CHAPTER EIGHTEENNouveau Riche
A CROCEAN dawn was outside and around him when he awoke—yellow, of the metropolitan variety; it was, that is to say, a fog. But in spite of the dullness of the outer world, Mr. Trimblerigg awoke happy, with the happiness of a man whose prayer has been answered.
For many days he had been praying fervently that his character might be placed above suspicion: and now that Davidina’s suspicion of him had gone, and his own with it, he had just everything for the present that he could pray for. And on the top of it, he had forgiven an enemy—in such a way that, if he did not miscalculate, his enemy would presently have to forgive him.
There, in that purified spiritual atmosphere, another great work was awaiting him. All omens were auspicious; he knew now for certain that he was going to achieve fame, and that very soon, among the Free Churches, he would be able to have almost whatever position he liked, and do almost anything he chose. And so, as he got up in that crocean dawn, he felt all about him, but especially in his brain, an effusing sense of well-being and happiness. And as he looked at himself in the glass before shaving, he smiled: and it seemed to him then that his countenance was wonderfully bright.
Presently, as he shaved, he began to have a suspicion that the illumination was different and strange: that there was a curious absence of shadow about his chubby cheeks and under his chin, which made shaving easy; and this, too, on a dark morning.
This fact only dawned on him gradually; for close above his head hung the electric pendant, with its bulb of powerfullight directed downwards by the white porcelain shade. But when, thoughtful of the high price of electricity, he turned it out and once more faced his glass to give a final polish to his hair, there could no longer be any doubt that he was in the presence of something which waited to be explained—something too mysterious, too incredible to be described as a phenomenon.
‘Crocean dawn’: the embodied phrase looked him in the face. But how had it located itself? Was it physical, or spiritual, or was it only mental? ‘Miracle’ he did not think of calling it; his Free Church upbringing had given him an instinctive repugnance to such Romish things as modern miracles; though he admitted the possibility (but that was different) of miraculous answer to prayer. But miracles of a personal and a phenomenal kind he regarded with a certain suspicion—had indeed published inThe Rock of Agesan article against them, wherein, with unrelenting logic, he had traced them to spiritual agencies—if spiritual they might be called—not of good but of evil. And now—this!
But if it was not a miracle in the accepted sense, if it was only something seen with the eye of the spirit, nevertheless there it was, carrying implications, and imposing if not exactly a burden—a problem, a weight of responsibility, which he did not quite know how he was to solve.
He could not help feeling that, for the present at least, he would like to keep it to himself, until he was a little more sure. But then a sudden sense of elation carried him away; for of what he had hoped might be true, this surely was proof; he really was—good! Even if it was only a recognition—an encouragement sent confidentially, forhis eye alone, it meant—it must mean—that Heaven approved of him. The beauty of holiness was upon him in visible form—a certificate of character unimpeachable in its completeness; and yet, for an uncomfortable instant, the thought had flashed—how was he going to live up to it? Could he be as holy in practice as this advertised him to be? No, for the present at least, he would rather that it should not be seen. This was early dawn: he was hardly up to it. He must acclimatize himself.
So here, in the privacy of his own chamber, he examined the portent at leisure, and from all points of view. Trying to see himself, as others might presently be seeing him, he continued his study of the glass. Around a face broader than it was long, a wide forehead, puckered eyes, short nose, a neat bunch of a mouth, and hair worn rather long, turning up at the ends like the hair of the knave of hearts, a faint lemon-coloured radiance emerged, effused, flowed for a few inches, and then suddenly stopped short.
It was that abrupt ending which gave it so uncanny a character. Earthly radiance diminishes as it travels from its source; but this behaved differently—was indeed, if anything, brighter where it ended than where it started. Thus, from a front view, it had that plate-like appearance with which stained-glass windows and pictures of mediæval saints had made him familiar.
Going to his wife’s dressing-table he took up the hand-mirror, so as to get a better side-view. The plate-like appearance persisted: quarter, three-quarter, and back view were always the same. The emanation was not flat, then, but round; a glory of three dimensions encircled him, and he moved in a globe of light which, like a head of dandelion seed, was brightest toward the edge, yet sofaint and unsubstantial, it seemed as though a breath might blow it away.
Once more he brushed his hair for experiment. The lemon-coloured flame did not deflect or waver from its outward symmetry; nor did his head experience any electric thrills, as though virtue were passing either into him or out of him. With a slight sense of disappointment he laid his brushes down, and put on his coat. This, he found on consulting the glass, had made no change, except that upon the black cloth fell a slight radiance; but when for further experiment he once more switched on the light, it almost disappeared; and against the window, looking back at himself in the hand-mirror, for a moment he persuaded himself that it had gone. But if an involuntary wish had fathered that thought, he had only to move away from the light for its form and colour to reappear as strongly as ever; and as it responded with unvarying consistency to all the experiments he played on it, so did his sense of its reality become a conviction. It was not merely an idea, it was a fact.
And then the feeble tinkle of a bell below told him of breakfast. He went out on to the landing and peeped over the banisters.
Hearing dilatory sounds among the breakfast things, ‘Mrs. James,’ he called, ‘you needn’t wait.’ And a minute later, on hearing her descend to the basement, he came downstairs at a run.
At table, in case Mrs. James should find excuse to return, he took his wife’s place instead of his own, sitting with his back to the window; and found, in that position, though the morning was still dark, that he could see into his egg quite easily. Thus, even while away from hismirror, the sense of something real, not imaginary, remained with him.
But it gave him no joy; for though in himself he felt at unity with this day-spring from on high that had visited him, he was doubtful how it would appear to the outside world—whether the world was ripe for it—whether, indeed, it was intended for the outside world at all. It was already in his mind that if he entered his Mission Centre office by the ordinary way, he would have to run the gauntlet of a roomful of clerks; and that his unexplained accompaniment might provoke comment, possibly even mirth. And Mr. Trimblerigg, even with reason on his side, was not one who liked to be laughed at.
Unable to make up his mind what he felt about it himself, now, as he considered the matter from the worldly point of view, he began to regard it with less and less favour. He could not but feel that for such a manifestation as this the world needed preparation; a publicity campaign should have gone first and some more obvious occasion should have been found for its first appearance—this, in all humility—than one so merely personal to himself, a testimonial to the integrity of his character.
And then—to give the first test to his doubts—came the interrogative Mrs. James, merely wishing to know what meals he would be in for, and whether, if callers came to inquire for him, he would name any time when he should be at home.
Mr. Trimblerigg, keeping his head in the light of the window, gave her the required instructions, and saw at once from the uneventful expression of her face that she had noticed nothing.
This threw him suddenly back upon doubt; and nosooner had she returned to her kitchen than he ran upstairs again, and looked once more in the glass.
The visitation was still upon him; but now that there was more daylight he saw it much less; nor had it so definite an edge where the radiance left off. Had he been a woman a broad-brimmed hat with plenty of veil about it would have made what was there quite unnoticeable; or had he been a missionary in India wearing a turban in all the glare of the Eastern sun. But fate had decreed otherwise; the environment he had to face was not of so obscuring a kind.
Then all at once the thought occurred to him—what would it be like at night? He drew down blinds, closed curtains, and went back to the glass.
The vivid result made him realize, with a shock, the actual state at which his mind had now arrived with regard to facing his fellow-men.
‘I shan’t be able to go out at night,’ he said to himself. ‘I should frighten people.’
But as a matter of fact he was getting frightened himself. He knew definitely now that he wished it had not happened: and so, being of that mind, more and more did he entreat to be told how it could have happened. Was it from his brain, or his body, or his soul, that these rays emanated; and were they a symptom—physical, mental, or spiritual—of sickness or health; and if of sickness, were they to be temporary or permanent?
So he debated; yet when it came to addressing himself directly to the possible source of all this trouble, he was hesitant what to do. He did not wish to seem ungrateful, or to confess to moral cowardice, or even to plead the most plausible excuse—that he was unworthy; and so afterhesitating for awhile he kept his thoughts unobtrusively to himself on the earthly plane. What never struck him for a moment was that he had done this himself—that, just as when you put water in a kettle upon the fire, it boils till presently it boils over, so if you put self-belief and self-worship into an ebullient and imaginative brain, the belief will out, like murder, in one form or another; and as pictorial imagery was Mr. Trimblerigg’s strong point—to the point, one may say, of intoxication—this halo was but the bouquet or visible fragrance of the life within. And just as his own and his wife’s mirror between them reflected it with accuracy and completeness, with equal accuracy and completeness it reflected him.
It ought, therefore, to have done him good; but the experience was too wild and sudden and strange; for this was the very first time in all his life when he had wished to keep himself to himself, under circumstances which apparently made it impossible. Nor did he yet realize that this was but the preliminary stage—the eruption stage—the stage of concentrated effort outwardly expressed, in which it sought to establish itself in his mind and consciousness as a fixed part of a pervasive and expansive personality, destined to go much further in the world than he had ever yet dreamed. Being a temperamental halo—pale at first, rather uncertain of itself and of its relations to the society into which it was born, it was not yet all that it would wish to be; it had not yet made itself at home. But even in the first few hours of its existence it fluctuated, waxing and waning in response to the spirit within; and when the time came for him to go out into the street and face the world, when for a few uncomfortable moments he stood hesitating by the hat-stand, it almost died out.
But this would have been to deny himself entirely; and this he could not do. He put on his overcoat; then with a wavering mind asked himself what hat he should wear with it—with IT, that is to say. It seemed almost to savour of irreverence that he should wear a hat at all. But unwilling to make himself more noticeable than necessary, he finally selected one. Then, before putting the hat on, he went upstairs, to have a last look at himself. It was then—he saw, or hoped—almost undetectable; but when he put on his hat—a black one—it once more leapt into local prominence, disappointing his hope that what covered his head might have covered that also. On the contrary, his hat failing to contain it, it seemed rather to contain his hat.
As he went forth, the undemonstrative Mrs. James looked out at him from her window. She had not detected, she did not detect now, the thing he had striven to conceal: but his fluttered manner and his talking to her with his back to the light had made her suspicious: ‘It’s my belief he’s been having a night out,’ she remarked to herself as she watched him go. And though she owned it was no concern of hers, she allowed the suspicion to entertain her all the rest of the day; and when in the afternoon a rather agitated lady called, with a bruised face, wishing urgently to see him or to know where he was to be found, but refusing to disclose her name, she did her best for his morals by giving the address which in another twenty-four hours would be his; where, she explained pointedly, he had gone with his wife and family to have a little rest and be away from people.
And while Mrs. James was thus providing adventure for him, according to the light that was in her, he by reason ofthe light that was not in him but on him, was having adventures of his own.
Upon opening the street door he was pleased to find that it was beginning to rain. He went back, fetched his umbrella, opened it, and emerged holding the umbrella rather low in order to protect—his hat. Then he stepped out briskly, trying to think and to move naturally; but the terrible literalness of the streets troubled him. In such surroundings he felt more than ever the incongruity which under modern conditions, separates matter from spirit. To walk in the light of the gospel had hitherto seemed to him easy; but now to walk in his own light was difficult.
He was getting along, however, and so far had not attracted attention.
On the other side of the street went a whistling boy, casting down newspapers through area railings. As he passed he felt that the boy had become aware of him, for the whistling had stopped.
A moment later from behind, from across the street, came the cry, ‘Hullo, old lamp-shade!’
Was that from the boy? Was it intended for him? And was it as a lighted scarecrow that the world was going to regard him? He did not turn to find out; he made no sign that he had heard; but passing a shop front he sidled, and tilting his umbrella took a look at himself. Yes, under the shade of the umbrella, it was painfully distinct. He lifted the umbrella away; it almost disappeared.
That decided him. It was only humility, he told himself; he did not wish to be seen of men; he furled his umbrella, and stood with his best hat exposed to the rain.
Cabs and taxis passed him; he could, of course, have taken one; but those dark interiors would make more showof him than an umbrella; a bus with its glass sides, or better still its top open to the sky, was what he now waited for. And then down came more rain, making a bus-top ridiculous. He screwed his courage up to the sticking point; after all, it must be done; he must test his public and find out if life—life on earth, life inside as well as outside a bus, life in a modern city—was possible.
Round the corner came the right numbered motor-bus. As it drew up he had a cowardly sense of relief; there was no one on the top, and the inside seemed full. The conductor dispelled his hope. ‘Room for one,’ he said; and Mr. Trimblerigg got in. It was unfortunate; he had to go to the far end, where there was less light.
An old lady, as he settled beside her, said to her companion, ‘I do believe the sun’s coming out!’ ‘It can’t: it’s raining too hard,’ was the reply.
Before long he was aware that those opposite were studying him with curious gaze. Elderly gentlemen lowered their papers, wiped and refixed their glasses, but did not resume reading. Their eyes bulged a little as they tried to believe them. Mr. Trimblerigg grew irritated; he wished they would make up their minds and have done with it. Presently a woman, sitting opposite, with a bandaged infant in her arms, leaned forward and remarked confidentially:
‘So you’ve been ’aving it too, have yer?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mr. Trimblerigg. ‘Having what?’
‘Haven’t they been X-raying you?’ she explained inquiringly. ‘They done it to this one ’ere six times; but it don’t show like that on ’im. Does it ’urt much?’
‘Not at all,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg, smiling: and then,taking a plunge at his public, for others were listening. ‘This is merely a first experiment, I didn’t think anyone would notice it.’
He was aware that, as he spoke, the eyes of all his fellow-passengers had gravitated towards him; that he was exciting more undivided interest now than when he first got in.
Just then the conductor came along to collect his fare, and Mr. Trimblerigg, who knew the amount of it, tendered a three-penny bit, without comment.
‘Angel, sir?’ inquired the man encouragingly, naming a destination, intent on his job. Somebody at the far end tittered, and a smile went down the row of faces opposite.
That remark, and its reception, revealed to Mr. Trimblerigg more than anything which had yet happened, the unfortunate position in which any approach to the truth placed him. The spirit of the age was not attuned to receive it seriously, far less with reverence. Dispensations of Providence such as this no longer entered into the calculations of men’s minds; nor was seeing believing, except on lines purely material. Surrounded by that atmosphere of scepticism which he felt in his bones, Mr. Trimblerigg had himself succumbed, and spoken, not as a man of faith having things of mystery to declare, but as an experimentalist, peddling in science—so adapting himself to a public which had no use for things spiritual: truly an inglorious demonstration of his famous thesis that truth is only relative.
The old lady and her companion got out, looking back at him as they went with slightly scared eyes and puzzled smiles. One of the newspaper readers moved up and sat next to him. The bus had halted under the gloom of abroad railway arch, and he became aware that a gentle light, emanating from himself, fell upon the faces on either side of him. The newspaper reader, making acknowledgment with a pleased smile, tilted his newspaper so as to obtain the benefit. ‘Very convenient,’ he murmured; ‘quite a new idea. Where can one get it?’
And so challenged Mr. Trimblerigg still had not the courage to explain. ‘I haven’t the maker’s name,’ he said. ‘It isn’t mine. I’m only trying it.’
And hearing himself so speak, he sat aghast; it was horrible thus to be denying the light that was in him. Yet what else could he say, so as to be believed?
‘How do you put it on?’ pursued his interrogator. ‘What is it, luminous paint?’
‘No, nothing of that sort,’ he replied. ‘It’s a secret. I mustn’t explain.’
And then, though he had not reached his destination, unable to bear it any more, he called for a stop and got out.
Having alighted on the pavement, feeling painfully the concentration of at least twenty-four pairs of eyes upon his back, he put up his umbrella to cut off the view, though it had really ceased to rain, and made haste away.
Somebody had got out after him. He heard steps insistently close following him; then a voice speaking the American accent.
‘Say! pardon me, sir. Do you mind telling whether you are advertising that as a patent? Can be got anywhere?’
‘No, it can’t exactly be got,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg, whose own more insistent question was whether it could be got rid of. ‘It isn’t mine. I’m just trying it.’
‘It’s very remarkable, very striking,’ said his interlocutor. ‘There’s a future in that contraption, sure; or I’m muchmistaken. You’ve patented it, I suppose, before bringing it out? If you’re needing capital to develop it, I’m your man.’
‘No, no,’ said Mr. Trimblerigg hastily. ‘I don’t want to develop it. It’s developing itself; and—and,’ he hesitated—‘it isn’t for sale!’
Then, trying for once to have courage, and stand a faithful witness for truth: ‘It’s not what you think it is,’ he said. ‘It’s not material; it’s spiritual—a visitation; but the revelation of its meaning has not yet come to me.’
And so saying he took a perilous run into the traffic, and dodging death on nimble feet, got safely away to the other side.
He left behind him a stunned patriot.
‘America, you’re beaten!’ said the voice with the accent.