CHAPTER LXXXVII
Which has to do with the Binding of Books in Half-calf and the Whimsies of Calf Love
WhenNoll had left his baggage in a quiet hotel by the Strand, and had refreshed his body with much splashing of himself in water and a change of clothes, he sallied out into the streets of London in a vague wonder and surprise as to how to begin the search for Betty, yet firmly determined to start straightway in his quest—the Baddlesmere jaw set firm.
The summer afternoon was closing in, and the Strand was gay with people cheerily making their way homewards from work or amusement. But homewards Noll did not take his steps; he felt a certain sense of shame about going to his own people without Betty at his side—and this, too, not on his own account, but that it seemed disloyal to Betty and likely to make her future entrance into the family circle an embarrassment to her—so sudden was the suddenness with which he had stepped into the realm of his manhood!
The young fellow had been too restless to stay in the dingy mute rooms of the hotel; he could think it out better in the open—striding to his thinking. It was in the blood—he smiled at the restless walk of Lord Wyntwarde up and down that library, of the strange trick that came out in his mother at times....
Ah, London, thou queen of cities, that filchest for ever the hearts of them that dare to love thee! Radiant in thy sunshine, fantastic in thy murk, it is when thou puttest on the habit of thy lilac twilight that thou showest all thy majesty—thy tiring maids, the handsomest women of the world, helping thee to thy wondrous mantle of many hues—pale whitenesses and opal greys, beribboned with purple and ultramarine and the sooty tinge of dusky shadows, adorned with diamonds of a hundred flames and wrought through and through with gold and silvery strands, and thus and so, with smoky art, spinning thyself a mystic robe that it is full fit only the Queen of all cities shall wear.
And what a splendid stage, thy realm, to strut it in! Thy large drama knows no curtain, thy magnificence no boundary but man’s narrow sight. Thy whisper and the song of thee, and thy strange melodies, no strings of violins nor the resounding hollows of deeporchestral ’cellos can yield. From the music of thy ways, where goes thy multitudinous traffic with roll of many wheels, and lurches the gaudy omnibus with reeking horses twain, and lumbers the thundering dray, and winds in and out the teeming welter the quick black hansom seeking the hackney fare, with jigging of horse-bells that sound a catchy measure to the shuffle of many feet, from out thy swarming hive there comes the breath of vigorous life and thinkingness and the atmosphere of quick wits and alert wills that have the habit of decisive action and of dogged enthusiasms.
And the faces that pass, with lingering glance out of the dusk, the pale sweet faces of thy beautiful women and the handsome figures of a vigorous race, how much larger vastnesses are in the communion of these eyes than in wide empty spaces of unthinking continents!
The mystic dusk turns thy many habitations to a thousand shadowy palaces, thy very vulgarities to dulcet musicalities. What comedies are in the making in thy wide hospitable lap to-night! what tragedies! what heroic strivings! what bemeaning indecencies! what crimes!
Thy very mud holds something of dark mysterious lustre—being that which is trod out of thy pageant and thy history.
He only loves thee best who, being divorced from thee, comes to thee again out of the years. He flips thy mantle with no cockney familiarity, but hears in the hollows of his reverent ears the æolian whisperings of thy large significance....
The sound of footsteps ceased to rouse the echoes in the empty street, as Noll came to a halt before Netherby Gomme’s doorway. He hesitated for a moment; ran up the steps; and rang the bell.
The smoky twilight that held the place was passing into sooty darkness, turning the staid street of lodging-houses into a way of fairy habitations, the lemon flames of gas-lamps showing a sweeping curve of light down its long length to the far rumble of the city’s distant traffic.
A key coughed in its wards as it shot back the bolts of the lock; and the door yawned open.
Noll turned at the sound of its unlatching.
The mother of Netherby Gomme stood in the dark hollow of the doorway; and a grim triumph lurked in her eyes.
Noll saluted her, hat in hand; and she returned his greeting with a grave smile of surprise.
“Is Netherby at home, Mrs. Gomme?” he asked.
The grim triumph slipped back to her eyes, and came lurking into the corners of the old mouth again:
“He came home from his honeymoon to-day, Noll,” she said—“will you go up and see him?”
Noll walked into the house, and the door was shut behind him with a triumphant slam. He followed the grim old lady into the little sitting-room, and as he went the memory of the queenly figure of the little child Betty as she walked into the dingy room and kissed the jealousy out of this old woman’s heart, came backto him like the fragrance of her sweetness, so that for a while he could not speak what he would have said.
“It was only the other day,” she said, “that you were boys together.... To me it is only yesterday that he was a—little one—in my—arms.” Her eyes filled with tears. “But it is all gone.... This passing of youth is as strange as death....” And she added after awhile: “I think he—was glad—to come back.”
Something of the light of triumph came stealing back to the old tear-stained face.
“And Julia?” he asked.
“I’ve sent her out to get tickets for the theatre,” she said drily. “They will want amusing badly to-night—and the tuning of the fiddles would always rouse my Netherby.... But you’d better go up and see him, Noll—you used to know the way.”
Noll made a pause to take breath at the top of the stairs (how he and Betty had raced up those steps!). He pushed open the attic door.
In the midst of the smudgy dusk that filled the room, his head in his hands, elbows on knees, sat the dim figure of Netherby Gomme, sobbing pitifully.
Noll shut the door softly, and went up to the bowed man:
“Good God, Netherby!” said he—“what’s this?”
He gripped his hand upon the other’s shoulder, affectionately.
Gomme signed him to a seat:
“Sit down, Noll—I’ll be all right in a minute.” He blew his nose. “No—better still, light the gas. I must stop. Tears will not bring back one’s dead, nor grief annul the things that are done. Light up! A man can only cry comfortably in the dark.”
Noll struck a light, turned on the tap of the wrought-iron gas-jet; and the gas leaped into flame.
The old attic was gone.
In its place was a picturesque medieval room of quaint nooks and demure corners, with stiff wooden settles of curving line against the wall, and low bookshelves round the rest of the walls; and above, on a deep coloured frieze under the low ceiling, was a long space of rigid trees from the land of Morris, green trees that yielded vasty purple and golden fruits on close-bunched foliage—and in the blue intervals between the stilted trees sailed white-sailed many-coloured galleons and purple triremes—and on the wall beneath the frieze and above the long curves of the low bookshelves was a yellow space splashed with huge orange-coloured dogs, with emerald eyes and scarlet mouths, that leaped along on hind legs to the chasing of each other and an occasional orange stag amidst mighty flowering plants that seemed to whirl in autumn tints with cunning running lines half-flower, half-leaf. And here and there was a knight in armour, and a hawk upon his wrist, and clothes upon his horse, and about him was always writtenSoe sirre Gallahydde gotte hyme pryckynge to hys pilgrymmynges; and when the knight was faded blue the writing wasrusset green; but when the knight was russet green the writing about him was faded blue. And here and there was a lady with hair in plait, and she wove at a loom, and sang with ruddy lips, and the writing about her wasChaunted the Queene ande weaved hyre tale righte Fyttyngelye; and when the queen was orange yellow the writing was white, and when the queen was white the writing was orange yellow. The old bookshelves, with their gay untidiness of many-coloured books, were gone; and in their place in more severe order on dark oaken bookshelves of suave design were ranked books all bound exactly alike in uniform yellow half-calf bindings. The floor was rich-stained and polished, and in the middle of it lay a rug of the yellow of saffron.
The old attic was now so rich of hue and yet so stiffly chaste that Noll almost rubbed his eyes to see if he were awake.
It was indeed a handsome room; and yet——
Some faint whisper of the how and the why these things had chanced flashed through Noll’s consciousness. Here Julia had put the savings of her hard-won earnings. A tidy mind frets at the ordered disorder of the workshop. She was of a precise habit that has a ruthless distaste for chips. She had secretly consulted the old lady, who had grimly advised her to “let the man’s room be”; but he who takes to the council of war a decided intention is irked by opposition, and smiles away the wisdom of older heads as the mere caution of senility. And indeed there was something of the poetic intention behind her gentle obstinacy, as there was behind everything she did; for (and she knew it in her secret heart to be not wholly without a little of such jealous venom as her gentle blood could hold) she had been passionately set upon bringing into this man’s life a fresh influence, a fragrance that she was sure he had not known—she was aglow with the glamour of the love-mood to be the all-in-all in the atmosphere of her lover’s day. And as the rich crave ever to be more rich, so she, queening it in her little parish, was blind to the simple fact that all the subtle and gracious tenderness of her gentle womanhood had won her a larger empire over her lover than any she could hope to win by petty endeavour. The old lady, her wise old eyes seeing that the other had come to consult the oracle with the answer rather than the question, had nodded her willingness, after the first demur, to comply with the younger woman’s whim. And the nod of surrender once given, she had addressed herself, during their absence on the honeymoon, to carrying out the young wife’s instructions to the uttermost detail, even employing no small sum out of her own small income to the perfecting of it.
And, be it remembered, for her the doing had been no light ordering—it was a flagellation of her own nakedness with cruel whips; for, as each change obliterated a footprint of the past, the atmosphere in which the boy and man had wrought their career swiftly vanished—the very hint of an early struggle had departed from the place.
Noll felt how the room must have struck Netherby in the face as he leaped up the stair and flung open the door to be welcomedto its old genial comradeship after his journey and absence from his beloved things.
Noll’s eyes came back from his thoughts to rest on the bent shoulders of the disconsolate man; and Netherby realized that the other had digested the situation.
He sighed sadly, his head in his hands:
“Poor Julia!” he said—“ she must never know. She has done this during our absence—as a surprise. And,” he added grimly: “it was!”
Noll smiled:
“But, Netherby, my dear old boy; you must not fret. You are famous, man——”
“Oh yes—quite. A duchess has asked me to dinner—without my wife.”
Noll put out the light:
“Let us sit in the dusk for awhile, Netherby, as we have sat many a day and settled the affairs of the state. We have laughed at care here; and kicked the world about like a football, and striven to dig up the roots of the Universe—the Why and the Wherefore and the Whence and the Whither.”
Netherby sighed:
“Ah, Noll, the old room is gone. I have to begin all over again. These stiff prude seats compel me to order—tell me harshly that I must not be dreaming overmuch, nor thinking—which is next door to dreaming—but nag me to be up and doing, boiling pots or eggs or hitting something or pushing at things. I don’t seem to fit in anywhere. The medieval rigours warn me to be done with visions and the reading of the visions of others; and their hard oaken seats rise up and assault me where I would sit upon them.... But that is nothing. They have left me not even my books. I am bewildered—bewildered—wholly bewildered.”
He sighed sadly, and went on:
“Ah, Noll, he only knows the whole delight of having possessed a child who has lost it.... Books are one’s most intimate friends—they never change—never play us a shabby trick. How they eat into one’s friendship, each dressed in his individual habit! the very ugliness of some a reason for seeking to win their confidence; perhaps a reason for an easy familiarity—we dog-ear them the more—mark them the more—love them the more. Put them in handsome ranks uniform, and their individuality is gone—like sisters that are primly arrayed to the same pattern to simper through a tedious garden-party. We begin to find faults where was once only affection; and their outward seeming being now alike, like critics we seek to taste not the delights within, but carp because this has not Shakespeare’s wit nor that the thunders and the music of Carlyle. These that were once our closest, most garrulous, most intimate friends have gone to join the silent ranks of library editions that no one reads. These stiff and formal backs, these ornamental edges, these dandified and dyed airs, repel me from my ancient friendships. The intimacy of years is broken—frozen.They open no longer eagerly at the old accustomed places, stained with frequent thumbings, where my own hand cut the dear intimate leaves—they are deckle-edged and bedamned and horrible which were wont to be delightfully impertinent. I cannot find my way in the old garden that I loved—the old dog-ears are smoothed out, gone—my pencillings erased, their whisperings mute, they nudge my elbow no more. These, my one-time boon companions snub me; give me but the flabby handshake of necessity. They open their houses to me mincingly, and yawn affected utterance. They no longer tickle me in the ribs, touching me on the sleeve, nor beckon; they do not chuckle familiarly—nor brood with me upon the roll and march of the great significancies. Their new clothes are insistent—upon them as upon me. They smell of the oil of respectability like gagged Sunday-school children. We know each other no longer—except with formal bow and elaborate etiquette—as when a royal person enters the room of entertainment and puts good-fellowship to the rout.”
He made a pause, and, passing his gaunt hand over his brow, he added sadly:
“I have come home to find myself in a strange land.... Shining-faced respectability has usurped my chair.... My kingdom has slipped from me.... The flowers in my garden are dead.”
Noll patted him on the back:
“Tut, tut, man—you have come into a new kingdom.”
He heard Julia’s voice upon the stair; and he saw that the other had heard it, for he stood up and forced a smile upon his long sad face.
Noll went close to him hurriedly:
“One word, Netherby—quick, before she comes—do you know where Betty is?” he asked hoarsely.
Netherby smiled a sad smile:
“Ah, Noll, thatyoushould have to askmethat!”
Noll passed Julia at the stair-head and left them together.
As he stepped across the hall he hesitated, turned, and went into the old lady’s room. She was sitting in the window, looking out; and she turned at his footfall.
Noll bent down and kissed the old face; and he saw that the harsh light had gone out of her eyes:
“Won’t you be a little lonely here to-night?” Noll asked her.
“No,” she said—“she has taken seats for all three of us.”