There is a story in an early volume of Henry Galleon's about a man who caught—as he may have caught other sicknesses in his time—the disease of the Terror of London. Eating his breakfast cheerfully in his luxurious chambers in Mayfair, in the act of pouring his coffee out of his handsome silver coffee-pot, he paused. It was the very slightest thing that held his attention—the noise of the rumbling of the traffic down Piccadilly—but he was startled and, on that morning, he left his breakfast unfinished. He had, of course, heard that rumbling traffic on many other occasions—it may be said to have been the musical accompaniment to his breakfast for many years past. But on this morning it was different; as one has a headache before scarlet fever so did this young man hear the rumble of the traffic down Piccadilly. He listened to it very attentively, and it was, he told himself, very like the noise of some huge animal breathing in its sleep. There was a regularity, a monotony about it ... and also perhaps a sense of great force, quiescent now and held in restraint. He was a very normal, well-balanced young man and thoughts of this kind were unlike him.
Then he heard other things—the trees rustling in the park, bells ringing on every side of him, builders knocking and hammering, windows rattling, doors opening and shutting. In the Club one evening he confided in a friend. “I say, it's damned funny—but what would you say to this old place being alive, taking on a regular existence of its own, don't you know? You might draw it—a great beast like some old alligator, all curled up, with its teeth and things—making a noise a bit as it moves about ... and then, one day when it's got us nicely all on top of it, down it will bring us all, houses and the rest. Damned funny idea, what? Do for a cartoon-fellow or some one—”
The disease developed; he had it very badly, but at first his friends did not know. He lay awake at night hearing things—one heard much more at night—sometimes he fancied that the ground shook under his feet—but most terrible of all was it when there was perfect silence. The traffic ceased, the trees and windows and doors were still ... the Creature was listening. Sometimes he read in papers that buildings had suddenly collapsed. He smiled to himself. “When we are all nicely gathered together,” he said, “when there are enough people ... then—”
His friends said that he had a nervous breakdown; they sent him to a rest-cure. He came back. The Creature was fascinating—he was terrified, but he could not leave it.
He knew more and more about it; he knew now what it was like, and he saw its eyes and he sometimes could picture its grey scaly back with churches and theatres and government buildings and the little houses of Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones perched upon it—and the noises that it made now were so many and so threatening that he never slept at all. Then he began to run, shouting, down Piccadilly, so they put him—very reluctantly—into a nice Private Asylum, and there he died, screaming. This story is a prologue to Peter's life in London.... The story struck his fancy; he thought of it sometimes.
On a late stormy afternoon in November, 1895, Peter finished his book, “Reuben Hallard.” It had been raining all day, and now the windows were blurred and the sea of shining roofs that stretched into the mist emphasised the dark and gloom of the heavy overhanging sky.
Peter's little room was very cold, but his body was burning—he was in a state of overpowering excitement; his hands trembled so that he could scarcely hold his pen ... “So died Reuben Hallard, a fool and a gentleman”—and then “Finis” with a hard straight line underneath it.... He had been working at it for three years, and he had been in London seven.
He walked up and down his little room, he was so hot that he flung up his window and leaned out and let the rain, that was coming down fiercely now, lash his face. Mud! London was full of mud. He could see it, he fancied, gathering in thick brown layers upon the pavement, shining and glistening as it mounted, slipping in streams into the gutter, sweeping about the foundations of the houses, climbing perhaps, one day, to the very windows. That was London. And yet he loved it, London and its dirt and darkness. Had he not written “Reuben Hallard” here! Had the place not taken him into its arms, given him books and leisure out of its hospitality, treated him kindly during these years so that they had fled like an instant of time, and here he was, Peter Westcott, aged twenty-five, with a book written, four friends made, and the best health possible to man. The book was “Reuben Hallard,” the friends were Mrs. Brockett, Mr. Zanti, Herr Gottfried, and Norah Monogue, and for his health one had only to look at him!
“So died Reuben Hallard, a fool and a gentleman!” His excitement was tremendous; his cheeks were flaming, his eyes glittering, his heart beating. Here was a book written!—so many pages covered with so much writing, his claim to be somebody, to have done something, justified and, most wonderful of all, live, exciting people created by him, Peter Westcott. He did not think now of publication, of money, of fame—only, after sharing for three years in the trials and adventures of dear, beloved souls, now, suddenly, he emerged cold, breathless ... alone ... into the world again.
Exciting! Why, furiously, of course. He could have sung and shouted and walked, right over the tops of the roofs, with the rain beating and cooling his body, out into the mist of the horizon.Hisbook, “Reuben Hallard!” London was swimming in thick brown mud, and the four lamps coming out in Bennett Square in a dim, sickly fashion and he, Peter Westcott, had written a book....
The Signor—the same Signor, some seven years older, a little shabbier, but nevertheless the same Signor—came to summon him to supper.
“I have finished it!”
“What! The book?”
“Yes!”
Their voices were awed whispers. The whole house had during the last three years shared in the fortunes of the book. Peter had come to dinner with a cloud upon his brow—the book therefore has gone badly—even Mrs. Brockett is disturbed and Mrs. Lazarus is less chirpy than usual. Peter comes to dinner with a smile—the book therefore has gone well and even Mrs. Monogue is a little less selfish than ordinary. The Signor now gazed round the little room as though he might find there the secret of so great an achievement. On Peter's dressing-table the manuscript was piled—“You'll miss it,” the Signor said, gloomily. “You'll miss it very much—you're bound to. You'll have to get it typewritten, and that'll cost money.”
“Never mind, it's done,” said Peter, shaking his head as a dog shakes himself when he leaves the water. “There they are, those people—and now I'm going to wash.”
He stripped to the waist, and the Signor watched his broad back and strong arms with a sigh for his own feeble proportions. He wondered how it was that being in a stuffy bookshop for seven years had done Peter no harm, he wondered how he could keep the back of his neck so brown as that in London and his cheeks as healthy a colour and his eyes as clear.
“I'm amazingly unpleasant to look at,” the Signor said at last. “I often wonder why my wife married me. I'm not surprised that every one finds me uninteresting. I am uninteresting.”
“Well, you are not uninteresting to me, I can tell you,” said Peter. He had put on a soft white shirt, a black tie, and a black coat and trousers, the last of these a little shiny perhaps in places, but neat and well brushed, and you would really not guess when you saw him, that he only possessed two suits in the wide world.
“Ithink you're absorbing,” Peter said, a little patronisingly perhaps.
“Ah, that proves nothing,” the Signer retorted. “You only care for fools and children—Mrs. Brockett always says so.”
They went downstairs—Peter was, of course, not hungry at all, but the conventions had to be observed. In the sitting-room, round about the green settee, the company was waiting as it had waited seven years ago; there were one or two unimportant additions and Mrs. Monogue had died the year before and Mrs. Lazarus was now very old and trembling, but in effect there was very little change.
“He has finished it,” the Signor announced in a wondering whisper. A little buzz rose, filled the air for a moment and then sank into silence again. Mrs. Lazarus was without her orange because she had to wear mittens now, and that made peeling the thing difficult. “I'm sure,” she said, in a voice like that of a very excited cricket, “that Mr. Westcott will feel better after he's had something to eat.Ialways do.”
This remark left conversation at a standstill. The rain drove against the panes, the mud rose ever higher against the walls, and dinner was announced. Mrs. Brockett made her remarks to each member of the company in turn as usual. To Peter she said:
“I hear that you have finished your book, Mr. Westcott. We shall all watch eagerly for its appearance, I'm sure.”
He felt his excitement slipping away from him as the moments passed. Suddenly he was tired. Instead of elation there was wonder, doubt. What if, after all, the book should be very bad? During all these years in London he had thought of it, during all these years he had known that it was going to succeed. What, if now he should discover suddenly that it was bad?... Could he endure it? The people of his book seemed now to stand very far away from him—they were unreal—he could remember scenes, things that they had said and done, absurd, ignorant things.
He began to feel panic. Why should he imagine that he was able to write? Of course it was all crude, worthless stuff. He looked at the dingy white pillars and heavy green curtains with a kind of despair ... of course it was all bad. He had been hypnotised by the thing for the time being. Then he caught Norah Monogue's eyes and smiled. He would show it to her, and she would tell him what it was worth.
Poor Mrs. Tressiter's baby had died last week and now, suddenly, she burst out crying and had to leave the room. There was a little twitter of sympathy. How good they all were to one another, these people, stupid and odd perhaps in some ways, but so brave for themselves and so generous to one another. It was no mean gathering of souls that Mrs. Brockett's dingy gas illuminated.
Every now and again the heavy curtains blew forward in the wind and the gas flared. There was no conversation, and the wind could be heard driving the rain past the windows.
Peter, that evening, took the manuscript of “Reuben Hallard” into Miss Monogue's room. Since her mother died Norah Monogue had had a bed sitting-room to herself. The bed was hidden by a high screen, the wall paper was a dark green, and low bookshelves, painted white, ran round the room. There were no pictures (she always said that until she could have good ones she wouldn't have any at all). There were some brown pots and vases on the shelves and a writing-table with a typewriter by the window.
When Peter came in, Norah Monogue was sitting in a low chair over a rather miserable fire; a little pool of light above her head came from two candles on the mantelpiece—otherwise the room was in darkness.
“Shall I turn on the gas?” she said, when she saw who it was.
“No, leave it as it is, I like it.” He sat down in a chair near her and put a pile of manuscript on the floor beside him. “I've brought it for you to read,” he said, “I'm frightened about it. I suddenly think it is the most rotten thing that ever was written.” He had become very intimate with her during these seven years. At first he had admired her because she behaved so splendidly to her abominable mother—then she had obviously been interested in him, had talked about the things that he was reading and his life at the bookshop. They had speedily become the very best of friends, and she understood friendship he thought in the right way—as though she had herself been a man. And yet she was with that completely feminine, a woman who had known struggle from the beginning and would know it to the end; but her personality—humorous, pathetic, understanding—was felt in her presence so strongly that no one ever forgot her after meeting her. Some one once said of her, “She's the nicest ugly woman to look at I've ever seen.”
She cared immensely about her appearance. She saved, through blood and tears, to buy clothes and then always bought the wrong ones. She had perfect taste about everything except herself, and as soon as it touched her it was villainous. She was untidy; her hair—streaked already with grey—was never in its place; her dress was generally undone at the back, her gloves had holes.
Her mother's death had left her some fifty pounds a year and she earned another fifty pounds by typewriting. Untidy in everything else, in her work she was scrupulously neat. She had had a story taken byThe Green Volume. Her friends belonged (as indeed just at this time so many people belonged) to the Cult of the Lily, repeated the witticisms of Oscar Wilde and treasured the art of Mr. Aubrey Beardsley. Miss Monogue believed in the movement and rejected the affectations. In 1895, when the reaction began, she defended her old giants, but looked forward eagerly to new ones. She worked too hard to have very many friends, and Peter saved her from hours of loneliness. To him she was the last word in Criticism, in Literature. He would have liked to have fashioned “Reuben Hallard” after the manner ofThe Green Volume, but now thought sadly that it was as unlike that manner as possible; that is why he was afraid to bring it to her.
“You won't like it,” he said. “I thought for a moment I had done something fine when I finished it this afternoon, but now I know that it's bad. It's all rough and crude. It's terribly disappointing.”
“That's all right,” she answered quietly. “We won't say any more about it until I have read it—then we'll talk.”
They were silent for a little. He was feeling unhappy and, curiously enough, frightened. He would have liked to jump up suddenly and shout, “Well, what's going to happen now?”—not only to Norah Monogue, but to London, to all the world. The work at the book had, during these years, upheld him with a sense of purpose and aim. Now, feeling that that work was bad, his aim seemed wasted, his purpose gone. Here were seven years gone and he had done nothing—seen nothing, become nothing. What was his future to be? Where was he to go? What to do? He had reasoned blindly to himself during these years, that “Reuben Hallard” would make his fortune—now that seemed the very last thing it would do.
“I knew what you're feeling,” she said, “now that the book's done, you're wondering what's coming next.”
“It's more than that. I've been in London seven years. Instead of writing a novel that no one will want to read I might have been getting my foot in. I might at any rate have been learning London, finding my way about. Why,” he went on, excitedly, “do you know that, except for a walk or two and going into the gallery at Covent Garden once or twice and the Proms sometimes and meeting some people at Herr Gottfried's once or twice I've spent the whole of my seven years between here and the bookshop—”
“You mustn't worry about that. It was quite the right thing to do. You must remember that there are two ways of learning things. First through all that every one has written, then through all that every one is doing. Up to now you've been studying the first of those two. Now you're ready to take part in all the hurly-burly, and you will. London will fling you into it as soon as you're ready, you can be sure.”
“I've been awfully happy all this time,” he went on, reflectively. “Too happy I expect. I never thought about anything except reading and writing the book, and talking to you and Gottfried. Now things will begin I suppose.”
“What kind of things?”
“Oh, well, it isn't likely that I'm going to be let alone for ever. I've never told you, have I, about my life before I came up to London?”
She hesitated a little before she answered. “No, you've never told me anything. I could see, of course, that it hadn't been easy.”
“How could you see that?”
“Well, it hadn't been easy for either of us. That made us friends. And then you don't look like a person who would take things easily—ever. Tell me about your early life before you came here,” Norah Monogue said.
She watched his face as he told her. She had found him exceedingly good company during the seven years that she had known him. They had slipped into their friendship so easily and so naturally that she had never taken herself to task about it in any way; it existed as a very delightful accompaniment to the day's worries and disappointments. She suddenly realised now with a little surprised shock how bitterly she would miss it all were it to cease. In the darkened room, with the storm blowing outside, she felt her loneliness with an acute wave of emotion and self-pity that was very unlike her. If Peter were to go, she felt, she could scarcely endure to live on in the dreary building.
Part of his charm from the beginning had been that he was so astoundingly young, part of his interest that he could be, at times, so amazingly old. She felt that she herself could be equal neither to his youth nor his age. She was herself so ordinary a person, but watching him made the most fascinating occupation, and speculating over his future made the most wonderful dreams. That he was a personality, that he might do anything, she had always believed, but there had, until now, been no proof of it in any work that he had done ... he had had nothing to show ... now at last there lay there, with her in the room, the evidence of her belief—his book.
But the book seemed now, at this moment, of small account and, as she watched him, with the candle-light and the last flicker of the fire-light upon his face, she saw that he had forgotten her and was back again, soul and spirit, amongst the things of which he was speaking.
His voice was low and monotonous, his eyes staring straight in front of him, his hands, spread on his knees, gripped the cloth of his trousers. She would not admit to herself that she was frightened, but her heart was beating very fast and it was as though some stranger were with her in the room. It may have been the effect of the candlelight, blowing now in the wind that came through the cracks in the window panes, but it seemed to her that Peter's face was changed. His face had lines that had not been there before, his mouth was thinner and harder and his eyes were old and tired ... she had never seen the man before, that was her impression.
But she had never known anything so vivid. Quietly, as though he were reciting the story to himself and were not sure whether he were telling it aloud or no, he began. As he continued she could see the place as though it was there with her in the room, the little Inn that ran out into the water, the high-cobbled street, the sea road, the grim stone house standing back amongst its belt of trees, the Grey Hill, the coast, the fields ... and then the story—the night of the fight, the beating, the school-days, that day with his mother (here he gave her actual dialogue as though there was no word of it that he had forgotten), the funeral—and then at last, gradually, climbing to its climax breathlessly, the relation of father and son, its hatred, then its degradation, and last of all that ludicrous scene in the early morning ... he told her everything.
When he had finished, there was a long silence between them: the fire was out and the room very cold. The storm had fallen now in a fury about the house, and the rain lashed the windows and then fell in gurgling stuttering torrents through the pipes and along the leads. Miss Monogue could not move; the scene, the place, the incidents were slowly fading away, and the room slowly coming back again. The face opposite her, also, gradually seemed to drop, as though it had been a mask, the expression that it had worn. Peter Westcott, the Peter that she knew, sat before her again; she could have believed as she looked at him, that the impressions of the last half-hour had been entirely false. And yet the things that he had told her were not altogether a surprise; she had not known him for seven years without seeing signs of some other temper and spirit—controlled indeed, but nevertheless there, and very different from the pleasant, happy Peter who played with the Tressiter children and dared to chaff Mrs. Brockett.
“You've paid me a great compliment, telling me this,” she said at last. “Remember we're friends; you've proved that we are by coming like this to-night. I shan't forget it. At any rate,” she added, softly, “it's all right now, Peter—it's all over now.”
“Over! No, indeed,” he answered her. “Do you suppose that one can grow up like that and then shake it off? Sometimes I think ... I'm afraid ...” he stopped, abruptly biting his lips. “Oh, well,” he went on suddenly in a brighter tone, “there's no need to bother you with all that. It's nothing. I'm a bit done up over this book, I expect. But that's really why I told you that little piece of autobiography—because it will help you to understand the book. The book's come out of all that, and you mightn't have believed that it was me at all—unless I'd told you these things.”
He stood facing her and a sudden awkwardness came over both of them. The fire was dead (save for one red coal), and the windows rattled like pistol-shots. He was feeling perhaps that he had told her too much, and the reserve of his age, the fear of being indiscreet, had come upon him. And with her there was the difficulty of not knowing exactly what comfort it was that he wanted, or whether, indeed, any kind of comfort would not be an insult to him. And, with all that awkwardness, there was also a knowledge that they had never been so near together before, an intimacy had been established that night that would never again be broken.
Into their silence there came a knock on the door. When Miss Monogue opened it the stern figure of Mrs. Brockett confronted her.
“I beg your pardon, Miss Monogue, but is Mr. Westcott here?”
Peter stepped forward.
“Oh, I'm sure I'm sorry to have to disturb you, Mr. Westcott, but there's a man outside on the steps who insists on seeing you.”
“Seeing me?”
“Yes—he won't come in or go away. He won't move until he's seen you. Very obstinate I'm sure—and such a night! Rather late, too—”
Mrs. Brockett was obviously displeased. Her tall black figure was drawn up outside the door, as a sentry might guard Buckingham Palace. There was a confusion of regality, displeasure, and grim humour in her attitude. But Peter was a favourite of hers. With a hurried goodnight to Miss Monogue he left the two women standing on the stairs and went to the hall-door.
When he opened it the wind was blowing up the steps so furiously that it flung him back into the hall again. Outside in the square the world was a wild tempestuous black, only, a little to the right, the feeble glow of the lamp blew hither and thither in the wind. The rain had stopped but all the pipes and funnels of the city were roaring with water. The noise was that of a thousand chattering voices, and very faintly through the tumult the bells of St. Matthews in Euston Square tinkled the hour.
On the steps a figure was standing bending beneath the wind. The light from the hall shone out on to the black slabs of stone, bright with the shining rain, but his cape covered the man's head. Nevertheless Peter knew at once who it was.
“Stephen,” he said, quietly.
The hall door was flung to with a crash; the wind hurled Peter against Stephen's body.
“At last! Oh, Stephen! Why didn't you come before?”
“I couldn't, Master Peter. I oughtn't to of come now, but I 'ad to see yer face a minute. Not more than a minute though—”
“But you must come in now, and get dry things on at once. I'll see Mrs. Brockett, she'll get you a room. I'm not going to let you go now that—”
“No, Master Peter, I can't stop. I mustn't. I 'aven't been so far away all this time as you might have thought. But I mustn't see yer unless I can be of use to yer. And that's what I've come about.”
He pressed close up to Peter, held both his hands in his and said: “Look 'ere, Peter boy, yer may be wanting me soon—no, I can't say more than that. But I want yer—to be on the look-out. Down there at the bookshop be ready, and then if any sort o' thing should 'appen down along—why I'm there, d'ye see? I'll be with yer when you want me—”
“Well, but Stephen, what do you mean? Whatcouldhappen? Anyhow you mustn't go now, like this. I won't let you go—”
“Ah, but I must now—I must. Maybe we shall be meeting soon enough. Only I'm there, boy, if yer wants me. And—keep yer eye open—”
In an instant that warm pressure of the hand was gone; the darker black of Stephen's body no longer silhouetted against the lighter black of the night sky.
Still in Peter's nose there was that scent of wet clothes and the deep, husky voice was in his ears. But, save for the faint yellow flickering lamp, struggling against the tempest, he was alone in the square.
The rain had begun to fall again.
After the storm, the Fog.
It came, a yellow, shrouded witch down upon the town, clinging, choking, writhing, and bringing in its train a thousand mysteries, a thousand visions. It was many years since so dense and cruel a fog had startled London—in his seven years' experience of the place Peter had known nothing like it, and his mind flew back to that afternoon of his arrival, seven years before, and it seemed to him that he was now moving straight on from that point and that there had been no intervening period at all. The Signer saw in a fog as a cat sees in the dark, and he led Peter to the bookshop without hesitation. He saw a good many other things beside his immediate direction and became comparatively cheerful and happy.
“It is such a good thing that people can't see me,” he said. “It relieves one of a lot of responsibility if one's plain to look at—one can act more freely.” Certainly the Signor acted with very considerable freedom, darting off suddenly into the fog, apparently with the intention of speaking to some one, and leaving Peter perfectly helpless and then suddenly darting back again, catching Peter in tow and tugging him forward once more.
To the bookshop itself the fog made very little difference. There were always the gas-jets burning over the two dark corners and the top shelves even in the brightest of weather, were mistily shrouded by dust and distance. The fog indeed seemed to bring the books out and, whilst the world outside was so dark, the little shop flickered away under the gas-jets with little spasmodic leaps into light and colour when the door opened and blew the quivering flame.
It was not of the books that Peter was thinking this morning. He sat at a little desk in one dark corner under one of the gas-jets, and Herr Gottfried, huddled up as usual, with his hair sticking out above the desk like a mop, sat under the other; an old brass clock, perched on a heap of books, ticked away the minutes. Otherwise there was silence save when a customer entered, bringing with him a trail of fog, or some one who was not a customer passed solemnly, seriously through to the rooms beyond. The shop was, of course, full of fog, and the books seemed to form into lines and rows and curves in and out amongst the shelves of their own accord.
Peter meanwhile was most intently thinking. He knew as though he had seen it written down in large black letters in front of him, that a period was shortly to be put to his present occupation, but he could not have said how it was that he knew. The finishing of his book left the way clear for a number of things to attack his mind. Here in this misty shop he was beset with questions. Why was he here at all? Had he during these seven years been of such value, that the shop could not get on without him?... To that second question he must certainly answer, no. Why then had Mr. Zanti kept him all this time? Surely because Mr. Zanti was fond of him. Yes, that undoubtedly was a part of the reason. The relationship, all this time, had grown very strong and it was only now, when he set himself seriously to think about it, that he realised how glad he always was when Mr. Zanti returned from his travels and how happy he had been when it had been possible for them to spend an afternoon together. Yes, Mr. Zanti was attached to him; he had often said that he looked upon him as a son, and sometimes it seemed to Peter that the strange man was about to make some declaration, something that would clear the air, and explain the world—but he never did.
Peter had discovered strangely little about him. He knew now that Mr. Zanti's connection with the bookshop was of the very slenderest, that that was indeed entirely Herr Gottfried's affair, and that it was used by the large and smiling gentleman as a cloak and a covering. As a cloak and a covering to what? Well, at any rate, to some large and complicated game that a great number of gentlemen were engaged in playing. Peter knew a good many of them now by sight—untidy, dirty, many, foreigners most, all it seemed to Peter, with an air of attempting something that they could never hope to accomplish. Anything that they might do he was quite sure that they would bungle and, with the hearts of children, the dirty tatters of foreign countries, and the imaginations of exuberant story-tellers, he could see them go, ignorantly, to dreadful catastrophes.
Peter was even conscious that the shop was tolerantly watched by inspectors, detectives, and policemen, and that it was all too childish—whatever it was—for any one to take it in the least seriously. But nevertheless there were elements of very real danger in all those blundering mysteries that had been going on now for so many years, and it was at any rate of the greatest importance to Peter, because he earned his living by it, because of his love for Stephen and his affection for Mr. Zanti, and because if once anything were to happen his one resting-place in this wild sea of London would be swept away and he would be utterly resourceless and destitute.
This last fact bit him, as he sat there in the shop, with sudden and acute sharpness. What a fool he had been, all this time, to let things slide! He should have been making connections, having irons in the fire, bustling about—how could he have sat down thus happily and easily for seven years, as though such a condition of things could continue for ever? He had had wild ideas of “Reuben Hallard” making his fortune!... that showed his ignorance of the world. Let him begin to bustle. He would not lose another moment. There were two things for him now to do, to beard editors (those mythical creatures!) in their caves and to find out where Stephen lived ... both these things as soon as possible.
In the afternoon the fog became of an impenetrable thickness, and beyond the shop it seemed that there was pandemonium. Some fire, blazing at some street corner, flared as though it were the beating heart of all that darkness, and the cries of men and the slow, clumsy passing of the traffic filled the bookshop with sound.
No customers came; Herr Gottfried worked away at his desk, the brass clock ticked, Peter sat listening, waiting.
Herr Gottfried broke the silence once with: “Peter, my friend, at ten o'clock to-night there will be a little music in my room. Herr Dettzolter and his 'cello—a little Brahms—if the fog is not too much for you.”
Peter accepted. He loved the low-roofed attic, the clouds of tobacco, the dark corner where he sat and listened to Herr Gottfried's friends (German exiles like Herr Gottfried playing their beloved music). It was his only luxury.
Once two men whom Peter knew very well by sight came into the shop. They were, he believed, Russians—one of them was called Oblotzky—a tall, bearded fierce-looking creature who could speak no English.
Then suddenly, just as Peter was thinking of finding his way home to the boarding-house, Mr. Zanti appeared. He had been away for the last two months, but there he was, his huge body filling the shop, the fog circling his beard like a halo, beaming, calm, and unflustered as though he had just come from the next street.
“Damned fog,” he said, and then he went and put his hand on Peter's shoulder and looked down at him smiling.
“Well, 'ow goes the shop?” he said.
“Oh, well enough,” said Peter.
“What 'ave you been doing, boy? Finished the book?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, good. You'll be ze great man, Peter.” He looked down at him proudly as a father might look upon his son.
“Ze damnedest fog—” he began, then suddenly he stopped and Peter felt his hand on his shoulder tighten. “Ze damnedest—” Mr. Zanti said slowly.
Peter looked up into his face. He was listening. Herr Gottfried, standing in the middle of the shop, was also listening.
For a moment there was an intense breathless silence. The noise from the street seemed also, for the instant, to be hushed.
Very slowly, very quietly, Mr. Zanti went to the street door and opened it. A cloud of yellow fog blew into the shop.
“Ze damnedest fog ...” repeated Mr. Zanti, still very slowly, as though he were thinking.
“Any one been?” he said at last to Herr Gottfried.
“Oblotzky.”
Mr. Zanti, after flinging a strange, half-affectionate, half-inquisitive look at Peter, went through into the room beyond.
“What ...” said Peter.
“Often enough,” interrupted Herr Gottfried, shuffling back to his seat, “young boys want to know—too much ... often enough.”
The Tressiter children, of whom there were eight, loved Peter with a devotion that was in fact idolatry. They loved him because he understood them so completely and from Anne Susan, aged one and a half, to Rupert Bernard, aged nine, there was no member of the family who did not repose complete trust and confidence in Peter's opinions, and rejoice in his wonderful grasp of the things in the world that really mattered. Other persons might be seen shifting, slowly and laboriously, their estimates and standards in order to bring them into line with the youthful Tressiter estimates and standards.... Peter had his ready without any shifting.
First of all the family did Robin Tressiter, aged four, adore Peter. He was a fat, round child with brown eyes and brown hair, and an immense and overwhelming interest in the world and everything contained therein. He was a silent child, with a delightful fat chuckle when really amused and pleased, and he never cried. His interest in the world led him into strange and terrible catastrophes, and Mrs. Tressiter was always far too busy and too helpless to be of any real assistance. On this foggy afternoon, Peter, arriving at Brockett's after much difficulty and hesitation, found Robin Tressiter, on Miss Monogue's landing, with his head fastened between the railings that overlooked the hall below. He was stuck very fast indeed, but appeared to be perfectly unperturbed—only every now and again he kicked a little with his legs.
“I've sticked my neck in these silly things,” he said, when he saw Peter. “You must pull at me.”
Peter tried to wriggle the child through, but he found that he must have some one to help him. Urging Robin not to move he knocked at Miss Monogue's door. She opened it, and he stepped back with an apology when he saw that some one else was there.
“It's a friend of mine,” Norah Monogue said, “Come in and be introduced, Peter.”
“It's only,” Peter explained, “that young Robin has got his head stuck in the banisters and I want some one to help me—”
Between them they pulled the boy through to safety. He chuckled.
“I'll do it again,” he said.
“I'd rather you didn't,” said Peter.
“Then I won't,” said Robin. “I did it 'cause Rupert said I couldn't—Rupert's silly ass.”
“You mustn't call your brother names or I won't come and see you in bed.”
“You will come?” said Robin, very earnestly.
“I will,” said Peter, “to-night, if you don't call your brother names.”
“I think,” said Robin, reflectively, “that now I will hunt for the lion and the tigers on the stairs—”
“Bring him into my room until his bedtime,” said Miss Monogue, laughing. “It's safer. Mrs. Tressiter is busy and has quite enough children in with her already.”
So Peter brought Robin into Miss Norah Monogue's room and was introduced, at once, to Clare Elizabeth Rossiter—so easily and simply do the furious events of life occur.
She was standing with her back to the window, and the light from Miss Monogue's candles fell on her black dress and her red-gold hair. As he came towards her he knew at once that she was the little girl who had talked to him on a hill-top one Good Friday afternoon. He could almost hear her now as she spoke to Crumpet—the candle-light glow was dim and sacred in the foggy room; the colour of her hair was filled more wonderfully with light and fire. Her hands were so delicate and fine as they moved against her black dress that they seemed to have some harmony of their own like a piece of music or a running stream. She wore blue feathers in her black hat. She did not know him at all when he came forward, but she smiled down at Robin, who was clinging on to Peter's trousers.
“This is a friend of mine, Mr. Westcott,” Miss Monogue said.
She turned gravely and met him. They shook hands and then she sat down; suddenly she bent down and took Robin into her lap. He sat there sucking his thumb, and taking every now and again a sudden look at her hair and the light that the candles made on it, but he was very silent and quiet which was unlike him because he generally hated strangers.
Peter sat down and was filled with embarrassment; his heart also was beating very quickly.
“I have met you before,” he said suddenly. “You don't remember.”
“No—I'm afraid—”
“You had once, a great many years ago, a dog called Crumpet. Once in Cornwall ... one Good Friday, he tumbled into a lime-pit. A boy—”
“Why, of course,” she broke in, “I remember you perfectly. Why of all the things! Norah, do you realise? Your friend and I have known each other for eight years. Isn't the world a small place! Why I remember perfectly now!”
She turned and talked to Norah Monogue, and whilst she talked he took her in. Although now she was grown up she was still strangely like that little girl in Cornwall. He realised that now, as he looked at her, he had still something of the same feeling about her as he had had then—that she was some one to be cared for, protected, something fragile that the world might break if she were not guarded.
She was porcelain but without anything of Meredith's “rogue.” Because Peter was strong and burly the contrast of her appealing fragility attracted him all the more. Had she not been so perfectly proportioned her size would have been a defect; but now it was simple that her delicacy of colour and feature demanded that slightness and slenderness of build. Her hair was of so burning a red-gold that its colour gave her precisely the setting that she required. She seemed, as she sat there, a little helpless, and Peter fancied that she was wishing him to understand that she wanted friends who should assist her in rather a rough-and-tumble world. Just as she had once appealed to him to save Crumpet, so now she seemed to appeal for some far greater assistance. Ah! how he could protect her! Peter thought.
Something in Peter's steady gaze seemed suddenly to surprise her. She stopped—the colour mounted into her cheeks—she bent down over the boy.
They were both of them supremely conscious of one another. There was a moment.... Then, as men feel, when some music that has held them ceases, they came, with a sense of breathlessness, back to Norah Monogue and her dim room.
Peter was conscious that Robin had watched them both. He almost, Peter thought, chuckled to himself, in his fat solemn way.
“Miss Rossiter,” Norah Monogue said—and her voice seemed a long way away—“has just come back from Germany and has brought some wonderful photographs with her. She was going to show them to me when you came in—”
“Let me see them too, please,” said Peter.
Robin was put on to the floor and he went slowly and with ceremony to an old brown china Toby that had his place on a little shelf by the door. This Toby—his name was Nathaniel—was an old friend of Robin's. Robin sat on the floor in a corner and told Nathaniel the things about the world that he had noticed. Every now and again he paused for Nathaniel's reply; he was always waiting for him to speak, and the continued silence of a now ancient acquaintance had not shaken Robin's faith.... Robin forgot the rest of the company.
“Photographs?” said Peter.
“Yes. Germany. I have just been there.” She looked up at him eagerly and then opened a portfolio that she had behind her chair and began to show them.
He bent gravely forward feeling that all of this was pretence of the most absurd kind and that she also knew that it was.
But they were very beautiful photographs—the most beautiful that he had ever seen, and as each, in its turn, was shown for a moment his eyes met hers and his mouth almost against his will, smiled. His hand too was very near the silk of her dress. If he moved it a very little more then they would touch. He felt that if that happened the room would immediately burst into flame, the air was so charged with the breathless tension; but he watched the little space of air between his fingers and the black silk and his hand did not move.
They were all very silent as she turned the photographs over and there were no sounds but the sharp crackling of the fire as it burst into little spurts of flame, the noise that her hand made on the silk of her dress as she turned each picture and the little mutterings of Robin in his corner as he talked to his Toby.
Peter had never seen anything like this photography. The man had used his medium as delicately as though he had drawn every line. Things stood out—castles, a hill, trees, running water, a shining road—and behind them there was darkness and mystery.
Suddenly Peter cried out:
“Oh! that!” he said. It was the photograph of a great statue standing on a hill that overlooked a river. That was all that could be seen—the background was dark and vague, it was the statue of a man who rode a lion. The lion was of enormous size and struggling to be free, but the man, naked, with his utmost energy, his back set, his arms stiff, had it in control, but only just in control ... his face was terrible in the agony of his struggle and that struggle had lasted for a great period of time ... but at length, when all but defeated, he had mastered his beast.
“Ah that!” Miss Rossiter held it up that Norah Monogue might see it better. “That is on a hill outside a little town in Bavaria. They put it up to a Herr Drexter who had done something, saved their town from riot I think. It's a fine thing, isn't it, and I think it so clever of them to have made him middle-aged with all the marks of the struggle about him—those scars, his face—so that you can see that it's all been tremendous—”
Peter spoke very slowly—“I'd give anything to see that!” he said.
“Well, it's in Bavaria; I wonder that it isn't better known. But funnily enough the people that were with me at the time didn't like it; it was only afterwards, when I showed them the photograph that they saw that there might have been ... aren't people funny?” she ended abruptly, appealing to him with a kind of freemasonry against the world.
But, still bending his brows upon it he said insistently—
“Tell me more about it—the place—everything—”
“There isn't really anything to tell; it's only a very ordinary, very beautiful, little German town. There are many orchards and this forest at the back of it and the river running through it—little cobbled streets and bridges over the river. And then, outside, this great statue on the hill—”
“Ah, but it's wonderful, that man's face—I'd like to go to that town—” He felt perhaps that he was taking it all too seriously for he turned round and said laughing: “The boy's daft on lions—Robin, come and look at this lion—here's an animal for you.”
The boy put down the Toby and walked slowly and solemnly toward them. He climbed on to Peter's knee and looked at the photograph: “Oh! itisa lion!” he said at last, rubbing his fat finger on the surface of it to see of what material it was made. “Oh! for me!” he said at last in a shrill, excited voice and clutching on to it with one hand. “For me—to hang over my bed.”
“No, old man,” Peter answered, “it belongs to the lady here. She must take it away with her.”
“Oh! butIwant it!” his eyes began to fill with tears.
Miss Rossiter bent down and kissed him. He looked at her distrustfully. “I know now I'm not to have it,” he said at last, eyeing her, “or you wouldn't have kissed me.”
“Come on,” said Peter, afraid of a scene, “the lady will show you the lion another day—meantime I think bed is the thing.”
He mounted the boy on to his shoulder and turned round to Miss Rossiter to say “Good-bye.” The photograph lay on the table between them—“I shan't forget that,” he said.
“Oh! but you must come and see us one day. My mother will be delighted. There are a lot more photographs at home. You must bring him out one day, Norah,” she said turning to Miss Monogue.
If he had been a primitive member of society in the Stone Age he would at this point, have placed Robin carefully on the floor and have picked Miss Rossiter up and she should never again have left his care.
As it was he said, “I shall be delighted to come one day.”
“We will talk about Cornwall—”
“And Germany.”
His hand was burning hot when he gave it her—he knew that she was looking at his eyes.
He was abruptly conscious of Miss Monogue's voice behind him.
“I've read a quarter of the book, Peter.”
He wondered as he turned to her how it could be possible to regard two women so differently. To be so sternly critical of one—her hair that was nearly down, a little ink on her thumb, her blouse that was unbuttoned—and of the other to see her all in a glory so that her whole body, for colour and light and beautiful silence, had no equal amongst the possessions of the earth or the wonders of heaven. Here there was a button undone, there there was a flaming fire.
“I won't say anything,” Miss Monogue said, “until I've read more, but it's going to be extraordinarily good I think.” What did he care about “Reuben Hallard?” What did that matter when he had Claire Elizabeth Rossiter in front of him.
And then he pulled himself up. It must matter. How delighted an hour ago those words would have made him.
“Oh! you think there's something in it?” he said.
“We'll wait,” she answered, but her smile and the sparkle in her eyes showed what she thought. What a brick she was!
He turned round back to Miss Rossiter.
“My first book,” he said laughing. “Of course we're excited—”
And then he was out of the room in a moment with Robin clutching his hair. He did not want to look at her again ... he had so wonderful a picture!
And as he left Robin in the heart of his family he heard him say—
“Sucha lion, Mother, a lady's got—with a man on it—a 'normous lion, and the man hasn't any clothes on, and his legs are all scratched....”