XVIII
Henry Harper at this period of his life was in the grip of a single passion; the passion to know. Already he had learned that books, wonderful, enchanting as they were, formed only one avenue to the realms of truth. He had now come to realize that there are many secrets in earth and heaven which books, even the wisest of them, are not able to disclose.
Of late, he had begun to reinforce the thousand and one volumes placed at his disposal by Mr. Rudge with the daily and weekly newspapers, and those contemporaries ofBrown'swhich came out once a month. He had been quite confounded by the reception given to "Dick Smith" by the public press. A thing so trivial seemed unrelated to the life of incomprehensible complexity in which he lived. Besides, he was convinced that the merit of the story had been exaggerated, as it no doubt had, in accordance with a generous custom of giving a newcomer a fair chance. Still, the author felt in his own mind that whatever the reviewers found in "Dick Smith" to admire was to be laid to the door of the friend who had made it possible for the story to reach the world.
One of the first fruits of this new craving for exact knowledge was to prove bitterly embarrassing. The Sailor had been haunted for several weeks by a report, which he had found among Mr. Rudge's miscellaneous collection, of the royal commission which sat to inquire into the terrible case of Adolf Beck. He became obsessed by the thought that the apparatus of the criminal law in a free country could fasten bonds on an entirely innocent person, could successfully resist all attempts to cast them off, and when finally pinned down and exposed to public censure could easily evoke a second line of defense, which, under juridical forms, freed it of blame in the matter.
To such an extent did the affair react upon the Sailor's mind that when he called one afternoon upon Edward Ambrose in Pall Mall, he had to make a sad confession. He had been so much troubled by it that he had not been able to work.
"Ah, but there we come to the core of official England," said Edward Ambrose. "Such miscarriages of justice happen in every country in the world, but the commission which solemnly justifies them on the ground of indisputable common sense could only have happened in this land of ours."
The young man was grateful for the tone of indignation. It was something to know there was one man in the world who agreed in sum with a certain trite formula which was all he had to work by. It had come to him by accident on theMargaret Carey.... Right is right, and wrong is no man's right.
"You should go to the Old Bailey one day and hear a trial," said Edward Ambrose. "All things that are concerned with reality might help you just now. I dare say it will hurt you horribly; but if you are not unlucky in the judge, it may help to restore your faith in your country."
"Yes, sir, I'll go there one day, as you advise me to," said Henry Harper, as a boy in the fourth form who was young for his age might have said it; and then with curious simplicity: "But I won't much fancy going by myself."
"I'll come with you," said Edward Ambrose, "if that is how you feel about it."
Thus it was that one evening, about a fortnight later, Henry Harper received a postcard, which said:
Meet me outside O. B. 10.30 tomorrow. Murder trial: a strange and terrible drama of passion for two students of the human comedy! E. A.
On the following morning, the Sailor had already mingled with the crowd outside the Old Bailey when, punctual to the minute, he was joined by his friend.
"It's brave of you to face it," was his greeting.
Mr. Ambrose little knew the things he had faced in the course of his five and twenty years of life, was the thought that ran in the mind of the Sailor.
They made their way in, and became witnesses of the drama that the law was preparing to unfold.
The judge began the proceedings, or rather the proceedings began themselves, with a kind of grotesque dignity. After the jury had been sworn, the prisoner was brought into the dock. Henry Harper gazed at him with an emotion of dull horror. In an instant, he had recognized Mr. Thompson, the mate of theMargaret Carey.
There could be no doubt it was he. Alexander Thompson was the name given in the indictment; besides, the Sailor would have known anywhere that shaggy and hirsute man who had cast such a shadow across his youth. There he was, that grim figure! He had changed, and yet he had not changed. The long, lean, angular body was the same in every awkward line, but the deadly pallor of the face was horrible to see. It was Mr. Thompson right enough, and yet it was not Mr. Thompson at all.
A surge of memories came upon Henry Harper as he sat in that court. They were so terrible that he could hardly endure them. He did not hear a word that was being spoken by the barrister who, in even and impartial tones, was reciting the details of a savage but not ignoble crime. The Sailor was thousands of miles away in the Pacific; the groves of the Island of San Pedro were rising through the morning mists; he could hear the plop-plop of the sharks in the water; he could hear the Old Man coming up on deck.
"That man looks capable of anything," whispered Edward Ambrose.
The Sailor had always been clear upon that point. There was the drive to the docks in a cab through the rain of the November night in his mind. Again he was a helpless waif of the streets seated opposite Jack the Ripper. He almost wanted to scream.
"Would you rather not stay?" whispered his friend.
"I'm not feeling very well," said Henry Harper; thereupon they left the court and went out into the street.
They walked along Holborn in complete silence. To the Sailor the fellowship, the security, the friendliness of that crowded street were a great relief. His soul was in the grip of awful memories. Even the man at his side could not dispel them. Mr. Ambrose was much farther away just now than the Old Man, the Island of San Pedro, and the savage and brutal murderer to whom he owed his life.
For days afterwards, the mind of the Sailor was dominated by Mr. Thompson. He learned from the newspapers that the mate of theMargaret Careywas condemned to death, and that he awaited the last office of the law in Dalston Prison. One day, an odd impulse came upon him. He bought some grapes and took them to the prison, and with a boldness far from his character at ordinary times, sought permission to see the condemned man.
As Mr. Thompson had only one day more to live, and not one of his friends had visited him for the simple reason that he had not a friend in the world, the governor of the prison, a humane man, gave the Sailor permission to see the mate of theMargaret Carey.
Behind iron bars and in the presence of a warder, Henry Harper was allowed to look upon Mr. Thompson, to speak to him, and to offer the grapes he had brought him. But a dreadful shock awaited the young man. He saw at once that there was nothing human now in the man who was ranging his cell like a caged beast.
"Don't you know me, Mr. Thompson?" cried Henry Harper feebly, through the bars.
The mate of theMargaret Careypaid no heed to his voice, but still paced up and down.
"Don't you know me, Mr. Thompson? I'm Sailor."
For a fraction of time, the condemned man turned savage, unutterable eyes upon him. They were those of a wild beast at bay.
"There's no God," he said.
He dashed his head against the wall of his cell.
XIX
Henry Harper was now in a universe of infinite complexity. The genie who lived in the wonderful lamp in his brain had taught him already that he knew nothing about whole stellar spaces in this strange cosmos that he, the thing he called himself, inhabited. Moreover, it presented many problems. Of these the most instant and pressing was Cora.
It was no use mincing the matter: Cora and he were not getting on. There was no bond of sympathy between them. His work and all that went with it were far more to him than the woman he had married. And when this fact came home to her, she began to resent it in a contemptuous way. It made it more difficult for both that his work only appealed to her in one aspect, and that the one which least appealed to him. The hard and continuous labor it involved meant nothing to her; the hopes and the fears of an awakening artistic sense were things beyond her power to grasp; if his work had not a definite commercial value, if it could not be rendered in pounds and shillings, it was a waste of time and worse than meaningless. Everything apart from that was a closed book as far as she was concerned. She began to despise his timidity and his ignorance, and the time soon came when she did not hesitate to sneer at him before her friends.
For one thing, she was bitterly resentful. It was useless to disguise that he was not merely indifferent to her physical charms, he positively disliked and even dreaded that aspect of their life together. Within a very short time after their marriage, he made the discovery that she drank.
Even before that knowledge came he had discerned something unwholesome about her. The blackened eyebrows, the rouged cheeks, the dyed hair, the overfine presence, the stealthy, cloying color of scent she exuded, the coarse mouth, the apathetic eyes, had always been things that he dared not let his mind rest upon in detail even before he had taken them unto himself. And now that he had done so at the call of duty, and with even that to sustain him, he foresaw that he must come to dislike them more and more. It hardly needed a pervading reek of brandy in her bedroom to read the future.
Unluckily for Cora, the monotony of a "straight" life with such a humdrum young man was more than she could stand for any length of time. The old fatal habit was soon upon her again. Years of yielding had weakened her will; and now she was beginning to grow contemptuous of her husband—perhaps as a requital of his apathy towards her—she began to assume a defiant carelessness, first of manner and then of conduct.
Disaster was foreshadowed by several quarrels. None of these were serious, but they showed the inevitable end towards which matters had begun to drift. Henry Harper was not the sort of man with whom it was easy to quarrel; he had no aptitude for a form of reflex action quite alien to his nature. All the same, there were times when he was almost tempted to defend himself from Cora's perpetual sneers at his dullness, not only in her company, which was bad enough, but in that of her friends, which was worse.
Her chief complaint was his bearing in restaurants and public places. He had not a word to say for himself; he let "the girls" and "the boys"—Cora included her whole exceedingly numerous acquaintance in these terms—"come it over him"; he took everything lying down; and she couldn't understand why a man who was as clever as he was supposed to be "didn't let himself out a bit now and again."
Harry's social maladroitness became a very sore subject. It annoyed Cora intensely that the boys and the girls should so consistently "make a mark of him." His inability to hit back seemed to be a grave reflection upon her judgment and good taste in marrying him. The time soon came when she told him that if he couldn't show himself a little brighter in company, he could either stay at home of an evening or go his way, and she would go hers.
As a fact, neither alternative was irksome to Henry Harper. But the ultimatum hurt him very much. The odd thing was that in spite of the nipping atmosphere to which his sensitiveness was exposed, it seemed to grow more acute. He had a very real sense of inferiority in the presence of others. Not only did he suffer from a lack of any kind of social training, but even the few counters he was painfully acquiring in a difficult game he had not the art of playing to advantage. Thus he was only too glad to accept Cora's ukase. It was a merciful relief to sit at home in the evening and eat the meager cold supper that Royal Daylight provided, and then go on with his work to what hour he chose, instead of being haled abroad at the heels of a superfashionable and therefore hyperdisdainful Cora to public places, where he was always at a miserable disadvantage.
She thus formed a habit of sallying forth alone in the evening. Although she sometimes returned after midnight in a slightly elevated condition, or in her own words, "inclined to be market merry," her husband had too little knowledge of life to be really suspicious or even deeply resentful.
Under the new arrangement, which suited the young man so well, he was able to attend public lectures at various places, the Polytechnic in Regent Street, the British Museum, the London Institution, the South Kensington Museum, and other centers of light. These helped him in certain ways. He was no dry-as-dust. Already his eyes were set towards the mountain peaks, yet with a humility that was perhaps his chief asset, he felt it to be in the power of all men to help him upon his journey.
Twice a week, now, after an early supper, he would go to a lecture. When it was over, he would often take a stroll about the streets in order to observe the phantasmagoria around him of which he knew so little. Yet his eager mind was looking forward to a time when all should be made clear by the play of the light that shines in darkness.
As a rule, he would finish his evening's excursion with a cup of coffee and a sandwich at Appenrodt's in Oxford Circus. And then thinking his wonderful thoughts, he would take a final enchanted stroll homewards to the Avenue, to No. 106, King John's Mansions, where his work and his books awaited him. Sometimes, however, he was greatly troubled with the thought of Cora. It was idle to disguise the ever growing sense of antagonism that was arising between them. But she went her way and he went his. The financial arrangement they had now come to was that he should pay the rent of the flat and all household expenses, and as Cora had apparently no money of her own, he also allowed her half of what remained of his income.
One evening in the summer, as he was walking slowly down Regent Street, a man and a woman passed him in an open taxi. The woman was Cora, and the man, who was in evening dress, appeared to have his arm around her waist. The sight was like a blow in the face. And yet it was a thing so far outside his ken that it was impossible to know exactly what it meant. For a moment he was dazed. He did not know how to regard it, or in what way to deal with it. To begin with, and perhaps oddly, it did not make him particularly angry. Why he was not more angry, he didn't know. No doubt it was because he was growing to dislike Cora so intensely. But as he walked slowly to King John's Mansions he still had the curious feeling of being half stunned by a blow.
He went to bed without awaiting her return. She had recently taken to coming home very late. Partly because of this, and partly in consequence of the condition in which she often returned, he had insisted for some little time past upon a bedroom of his own. This she had been very unwilling to concede, but he had fought for it and had in the end won; and tonight as he turned in and locked the door, he determined that no power on earth should cause him to yield the spoils of victory. He got into bed with hideous phantoms in his mind. But the thought uppermost was that he had turned yet another page of experience. And there suddenly in the midst of the flow and eddy of his fancies, the awful face of Mr. Thompson emerged at the foot of the bed. He could almost hear the mate of theMargaret Careydash his head against the wall of his cell.
He put forth all his power of will in the hope of inducing sleep, but before it showed signs of coming, he heard Cora's latchkey fumbling at the front door of the flat. She opened it with a rattle, and closed it with a bang; and then he heard her come stumbling along the passage, her fuddled voice uplifted in the mirthless strain of a music hall ditty.
With a sensation of physical nausea, he heard her try the handle of the bedroom door. And then there came a knock.
"Let me in, ducky."
He didn't answer, but pulled the bedclothes over his head.
"Let me in, ducky. I want to kiss you good night."
In spite of the bedclothes, he could still hear her.
Receiving no answer, she beat upon the door again.
"Don't then"—he could still hear her—"You are no good, anyway."
XX
The next day Cora was not visible until about two o'clock, which was now her invariable rule. They lunched together. He could hardly bring himself to eat the comfortless meal with her. But, after all, he had taken her for better or for worse. He must keep his part of the contract, therefore it was no use being squeamish.
He waited until the meal was over and Royal Daylight had cleared the table, and had also cleared away herself, before he mentioned the taxi. And then very bluntly, and in a tone entirely new to her as well as to himself, he demanded an explanation.
Cora, it seemed, was in a rather chastened mood. For one thing, she was now sober, and when she was sober she was not exactly a fool. She was not really repentant. He was too poor a thing to make a self-respecting woman repent. But now she was again herself, she was both shrewd and wary; after all, this double-adjectival idiot was the goose that laid the golden eggs.
"I was a bit on last night," she said, with well-assumed humility.
"'I was a bit on last night,' she said, with well-assumed humility.""'I was a bit on last night,' she said, with well-assumed humility."
"'I was a bit on last night,' she said, with well-assumed humility.""'I was a bit on last night,' she said, with well-assumed humility."
"Yes, I heard you was when you come home," he said, with the new note in his voice that she didn't like.
"Oh, so youdidhear." She suddenly determined to carry the war into the enemy's country. "Why didn't you open it, then?"
The cold impudence stung.
"I'd rather have died than have opened it to a cow like you." He hardly knew the words he used. They had seemed to spring unbidden from the back of beyond.
She half respected him for speaking to her in that way, and in such a tone; there was perhaps a little more to the double-adjectival one than she had guessed. And as the cards were dead against her now, she decided on a strategic grovel of pathos and brandy.
"Call yourself a gentleman?" Tears sprang reluctantly to the raddled cheek.
The sight of a lady in tears, even a lady who drank, was a little too much for Henry Harper.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "I oughtn't to have said that." He had remembered that the word "cow" as applied to the female sex was a Blackhampton expression and a favorite with Auntie.
The lady could only weep a little more profusely. This mug was as soft as butter.
He stood looking at her with tight lips and with eyes of sorrowful disgust.
"But you've no right to drink as much as you do," he said, determinedly. "And you've no right to ride in taxis with gentlemen and to let them put their arms round you."
"And you've no right to call your own lawful wife a cow," she said, tearfully.
"I've apologized for that," he said. "But you've given me no explanation of that gentleman."
"Didn't I say I was a bit on," she said aggrievedly.
"It's no excuse. It makes it worse."
"Yes, it does," said Mrs. Henry Harper, with a further grovel, "if it happened. But it didn't happen. You was mistaken, Harry. I'm too much the lady to let any gentleman, whether he was in evening dress or whether he wasn't, put his arm around me in a taxi. I wouldn't think of it now I'm married. Now, you kiss your Cora, Harry, for calling her a name."
She approached him with pursed lips. In spite of the shame he felt for such a lapse from his official duties, he retreated slowly before her.
"It's no use denying it," he said, as soon as the table had been placed successfully between them. "I saw his arm round you."
"You are mistaken, Harry." She did not like the look or the sound of him. She was beginning to be alarmed at her own folly. "I may have been a bit on, but I was not as bad as that. Honest."
"I saw what I saw," he persisted; and then feeling no longer able to cope with her or the situation, he slipped out of the room and out of the flat.
He had now to look forward in a dim way to the time when he would have to leave her. The time was not yet, but he was beginning to feel in the very marrow of his bones that it was near. Now that her secret was out and a hopeless deterioration had begun, there was something so revolting in the whole thing that he foresaw already their life together could have only one end. But in the meantime, he must be man enough to keep with a stiff upper lip a contract he ought never to have made.
Apart from his domestic relations, things were going very well indeed with him. He had completed the "Further Adventures of Dick Smith" to the satisfaction of Mr. Ambrose, and it was on the point of starting in the magazine. Moreover, the first series had won fame on both sides of the Atlantic. It was felt, so rare was its merits, that if Henry Harper never wrote anything else his reputation was secure for twenty years.
This, of course, was an amazing piece of fortune. Edward Ambrose, who had had no small share in bringing it about, and whose discriminating friendship had made it possible, compared it, in his own mind, with the success of Dickens, who, after a life of poverty and hardship, gained immortality at five and twenty. It was far too soon as yet to predict such a crown for Henry Harper, but he had certainly burst upon the world as a full-fledged literary curiosity. His name was coming to be in the mouth of all who could appreciate real imagination.
One of the first fruits of this success was his election to the Stylists' Club. This distinguished and esoteric body met on the afternoon of the first Tuesday of the autumn and winter months at Paradine's Hotel in Upper Brook Street, Berkeley Square, to discuss Style. Literary style only was within the scope of its reference; at the same time, the members of the club carried Style into all the appurtenances of their daily lives. Not only were they stylists on paper, they were stylists in manner, in dress, in speech, in mental outlook. The club was so select that it was limited to two hundred members, as it was felt there was never likely to be more than that number of persons in the metropolis at any one time who could be expected to possess an authentic voice upon the subject. Happily, these were not all confined to one sex. The club included ladies.
That the Stylists' Club, of all human institutions, should have sought out Henry Harper for the signal honor of membership, seemed a rare bit of byplay on the part of Providence. For a reason which he could not explain, Edward Ambrose gave a hoot of delight when the young man brought to him the club's invitation, countersigned by its president, the supremely distinguished Mr. Herbert Gracious, whose charmingly urbane "Appreciations," issued biennially, were known wherever the English language was in use. Mr. Herbert Gracious was not merely a stylist himself, he was a cause of style in others.
Henry Harper had been a little troubled at first by the hoot of Mr. Ambrose, and the feeling of doubt it inspired was not made less by a rather lame defense. All the same, Mr. Ambrose so frankly respected the young man's intense desire to improve himself that he urged him to join the club, and to attend the first meeting, at any rate, of the new session, if he felt he would get the least good out of it.
In response to a basely utilitarian suggestion, Henry Harper said he would do so. He was not in a frame of mind to face such an ordeal. But he must not let go of himself. Miserable as he was, he felt he must take such advice if only to prove his courage. He would attend the first meeting of the Stylists' Club on the ground of its being good for the character, if on no higher.
"I suppose you'll be there, sir?"
"No," laughed Mr. Ambrose. "I'm not a member. It's a very distinguished body."
Henry Harper looked incredulous. It did not occur to him that anybody could be so distinguished as to exclude such a man as Edward Ambrose.
"I don't think I'll go, then," said Henry Harper. "It will be a bit lonesome-like."
"Please do. And then come and tell me about it. Your personal impression will be valuable."
It was for this reason that the Sailor finally decided not to show the white feather.
XXI
Henry Harper found the Stylists' Club of far greater interest than he thought it would be. To one as simple as he it was a very stimulating body. Moving precariously towards fresh standards of life, he knew at once that he was in a strange new world. He knew even before a powdered footman had led him across the parqueted floors of Paradine's Hotel, and a personage hardly less gorgeous had announced him to the congeries of stylists who had assembled to the number of about sixty.
"It is such a pleasure, Mr. Harper," said a large, florid, benign and beaming gentleman, seizing him by the hand. "You will find us all at your feet."
Mr. Harper was overawed not a little by the size and the distinction of the company, but the benign and beaming gentleman, who was no less a person than Mr. Herbert Gracious himself, took him in charge and introduced him to several other gentlemen, most of whom were benign but not beaming, being rather obviously preoccupied with a sense of Style. Indeed, Mr. Herbert Gracious was the only one of its members who did beam really. The others were far too deeply engaged with the momentous matters they had met to consider.
When Mr. Henry Harper had been allowed to subside into a vacant chair in the midst of six stylists, four of whom were female and two of whom were male, he was able to pull himself together a little. He knew already that he was in very deep waters indeed: Mr. Esme Horrobins and Mr. Edward Ambroses were all around him. And these ladies ... these ladies who waved eyeglasses stuck on sticks were not of the Cora and the Miss Press and the Miss Bonser breed; they were of the sort that Klondyke put on a high hat and a swallowtail to walk with in Hyde Park. Yes, even for a sailor, he was in very deep waters just now, and he was obliged to tell himself once again, as he always did in such circumstances, that having sailed six years before the mast there was nothing in the world to fear.
All the same, at first he was very far from being happy. A dozen separate yet correlated discussions upon Style had been interrupted by his entrance. The announcement, "Mr. Henry Harper," had suspended every conversation. For a moment all the Mr. Esme Horrobins were mute and inglorious. But then, having glutted their gaze upon one whom Mr. Herbert Gracious himself had already crowned in the Literary Supplement of theDaily Age and Lyre, the Mr. Esme Horrobins and the Mrs. Esme Horrobins—the mere male was not allowed to have it all his own way in this discussion upon Style—took up the theme.
It was the part of Mr. Henry Harper to listen. The public press of England and America had compared his own style to that of Stevenson, Bunyan, Defoe, the Bible, Shakespeare, Lætitia Longborn Gentle, Memphis Mortmain Mimpriss, finally Dostoievsky, and then Stevenson again. In a true analysis Stevenson would have defeated all the other competitors together, leaving out Dostoievsky, who was a bad second, and excluding the Bible, Shakespeare, and Memphis Mortmain Mimpriss, who, to their great discredit, were an equally bad third. Stevenson was first and the rest nowhere. And there that glorious reincarnation sat, in a modest blue suit, but looking very neat and clean, listening to every word that fell in his vicinity from the lips of the elect. At least, that was, as far as it was possible for one human pair of ears to do so.
"Tell me, Mr. Harper," said Miss Carinthia Small, with all Kensington upon her eyebrows, imperiously attacking with a stick eyeglass, which she wobbled ferociously, this very obvious young genius who didn't know how to dress properly, as soon as Mr. Marmaduke Buzzard—M.B. of theStylists' Review—had allowed her, much against his will and for purely physical reasons, to get in a word. "Tell me, Mr. Harper, exactly how you feel about Dostoievsky? Where do you place him? Before Meredith and after Cuthbert Rampant, or before Cuthbert Rampant and after Thomas Hardy?"
It was a dismal moment for Mr. Henry Harper. Fortunately he hesitated for a fraction of an instant, and he was saved. That infinitesimal period of time had given Mr. Marmaduke Buzzard his chance to get in again. And stung by the public acclamation of Mr. Cuthbert Rampant, a well-nourished young man in a checked cravat, who was curving gracefully over Miss Carinthia Small, he proceeded to show with some little violence, yet without loss of temper, that in any discussion of stylequastyle, Turgenieff alone of the Russians could possibly count.
"But everybody knows," breathed the defiant Miss Carinthia in the charmed ear of Mr. Cuthbert Rampant, "that had it not been for Dostoievsky, the 'Adventures of Dick Smith' could never have been written at all."
The considered reply of Mr. Cuthbert Rampant was lost in the boom and the rattle of Mr. Marmaduke Buzzard's heavy artillery.
Henry Harper might have sailed six years upon the high seas, but a flood of deep and perplexing waters was all around him now. Stylists to right of him, stylists to left of him, all discoursingex cathedraupon that supreme quality. Never, since the grim days of theMargaret Careyhad he felt a sterner need to keep cool and hold his wits about him. But with the native shrewdness that always stood to him in a crisis, he had grasped already a very important fact. It must be the task just now of the new Stevenson to sit tight and say nothing.
To this resolve he kept honorably. And it was less difficult than it might have been had not Style alone been the theme of their discourse, had not this been an authentic body of its practitioners, and had not "The Adventures of Dick Smith" been acclaimed as the finest example of pure narrative seen for many a year. All through the period of tea and cake, which Mr. Henry Harper contrived to hand about with the best of them, being honestly determined not to mind his inferior clothes and absence of manner, because, after all, these things were less important than they seemed at the moment, he kept perfectly mute.
Nevertheless he had one brief lapse. It was after he had drunk a cup of tea and the undefeated Miss Carinthia Small had drunk several, and Mr. Marmaduke Buzzard had retired in gallant pursuit of some watercress sandwiches, that the dauntless lady felt it to be her duty to draw him out.
"Tell me, Mr. Harper," said she, "what really led you to Stevenson?"
So much was the novice troubled by the form of the question that she decided to restate it in a simpler one, although heaven knew it was simple enough already!
"What is your favorite Stevenson?" she asked, looking Mr. Cuthbert Rampant full in the eye with an air of the complete Amazon.
The author of "The Adventures of Dick Smith" was bound to speak then. Unfortunately he spoke to his own undoing.
"I've only read one book by Stevisson," he said, in a voice of curious penetration which nervousness had rendered loud and strident.
"Pray, which is that?" asked Miss Carinthia Small in icy tones.
"It's the one called 'Virginibus Puerisk,'" said Mr. Henry Harper.
Miss Carinthia Small felt that a pin might have been heard to fall in Upper Brook Street, Berkeley Square. Mr. Cuthbert Rampant shared her emotion. Yet the area of the fatal silence did not extend beyond Mr. Marmaduke Buzzard, who had already reopened fire a short distance away, and was again doing immense execution.
Miss Carinthia Small and Mr. Cuthbert Rampant risked no further discussion of Stevisson with this strange young Visigoth from the back of beyond. Neither of them could have believed it to be possible. When he had been first ushered into the room by the benign Herbert, and had modestly sat down, he had looked so clean and neat, and anxious to efface himself that he might have been a product of some self-respecting modern university who was on a reconnaissance from a garden suburb. But how could that have been their thought! This was a cruel trick that somebody had played upon Herbert. There was malice in it, too. Dear Herbert, England's only critic, the British Sainte Beuve, had had his leg pulled in a really wicked manner! He had always prided himself upon being democratic and inclusive, but there was a limit to everything.
Happily the Sailor did not stay much longer. Many stylists were going already. It had been an interesting experience for the young man. If he had gained nothing beyond a cup of lukewarm tea and a cucumber sandwich, he certainly felt very glad that he had had the courage to face it.
"Good-by, ma'am," he said, squeezing a delicate white glove in a broad and powerful grip. "I'm very proud to have met you. What else ought I to read of Stevisson?"
Miss Carintha Small felt an inclination to laugh. But yet there was something that saved him. What it was she didn't know. She only knew it was something that Winchester and New College in the person of Mr. Cuthbert Rampant did not possess.
"Good-by." There was really very little of the stylist in her voice, although she was not aware of it, and would have been quite mortified had such been the case. "And youmustread 'Treasure Island.' It is exactly your style, although 'Dick Smith' is very much deeper and truer and to my mind altogether more sincere."
Miss Carinthia Small had not meant to say a word of this. She had not meant to say anything. She had intended to efface this young man altogether.
The Sailor threaded his way through a perfect maze of stylists with almost a sense of rapture. It had been a delightful adventure to converse on equal terms with a real Hyde Park Lady: a brilliant creature who had neither chaffed him nor hit him in the back, nor addressed him as "Greased Lightning," nor had rebuked him with "Damn you." He walked out on air.
As the author of "The Adventures of Dick Smith" was retrieving his hat from the hotel cloak room, he was suddenly brought to earth. Two really imperial stylists were being assisted into elaborate fur coats by two stylists among footman.
"My dear Herbert." An abnormally quick ear caught the half humorous, half indignant remark, in spite of the fact that it was uttered in a very low tone. "This man Harper ... I assure you the fellow hasn't an aitch to his name."
XXII
It was not until Henry Harper had escaped from Paradine's Hotel and had managed to find a way into Regent Street that the words he had overheard seemed to hit him between the eyes. His mind had been thrown back years, to Klondyke and the waterlogged bunk in the half-deck of theMargaret Carey. He recalled as in a dream the great argument he had dared to maintain as to the true manner of spelling his name, and how, finally, he had been compelled to give in. Ever since that time, he had always put in the aitch in deference to his friend's superior artillery, which included Greek and Latin and other surprising things.
It was clear, however, that it was not a bit of use putting the letter aitch in your name unless you included it in your speech as well. It was amazing that he had not grasped such a simple truth until that moment. He had known, of course, for some little time now, in fact, ever since he had met Mr. Esme Horrobin at Bowdon House that his manner of speaking only very faintly resembled that in vogue in college and society circles.
On the edge of the curb at Piccadilly Circus, waiting to make the perilous crossing to the Avenue, the crushing force of the remark he had overheard seemed to come right home to him. Moreover, as he stood there he saw in an almost fantastically objective way that the letter aitch should be attended to at once. He must not be content merely to improve his mind, he must improve himself in every possible manner.
It was here, as he stood in deep thought, that his old friend Providence came rather officiously to his aid. A derelict walked past him in the gutter, and on the back of the human wreck was fixed a sandwich board bearing the legend:
Madame Sadleir gives lessons daily by appointment in voice production, elocution, correct speaking, and deportment. Apply for terms at 12, Portugal Place, W.
This was very friendly of Providence. The young man knew that two minutes ago he had passed Portugal Place. He was strung up to the point of adventure. This too long neglected matter was so vital to one who desired to mix with stylists on equal terms, that it would be the part of wisdom to see about it now.
At this moment thought was action with Henry Harper. Therefore he turned almost at once and retraced his steps into Regent Street. Within a very short time he was assailing the bell pull of 12, Portugal Place, W., third floor.
Providence had arranged that Madame Sadleir should be at home. She was alone, moreover, in her professional chamber, and fully prepared to enter into the matter of the letter aitch.
Madame Sadleir was stout and elderly, she wore an auburn wig, she was calm and efficient, yet she also had an indefinable quality of style. In spite of a certain genial grotesqueness she had an air of superiority. Henry Harper, his vibrant sensibilities still astretch from an afternoon of stylists, perceived at once that this was a lady with more or less of a capital letter.
Experience of Cora and her friends had by this time taught the Sailor that there were "common or garden" ladies, to use a favorite expression of Miss Press, and there were also those he defined as real or Hyde Park ladies. He had little first-hand knowledge, at present, of the latter; he merely watched them from afar and marked their deportment in public places. But there was a subtle quality in the greeting of Madame Sadleir, almost a caricature to look at as she was, which suggested the presence of a lady with a capital letter, at least with more or less of a capital letter, a sort of Hyde Park lady relapsed. Henry Harper was aware, almost before Madame Sadleir spoke a word, that she had been born to better things than 12, Portugal Place, W., third floor.
Completely disarmed by the calm but forthcoming manner of Madame Sadleir, Mr. Henry Harper stated his modest need with extreme simplicity. He just wanted to be taught in as few lessons as possible to speak like a real college gentleman that went regular—regularly (remembering his grammar in time)—into Society.
Madame Sadleir's smile was maternal.
"Why, certainly," she said in the voice of a dove. "Nothing easier."
The young man felt reassured. He had not thought, even in his moments of optimism, that there would be anything easy in the process of making a Mr. Edward Ambrose or a Mr. Esme Horrobin.
"It will be necessary," said Madame Sadleir, "to pay very particular attention to the course of instruction, and also to practice assiduously. But first you must learn to take breath and to assemble and control the voice. Do you desire the Oxford manner?"
Mr. Henry Harper, with recollections of Mr. Edward Ambrose and Mr. Esme Horrobin, said modestly that he did desire the Oxford manner if it could be acquired in a few lessons, which was yet more than he dared to hope.
"The number of lessons depends entirely upon your diligence and, may I add"—and Madame Sadleir did add—"your intelligence and natural aptitude. But, of course, to remove all misunderstanding, the Oxford manner is an extra."
Somehow he felt that such would be the case.
"Personally, one doesn't recommend it," said Mtdame Sadleir, "for general use."
Mr. Harper was a little disappointed.
"It is not quite so popular as it was," said Madame Sadleir, "unless one is going into the Church. In the Church it is always in vogue, in fact one might say asine qua nonin its higher branches. Do you propose to take Orders?"
Mr. Harper had no thoughts of a commercial life.
"Personally," said Madame Sadleir, speaking with the most engaging freedom and ease, "one is inclined to favor a good Service manner for all round general use. There is the A manner for the army subaltern, the B manner for the company officer, either of which you will find admirable for general purposes. There is also the Naval manner, but excellent as it is, I am afraid it is hardly to be recommended for social life. The Civil Service manner, which combines utility with a reasonable amount of ornament, might suit you perhaps. I am recommending it quite a good deal just now. And, of course, there is the Diplomatic or Foreign Office manner for advanced pupils, but it may be early days to talk of that at present. One does not like to raise false hopes or to promise more than one can perform. Now, Mr. Harper, kindly let me hear you read this leading article in the Times on 'What is Wrong with the Nation?' paying particular attention to the vowel sounds."
With grave deliberation, Mr. Henry Harper did as he was asked. Having painfully completed his task, Madame Sadleir, in a remarkably benign way, which somehow brought Mr. Herbert Gracious vividly to his mind, proceeded to deal with him with the utmost fidelity.
Said she: "It is my duty to tell you that for the present a good sound No. 3 Commercial manner is earnestly recommended. If you are diligent, it may be possible to graft a modified Oxford upon it, but I am afraid it would be premature to promise even that."
This was disappointing. But, after all, it was to be foreseen. Mr. Edward Ambroses and Mr. Esme Horrobins were not made in a day. And when he came to think the matter over at his leisure he was sincerely glad that they were not. It would have taken a mystery and a glamour from the world.