He closed the door behind him and walked across the room to the window.
Then Elsie, lightly, so as not to awaken the drowsy old clerk, stepped into Mr. Dering's office and shut the door softly behind her.
The sleep-walker stood at the window, looking out. Elsie crept up and stood beside him. Then she touched him on the arm. He started and turned. 'Young lady,' he said, 'what can I do for you?' He showed no sign of recognition at all in his eyes: he did not know her. 'Can I do anything for you?' he repeated.
'I am afraid—nothing,' she replied.
He looked at her doubtfully. Then apparently remembering some duty as yet unfulfilled, he left the window and unlocked the safe. He then drew out of his pocket a manuscript tied up with red tape. Elsie looked into the safe and read the title—'The New Humanity, by Edmund Gray,' which was written in large letters on the outer page. Then he shut and locked the safe and dropped the key in his own pocket. This done, he returned to the window and sat down, taking no manner of notice of his visitor. All this exactly as he had done before in presence of George and his old clerk.
For ten minutes he sat there. Then he shivered, straightened himself, stood up, and looked about the room, Mr. Dering again.
'Elsie!' he cried. 'I did not know you were here. How long have you been here?'
'Not very long. A few minutes, perhaps.'
'I must have fallen asleep. It is a hot morning. You must forgive the weakness of an old man, child. I had a bad night too. I was awake a long time, thinking of all these troubles and worries. They can't find out, Elsie, who has robbed me.' He spoke querulously and helplessly. 'They accuse each other, instead of laying their heads together. Nonsense! Checkley couldn't do it. George couldn't do it. The thing was done by somebody else. My brother came here with a cock-and-bull case, all built up of presumptions and conclusions. If they would only find out!'
'The trouble is mine as much as yours, Mr. Dering. I have had to leave my mother's house, where I had to listen to agreeable prophecies about my lover and my brother. I wish, with you, that they would find out!'
He took off his hat and hung it on its peg. He buttoned his frock-coat and took his place at the table, upright and precise. Yet his eyes were anxious.
'They tease me too. They mock me. Yesterday, they laid two letters addressed to this man, Edmund Gray, on my letters. What for? To laugh at me, to defy me to find them out. Checkley swears he didn't put them there. I arrived at the moment when he was leaving the room. Are we haunted? And the day before—and the day before that—there were things put in the safe——'
'In the safe? Oh! but nobody has the key except yourself. How can anything be put in the safe?'
'I don't know. I don't know anything. I don't know what may be taken next. My houses—my mortgages, my lands, my very practice——'
'Nay,—they could not. Is there anything this morning?'
He turned over his letters. 'Apparently not. Stay; I have not looked in the safe. He got up and threw open the safe. Then he took up a packet. 'Again!' he cried almost with a scream. 'Again! See this!' He tossed on the table the packet which he had himself, only ten minutes before, placed in the safe with his own hands. 'See this! Thus they laugh at me—thus they torment me!' He hurled the packet to the other side of the room, returned to his chair, and laid his head upon his hands, sighing deeply.
Elsie took up the parcel. It was rather a bulky manuscript. The title you have heard. She untied the tape and turned over the pages. The work, she saw, was the Autobiography of Edmund Gray.And it was in the handwriting of Mr. Dering!
She replaced it in the safe. 'Put everything there,' she said, 'which is sent to you. Everything. Do you know anything at all about this man Edmund Gray?'
'Nothing, my dear child, absolutely nothing. I never saw the man. I never heard of him. Yet he has planted himself upon me. He holds his Chambers on a letter of recommendation from me. I was his introducer to the manager of the Bank—I—in my own handwriting—as they thought. He drew a cheque of 720l. upon me eight years ago. And he has transferred thirty-eight thousand pounds' worth of shares and stock to his own address.'
'Added to which, he has been the cause of suspicion and vile accusation against my lover and my brother, which it will cost a great deal of patience to forgive. Dear Mr. Dering, I am so sorry for you. It is most wonderful and most mysterious. Suppose,' she laid her hand upon his—'suppose that I was to find out for you——'
'You, child? What can you do, when the others have failed?'
'I can but try.'
'Try, in Heaven's name. Try, my dear. If you find out, you shall be burned for a witch.'
'No. If I find out, you shall be present at my wedding. You were to have given me away. But now—now—Athelstan shall give me away, and you will be there to see. And it will be a tearful wedding'—the tears came into her own eyes just to illustrate the remark—'because everyone will be so ashamed of the wicked things they have said. Sir Samuel will remain on his knees the whole service, and Checkley will be fain to get under the seat.—Good-bye, Mr. Dering. I am a Prophetess. I can foretell. You shall hear in a very few days all about Edmund Gray.'
She ran away without any further explanation. Mr. Dering shook his head and smiled. He did not believe in contemporary Prophecy. That young people should place their own affairs—their love-makings and weddings—before the affairs of their elders, was not surprising. For himself, as he sometimesremembered—and always when this girl, with her pretty ways and soft voice, was with him—her visit had cheered him. He opened his letters and went on with the day's work.
As for Elsie, the smile in her eyes died out as she descended the stairs. If she had been herself a lawyer, she could not have worn a graver face as she walked across the courts of the venerable Inn.
She had established the connection between Mr. Dering and Edmund Gray. It was he, and nobody else, who laid those letters on the table—placed those things in the safe. This being so, it must be he himself, and nobody else, who wrote all the letters, signed the cheques, and did all the mischief. He himself! But how? Elsie had read of hypnotism. Wonderful things are done daily by mesmerists and magnetisms under their new name. Mr. Dering was hypnotised by this man Edmund Gray—as he called himself—for his own base ends. Well—she would find out this Edmund Gray. She would beard this villain in his own den.
She walked resolutely to Gray's Inn. She found No. 22—she mounted the stairs. The outer door was closed. She knocked, but there was no answer. She remembered how George had found his laundress, and visited her at her lodgings—she thought she would do the same. But on the stairs she went down she met an old woman so dirty, so ancient, so feeble, that she seemed to correspond with George's account of her.
'You are Mr. Gray's laundress?' she asked.
'Yes, Miss; I am.' The woman looked astonished to see such a visitor.
'I want to see him. I want to see him on very important business. Most important to himself. When can I see him?'
'I don't know, Miss. He is uncertain. He was here yesterday evening. He said he should not be here this evening. But I don't know.'
'Look here.' Elsie drew out her purse. 'Tell me when you think he will be here, and if I find him I will give you two pounds—two golden sovereigns. If you tell me right I will give you two sovereigns.'
She showed them. The old woman looked hungrily at the coins. 'Well, Miss, he's been here every Saturday afternoon for the last six months. I know it by the litter of papers that he makes. Every Saturday afternoon.'
'Very good. You shall have your money if I find him.'
In the evening, Elsie said nothing about Mr. Dering and her strange discovery. The two young men talked about trying this way and that way, always with the view of implicating Checkley. But she said nothing.
On Saturday afternoon, the policeman on day-duty at Gray's Inn was standing near the southern portals of that venerable Foundation in conversation with the boy who dispenses the newspapers, from a warehouse constructed in the eastern wall of the archway. It was half-past three by the clock and a fine day, which was remarkable for the season—August—and the year. The sun poured upon the dingy old courts, making them dingier instead of brighter. Where the paint of the windows and door-posts is faded and dirty—where the panes are mostly in want of cleaning—where there are no flowers in the windows—where there are no trees or leaves in the Square—where the bricks want painting, and where the soot has gathered in every chink and blackens every cranny—then the sunshine of summer only makes a dingy court shabbier. Gray's Inn in July and August, unless these months are as the August of the year of grace 1891, looks old, but not venerable. Age should be clean and nicely dressed: age should wear a front to conceal her baldness: age should assume false teeth to disguise those gums stripped of their ivory. It was felt by the policeman. 'We want a washin' and a brightenin' in this old place,' he remarked to the journalist. We want somethin' younger than them old laundresses,' said the newspaper boy. Great is the Goddess Coincidence. Even while he uttered this aspiration, a young lady entered the gate and passed into the Inn.
'Ha!' breathed the policeman, softly.
'Ah!' sighed the journalist.
She was a young lady of adorable face and form, surpassing the wildest dreams either of policeman or of paper-man—both of whom possessed the true poetic temperament. She was clothed in raiment mystic, wonderful, such as seldom indeedgets as far east as Gray's Inn, something in gray or silver gray with an open front and a kind of jacket. She passed them rapidly, and walked through the passage into the Square.
'No. 22,' said the policeman. 'Now, who does she want at No. 22? Who's on the ground-floor of 22?'
'Right hand—Architects and Surveyors. Left hand—Universal Translators.'
'Perhaps she's a Universal Translator. They must be all gone by this time. The first floor is lawyers. They're all gone too. I saw the clerks march out at two o'clock. Second floor—there's Mr. Carstone on the left, and Mr. Edmund Gray on the right. Perhaps it's Mr. Carstone she's after. I hope it isn't him. He's a gentleman with fine manners, and they do say a great scholar, but he's a Lushington, and a sweet young thing like that ought not to marry a man who is brought home every other night too tipsy to stand. Or there's Mr. Gray—the old gent—perhaps she's his daughter. What's Mr. Edmund Gray by calling, Joe?'
'Nobody knows. He don't often come. An old gentleman—been in the Inn a long time—for years. Lives in the country, I suppose, and does no work. Lives on other people's work—my work—honest working men's work,' said the boy, who was a Socialist and advanced.
'Ah! There's something up about Mr. Gray. People are coming to inquire for him. First, it was a young gentleman: very affable he was—and free with his money—most likely other people's money. He wanted to know a good deal about Mr. Gray—more than I could tell him—wanted to know how often he came, and what he was like when he did come—and would I tell him all I knew. He went to the old laundress afterwards.—Then it was a little old man—I know him by sight—uses theSalutationParlour of an evening—he wanted to know all about Mr. Gray too. No half-crown in that quarter, though. He's been spying and watching for him—goes and hides up the passage on the other side of the Square. Kind of a spider he is. He's watching him for no good, I'll bet. Perhaps the young lady wants to find out about him too.—Joe, there's something up at No. 22. The old gentleman isn't in his chambers, I believe. She'll come out again presently, and it'll be: "Oh, Mr. Policeman, could you very kindly tell me how I can find Mr. EdmundGray?" With a shilling perhaps, and perhaps not. I wonder what she wants with Mr. Edmund Gray? Sometimes these old chaps break out in the most surprising manner. Joe, if you ever go into the Service, you'll find the work hard and the pay small. But there's compensation in learnin' things. If you want to know human nature, go into the Force.'
'There's old Mr. Langhorne, up at the top.'
'So there is. But no young lady wants to see that poor old chap. He's got no friends, young nor old—no friends and no money. Just now, he's terrible hard up. Took a shillin' off o' me last Sunday to get a bit of dinner with. Fine thing—isn't it, Joe?—to be a gentleman and a barrister all your life, isn't it—and to end like that? Starvation in a garret—eh?— Look out. She will be coming down directly.'
But she did not come down. Two hours and more passed, and she did not come down.
The visitor was Elsie Arundel. She walked up the stairs to the second floor. Here she stopped. There was a black door, closed, on the right of her, and another black door, closed, on the left of her. On the lintel of one was the name of Mr. F. W. Carstone. On the lintel of the other was that of Mr. Edmund Gray. Elsie knocked with her parasol at the latter door. There was no reply. 'The old laundress,' she murmured, 'told me that Saturday afternoon was my best chance of finding him. I will wait.' She sat down with hesitation on the stairs leading to the third floor—they were not too clean—and waited.
She was going to do a very plucky thing—a dangerous thing. She had made a discovery connecting Mr. Dering directly with this Edmund Gray. She had learned that he came to the office in a strange condition, perhaps hypnotic, bringing things from Edmund Gray. She now suspected that the only person who carried on the forgeries on Mr. Dering was Mr. Dering himself, acted on and perhaps mesmerised by Edmund Gray—and she wanted to find out who this Edmund Gray was. She would confront him and tax him with the crime. It was dangerous, but he could not kill her. Besides, he was described as quite an elderly man. He was also described as a benevolent man, a charitable man, a kindly man: and he wrote letters brimful of the most cheerful optimism. Yet he was carrying on a series of complicated forgeries. She resolved to wait for him. She would wait till sundown, if necessary, for him.
The place was very quiet. All the offices were closed and the clerks gone. Most of the men who lived in the chambers were away, out of town, gone on holiday, gone away from Saturday till Monday. Everything was quite quiet and still: the traffic in Holborn was only heard as a continuous murmur which formed part of the stillness: the policeman, who had now said all he had to say to the newspaper boy, was walking slowly and with heavy tread round the Court. The Inn was quite empty and deserted and still. Only, overhead there was the footfall of a man who walked up and down his room steadily, never stopping or ceasing or changing the time, like the beat of a pendulum. Elsie began to wonder, presently, who this man could be, and if he had nothing better to do than to pace his chamber all day long, when the sun was bright and the leaves on the trees and the flowers in full bloom.
The clock struck four: Elsie had been waiting half an hour: still Mr. Edmund Gray did not arrive: still the steady beat of the footstep continued overhead.
The clock struck five. Still that steady footfall. Still Elsie sat upon the stairs waiting in patience.
When the clock struck six, the footsteps stopped—or changed. Then a door overhead opened and shut and the steps came down the stairs. Elsie rose and stood on one side. An old man came down—tall and thin, close-shaven, pale, dressed in a black frock-coat, worn to a shiny polish in all those parts which take a polish—a shabby old man whose hat seemed hardly able to stand upright: and a gentleman—which was perfectly clear from his bearing—a gentleman in the last stage of poverty and decay.
He started, surprised to see a young lady on the stairs.
'You are waiting for Mr. Carstone?' he asked. 'He is out of town. He will not be back till Monday. Nobody ever comes back before Monday. From Saturday to Monday I have the Inn to myself. All that time there are no slammers and no strangers. It is an agreeable retreat, if only——' He shook his head and stopped short.
'I am not waiting for Mr. Carstone. I am waiting for Mr. Edmund Gray.'
'He is very uncertain. No one knows when he comes or whither he goeth. I would not wait if I were you. He may come to-day, or to-morrow, or at any time. He comes on Sunday morning, often. I hear him coming up-stairs after thechapel bell stops. He is a quiet neighbour—no slammer or tramper. I would not wait, I say, if I were you.'
'I will wait a little longer. I am very anxious to see Mr. Gray.'
'He should wait for you,' Mr. Langhorne replied, politely. 'The stairs are not a fit resting-place for you. This old Inn is too quiet for such as you. Mirth and joy belong to you— Silence and rest to such as me. Even slamming does not, I daresay, greatly displease youth and beauty. Chambers are not for young ladies. Beauty looks for life and love and admiration. They do not exist here. Run away, young lady—leave the Inn to the poor old men, like me, who cannot get away if they would.'
'Thank you.—I must see Mr. Edmund Gray, if I can. It will not hurt me to wait a little longer.'
'You wish to see Edmund Gray. So do I. So do I. You are a friend of his. Perhaps, therefore, you will do as well. Those who are his friends are like unto him for kindness of heart. Those who wish to be his friends must try to be like unto him. Young lady, I will treat you as the friend of that good man. You can act for him.'
'What can I do if I do act for him?' But there was a hungry eagerness in the man's eyes which made her divine what she could do.
'It is Saturday.' He replied without looking at her. He turned away his head. He spoke to the stair-window. 'To-morrow is Sunday. I have before this, on one or two occasions, found myself as I do now—without money. I have borrowed of Mr. Carstone and of Mr. Edmund Gray. Sometimes, I have paid it back—not always. Lend me—for Mr. Edmund Gray—if you are not rich, he will give it back to you—the sum of five shillings—say, five shillings. Otherwise, I shall have nothing to eat until Monday, when Mr. Carstone returns.'
'Nothing to eat? Nothing at all to eat?' Beggars in the street often make the same confession, but somehow their words fail to carry conviction. Mr. Langhorne, however, did carry conviction.
The old man shook his head. 'I had some food yesterday at this time. Since then I have had nothing. There was neither tea nor bread in my rooms for breakfast. When the clock struck six, my dinner hour, I thought I would walk alongthe street and look at the things to eat which are placed in the shop windows. That relieves a little. But to-morrow will be a bad time—a very bad time. I shall lie in bed. Oh! I have gone through it before. Sometimes'—he dropped his voice—'I have been sore tempted to take something—— No—no; don't think I have given way. No—no. Why—I should be—disbarred. Not yet—not yet.'
Elsie opened her purse. It contained two sovereigns and a shilling or two. 'Take all,' she said eagerly. 'Take all the gold, and leave me the silver. Take it instantly.' She stamped her foot.
He hesitated. 'All?' he asked. 'All? Can you spare it? I can never repay——'
'Take it!' she said again, imperiously.
He obeyed: he took the gold out of the purse with trembling fingers. Then he raised his rickety old hat—was that a tear that stole into his eyes, or the rheum of old age?—and slowly walked down the stairs, holding by the banisters. He was weak, poor wretch! with hunger. But it was his dinner hour, and he was going to have his dinner.
Elsie sat down again.
It was half-past six—she had been waiting for three hours—when other footsteps entered the house. Elsie sprang to her feet: she turned pale: her heart stood still; for now she realised that if this step was truly that of the man she expected, she was about to confront a person certainly of the deepest criminality, and possibly capable of villainy in any other direction. The steps mounted the stairs. I really think that the bravest persons in the world are those who before the event look forward to it with the utmost apprehension. They know, you see, what the dangers are. Elsie was going to face a great danger. She was going to find out, alone and unaided, who this man was, and why and how he worked these deeds of darkness.
The footsteps mounted higher: from the door to the top of the stairs it took but a single minute, yet to Elsie it seemed half an hour, so rapid were her thoughts. Then the man mounted the last flight of steps. Heavens! Elsie was fain to cry out for sheer amazement. She cried out: she caught at the banisters. For, before her, taking the key of Mr. Edmund Gray's Chambers from his waistcoat pocket, was none other than Mr. Dering himself!
Yes. An elderly man, of truly benevolent aspect, his coat open flying all abroad, his face soft, gracious, smiling, and full of sunshine, his hat just the least bit pushed back, his left hand in his pocket. Elsie thought again of her portrait at home, in which she had transformed her guardian—and here he was in the flesh—transformed according to her portrait.
She stared at him with an amazement that bereft her of speech and of motion. She could only stare. Even if her mother's voice were suddenly to call out to her that it is rude for little girls to stare, she could not choose but stare. For Mr. Dering looked at her with that kind of surprise in his eyes which means, 'What have we here to do with beautiful young ladies?' There was not the least sign of any knowledge of her. He looked at her as one suffers the eyes to rest for a moment without interest upon a stranger and a casual passenger in the street.
He opened his outer door, and was about to walk in, when she recovered some presence of mind—not much. She stepped forward. 'Can you tell me, please, how I could find Mr. Edmund Gray?'
'Certainly,' he smiled—'nothing easier. 'I am Edmund Gray.'
'You!—you—Edmund Gray? Oh! No—no. You cannot be Edmund Gray—you yourself!' All her beautiful theory of hypnotic influence vanished. No mesmerism or magnetic influence at all. 'You yourself?' she repeated, 'you—Edmund Gray?'
'Assuredly. Why not? Why should a man not be himself?'
'Oh! I don't understand. The world is going upside down. I took you—took you for another person.'
He laughed gently. 'Truly, I am none other than Edmund Gray—always Edmund Gray. My first name I can never change if I wished, because it is my baptismal name. The latter I do not wish to change, because it is my name ancestral.'
'I asked because—because—I fancied a resemblance to another person. Were you ever told that you are much like a certain other person?'
'No; I think not. Resemblances, however, are extremely superficial. No two living creatures are alike. We are alone,each living out his life in the great Cosmos, quite alone—unlike any other living creature. However, I am Edmund Gray, young lady. It isn't often that I receive a visit from a young lady in these Chambers. If you have no other doubt upon that point, will you let me ask you, once more, how I can help you? And will you come in and sit down?'
'Oh! it is wonderful,' she cried—'wonderful! most wonderful!' Again she controlled herself. 'Are you,' she asked again, 'the same Mr. Edmund Gray who wrote the letter to theTimesthe other day?'
'Certainly. There is no other person, I believe, of the name in this Inn. Have you read that letter?'
'Yes—oh, yes.'
'And you have come here to talk to me about that letter?'
'Yes—yes.' She caught at the hint. 'That is why I came—to talk about that letter. I came in the hope of finding the author of that letter at home.'
He threw open the door of his sitting-room.
'Will you step in? We can talk quite quietly here. The Inn at this hour on Saturday is almost deserted.' He closed the outer door and followed his visitor into the sitting-room. 'This,' he went on, 'is the quietest place in the whole of London. We have not, in this Square, the stately elms of the old garden, but still we have our little advantages—spacious rooms—quiet always in the evening and on Sundays. A few rackety young men, perhaps; but for one who reads and meditates, no better place in London.—Now, young lady, take the easy-chair and sit down. We will talk. There are very few people who talk to me about my theories. That is because I am old, so that I have lost my friends, and because my views are in advance of the world. No man is so lonely as the man born before his time. He is the prophet, you know, who must be stoned because he prophesies things unintelligible and therefore uncomfortable—even terrifying. I shall be very glad to talk a little with you.—Now, allow me first to open these letters.'
Elsie sat down and looked about her. She was in a large low wainscoted room, with two windows looking upon the Square. The room was quite plainly but quite well furnished. There was a good-sized study table with drawers: a small table between the windows: a few chairs, a couch and aneasy-chair; and a large bookcase filled with books—books on Socialism, George had told her. A door opened upon a smaller room: there was probably a bedroom at the back. A plain carpet covered the floor. Above the high old-fashioned mantel were two or three portraits of Socialist leaders. The room, if everything had not been covered with dust, would have been coldly neat: the chairs were all in their places: the window-blinds were half-way down as the laundress thought was proper—millions of Londoners always keep their blinds half-way down—a subject which must some day be investigated by the Folklore Society: the curtains were neatly looped: it wanted only a Bible on a table at a window to make it the Front Parlour of a Dalston Villa. There were no flowers, no ornaments of any kind.
Mr. Edmund Gray opened half-a-dozen letters lying on his table and glanced at them. There were a great many more waiting to be opened.
'All are from people who have read my letter,' he said. 'They share with me in the new Faith of a new Humanity. Happy is the man who strikes the note of leading at the right moment. Happy he who lights the lamp just when the darkness is beginning to be felt.—Yes, young lady, you are not the only one who has been drawn towards the doctrines of that letter. But I have no time to write to all of them. A letter makes one convert—a paragraph may make a thousand.'
Elsie rose from her chair. She had decided on her line. You have heard that her voice was curiously soft and winning—a voice that charms—a voice which would soothe a wild creature, and fill a young man's heart with whatever passion she chose to awaken. She had, besides, those soft eyes which make men surrender their secrets, part with their power and their strength. Did she know that she possessed all this power?—the girl who had no experience save of one man's love, and that the most natural, easy, and unromantic love in the world, when two who are brought up side by side and see each other every day, presently catch each other by the hand and walk for the future hand in hand without a word. Yet Delilah herself, the experienced, the crafty, the trained and taught—could not—did not—act more cleverly and craftily than this artless damsel. To be sure, she possessed great advantages over Delilah—by some esteemed attractive—in the matter of personal charm.
'Oh!' she murmured softly, 'it is a shame that you should be expected to waste your valuable time in writing letters to these people. You must not do it. Your time is wanted for the world, not for individuals.'
'It is,' he replied—'it is. You have said it.'
'You are a Master—a Leader—a Prince in Israel—a Preacher—a Prophet.'
'I am—I am. You have said it. I should not myself have dared to say it. But I am.'
'No one can doubt it who has read that letter. Be my Master—too—as well as the Master of—of all these people who write to you.'
'Be your Master?' He blushed like a boy. 'Could I desire anything better?'
'My Father and my Master,' she added with a little change of colour. Girls take fright very easily, and perhaps this old gentleman might interpret the invitation—well—into something other than was meant.
'Yes—yes.' He held out his hand. She took it in her own—both her own soft hands, and bowed her head—her comely head—over it.
'I came to-day thinking only'—Oh, Delilah!—'to thank you for your great and generous and noble words, which have put fresh heart into me. And now that I have thanked you, I am emboldened to ask a favour——'
'Anything, anything.'
'You will be my Master—you will teach me. Let me, in return, relieve you of this work.' She laid her hand on the pile of letters. 'Let me answer them for you. Let me be your Private Secretary. I have nothing to do. Let me work for you.' She looked into his face with the sweetest eyes and the most winning smile, and her voice warmed the old man's ear like soft music. Ah, Circe!—'Now that I have seen you—let me be your disciple, your most humble disciple, and'—Ah, Siren!—'let me be more, Edmund Gray—I cannot say Mr. Gray—let me be more, Edmund Gray.' She laid her hand, her soft-gloved, dainty, delicate hand, upon his, and it produced the effect of an electric battery gently handled. 'Let me be your Secretary.'
It was ten o'clock before Elsie reached home that evening, and she refused to tell them, even her own brother and her lover, where she had been or how she had spent her evening.
It was Sunday afternoon in Gray's Inn. The new Disciple sat at the feet of the Master, her Gamaliel: one does not know exactly the attitude adopted by a young Rabbi of old, but in this case the disciple sat in a low chair, her hands folded in her lap, curiously and earnestly watching the Master as he walked up and down the room preaching and teaching.
'Master,' she asked, 'have you always preached and held these doctrines?'
'Not always. There was a time when I dwelt in darkness—like the rest of the world.'
'How did you learn these things? By reading books?'
'No. I discovered them. I worked them out for myself by logic, by reason, and by observation. Everything good and true must be discovered by a man for himself.'
'What did you believe in that old time? Was it, with the rest of the world, the sacredness of Property?'
'Perhaps.' He stood in front of her, laying his right forefinger in his left forefinger and inclining his head. 'My dear young scholar, one who believes as I believe, not with half a heart, but wholly, and without reserve, willingly forgets the time when he was as yet groping blindly in darkness or walking in artificial light. He wishes to forget that time. There is no profit in remembering that time. I have so far drilled and trained myself not to remember that time, that I have in fact clean forgotten it. I do not remember what I thought or what I said, or with whom I associated in that time. It is a most blessed forgetfulness. I daresay I could recover the memory of it if I wished, but the effort would be painful. Spare me. The recovery of that Part would be humiliating. Spare me, scholar. Yet, if you wish—if you command——'
'Oh, no, no! Forgive me.' Elsie touched his hand. He took hers and held it. Was it with a little joy or a little fear that the girl observed the power she already had over him? 'I would not cause you pain. Besides—what does it matter?'
'You know, my child, when the monk assumes the tonsureand the triple cord, he leaves behind him, outside the cell, all the things of the world—ambition, love, luxury, the pride of the eye—all—all. He forgets everything. He casts away everything. He abandons everything—for meditation and prayer. The monk,' added the Sage, 'is a foolish person, because his meditation advances not the world a whit. I am like the monk, save that I think for the world instead of myself. And so, spending days and nights in meditation, I know not what went before—nor do I care. It is a second birth when the new faith takes you and holds you together, so that you care for nothing else. Oh, child!—upon you also this shall come—this obsession—this possession—so that your spirit shall know of no time but that spent in the service of the Cause. Nay, I go so far that I forget from day to day what passed, except when I was actively engaged for the Cause. Yesterday I was here in the afternoon. You came. We talked. You offered yourself as my disciple. I remember every word you said. Could I ever forget a disciple so trustful and so humble? But—before you came. Where was I? Doubtless here—meditating. But I know not. Then there are things which one must do to live—breakfast, dinner—of these I remember nothing. Why should I? It is a great gift and reward to me that I should not remember unnecessary things—low and common things. Why should I try to do so?
'No—no,' murmured the catechumen, carried away by his earnestness. 'Best forget them. Best live altogether in and for the Cause.' Yet—she wondered—how was she to bring things home to him unless he could be made to remember? He was mad one hour and sane the next. How should she bridge the gulf and make the mad man cross over tothe other side?
The Master took her hand in his and held it paternally. 'We needed such a disciple as you,' he went on, slightly bending his head over her. 'Among my followers there is earnestness without understanding. They believe in the good time, but they are impatient. They want revolution, which is terrific and destroys. I want conviction. There are times when a great idea flies abroad like the flame through the stubble. But men's minds must first be so prepared that they are ready for it. The world is not yet ready for my idea, and I am old, and may die too soon to see the sudden rise ofthe mighty flood, when that doctrine shall suddenly cease in all mankind. We need disciples. Above all, we need women. Why do women, I wonder, throw themselves away in imitating man, when there are a thousand things that they can do better than any man? I want women—young, beautiful, faithful. I can find work for hundreds of women. Hypatia would be worth to me—to us—far more than he of the Golden Mouth. Child—your sweet voice, your sweet face, your sweet eyes—I want them. I will take them and use them—expend them—for the great Cause. It may be that you will be called upon to become the first martyr of the Cause. Hypatia was murdered by a raging mob. You will have against you a mob worse than any of Alexandria. You will have a mob composed of all those who are rich, and all who want to be rich, and all the servile crews at their command. Happy girl! You will be torn to pieces for the cause of humanity. Happy girl! I see the roaring, shrieking mob. I see your slender figure on the steps—what steps? Where? I hear your voice, clear and high. You are preaching to them; they close in round you: you disappear—they have dragged you down: they trample the life out of you. You are dead—dead—dead—and a name for ever. And the Cause has had its martyr.'
It was strange. She who had offered herself as a disciple with deception in her heart, thinking only to watch and wait and spy until she could see her way plain before her, who knew that she was listening to the voice and the dreams of a madman. Yet she was carried away: he made her see the mob: she saw herself dragged down and trampled under their heels. She shuddered, yet she was exultant: her eyes glowed with a new light: she murmured: 'Yes—yes. Do with me what you please. I am your disciple, and I will be your martyr, if you please.'
Great and wonderful is the power of Enthusiasm. You see, it matters nothing—nothing in the world—what a man has to preach and teach—whether he advocates Obi, or telepathy, or rapping, or spirits who hide teacups in coat pockets—it matters nothing that there is neither common sense nor evidence, nor common reason to back him: if he only possess the magnetic power, he will create a following: he will have disciples who will follow him to the death. What is it—this power? It makes the orator, the poet, the painter, thenovelist, the dramatist: it makes the leader of men: it made the first King, the first Priest, the first Conqueror.
'Come,' said Mr. Edmund Gray; 'the time passes. I must take you to my Place.'
They walked out together, Master and Scholar. The man who was mad walked carelessly and buoyantly, his coat flying open, one hand in his pocket, the other brandishing his walking-stick, his head thrown back, his face full of light, and, though his words were sometimes strong, always full of kindness. Now the sane man, the man of Lincoln's Inn, wore his coat tightly buttoned, walked with a firm precise step, looked straight before him, and showed the face of one wholly occupied with his own thoughts. There was a man who was mad and a man who was sane: and certainly the madman was the more interesting of the two.
'This place,' said the Master, meaning Gray's Inn, 'is entirely filled with those who live by and for the defence of Property. They absorb and devour a vast portion of it while they defend it. No one, you see, defends it unless he is paid for it. Your country, your family, your honour—you will defend for nothing; but not another man's Property—no. For that you must be paid. Every year it becomes more necessary to defend Property; every year the hordes of mercenaries increase. Here they are lawyers and lawyers' clerks—a vast multitude. Outside there are agents, brokers, insurers, financiers—I know not what—all defending Property. They produce nothing, these armies: they take their toll: they devour a part of what other people have produced before they hand on the residue to the man who says it is his Property.'
'Oh!'—but Elsie did not say this aloud—'if these words could only be heard in Lincoln's Inn! If they could be repeated to a certain lawyer.' From time to time she looked at him curiously. How if he should suddenly return to his senses? What would he think? How should she explain? 'Mr. Dering, you have been off your head. You have been talking the most blasphemous things about Property. You would never believe that even in madness you could say such things.' No; he never would believe it—never. He could not believe it. What if his brother, Sir Samuel, were to hear those words? Meantime, the Apostle walked along unconscious, filled with his great Mission. Oh, heavens! that Mr. Dering—Mr. Dering—should believe he had a Mission!
The Master stopped a passing tramcar. 'Let us climb up to the roof,' he said. 'There we can talk and breathe and look about us, and sometimes we can listen.'
On the seat in front of them sat two young men, almost boys, talking together eagerly. Mr. Edmund Gray leaned forward and listened shamelessly. 'They are two young atheists,' he said. 'They are cursing religion. There is to be a discussion this evening at Battle Arches between a Christian and an Atheist, and they are going to assist. They should be occupied with the question of the day; they can not, because they, too, are paid defenders of Property. They are lawyers' clerks. They are poor and they are slaves: all their lives they will be slaves and they will be poor. Instead of fighting against slavery and poverty, which they know and feel, they fight against the Unknown and the Unintelligible. Pity! Pity!'
They passed two great Railway Termini, covering an immense area with immense buildings.
'Now,' said the Sage, 'there are millions of Property invested in railways. Whenever the railway servants please, they can destroy all that Property at a stroke. Perhaps you will live to see this done.'
'But,' said Elsie timidly, 'we must have things carried up and down the country.'
'Certainly. We shall go carrying things up and down the country, but not in the interests of Property.'
The tram ran past the stations and under broad railway arches, called Battle Arches—where the two young atheists got down, eager for the fray, always renewed every Sunday afternoon, with the display of much intellectual skill and much ignorance. It is a duel from which both combatants retire, breathed and flushed, proud of having displayed so much smartness, both claiming the victory, surrounded by admiring followers, and neither of them killed, neither of them hurt, neither of them a bit the worse, and both ready to begin again the following Sunday with exactly the same attack and exactly the same defence. There are some institutions—Christianity, the Church of England, the House of Lords, for instance—which invite and receive perpetual attacks, from which they emerge without the least hurt, so far as one can perceive. If they were all abolished to-morrow, what would the spouters do?
The car stopped again, and two girls mounted—two work girls of the better sort—not, that is to say, the sort which wears an ulster and a large hat with a flaming feather in it: working-girl dressed quietly and neatly. They ought to have been cheerful and even gay, for they were both young, both good-looking, both nicely dressed, and it was Sunday afternoon, warm and sunny. Yet they were not cheerful at all. One of them was in a rage royal, and the other, her friend, was in a rage sympathetic—quite a real rage. They were talking loudly on the kerb while they waited for the tram: they carried on their conversation as they climbed the stair: they continued it while they chose a seat, and before they sat down, without the least regard to those who sat near them, whether they overheard or wished not to hear—or anything. They were wholly occupied with themselves and their rage and their narrative. They neither saw nor heeded anyone else—which is the way that the angry woman has.
'So I told her—I up and told her, I did. "Yes," I sez, "you and your fifteen hours a day and overtime," I sez—"and your fines—so as to rob the poor girls of their money, and your stinkin' little room, as isn't fit for two, let alone a dozen—and your flarin' gas," I sez, "to choke us and poison us—and your dinners—yah! your dinners," I sez—"fit for pigs; and your beast of a husband comin' round with his looks and his leers"—"You let my husband alone," she sez—"His looks and his leers," I sez. "Some day the girls'll take him out and drownd him head first, in the gutter," I sez. "And a good job too!"'
'You didn't say all that, Liz?' asked the other, admiringly. 'My! What's she say to that? "Her beast of a husband"? And "his looks and his leers"? Did you really, Liz, and her that jealous?'
'I did. Oh! I let her have it. For once she did have it. Then I took my money and I went off.—Never mind what she called me; that don't matter. She got the truth for once.'
'What do you make of this, disciple?' asked the Master.
'It seems a quarrel between the girl and her employer.'
'These are the makers of Property. They are not the soldiers who defend it. They are those who create it. The girls are employed by the sweater, who stands on the lowestrung of the ladder of Property, and steals the things as fast as they are made.'
'One of them has been turned out. What will she do? Will she find another place?'
'I don't know. What becomes of the young? It is a difficult question. No one knows. Some say this and some say that. We know what becomes of the old when they are turned out. They die. But as for the young, I know not. You are young, and you are a woman. Go among the young women who have been turned out and find for yourself—for the world—what does become of them.'
They passed an immense churchyard, with an ancient church standing in the midst—the churchyard now cleared of its headstones and converted into a beautiful garden, after the modern fashion, in which we have abandoned the pretence of remembering the dead, and plant flowers and turf above their graves for the solace of the living. Why not? Let the nameless dead be remembered by the nameless dead. Their virtues, if they had any, may live after them in their descendants.
'See,' said Mr. Edmund Gray, moralising. 'Here they lie, those who were soldiers of Property and those who were slaves of Property. They are mostly the poor of their parish who lie in that garden. No headstones mark their grave. They were born: they toiled for others to enjoy: and they died. Is this the life that men should most desire?'
'Nay,' said the disciple. 'But there must be the strong and weak—clever and dull: there must be inequalities.'
'Yes, inequalities of gifts. One man is stronger, one is sharper, one is cleverer than another. Formerly, those gifts were used to make their possessor richer and more powerful. The strong man got followers and made slaves. The clever man cheated the dull man out of his land and his liberty. Henceforth, these gifts will be used for the general good. Patience! You shall understand all in good time.'
He stopped the tram and they descended.
Lying east of the Hampstead Road and Camden High Street, and bounded on that side by the canal—the great space occupied by the Midland and Great Northern Goods Depôt, by gas-works, wharfs, and railway arches—there is a network of streets very little known to any but the parish clergy. No part of London is less interesting than this district. It usedto be called Somers Town, but I think that the old name has almost died out. It is about a hundred years old, regarded as a settlement: it possesses three churches at least, two work-houses, one almshouse, and three burial-grounds turned into gardens. It is also cheered by the presence of a coal depôt. Many small industries are carried on in this quarter: there are many lodging-houses: the streets are rather grimy, the houses are rather shabby, the people are rather slipshod. They are not criminals: they are, in a way, respectable—that is to say, tolerably respectable. It is not a picturesque suburb: dulness reigns: it is a dull, a dull, a dismally dull quarter. There are children, but they lack mirth: and young girls, but they lack the spring of youth: one would say that there was a low standard in everything, even in the brightness of dress: the place looks better in winter than in summer. To-day, the bright sunshine only made the shabbiness of the streets more shabby.
'Is your place here?' asked Elsie.
'Yes; it is here.—You wonder why I came here. Because the people here are not all working-people. Some of them are small employers—those of whom I spoke—who stand on the lowest rung of the ladder and steal the things as fast as they are made, and take toll, and hoard up savings. The working-man is generous and open to others, compared with these people. I planted my place down in the midst of them. But you shall see—you shall see.'
It was like a dream. Elsie walked beside her conductor. Yesterday she made the acquaintance of this man for the first time; she had never seen him before except in his sane condition; he was a madman—a real dangerous madman—stark staring mad; he was taking her she knew not where—to some place among strange people: she walked beside him without the least fear. She who would have fled before the most harmless lunatic; and she was going with him as his disciple.
'George,' she said afterwards, 'I do not know how it happened. I could not choose but go with him. I could not choose but to become his disciple: he compelled me. I lost my will. I even forgot that he was a madman: I gave up my reason and all: I followed him, and I believed all that he told me. How did he get that power? Directly I left him, I became myself again. I perceived the mad enthusiast. I sawMr. Dering caricatured and proclaiming foolishness. But in his presence I was his servant and his slave.'
'Here we are,' he said. 'This is my Place. Let us go in.'
The Place, as Mr. Edmund Gray modestly called it, was a meek and unpretending Structure. The word is used advisedly, because no one could call it anything else. Not an Edifice; not a Building—a Structure. It turned its gabled front to the street, with a door below and a window above. It was of gray brick with a slate roof—a very plain and simple Structure. It might have been a Primitive Methodist Chapel—the Connexion are fond of such neat and unpretending places: or a room belonging to the Salvation Army: or one of those queer lecture halls affected by Secularists and generally called the Hall of Science. On the doorpost was affixed a small handbill, announcing that every Sunday evening at seven o'clock an address would be pronounced by Edmund Gray, on the subject of 'Property.' On the same bill, below the line of the principal title, were suggestive sub-titles. Thus: