The mystery, like so many mysteries, was explained. Next day,
just as they were dressed to go out to dinner, a Mr. Bast called.
He was a clerk in the employment of the Porphyrion Fire Insurance
Company. Thus much from his card. He had come "about the lady
yesterday." Thus much from Annie, who had shown him into the
dining-room.
"Cheers, children!" cried Helen. "It's Mrs. Lanoline."
Tibby was interested. The three hurried downstairs, to find, not
the gay dog they expected, but a young man, colourless, toneless,
who had already the mournful eyes above a drooping moustache that
are so common in London, and that haunt some streets of the city
like accusing presences. One guessed him as the third generation,
grandson to the shepherd or ploughboy whom civilisation had
sucked into the town; as one of the thousands who have lost the
life of the body and failed to reach the life of the spirit.
Hints of robustness survived in him, more than a hint of
primitive good looks, and Margaret, noting the spine that might
have been straight, and the chest that might have broadened,
wondered whether it paid to give up the glory of the animal for a
tail coat and a couple of ideas. Culture had worked in her own
case, but during the last few weeks she had doubted whether it
humanised the majority, so wide and so widening is the gulf that
stretches between the natural and the philosophic man, so many
the good chaps who are wrecked in trying to cross it. She knew
this type very well--the vague aspirations, the mental
dishonesty, the familiarity with the outsides of books. She knew
the very tones in which he would address her. She was only
unprepared for an example of her own visiting-card.
"You wouldn't remember giving me this, Miss Schlegel?" said he,
uneasily familiar.
"No; I can't say I do."
"Well, that was how it happened, you see."
"Where did we meet, Mr. Bast? For the minute I don't remember."
"It was a concert at the Queen's Hall. I think you will
recollect," he added pretentiously, "when I tell you that it
included a performance of the Fifth Symphony of Beethoven."
"We hear the Fifth practically every time it's done, so I'm not
sure--do you remember, Helen?"
"Was it the time the sandy cat walked round the balustrade?"
He thought not.
"Then I don't remember. That's the only Beethoven I ever remember
specially."
"And you, if I may say so, took away my umbrella, inadvertently
of course."
"Likely enough," Helen laughed, "for I steal umbrellas even
oftener than I hear Beethoven. Did you get it back?"
"Yes, thank you, Miss Schlegel."
"The mistake arose out of my card, did it?" interposed Margaret.
"Yes, the mistake arose--it was a mistake."
"The lady who called here yesterday thought that you were calling
too, and that she could find you?" she continued, pushing him
forward, for, though he had promised an explanation, he seemed
unable to give one.
"That's so, calling too--a mistake."
"Then why--?" began Helen, but Margaret laid a hand on her arm.
"I said to my wife," he continued more rapidly "I said to Mrs.
Bast, "I have to pay a call on some friends,' and Mrs. Bast said
to me, 'Do go.' While I was gone, however, she wanted me on
important business, and thought I had come here, owing to the
card, and so came after me, and I beg to tender my apologies, and
hers as well, for any inconvenience we may have inadvertently
caused you."
"No inconvenience," said Helen; "but I still don't understand."
An air of evasion characterised Mr. Bast. He explained again, but
was obviously lying, and Helen didn't see why he should get off.
She had the cruelty of youth. Neglecting her sister's pressure,
she said, "I still don't understand. When did you say you paid
this call?"
"Call? What call?" said he, staring as if her question had been a
foolish one, a favourite device of those in mid-stream.
"This afternoon call."
"In the afternoon, of course!" he replied, and looked at Tibby to
see how the repartee went. But Tibby was unsympathetic, and said,
"Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon?"
"S--Saturday."
"Really!" said Helen; "and you were still calling on Sunday, when
your wife came here. A long visit."
"I don't call that fair," said Mr. Bast, going scarlet and
handsome. There was fight in his eyes. "I know what you mean,
and it isn't so."
"Oh, don't let us mind," said Margaret, distressed again by
odours from the abyss.
"It was something else," he asserted, his elaborate manner
breaking down. "I was somewhere else to what you think, so
there!"
"It was good of you to come and explain," she said. "The rest is
naturally no concern of ours."
"Yes, but I want--I wanted--have you ever read The Ordeal of
Richard Feverel?"
Margaret nodded.
"It's a beautiful book. I wanted to get back to the earth, don't
you see, like Richard does in the end. Or have you ever read
Stevenson's Prince Otto?"
Helen and Tibby groaned gently.
"That's another beautiful book. You get back to the earth in
that. I wanted--" He mouthed affectedly. Then through the mists
of his culture came a hard fact, hard as a pebble. "I walked all
the Saturday night," said Leonard. "I walked." A thrill of
approval ran through the sisters. But culture closed in again. He
asked whether they had ever read E. V. Lucas's Open Road."
Said Helen, "No doubt it's another beautiful book, but I'd rather
hear about your road."
"Oh, I walked."
"How far?"
"I don't know, nor for how long. It got too dark to see my
watch."
"Were you walking alone, may I ask?"
"Yes," he said, straightening himself; "but we'd been talking it
over at the office. There's been a lot of talk at the office
lately about these things. The fellows there said one steers by
the Pole Star, and I looked it up in the celestial atlas, but
once out of doors everything gets so mixed."
"Don't talk to me about the Pole Star," interrupted Helen, who
was becoming interested. "I know its little ways. It goes round
and round, and you go round after it."
"Well, I lost it entirely. First of all the street lamps, then
the trees, and towards morning it got cloudy."
Tibby, who preferred his comedy undiluted, slipped from the room.
He knew that this fellow would never attain to poetry, and did
not want to hear him trying.
Margaret and Helen remained. Their brother influenced them more
than they knew; in his absence they were stirred to enthusiasm
more easily.
"Where did you start from?" cried Margaret. "Do tell us more."
"I took the Underground to Wimbledon. As I came out of the
office I said to myself, 'I must have a walk once in a way. If I
don't take this walk now, I shall never take it.' I had a bit of
dinner at Wimbledon, and then--"
"But not good country there, is it?"
"It was gas-lamps for hours. Still, I had all the night, and
being out was the great thing. I did get into woods, too,
presently."
"Yes, go on," said Helen.
"You've no idea how difficult uneven ground is when it's
dark."
"Did you actually go off the roads?"
"Oh yes. I always meant to go off the roads, but the worst of it
is that it's more difficult to find one's way.
"Mr. Bast, you're a born adventurer," laughed Margaret. "No
professional athlete would have attempted what you've done. It's
a wonder your walk didn't end in a broken neck. Whatever did your
wife say?"
"Professional athletes never move without lanterns and
compasses," said Helen. "Besides, they can't walk. It tires them.
Go on."
"I felt like R. L. S. You probably remember how in Virginibus."
"Yes, but the wood. This 'ere wood. How did you get out of it?"
"I managed one wood, and found a road the other side which went a
good bit uphill. I rather fancy it was those North Downs, for the
road went off into grass, and I got into another wood. That was
awful, with gorse bushes. I did wish I'd never come, but suddenly
it got light--just while I seemed going under one tree. Then I
found a road down to a station, and took the first train I
could back to London."
"But was the dawn wonderful?" asked Helen.
With unforgettable sincerity he replied, "No." The word flew
again like a pebble from the sling. Down toppled all that had
seemed ignoble or literary in his talk, down toppled tiresome R.
L. S. and the "love of the earth" and his silk top-hat. In the
presence of these women Leonard had arrived, and he spoke with a
flow, an exultation, that he had seldom known.
"The dawn was only grey, it was nothing to mention."
"Just a grey evening turned upside down. I know."
"--and I was too tired to lift up my head to look at it, and so
cold too. I'm glad I did it, and yet at the time it bored me more
than I can say. And besides--you can believe me or not as you
choose--I was very hungry. That dinner at Wimbledon--I meant it
to last me all night like other dinners. I never thought
that walking would make such a difference. Why, when you're
walking you want, as it were, a breakfast and luncheon and tea
during the night as well, and I'd nothing but a packet of
Woodbines. Lord, I did feel bad! Looking back, it wasn't what you
may call enjoyment. It was more a case of sticking to it. I did
stick. I--I was determined. Oh, hang it all! what's the good--I
mean, the good of living in a room for ever? There one goes on
day after day, same old game, same up and down to town, until you
forget there is any other game. You ought to see once in a way
what's going on outside, if it's only nothing particular after
all."
"I should just think you ought," said Helen, sitting--on the
edge of the table.
The sound of a lady's voice recalled him from sincerity, and he
said: "Curious it should all come about from reading something of
Richard Jefferies."
"Excuse me, Mr. Bast, but you're wrong there. It didn't. It came
from something far greater."
But she could not stop him. Borrow was imminent after Jefferies--
Borrow, Thoreau, and sorrow. R. L. S. brought up the rear, and
the outburst ended in a swamp of books. No disrespect to these
great names. The fault is ours, not theirs. They mean us to use
them for sign-posts we mistake the sign-post for the destination.
And Leonard had reached the destination. He had visited the
county of Surrey when darkness covered its amenities, and its
cosy villas had re-entered ancient night. Every twelve hours this
miracle happens, but he had troubled to go and see for himself.
Within his cramped little mind dwelt something that was greater
than Jefferies' books--the spirit that led Jefferies to write
them; and his dawn, though revealing nothing but monotones, was
part of the eternal sunrise that shows George Borrow Stonehenge.
"Then you don't think I was foolish?" he asked becoming again the
naive and sweet-tempered boy for whom Nature intended him.
"Heavens, no!" replied Margaret.
"Heaven help us if we do!" replied Helen.
"I'm very glad you say that. Now, my wife would never understand
--not if I explained for days."
"No, it wasn't foolish!" cried Helen, her eyes aflame. "You've
pushed back the boundaries; I think it splendid of you."
"You've not been content to dream as we have--"
"Though we have walked, too--"
"I must show you a picture upstairs--"
Here the door-bell rang. The hansom had come to take them to
their evening party.
"Oh, bother, not to say dash--I had forgotten we were dining out;
but do, do, come round again and have a talk." "Yes, you must--
do," echoed Margaret.
Leonard, with extreme sentiment, replied: "No, I shall not. It's
better like this."
"Why better?" asked Margaret.
"No, it is better not to risk a second interview. I shall always
look back on this talk with you as one of the finest things in my
life. Really. I mean this. We can never repeat. It has done me
real good, and there we had better leave it."
"That's rather a sad view of life, surely."
"Things so often get spoiled."
"I know," flashed Helen, "but people don't."
He could not understand this. He continued in a vein which
mingled true imagination and false. What he said wasn't wrong,
but it wasn't right, and a false note jarred. One little twist,
they felt, and the instrument might be in tune. One little
strain, and it might be silent for ever. He thanked the ladies
very much, but he would not call again. There was a moment's
awkwardness, and then Helen said: "Go, then; perhaps you know
best; but never forget you're better than Jefferies." And he
went. Their hansom caught him up at the corner, passed with a
waving of hands, and vanished with its accomplished load into the
evening.
London was beginning to illuminate herself against the night.
Electric lights sizzled and jagged in the main thoroughfares,
gas-lamps in the side streets glimmered a canary gold or green.
The sky was a crimson battlefield of spring, but London was not
afraid. Her smoke mitigated the splendour, and the clouds down
Oxford Street were a delicately painted ceiling, which adorned
while it did not distract. She had never known the clear-cut
armies of the purer air. Leonard hurried through her tinted
wonders, very much part of the picture. His was a grey life, and
to brighten it he had ruled off few corners for romance. The
Miss Schlegels--or, to speak more accurately, his interview
with them--were to fill such a corner, nor was it by any means
the first time that he had talked intimately to strangers. The
habit was analogous to a debauch, an outlet, though the worst of
outlets, for instincts that would not be denied. Terrifying him,
it would beat down his suspicions and prudence until he was
confiding secrets to people whom he had scarcely seen. It brought
him many fears and some pleasant memories. Perhaps the keenest
happiness he had ever known was during a railway journey to
Cambridge, where a decent-mannered undergraduate had spoken
to him. They had got into conversation, and gradually Leonard
flung reticence aside, told some of his domestic troubles and
hinted at the rest. The undergraduate, supposing they could start
a friendship, asked him to "coffee after hall," which he
accepted, but afterwards grew shy, and took care not to
stir from the commercial hotel where he lodged. He did not want
Romance to collide with the Porphyrion, still less with Jacky,
and people with fuller, happier lives are slow to understand
this. To the Schlegels, as to the undergraduate, he was an
interesting creature, of whom they wanted to see more. But they
to him were denizens of Romance, who must keep to the corner he
had assigned them, pictures that must not walk out of
their frames.
His behaviour over Margaret's visiting-card had been typical. His
had scarcely been a tragic marriage. Where there is no money
and no inclination to violence tragedy cannot be generated. He
could not leave his wife, and he did not want to hit her.
Petulance and squalor were enough. Here "that card" had come in.
Leonard, though furtive, was untidy, and left it lying about.
Jacky found it, and then began, "What's that card, eh?" "Yes,
don't you wish you knew what that card was?" "Len, who's Miss
Schlegel?" etc. Months passed, and the card, now as a joke, now
as a grievance, was handed about, getting dirtier and dirtier. It
followed them when they moved from Camelia Road to Tulse Hill. It
was submitted to third parties. A few inches of pasteboard, it
became the battlefield on which the souls of Leonard and his
wife contended. Why did he not say, "A lady took my umbrella,
another gave me this that I might call for my umbrella"? Because
Jacky would have disbelieved him? Partly, but chiefly because he
was sentimental. No affection gathered round the card, but it
symbolised the life of culture, that Jacky should never spoil.
At night he would say to himself, "Well, at all events, she
doesn't know about that card. Yah! done her there!"
Poor Jacky! she was not a bad sort, and had a great deal to bear.
She drew her own conclusion--she was only capable of drawing one
conclusion--and in the fulness of time she acted upon it. All the
Friday Leonard had refused to speak to her, and had spent the
evening observing the stars. On the Saturday he went up, as
usual, to town, but he came not back Saturday night, nor Sunday
morning, nor Sunday afternoon. The inconvenience grew
intolerable, and though she was now of a retiring habit, and shy
of women, she went up to Wickham Place. Leonard returned in her
absence. The card, the fatal card, was gone from the pages of
Ruskin, and he guessed what had happened.
"Well?" he had exclaimed, greeting her with peals of laughter.
"I know where you've been, but you don't know where I've been."
Jacky sighed, said, "Len, I do think you might explain," and
resumed domesticity.
Explanations were difficult at this stage, and Leonard was too
silly--or it is tempting to write, too sound a chap to attempt
them. His reticence was not entirely the shoddy article that a
business life promotes, the reticence that pretends that nothing
is something, and hides behind the Daily Telegraph. The
adventurer, also, is reticent, and it is an adventure for a clerk
to walk for a few hours in darkness. You may laugh at him, you
who have slept nights out on the veldt, with your rifle beside
you and all the atmosphere of adventure pat. And you also may
laugh who think adventures silly. But do not be surprised if
Leonard is shy whenever he meets you, and if the Schlegels rather
than Jacky hear about the dawn.
That the Schlegels had not thought him foolish became a permanent
joy. He was at his best when he thought of them. It buoyed him as
he journeyed home beneath fading heavens. Somehow the barriers of
wealth had fallen, and there had been--he could not phrase it--a
general assertion of the wonder of the world. "My conviction,"
says the mystic, "gains infinitely the moment another soul will
believe in it," and they had agreed that there was something
beyond life's daily grey. He took off his top-hat and smoothed it
thoughtfully. He had hitherto supposed the unknown to be books,
literature, clever conversation, culture. One raised oneself by
study, and got upsides with the world. But in that quick
interchange a new light dawned. Was that "something" walking in
the dark among the suburban hills?
He discovered that he was going bareheaded down Regent Street.
London came back with a rush. Few were about at this hour, but
all whom he passed looked at him with a hostility that was the
more impressive because it was unconscious. He put his hat on. It
was too big; his head disappeared like a pudding into a basin,
the ears bending outwards at the touch of the curly brim. He wore
it a little backwards, and its effect was greatly to elongate the
face and to bring out the distance between the eyes and the
moustache. Thus equipped, he escaped criticism. No one felt
uneasy as he titupped along the pavements, the heart of a man
ticking fast in his chest.
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