
the chimneys, like crimson cockatoos, fling their grey feathers wildly.
or
the washing billowing— frozen egg-shells crimson pantaloons skyline flutter.
or
the omnibuses herd together in the dirty autumn weather elephants in jungle town monkey-nuts come pattering down.
and so on and so on. . . .
[pg 65]
he got deep pleasure from these inspirations; he had sent three to an annual anthology hoops, and one of them, "railway-lines—bucket-shop," was to appear in the 1920 volume.
but the trouble with henry was that cheek by jowl with this modern up-to-date impulse ran a streak of real old-fashioned, entirely out-of-date romance. it was true, as millie had informed miss platt, that he had written ten chapters of a story, the house in the lonely wood.
how desperately was he ashamed of his impulse to write this romance and yet how at the same time he loved doing it! was ever young literary genius in a more shameful plight! a true case of double personality! with the day he pursued the path of all the young 1920 realists, believing that nothing matters but "the truth, the calm, cold, unaffected truth," thrilling to the voices of the three graces, loving the company of the somewhat youthful editor of hoops, reading every word that fell from the pen of the younger realistic critics.
and then at night out came the other personality and henry, hair on end, the penny bottle of ink in front of him, pursued, alas happily and with the divine shining behind his eyelids, the simple path of unadulterated, unashamed romance!
what would the three graces say, how would the editor of hoops regard him, did they know what he did night after night in the secrecy of his own chamber, or rather of mr. king's chamber? perhaps they would not greatly care—they did not in any case consider him as of any very real importance. nevertheless he could not but feel that he was treating them to double-dealing.
and then his trouble was suddenly healed by the amazing, overwhelming adventure of piccadilly circus. as he had discovered at the hunters' party, nothing now mattered but the outcome of that adventure. he worked at his romance with redoubled vigour; it did not seem to him any longer a shameful affair, simply because he had now in his own experience a romance greater and wilder than any fancy could give him. also images and similes occurred to him more swiftly than ever, and they were no longer modern, no longer had any connection with hoops or the new critics, but were simply the attempts that his own soul was making to clothe her and everything about her, even her horrible mother, with all the beauty and colour that his genius could provide. (henry did not[pg 66] really, at this time, doubt that he had genius—the doubting time was later.)
it will be seen then that he started for sir charles duncombe's house in a very romantic spirit.
the address was no. 13 hill street, berkeley square, so that henry had a very little way to go from his panton street room. hill street is a bright, cheerful place enough with a sense of dignity and age about it and a consciousness that it knows only the very best people. even the pillar-boxes and the lamp-posts call for decorum and are accustomed, you can see, to butlers, footmen and very superior ladies'-maids. but it cannot be denied that many of the hill street houses are dark inside and no. 13 is no exception to that rule. unlike most of the hill street houses which all often change masters, no. 13 had been in the possession of the duncombe family for a great many years, ever since the days of queen anne, in fact, the days of the famous richard duncombe who, being both the most desperate gambler and the astutest brain for a bargain in all london, made and lost fortunes with the greatest frequency.
henry on this first morning knew nothing about the family history of the duncombes, but if he had known he might have readily believed that so far as the hall and the butler went no change whatever had been made since those elegant polished queen anne days. the hall was so dark and the butler so old that henry dared neither to move, lest he should fall over something, nor to speak lest it should seem irreverent. he stood, therefore, rooted to the stone floor and muttered something so inaudibly that the old man courteously waiting could not hear at all.
"henry trenchard," he said at last, looking wildly about him. how the cold seemed to strike up through the stone flags into his very marrow!
"quite so, sir," said the old man. "sir charles is expecting you."
up an enormous stone staircase they went, henry's boots making a great clatter, his teeth against his will chattering. portraits looked down upon him, but so dark it was that you could only catch a glimmer of their old gold frames.
[pg 67]
to henry, modern though he might endeavour to be, there would recur persistently that picture—the most romantic picture perhaps in all his childish picture-gallery—of alan fairford, sick and ill, dragged by nanty ewart through the dying avenues of fairladies, having at long last that interview with the imperious father bonaventure in the long gallery of the crumbling house—the interview, the secret letter, the mysterious lady "whose step was that of a queen." "whose neck and bosom were admirably formed, and of a dazzling whiteness"—the words still echoed in henry's heart calling from that far day when a tiny boy in his attic at garth he read by the light of a dipping candle the history of redgauntlet from a yellowing closely-printed page.
here, in the very heart of london was fairladies once again and who could tell? . . . might not the spring in the wall be touched, a bookcase step aside and a lady, "her neck and bosom of a startling whiteness," appear? for shame! he had now his own lady. the time had gone by for dreams. he came to reality with a start, finding himself in a long dusky library so thickly embedded with old books that the air was scented with the crushed aroma of old leather bindings. a long oak table confronted him and behind the table, busily engaged with writing, was his new master.
the old man muttered something and was gone. sir charles did not look up and henry, his heart beating fast, was able to study his surroundings. the library was all that the most romantic soul could have wished it. the ceiling was high and stamped with a gold pattern. a gallery about seven feet from the ground ran round the room, and a little stairway climbed up to this; except for their high diamond-paned windows on one side of the room the bookcases completely covered the walls; thousands upon thousands of old books glimmered behind their gold tooling, the gold running like a thin mist from wall to wall.
above the wide stone fireplace there was a bust of a sharp-nosed gentleman in whig and stock, very supercilious and a little dusty.
with all this henry also took surreptitious peeps at sir charles, and what he saw did not greatly reassure him. he[pg 68] was a very thin man, dressed in deep black and a high white collar that would in other days have been called gladstonian, bald, tight-lipped and with the same peaked bird-like nose as the gentleman above the fireplace. he gave an impression of perfect cleanness, neatness and order. everything on the table, letter-weight, reference-books, paper knife, silver ink-bottle, pens and sealing-wax, was arranged so definitely that these things might have been stuck on to the table with glue. sir charles's hands were long, thin and bird-shaped like his nose. henry, as he snatched glimpses of this awe-inspiring figure, was acutely conscious of his own deficiencies; he felt tumbled, rumpled, and crumpled. whereas, only a quarter of an hour ago walking down hill street, he had felt debonair, smart and fashionable (far of course from what he really was), so unhappily impressionable was he.
suddenly the hand was raised, the pen laid carefully down, the nose shot out across the table.
"you are mr. trenchard?" asked a voice that made henry feel as though he were a stiff sheet of paper being slowly cut by a very sharp knife.
"yes, sir," he said.
"very well. . . . we have only corresponded hitherto. mr. mark is your cousin, i think?"
"my brother-in-law, sir."
"quite. a very able fellow. he should go far."
henry had never cared for philip who, in his own private opinion, should have never gone any distance at all, but on the present occasion he could only offer up a very ineffective "yes."
"very well. you have never been anybody's secretary before?"
"no, sir."
"and you understand that i am giving you a month's trial entirely on your brother-in-law's recommendation?"
"yes, sir."
"and what"—here the nose shot out and forward in most alarming fashion—"do you understand a secretary's duties to be?"
henry smiled rather to give himself confidence than for any[pg 69] other very definite reason. "well, sir, i should say that you would want to me to write letters to your dictation and keep your papers in order and, perhaps, to interview people whom you don't wish to see yourself and—and,—possibly to entrust me with missions of importance."
"hum. . . . quite. . . . i understand that you can typewrite and that you know shorthand?"
"well, sir"—here henry smiled again—"i think i had better be frank with you from the beginning. i don't typewrite very well. i told philip not to lay much emphasis on that. and my shorthand is pretty quick, but i can't generally read it afterwards."
"indeed! and would you mind telling me why, with these deficiencies, you fancied that you would make me a good secretary?"
henry's heart sank. he saw himself within the next five minutes politely ushered down the stone staircase, through the front door and so out into hill street.
"i don't think," he said, "that i will make you a very good secretary, not in the accepted sense. i know that i shall make mistakes and be clumsy and forgetful, but i will do my very best and you can trust me, and—i am really not such a fool as i often look."
these were the very last words that henry had intended to say. it was as though some one else had spoken them for him. now he had ruined his chances. there was nothing for it but to accept his dismissal and go.
however, sir charles seemed to take it all as the most natural thing in the world.
"quite," he said. "your brother-in-law tells me that you are an author."
"i'm not exactly one yet," said henry. "i hope to be one soon, but of course the war threw me back."
"and what kind of an author do you intend to be?"
"i mean to be a novelist," said henry, feeling quite sure that this was the very last thing that sir charles would ever consider any one ought to be.
"exactly. and you will i suppose be doing your own work when you ought to be doing mine?"
[pg 70]
"no, i won't," said henry eagerly. "i can't pretend that i won't sometimes be thinking of it. it's very hard to keep it out of one's head sometimes. but i'll do my best not to."
"quite. . . . won't you sit down?" henry sat down on a stiff-backed chair.
"if you will kindly listen i will explain to you what i shall wish you to do for me. as you have truly suggested i shall need some help with my letters; some typing also will be necessary. but the main work i have in hand for you is another matter. my grandfather, ronald duncombe, was a writer to the signet in edinburgh during the first thirty years of the nineteenth century. he was a great letter-writer, and knew all the most interesting personalities of his time. you, doubtless, like all the new generation, despise your parents and laugh at your grandparents." sir charles paused here as though he expected an answer to a question.
"oh no," said henry hurriedly. "my grandfather's dead—he died a few years ago—but he was a very fine old man indeed. we all thought a great deal of him."
"i'm glad to hear it. that will make you perhaps the more sympathetic to this work that i have for you. there are several black boxes in the cupboard over there filled with letters. walter scott was an intimate friend of his—of course, you despise walter scott?"
"oh, no," said henry fervently, "i don't, i assure you."
"hum. quite. when one of you young men writes something better than he did i'll begin to read you. not before."
"no," said henry, who nevertheless longed to ask sir charles how he knew that the young men of to-day did not write better seeing that he never read them.
"in those boxes there are letters from byron and wordsworth and crabbe and hogg and many other great men of the time. there are also many letters of no importance. i intend to edit my grandfather's letters and i wish you to prepare them for me."
"yes," said henry.
"i wish you to be here punctually at nine every morning. i may say that i consider punctuality of great importance. you will help me with my own correspondence until ten-thirty;[pg 71] from ten-thirty until one you will be engaged on my grandfather's letters. my sister will be very glad that you should have luncheon with us whenever you care to. i shall not generally require you in the afternoon, but sometimes i shall expect you to remain here all day. i shall wish you always to be free to do so when i need you."
"yes, sir," said henry.
"sometimes i shall be at duncombe hall in wiltshire and shall want you to stay with me there at certain periods. i hope that you will not ask more questions than are absolutely necessary as i dislike being disturbed. you are of course at liberty to use any books in this library that you please, but i hope that you will always put them back in their right places. i dislike very much seeing books bent back or laid face downwards."
"yes," said henry. "so do i."
"quite. . . . and now, are there any questions that you will like to ask?"
"no," said henry. "if there are any questions that i want to ask would you prefer that i asked them when i thought of them or kept them until the end of the morning and asked them all together?"
"that had better depend on your own judgment."
there was a pause.
"that table over there," said sir charles, pointing to one near the window, "is a good one for you to work at. i should suggest that you begin this morning with the box labelled 1816-1820. that is the cupboard to your right. it is not locked."
the first movement across the floor to the cupboard was an agonizing one. henry felt as though everything in the room were listening to him, as though the gentleman with the nose on the mantelpiece was saying to him: "you'll never do here. look at the noise your boots make. of course you won't do."
however he got safely across, opened the cupboard which creaked viciously, found the black boxes and the one that he needed. it was very heavy, but he brought it to the table without much noise. down he sat, carefully opened it and looked inside. pile upon pile of old yellow letters lay there, packet after packet of them tied with faded red tape. some[pg 72]thing within him thrilled to their age, to their pathos, to their humility, to the sense that they carried up to him of the swift passing of time, the touching childishness of human hopes, despair and ambitions. he felt suddenly like an ant crawling laboriously over a gleaming and slippery globe of incredible vastness. the letters seemed to rebuke him as though he had been boasting of his pride and youth and his confidence in his own security. he took out the first bundle, reverently undid the tape and began to read. . . .
soon he was absorbed even as his sister millicent, at that same moment in the cromwell road, was absorbed in a very different collection of letters, on this her second platt morning. the library with its thousands of books enfolded henry as though now it approved of him and might love him did he stay reverently in its midst caring for the old things and the old people—the old things that pass, the old people who seem to die but do not. at first every letter thrilled him. the merest note:
15 castle st., edinburgh,
june 4, 1816.
my dear ronald—what about coming in to see us? all at hartley well and easy—mamma has been in edinburgh after a cook—no joking matter—and to see benjie who was but indifferent, but has recovered. . . . i will write a long letter soon, but my back and eyes ache with these three pages. . . .
then a note about a dinner-party, then about a parcel of books, then a letter from italy full of the glories of florence; then (how henry shivered with pleasure as he saw it!) the hand and sign of the magician himself!
dear sir ronald duncombe—i am coming to town i trust within the fortnight, but my trees are holding me here for the moment. i have been saddened lately by the death of my poor brother, major john scott, who was called home after a long illness. all here wish to be remembered to you.—most truly yours,
walter scott.
a terrible temptation came to henry—so swift that it seemed to be suggested by some one sitting beside him—to slip the letter into his pocket. this was the first time in all his days[pg 73] that he had had such a letter in his hand, because, although his father had been for many years a writer of books on this very period, his material had been second-hand, even third-hand material. henry felt a slight contempt for his father as he sat there.
then, as the minutes swung past, he was aware that he should be doing something more than merely looking at the old letters and complimenting them on their age and pretty pathos. he should be arranging them. yes, arranging them, but how? he began helplessly to pick them up, look at them and lay them on the table again. many of them had no dates at all, many were signed only with christian names, some were not signed at all. and how was he to decide on the important ones? how did he know that he would not pass, through ignorance and inexperience, some signature of world-significance? the letters began to look at him with less approval, even with a certain cynical malevolence. they all looked the same with their faded yellow paper and their confusing handwriting. he had many of them on the table, unbound from their red tape, lying loosely about him and yet the box seemed as full as ever. and there were many more boxes! . . . suddenly, from the very bowels of the house, a gong sounded.
"you can wash your hands in that little room to the right," said sir charles, whose personality suddenly returned as though henry had pressed a button. "luncheon will be waiting for us."
and this was the conclusion of henry's first appearance as a private secretary.
