Her George met her a very few yards down the street. He gave an order to the cabman and sat beside her.
It was not long before her grief was hushed. She dried her eyes; nestled against this wonderful fellow who, as love had now constituted her world, was the solace against every trouble that could come to her, the shield against any power that might arise to do her hurt.
They debated the position and found it desperate; discussed the immediate future to discover it threatening. Yet the gloom was irradiated by the glowing light of the prospective future; the rumbling of present fears was lost in the tinkling music of their voices, striking notes from love.
The cab twisted this way and that; clattered over Battersea Bridge, down the Park, to the right past the Free Library, and so into Meath Street and to the clean little house of the landlady whom George knew.
To her, in the tiny sitting-room, the story was told.
It appeared that she had never yet taken a lady lodger. In her street ladies were regarded with suspicion; that no petticoats were ever to be fetched across the threshold was a rule to which each medical student who engaged her rooms must first subscribe.
None the less she was here acquiescent. She knew George well; had for him an affection above that which commonly she entertained for the noisy young men who were her means of livelihood. Mary should pay for the little back bedroom that Mr. Thornton had; and, free of charge, should have use of the sitting-room rented by Mr. Grainger. There would be no lodgers until the medical schools reopened in October.
So it was settled—and together in the sitting-room where Mrs. Pinking made them a little lunch again they debated the immediate future. It was three weeks before George's examination was due. Again he declared himself confident that, when actually he had passed, his uncle would not refuse the 400 pounds which meant the world to them—which meant the tight little practice at Runnygate. But the intervening weeks were meanwhile to be faced. Mary must have home. At the Agency she must pour forth her tale and seek new situation till they could be married. If the Agency failed them—They shuddered.
Revolving desperate schemes for the betterment of this position into which with such alarming suddenness they had been thrust, George took his leave. He would have tarried, but his Mary was insistent that his work must not be interfered with. Upon its successful exploitation everything now depended.
Brightly she kissed her George good-bye. He was not to worry about her. She was to be shut from his mind. To-morrow she would go to the Agency. He might lunch with her, and, depend upon it, she would greet him with great news.
So they parted.
The Author Meanders Upon The Enduring Hills; And The Reader Will Lose Nothing By Not Accompanying Him.
In pursuit of our opinion that the novel should hark back to its origin and be as a story that is told by mouth to group of listeners, here we momentarily break the thread.
It is an occasion for advertisement.
As when the personal narrator, upon resumption of his history, will at a point declare, “Now we come to the exciting part,” so now do I.
Heretofore we have somewhat dragged. We have been as host and visitor at tea in the drawing-room. Guests have arrived; to you I have introduced them, and after the shortest spell they have taken their leave.
My Mary and my George—favoured guests—have sat with us through our meal; but how fleeting our converse with those others—with Mr. William Wyvern, with Margaret, with Mrs. Major and with Mr. Marrapit! I grant you cause to grumble at their introduction, so purposeless has been their part. I grant you they have been as the guests at whose arrival, disturbing the intimate chatter, impatient glances are exchanged; at whose departure there is shuffle of relief.
Well, I promise you we shall now link our personages and set our history bounding to its conclusion. We have collected them; now to switch on the connection and set them acting one against the other until the sparks do fly; watching those sparks shall be your entertainment.
The switch which thus sets active the play of forces I shall call circumstance. If it has been long delayed, I have the precedent of all the story of human life as my excuse. For we are the children of circumstance. We move each in our little circle by a stout hedge encompassed. Circumstance suddenly will break the wall: some fellow man or woman is flung against us, and immediately the quiet ambulation of our little circle is for some conflict sharp exchanged. To-day we are at peace with the world, to-morrow warring with all mankind.
I say with all mankind, because so narrow and so selfish is our outlook upon life that one single man or woman—a dullard neighbour or a silly girl—who may interfere with us, throws into turmoil our whole existence. Walls of impenetrable blackness shut out all life save only this intruder and ourself; that other person becomes our world—engaging our complete faculties.
Deeper misfortune cannot be conceived. It is through allowing such occurrences to crush us that brows are wrinkled before their time; nerves broken-edged while yet they should be firmly strung; death reached ere yet the proper span of life is lived.
For these unduly wrinkled brows, too early broken nerves, too soon encountered graves, civilised man has agreed upon an excuse. He names it the strain of life in modern conditions. There is no body in this plea. It is not the conditions that matter; it is our manner of receiving those conditions. Bend to them and they will crush; face them and they become of no avail; allow them to be the Whole of life, and immediately they are given so great a weight that to withstand them is impossible; regard them in their proper proportion to the scheme of things, and they become of airy nothingness.
For if we regulate each to its right importance all that surrounds us, not forgetting that since life is transient time is the only ultimate standard of value, how unutterably insignificant must small human troubles appear in their relation to the whole scheme of things, to the enduring hills, the immense seas, vast space.
Gain strength from strength. Compare vexations encompassed by the artifice of man with the tremendous life that is mothered by nature.
Gain strength from strength. Set troubles against the enduring hills, misfortunes against the immense seas, perplexities against vast space, torments against the stout trees. Learn to take tribute of strength from every object that is built of strength—the strength of solidity that a stout beam may give, the strength of beauty that from a picture or a statuary irradiates.
Gain strength from strength. It is a first principle of warfare to band undisciplined troops with tried regiments, to shoulder recruits with veterans. The horse-breaker will set the timid colt in harness with the steady mare. Thus is stiffening and a sense of security imparted to the weaker spirit; timidity oozes and is burned by the steady flame of courage that from the stronger emanates. In the heat of that flame latent strength warms and kindles in the weaker.
Gain strength from strength. Seek intercourse with the minds that are above you; if not to be encountered, they are to be purchased in books. Avoid communion with the small minds below you and of your level.
No man, nor book, nor thing can be touched without virtue passing thence into you. See to it that who or what you touch gives you strength, not weakness; uplifts, not debases. The aspiring athlete does not seek to match his strength against inferiors. These give him—easy victory. Contact with them is for him effortless; they tend to draw him to their plane. Rather, being wise, he shuns them to pit his prowess against such as can give him best, from whom he may learn, out of whom he will take virtue, by whom he will be raised to all that is best in him. Gain strength from strength. The attributes strength and weakness are as infectious as the plague. Make your bed so that you may lie with strength and catch his affection.
I do not pretend that these are thoughts which influenced the persons of my history. My unthinking George and my simple Mary would care nothing for such things. Sight of the enduring hills would evoke in my George the uttered belief that they would be an infernal sweat to climb; sound of the immense seas if in anger would move my Mary to prayer for all those in peril on the wave, if in lapping tranquillity to sentimental thoughts of her George. But they had laughter and they had love. Adversity can make little fight against those lusty weapons.
And now we have an exquisite balcony scene and rare midnight alarms for your delectation.
On that day when George left his Mary at the little lodgings in Meath Street, Battersea, Bill Wyvern returned to Paitley Hill after absence from home for a week upon a visit.
His Margaret was his first thought upon his arrival. Letters between the pair were, by the sharpness of Mr. Marrapit's eye, compelled to be exchanged not through the post but by medium of a lovers' postal box situate in the hole of a tree in that shrubbery of Herons' Holt where they were wont by stealth to meet. Thus when Bill, upon this day of his return, scaled the tremendous wall and groped among the bushes, he saw the trysting bower innocent of his love—then searched and found a letter.
A sad little note for lover's heart. Mr. Marrapit, it said, abed of a chill, prevented Margaret meeting her Bill that afternoon. Her father must be constantly ministered; impossible to say when she would be released. She heard him calling, she must fly to him. With fondest love. No time for more.
The lines chilled Bill's heart. His was a fidgety and nervous love that took fright at shadow of doubt. The week that had divided him from Margaret was the longest period they had not embraced since their discovery one of another. Was it not possible, he tortured himself, that loss of his presence had blurred his image in her heart? Countless heroes of his own stories who thus had suffered rose to assure him that possible indeed it was. The more he brooded upon it the more probable did it become.
Bedtime found him desolated. In apprehension he paced his room. The thought of sleep with this devil of doubt to thump his pillow was impossible. Leaning from his window he gazed upon the stars and groaned; dropped eyes to the lawn, silvered in moonlight, and started beneath the prick of a sudden thought. It was a night conceived for lovers' tryst. He would seek his Margaret's open window, whistle her from her bed, and bring this damned doubt of her to reality or knock the ghostly villain dead.
It was an inspiriting thought, and Bill started to whistle upon it until he remembered the demeanour in which he would have sent forth one of his own heroes upon such a mission. “Dark eyes gleaming strangely from a pale, set face,” he would have written. Bill's eyes were of a clearest, childlike blue which interfered a little with the proper conception of the role he was to play; but blanketing his spirits in melancholy he stepped from his room and passed down the stairs.
That favoured bull-terrier Abiram, sleeping in the hall, drummed a tattoo of welcome upon the floor.
“Chuck it,” said Bill morosely.
The “faithful hound” that gives solace to the wounded heart is a pretty enough thing in stories; Abiram had had no training for the part. This dog associated his master not with melancholy that needed caressing but with wild “rags” that gave and demanded tremendous spirits.
Intelligence, however, showed the wise creature that the tone of that command meant he was to be excluded from whatever wild rag might be now afoot. It was not to be borne. Therefore, to lull suspicion, Abiram ceased his drumming; rose when Bill had passed; behind him crept stealthily; and upon the door being opened bounded around his master's legs and into the moonlight with a joyous yelp.
Fearful of arousing Korah and Dathan in their kennels to tremendous din if he bellowed orders, Bill hissed commands advising Abiram to return indoors under threat of awful penalties.
Abiram frisked and skipped upon the lawn like a young lamb.
Bill changed commands for missiles.
Abiram, entering into the thing with rare spirit, caught, worried, and killed each clod of earth hurled at him, then bounded expectant forward for the next sacrifice that would be thrown for his delight in this entrancing game.
“Very well,” spoke Bill between his teeth. “Very well. You jolly well come, my boy. Wait till you get near enough for me to catch you, that's all.”
Beneath this understanding they moved forward across the lawn and down the road; Abiram sufficiently in the rear to harass rats that might be going about their business, without himself being in the zone of his master's strength.
Heaving a sigh burthened with fond memory as he passed the wall of Herons' Holt where it gave upon the secret meeting-place in the shrubbery, Bill skirted the grounds; for the second time in his life passed through the gate and up the drive.
Well he knew his adored's window. From the shrubbery she had pointed it him. Now with a bang of the heart he observed that the bottom sash stood open so that night breezes, mingling freely with the perfumes of her apartment, unhindered could bear in to her his tremulous love-signals.
He set a low whistle upon the air. It was not louder, he felt, than the agitated banging of his heart that succeeded it.
Again he whistled, and once again. There was a rustling from within.
“Margaret!” he softly called. “Margaret!”
She appeared. The blessed damosel leaned out. About her yearning face the long dark hair abundantly fell; her pretty bed-gown, unbuttoned low, gave him glimpse of snowy bosom, beautifully rounded.
“Oh, Bill!” she cried, stretching her arms.
Then, glancing downwards at her person, she stepped back swiftly. Reappearing, the soft round of her twin breasts was not to view.
She had buttoned up her night-dress.
“Oh, Bill!”
“Oh, Margaret!”
“Wow!” spoke Abiram in nerve-shattering welcome. “Wow!”
The blessed damosel fled. Bill plunged a kick. Abiram took the skirt of it; waddled away across the lawn, his waving stern expressing pleasure at having at once shown his politeness by bidding a lady good evening, and at being, like true gentleman, well able to take a hint.
Bill put upon the breeze:
“It's all right. He's gone.”
No answer. Shuddering with terror lest that hideouswow!had disturbed the house the blessed damosel lay trembling abed, the coverings pressed about her straining ears.
“He's gone,” Bill strained again, his larynx torn with the rasp of whispers that must penetrate like shouts and yet speed soft-shod. “He's gone!”
Margaret put a white leg to the ground—listened; drew forth its companion—listened; glimpsed her white legs; shuddered at such immodesty with a man so close; veiled them to their toes with her bed-gown; listened; stepped again to the window.
“Oh, Bill!”
“Oh, Margaret!”
“Has anyone heard, do you think?”
“My darling, not a soul. It sounded loud to us. Oh, Margaret—”
“Hush! Yes?”
“Do you know why I am come?”
“Hush!—no.”
“I thought—from your note—that you didn't care to see me again. I thought-being away like that—that you found you didn't-love me after all. Oh, I was tortured, Margaret. Oh—!”
“Hush! Listen!”
“Damn!” said Bill.
The blessed damosel poked her beautiful head again into the night. “It's all right. I thought I heard a sound. We must be careful.”
“Oh, Margaret, I was tortured—racked. I had to come to you. Tell me I was wrong in thinking—”
“Oh, Bill, Bill, I—”
This girl was well-nigh in a swoon of delicious excitement. Emotion took her and must be gulped ere she found voice. She stretched her arms down towards him.
“Oh, Bill, I thought so, too.”
A steely pang struck at his heart. “You thought you didn't love me after all?”
“No, no, no.”
Emotion dragged her from the window to her waist. Her long hair cascaded down to him so that the delicious tips, kissing his face, might by his lips be kissed.
“No, no,” she breathed; “I thought the same of you. I thought you might have found—”
“Yes?”
“Hush!”
“Damn!” said Bill.
She reappeared; again her tresses trickled to him. “It's all right. I thought you might have found you didn't love me after all. Dearest, not hearing from you—”
In sympathy of spirit Bill groaned: “What could I do?”
She clasped her hands in a delicious ecstasy. “I know, I know. But you know how foolish I am. I felt—oh, Bill, forgive me!—I felt that, if you had really cared, a way of sending me a message might have been found. Of course, it was impossible. And there was more than that. When we parted last week, I thought you seemed not to care very much—”
“Oh, Margaret!”
“I know, I know. I know now how foolish I was, but that is what I thought—and, Bill, it tortured me. I've not been able to sleep at nights. That is how I was awake just now.”
“Margaret, I believe you're crying.”
“I'm so—so happy now.”
“Oh, so am I! Aren't you glad I came, Margaret?”
She murmured, “Oh, Bill!”; gave him a smile that pictured her answer.
Mutually they gazed for a space, drinking delight.
Her thirst quenched, Margaret said:
“Bill, those nights, those terrible nights when I have been doubtful of you, filled me with thoughts that shaped into a poem last night.”
“A poem to me?”
“About us. Shall I read it?—now that the doubt is all over.”
He begged her read.
She was a space from his sight; then, bending down to him, in her hand paper of palest heliotrope, whispered to him by light of the beautiful moon:
“Our meeting! Do you remember, dear,How Nature knew we met?Twilight soft with a gentle breezeBearing scent of the slumbering seas;Music sweet—'twas a nightingale,Trilling and sobbing from laugh to wail—Golden sky that was flecked with red(Ribands of rose on a golden bed).Ah, love! when first we met!”
She paused. “It was raining as a matter of fact, dearest,” she whispered, “and just after breakfast. But you know what I mean. That is the imagery of it—as it seemed to me.”
Bill said: “And to me; a beautiful imagery.”
She smiled in the modest pride of authorship: “Oh, it's nothing, really. You know how these things come. To you in prose, to me in song. One has to set them down.”
“One is merely the instrument,” Bill said.
“Yes, the instrument.” She hugged the phrase. “Theinstrument. How cleverly you put things!”
Bill disavowed the gift. Margaret breathed, “Oh, you do; I have so often noticed it.” Bill again denied.
Conventionality demanded this little exchange of them, and to-day the empress sway of conventionality is rarely rebelled. Even, as here, when treading the path of love, the journey must constantly be stopped while handfuls of the sweet-smelling stuff are tossed about our persons. Neglect the duty and you must walk alone. For to neglect conventionality is like going abroad without clothes; the naked man appears. Now, nothing can be more utterly horrid to our senses than a stark woman or stark man walking down the street. We should certainly pull aside the blind to have a peep, and the more we could see of the nakedness the further would we crane our heads (provided no one was by to watch); but to go out and chat, to be seen in company with the naked creature, is another matter. We would sooner chop off our legs. So with the conventions. The fewer of them you wear, the more naked (that is to say, real) do you become. Eyes will poke at you round the blinds, but you must walk quickly past the gate, please. If you will not go through the machine and come out a nice smooth sausage, well, you must remain original flesh and gristle; but you will smell horrid in nice noses.
Is it not warming, as you read this, to know perfectly well that you are not one of the sausages?
When they had sufficiently daubed themselves, Margaret asked:
“Shall I read the next verse? That was the imagery of our meeting; this of our parting.”
Bill gulped. This man was fondling the scented tresses that trickled about his face; speech was a little difficult.
She put her page beneath the moon; gave her voice to its rapture:
“Our parting! Do you remember, dear,How Nature our folly knew?Mournful swish of the sobbing rain;Distant surge of the Deep in pain;Whispering wail of the wandering wind,Seeking, sobbing, a rest to find;Fitful gleam from a troubled sky(Nature weeping to see love die).Ah, love, when last we met!
“It was a perfect day, really,” she said. “Very hot, and just before lunch, do you remember? But there, again, it is theimageryof it as it seemed to our inner selves. It comes to one, and one is theinstrument.”
Bill's voice was hoarse. “Margaret, come down to me,” he said.
“I dare not.”
“You must. I must touch you—kiss you. You must come down!”
“Bill, I dare not; I should be heard.”
He bitted his next words as they came galloping up. Dare he give them rein? And then again he bathed in the ecstasy of the scene. The black square of the open window; the scented roses that framed it; the silver night that lit its picture—her dusky face between her streaming hair, her white arms, bare to where the pushed-back sleeves gave them to the soft breeze to kiss, the soft outline of her breast where the press of her weight drew close her gown.
It was not to be borne. The bitted words lashed from his hold. He gasped:
“Then I am coming up!”
Was she aghast at him? he asked himself. He stood half-checked while her steady eyes left his face, roamed from him—contrasting, as ashamed he felt, the purity of the still night with the clamour of his turbulent passions—and settled on an adjacent flowerbed.
At last she spoke, very calmly.
“There is a potting-box just there,” she said. “If you turned it on end you could reach the window, and then—”
The box gave him two feet of reach. He jumped for the ledge—caught it; pulled; fetched the curve of an arm over the sill.
Then between earth and paradise he hung limp; for a sudden horror was in his Margaret's eyes.
She put upon his brow a hand that pressed him back; gave words to her pictured alarm: “A step upon the gravel!”
'Twixt earth and window, with dangling legs and clutching arms, in muscle-racking pain he hung.
Truly a step, and then another step.
And then a very tornado of sound beat furiously upon the trembling night; with it a flash; from it the pattering of a hundred bullets.
Someone had discharged a gun.
As Satan was hurled, so, plumb out of the gates of Paradise, Bill fell. And now the still air was lashed into a fury of sound-waves, tearing this way and that in twenty keys; now the sleeping garden was torn by rushing figures, helter-skelter for life and honour.
Sounds!—the melancholy bellow of that gardener, Mr. Fletcher, as the recoil of the bell-mouthed blunderbuss he had fired hurled him prone upon the gravel; the dreadful imprecations of Bill striving to clear his leg of the potting-box through whose side it had plunged; piercing screams of Mrs. Major from a ground-floor room; shrills of alarm from Mr. Marrapit;gurr-r-ingyelps from Abiram in ecstasy of man-hunt.
Rushing figures!—Bill, freed from his box, at top speed towards the shrubbery; Mr. Fletcher, up from his fall, with tremendous springs bounding across the lawn; Abiram in hurtling pursuit.
More sounds!—panic screams from Mr. Fletcher, heavily labouring; the protest of a window roughly raised; from George's head, thrust into the night: “Yi! Yi! Yi! Hup, then! Good dog! Sock him! Sock him! Yi! Yi! Yi!”
We must seek the fuse that touched off this hideous turbulence.
We are going into a lady's bedroom, but I promise you the thing shall be nicely done: there shall not be a blush.
It was midnight when Bill Wyvern projected the scheme whose execution we have followed through sweetness to disaster. Two hours earlier the Marrapit household had sought its beds.
It was Mr. Marrapit's wise rule that each member of his establishment should pass before him as he or she sought their chambers. Night is the hour when the thoughts take on unbridled licence; and he would send his household to sleep each with some last admonition to curb fantastic wanderings of the mind.
Upon this night Mr. Marrapit was himself abed of the chill that Margaret had mentioned in her note to Bill. But the review was not therefore foregone. Upon his back, night-capped head on pillow propped, he lay as the minute-hand of his clock ticked towards ten.
His brow ruffled against a sound without his door. He called:
“Mrs. Armitage!”
“Sir?” spoke Mrs. Armitage through the oak.
“Breathe less stertorously.”
Mrs. Armitage, his cook, waiting outside upon the mat, gulped wrath; respirated through open mouth.
The clock at Mr. Marrapit's elbow gave the first chime of ten. Instantly Mrs. Armitage tapped.
“Enter,” said Mr. Marrapit.
She waddled her stout figure to him. Behind her Clara and Ada, those trim maids, took place.
Mr. Marrapit addressed her. “To-morrow, Mrs. Armitage, arouse your girls at six. Speed them at their toilet; set them to clean your flues.” He glanced at a tablet taken from beneath his pillow. “At 4.6 this afternoon I smelt soot.”
“The flues were cleaned this morning, sir.”
“Untrue. Your girls were late. Prone in suffering upon my couch, my ears tell me all that is accomplished in every part of the house. Ten minutes after your girls descended I heard the kitchen fire roar. I suspect paraffin.”
Mrs. Armitage wriggled to displace the blame. “I rose them at six, sir. They sleep that heavy and they take that long to dressing, it's a wonder to me they ever do get down.”
Mr. Marrapit addressed the sluggards. “Shun the enervating couch. Spring to the call. Cleanliness satisfied, adorn not the figure; pursue the duties. Ponder this. Seek help to effect it. Contrive a special prayer. To your beds.”
They left him; upon the mat encountered Frederick, and him, in abandon of relief, dug vitally with vulgar thumbs.
Squirming, Frederick, the gardener's boy, advanced to the bedside.
Mr. Marrapit sternly regarded him: “Recite your misdeeds.”
“I've done me jobs, sir.”
“Prostrated, I cannot check your testimony. One awful eye above alone can tell. Upon your knees this night search stringently your heart. Bend.”
Frederick inclined his neck until his forehead was upon the coverlet. Mr. Marrapit scanned the neck.
“Behind the ears are stale traces. Cleanse abundantly. To your bed.”
Without the door Frederick encountered Mr. Fletcher. “You let me catch you reading abed to-night,” Mr. Fletcher warned him.
“Cleanse yer blarsted ear-'oles,” breathed Frederick, pushing past.
Mr. Fletcher moved in to the presence.
“Is all securely barred, bolted and shuttered?” Mr. Marrapit asked.
“It's all right.”
“I am apprehensive. This is the first night I have not accompanied you upon your round. Colossal responsibility lies upon you. Should thieves break through and steal, upon your head devolves the crime.”
Wearily Mr. Fletcher repeated: “It's all right.”
Mr. Marrapit frowned: “You do not inspire confidence. Sleep films your eye. I shudder for you. Women and children are in your care this night. The maids, Mrs. Armitage, Mrs. Major, my daughter, the young life of Frederick, are in your hands. What if rapine and murder, concealed in the garden, are loosed beneath my roof this night?”
Mr. Fletcher passed a fist across his brow; spoke wearily: “It's all right, Mr. Marrapit. I can't say more; I can't do more. I tell you again it's all right.”
“Substantiate. Adduce evidence.”
Mr. Fletcher raised an appealing hand: “How can I prove it? My word's a good word, ain't it? I tell you the doors are locked. I can't bring 'em up to show you, can I? I'm a gardener, I am.”
“By zeal give proof. Set your alarum-clock so that twice in the night you may be roused. Gird then yourself and patrol. But lightly slumber. Should my bell sound in your room spring instantly to my bedside. To your couch.”
Battling speech, Mr. Fletcher moved to the door. At the threshold protest overcame him. He gave it vent: “I should like to ast if I was engaged to work by night as well as day? Can't I even have me rest? 'Ow many nights am I to patrol the house? It's 'ard—damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a watchdog.”
“Away, insolence.”
Insolence, upon the stairs, morosely descending, drew aside to give room to Margaret and George.
Margaret parted her lips at him in her appealing smile. “Oh, Mr. Fletcher,” in her pretty way she said, “you locked me out. Indeed you did.” She smiled again; tripped towards Mr. Marrapit's door.
Mr. Fletcher stayed George, following. “Mr. George, did you shut up secure behind Miss Margaret?”
George reassured him; questioned his earnestness.
Mr. Fletcher pointed through a window that gave upon the garden. “I've the 'orrors on me to-night,” he said. “According to Master there's rapine lurking in them bushes. Mr. George, what'll I do if there's rapine beneath this roof to-night?”
“Catch it firmly by the back of the neck and hold its head in a bucket of water,” George told him.
Mr. Fletcher passed, pondering the suggestion. “Only something to do with rats after all,” he cogitated with wan smile of relief.
Margaret, at her father's bedside, luxuriously mouthed the fine phrases of the Book of Job which nightly she read him. Her chapter finished, she inquired: “Shall I read on?”
“Does Job continue?”
“No, father. The next begins, 'Then answered Bildad, the Shuite.'”
George coughed upon the threshold.
“Terminate,” said Mr. Marrapit. “Bildad is without.”
“Oh, father, George is not!”
“He torments me. He is Bildad. Terminate. To your bed.”
She pressed a warm kiss upon Job's brow; took on her soft cheek the salute of his thin lips. “You have everything, dear father?”
“Prone on my couch I lack much. I am content. You are a good girl, Margaret.”
“Oh, father!” She tripped from the room in a warmth of satisfaction.
The rough head of Bildad the Shuite came round the door; spoke “Good night.”
“Approach,” said Job. Bildad's legs came over the mat. “You seek your room? But not your couch?”
“I'm going to bed, if that's what you mean,” George told him.
Mr. Marrapit groaned. “Spurn it. Shun sloth. In the midnight oil set the wick of knowledge. Burn it, trim it, tend it.”
George withdrew to his room; set the midnight pipe in his mouth; leaning from his window sped his thoughts to Battersea.
One member of the house remained to be sent to sleep. Mrs. Major put a soft knuckle to the door; came at the call; whispered “I thought I might disturb you.”
“You never disturb me, Mrs. Major.”
A little squeak sprung from the nutter in the masterly woman's heart.
“You sigh, Mrs. Major?”
“Oh, Mr. Marrapit, I can't bear to see you lying there. The”—she paused against an effort, then took the aspirate in a masterly rush—“the house is not the same without you.”
“Your sympathy is very consoling to me, Mrs. Major.”
“Oh, Mr. Marrapit!” She plunged a shaft that should try him: “I wish I had the right to give you more.”
“Your position in this house gives you free access to me, Mrs. Major. Regard your place as one of my own circle. Do not let deference stifle intercourse.”
The masterly woman hove a superb sigh. “If you knew how I feel your kindness, Mr. Marrapit. Truly, as I say to myself every night, fair is my lot and goodly is my—” Icy dismay took her. Was the missing word “hermitage” or “heritage”? With masterly decision she filled the blank with a telling choke; keyed her voice to a brilliant suggestion of brightness struggling with tears: “The sweetling cats are safely sleeping. I have come straight from them. Ah, how they miss you! How well they know you suffer!”
“They do?” A tremble of pleasure was in Mr. Marrapit's voice.
“They does—do.” Mrs. Major recited their day, gave their menu. “I must not tarry,” she concluded; “you need rest. Good night, Mr. Marrapit. Good night.”
“Good night, Mrs. Major.”
Mr. Marrapit put out his candle.
And now in every room, save one, Sleep drew her velvet fingers down recumbent forms; pressed eyelids with her languorous kiss; upon her warm breast pillowed willing heads; about her bedfellows drew her Circe arms.
Mrs. Major's room was that single exception, and it is that masterly woman's apartment we now shall penetrate.
Hurrying to semi-toilet; again assuring herself that the key was turned; peering a last time for lurking ravishers beneath the bed, Mrs. Major then fumbled with keys before her box—threw up the lid.
Down through a pile of garments plunged her arm. Her searching fingers closed about her quest and a very beautiful smile softened her face—a smile of quiet confidence and of trust.
In greater degree than men, women have this power of taking strength from the mere contact of an inanimate object. A girl will smile all through her sleep because, hand beneath pillow, her fingers are about a photograph or letter; no need, as with Mrs. Major there was no need, even to see the thing that thus inspires. The pretty hand will delve to recesses of a drawer, and the thrill that brings the smile will run up from, it may be, a Bible, a diary, or a packet of letters touched. Dependent since Eden, woman is more emotionally responsive to aught that gives aid than is man; for man is accustomed to battle for his prizes, not to receive them.
Mrs. Major drew up, that smile still upon her face, and the moon through uncurtained window gave light upon the little joy she fetched from the depths of her trunk.
“Old Tom Gin.”
The neck of Old Tom's bottle clinked against a glass; Old Tom gurgled generously; passed away through the steady smile he had inspired.
Mrs. Major set a carafe of water upon a little table; partnered it with Old Tom; reclined beside the pair on a comfortable seat; closed her eyes.
At intervals, as the hand crept between eleven and twelve of the clock, she would open them; when she did so diluted Old Tom in the glass fell lower, full-bodied Old Tom in the bottle marched steadily behind.
The further Old Tom crept downwards from the neck of his captivity, with the greater circumspection did Mrs. Major open her eyes. Considerable practice had told this masterly woman that Old Tom must be commanded with a steady will: else he took liberties. Eyes suddenly opened annoyed Old Tom, and he would set the furniture ambulating round the room in a manner at once indecorous in stable objects and calculated to bewilder the observer. Therefore, upon setting down her glass, this purposeful woman would squarely fix the bureau that stood opposite her, would for a moment keep her gaze upon it with a sternness that forbade movement, then gently would close her eyes. When Old Tom must be again interviewed she would lift the merest corner of an eyelid; catch through it the merest fraction of the bureau; determine from the behaviour of this portion the stability of the whole.
Thus if the corner she sighted showed indecorous propensities—as, swelling and receding, fluttering in some ghostly breeze, or altogether disappearing from view,—she would drop her lid and wait till she might catch it more seemly. This effected, she would work from that fixed point, inch by inch, until the whole bureau was revealed—swaying a little, perhaps, but presently quiescent.
When, and not until, it was firmly anchored she would slowly start her eye in review around the other objects of her apartment. If the wash-stand had tendency to polka with the bed, or the wardrobe unnaturally to stretch up its head through the ceiling, Mrs. Major would march her gaze steadily back to the bureau, there to take fresh strength and start again. When all was orderly—then Old Tom.
Masterly in all things, this woman was most masterly in her cups.
Into Mr. Marrapit's dreams there came a whistle.
He pushed at Sleep; she crooned to him and he snuggled against her.
Upon his brain there rapped a harshWow!
He wriggled from his bedfellow; she put an arm about him, drew him to her.
Now there succeeded a steady wash of sound—rising, falling, murmuring persistent against his senses.
He turned his back upon Sleep. She crooned; he wriggled from her. Seductively she followed; he kicked a leg and jarred her, threw an arm and hurt her. Disgusted, she slipped from bed and left him, leaving a chilly space where she had warmly lain.
Mr. Marrapit shivered; felt for Sleep; found her gone; with a start sat upright.
The breakwater gone, that wash of sound which had lapped around his senses rushed in upon them. Lingering traces of the touch of Sleep still offered resistance—a droning hum. The wash surged over, poured about him—VOICES!
Mr. Marrapit violently cleared his throat. The voices continued. Violently again. They still continued. Tremendously a third time. They yet continued. From this he argued that they could not be very close to his door. Intently he listened, then located them—they came from the garden. He felt for the bell-push that carried to Mr. Fletcher's room; put his thumb upon it; steadily pressed.
Sleep toyed no tricks in Mr. Fletcher's bed. Like some wanton mistress discovered in the very act of betrayal, she at the first tearing clamour of the electric bell bounded from the sheets, scuttled from the room.
“Rapine!” cried Mr. Fletcher; plunged his head beneath the bedclothes and wrestled in prayer.
The strident gong faltered not nor failed. Steady and penetrating it dinned its hideous call. Mr. Fletcher waited for screams. None came. He pushed the sheet between his chattering teeth, listened for cudgelling and heavy falls. None came. That bell had single possession of the night. The possibility that only patrolling was required of him nerved him to draw from his concealment. He lit a candle; into trousers pushed his quivering legs; upon tottering limbs passed up the stairs to Mr. Marrapit's room.
“Judas!” Mr. Marrapit greeted him.
Mr. Fletcher sighed relief: “I thought it was rapine.”
“You have betrayed your trust. You are Iscariot.”
“I come when you rung.”
“Silence. I have heard voices.”
“God help us,” Mr. Fletcher piously groaned; the candle in his shaking hand showered wax.
“Blasphemer! He will not help the craven. Gird yourself.”
“I'll call Mr. George.”
“Refrain. I will attend to that. Gird yourself. Take the musket from the hall. It is loaded. Patrol!”
“I don't want the musket.”
“Be not overbold. Outside you may be at their mercy.”
“Outside!”
“Assuredly.”
“Me patrol outside!”
“That is your task. Forward!”
By now Mr. Marrapit had risen; swathed himself in a dressing-gown. Sternly he addressed Mr. Fletcher: “As you this night quit yourself so will I consider the question of your dismissal. If blood is spilt this night it will be upon your head.”
Mr. Fletcher trembled. “That's just it. It's 'ard—damn 'ard—”
“Forward, Iscariot.” Mr. Marrapit drove Judas before him; in the hall took down the gun and pressed it into the shaking hands. He drew the bolts, impelled Iscariot outward, and essayed to close the door.
Mr. Fletcher clutched the handle. Mr. Marrapit pushed; hissed through the crack: “Away! Search every nook. Penetrate each fastness. Use stealth. Track, trace, follow!”
Discarding entreaty, Mr. Fletcher put hoarse protest through the slit of aperture that remained: “I should like to ast if I was engaged for this, Mr. Marrapit,” he panted. “I'm a gardener, I am—”
“I recognise that. To your department. With your life forefend it.”
Mr. Marrapit fetched the door against the lintel; in the brief moment he could hold it close slid the lock.
No tremor of fear or of excitement ruffled this remarkable man. Calm in the breezes of life he was calm also in its tempests. This is a natural corollary. As a man faces the smaller matters of his life so he will face its crises. Each smallest act accomplished imprints its stamp upon the pliable mass we call character; our manner of handling each tiniest common-place of our routine helps mould its form; each fleeting thought helps shape the mould.
The process is involuntary and we are not aware of its working. Character is not made by tremendous thumps, but by the constant patterings of minutest touches. The athlete does not build his strength by enormous exertions, but by consistent and gentle training. Huge strains at spasmodic intervals, separated by periods in which he lies fallow in sloth, add nothing to his capacity for endurance; it is by the tally of each minute of his preparation that you may read how he will acquit himself against the test. Thus also with the shaping of character, and thus was Mr. Marrapit, collected in minor affairs, mighty in this crisis.
Turning from the door he marched steadily across the hall towards the stairs to arouse George.
At the lowermost step a movement on the landing above made him pause. He was to be spared the trouble. Placing the candle upon a table he looked up. He spoke. “George!”
“Wash it?” said a voice. “Wash it?”
“Wash nothing,” Mr. Marrapit commanded. “Who is this?”
The answer, starting low, ascended a shrill scale: “Wash it? Wash it? Wash it?”
“Silence!” Mr. Marrapit answered. “Descend!”
He craned upwards. The curl-papered head of Mrs. Major poked at him over the banisters.
“Darling,” breathed Mrs. Major. “Darling—um!”
“Mrs. Major! What is this?”
“Thash whatIwant to know,” said Mrs. Major coquettishly. “Wash it? Washishit?”
“You are distraught, Mrs. Major. Have no fear. To your room.”
The curl-papered head waggled. Mrs. Major beamed. “Darling. Darling—um!”
“Exercise control,” Mr. Marrapit told her. “Banish apprehension. There are thieves; but we are alert.”
The head withdrew. Mrs. Major gave a tiny scream: “Thieves!” She took a brisk little run down the short flight which gave from where she stood; flattened against the wall that checked her impulse; pressed carefully away from it; stood at the head of the stairs facing Mr. Marrapit.
He gazed up. “I fear you have been walking in your sleep, Mrs. Major.”
Mrs. Major did not reply. She pointed a slippered toe at the stair below her; swayed on one leg; dropped to the toe; steadied; beamed at Mr. Marrapit; and in a high treble coquettishly announced, “One!”
Mr. Marrapit frowned: “Retire, Mrs. Major.”
Mrs. Major plumped another step, beamed again: “Two!”
“You dream. Retire.”
Mrs. Major daintily lifted her skirt; poised again. The projected slipper swayed a dangerous circle. Mrs. Major alarmingly rocked. That infamous Old Tom presented three sets of banisters for her support; she clutched at one; it failed her; “Three four five six seven eight nine ten—darling!” she cried; at breakneck speed plunged downwards, and with the “Darling!” flung her arms about Mr. Marrapit's neck.
Back before the shock, staggering beneath the weight, Mr. Marrapit went with digging heels. They could not match the pace of that swift blow upon his chest. Its backward speed outstripped them. With shattering thud he plumped heavily to his full length upon the floor; Mrs. Major pressed him to earth.
But that shock was a whack on the head for Old Tom that temporarily quieted him. “What has happened?” Mrs. Major asked, clinging tightly.
Mr. Marrapit gasped: “Release my neck. Remove your arms.”
“Where are we?”
“You are upon my chest. I am prone beneath you. Release!”
“It's all dark,” Mrs. Major cried; gripped firmer.
“It is not dark. I implore movement. Our juxtaposition unnaturally compromises us. It is abhorrent.”
Mrs. Major opened the eyes she had tightly closed during that staggering journey and that shattering fall. She loosed her clutch; got to her knees; thence tottered to a chair. That infamous Old Tom raised his head again; tickled her brain with misty fingers.
Mr. Marrapit painfully rose. He put a sympathetic hand upon the seat of his injury; with the other took up the candle. He regarded Mrs. Major; suspiciously sniffed the air, pregnant with strange fumes; again regarded his late burden.
Upon her face that infamous Old Tom set a beaming smile,
“Follow me, Mrs. Major,” Mr. Marrapit commanded; turned for the dining-room; from its interior faced about upon her.
With rare dignity the masterly woman slowly arose; martially she poised against the hat-rack; with stately mien marched steadily towards him.
Temporarily she had the grip of Old Tom—was well aware, at least, of his designs upon her purity, and superbly she combated him.
With proud and queenly air she drew on—Mr. Marrapit felt that the swift suspicion which had taken him had misjudged her.
Mrs. Major reached the mat. Old Tom gave a playful little twitch of her legs, and she jostled the doorpost.
With old-world courtesy she bowed apology to the post. “Beg pardon,” she graciously murmured; stood swaying.
Step by step with her as she had crossed the hall, Mr. Fletcher, recovering from the coward fear in which he shivered outside the door, had crept forward along the path around the house. As Mrs. Major stood swaying upon the threshold of the dining-room he reached the angle; peered round it; in horror sighted Bill's figure pendant from Margaret's window.
Thrice the bell-mouth of his gun described a shivering circle; tightly he squeezed his eyelids—pressed the trigger.
Mr. Marrapit bounded six inches—hardly reached the earth again when, with a startled scream, Mrs. Major was upon him, again her arms about his neck.
And now shriek pursued shriek, tearing upwards through her throat. Old Tom had loosed the ends of all her nerves. Like bolting rabbit in young corn the tearing discharge of that gun went madly through them, and lacerated she gave tongue.
Stifled by the bony shoulder that pressed against his face, Mr. Marrapit went black. He jerked his head free, put up his face, and giving cry for cry, shrilled, “George! George! George!”
The din reached George where from his window he leaned, crying on Abiram in the man-hunt across the garden. He drew in his head, bounded down the stairs. Over Mrs. Major's back, bent inwards from the toes to the rock about which she clung, Mr. Marrapit's empurpled face stared at him.
Upon George's countenance the sight struck a great grin; his legs it struck to dead halt.
Mrs. Major's shrieks died to moans.
“Action!” Mr. Marrapit gasped. “Remove this creature!”
George put a hand upon her back. It shot a fresh shriek from her; she clung closer.
“Pantaloon!” Mr. Marrapit strained. “Crush that grin! Action! Remove this woman! She throttles me! The pressure is insupportable. I am Sinbad.”
George again laid hands. Again Mrs. Major shrieked; tighter clung.
Mr. Marrapit, blacker, cried, “Zany!”
“Well, what the devil can I do?” George asked, hopping about the pair; Mrs. Major's back as responsive to his touch as the keys of a piano to idle fingers.
“You run to and fro and grin like a dog,” Mr. Marrapit told him. “Each time you touch her she screams, grips me closer. I shall be throttled. Use discretion. Add to mine your assurance of her safety. She is not herself.”
George chuckled. “She's not. She's tight as a drum.”
“Liar!” moaned Mrs. Major.
“Intoxicated?” Mr. Marrapit asked.
“Blind.”
Sharp words will move where entreaty cannot stir.
Mrs. Major relaxed her hold; spun round. “Monster” and “Perjurer” rushed headlong to her lips. “Ponsger!” she cried; tottered back against the sofa; was struck by it at the bend of her knees; collapsed upon it. Her head sunk sideways; she closed her eyes.
“You can see for yourself,” George said.
Mr. Marrapit sniffed: “My nose corroborates.”
“Ponsger!” the prone figure wailed.
Mr. Marrapit started: “Mrs. Major!”
She opened her eyes: “Call me Lucy. Darling-um!” She began to snore.
“Abhorrent!” Mr. Marrapit pronounced.
Whisperings without made him step to the door. White figures were upon the stairs. “To your beds!” he cried.
“Oh, whatever is it, sir?” Mrs. Armitage panted.
“Away! You outrage decency.” Mr. Marrapit set a foot upon the stairs. The affrighted figures fled before him.
George, when his uncle returned, was peering through the blind. “Who the devil loosed off that gun? It is immaterial. All events are buried beneath this abhorrent incident. The roof of my peace has crashed about me.” Mr. Marrapit regarded the prone figure. “Her inspirations grate upon me; her exhalations poison the air. Rouse her. Thrust her to her room.”
“You'll never wake her now till she's slept it off.”
“Let us then essay to carry her. She cannot remain here. My shame shall not be revealed, nor hers uncovered.”
George began: “To-morrow—”
“To-morrow I speed her from my gates. My beloved cats have been in the care of this swinish form. They have been in jeopardy. I tremble at their escape. To-morrow she departs.”
A sudden tremendous idea swept over George, engulfing speech.
With no word he moved to the sofa; grasped the prone figure; put it upon its weak legs. They gave beneath it. “You must take her feet,” he said.
Averting his gaze, Mr. Marrapit took the legs that Old Tom had devitalised. The procession moved out; staggered up the stairs.
Heavy was the burden; bursting with vulgar laughter was George; but that huge idea that suddenly had come to him swelled his muscles, lent him strength.
He heaved the form upon the bed.
On the dressing-table a candle burned. By its light Mr. Marrapit discovered Old Tom's bottle, two fingers of the villain yet remaining.
He beat his breast. “Extinguish that light. I to my room. Seek Fletcher. He patrols the garden for malefactors. In the morning I will see you. Before this disaster my chill is sped. You are of my flesh. Cleave unto me. In our bosoms let this abhorrent sore be buried. Seek Fletcher.”
The distraught man tottered to his room.
George went slowly down the stairs, bathing in the delicious thrills of unfolding the wrappings from about his great idea. He had yet had time but to feel its shape and hug it as a child will feel and hug a doll packed in paper. Now he stripped the coverings, and his pulses thumped as he saw how fine was it. Almost unconscious to his actions he unbarred the door; stepped into the thin light; was not aroused until, treading upon Mr. Fletcher's musket, his idea was suddenly jolted from him.
Here the gun that gave the echoes; where the hand that started it?
A hoarse cry came to him: “Mr. George! Mr. George!”
He looked along the sound. Above a hedge below the lawn an apple-tree raised its branches. Within them he could espy a dark mass that as he approached took form. Mr. Fletcher.
The grass hushed George's footsteps. Rounding the hedge he came upon the little drama that gave that note of dread to Mr. Fletcher's calls.
Beneath the gardener's armpits one branch of the apple-tree passed; behind his knees another. Between them hung his heavy seat. Whitely a square of it peered downwards; melancholy upon the sward lay the lid of corduroy that should have warmed the space. For ten paces outwards from the tree-trunk there stretched a pitted path. Abiram, as George came, turned at this path's extremity; set his sloe eye upon the dull white patch in Mr. Fletcher's stern; hurled forward up the track; sprang and snapped jaws an inch below the mark as Mr. Fletcher mightily heaved.
A lesser dog would have yapped bafflement, fruitlessly scratched upwards from hind legs. Abiram was perfect dog of the one breed of dog that is in all things perfect. Silently he plodded back; turned; ran; leapt again. Again Mr. Fletcher heaved, and again the fine jaws snapped an inch beneath the pallid square of flesh.
As once more uncomplaining he turned, Abiram sighted George; ruffled. George spoke his name. Abiram wagged that short tail that marked his Champion Victor Wild blood, shook the skull that spoke to the same mighty strain.
This dog expected in his human friends that same devotion to duty which is the governing trait of his breed. His shake implied, “No time for social niceties, sir. I have a job in hand.”
“Call 'im off, Mr. George,” Mr. Fletcher implored. “Call 'im—ur!”—he heaved upward as Abiram again sprang—“off,” he concluded, sinking once more as the bull-terrier trotted up the little path.
It was a fascinating scene. “You're quite safe,” George told him.
“Safe! I'mtired!I can't keep on risin' and fallin' all night. It's 'ard—damn 'ard. I'm a gardener, I am; not a—ur!” He heaved again.
George told him: “You do it awfully well, though; so neat.”
“Call 'im off,” Mr. Fletcher moaned. “He'll have me in a minute. He's 'ad a bit off of me calf; he's 'ad a piece out of me trousers. He'll go on. He's a methodical dog—ur!”
George took a step; caught Abiram's collar. “How on earth did you get up there?”
“Jumped.”
“Jumped! You couldn't jump up there!”
Mr. Fletcher took a look to see that Abiram was securely held; then started to wriggle to a pose of greater comfort. “I'd jump a house with that 'orror after me,” he said bitterly. By intricate squirmings he laid a hand upon the cold patch of flesh that gazed starkly downwards from his stern. “If I ain't got hydrophobia I've got frost-bite,” he moaned. “Cruel draught I've had through this 'ole. Take 'im off, Mr. George.”
George was scarcely listening. His thoughts had returned to the delicious task of fingering his great idea.
“Take 'im off, Mr. George,” Mr. Fletcher implored.
George passed a handkerchief under Abiram's collar; tugged for the gate; there dispatched the dog down the road.
Abiram shook his head; trotted with dejected stern. A job had been left unfinished.