Gloom brooded over Herons' Holt that evening. Gloom hung thickly about the rooms: blanketed conversation; veiled eyes that might have sparkled; choked appetites.
Nevertheless this was an atmosphere in which one member of the household felt most comfortable.
Margaret, Mr. Marrapit's only child, was nineteen; of sallow complexion, petite, pretty; with large brown eyes in which sat always a constant quest—an entreaty, a wistful yearning.
Hers was a clinging nature, readily responsive to the attraction of any stouter mind. Enthusiasm was in this girl, but it lay well-like—not as a spring. To stir it the influence of another was wanted; of itself, spontaneous, it could not leap. Aroused, there was no rush and surge of emotion—it welled, rose deeply; thickly, without ripple; crestless, flinging no intoxicating spume. Waves rush triumphant, hurtling forward the stick they support: the pool swells, leaving the stick quiescent, floating.
Many persons have this order of enthusiasm; it is a clammy thing to attract. A curate with a glimpse at Shelley's mind once roused Margaret's enthusiasm for the poet. It welled so suffocatingly about him that he came near to damning Shelley and all his works; threw up his hat when opportunity put out a beckoning finger and drew him elsewhere.
Margaret walked in considerable fear of her father; but she clung to him despite his oppressive foibles, because this was her nature. She loved church; incense; soft music; a prayer-book tastefully bound. She “wrote poetry.”
Warmed by the gloom that lay over Herons' Holt upon this evening, she sat brooding upon her cousin George's failure until a beautiful picture was hatched. He had gone to his room directly after dinner; during the meal had not spoken. She imagined him seated on his bed, hands deep in pockets, chin sunk, brow knitted, wrestling with that old devil despair. She knew that latterly he had worked tremendously hard. He had told her before the examination how confident of success he was, had revealed how much in the immediate prospect of freedom he gloried. She recalled his gay laugh as he had bade her good-bye on the first day, and the recollection stung her just as, she reflected, it must now be stinging him.... Only he must a thousand times more fiercely be feeling the burn of its venom....
Margaret moved impatiently with a desire to shake into herself a profounder sense of her cousin's misfortune. By ten she was plunged in a most pleasing melancholy.
She was of those who are by nature morbid; who deceive themselves if they imagine they have enjoyment from the recreations that provoke lightness of heart in the majority. Only the surface of their spirits ripples under such breezes; to stir the whole, to produce the counterpart of a hearty laugh in your vigorous animal, a feast on melancholy must be provided. This is a quality that is common among the lower classes who find their greatest happiness in funerals. The sombre trappings; white handkerchiefs against black dresses; tears; the mystery of gloom—these trickle with a warm glow through all their senses. They are as aroused by grief, unpleasant to the majority, as the drunkard is quickened by wine, to many abhorrent.
Thus it was with Margaret, and to her the shroud of melancholy in which she was now wrapped brought an added boon—arrayed in it she was best able to make her verses. Not of necessity sad little verses; many of her brightest were conceived in profoundest gloom. With a pang at the heart she could be most merry—tinkling out her laughing little lines just as martyrs could breathe a calm because, rather than spite of, they were devilishly racked.
But this was no hour for tinkling lines. A manuscript returned by the last post emphasised her gloom.
Kissing her father good-night, Margaret crept to her room, aching with desire to write.
She undressed, read a portion of theImitation, then to her table by the open window.
Two hours brought relief. Margaret placed her poem in an envelope against its presentation to George in the morning, then from her window leaned.
From her thoughts at once George sped; they rushed across the sleeping fields to cling about the person of that Mr. William Wyvern who had spoken of Mr. Marrapit as reminding him of a minor prophet—shaved. This was Margaret's nightly practice, but to-night this girl was most exquisitely melancholy, and with melancholy her thoughts of her William were tinged. She had not seen him that day; and now she brooded upon the bitter happening that had forced all her meetings with her lover to be snatched—fugitive, secret.
For Mr. William Wyvern was not allowed at Herons' Holt. When love first sent its herald curiosity into William's heart, the young man had sought to relieve its restlessness by a visit ostensibly on George, really upon Margaret, and extremely ill-advised in that at his heels gambolled his three bull-terriers.
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram these were named, and they were abrupt dogs to a point reaching brusqueness.
At the door, as William had approached, beamed Mr. Marrapit; upon the drive the queenly Rose of Sharon sat; and immediately tragedy swooped.
The dogs sighted the Rose. Red-mouthed the shining pack flew at her. Dignity fell before terror: wildly, with streaming tail, she fled.
Orange was the cat, white the dogs: like some orange and snow-white ribbon magically inspired, thrice at enormous speed they set a belt about the house. With tremendous bounds the Rose kept before her pursuers—heavily labouring, horrid with thirsty glee. Impotent in the doorway moaned Mr. Marrapit, his dirge rushing up to a wail of grief each time the parti-coloured ribbon flashed before his eyes.
With Mr. Fletcher the end had come. Working indoors, aroused by the din, the gardener burst out past his master just as the ribbon fluttered into sight upon the completion of its fourth circuit. Like a great avalanche it poured against his legs; as falls the oak, so pressed he fell.
Each eager jaw snapped once. Korah bit air, Dathan the cat's right ear. She wrenched; freed; sprang high upon the porch to safety, blood on her coat.
Abiram put a steely nip upon Mr. Fletcher's right buttock.
William called off his dogs; stood aghast. Mr. Marrapit stretched entreating arms to his adored. Mr. Fletcher writhed prone.
The torn Rose slipped to Mr. Marrapit's bosom. Clasping her he turned upon William—“You shall pay for this blood!”
William stammered: “I'm very sorry, sir. If—”
“Never again enter my gates. I'll have your curs shot!”
Curs was unfortunate; the evil three were whelped of a mighty strain.
“If your fool of a man hadn't got in the way, the cat would have escaped,” William hotly cried. Indignant he turned. Banishment was nothing then; in time it came to be a bitter thing.
Mr. Marrapit had raged on to Mr. Fletcher, yet writhing.
“You hear that?” he had cried. “Dolt! You are responsible for this!” He touched the blood-flecked side, the abrased ear; clasped close the Rose; called for warm water.
Mr. Fletcher clapped a hand to his wound as shakily he rose.
“I go to rescue his cat!” he said; “I'm near worried to death by 'ounds. I'm a dolt. I'm responsible. It's 'ard,—damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a dog muzzle.”
A dimness clouded Margaret's beautiful eyes as this bitter picture—she had watched it—was again reviewed. She murmured “Oh, Bill!”; stretched her soft arms to the night; moved her pretty lips in a message to her lover; snuggled between the sheets and made melancholy her bedfellow.
By seven she was up and in the fresh garden. George was before her.
She cried brightly: “Why, how early you are!” and ran to him—very pretty in her white dress: at her breast a rose, the poem fluttering in her hand.
“Yes; for once before you.”
George's tone did not give back her mood, purposely keyed high. She played on it again: “Turning a new leaf?”
He drummed at the turf with his heel: “Yes—for to-day.” He threw out a hand towards her: “But in the same old book. I've had eight—nine years of it, and now there are three more months.”
“Poor George! But only three months, think how they will fly!”
He was desperately gloomy: “I haven't your imagination. Each single day of them will mean a morning—here; a night—here.”
“Oh, is it so hard?”
“Yes, now. It's pretty deadly now. You know, when I wasn't precisely killing myself with overwork, I didn't mind so much. When it was three or four years, anyway, before I could possibly be free, a few extra months or so through failing an exam, didn't trouble me. But this is different. I was right up against getting clear of all this”—he comprehended garden and house in a sweep of the hand—“counted it a dead certainty—and here I am pitched back again.”
“But, George, you did work so hard this time. It isn't as though you had to blame yourself.” She put a clinging hand into his arm. “You can suffer no—remorse. That is what makes failure so dreadful—the knowledge that things might have been otherwise if one had liked.”
George laughed quite gaily. Gloom never lay long upon this young man.
“You're a sweet little person,” he said. “You ought to be right, but you are wrong. When I didn't work I didn't mind failing. It's when I've tried that I get sick.”
Margaret's eyes brightened. There was melancholy here.
“Oh, I know what you mean. I know so well. I have felt that. You mean the—the haunting fear that you may never be able to succeed; that you have not the—the talent, the capacity.” She continued pleadingly: “Oh, you mustn't think that. You can—youwillsucceed next time, you know.”
“Rather!” responded George brightly.
Margaret was quite pained. She would have had him express doubt, despondently sigh; would have heartened him with her poem. The confident “rather!” jarred. She hurried from its vigour.
She asked: “What had you intended to do?”
“I was to have got alocum tenens. I think it would have developed into a permanency. A big, rough district up in Yorkshire with a man who keeps six horses going. His second assistant—a pal of mine—wants to chuck it.”
“Why?”
“Why? Oh, partly because he's fed up with it, partly because he wants a practice of his own.”
“Ah! ... But, George, don't you want a practice of your own? You don't want to be another man's assistant, do you?”
George laughed. “I can't choose, Margi. You know, if you imagine there are solid groups of people all over England anxiously praying for the arrival of a doctor, you must adjust that impression, as your father would say. These things have to be bought. I've got about three pounds, so I'm not bidding. They seldom go so cheap.”
Margaret never bantered. She had no battledore light enough to return an airy shuttlecock. Now, as always, when this plaything came buoyantly towards her she swiped it with heavy force clean out of the conversational field.
She said gravely: “Ah, I know what you mean. You mean that father ought to buy you a practice—ought to set you up when you are qualified. I can't discuss that, can I? It wouldn't be loyal.”
“Of course not. I don't ask you.”
They moved towards the sound of the breakfast bell.
“You think,” Margaret continued, “that father ought to buy you a practice because your mother left him money for the purpose?”
“I know she left him nearly five thousand pounds for my education and all that. I think I may have cost him three thousand, possibly four—soI think I am entitled to something,butI shan't get it,thereforeI don't worry. My hump is gone; in three months I shall be gone. Forward: I smell bacon!”
Margaret smiled the wan smile of an invalid watching vigorous youth at sport. Firmly she banged the shuttlecock out of sight.
“How bright you are!” she told him. “Look, here is a little poem I wrote for you last night. It's about failure and success. Don't read it now.”
George was very fond of his cousin. “Oh, but I must!” he cried. “I think this was awfully nice of you. He's not down yet. Let's sit on this seat and read it together.”
“Oh, not aloud. It's a silly little thing—really.”
“Yes—aloud.”
He smoothed the paper. She pressed against him; thrilled as she regarded the written lines. George begged her read. She would not—well, she would. She paused. Modesty and pride gathered on her cheeks, tuned her voice low. She read:
“So you have tried—So you have knownThe burning effort for success,The quick belief in your own prowess and your skill,The bitterness of failure, and the joyOf sweet success.”
“'Burning effort,'” George said. “That's fine!”
“I'm glad you like that. And 'quick belief'—you know what I mean?”
“Oh, rather.”
The poet warmed again over her words.
“So you have tried—So you have knownThe blind-eyed groping towards the goalThat flickers on the far horizon of Attempt,Gleaming to sudden vividness, anonFading from sight.”
“Sort of blank verse, isn't it?” George asked.
“Well, sort of,” the poet allowed. “Not exactly, of course.”
“Of course not,” George agreed firmly.
Margaret breathed the next fine lines.
“So you have tried—So you have knownThe bitter-sweetness of Attempt,The quick determination and the dread despairThat grapple and possess you as you striveFor imagery.”
George questioned: “Imagery...?”
“That verse is more for me than you,” the poet explained. “'For imagery'—to get the right word, you know.”
“Rather!” said George. “It does for me too—in exams, when one is floored, you know.”
“Yes,” Margaret admitted doubtfully. “Ye-es. Don't interrupt between the verses, dear.”
Now emotion swelled her voice.
“Success be yours!May you achieveTo heights you do not dream you'll ever touch;The power's to your hand, the road before you lies—Forward! The gods not always frown; anonThey'll kindly smile.”
“Why, that's splendid!” George cried. He put a cousinly arm about the poet; squeezed her to him. “Fancy you writing that for me! What a sympathetic little soul you are—and how clever!”
Breathless she disengaged herself: “I'm so glad you like it. It's a silly little thing—but it'sreal, isn't it? Come, there's father.”
She paused against denial of the poem's silliness, affirmation of its truth; but George, moody beneath Mr. Marrapit's eye, glinting behind the window, had moved forward.
Margaret thrust the paper in her bosom, tucked in where heart might warm against heart's child. Constantly during breakfast her mind reverted to it, drummed its rare lines.
Yet Margaret had called her poem silly. Here, then, was mock-modesty by diffidence seeking praise. But this mock-modesty, which horribly abounds to-day, is only natural product of that furious modesty which has come to be expected in all the arts.
Modesty should have no place in true art. The author or the painter, the poet or the composer should be impersonal to his work. That which he creates is not his; it is a piece of the art to which he is servant, and as such (and such alone) he should regard it. His in the making and the moulding, thereafter it becomes the possession of the great whole to which it belongs. If it adorns that whole he may freely admire it; for he is impersonal to it.
Unquestionably (or unconsciously) we accept this principle in regard to human life. The child belongs not to the mother who conceived it but to the race of which it is an atom. It hinders or it betters the race. The race judges it. By the race it is honoured or condemned; and to it the mother becomes impersonal. As it bears itself among its fellows, so she judges it—as the artist's work bears itself in the great art it joins, so should he judge it. And if the mother joins in his fellows' praise of her child, and if she proclaims her pride in it, is she called wanting in modesty?—and if the artist joins in praise of his work, and if he freely names it good, must he then be vain, boastful? The race grants that the mother who gave it this specimen of its kind has a first right to show her pride—to the artist who gives a fair specimen to his art we should allow a like voice.
For in demanding modesty—in naming impersonality conceit—we have produced also mock-modesty; and because, as a people, we have little appreciation of the arts, hence little knowledge, hence no standard by which to judge, we continually mistake the one form of modesty for the other. Modesty we suspect to be mock-modesty, and mock-modesty we take to be pleasing humility.
Coming to literature alone, the author should be impersonal to his work and must not cry that the writer is no judge of his own labour. Letters is his trade; and just as the mason well knows whether the brick he has laid helps or hinders, beautifies or insults the house, so the writer should be full cognisant whether his work helps make or does mar the edifice called literature. Nor must the term literature be denied to the ruck of modern writing. All that is written to interest or to instruct goes to make the literature of our day. We have introduced new expressions just as we have contrived new expressions in architecture; and as in the latter case so in the former the bulk of these is ephemeral. Nevertheless they are a part of literature, and all efforts in them better or sully the pages which in our day we are adding to the book of literature. From this book the winds of cycles to come will blow all that is unworthy—only the stout leaves will endure; but, no less because you write for the supplement than if you have virtue sufficient for the bound volume, remember that in every form of writing there are standards of good, and that every line printed helps raise or does tarnish the letters of our day.
By the half-past nine train George went to town; an hour later was at St. Peter's.
From the bar of the Students' Club a throng of young men of his year loudly hailed him. He joined them; took with a laugh the commiserations on his failure; wrung the hands of those who had been successful.
The successful young gentlemen were standing drinks-each man his round. There was much smoke and much laughter. Amusing experiences were narrated. You gathered that all who had passed their examination had done so by sheer luck, by astonishing flukes. Not one had ever worked. Each had been “ragged” on a subject of which he knew absolutely nothing. To the brilliancy with which he had gulled or bluffed his examiner, to the diplomacy with which he had headed him off the matters of which he knew absolutely less than nothing-to these alone were his success due.
Such is ever Youth's account of battle with Age. Youth is a devil of a smart fellow, behind whom Age blunders along in the most ridiculous fashion. Later this young blood takes his place in the blundering ranks and then does learn that indeed he was right—Age knows nothing. For with years we begin to realise our ignorance, and the lesson is not complete when the grave slams the book. A few plumb the depths of their ignorance before death: these are able to speak—and these are the teachers of men. We get here one reason why giants are fewer in our day: with the growth of man's imaginings and his inventions there is more vanity to be forced through; the truths of life lie deeper hid; more phantasms arise to lure us from the quest of realities; the task of striking truth accumulates.
Soon after midday the party broke up. Its members lunched early; visiting surgeons and physicians went their rounds at half-past one.
George strolled to the Dean's office.
A woebegone-looking youth in spectacles stood before the table; opposite sat the Dean. He looked up as George entered, and nodded: he was fond of George.
“Come along in,” he said; “I shan't be a minute.”
He turned to the sad youth. “Now your case, Mr. Carter,” he said, “is quite unique. In the whole records of the Medical School”—he waved at a shelf of fat volumes—“in the whole records of the Medical School we have nothing in the remotest degree resembling it. You have actually failed twice in—in—”
The Dean searched wildly among a litter of papers; baffled, threw out an emphasising hand, and repeated, “Twice! Other hospitals, Mr. Carter, may have room for slackers—we have not. We have a record and a reputation of which we are proud. You are in your second year. How old are you?”
A faint whisper said, “Nineteen.”
The Dean started. “Nineteen! Oh, dear me, dear me! this is worse than I thought—far worse. I am afraid, Mr. Carter, I shall have to write to your father.”
Guttural with emotion, Mr. Carter gasped: “I mean to work—indeed I do.”
Again the Dean frantically searched on his desk to discover the subject in which Mr. Carter had failed; again was unsuccessful. Deep thought ravelled his brow. His fingers drummed indecision on the table. It was a telling picture of one struggling between duty and kindliness—masterly as the result of long practice.
“Mr. Carter,” the Dean summed up, “I will consider your case more fully to-night. Against my better judgment I may perhaps decide not on this occasion to communicate with your father. But remember this. At the very outset of your career you have strained to breaking-point the confidence of your teachers. Only by stupendous efforts on your part can that confidence be restored. These failures, believe me, will dog you from now until you are qualified—nay, will dog your whole professional career. That will do.”
In a convulsion of relief and of agitation beneath this appalling prospect the dogged man quavered thanks; stumbled from the room.
George laughed. “Same old dressing-down,” he said. “Don't you ever alter the formula?”
“It's very effective,” the Dean replied. “That's the sixth this morning. Unfortunately I couldn't remember in what subject that boy had failed; so he didn't get the best part—the part about that being the one subject of all others which, if failed in, predicted ruin.”
“It was biology in my case,” George told him. “I trembled with funk.”
“I think most of you do. It's fortunate that all you men when you first come up are afraid of your fathers. It gives us a certain amount of hold over you. If the thing were done properly, both at the 'Varsities and the hospitals, there would be a system of marks and reports just as at schools. You are only boys when you first come up, and you should be treated as boys; instead, you are left free and irresponsible. It ruins dozens of men every year.”
“Perhaps that's why I'm here now,” George responded. “You know I got ploughed?”
The Dean told George how sorry he had been to hear it. He questioned: “Bad luck, I suppose? I thought it was a sitter for you this time.”
“Yes, rotten luck.”
“It's unfortunate, you know. You would have got a house appointment. I'm afraid you will miss that mow. There will be a crowd of very hot men up with you in October, junior to you, who will get the vacancies. What will you do?”
George shrugged and laughed.
The Dean frowned; interpreted the shrug. “Well, you should care,” he said. “You ought to be looking around you. Won't your uncle help you to buy a partnership?”
“We are on worse terms than ever after this failure. Not he.”
“And you're not trying to be on good terms, I suppose?”
“Not I.”
“You are a remarkably silly young man. You want balance, Leicester, you want balance. It would be the making of you to have some serious purpose in life. You will run against something of the kind soon—you'll get engaged, perhaps, and then you'll regret your happy-go-lucky ways.” He fumbled amongst a pile of correspondence and drew out a letter. “Now, look here, I was thinking of you only a few moments ago. Here's a letter from a man who—who—where is it?—Ah, yes—If you could raise 400 pounds by the time you are qualified I could put you on to a splendid thing.”
“Not the remotest chance,” said George. “The serious purpose must wait. I—”
The Dean waved a hand that asked silence; consulted the letter. “This is from a man in practice at a place called Runnygate—one of these rising seaside resorts—Hampshire—great friend of mine. He's got money, and he's going to chuck it—doesn't suit his wife. I told him I'd find a purchaser if he would leave it with me. Merely nominal—only 400 pounds. He says that in a year or so there'll be a small fortune in the practice, because a company is taking the place over to develop it. You shall have first refusal. Come now, pull yourself together, Leicester.”
George laughed. He stood up. “Thanks, I refuse now. What on earth's the good?”
“Rubbish,” said the Dean. “Think over that serious interest in life. You never know your luck.”
George moved to the door. “I know my luck all right,” he laughed. “Never mind, I'm not grumbling with it.”
In the ante-room, as it were, of a very short chapter, we must make ready to receive our heroine. She is about to spring dazzling upon our pages; will be our close companion through some moving scenes. We must collect ourselves, brush our hair, arrange our dress, prepare our nicest manner.
And as in ante-rooms there are commonly papers laid about to beguile the tedium, and as the faint rustle of our heroine's petticoats is warning that George's assertion that he knew his luck is immediately to be disproved, let us make a tiny little paper on the folly of such a statement.
For of his luck man has no glimmer of prescience. Day by day we rattle the box, throw the dice; but of how these will fall we have no knowledge. We only hope with the gambler's feverishness; and it is this very hazard that keeps us crowding and pushing to hold our place at the tables where fortune spins. Grow we sick of the game, sour with our luck, weary of the hazard, and relinquish we our place at the table, we are pushed back and out—elbowed, thrown, trampled.
We are all treasure-seekers set on a treasure-island in a boundless sea. Cruelly marooned we are—flung ashore without appeal, and here deserted until the ship that disembarked us suddenly swoops and the press-gang snatches us again aboard—again without heed to our desire. Whence the ship brought us we do not know, and whither it will carry us we do not know; there is none to prick a return voyage disclosing the ultimate haven, though pilots there be who pretend to the knowledge—we cannot test them.
But the marooners, when they land us, give us wherewith to occupy our thoughts. This is a treasure-island. Each man of us they land with a pick; the inhabitants tell us of the treasure, and, being acclimatised, we set to work to dig and delve. Some work in shafts already sunk, some seek to break new ground, but what the pick will next turn up no one knows.
And it is this uncertainty, this hazard, that keeps us hammer, hammer, hammering; that keeps us, some from brooding against the marooners, their wanton desertion of us, our ultimate fate at their hands; others from making ready against the return voyage as entreated by the pilots.
Certainly, when the pick strikes a pocket, we turn to carousing; cease cocking a timid eye at the horizon.
And now our heroine is beckoning.
Until three o'clock George sat in an operating theatre. An unimportant case was in process: occasionally, through the group of dressers, surgeons and nurses who filled the floor, George caught a glimpse of the subject. He watched moodily, too occupied with his thoughts—three more months of dependency—to take greater interest.
One other student was present. Peacefully he slumbered by George's side until the ring of a dropped forceps awakened him. Noting the cause, “Clumsy beast,” said this Mr. Franklyn; and to George: “Come on, Leicester; my slumber is broken. Let's go for a stroll up West.”
In Oxford Street a pretty waitress in a tea-shop drew Mr. Franklyn's eye; a drop of rain whacked his nose. He winked the eye; wiped the nose. “Tea,” said he; “it is going to rain.”
He addressed the pretty waitress: “I have no wish to seem inquisitive, but which table do you attend?”
The girl jerked her chin: “What's that to you?”
“So much,” Mr. Franklyn earnestly told her, “that, until I know, here, beautiful but inconvenient, in the doorway I stand.”
“Well, all of 'em.” She whisked away.
“You're badly snubbed, Franklyn,” George said. “This rain is nothing.”
A summer shower crashed down as he spoke; a mob of shoppers, breathless for shelter, drove them inwards.
“George,” said Mr. Franklyn, seating himself, “your base mind thinks I have designs on this girl. I grieve at so distorted a fancy. The child says prettily that she attends 'all of 'em.' It is a gross case of overwork into which I feel it my duty more closely to inquire.”
George laughed. “Do you always spend your afternoons like this?”
“As a rule, yes. I have been fifteen years at St. Peter's awaiting that day when through pure ennui the examiners will pass me. It will be a sad wrench to leave the dear old home.” He continued, a tinge of melancholy in his voice: “You know, I am the last of the old brigade. The medical student no longer riots. His name is no longer a byword; he is a rabbit. Alone, undismayed, I uphold the old traditions. I am, so to speak, one of the old aristocracy. Beneath the snug characteristics of the latter-day student—his sweet abhorrence of a rag, his nasty delight in plays which he calls 'hot-stuff,' his cigarettes and his chess-playing—beneath these my head, like Henley's, is bloody but unbowed. Forgive a tear.”
The shower ceased; the tea was finished; the pretty waitress was coyly singeing her modesty in the attractive candle of Mr. Franklyn's suggestions. George left them at the game; strolled aimlessly towards the Marble Arch; beyond it; to the right, and so into a quiet square.
Here comes my heroine.
The hansom, as George walked, was coming towards him—smartly, with a jingle of bells; skimming the kerb. As it reached him (recall that shower) the horse slipped, stumbled, came on its knees.
Down came the shafts; out shot the girl.
The doors were wide; the impetus took her in her stride. One tiny foot dabbed at the platform's edge; the other twinkled—patent leather and silver buckle—at the step, missed it, plunged with a giant stride for the pavement.
“Mercy!” she cried, and came like a shower of roses swirling into George's arms.
Completely he caught her. About his legs whipped her skirts; against him pressed her panting bosom; his arms—the action was instinctive—locked around her; the adorable perfume of her came on him like breeze from a violet bed; her very cheek brushed his lips—since the first kiss it was the nearest thing possible to a kiss.
She twisted backwards. Modesty chased alarm across her face—caught, battled, overcame it; flamed triumphant.
Fright at her accident drove her pale; shame at the manner of her descent—leg to the knee and an indelicacy of petticoats—agitated she had glimpsed it as she leapt—flushed her crimson from the line of her dress about her throat to the wave of her hair upon her brow.
She twisted back. “Oh, what must you think of me?” she gasped.
He simply could not say.
George could not say.
His senses were washed aswim by this torrent of beauty poured unexpected through eyes to brain. It surged the centres to violent commotion, one jostling another in a whirlpool of conflict. Out of the tumult alarm flashed down the wires to his heart—set it banging; flashed in wild message to his tongue—locked it.
The driver in our brains is an intolerable fellow in sudden crisis. He loses his head; distracted he pulls the levers, and, behold, in a moment the thing is irrevocably done; we are a coward legging it down the street, a murderer with bloody hand, a liar with false words suddenly pumped.
A moment later the driver is calm and aghast at the ruin he has contrived. Why, before God, did he pull the leg lever?—the arm lever?—the tongue lever? In an instant's action he has accomplished calamity; where sunshine laughed now darkness heaps; where the prospect smiled disaster now comes rolling up in thunder.
These are your crises. Again, as now with George, the driver becomes temporarily idiot—stands us oafishly silent, or perhaps jerks out some stupid words; remembers when too late the quip that would have fetched the laugh, the thrust that would have sped the wound. He is an intolerable fellow.
“Oh, what must you think of me?”
That pause followed while the driver in George's brain stood gapingly inactive; and then came laughter to him like a draught of champagne. For the girl put up her firm, round chin and laughed with a clear pipe of glee—a laugh to call a laugh as surely as a lark's note will set a hedge in song; and it called the laugh in George.
He said: “I am thinking the nicest things of you. But have you dropped from the skies?”
“From acab,” she protested.
She turned to the road; back to George in dismay, for the catapult, its bullet shot, had bolted up the street—was gone from view.
“Oh!—Iwasin a cab?” she implored.
George said: “Itlookedlike a cab. But a fairy-car, I think.”
A pucker of her brows darkened the quick mirth that came to her eyes. She cried: “Oh, don't joke. She will be killed.”
“You were not alone?”
“No—oh, no! What has happened to her?”
“We had better follow.”
She corrected his number. “Yes, I had better. Thank you so much for your help.” She took a step; faltered upon it with a little exclamation of pain; put a white tooth on her lip.
“You have hurt your foot?” George said.
“My ankle, I think. Oh dear!” and then again she laughed.
It came even then to George that certainly she would have made her fortune were she to set up a gloom-exorcising bureau—waiting at the end of a telephone wire ready to rush with that laugh to banish the imps of melancholy. Never had he heard so infectious a note of mirth.
“Oh, what must you think of me?” she ended. “I simply cannot help laughing, you know—and yet, oh dear!”
She put the tips of the fingers of a hand against her lower lip, gazed very anxiously up the road, and then again she gave that clear pipe of laughter.
“I can't help it,” she told him imploringly. “I simply cannot help laughing. It is funny, you know. She was scolding me—”
“Scolding!” George exclaimed.
That beauty should be scolded!
“Scolding—yes. Oh, I'm only a—well, scolding me, and I was wishing,wishingI could escape. And then suddenly out I shot. And then I look around and she's—” A wave of her hand expressed a disappearance that was by magic agency.
“But,scolding?” George said. “Need you trouble? She will be all right.”
“Oh, I must. I live with her.”
“Will she trouble about you?”
“I think she will return for me. Please,pleasego—would you mind?—to the corner, and see if there has been an accident.”
From that direction a bicyclist approached. George hailed. “Is there a cab accident round the corner?”
The youth stared; called “Rats!”; passed.
George interpreted: “It means No. Do you think if you were to take my arm you could walk to the turning?”
Quite naturally she slipped a white glove around his elbow. The contact thrilled him. “No nice girl, you know, would do this,” she said, “with a perfect stranger.”
George bent his arm a little, the better to feel the pressure of those white fingers. “I am not really perfect,” he told her.
She took his mood. “Nor I really nice,” she joined. “In fact, I'm horrible—they tell me. But I think it is wise to follow, don't you?”
“Profoundly wise. Who says you are horrible?”
She gave no answer. Glancing, he saw trouble shade her eyes, tremble her lips.
That beauty should know distress!
Very slightly he raised his forearm so that the lock of his elbow felt her hand. He had no fine words. This George was no hero with exquisite ways. He was a most average young man, and nothing could he find but most painfully average words.
“I say, what's up?” he asked.
She spoke defiantly; but some stupid something that she hated yet could not repress trembled her lips, robbed her tone of its banter. “What's up?” she said. “Why,youwould say something was up if you'd just been shot plump out of a cab, wouldn't you?”
“Yes, but you were laughing a minute ago.” He looked down at her, but she turned her face. “Now, now, I believe—” He did not name his thought.
She looked up. Her pretty face was red. He saw little flutters of eyelids, flutters round the eyes, flutters at the mouth. “Oh,” she said, “oh, yes, and I don't know why. I'm—I believe—” She tried to laugh, but the little flutterings clouded the smile like soft, dark wings flickering upon a sunbeam.
“I believe—it's ridiculous to a perfect—imperfect—stranger—I believe I'm nearly—crying.”
And this inept George could only return: “I say—oh, I say, can I help you?”
She stopped; from his arm withdrew her hand. “Please—I think you had better go. Please go. Oh, I shall hate myself for behaving like this.”
So unhappy she was that George immediately planned her a backdoor of excuse. “But you have no occasion to blame yourself,” he told her. “You've had an adventure—naturally you're shaken a bit.”
She was relieved to think he had misunderstood her agitation. “Yes, an adventure,” she said, “that's it. And I haven't had an adventure for years, so naturally—But, please, I think you had better go. If my—my friend saw me with you like this she would be angry—oh, very angry.”
“But why? She saw you fall. She saw me save you.”
“You don't understand. She is not exactly my friend; she is my—my employer. I'm a mother's-help.”
The mirth that never lay deep beneath those blue eyes of hers was sparkling up now; the soft, dark wings were fluttering no longer.
She continued: “A mother's-help. Doesn't that sound wretched? I'm terribly slow at learning the mother's-help rules, but I'm positive of this rule—mothers' helps may not shoot out of cabs and leave the mother; it's such little help—you must see that?”
“But you will be less help still if you stay here for ever with your hurt ankle—you must see that? I must stay with you or see you to your home.”
When she answered, it was upon another change of mood. The soft, dark wings were fluttering again; and it was the banter of George's tone that had recalled them. For this was an adventure—and she had not known adventure for years; for these were flippant exchanges arising out of gay young hearts, and they recalled memories of days when such harmless bantering was of her normal life; for there had been sympathy in George's stammering inquiries, and it recalled the time when she lived amidst sympathy and amidst love.
The soft, dark wings fluttered again: “I am very grateful to you for helping me,” she told him. “You must not think me ungrateful; only, I think you had better go. In my position I am not free to—to do as I like, talk where I will. You understand?” Her voice trembled a little, and she repeated: “You understand?”
George said, “I understand.”
And that was all that passed upon this meeting. A cab swung round the opposite corner; pulled up with a rattle; turned towards them; was alongside. Within, a brow of thunder sat.
The cabman called, “I knowed you was all right, miss,” raised the trap, and cheerfully repeated the information to his fare: “I knowed she was all right, mum.”
The mum addressed gave no congratulation to his prescience. He shut the lid; winked at George; behind his hand communicated, “Not 'arf angry, she ain't.”
The girl ran forward; agitation bound up her hurt ankle. “Oh!” she cried, “I am so glad you are safe!”
The thunder-figure addressed said: “Please get in. I have had a severe shock.”
“This gentleman—” The girl half turned to George.
“Please get in—instantly.”
Scarlet the girl went. “Thank you very much,” she said to George; climbed in beside the cloud of wrath.
Her companion slammed the door; dabbed at George a bow that was like a sharp poke with a stick; called, “Drive on.”
George stepped into the road, held half a crown to the driver: “The address?”
The man stooped. With a tremendous wink answered, “Fourteen Palace Gardens, St. John's Wood.”
Away with a jingle.