CHAPTER IXTHE MASTER

“Christmas comes but once a year,When it comes it brings good cheer!”

Granpa Cubitt’s sally was received with hearty cheers. And Luke whispered to Jinny: “He’s only starting now; you don’t know Granpa. He can make verses about anybody, jump up and make ’em. You’ll see.”

“Doesit, though?” questioned Tommy Cox, à propos of Christmas and good cheer. The invited guests, complete in number, had been waiting in the drawing-room since five minutes to four,—and now it was eight minutes past, and no dinner had as yet been announced. “I tell you what,” continued Tommy disconsolately; “I believe Mrs. J. has humbugged us over turkey and plum-pudding; and brought us all here to starve us to death, just to show there’s no ill-feeling. Oooo! Muvver! Don’t want to be a skelington!” And he plumped himself down on the sofa, and with knuckles screwed into his eyes, pretended to floods of bitter weeping.

Granpa whispered to Letty: “What is that young man’s name, my dear?”

“Tommy Cox, Granpa.”

Rising to his feet, Granpa pointed with one finger towards the blubbering youth; and, lifting the other hand to enjoin silence, delivered himself of his first impromptu of the evening:

“Little Tommy Cox-oCrying for his Oxo!What shall we give him?A Xmas box-o!”

“Now then, you young ladies, there’s a chance for you!”

Amid shouts of laughter, and “Bravo, Granpa!” Jinny ran forward, and with all her strength, smote Tommy upon the ear.

“A Xmas box-o!” she chanted triumphantly. And was only delivered from Tommy’s vengeance, by the timely appearance of Mrs. Johnson in the doorway. With quiet exaltation, she trumpeted forth the single word:

“Dinner.”

At once a hush fell upon the company. A hush of relief and expectation and a sense of the solemn rite unto which they were summoned. Mr. Johnson led the way to the dining-room, Aunt Lou panting upon his arm. Granpa followed with Mrs. Baker; and there ensued a real difficulty in getting them past the threshold, above which dangled a large bunch of mistletoe. Mrs. Johnson had purposely thrown the two together, as Milly Baker never took offence at a bit of fun, “and really, with father, you never know what he’ll be up to!” The next pair, Tommy Cox and Vi Baker, were a carefully-thought-out blend of merriment and sorrow; Vi had taken to drooping her head and refusing comfort, since she had given Ernie the chuck, and—“If Tommy can’t cheer her up, I don’t know who can!” reflected the hostess of the occasion. Sebastian and Letty were coupled as a matter of course; and Luke and Jinny. Mrs. Johnson herself brought up the rear with Balaam Atkins, who under a neatly dressed and well-bred exterior, concealed a heart that still beat faithfully for Letty. He did not know yet that she was formally betrothed to another; and Mrs. Johnson was sorry for him, aware that the blow would descend within the hour; she determined to make it her business that he should eat a good meal, believing that trouble always falls hardest on an empty stomach.

A thrill and a gasp ran round the assembly at first sight of the festive board, decorated profusely with holly and evergreens, and connected with the chandelier by trails of smilax. Red and blue and green crackers glittered in upright threes, like small bivouac fires; or lay scattered flat between the plentiful dishes of almonds and raisins and chocolates. On every lady’s name-card, Letty had tastefully painted a spray of holly, with a suitable sentiment attached; and on every gentleman’s, a robin redbreast. The glistening napkins were folded into boat-shapes, each beside a formidable array of glasses and tumblers, expressive of much conviviality to come. A miniature fir tree occupied the proud position of centre-piece, gaily bedecked with flags. Mrs. Johnson had spent much care and time on the arrangement of her table, and wore an expression of majestic geniality while her guests applauded, and, still with that touch of awe upon them, slid into their appointed places.

The soup was brought in, and doled out. Then arose a squeal from Jinny:

“Oo-er! my shoe!” she had been attempting to attract the attention of Luke, who, through some shuffling of seats, sat opposite instead of beside her. In an instant, Tommy Cox was underneath the table, disporting himself mightily among the slippers easily detachable, and continually bringing one up in his mouth, for Jinny’s inspection—“No, Tommy, no; mine’s a bronze one; that’s Vi’s!” And giggles from a rapidly brightening Violet Baker: “Well, I never! You have a sauce! Put it back where you found it, this very minute.”

Granpa cleared his throat impressively:

“Young man, you are much too bold,You’ll have the lady catching cold!”

“How you do it, all of a sudden like that, beats me,”said Mrs. Baker admiringly. “Why, you’re quite a poet.”

Bang! went the first cracker, between Aunt Lou and her brother-in-law Mr. Johnson. And “Hooray!” cried Luke and Jinny in unison, taking this for permission to demolish the bivouacs, and start pulling across the table.

“Not till dessert, Luke. Put those crackers back at once. Matthew, I’m ashamed of you, setting such an example.”

“I can’t wait! I can’t wait!” bellowed Tommy the Humorist, holding a cracker to each eye, and squinting through, to find out what was inside.

“There’s beef for whoever wants it,” announced the carver, flourishing the knife over a prime large turkey.

Half-way through his portion of the bird—and a well-heaped-up portion too,—Granpa thought it about time that Sebastian and Letty should be brought into prominence. Enjoining silence, as he always did before casting his pearls, he sipped his claret, coughed and choked several times, waggled an arch and shining head, and spouted:

“I can see a red-haired loverWho’s squeezing his best girl’s hand under the table cover.I do not think I’ve need to name him,And all I can say is: I don’t blame him.”

“Granpa! how can you?” cried Letty, confused and blushing; “I wasn’t,—I mean, he wasn’t.”

“Bless them ... dear innocent things ...” murmured Mrs. Baker, smoothing down the front of her prune-coloured silk wrappings and excrescences and fermentations. She was fearfully and wonderfully clad, this Xmas Day. Aunt Lou eyed her with suspicion. Aunt Lou considered Granpa not too old to make an old fool of himself. She was the only spinster daughter, a rosy bouncing lady, who wasn’t likely to stand a stepmother being put overher.

Sebastian laughed hilariously at Granpa’s joke; and continued laughing, even after the general mirth had died down. Letty thought she’d never seen him so lively; no, nor yet so handsome, dark eyes flaming in a dead-white face, lips wine-red and feverish, hair a ruffled auburn halo. “He’s like a god; he’s glorious,” thought Letty; and turned, girl-like, to Balaam Atkins on her other side, that she might compare him disparagingly with Sebastian.

Mr. Atkins murmured: “I don’t blame him either, Miss Letty,”—and suddenly she felt sorry for her discarded swain, who really was just the sort of man to have made her happy, with his neat normal ideas, and neat clothes, and neat bank-balance, and neat fair features. Sebastian might have resembled a god, but Balaam Atkins was simply a cut-out model of a good husband ... and did not contrast so very unfavourably after all.

With the entrance of the lit plum pudding, flanked on one side by the mince-pies, on the other by a very yellow trifle (not free from a faint suspicion of Bird’s custard powder), the last traces of restraint disappeared from the party. Jinny, quite forgetting such everyday things as manners, quite forgetting she wore her best pink dress with the Irish lace collar, sprang on to her chair, waved her spoon, and clamoured to be served first, before the leaping fires went out. Indulgently, because she was the youngest present, her wish was granted.

“Greedy pig!” cried Luke. And: “Jea-lous!” sang back Jinny, emulating the fire-eater’s celebrated act.

A few minutes later: “Mrs. Baker’s got thetwins!” shrieked Tommy Cox, in an ecstasy of delight, snatching from that lady’s plate the linked china dolls, and dangling them aloft for the world to see.

“I believe she did it on purpose,” muttered AuntLou disgustedly. While Granpa chanted amorously to his giggling wriggling neighbour:

“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, Baker’s twins!It ain’t no use tryin’ to gobble up your sins!We all can spot ’em,And wonder how you got ’em!”

“Father!!!” Mrs. Johnson had overheard, and was shocked beyond measure at her wicked old parent.

Jinny had the wedding-ring; and would much have preferred the threepenny-bit, which fell to Mr. Johnson’s share; wiping and pocketing the coin, he remarked waggishly that it would help pay for this dinner, which, as it was, had left him a Ruined Man. And then Aunt Lou took offence, and said there were plenty of invitations just as good that she and her father might have accepted if they’d known Matthew grudged them a morsel of bird and a fragment of pudding; and even if he only said it in fun, it wasn’t at all funny to make one’s guests feel uncomfortable, especially at Yuletide, which ought to be a season of peace-on-earth goodwill-to-men. Then Mr. Johnson apologized; and Aunt Lou, softened, wept a little, was pressed to a second helping of plum-pudding, and all was harmony again.

Violet Baker had found the old maid’s thimble under her spoon, but managed to conceal it; Tommy Cox was being very attentive, and there was no sense in putting him off from the start, so to speak.

At last, when the pudding-plates were removed, and replaced by mounds of oranges and figs and dates; when port gleamed duskily in every glass, and the nut-crackers were freely circulating, Mrs. Johnson gave the anxiously awaited signal for the crackers to be pulled. Then indeed, pandemonium reached its height; then indeed, every head, old and young, was drunkenly crowned by paper cap or bonnet; and: bang! bang! bang! thesquibs exploded up and down the table. The cloth was one glittering litter of green and red transparency, all mixed up with the orange-peel and silver paper. Luke and Jinny had each a musical instrument at their lips, and squeaked and squawked ceaselessly, their cheeks blown out and purple with the exertion. Vi Baker and Tommy Cox had their heads very close together over a finger-bowl, in which they were experimenting with those Japanese puzzles that open out in water; his arm was around her waist; and she, transported by the hectic screaming excitement of Xmas, was content to leave it there. Granpa, who had donned a rakish gilt crown, between whose spikes one could glimpse the gas-light reflected in the naked polish of his cranium, was busy making a collection of mottoes, riddles and sentimental verse, from the crackers, and reading them aloud. From the kitchen below, quavered the third repetition of “Good King Wenceslas.” Balaam Atkins whispered to Letty, in a tone pregnant of mournful meaning: “I wonder—if I might venture—to ask you—to pull with me, Miss Letty?”—Then, utterly abashed, realized what construction might have been put upon his innocent demand; and dropped the cracker, and went down after it, and remained obliterated for quite a period of time. And Mrs. Baker, wearing a washer-woman’s bonnet, which had an air strangely and horribly appropriate, was dancing,—yes, actually dancing, with Aunt Lou Cubitt; all enmity forgotten in the sudden discovery that forty years ago they had met at the same terpsichorean school, where little girls in frilled pantaloons learnt to jig and reel and polka.—And: “Do you remember the Bluebell Schottische?” cried Aunt Lou; which led to the pleasing exhibition just mentioned, of two middle-aged ladies gathering up their skirts, and prancing and twirling down the narrow space of the room between the wall and the row of chairs.

“I used to be light as a fairy,” panted Mrs. Baker, regaining her seat.

Mr. and Mrs. Johnson exchanged a mute dialogue of glances, which might be curtly translated as: “When?” “Now.” And Mr. Johnson, glass in hand, rose to his feet.

“Speech! Speech!” cried Tommy Cox, thumping on the table.

“Ladies and gentlemen—and friends,” began Mr. Johnson, making a fine distinction. “I must hurry up with what I’m going to say, because I can see the gas is goin’ down, and I haven’t got a penny for the metre—leave alone for the meat!” Here he made a great show of being terrified of Aunt Lou’s disapproval; but she, mellowed by port, merely smiled benignly; and he went on: “And I wouldn’t like to talk to you in the dark, my friends, and lose sight of your beaming faces wreathed in happy smiles, as my pal Will Shakespeare once said,—or was it Granpa Cubitt? ’Pon my word, I’m getting mixed with all these poets.”

Whereat there was great applause, and Granpa was patted vigorously on the back.

“Who has added so richly to the evening’s entertainment,” said Mr. Johnson, in an inspired sentence all by itself. Then he recommenced:

“I think I can say, in which my wife joins me,” (cheers) “that nowhere in England, no, nor yet anywhere else, has a merrier party sat round any table, nor had a merrier Xmas.” (Chorus of assent.) “So may you all enjoy the best of luck till we meet over our next plum-pudding.”

—A groan from Jinny, to whom the thought was agony. And, amid the cheering and tattoo of feet which followed the host’s oratory, Balaam Atkins, suddenly coming to the fore, begged to propose a toast to The Ladies. Leave being vociferously given, he gaveutterance, in precise, rather lugubrious tones, to the following rollicking bit of sentiment:

“Your eyes!My eyes!Your lips!My lips!Our eyes have met!Our lip—not yet!Here’s hoping!”

Then he sat down again.

“Here’s hoping!” cried Tommy Cox, clinking glasses with Vi Baker, and then with every other lady present. The rest of the gentlemen gallantly followed suit.

Mr. Johnson had remained on his feet, to intimate that he had not yet finished what he had to say. A meaning smile signified that something of importance lay behind his silence. So, by unanimous consent, voices were hushed to allow him to proceed.

“I am profiting of the festive occasion,” spoke Mr. Johnson, “and may I be propheting truly” (interval for laughter; and for the pun to be explained to Aunt Lou, who was almost asleep), “to make an announcement that to some of you will be a surprise, and to some won’t. It’s this: Ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to fill your glasses and drink to the engagement of my only daughter with Mr. Sebastian Levi, here present.”

The enthusiasm was tremendous. Vi Baker came round the table to embrace her friend; Aunt Lou collapsed from sheer astonishment, and was heard vociferating that she had never dreamt of such a thing. Granpa composed an appropriate rhyme—threw it off with no trouble at all—which was forever lost to the world, because Jinny and Tommy Cox were relieving their overcharged feelings in a prolonged bout of hip-pip-pip-hurrahs! And Balaam Atkins took the news like the gentleman he was, and with a terrific effort, managed to ejaculate: “I hope you will be very, veryhappy, Miss Letty.” But Letty unfortunately did not hear him, in the general hubbub surrounding her.

“Before calling on my future son-in-law for a reply,” shouted Mr. Johnson, over the tumult, “I want to make him a little Christmas-box. I want to make it here, in front of you all. It’s the custom of the country, and I speak of the best country in the world, which is England” (“Rule Britannia!” yelled Tommy), “that the lady shall name the day. Well, I’m going to reverse that process. I’m a bold man, and I’m going to give Mrs. Grundy a rouser. Me and my wife and my daughter are going to sit mum, while the bridegroom now fixes the date of the wedding. It may be that he’ll say in a month; or it may be that he’ll get scared of the noose of matrimony—or shall I call it the noose-ance?” (loud laughter) “and plead for six months’ extension of liberty. Or it may be he’ll say to-morrow,—one never can tell with these fiery-headed young chaps how much delay they can stand!” (more laughter) “I just hope he’ll remember that young ladies need a little time to get together their frillies,—at least, so I’ve been told.” (“Go on! as if you didn’t know!” from Mrs. Baker, rather over-excited.) “Sebastian, my boy, it’s up to you.” Mr. Johnson sat down.

Amid acclamation, Sebastian was hauled to his feet. Letty gave his hand an encouraging squeeze.

“For he’s a jolly good fel-low!”

started Tommy Cox; in a burst of gruff enthusiasm, Luke joined in; and then the rest of the company.

“—And so say all of us!”

... They were silent now, waiting for Sebastian.

Past the heat and the uproar and the odour of food, past the coarse laughter and good-humoured jokes, the grinning capped faces, and the disorderly table, Sebastian glimpsed it clearly, his Vision ... never before asclearly: a lean stripped figure, striving, battling, forcing itself against the rushing winds of earth; hands clenched, jaw pushed forward ... yes, surely it was Stuart’s face he saw!

—These others should share the vision with him. He was about to sacrifice to it—these others should understand why. He knew now to what point he had been goaded through all the sweetness of the past weeks, through all the gabble and gobble of the past hour. He knew. He wasn’t going to flinch. Boring a hole in the wind with the thrust of one’s own body.... If Stuart could do it, he could.

The first notes of his voice startled his hearers; it seemed pitched somehow in the wrong key; neither jocular nor embarrassed:

“I can’t fix a day for the wedding, as Mr. Johnson has asked me to. I—there won’t be a wedding. My engagement with Letty is broken off.”

—Suddenly he wanted to laugh. Granpa’s face, just opposite, looked so funny in its dropped amazement, the gilt crown at a crooked angle on the shining poll.... Everyone’s face was funny—staring—staring—round eyes and open mouths wherever he looked—like waxworks. Letty ... well, Letty was beside him. He need not see her unless he turned his head....

“You all think me quite mad,” Sebastian went on, after a pause. “Well, and I think you mad, all of you. I’ve been thinking so all through dinner. Because you can’t see anything beyond the dining-room table, and what’s on it. If I married Letty, I should have to sit for the rest of my life at a dining-room table, looking at the food. It would be warm and comfortable and satisfying, and in time I should grow as mad as you. I very nearly did. But I’m sane now—and I’m bitten with the horror of getting all one wants, and going on getting it,and not wanting any more. Giving up Letty now, I shall want her my whole life long ... for I love her—do you understand that? Of course, you think one shouldn’t speak of love except to be funny about it—but you’ve got to realize that I love her, every bit of her; that I love her, and I’m giving her up—and oh, God! how it hurts.... How good that it should hurt....”

He bowed his face on to his hands, unable for an instant to grapple with the swift salt cruelty of self-torment. From beside him, came the sound of soft weeping. There was to be no splendid help from Letty, in his renunciation; quite simply, she laid her head down on her arms and sobbed, because she didn’t know what was the matter with Sebastian,—oh, what was the matter with him, that he should be so unkind?

Luke was gazing, wide-eyed, mouth gaping; he had not understood a single word of Sebastian’s discourse, but, nevertheless, his soul was one flame of admiration. A half-fearful hope of happiness was stiffening the limp spirit of Balaam Atkins. But Mr. Johnson, on whose brow a ponderous wrath had gathered, burst out, almost apoplectic with rage:

“Let me tell you, sir, that if you’re not a lunatic, you’re a blackguard. You’re behaving like a blackguard!”

Sebastian raised his head: “I’ve told you that I want her,” he cried fiercely; “is that behaving like a blackguard, not to take what you want?—But you’re thick, every one of you; thick with food and drink. Can’t you get clear of your flesh for a moment, and get a grip of—of—— Look here, this is neither my creed nor my credit: it’s another man’s ... he’sdoneit, I tell you—stripped himself of love, because it’s better to desire than to possess. If you’re strong enough.... If you’re strong enough. I gave up my solid income, and my solid position in the world,—didn’t that show youI must have had some keener leaner ideal than just welfare? Or did you merely think me possessed?... But it’s splendid, I tell you, to be possessed; possessed by the truth; driven by it—hounded—tortured—till you cast away all goods, all ties,—run a race against your own luck—outstrip your own luck—just for the fun of it—throw off the bondage ... bondage of great deeds....”

He was repeating Stuart’s catch-phrases now; flinging them out mechanically, hoping they would sting some blind understanding, where his own eloquence had failed.

And then his mood changed, as he discovered it didn’t matter if these people understood or not; he had done his part; done what Stuart Heron had done before him: cut away love....

—“That the memory of love shall be like a sword-blade,” he muttered half-aloud; but the words meant nothing—they tasted dry. Letty’s sobs were each a separate pang in his heart. The Vision, having spurred him to the culminating burst of exaltation, now deserted him altogether. He did not know any more for what strange reasons he had performed this strange act. But since the master knew, that was sufficient; the disciple was content to follow blindly. He would go now and lay his shattered world as a tribute at Stuart’s feet ... where he had already laid his father’s disappointment ... his own ambitions. His shattered world at Stuart’s feet.

He pushed back his chair, and stumbled to the door. Nobody tried to stop him. He had paralysed the happy Christmas party, so that no sound broke through the leaden silence ... even Letty was quiet now. Sebastian groped among the overcoats hanging from the hall rack—so many overcoats—he was quite incapable of recognizing his own. Did it matter, after all? But still he took down first one and then another from their pegs, and replaced them, stifled by the musty folds. A wreath of holly, which encircled the mirror set in therack, tumbled to the ground. Sebastian picked it up, stood in a dazed fashion, the thorns pricking his fingers: was there no end to the damage he was doing these people’s Yule?

Mrs. Johnson led her weeping daughter from the dining-room, and up the stairs. They passed Sebastian as if he did not exist.

... “Oh, mother, how could he, in front of them all, say that he didn’t love me any more?”...

So much for Letty’s comprehension of motive. Sebastian laughed hysterically, and banged the hall door behind him. Half-way up the road, he looked back, and saw Luke signalling to him from the gate. He went on. Could not be bothered with the boy. Stuart—he was going to Stuart.

Disappointedly, Luke turned back into the house. On the threshold he was met by Jinny:

“Everybody’s so horrid. Wasn’t he a beast to spoil all our fun? Luke, do let’s get away from everybody for a bit, till they’ve calmed down. I’ve bagged some chocs from the table.” She displayed them, moist and brown, clenched in her hot hands. She looked very pretty, in her bright pink dress and coral beads. Luke surveyed her a moment. Then he said:

“I don’t want any chocs. And I’m not ever going to see you again, Jinny, old girl. At least, not if I can help it”; he remembered the proximity of her dwelling.

Jinny dropped her spoils; and, crimson with anger and surprise, gasped out:

“Well I never! You pottytoo!”

“No,” retorted Luke, kicking with his foot against the top step, “I’m not potty, and nor’s he. You girls don’t understand, that’s all. There are things we can do better without you. Things!” he repeated darkly, wondering the while what they were. “Girls aresoft——”

“We’re not soft. Soft yourself!”

“I don’t mean that sort of soft. And the more we care for you, the finer it is of us to break with you.” He had grasped this much from Sebastian’s outburst. “So you see,Jinny——”

But Jinny was neither as submissive as Letty, nor as responsive as Peter, under similar treatment.

“Break with me, indeed!” tossing her curls indignantly, while the big pink satin bow at the nape of her neck, perked out in aggressive sympathy; “well, youhavegot a cheek on you, Luke Johnson. Got to be on with a girl before you’re off with her,I’ve always heard. And you were never on with me, that I’m jolly well sure. No, nor likely to be,—a great gawky lumpy-faced boy!”

She picked up her coat, which was lying in a crumpled heap at the foot of the hall-stand, and flouncing past her stricken sweetheart, marched down the four steps of Town House, and up the four steps of Arcadia, next door.

—Luke made a sudden forward dive over the stone parapet that divided them, and caught Jinny awkwardly by her skirt:

“Let me go!” she twisted round, that he might not see the tears which scalded her eyes.

“Jinny,” his voice was low; “it’s—I was only joking, y’know. It’s all right about the panto to-morrow, isn’t it?”

“Not so sure.”

“Jinny!”

“Oh,—I suppose so!” she detached herself from his grasp, and vanished indoors.

Luke had not been able to pull it off, after all. Not quite.

“Mr. Heron is dressing, sir.” The butler at Careton House Terrace looked with some disfavour at the dishevelled wild-eyed young man, who at 7 p.m. on Christmas Day, rang such frenzied peals at the bell, and asked for the son of the house, in such strange husky tones. It wasn’t usual; and the butler’s reply contained a tinge of severity mingled with its formal respect.

“I’ll go up to him.” Brushing past the astonished retainer, Sebastian rushed up the two flights of stairs; and, without knocking, entered Stuart’s bedroom.

Stuart, in evening-dress, was standing before the mirror, and polishing his eyeglass. “You, Levi? Why, what’s the matter?”

Sebastian stood just within the door, limbs and tongue alike paralysed of movement. There was so much—so much he had need to say to Stuart: the words buzzed and beat in his brain like swarms of hornets. All through his headlong passage through the deserted streets, he had been working up and up to this moment. He wanted to shout what he had done, and how he had done it; he wanted to assure Stuart over and over again that he regretted nothing, no, not even Letty; that he was grateful to the master for rescuing him from happiness, pointing out to him the cold path among the stars.... Stars? but they weren’t cold; they were throbbing hot—green and blue and red—like the glistening paper that was wrapped around a cracker... and they were jigging and squibbing and somersaulting in front of his eyes—tumbling wheeling stars ... or were they sobs? Ridiculous! one couldn’t see sobs.... Somebody had been sobbing lately, he knew....

He took an uncertain step forward, held out his hands towards Stuart,—then reeled over into a chair, head dropped on to his arms.... He had to thank Stuart—was thanking him now—heard his own voice babbling the phrase over and over again.... “Curse you.... Curse you....”

He had not meant to say it. He had meant to say exactly the contrary: “I’ve done what you once did; you showed me the way; you——” But things were happening to him now totally beyond his own volition. The exultation of his deed accomplished transported him, maddened him, to strange contortions of speech, outside all reason:

“Curse you.... Curse you....”

In silence Stuart stood looking down upon the boy. He guessed what had happened; had anticipated, ever since their last conversation, that Sebastian would come bursting in upon him, to relate that he had smashed with Letty. It was better so; the two would never have understood each other rightly. And yet—wasn’t it a pity, after all, to have destroyed an idyll? A sudden remorse swept over Stuart; and with it, an awful desolation of uncertainty: What had he been doing with other people’s lives?... His metaphysics dropped away from under his feet, leaving him treading upon a void. For one wont to be so quietly sanely self-confident, the sensation was horrible. He could not remain any longer where he was, in the same room with ... with the wreckage. Stuart left Sebastian; went slowly down, and into his study. He was entertaining a large party of family and friends that eveningat the Carlton; was already due at the Restaurant; felt disinclined to start. He strolled to the window, and looked out; the street wore that blank forlorn look which falls upon chimney-top and pavement on Christmas Day. Only once before had Stuart been so utterly miserable, so incomplete in himself, clutching for some outside reassurance that he existed at all; he had gone to Merle then, and laid his head in her lap, and she had asked no questions. But now Merle was on her honeymoon in France. And, besides, it was not Merle he wanted....

He crossed the room to the telephone. Was there any reason why he should not get what he wanted most? Only his theory—slippery ball on the summit of which he had insecurely balanced himself. It would be rather fun to jump off his own theory, and kick it away, hear it go bounding and bouncing on its course! Great fun! argued leprechaun.

—“Trunk. 904 Thatch Lane.”

It took some time before the connection was established. Stuart sat on the arm of a chair, and looked hard at the receiver. Presently the whir of the bell shrilled in his ear. It startled him, even though he was waiting for it so intently.

“Hello!”

... “Hello!” Evidently the maid at Bloemfontein.

“Can I speak to Miss Kyndersley, please?”

It never struck him that she might be out. She would not be out. That sort of thing had always happened right for him and Peter.

“Yes, sir. What name?”

“No name.”

After a pause, Peter’s voice:

“Hello!”

“Hello—Peter!”

She knew at once. He could tell that by the silence.That was like Peter; she would not reply till in control of her tumbled feelings.

At last: “A Merry Christmas to you, Stuart!”

Her mocking accent, in a vivid flash of memory, brought her image to his mind, as he had first seen her: Cavalier poise of the head; boyish figure wrapped close in a bronze cloak, shimmering gold where the light caught it, umber in its shadowy folds; a tingle about her movements, as of some hazardous quest in the air. His master-maid!... And what had he to do with loneliness now?

—“Peter, I want to take you home from Euston to Thatch Lane—to-night—at once. May I?”

A low gurgle of laughter:

“But, dear, I’m due in ten minutes at the Lorrimers’. They have a party.”

“And I’m due since half an hour at the Carlton. I have a party. Peter ... will you come?”

“To your party?”

“No. My God, no. Baldwin will look after all that. To Euston?” Silence again.... He was sure she had gone away from the receiver:

“Peter! Peter! Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Will you come?”

“Yes, Stuart.”

Quarter of an hour later, and his car was whirling him through the grim portals of Euston Station. The grey fogs clung thicker than ever about the great outer hall. The porters moved about like hobgoblins in a dream. Speechless and voiceless they all seemed, and yet the vaulted roof echoed and re-echoed with ceaseless hollow shouts. By dint of enquiries, Stuart found out that the 5.17 from Leaford, four stations further down the line than Thatch Lane, due at Euston since 6.20, had probably not yet started on its languid career,and need certainly not be expected at Euston till somewhere in the environment of nine o’clock. The giant clock pointed with its hands to three minutes past eight.

“That ull be the next h’in from Thatch Lane, sir. We’re bound to be a bit h’unpunctual Christmas-time. There’s the mails, sir. And people leavin’ their ’omes. An’ it’s a bit thick on the line further down, maybe. Thank you, sir.”

Throughout his life, Stuart vowed he did ample penance for his crowded sins, by this interminable period of waiting. He had forgotten now all about Sebastian; all about his remorse; the blanket of desolation had lifted from his spirit. He was merely one concentrated throb of impatience. Occasionally he dogged station-masters or signals, in the hope that these might be induced to render up their prey. Their prey was the 5.17 from Leaford. But they were immutable. Once he worked, feverishly, at an automatic machine, inducing it to yield box after box of matches, in order to feel that he could, of his own accord, make somethingmove, even clockwork. Ghostly trucks clanked up and down the platforms; drifting wraiths asked him if he knew when and where impossible trains started for impossible places; he strove to give them all the help in his power, in order to placate the dark gods of Euston.

At twenty-five minutes past nine, the red eye of an engine glimmered far down the stretching parallels of steel; and Stuart was informed that this, in all probability, was the Leaford 5.17. Not even now would the porter commit himself to a certainty; this was the season when freakish spirits controlled the great terminus.

The linked cubes of light drew up beside the platform; doors opened, and people tumbled forth, an ever thickening crowd.

—Then Stuart saw Peter. She was walking swiftly in his direction. He moved forward to meet her. Silently, side by side, they went on to the barrier.

“We must see at once about your train to Thatch Lane,” said Stuart at last, in strictly matter-of-fact tones.

She replied gravely: “Yes, we mustn’t miss it on any account.” But her lips twitched a little at the corners.

Stuart’s star, evidently again in working order, manœuvred that the 7.41 to Leaford, stopping at Thatch Lane, should be girding its loins for departure, just as the pair strolled on to number four platform. They found an empty first-class compartment. The train still lingered; the guard seemed loth to wave his green flag; toyed with it, instead, and exchanged light badinage with the stoker. Stuart felt incapable of uttering a word till they were actually moving. Only the gathering speed could put an end to this intolerable strain. He examined the coloured photographs above the seats. The engine breathed heavily, crawled a couple of inches.... Stuart’s nerves jumped with relief!... then the 7.41 settled again into comfortable lethargy. It was only twenty to ten.

“Are you most interested in cathedrals or waterfalls?” came Peter’s cool voice, from the corner where she had ensconced herself. Stuart continued a dogged interest in the photographs. Cool?—he knew she was aflame, even as he. But they could both maintain their imperturbability ... for a few moments still.

After a little more coy reluctance, the engine decided firmly that this really wouldn’t do! and with a jolt and a shiver, tore headlong from the temptations of Euston, into the spectral beyond.

Stuart turned and looked at Peter.... She held out her hand:

“Give me a cigarette.”

Grimly he obeyed; and even shielded the match for her. Twice, deliberately, she inhaled, and puffed out the smoke. Then their eyes met again.... She rose, and through the partially open window, tossed the remainder of her cigarette. It fell away in a shower of sparks. Her action snapped the invisible rod which was holding them apart.... He crushed her against him. They rocked slightly with the motion of the train. Then, slowly, he loosened his grip. Her head fell back, so that her eyes were half-veiled by their lids. And he stammered:

“Your throat is as white as foam ... and curved ... like the curve of a wave!” From some dim memory the phrase had leapt into his mind, and he spoke it.

“Peter, I love you.”

“The love of a leprechaun?”

“No. The love of a man. A quite ordinary man.... Will you marry me, Peter?” he knelt crouching beside her, where she bent down to him from her seat.

“Peter, I shall always love you ... now and for ever and for all time. I want you near me, in my house, close up to me, bearing my name. My wife ... damn you, don’t laugh! I’m not pretending—Iaman ordinary man. I refuse to be treated any longer as a freak. I want to go on a honeymoon with you, Peter, to Paris and Italy, where all nice people go. I want to be just happy. No; I want you to be happy. I’ll buy you a ring, and introduce you to my mother, and furnish a house with you, and give dinner-parties,and——”

“Stuart, are you mad?” she cried, aghast. For Stuart to behave so sanely was indeed a most alarming sign of madness in him.

“Will you marry me, Peter?”

“I might as well put on a hair-shirt for the rest of my existence.” Then she looked down at the round dark head tilted back on to her lap; met his elfish, yetstrangely tender smile; and, with a tightening of love which was almost painful in its intensity, tried to fix the moment—this moment within sight and sound of him—to stand for the blank moment which she knew lay inevitably ahead of her. The girl had no illusions as to the fate of those who link their happiness with something not quite human. The last six months had taught her. The memory of them was like black seas rolling foamless on to a dark shore. When the next theory seized him....

Politely she enquired after the last.

“I’ve rolled it down the hill,” Stuart confessed. “But I’ve had enormous fun with it. I’ve sacrificed to it, and I’ve argued against it—that was with Aureole and Ber——” he stopped just in time, and hastily covered his blunder: “and I’ve dangled it in front of a disciple, and I’ve treated it like a football. Really, a theory is a most excellent occupation!” And then he told her about Letty and Sebastian.

Peter listened thoughtfully:

“So they’ve broken away from each other, just as we did?”

“Something like that. I don’t expect they accomplished it as cleanly. Sebastian’s methods are inclined to be messy or theatrical. In fact, it was he who managed to put me off my ideas; he overdid them so disgracefully. And I doubt if he ever took a firm and logical grasp of them.”

“Then why—oh, Stuart, why didn’t you leave him alone?”

Stuart knitted his brows. “It was agoodtheory,” he said, in much the same tone as the Mad Hatter once pleaded: “It was thebestbutter!”

“But you’ve doubled back on it now.”

“Exactly. So somebody’s got to prove it, if I don’t. Hang it! one can’t leave theories lying loose about the world.”

“I’m thinking of Letty,” said Peter softly, flooded by pity for the girl now groping helplessly after her mate, not understanding why she had been deprived of him. She, Peter, had understood at the time—it hadn’t been so hard for her. “Oh, poor Letty ... poor little lovers....”

Stuart interrupted, rather uneasily: “She’ll marry a bank clerk, and be grateful to me for the rest of her life. Really and truly, Peter, I was trying to help them. They’d have been so miserable together. People who are blind,mustbe helped.”

—The train drew up with a jerk at a station. Bewildered by this abrupt cessation to the speed at which they had been hurled through streaming space, Stuart scrambled to his feet. Grey fretting ghost-figures hurried past their window. He watched them, himself dreamily calm; it was inconceivable that anything from the outer world could break through the enchantment which held their compartment aloof and inviolate from all intrusion. Nevertheless, an intrepid hand suddenly clutched at the door-handle, turned it sharply, called to someone behind: “Plenty of room in here!”—And, before any preventive measures could be taken, two large women collapsed on the seat opposite Stuart and Peter.... And the train rushed on.

Stuart’s lips moved. If it were in prayer, then it was prayer of a very perverted form.

And Peter wondered, despairingly, if these were real females, or grotesque fiends sent by the night to torment them. They seemed to her fancy, preternaturally enormous. As never before, she craved now the bruise of Stuart’s lips, hard as iron; the lean, strong grip of his hands; tangible reassurance that he had indeed come back to her. If she could hold him as though he were a child, his head in the crook of her arm, if she could soothe those restless quick-moving limbs of his to a lulled content.... She glanced hopelessly at thetwo large women eating belated mince-pies from a paper bag. Then, in a low voice, asked Stuart if he had been present at Merle’s wedding. She had read accounts of it in the papers; it had been a magnificent function.

“Yes, I was there; so was the whole diplomatic world, ministerial,ambassadorial——”

“Never mind. Tell me about Jean de Cler.”

“He’s the right sort, I think,” Stuart granted handsomely. “Grey at the temples, distinguished, chivalrous; with that inborn ease of manner which marks the blue blood of the ‘ancien régime’—or something of the kind. He evidently adores Merle, and will spend his life cherishing her.”

“And she? Does she want to be cherished?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “She can’t help liking him—very much, I should say. And she’ll be in themilieuwhich suits her best. Probably she’ll think of us sometimes, and be tormented—but she was never quite a pirate, you know; she only wore the costume. The wedding-dress suited her better; I’ve never seen anyone look so beautiful.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“For one second I pressed near enough to offer my congratulations.”

“In what form?”

“I said: ‘There was once a pig, Merle, who lived in a sty in Cornwall.’ And she smiled.—‘There were once two girls, Stuart, who sat in a trough that belonged to a pig who lived in a sty in Cornwall.’ Then Madame des Essarts wafted me out of the way; I believe she regards me as an unhealthy influence.”

... “There were once two girls, Stuart——” Peter understood why Merle had made no sign, had not invited her to the wedding. The jewel had definitely accepted her casket lined with pink; dared not risk the raising of the lid....

The large women had been listening with absorbedinterest to the account of the wedding. Now, as the train slowed up again at the station before Thatch Lane, they gathered together their belongings, and departed.

For the two in their cramped galloping space of light, the circle of enchantment joined again as though it had never been snapped. The humid night whirled past their window. Stuart bent towards the girl; took her in his arms: “Lie still, dear,” ... and for the second time Peter lay still; mind and body and soul, still.

And, sighing, she wished this journey were already over—that already she were lying in bed—already asleep—and already waking at dawn to the knowledge of a world which again held Stuart.

There had been another dawn....

—“Because he did it ...” murmured the disciple.

THE END

WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND

Back to Index Next