This collision with her father braced up Esther's nerves, and made Mike's absence easier to bear. Her father made no more allusion to it. He was entering that period when fathers, however despotic, content themselves with protest, where once they have governed by royal proclamation. He was losing heart to contend with his children. They must go their own ways--though it must not be without occasional severe and solemn warnings on his part.
Mike and Esther wrote to each other twice a week. They had talked of every day, but a wise instinct prompted them to the less romantic, but likely the more enduring arrangement. It would be none the less open to them to write fourteen letters a week if they wished, but to have had to admit that one letter a day was a serious tax, not only on one's other occupations, including idleness, but also on the amount of subject-matter available, would have been a dangerous correction of an impulsive miscalculation.
Second-rate London lodgings are not great cheerers of the human spirit, and Mike was very lonely in his first letter or two; but, as the rehearsals proceeded, it was evident that he was taking hold of his new world, and the letter which told of his first night, and of his own encouraging success in it, was buoyant with the rising tide of the future. His chief had affectionately laid his hand on his shoulder, as he came off from his scene, and, in the hearing of the whole company, prophesied a great future for him.
Mike had been born under a lucky star; and he had hardly been in London two months when accident very perceptibly brightened it. The chief comedian in the company fell ill; and though Mike had had so little experience, his chief had so much confidence in his native gift, that he cast him for the vacant part. Mike more than justified the confidence, and not only pleased him, but succeeded in individualising himself with the audience. He had only played it for a week, when one Saturday evening the audience, after calling the manager himself three times, set up a cry for "Laflin." The obsequious attendant pretended to consider it as a fourth call for the manager, and made as if to move the curtain aside for him once more; but, with a magnanimity rare indeed in a "star" of his magnitude, "No, no!" he said; "it is Mr. Laflin they want. Quick, lad, and take your first call."
So little Mike stepped before the curtain, and made his first bow to an affectionate burst of applause. What happy tears would have glittered in Esther's eyes had she been there to see it, and in Henry's too, and particularly, perhaps, in excitable Angel's!
Even so soon was the blossom giving promise of the fruit.
Meanwhile, Henry plodded away at Aunt Tipping's, working sometimes on a volume of essays for the London publisher, and sometimes on his novel, now and again writing a review, and earning an odd guinea for a poem; and now and again indulging in a day of richly doing nothing. Otherwise, one day was like another, with the many exceptions of the days on which he saw Angel or Esther. With Ned, he spent many of his evenings; and he soon formed the pleasant habit of dropping in on Gerard, last thing before bed-time, for a smoke and half an hour's chat.
There is always a good deal of youth left in any one who genuinely loves youth; and Gerard always spoke of his youth as Adam, in his declining years, might have spoken of Paradise. For him life was just youth--and the rest of it death.
"After thirty," he would say, "the happiest life is only history repeating itself. I am no cynic,--far from it; but the worst of life is the monotony of the bill of fare. To do a thing once, even twice, is delightful--perhaps even a third time is successfully possible; but to do it four times, is middle age. If you think of it, what is there to do after thirty that one ought not to have achieved to perfection before? You know the literary dictum, that the poet who hasn't written a masterpiece before he is thirty will never write any after. Of course, there are exceptions; I am speaking of the rule. In business, for example, what future is there for the man who has not already a dashing past at thirty? Of course, the bulk, the massive trunk and the impressive foliage of his business, must come afterwards; but the tree must have been firmly rooted and stoutly branched before then, and able to go on growing on its own account. The work, in fact, must have been done.
"Take perhaps the only thing really worth doing in life," and Gerard perceptibly saddened. "That is, marrying a woman you love, or I should saythewoman, for you only reallyloveone woman--I'm old-fashioned enough to think that,--well, I say, marrying the woman you love, and bringing into the world that miracle of miracles,--a child that shall be something of you and all her: that certainly is something to have done before thirty, and not to be repeated, perhaps, more than once before or after. She will want a boy like you, and you will have a girl like her. That you may easily accomplish before thirty. Afterwards, however, if you go on repeating each other, what do you do but blur the individuality of the original masterpieces--though," pursued Gerard, laughing, always ready to forget his original argument in the seductiveness of an unexpected development of it, "though, after all, I admit, there might be a temptation sometimes to improve upon the originals. 'Agnes, my dear,' we might say, 'I'm not quite satisfied yet with the shade of Eva's hair. It's nearly yours, but not quite. It's an improvement on Anna's, whose eyes now are exactly yours. Eva's, unfortunately, are not so faithful. I'm afraid we'll have to try again.'
"No, but seriously," he once more began, "for a really vital and successful life there is no adequate employment of the faculties after thirty, except, of course, in the repetition of former successes. No; I even withdraw that,--not the repetition, only the conservation, the feeding, of former successes. The success is in the creation. When a world is once created, any fool can keep it spinning.
"Man's life is at least thirty years too long. Two score years is more than enough for us to say what we were sent here to say; and if you'll consider those biographies in which you are most interested, the biographies of great writers, you cannot but bear me out. What, for instance, did Keats and Shelley and Burns and Byron lose by dying, all of them long before they were forty,--Keats even long before he was thirty; and what did Wordsworth and Coleridge gain by living so long after? Wordsworth and Coleridge didn't even live to repeat themselves, else, of course, one would have begged them to go on living for ever; for some repetitions, it is admitted, are welcome,--for instance, won't you have a little more whisky?"
Henry always agreed so completely with Gerard's talk, or at least so delighted in it, that he had little scope of opportunity to say much himself; and Gerard was too keen a talker to complain of a rapt young listener.
"How old are you?" he said, presently.
"Twenty-two next month."
"Twenty-two! How wonderful to be twenty-two! Yet I don't suppose you've realised it in the least. In your own view, you're an aged philosopher, white with a past, and bowed down with the cares of a future. Just you stay in bed all day to-morrow, and ponder on the wonderfulness of being twenty-two!
"I'm forty-two. You're beginning--I'm done with. And yet, in some ways, I believe I'm younger than you--though, perhaps, alas! what I consider the youth in me is only the wish to be young again, the will to do and enjoy, without the force and the appetite. But, by the way, when I say I'm forty-two, I mean that I'm forty-two in the course of next week, next Thursday, in fact, and if you'll do me that kindness, I should be grateful if you would join me that evening in celebrating the melancholy occasion. I've got a great mind to enlist your sympathy in a little ancient history, if it won't be too great a tax upon your goodness; but I'll think it over between now and then."
Gerard's birthday had come; and the ancient history he had spoken of had proved to be a chapter of his own history, the beauty and sadness of which had made an impression upon Henry, to be rendered ineffaceable a very few days after in a sudden and terrible manner.
One early morning about four, just as it was growing light, he had suddenly awakened with a strong feeling that some one was bending over him. He opened his eyes, to see, as he thought, Gerard hastily leaving his bedside.
"Gerard!" he cried, "what's the matter?" but the figure gave no answer, faded away down the long room, and disappeared. Henry sat up in bed and struck a light, his heart beating violently. But there was no one there, and the door was closed. It had evidently been one of those dreams that persist on the eye for a moment after waking. Yet it left him uneasy; and presently he wondered if Gerard could be ill. He determined to see; so, slipping on his dressing-gown, he crossed the landing to Gerard's room, and, softly knocking, opened the door and put in his head.
"Gerard, old chap, are you all right?--Gerard--"
There was no answer, and the room seemed unaccountably still. He listened for the sound of breathing, but he couldn't hear it.
"Gerard!" he cried, again louder, but there was still no answer; and then, with the silence, a chill terror began to creep through his blood. He had never yet seen death; and perhaps if he had the terror in his thought would not have been lessened. With a heart that had almost stopped beating, and knees that shook beneath him, he pushed open the door and walked over to the bed. It was still too dark to see more than outlines and masses of white and black; but even so he could see that the stillness with which Gerard was lying was the stillness of death.
His next thought was to rouse Aunt Tipping; and together the two bent over the dead face.
"Yes, he's gone," said Aunt Tipping; "poor gentlemen, how beautiful he looks!" and they both gazed in silence upon the calm, smiling face.
"Well, he's better off," she said, presently, leaning over him, and softly pressing down the lids of his eyes.
Henry involuntarily drew away.
"Dear lad, there's nothing to be frightened of," said his aunt. "He's as harmless as a baby."
Then she took a handkerchief from a drawer, and spread it gently over the dead man's face. To Aunt Tipping the dead were indeed as little children, and inspired her with a strange motherly tenderness. Many had been the tired silent ones whose eyes she had closed, and whose limbs she had washed against their last resting place. They were so helpless now; they could do nothing any more for themselves.
Later in the day, Henry came again and sat long by the dead man's side. It seemed uncompanionable to have grown thus suddenly afraid of him, to leave him thus alone in that still room. And as he sat and watched him, he gave to his memory a solemn service of faithful thought. Thus it was he went over again the words in which Gerard had made him the depository, the legatee, of his most sacred possession.
Gerard had evidently had some presentiment of his approaching end.
"I am going," he had said, "to place the greatest confidence in you one man can place in another, pay you the greatest compliment. I shall die some day, and something tells me that that divine event is not very far off. Now I have no one in the world who cares an old 'J' pen for me, and a new one is perhaps about as much as I care for any one--with one exception, and that is a woman whom I shall never see again. She is not dead, but has been worse than dead for me these ten years. I am optimist enough to believe that her old love for me still survives, making sweet the secret places of her soul. Never once in all these years to have doubted her love has been more than most marriages; but were I to live for another ten years, and still another, I would believe in it still. But the stars were against us. We met too late. We met when she had long been engaged to a friend of her youth, a man noble and true, to whom she owed much, and whom she felt it a kind of murder to desert. It was one of those fallacious chivalries of feeling which are the danger of sensitive and imaginative minds. Religion strengthened it, as it is so apt to strengthen any form of self-destruction, short of technical suicide. There was but a month to their marriage when we met. For us it was a month of rapture and agonies, of heaven shot through with hell. I saw further than she. I begged her at least to wait a year; but the force of my appeal was weakened by scruples similar to her own. To rob another of his happiness is an act from which we may well shrink, though we can clearly see that the happiness was really destined for us, and can never be his in any like degree. During this time I had received from her many letters, letters such as a woman only writes in the May-morning of her passion; and one day I received the last. There was in it one sentence which when I read it I think my heart broke, 'Do you believe,' it ran, 'in a love that can lie asleep, as in a trance, in this world, to awaken again in another, a love that during centuries of silence can still be true, and be love still in a thousand years? If you do, go on loving me. For that is the only love I dare give you. I must love you no more in this world.'
"Each morning as I have risen, and each night as I have turned to sleep, those words have repeated themselves again and again in my heart, for ten years. It was so I became the Ashton Gerard you know to-day. Since that day, we have never met or written to each other. All I know is that she is still alive, and still with him, and never would I disturb their peace. When I die, I would not have her know it. If loveisimmortal, we shall meet again--when I am worthier to meet her. Such reunions are either mere dreams, or they are realities to which the strongest forces of the universe are pledged."
Henry's only comment had been to grip Gerard's hand, and give him the sympathy of silence.
"Now," said Gerard, once more after a while, "it is about those letters I want to speak to you. They are here," and he unlocked a drawer and drew from it a little silver box. "I always keep them here. The key of the drawer is on this ring, and this little gold key is the key of the box itself. I tell you this, because I have what you may regard as a strange request to make.
"I suppose most men would consider it their duty either to burn these letters, or leave instructions for them to be buried with them. That is a gruesome form of sentiment in which I have too much imagination to indulge. Both my ideas of duty and sentiment take a different form. The surname of the writer of these letters is nowhere revealed in them, nor are there any references in them by which she could ever be identified. Therefore the menace to her fair fame in their preservation is not a question involved. Now when the simplest woman is in love, she writes wonderfully; but when a woman of imagination and intellect is caught by the fire of passion, she becomes a poet. Once in her life, every such woman is an artist; once, for some one man's unworthy sake, she becomes inspired, and out of the fulness of her heart writes him letters warm and real as the love-cries of Sappho. Such are the letters in this little box. They are the classic of a month's passion, written as no man has ever yet been able to write his love. Do you think it strange then that I should shrink from destroying them? I would as soon burn the songs of Shelley. They are living things. Shall I selfishly bury the beating heart of them in the silence of the grave?
"So, Mesurier," he continued, affectionately, "when I met you and understood something of your nature, I thought that in you I had found one who was worthy to guard this treasure for me, and perhaps pass it on again to some other chosen spirit--so that these beautiful words of a noble woman's heart shall not die--for when a man loves a woman, Mesurier, as you yourself must know, he is insatiable to hear her praise, and it is agony for him to think that her memory may suffer extinction. Therefore, Mesurier,--Henry, let me call you,--I want to give the memory of my love into your hands. I want you to love it for me, when perhaps I can love it no more. I want you sometimes to open this box, and read in these letters, as if they were your own; I want you sometimes to speak softly the name of 'Helen,' when my lips can speak it no more."
Such was the beautiful legacy of which Henry found himself the possessor by Gerard's death. Early on that day he had remembered his promise to his dead friend, and had found the silver box, and locked it away among his own most sacred things. Some day, in an hour and place upon which none might break, he would open the little box and read Helen's letters, as Gerard had wished. Already one sentence was fixed unforgettably upon his mind, and he said it over softly to himself as he sat by Gerard's silent bed: "Do you believe in a love that can lie asleep, as in a trance in this world, to awaken again in another,--a love that during centuries of silence can still be true, and be love still in a thousand years? If you do, go on loving me. For that is the only love I dare give you; I must love you no more in this world."
Strange dreams of the indomitable dust! Already another man's love was growing dear to him. Already his soul said the name of "Helen" softly for Gerard's sake.
With Gerard's death, Henry began to find Aunt Tipping's too sad a place to go on living in. It had become haunted; and when new people moved into Gerard's rooms, it became still more painful for him. It was as though Gerard had been dispossessed and driven out. So he cast about for some new shelter; and, one day, chance having taken him to the shipping end of the city, he came upon some old offices which seemed full of anxiety to be let. Inquiring of a chatty little housekeeper's wife, he discovered, away at the echoing top of the building, a big, well-lighted room, for which she thought the owner would be glad to take ten pounds a year. That whole storey was deserted. Henry made up his mind at once, and broke the news to Aunt Tipping that evening. It was the withering of one of her few rays of poetry, and she struggled to keep him; but when she saw how it was, the good woman insisted that he should take something from her towards furnishing. Receiving was nothing like so blessed as giving for Aunt Tipping. That old desk,--yes, she had bought it for him,--that he must certainly take, and think of his old aunt sometimes as he wrote his great books on it; and some bed-linen she could well afford. She would take no denial.
Angel and Esther were then called in to help him in the purchase of a carpet, a folding-bed, an old sofa, and a few chairs. A carpenter got to work on the bookshelves, and in a fortnight's time still another habitation had been built for the Muse,--a habitation from which she was not destined to remove again, till she and Angel and Henry all moved into one house together,--a removal which was, as yet, too far off to be included in this history.
Ten pounds a year, a folding-bed, and a teapot!--this was Henry's new formula for the cultivation of literature. He had so far progressed in his ambitions as to have arrived at the dignity of a garret of his own, and he liked to pretend that soon he might be romantically fortunate enough to sit face to face with starvation. He knew, however, that it would be a starvation mitigated by supplies from three separate, well-lardered homes. A lad with a sweetheart and a sister, a mother and an aunt, all in love with him, is not likely to become an authority on starvation in its severest forms.
A stern law had been passed that Henry's daytime hours were to be as strictly respected as those of a man of business; yet quite often, about eleven o'clock in the morning, there would come a heavenly whisper along the passage and a little knock on the door, soft as a flower tapping against a window-pane.
"Thank goodness, that's Angel!
"Angel, bless you! How glad I am to see you! I can't get on a bit with my work this morning."
"Oh, but I haven't come to interrupt you, dear. I sha'n't keep you five minutes. Only I thought, dear, you'd be so tired of pressed beef and tinned tongue, and so I thought I'd make a little hot-pot for you. I bought the things for it as I came along, and it won't take five minutes, if Mrs. Glass [the housekeeper] will only lend me a basin to put it in, and bake it for you in her oven. Now, dear, you mustn't--you know I mustn't stay. See now, I'll just take off my hat and jacket and run along to Mrs. Glass, to get what I want. I'll be back in a minute. Well, then, just one--now that's enough; good-bye," and off she would skip.
If you want to know how fairies look when they are making hot-pot, you should have seen Angel's absorbed little shining face.
"Now, do be quiet, Henry. I'm busy. Why don't you get on with your work? I won't speak a word."
"Angel, dear, you might just as well stay and help me to eat it. I sha'n't do any work to-day, I know for certain. It's one of my bad days."
"Now, Henry, that's lazy. You mustn't give way like that. You'll make me wish I hadn't come. It's all my fault."
"No, really, dear, it isn't. I haven't done a stroke all morning--though I've sat with my pen for two hours. You might stay, Angel, just an hour or two."
"No, Henry; mother wants me back soon. She's house-cleaning. And besides, I mustn't. No--no--you see I've nearly finished now--see! Get me the salt and pepper. There now--that looks nice, doesn't it? Now aren't I a good little housewife?"
"You would be, if you'd only stay. Do stay, Angel. Really, darling, it will be all the same if you go. I know I shall do nothing. Look at my morning's work, and he brought her a sheet of paper containing two lines and a half of new-born prose, one line and a half of which was plentifully scratched out. To this argument he added two or three persuasive embraces.
"It's really true, Henry? Well, of course, I oughtn't; but if you can't work, of course you can't. And you must have a little rest sometimes, I know. Well, then, I'll stay; but only till we've finished lunch, you know, and we must have it early. I won't stay a minute past two o'clock, do you hear? And now I'll run along with this to Mrs. Glass."
When Angel had gone promptly at three, as likely as not another step would be heard coming down the passage, and a feminine rustle, suggesting a fuller foliage of skirts, pause outside the door, then a sort of brotherly-sisterly knock.
"Esther! Why, you've just missed Angel; what a pity!"
"Well, dear, I only ran up for half-a-minute. I was shopping in town, and I couldn't resist looking in to see how the poor boy was getting on. No, dear, I won't take my things off. I must catch the half-past three boat, and then I'll keep you from your work?"
Esther always said this with a sort of suggestion in her voice that it was just possible Henry might have found some new way of both keeping her there and doing his work at the same time; as though she had said, "I know you cannot possibly work while I am here; but, of course, if you can, and talking to me all the time won't interfere with it--well, I'll stay."
"Oh, no, you won't really. To tell the truth, I've done none to-day. I can't get into the mood."
"So you've been getting Angel to help you. Oh, well, of course, if Angel can be allowed to interrupt you, I suppose I can too. Well, then, I'll stay a quarter of an hour."
"But you may as well take your things off, and I'll make a cup of tea, eh? That'll be cosey, won't it? And then you can read me Mike's last letter, eh?"
"Oh, he's doing splendidly, dear! I had a lovely letter from him this morning. Would you really care to hear a bit of it?"
And Esther would proceed to read, picking her way among the endearments and the diminutives.
"Iamglad, dear. Why, if he goes on at this rate, you'll be able to get married in no time."
"Yes; isn't it splendid, dear? I am so happy! What I'd give to see his little face for five minutes! Wouldn't you?"
"Rather. Perhaps he'll be able to run up on Bank Holiday."
"I'm afraid not, dear. He speaks of it in his letter, and just hopes for it; but rather fears they'll have to play at Brighton, or some other stupid seaside place."
"That's a bother. Yes, dear old Mike! To think of him working away there all by himself--God bless him! Do you know he's never seen this old room? It struck me yesterday. It doesn't seem quite warmed till he's seen it. Wouldn't it be lovely to have him here some night?--one of our old, long evenings. Well, I suppose it will really come one of these days. And then we shall be having you married, and going off to London in clouds of glory, while poor old Henry grubs away down here in Tyre."
"Well, if we do go first, you will not be long after us, dear; and if only Mike could make a really great hit, why, in five years' time we might all be quite rich. Won't it be wonderful?"
Then the kettle boiled, and Henry made the tea; and when it had long since been drunk, Esther began to think it must be five o'clock, and, horrified to find it a quarter to six, confessed to being ashamed of herself, and tried to console her conscience by the haste of her good-bye.
"I'm afraid I've wasted your afternoon," she said; "but we don't often get a chat nowadays, do we? Good-bye, dear. Go on loving me, won't you?"
After that, Henry would give the day up as a bad job, and begin to wonder if Ned would be dropping in that evening for a smoke; and as that was Ned's almost nightly custom about eight o'clock, the chances of Henry's disappointment were not serious.
One morning, as Henry was really doing a little work, a more ponderous step broke the silence of his landing, a heavy footfall full of friendship. Certainly that was not Angel, nor even the more weighty Esther, though when the knock came it was little and shy as a woman's.
Henry threw open the door, but for a moment there was no one to be seen; and then, recalling the idiosyncrasy of a certain new friend whom by that very token he guessed it might be, he came out on to the landing, to find a great big friendly man in corpulent blue serge, a rough, dark beard, and a slouched hat, standing a few feet off in a deprecating way,--which really meant that if there were any ladies in the room with Mr. Mesurier, he would prefer to call another time. For though he had two or three grownup daughters of his own, this giant of a man was as shy of a bit of a thing like Angel, whom he had met there one day, as though he were a mere boy. He always felt, he once said in explanation, as though he might break them in shaking hands. They affected him like the presence of delicate china, and yet he could hold a baby deftly as an elephant can nip up a flower; and to see him turn over the pages of a delicateédition de luxewas a lesson in tenderness. For this big man who, as he would himself say, looked for all the world like a pirate, was as insatiable of fine editions as a school-girl of chocolate creams. He was one of those dearest of God's creatures, a gentle giant; and his voice, when it wasn't necessary to be angry, was as low and kind as an old nurse at the cradle's side.
Henry had come to know him through his little Scotch printer, who printed circulars and bill-heads, for the business over which Mr. Fairfax--for that was his name--presided. By day he was the vigorous brain of a huge emporium, a sort of Tyrian Whiteley's; but day and night he was a lover of books, and you could never catch him so busy but that he could spare the time mysteriously to beckon you into his private office, and with the glee of a child, show you his last large paper. He not only loved books; but he was rumoured liberally to have assisted one or two distressed men of genius well-known to the world. The tales of the surreptitious goodness of his heart were many; but it was known too that the big kind man had a terribly searching eye under his briery brows, and could be as stern towards ingratitude as he was soft to misfortune. Henry once caught a glimpse of this as they spoke of a mutual friend whom he had helped to no purpose. Mr. Fairfax never used many words, on this occasion he was grimly laconic.
"Rat-poison!" he said, shaking his head. "Rat-poison!" It was his way of saying that that was the only cure for that particular kind of man.
It was evident that his generous eye had seen how things were with Henry. He had subscribed for at least a dozen copies of "The Book of Angelica," and in several ways shown his interest in the struggling young poet. As has been said, he had seen Angelica one day, and his shyness had not prevented his heart from going out to these two young people, and the dream he saw in their eyes. He had determined to do what he could to help them, and to-day he had come with a plan.
"I hope you're not too proud to give me a hand, Mr. Mesurier, in a little idea I've got," he said.
"I think you know how proud I am, and how proud I'm not, Mr. Fairfax," said Henry. "I'm sure anything I could do for you would make me proud, if that's what you mean."
"Thank you. Thank you. But you mustn't speak too fast. It's advertising--does the word frighten you? No? Well, it's a scheme I've thought of for a little really artistic and humorous advertising combined. I've got a promise from one of the most original artists of the day, you know his name, to do the pictures; and I want you to do the verses--at, I may say, your own price. It's not, perhaps, the highest occupation for a poet; but it's something to be going on with; and if we've got good posters as advertisements, I don't see why we shouldn't have good humorous verse. What do you think of it?"
"I think it's capital," said Henry, who was almost too ready to turn his hand to anything. "Of course I'll do it; only too glad."
"Well, that's settled. Now, name your price. Don't be frightened!"
"Really, I can't. I haven't the least idea what I should get. Wait till I have done a few of the verses, and you can give me what you please."
"No, sir," said Mr. Fairfax; "business is business. If you won't name a figure, I must. Will you consider a hundred pounds sufficient?"
"A hundred pounds!" Henry gasped out, the tears almost starting to his eyes.
Mr. Fairfax did not miss his frank joy, and liked him for his ingenuousness.
"All right, then; we'll call it settled. I shall be ready for the verses as soon as you care to write them."
"Mr. Fairfax, I will tell you frankly that this is a great deal to me, and I thank you from my heart."
"Not a word, not a word, my boy. We want your verses, we want your verses. That's right, isn't it? Good verses, good money! Now no more of that," and the good man, in alarm lest he should be thanked further, made an abrupt and awkward farewell.
"It will keep the lad going a few months anyhow," he said to himself, as he tramped downstairs, glad that he'd been able to think of something; for, while the scheme was admirable as an advertisement, and would more than repay Messrs. Owens' outlay, its origin had been pure philanthropy. Such good angels do walk this world in the guise of bulky, quite unpoetic-looking business-men.
"One hundred pounds!" said Henry, over and over again to himself. "One hundred pounds! What news for Angel!"
He had soon a scheme in his head for the book, which entirely hit Mr. Fairfax's fancy. It was to make a volume of verse celebrating each of the various departments of the great store, in metres parodying the styles of the old English ballads and various poets, ancient and modern, and was to be called, "Bon Marché Ballads."
"Something like this, for example," said Henry, a few days later, pulling an envelope covered with pencil-scribble from his pocket. "This for the ladies' department,--
"Oh, where do you buy your hats, lady?And where do you buy your hose?And where do you buy your shoes, lady?And where your underclothes?"Hats, shoes, and stockings, everythingA lady's heart requires,Quality good, and prices low,We are the largest buyers!"The stock we bought on Wednesday lastIs fading fast away,To-morrow it may be too late--Oh, come and buy to-day!"
Mr. Fairfax fairly trumpeted approval. "If they're all as good as that," he said; "you must have more money. Yes, you must. Well, well,--we'll see, we'll see!" And when the "Bon Marché Ballads" actually appeared, the generous creature insisted on adding another fifty pounds to the cheque.
As many were afterwards of opinion that Henry never again did such good work as these nonsense rhymes, written thus for a frolic,--and one hundred and fifty pounds,--and as copies of the "Bon Marché Ballads" are now exceedingly scarce, it may possibly be of interest to quote two or three more of its preposterous numbers. This is a lyric illustrative of cheese, for the provision department:--
"Are you fond of cheese?Do you sometimes sighFor a really goodGorgonzola? Try,"Try our one-and-ten,Wonderfully rotten,Tasted once, it never canBe again forgotten!"
Here is "a Ballad of Baby's Toys:"--
"Oh, give me a toy" the baby said--The babe of three months old,--Oh, what shall I buy my little babee,With silver and with gold?""I would you buy a trumpet fine,And a rocking-horse for me,And a bucket and a spade, mother,To dig beside the sea.""But where shall I buy these pretty things?"The mother's heart inquires."Oh, go to Owens!" cried the babe;"They are the largest buyers."
The subject of our last selection is "Melton Mowbray," which bore beneath its title due apologies to Mr. Swinburne:--
"Strange pie, that is almost a passion,O passion immoral, for pie!Unknown are the ways that they fashion,Unknown and unseen of the eye,The pie that is marbled and mottled,The pie that digests with a sigh:For all is not Bass that is bottled,And all is not pork that is pie."
Of all the goodness else that Henry and Angel were to owe in future days to Mr. Fairfax, there is not room in this book to write. But that matters little, for is it not written in the Book of Love?
One afternoon the step coming along the corridor was almost light enough to be Angel's, though a lover's ear told him that hers it was not. Once more that feminine rustle, the very whisper of romantic mystery; again the little feminine knock.
Daintiness and Myrtilla!
"Well, this is lovely of you, Myrtilla! But what courage! How did you ever dare venture into this wild and savage spot,--this mountain-fastness of Bohemia?"
"Yes, it was brave of me, wasn't it?" said Myrtilla, with a little laugh, for which the stairs had hardly left her breath. "But what a climb! It is like having your rooms on the Matterhorn. I think I must write a magazine article: 'How I climbed the fifty-thousand stairs,' with illustrations,--and we could have some quite pretty ones," she said, looking round the room.
"That big skylight is splendid! As close, dear lad, to the stars as you can get it? Are you as devoted to them as ever?"
"Aren't you, Myrtilla?"
"Oh, yes; but they don't get any nearer, you know."
"It's awfully good to see you again, Myrtilla," said Henry, going over to her and taking both her hands. "It's quite a long time, you know, since we had a talk. It was a sweet thought of you to come. You'll have some tea, won't you?"
"Yes, I should love to see you make tea. Bachelors always make such good tea. What pretty cups! My word, we are dainty! I suppose it was Esther bought them for you?"
Henry detected the little trap and smiled. No, it hadn't been Esther.
"No? Someone else then? eh! I think I can guess her name. It was mean of you not to tell me about her, Henry. I hear she's called Angel, and that she looks like one. I wish I could have seen her before I went away."
"Going away, Myrtilla? why, where? I've heard nothing of it. Tell me about it."
The atmosphere perceptibly darkened with the thought of Williamson.
"Well!" she said, in the little airy melodious way she had when she was telling something particularly unhappy about herself--a sort of harpsichord bravado--"Well, you know, he's taken to fancying himself seriously ill lately, and the doctors have aided and abetted him; and so we're going to Davos Platz, or some such health-wilderness--and well, that's all!"
"And you I suppose are to nurse the--to nurse him?" said Henry, savagely.
"Hush, lad! It's no use, not a bit! You won't help me that way," she said, laying her hand kindly on his, and her eyes growing bright with suppressed tears.
"It's a shame, nevertheless, Myrtilla, a cruel shame!"
"You'd like to say it was a something-else shame, wouldn't you, dear boy? Well, you can, if you like: but then you must say no more. And if you really want to help me, you shall send me a long letter now and again, with some of your new poems enclosed; and tell me what new books are worth sending for? Will you do that?"
"Of course, I will. That's precious little to do anyhow."
"It's a good deal, really. But be sure you do it."
"And, of course, you'll write to me sometimes. I don't think you know yet what your letters are to me. I never work so well as when I've had a letter from you."
"Really, dear lad, I don't fancy you know how happy that makes me to hear."
"Yes, you take just the sort of interest in my work I want, and that no one else takes."
"Not even Angel?" said Myrtilla, slily.
"Angel, bless her, loves my work; and is a brave little critic of it; but then it isn't disloyal to her to say that she doesn't know as much as you. Besides, she doesn't approach it in quite the same way. She cares for it, first, because it is mine, and only secondly for its own sake. Now you care for it just for what it is--"
"I care for it, certainly, for what it's going to be," said Myrtilla, making one of those honest distinctions which made her opinion so stimulating to Henry.
"Yes, there you are. You're artistically ambitious for me; you know what I want to do, even before I know myself. That's why you're so good for me. No one but you is that for me; and--poor stuff as I know it is--never write a word without wondering what you will think of it."
"You're sure it's quite true," said Myrtilla; "don't say so if it isn't. Because you know you're saying what I care most to hear, perhaps, of anything you could say. You know how I love literature, and--well, you know too how fond I am of you, dear lad, don't you?"
Literary criticism had kindled into emotion; and Henry bent down, and kissed Myrtilla's hand. In return she let her hand rest a moment lightly on his hair, and then, rather spasmodically, turned to remark on his bookshelves with suspicious energy.
At that moment another step was heard in the corridor, again feminine. Henry knew it for Angel's; and it may be that his expression grew a shade embarrassed, as he said:
"I believe I shall be able to introduce you to Angel after all--for I think this is she coming along the passage."
As Henry opened the door, Angel was on the point of throwing her arms round his neck, when, noticing a certain constraint in his manner of greeting, she realised that he was not alone.
"We were just talking of you, dear," said Henry. "This is my friend, Mrs. Williamson,--'Myrtilla,' of whom you've often heard me speak."
"Oh, yes, I've often heard of Mrs. Williamson," said Angel, not of course suffering the irony of her thought to escape into her voice.
"And I've heard no less of Miss Flower," said Mrs. Williamson, "not indeed from this faithless boy here,--for I haven't seen him for so long that I've had to humble myself at last and call,--but from Esther."
Myrtilla loved the transparent face, pulsing with light, flushing or fading with her varying mood, answering with exquisite delicacy to any advance and retreat of the soul within. But an invincible prejudice, or perhaps rather fear, shut Angel's eyes from the appreciation of Myrtilla. She was sweet and beautiful, but to the child that Angel still was she suggested malign artifice. Angel looked at her as an imaginative child looks at the moon, with suspicion.
So, in spite of Myrtilla's efforts to make friends, the conversation sustained a distinct loss in sprightliness by Angel's arrival.
Myrtilla, perhaps divining a little of the truth, rose to go.
"Well, I'm afraid it's quite a long good-bye," she said.
"Oh, you're going away?" said Angel, with a shade of relief involuntarily in her voice.
"Oh, yes, perhaps before we meet again, you and Henry will be married. I'm sure I sincerely hope so."
"Thank you," said Angel, somewhat coldly.
"Well, good-bye, Henry," said Myrtilla,--it was rather a strangled good-bye,--and then, in an evil moment, she caught sight of the Dante's head which, hidden in a recess, she had not noticed before. "I see you're still faithful to the Dante," she said; "that's sweet of you,--good-bye, good-bye, Miss Flower, Angel, perhaps you'll let me say, good-bye."
When she had gone there seemed a curious constraint in the air. You might have said that the consistency of the air had been doubled. Gravitation was at least twice as many pounds as usual to the square inch. Every little movement seemed heavy as though the medium had been water instead of air. As Henry raised his hands to help Angel off with her jacket, they seemed weighted with lead.
"No, thank you," said Angel, "I won't take it off. I can't stay long."
"Why, dear, what do you mean? I thought you were going to stay the evening with me. I've quite a long new chapter to read to you."
"I'm sorry, Henry,--but I find I can't."
"Why, dear, how's that? Won't you tell me the reason? Has anything happened?"
Angel stood still in the middle of the room, with her face as firmly miserable as she could make it.
"Won't you tell me?" Henry pleaded. "Won't you speak to me? Come, dear--what's the matter?"
"You know well enough, Henry, what's the matter!" came an unexpected flash of speech.
"Indeed, I don't. I know of no reason whatever. How should I?"
"Well, then, Mrs. Williamson's the matter!--'Myrtilla,' as you call her. Something told me it was like this all along, though I couldn't bear to doubt you, and so I put it away. I wonder how often she's been here when I have known nothing about it."
"This is the very first time she has ever set foot in these rooms," said Henry, growing cold in his turn. "I'll give you my word of honour, if you need it."
"I don't want to hear any more. I'm going. Good-bye."
"Going, Angel?" said Henry, standing between her and the door. "What can you mean? See now,--give your brains a chance! You're not thinking in the least. You've just let yourself go--for no reason at all. You'll be sorry to-morrow."
"Reason enough, I should think, when I find that you love another woman!"
"I love Myrtilla Williamson! It's a lie, Angel--and you ought to be ashamed to say it. It's unworthy of you."
"Why have you never told me then who made that sketch of Dante for you? I suppose I should never have known, if she hadn't let it out. I asked you once, but you put me off."
Henry had indeed prevaricated, for Angel had chanced to ask him just after Myrtilla's letter about his poems.
"Well, I'll be frank," said Henry. "I didn't tell you, just because I feared an unreasonable scene like this--"
"If there had been nothing in it, there was nothing to fear; and, in any case, why should she paint pictures for you, if she doesn't care for you?--No, I'm going. Nothing will persuade me otherwise. Henry, please let pass, if you're a gentleman--" and poor little Angel's face fairly flamed. "No power on earth will keep me here--"
"All right, Angel--" and Henry let her have her way. Her feet echoed down the stairs, further and further away. She was gone; and Henry spent that evening in torturingly imagining every kind of accident that might happen to her on the way home. Every hour he expected to be suddenly called to look at her dead body--his work. And so the night passed, and the morning dawned in agony. So went the whole of the next day, for he could be proud too--and the fault had been hers.
Thus they sat apart for three days, poles of determined silence. And then at last, on the evening of the third day, Henry, who was half beside himself with suspense, heard, with wild thankfulness, once more the little step in the passage--it seemed fainter, he thought, and dragged a little, and the knock at the door was like a ghost's.
There, with a wan smile, Angel stood; and with joy, wordless because unspeakable, they fell almost like dead things into each other's arms. For an hour they sat thus, and never spoke a word, only stroking each other's hands and hair. It was so good for each to know that the other was alive. It took so long for the stored agony in the nerves to relax.
"I haven't eaten a morsel since Wednesday," said Angel, at last.
"Nor I," said Henry.
"Henry, dear, I'm sorry. I know now I was wrong. I give you my word never to doubt you again."
"Thank you, Angel. Don't let us even think of it any more."
"I couldn't live through it again, darling."
"But it can never happen any more, can it?"
"No!--but--if you ever love any woman better than you love me, you'll tell me, won't you? I could bear that better than to be deceived."
"Yes, Angel, I promise to tell you."
"Well, we're really happy again now--are we? I can hardly believe it--"
"You didn't see me outside your house last night, did you?"
"Henry!"
"Yes, I was there. And I watched you carry the light into your bedroom, and when you came to the window to draw down the blind, I thought you must have seen me. Yes, I waited and waited, till I saw the light go out and long after--"
"Oh, Henry--you do love me then?"
"And we do know how to hate each other sometimes, don't we, child?" said Henry, laughing into Angel's eyes, all rainbows and tears.