CHAPTER XXXIX
Wherein, the Barber letting the Cat out of the Bag, we give Chase
Inthe gathering darkness of his dingy little room over the southern gate of New Inn sat Noll Baddlesmere in his shirt-sleeves, cudgelling his wandering wits for epigrams and the dramatic situation; yet though the dun walls did not distract his attention with the restlessness of over-abundant gaieties, nor the sedate quietude nor the narrow view from his grimy windows strain his nerves—indeed, he could scarce hear the turmoil of the traffic in the great Strand hard by—he was unable to settle down to hard work, nor could he rid himself of the fret of his thoughts.
For hours he had thus striven to banish his loneliness, but our deceptions fail at last even to deceive ourselves. His instincts were bent on finding Betty; and the gloom of the dying day, though it thwarted his eyesight and raised disturbing ghosts of thought, held the whisper of the fact that he had come near to the flying glimpse of her. It was as though her skirts had rustled across his dreams in the ornate halls of the Malahides, flipped into a baffling doorway, and vanished into mocking silence—yet but a door between. He fretted that he could find no slightest trace of her.
He flung down his pen; arose from his desk in the dusky gloom; dressed for the street; and strolled out of his rooms aimlessly into the grey of the evening that held the old quadrangle in a smoky stillness.
In the vexed traffic of the Strand he suddenly bethought him of Devlin; and straightway turned his steps towards the barber’s.
As he reached the corner of the street where Devlin plied the scissors, he saw Myre hail a hansom and drive off in it.
Noll, entering the barber’s room, was greeted by the little cockney Irishman with frantic delight; and Noll himself was glad to step back across the threshold into his old world.
He gave up his hat to the dandified little man and sat down in the barber’s chair before the mirror, the little man fussing about him the while.
“Devlin,” said he, lying back in the chair, “I saw Mr. Myre leaving this place——”
Devlin flung a large white pinafore round the youth and tied it at the back of his neck.
“That’s so, sir,” said Devlin. He tucked some white towels under his chin. “And faith, it’s quite the great man he is now.”
“Hoho!” said Noll—“affluent and well-to-do, eh? I suppose he has quite divorced himself from Art, then!”
“What’s that?” screamed Devlin, stopping his lathering. “Mr. Myre divorced from Art!” He went to the door to see that it was carefully closed. “Whisht, sir; it’s a fine hairy libel-action ye’ll be wadin’ in at the police courts, Mr. Noll, if ye don’t hold a restraint on ye.”
“But my good Devlin—he always swore that reward and affluence destroy the artist!”
Devlin laughed; and got back to his lathering:
“Ah, Mr. Noll, it’s your old self, it is—findin’ flaws in the Irish logic of him.” He chose a razor. “By the book, I remember well the day Mr. Lovegood pulled the leg of the great man here. Ye’ll remember it, maybe. No?” He held Noll’s chin with damp fingers and began to shave: “Well, says Mr. Myre, says he, it’s death and to the devil with art when the artist works for money and reward, says he. That’s so, says Mr. Lovegood, for I always thought meself, says Lovegood, down in the great resoundin’ belly of him, says he: I always thought meself, says he, that Willie Shakespeare would have turned out less indifferent poetry, says he, if he hadn’t been trying to fill the stalls in his old Globe Theatre all the time, says he, and makin’ eight thousand a year, present reckoning, out of the damned blank poetry of him, says he.... Mr. Myre he licked his lips, wid a black sullen look on him, like a dog that’s been robbed of his bone. And, by the powers, the most simple law officer of the Crown could have foretold that Mr. Myre was going to have a sudden engagement in the city thin and there from the wan smile that came over the head of him. But——”
He concentrated his whole attention for a while on the upper lip of Noll, and having shaved it, he added:
“But it’s the black mental gloom that got a holt of the great man that day.”
“Oh?” asked Noll.
“That’s so,” said the barber. “Oh, yes.... And ye didn’t hear tell of it, sir?... Mother of God, it was the talk of the sivin continents.... Ah, begod, sure it’s a damned penny-whistle this Fame, anny way. Ah, sir; it was a great fall that, mind ye. He took it like Julius Cæsar with the Opposition takin’ hacks out of him under Pompey’s pillar—just wid a wan dignified look on him.... Oh, yes; he’s a great man. If stickin’ to it, and the divil’s own confidence in one’s own greatness, and industry, and strong opinions and histrionic adultery can make genius, that man’s a barrel of it——”
He was drying Noll’s face, and removing the shaving-cloths from about his chin when the cling of the door-bell gave warningthat someone had entered the outer shop—footsteps came towards the room.
“Whisht!” said the barber, “here’s Mr. Cartel Maungy.”
“Who?”
“Whisht! I’ll tell ye when he’s gone, Mr. Noll. Sure, the paper’s lyin’ about there somewheres—and I’ll have done with the gintleman in three minutes forty-five seconds.”
Noll nodded, and betook himself to a seat, suspecting some mystery that the barber would divulge after his own quaint fashion, which brooked no hurrying—to end in some fantastic nothingness or a good story.
The door opened, and there entered, sedate and old-aired, a handsome dandified little old gentleman.
The barber, with gorgeous bow and diffident formality, relieved the silent man of his hat and cane, and leading him to a seat, soon had him swathed to the chin in cloths, and was shaving the soap-lathered ascetic face that gazed at the ceiling meditatively.
The shaving being done, and the swathings of many white cloths removed from about his chin and shoulders, the courtly figure arose from the chair, and being given his hat and cane by the even more elaborate barber, he withdrew from the room.
“Who’s that?” asked Noll.
“Well, sir; he’s a kind of Frenchified poet av the name of Cartel de Maungy.... The gintlemen call him The Man of Pallid Ideals,” said the barber. “The gintlemen were saying only last night that he’s been a bit of a literary genius in his time in the minor poet line; but Misther Myre he says the man’s but an Inkstain on the Carpet of Time. Oh, but it’s a trenchant tongue Misther Myre’s got on him when he gets handlin’ the comparisons against literary reputations——”
“Yes, yes, Devlin—never mind Mr. Myre. About this man of pallid ideals——”
The barber lowered his voice to the confidential:
“Ah, now that’s a mighty queer story, Mr. Noll. It’s the victim of the grand passion that man is; Vanus rest his soul. Victim? begod!—he’s the hero of a romance that’s kept a holt of him since his chin began the need of shavin’—and that’s as long as your grandfather or mine can remimber the seasons. That man has just played on the music of his little love-affair until he’s clean pulled the cat-gut out of the old fiddle—plucked at the shtrings of the old melody until he’s torn the bowels out of the old harpsichord of Romance.... Sure, my father shaved him before me, and remembered the day it got about that the girl’s father swore he’d have no damned Frenchified poetaster for son-in-law. And the little gintleman’s been lovin’ the girl ever since, until there’s only the memory of them both left to each other. He might have married the little lady this forty years—the divil a soul to prevent it—but——”
He shrugged his shoulders, and gave up the tangle.
“Well?” asked Noll.
“Well, he goes and walks before her doorway every evenin’, asthe twilight falls, and sometimes they take a stroll together. And—by the same token! she lives in the same house where Miss Betty lodges——”
Noll rose to his feet.
“Where?”
The barber was startled.
Noll strode up to him:
“Where does Miss Betty live?” he asked, hoarsely.
The little barber gazed at him:
“It isn’t ghosts ye are seeing, Mr. Noll?” he asked.
Noll put his hand on the other’s shoulder:
“Quick, man—where is the house?”
“Ah, now—Mr. Noll—ye’re pullin’ the innocent leg of me,” he said, laughing.
Noll pulled himself together. He strode to the door.
“Quick, Devlin—for God’s sake! Which way does—the—the man of pallid ideals usually go?” he asked roughly.
The barber followed him to the street, and standing in the lamp-lit dusk he pointed out the way:
“Up there, till ye reach that turn by the red pillar-box, then sharp to the right—then straight on till ye—— Begad, he’s off like a policeman down the kitchen steps when the area belle’s a-ringing——”
He stood gaping at the vanishing figure of the youth who strode up the street.
The little man’s jaw dropped.
“Oh, murder!”
He scratched his poll aghast:
“Mother of God!” said he—“of coorse! Victoria May Alice told me—there’s been a misunderstandin’—or maybe even a partin’—or some heathen tom-noddy——”
He walked into his shop soberly.
“Mike Devlin,” said he—and he rubbed his chin ruefully: “ye’ve put your great damn foot slap into the big drum of the farcical tragedy.”
Noll strode out. In the glimmering grey of the hustling world he tramped; but the hush was alive with whispers—and the blood was jumping in him.
He caught sight at last of the distant back of the Man of Pallid Ideals.
He turned, after some walking, into one of those silent streets that give off the noisy thoroughfare of the roaring city, and by the silence he knew that he was in a street where lodgings are. At once he slackened pace, for, a hundred strides before him, walked slowly the slender Man of Pallid Ideals, who at last halted, stood a little while looking up at a window across the street, sighed, and passed brooding into the twilight beyond.
Not so Noll.
He marked the halting-place, paced the distance, and swung round towards the house opposite.
In the topmost window was a light; and Noll knew that by that light was Betty sitting—that the light was on her nut-brown hair—kissing her cheek——
He strode straight across the road, and rang the bell.
When the maid opened the door, Noll said:
“I wish to see Miss Betty Modeyne at once, please—lead the way to her rooms.”
The maid, used to the unquestioning obedience of orders, when given with authority, led the way upstairs, regardless of all the proprieties, careless of etiquette....
Arrived at the topmost landing, she threw open the door:
“A visitor to see you, miss,” cried she, wheezy at the high climb; admitted the handsome youth; and forthwith took herself off, descending to her household furbishings and area gossip.
Betty, rising from her chair, set aside some needlework, and turned to greet. She saw the youth standing before the closed door, his back to it.
She put her white hands upon her bosom.
“Noll!” she whispered; and a glad smile of wonder was in her eyes; and the red blood flushed her cheek and lip.
Noll went to her and put his arms about her, and kissed her upon the mouth. And he said never a word.