The Cruise of the Make-Believes
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Title: The Cruise of the Make-Believes
Author: Tom Gallon
Illustrator: Charles Grunwald
Release date: July 25, 2014 [eBook #46403]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CRUISE OF THE MAKE-BELIEVES ***
THE CRUISE OF THE MAKE-BELIEVES
[Illustration: "'TO ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES I AM A RICH MAN.'"
(_See page 97_) FRONTISPIECE]
THE CRUISE OF THE MAKE-BELIEVES
BY
TOM GALLON
AUTHOR OF "TATTERLEY," "MEG THE LADY," ETC.
_Illustrated by_
CH. GRUNWALD
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1907
_Copyright, 1907_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published October, 1907
COLONIAL PRESS
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED BY C. H. SIMONDS & CO.
BOSTON, U.S.A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE PRINCESS NEXT DOOR 1
II. THE KING OF A LEAN KINGDOM 17
III. THE PRINCE JUMPS OVER THE WALL 38
IV. THE PRINCESS GOES TO DINNER 56
V. THE GREAT GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE 72
VI. SCHEMERS AND DREAMERS 87
VII. FAREWELL TO ARCADIA STREET 103
VIII. THE PRINCE CUTS THE KNOT 118
IX. AND THE PRINCESS TIES IT AGAIN 138
X. A DESPERATE REMEDY 160
XI. PURSUIT 175
XII. MISS MAKE-BELIEVE WAKES UP 191
XIII. MISERY MAKES STRANGE BOAT-FELLOWS 213
XIV. THE CASTAWAYS 229
XV. THE SIMPLE LIFE 244
XVI. THE AMAZING PRINGLE 255
XVII. EXPLANATIONS 270
XVIII. MISS MAKE-BELIEVE ESCAPES 286
XIX. THE LAMPS ARE LIT IN ARCADIA STREET 309
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
"'TO ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES I AM A RICH MAN'" _Frontispiece_
PAGE
"'I MAY GO AWAY AGAIN AT A MOMENT'S NOTICE'" 66
"SHE TURNED HER OWN FACE THEN, AND HID IT ON THE
FRIENDLY BREAST OF SIMON QUARLE" 212
"THEY STOOD HERE IN THE MOONLIGHT AND SILENCE" 253
THE CRUISE OF THE MAKE-BELIEVES
CHAPTER I
THE PRINCESS NEXT DOOR
THE thin young man with the glossy hat got out of the cab at the end of
the street, and looked somewhat distrustfully down that street; glanced
with equal distrust at the cabman. A man lounging against the corner
public-house, as though to keep that British institution from falling,
and leaving him without refreshment, got away from it, and inserted
himself between the driver and the fare, ready to give information or
advice to both, on the strength of being a local resident.
"Are you quite sure that this is Arcadia Street?" asked the young
man in the glossy hat. He had a thin, meagre, precise sort of
voice--delicate and mincing.
"Carn't yer see it wrote up?" demanded the driver, pointing with his
whip to the blank wall that formed one side of the street. "Wotjer
think I should want to drop yer in the wrong place for?" He was a
cross driver, for he had already been driving about in the wilds of
Islington in search of Arcadia Street for a long time, and he was
doubtful whether or not that fact would be remembered in the fare.
"Yus--this is Arcadia Street, guv'nor," said the man from the
public-house. "You take it from me; I've bin 'ere, man an' boy, since
before I could remember. Wot part of it was you wantin', sir?"
But the young man had already given the cabman a substantial fare, and
had turned away. The man from the public-house jogged along a little
behind him, eager to be of service for a consideration to a man to
whom a shilling or two seemed to mean nothing at all; a few bedraggled
staring children had sprung up, as if by magic, and were also lending
assistance, by the simple expedient of walking backwards in front
of the stranger, and stumbling over each other, and allowing him to
stumble over them. And still the young man said nothing, but only
glanced anxiously at the houses.
He did not fit Arcadia Street at all. For he was particularly well
dressed, with a neatness that made one fear almost to brush against
him; while Arcadia Street, Islington, is not a place given to
careful dressing, or even to neatness. Moreover, silk hats are not
generally seen there, save on a Monday morning, when a gentleman of
sad countenance goes round with a small book and a pencil, in the
somewhat cheerless endeavour to collect rents; and his silk hat is one
that has seen better days. So that it is small wonder that the young
man was regarded with awe and surprise, not only by the straggling
children, but also by several women who peered at him from behind
doubtful-looking blinds and curtains.
Still appearing utterly oblivious of the questions showered upon him
by the now frantic man who had constituted himself as guide, the young
man had got midway up the street, and was still searching with his
eyes the windows of the houses. If you know Arcadia Street at all,
you will understand that in order to search the windows he had but to
keep his head turned in one direction; for the habitable part of the
street lies only on the left-hand side, the other being formed by a
high blank wall, shutting in what is locally known as "The Works." From
behind this wall a noise of hammering and of the clang of metal floats
sometimes to the ears of Arcadia Street, and teaches them that there is
business going on, although they cannot see it.
Now, just as the young man had reached the middle of the street, and
the loafer who had accompanied him was almost giving up in despair,
the eyes of the young man looked into the eyes of a young girl on the
other side of a sheet of glass. The sheet of glass represented one part
of one window of a house, and at the moment the young man turned his
gaze in that direction, she was setting up against the glass a card
which bore the modest inscription--"Board and Residence." And she was
so unlike Arcadia Street generally that the young man stopped, and made
a faltering movement with one arm, as though he would have raised his
hat, and looked at her helplessly. Instantly, something to his relief,
she raised the window, careless of what became of the card, and looked
out at him.
"Perhaps, sir, you might be looking for--" So she began; and then
faltered and stopped.
"You're very good," he responded, in his precise voice. "Name of
Byfield--Mr. Gilbert Byfield. Does he live here?"
"Next door, sir," she said, as she slowly lowered the window. And it
seemed to the young man that for a moment, although she was evidently
interested in him, a shadow of disappointment crossed her face.
He raised his hat, disclosing for a moment a very neatly arranged head
of fair hair, parted accurately in the middle; and then rang the bell
at the adjoining house. By this time his guide, seeing that he was
about to escape, began rapidly to urge his claims, the while the young
man took not the faintest notice of him, but kept his eyes fixed on the
door he expected to see open every moment.
"Didn't I tell yer w'ere it was, guv'nor?" demanded the man. "Where'd
you 'ave bin, if it 'adn't bin for me; you might 'ave lorst yerself
a dozen times. I says to meself, w'en I sees yer gettin' out of the
cab--I says to meself--''E's a gent--that's wot 'e is--'e's one of the
tip-tops. You look arter 'im,' I says, 'an' see if 'e don't do the
'andsome by yer.' . . . Well--of all the ugly smug-faced dressed-up----"
For the door had opened, and the young man of the glossy hat had been
swallowed up inside. Mr. Byfield was at home. The loafer looked the
house up and down aggressively, and seemed on the point of expressing
his opinion concerning it and its inhabitants publicly; deemed that
a waste of breath apparently; and drifted away, to take up his old
position at the corner of the street. The children, coming reluctantly
to the understanding that there was not likely to be a fight, or even
an altercation, drifted away also.
Above the curtain of the window of the next house the plaintive pretty
face of the girl appeared again for a moment, and then was withdrawn.
So far as the street was concerned, the incident was closed, and the
mystery of the young man's appearance had been transferred to the house
itself. For his inquiry for Mr. Byfield had led to his being directed
up certain shabby stairs, until he came to a door; he had just raised
his knuckles delicately to knock upon it, when it was flung open, and
the man he had come to see stood before him.
It would be difficult indeed to imagine a greater contrast between any
two men than that which existed between the visitor and the visited.
For Gilbert Byfield was big and hearty--not in any sense of mere
fleshiness, but rather because there was a largeness about his actions
and his gestures--a certain impulsive eagerness in all he did, as
though each day was all too short for what he wanted to crowd into it.
He was in his shirt-sleeves (for it seems always to be hot and stuffy
in Arcadia Street, Islington) and a pipe was in his mouth. He grinned
amiably, but a little sheepishly, at his visitor; suddenly leaned
forward, and caught the immaculate one by the hand and drew him into
the room.
"Of all wonders," he ejaculated--"how did you get here?"
The thin young man, who had removed his hat, was glancing round the
dingy walls of the room, and at the table in the centre that was
strewn with books and papers. "My dear Byfield," he said, in his thin
voice, "I might almost repeat that question to you. I am amazed,
Byfield; I am pained and outraged. Why are you hiding in this place?"
Gilbert Byfield threw himself into his chair, and laughed. "No question
of hiding," he said. "I came here for a change of air--change of
scene--change of surroundings. I'm studying."
"What for?" demanded the visitor.
Byfield leant forward over the table, and looked at his friend half
contemptuously, half whimsically. "The world I've left behind me,"
he said, "was peopled by quite a lot of men of the type of a certain
Jordan Tant----"
"Thank you," said the other, with a nod.
"All very worthy and delightful people, but unfortunately all saying
the same thing--day after day--year in and year out. They were always
dressed in the same fashion, and they always had a certain considerable
amount of respectable money in the pockets of their respectable
clothes; and they always got up at exactly the same hour every morning,
and they lived their dear little Tant-like lives, until the time came
for them to be turned, in due course, into little Tant-like corpses,
and presumably after that into nice little Tant-like angels. And I
got tired of them, and finally gave them up. Now," he added, throwing
himself back in his chair, and laughing good-humouredly, "you know all
about it."
Mr. Jordan Tant had seated himself on a chair opposite his friend,
and had been listening attentively. He now hitched his trousers up
carefully over his knees, displaying rather neat ankles, and began
to speak in an argumentative fashion, with his neat head a little on
one side. "You're not complimentary, Byfield," he said; "but then you
never were. I should not have found you, but for the fact that some one
mentioned to me that you were living in a place called Arcadia Street,
Islington; and as I wondered a little what reason you could possibly
have for leaving your own natural surroundings, I decided to look you
up. As for the Tant-like people of whom you speak so scornfully, I
would remind you that they belong properly to that sphere to which you
also belong, when you are not in your present revolutionary spirit. You
are forgetting what I have endeavoured often to remind you about; you
are forgetting the dividing line which must be kept between the classes
and the masses. The world knows you as Mr. Gilbert Byfield--with any
amount of money, and any amount of property; you are masquerading as a
very ordinary person, in a very ordinary and commonplace neighbourhood.
Now what, for instance, do you pay for these rooms?" He glanced round
as he spoke.
"Ten shillings a week--which of course includes the use of the
furniture," said Gilbert, smiling. "Meals extra."
"Horrible!" exclaimed his friend. "Where is the comfortable set of
chambers in the West End; where is your place in the country--your
yacht--everything of that kind? And what in the name of fortune are you
doing it for?"
"I've already told you," responded the other, good-humouredly. "I
wanted to see what life really was, when you didn't have someone near
at hand to feed you, and clothe you, and make much of you; I wanted
to look at a world where banking accounts and dividends were unknown,
and stocks and shares something not to be considered. I wanted to see
what people were like who had to scramble for a living--to scramble,
in fact, for the crumbs that fall from tables such as mine. I had read
in books of people who had a difficulty in making both ends meet--and
quite nice people at that; I had dreamed of a world outside my own
very ordinary one, where romance was to be found--and beauty--and
love and tenderness. I was sick to death of the high voices and the
gracious airs and the raised eyebrows of most of the women I knew--the
time-killers, with nothing in the world to occupy them; I wanted to
take off my coat, and get back to what I know my grandfather, at least,
was in his time: a real hard-working citizen. A better man than ever
I shall be, Jordan; a clear-headed, clear-hearted fellow, with no
nonsense about him. He made a fortune--and my father trebled it; it has
been my sacred mission to spend it. There"--he got to his feet, and
stretched his arms above his head, and laughed--"I've done preaching;
and you shall tell me all the news from the great world out of which I
have dropped."
"What news can I have to give you?" demanded Mr. Tant, with an almost
aggressive glance at his friend. "Oh, I know what you're going to say,"
he added rapidly as he raised his hand--"that that is the best comment
on what you have said. But, at all events, we live respectably--not in
hovels."
"Respectable is the word," said Gilbert, with something of a sigh. "And
yet I'm sure that you really have news--of a sort. Come--a bargain with
you: you shall give me your news, bit by bit, and item by item; and
I'll see if I can match it from my experience here."
"Well, in the first place," said Mr. Jordan Tant, shifting uneasily on
his chair, and finally drawing up his legs until his heels rested on
the front wooden rail of it--"in the first place, Miss Enid wonders
what has become of you, and is naturally somewhat troubled about you."
He said it sulkily, with the air of one to whom the delivery of the
message was a disagreeable task.
"Exactly. And the fair Enid is in that drawing-room which is like a
hot-house, and is yawning the hours away, and glancing occasionally at
the clock, to determine how long it is since she had lunch, and how
best she shall get through the time before tea is announced. To match
that, my item of news is of a certain little lady who has a habit of
tucking up her sleeves, the better to get through hours that are all
too short for the work that must fill them, who is afraid to glance at
a clock, for fear it should tell her how time is flying; and who never
by any chance had a best frock yet that wasn't almost too shabby to
wear before it was called best at all. Go on."
"Oh--so that's the secret, is it?" exclaimed Mr. Tant, nodding his
head like a smooth-plumaged young bird. "There's a woman in Arcadia
Street--eh?"
"Beware how you speak of her lightly," said Gilbert. "In Arcadia Street
are many women; they hang out of the windows, and they scream at their
children, and they tell their husbands exactly what their opinion is
concerning the characters of those husbands whenever the unfortunate
men are not at work. But--mark the difference, my Tant!--there is but
one woman worthy of the name, and I have found her. She lives next
door."
"Then I've seen her," replied Jordan Tant. "Rather pretty, perhaps--but
pale and shabby."
"Ah--she hadn't got her best frock on," said Gilbert. "You have to wait
for Sundays to see the best frock; and then you have to pretend that it
isn't really an old frock pretending to be best. Where did you see her?"
"Sticking a card in the window--something about apartments
or--lodgings," said Mr. Tant. "I think she thought there was some
chance that I might be insane enough to want to live in Arcadia Street."
"Poor little girl!" said Gilbert softly, as he seated himself on the
edge of the table, and thrust some of his papers out of the way. "She
dreams about lodgers--and hopes for the sort that pay. I believe she
gets up in the morning, dreadfully afraid that those who owe her
money have run away in the night; I believe she goes to bed at night,
wondering if by any possibility she can squeeze another bedstead in
somewhere to accommodate a fresh one. She would like to go out into the
highways and byways, and gather in all possible lodgers, and drive them
before her to the house; and keep 'em there for ever. You've only got
to say 'Lodgers!' to that girl, and her eyes brighten at once."
"What an extraordinary person!" exclaimed Mr. Jordan Tant, opening his
eyes very wide, and staring up at the other man. "What's she do it for?"
"For a living, Tant--for a sordid horrible grinding sweating living."
Gilbert got up in his excitement, and began to bang one fist into the
palm of his other hand close to the face of Mr. Jordan Tant. "You talk
of life--and respectability--and what not; I tell you I've seen more
life in a week in Arcadia Street than ever I saw in years before. Look
out into the streets; you'll see a dozen sights that shock you--you'll
see a dozen things that are unlovely. And yet I tell you that I have
stepped in this place straight into the heart of Fairyland--and that
I dream dreams, and see visions. And all on account of a pale-faced
shabby girl, who lives next door, and lies in wait behind the parlour
window to catch the lodgers who never pay her when they come!"
"Why don't you live there yourself?" demanded Mr. Tant. "You'd pay her
well enough."
Gilbert shook his head a little sadly. "That wouldn't do at all," he
said, "because I should take all the romance out of the thing. Besides,
in Arcadia Street you mustn't pay more than a certain amount, or you
bring down suspicion upon yourself. No--my method is a more subtle one:
I am the mysterious man who lives next door--(which is quite a great
way off in Arcadia Street, I can assure you)--and I appear to her only
with a sort of halo of romance about me."
"You're in love with her, I suppose?" suggested Mr. Tant.
"That's crude--and untrue," said Gilbert. "That's the only thing you
sort of people seem to think about: you look at a girl, and instantly
you're in love with her. Doesn't it occur to you that it may be
possible that I, from the distance of my thirty-five years, may look at
this child of seventeen--or perhaps even less--and feel sorry for her,
and desirous of helping her. Bah!--what do you know of romance?"
"I know this about it," said Mr. Tant, a little sullenly, "that if I go
back to Miss Enid, and tell her that you take a deep interest in a very
pretty girl of seventeen, who lives next door to you in a slum, and
with whom you occasionally visit Fairyland, it is more than possible
that the lady to whom you are supposed to be engaged----"
"I am not engaged to her," exclaimed Gilbert, almost savagely.
"May have something to say regarding romance on her own account. I
state facts." Thus Mr. Jordan Tant, very virtuously, and with his head
nodding in a sideways fashion at his friend.
"You pervert them, you mean," exclaimed Gilbert. "Besides, if you're
so deeply interested in Miss Enid Ewart-Crane, this will be a splendid
opportunity for you to set yourself right with her, to my everlasting
damage."
"You know perfectly well that she'd never look at me," said Mr. Tant.
"She's a glorious creature--a wonderful woman, and in your own sphere
of life; I can't see why you neglect her as you do."
"I have been told ever since I was a mere boy that at some future date
I should marry Enid--if I were good. It's just like a small boy being
offered anything--if he is good; he begins to loathe the idea of it at
once. Enid is all that you say--and I like her very much; but if I've
got to marry her I'll choose my own time for it. At present I'm in
Fairyland--and I mean to stop there."
"What do you mean by Fairyland?" asked Mr. Tant testily.
"You wouldn't understand if I told you," replied Gilbert. Then he added
quickly, and with contrition--"There--there--my dear fellow, I didn't
mean to hurt your feelings; you're not really a bad sort, if you'd come
out of your shell sometimes, and let the real wind of the real earth
ruffle your hair a bit. I must talk to someone--and I'm not sorry to
find you here to-day; only you mustn't tell anyone outside."
"Of course not," almost snapped Mr. Tant.
"I came here in the first place, Tant," began Gilbert, seating himself
again on the table, "with the expectation of finding that I had got
among commonplace people--and not nice commonplace people at that. Then
I saw this girl--this mere child, that even a hard world and a hard
and sordid life had not changed, struggling on day by day to make a
living--not for herself, or for any selfish reason--but to keep those
who should by rights have kept her. And I saw her, above all things,
doing something else, and doing it rather splendidly."
"I don't understand you. What else was she doing?" asked Jordan Tant.
It was growing dark in Arcadia Street, and the lamps were being
lighted. With the dying of the day a sort of hush had fallen upon the
place; the sounds outside were subdued, as though even Arcadia Street
might be inclined for rest. Gilbert had walked across to the window,
and stood there, looking out; his face was turned from his friend.
"This child to whom life was a mean and sordid struggle had taught
herself a lesson--had shown herself how best to live another life.
You'll think it mean and commonplace, perhaps; but this little
drudge--child alike in years and in thoughts--had learnt how to
make-believe to perfection; knew how to gild the commonplace bricks and
mortar of Arcadia Street so that the mean houses became palaces--the
mean back gardens places of beauty, wherein one might stroll beneath
the light of the moon, and listen even unto nightingales. Think of it,
Tant; this child who had never known anything but the mean streets of
a great city had yet learnt how to dream, and almost how to make her
dreams come true. I tell you, man, you've only got to look into her
eyes to understand that there is in her that brave spirit that defies
poverty and disaster--that brave spirit that aims straight for the
skies."
Mr. Jordan Tant sat still for a moment or two without speaking. He was
used by this time to this impulsive friend, who was for ever doing
unconventional things; and now, with this new unconventional thing to
face, he had no words either of reproof or admonition. Very slowly he
lifted first one foot and then the other from the wooden rail of the
chair, and stood up; picked up his hat, and brushed it carefully on his
sleeve.
"I've nothing to say to you," he said at last. "I expect, if the truth
were known, you'd find that the lady who dwells in Fairyland in her
spare moments has a scheming mind, and a money-grubbing soul; you'd
find she thought more of the price of chops than she does of all the
romances that ever were invented for fools to read. What am I to tell
Miss Enid?"
Gilbert Byfield laughed good-humouredly. "Tell her," he said, "that
I shall come and see her very soon. But you need not, of course, say
anything about----"
"About the Princess next door? I suppose not." Mr. Jordan Tant walked
to the door of the room, and laid his hand upon the handle. "It'll be
all right for you--and you'll give up this madness, just as you have
given up many, many others. But what about the--the Princess?"
"You don't understand in the least," said Gilbert, a little hastily.
"She thinks no more of me than she might think of anybody who was good
to her--kind to her."
"But so very few people have been good or kind to her, you see," Mr.
Tant reminded him, as he opened the door.
"I'll come with you, and find a cab for you; you might get lost,"
said Gilbert. "And pray get all those silly notions out of your head;
if you knew this child as well as I do, you'd look at the matter
in a different light. At the same time, as people are so apt to
misunderstand even our best motives, perhaps you'd better not say
anything to Enid--or to her mother. If there's any explaining to be
done, I can do it when I come to see them."
He found the cab for his friend, and saw him drive away. Walking back
slowly into Arcadia Street, he determined that he would if possible see
that little Princess next door that very evening--if only to assure
himself that she was the child he knew her to be, and he her big
friend--years and years older and wiser.
CHAPTER II
THE KING OF A LEAN KINGDOM
ARCADIA STREET is noted--locally, at least--for its "gardens." By this
term I would not have you understand that hidden away in that corner
of Islington are bowers of beauty, or that you may stroll at eventide
under the drooping branches of trees, what time the soft scents of
flowers are wafted to your nostrils. Rather let it be said that
attached to each dingy house is a dingy plot of ground that is only a
"garden" by courtesy--a place where the primeval instincts of man have
from time to time urged him to dig in the earth, for the sole reason
that it is earth, and in the mad hope to raise from it something that
no other London garden has yet accomplished. The moon that looks down
on each slip of ground at night knows differently; she has seen the
thing being done for generation after generation, and finally given up
in despair. Also the cats look on tolerantly, because they too know how
it will end, and that the victory will be with them easily in the long
run.
You may look into many such gardens, and may see for yourselves how
bravely they began--with what high hopes. Here, for example, is
what was once intended to be a summer-house; and it has long since
fallen into decay, and become a place where the shabby things that
are not wanted even in a shabby house have been tossed from time to
time, and left to ruin. You will see creepers that started well,
and intended great things, and clung quite bravely to walls; until
the London atmosphere and neglect and one thing and another put an
end to them. And you may see rows and rows of pots, wherein nothing
grows nor ever will grow, and wherein the very earth that fills
them is of a consistency known nowhere else. Here and there, too, a
bit of trellis-work had been put up and painted; in Arcadia gardens
it is generally found to be an easy hanging place for cloths and
doubtful-looking garments.
In the gardens of Arcadia Street was one exception. That exception was
the house, behind the front window of which, the wistful face of a girl
had looked out at Mr. Jordan Tant--that girl about whom he had heard so
much from his friend Gilbert Byfield. The house itself, poor and shabby
though it was, was neat and scrupulously clean; but the real triumph of
it lay in the garden. Not, perhaps, in the artistic sense, but rather
that it was a garden of surprises--a place where it was impossible to
say what you might meet next, if you wandered carefully through its
circumscribed length, and took it seriously.
Yet to anyone to whom the mere name of garden means so much, what a
pitiful place! For there was nothing really garden-like about it; it
was a place of rags and patches and pretences. The few pitiful plants
that struggled out of the black-looking earth here and there seemed
to do so not because they liked it, but because they had a desperate
desire to show what they could do, even against adverse fate, when they
were put to it. Half a dozen things that could not have been named even
by the most careful student in botany stood in pots under the kitchen
window; and in front of these, spread out on the earth itself, was an
old and very ragged carpet--a trap to the unwary, because of the many
holes it contained and the uneven surface it presented on the uneven
ground.
With the idea of hiding the carpet as much as possible, and at the same
time of giving an air of luxury to the place, an ancient staggering
table on three legs had been placed in the centre of it; and on
either side of this table a chair, long since set aside as being too
deplorable even for use in that house. It was a very mockery of a
table, and the chairs were in a dreadful conspiracy with it to let down
any unwary mortal who should attempt to sit upon them in their old age,
unless he treated them with due caution and respect.
Nor was this all; the garden held other treasures. Another ancient
strip of carpet, as ragged as its fellow, had been hung against a wall
to form a species of background to a crazy box that stood against that
wall. Not that you would ever have called it a box; it had a dingy rug
upon it, and that dingy rug made it, of course, a species of settle or
ottoman--an easy lounging place on summer nights. You had to sit down
carefully upon it, because it had a defective board, which gave way
unexpectedly and might let you through; but with care that was a fault
that might not be noticed. For the rest, the place contained a bulky
old plaster flower-pot, with some seedy-looking moss growing in it, and
with great cracks at the further side from the house.
The kindly darkness was hiding the tawdriness of the place when a
little door at the end of the garden opened, and a little man came
in. A man shabby like all the place; with an old frock-coat much too
large for him hanging in scarecrow fashion from his thin shoulders,
with trousers much too long for him lapping over carpet slippers frayed
and worn, and with an old velvet smoking-cap, with three strands of
frayed silk to represent a tassel, stuck on one side of his head. A
melancholy-looking little man, with a certain fierce sullenness upon
him, as though he quarrelled perpetually with the world at large. He
slammed the gate, and advanced into that sorry garden; made as if to
kick the unwieldy cracked flower-pot, but thought better of it; and
went shambling towards the table set upon the ragged carpet.
The fact that he caught his foot in a hole in the carpet, and almost
precipitated himself over the table, did not improve his temper. He
glared savagely about him, and gave his head a fierce rub with his cap
before seating himself gingerly on one of the chairs. Having done so,
he pulled his frock-coat closer about him, and shivered in the warm and
stifling air.
"It's a conspiracy--that's what it is!" exclaimed the little man. "It's
an infernal conspiracy against me from first to last!"
The shadows were lengthening in the garden, and the little man was
rather a pathetic figure as he sat there, solemnly shaking his head
and muttering to himself. Someone who had come to the back door of
the house, and looked out upon him, hesitated for a moment, and then
stepped quickly out towards him. A young girl with a bright, eager,
thin face; the girl who had looked through the window at Mr. Jordan
Tant. She came quickly towards the man, and dropped her arm round his
shoulders, and whispered to him.
"Father--you're home quite early," she said. "Will you have your coffee
out here?"
He shook himself peevishly away from her embrace. "Coffee?" he
exclaimed. "Who the devil wants coffee, Bessie? A man wants something
stronger than coffee. Besides--what's the good of making a fuss about
my being home as early as this? You don't suppose I should have come
home but for a very good reason--do you?"
The girl winced a little, and drew away from him. "I thought perhaps
for once you were glad to come home, father," she said timidly. "And
you know I always like to think of us sitting out in the garden--under
the stars--and drinking our coffee. The best people do that every night
of their lives--after dinner."
"After dinner!" he reminded her, raising a finger, and shaking it at
her. "That makes all the difference in the world; I dare say anyone
might drink the stuff after a good dinner--just to oblige a friend. But
what is anyone to do--in what condition of mind do you imagine a man to
be--when his dinner has been a thing not of the stalled ox order--but
of herbs? Besides--I'm upset--annoyed."
"I'm sorry, father," said the girl softly. She tiptoed into the house,
and softly called to someone within; came out again, and sat down at
the further side of the table, folding her hands upon it, and looking
at the shabby figure of the man on the other side of it.
"What has gone wrong, dear?" she whispered; and at the question he
suddenly turned upon her, and opened the very floodgates of his wrath
and misery.
"Turned out--ejected--thrust to the door with gibes and laughter!" he
exclaimed. "For how many years have I not, in a sense, been the very
prop and stay of that place--its chief ornament--the one being who in
an impoverished and sordid neighbourhood has shed upon it the light of
what I may term real intellect. I ask you, Bessie--for how many years?"
"For more years than I can remember, father," whispered the girl,
turning away her head.
"Exactly," he responded triumphantly. "It has been to me not a mere
house of refreshment--but a club--a place in which, by virtue of long
usage, I had a species of proprietary right. They'll find their mistake
out, of course; they're bound to do that in time. The Arcadia Arms
without me degenerates into a mere low public-house--a pot-house; I had
succeeded in raising the place. I was a feature--almost an institution.
And now a vulgar creature--without a coat, mark you, Bessie!--points
to the door, and says that I'm not to be served again. Some talk of a
score--of a paltry sum that should have been paid long since."
There was silence between them for a minute; it seemed as if, in the
gathering darkness, the petty record of the years was being told over
between them--so much to this account, and so much to that. The man in
the shabby frock-coat seemed to shrink and dwindle--to fall away from
what he would have appeared in her eyes, and to be the mean thing he
really was. When presently he went on with his tale, it was as though
he sought for excuses for himself, and blamed her in so doing.
"That place was in a sense my last refuge; I held a position there I
hold nowhere else now. When the cares of the world pressed upon me
more than usual, I was able to turn there; I had my seat in a special
corner--and I was respected. It was known always and everywhere as
'Mr. Meggison's place'; and only once in all the years has it been
usurped--and then the man was drunk. He was very properly turned out at
once, of course, and made to understand the enormity of his offence.
And now--now, Bessie"--he turned to the girl, and feebly smote the
crazy table with his fist--"now they tell me I am not to go there
again--they turn me out; I heard them laugh when the door banged behind
me. Oh--a bitter world--a very bitter world, Bessie!"
In all that he said she knew that there was an implied reproach for
herself. For if Bessie Meggison had but passed into his hands certain
shillings, this might never have happened; he might still have held
up his head at the Arcadia Arms--still have filled his old seat in a
corner--still have called like a man for his glass to be filled. In
that Bessie had failed; and she knew it now.
"We have had a hard time, father," she said, dropping a light hand on
the fist with which he was beating the table. "People don't come and
take the lodgings as they used to do; the things are getting so poor
and shabby that perhaps the more fashionable young men don't like it. I
try hard, father--but every shilling seems to be so important."
"My dear Bessie, I am not aware that I have blamed you," he said a
little coldly, as he withdrew his hand and turned away his head. "Time
was when Fortune smiled upon me, and I was able to do work that brought
in money; that time is long since past. In a fashion, I may be said to
have retired; I am no longer actively engaged in commercial pursuits."
"No, father--of course not," responded the girl cheerfully.
"And you have often assured me that you are glad--and proud--glad and
proud to be able to assist my declining years. It is not much that I
want: I saunter out in the sun in the morning, and go down to my--my
club----"
"The Arcadia Arms, father," she said gently.
"I prefer to call it my club," he said, a little testily. "There I nod
to an acquaintance or two--and I have my modest glass, and perhaps
smoke a pipe, or even a mild cigar. In the afternoon, a stroll and
perhaps another modest glass; in the evening a few more people gather
there, and we are almost convivial. That's my programme; that's my
day. For the rest, as you're aware, I occupy the cheapest bed in
the house--and I don't eat much. Therefore I do urge," he concluded
fretfully, "that it is a shame that a man should be deprived of the
little thing that gives him so much pleasure. I have been wounded
to-night--sorely hurt and wounded, Bessie."
"The coffee will be here directly, father," said the girl.
"Coffee--served in cracked cups by a dingy maid--in a back-yard," he
cried viciously. "There's nothing soothing or helpful or restful about
coffee--and I'm too old to pretend that this place is anything but the
back-yard it really is."
"It's better than any other garden in Arcadia Street," she said. "And
at a time like this, when--when you don't see things so distinctly--it
looks quite good. If you shut your eyes the least little bit, so that
you can only just see out of them, you seem to be looking down long
spaces--ever so far; and you can sit there under the wall, and think
you're anywhere--anywhere in the world except in Arcadia Street."
"I have shut my eyes to a great many things far too long, Bessie," he
exclaimed fiercely. "I have been inclined to forget at times who I
really am, and the position I should have occupied. I let my children
do as they like with me. Where, for instance, is your brother to-night?"
"Aubrey always goes out in the evening," said the girl quickly. "He
likes his freedom, you know, father dear."
"I know his freedom," said the man; "the freedom of every low billiard
saloon in the neighbourhood. No intellect about him, mind you; no
discussing of matters of moment concerning the neighbourhood, and even
the nation, with Aubrey. Oh dear, no; the knocking about of billiard
balls is more in his line. Aubrey will never cut a figure in any resort
of gentlemen. How much, for instance, did your precious brother receive
out of the funds of the house--my house, mark you! How much did he
receive this day?"
"Aubrey had half a crown," said the girl, in a mere whisper.
"Ye gods!" he exclaimed, starting to his feet. "He flaunts it with half
a crown all over London, and his poor old father is shown the door in
a pot-house, because he can't pay his score. Bessie, I could not have
believed that you would sink so low!"
"Aubrey says that he must live," said the girl wistfully. "And he likes
always to feel that he is a gentleman."
"Why doesn't he work?" exclaimed Mr. Meggison savagely. "He is young
and strong--why should he borrow half-crowns; why doesn't he earn 'em
instead? Things have come to a pretty pass when I--Daniel Meggison--am
refused necessary refreshment in order that my son should flaunt it on
half-crowns. Bah!"
"Somebody seems to be talkin' about me," said a voice from the doorway
of the house. "What's the row?"
The youth who sauntered out, and stood with his hands in his pockets,
looking from one to the other, was not of an inviting type. Shiftless
son of a shiftless father, he lacked even that father's poor dignity,
and failed to carry himself so well as the older man. He stooped at
the shoulders, and his mean and narrow face was thrust forward, and
bore an expression of knowingness, as though he asserted that there was
precious little in this world you could teach him. A small billycock
hat was thrust on the back of his head, and from between his lips
drooped a cigarette; it was his proud boast that he was never to be
seen without the latter.
"The row is this," exclaimed the old man, "that I want to know when you
are going to take your proper position in the world--and do your proper
work?"
"Don't you worry about me, dad," replied the son; "I shall be there all
right when the work comes along. Always provided, mind you," he added
as an afterthought, "always provided that the work suits me, and is of
a sort that a gentleman can take up. No hole-and-corner jobs for me; I
know what I want, and I mean to get it."
"You have already obtained from your sister here to-day a sum of money
far in advance of your needs or your deserts," said old Meggison,
wagging his head at him. "Pray what do you want with half-crowns?"
"Father--you shall have all the money you want as soon as I get any
myself," pleaded the girl in a low voice. "Surely there is no need for
quarrelling."
"I am not quarrelling; my dignity does not permit me to quarrel," said
Daniel Meggison, shaking his arm free of her touch. "But I trust that I
know what is due to me as that boy's father; I hope I know my duty."
"Hope so, dad, I'm sure," said the youth, as he turned away. "Can't
see for the life of me what you're upset about. You've had your bit at
times; you've been kept going, same as I have--haven't you?"
"My 'bit,' as you term it, is what is justly due to me as the head of
this house," exclaimed the elder man.
"I wasn't aware that you were the head of the house," said the youth.
"If it comes to that, Bess is the only one that does anything for what
I'm pleased to call a rotten family. I'm not saying, mind you, that
she does what she might, or that she looks up the lodgers for what's
due with that business instinct she should; I'm only sayin' that she
does what a mere girl can do tolerably well. More than that, she knows
that her brother, bein' a gentleman, can't go about London with empty
pockets."
"What about my pockets?" demanded Daniel Meggison, plunging his hands
into them. "Who thinks of my wants--my simple ordinary little wants?
Who deems it necessary even to know that I have that refreshment that
is not denied to the lowest of the beasts?"
"The lowest of the beasts drink water," said Aubrey, with a chuckle.
"And I never heard of you doin' that."
While Bessie stood looking helplessly from one to the other, and while
a savage retort rose to the lips of old Meggison, the door leading from
the house was opened, and a little servant-maid appeared. A precise and
prim little maid, who, having come from some institution but a little
time before, had felt ever since that she was seeing life as she had
never hoped to see it; to her, indeed, the sorry garden was a place of
delight. She came out now almost with eagerness, bringing that despised
coffee on a battered tray, and set it on the rickety table. And at the
same time announced some startling news.
"Oh, if you please, miss, a gent an' a lidy--name o' Stocker--was
waitin' in the passage----"
"Hall!" thundered Mr. Daniel Meggison, so savagely that the child
almost knocked over the coffee-pot. "How many times, Bessie, have I
told you that the domestics are to be instructed to give proper names
to the apartments in the house."
"You will be more careful in future, Amelia, won't you?" suggested
Bessie mildly. She turned to her father, and spoke wistfully. "Perhaps
Aunt Julia and Uncle Ted had better come out here--in the garden," she
suggested.
"I will not see them," said Mr. Meggison. "I am in no mood to see
anyone; I should probably insult my sister, to begin with. I dislike
her as much as I dislike her absurd prosperity."
"Don't ask me to meet 'em," said Aubrey, making for the little gate in
the wall. "Aunt Julia always asks a chap what he's doin'--as though
earnin' your livin' was about the only blessed thing you'd got to do in
this world."
"I'd be glad if you'd stop and see them, Aubrey," pleaded Bessie; then
to her father she added slyly--"It will be so much more dignified if
you stop and meet them, father."
"Perhaps it will; I will put up with them on your account, my child,"
said Mr. Meggison. "Aubrey--I command you to stay."
"Your commands don't affect me the least little bit," said Aubrey
coolly, shifting his cigarette to the other corner of his mouth. "But
on Bessie's account I don't mind lettin' myself be seen. Amelia--trot
'em out!"
Bessie Meggison having some idea of how these things should be done,
from certain accounts she had read, or from certain things she had
heard, immediately got behind the crazy table, the better to preside
over that pouring out of coffee. She bravely shut her eyes to the fact
that the cups did not match, and that the saucers were either too large
or too small, or that the coffee-pot was a mere tin affair, blackened
all up one side from contact with the fire. She waited in that proud
position the coming of the unexpected guests.
Mrs. Stocker came first, looking about her with the high dignity of
one who moves in a very different sphere, and who has condescended
for once, in a spirit of Christian virtue, to step down among beings
less fortunate. She was a large lady, holding herself very erect; the
sort of person with whom you could not under any circumstances have
cracked a jest. Life was a simple and a respectable thing with her; a
serious matter, that could but lead in due course to a very proper and
becomingly elaborate funeral. Women had been known to do remarkable
things, and to get their names into books and newspapers; not so Julia
Stocker. "From the moment Edward Stocker claimed my hand, I knew
exactly what was going to happen to me, and I acted accordingly," was
her invariable summary of the course of her life. Incidentally it may
be mentioned that Mr. Edward Stocker had "a little property" and that
Mrs. Stocker looked after it. Which is to say that Mr. Stocker was a
mild good-tempered little man, with a partiality for convivial good
company into which he rarely got.
The lady came out of the house now, looking about her somewhat
disdainfully. She took Bessie's outstretched hand, and, still with her
eyes searching the bare and shabby yard, touched the girl's cheek for
a moment with lips that had no softness about them; performed the same
ceremony with her brother Daniel; and stared at Aubrey Meggison. "I
have come, brother," she said, in a voice that was in itself almost
dirge-like, "to see how you are getting on."
"Very kind of you--but I'm not getting on at all," said Meggison,
furtively rubbing the place on his cheek where her lips had been with
his knuckles. "More than that, I don't expect to."
"Perhaps I should have said that _we_ have come--Edward and myself--to
inquire about you; for of course without Edward I never attempt to
do anything. In my opinion the woman should always be dependent upon
the man, and guided by him. Consequently, if Edward tells me that he
desires that I should call and inquire about my relatives, I do so,
however distasteful it may be to me personally. Edward--where are you?"
Mr. Stocker came from the house at that moment, holding his hat in his
hand, and looking about him as though he felt he was in some place of
historic interest. He saw Bessie's hand, and after looking at it for
a moment or two, as though not quite certain what it was, or how it
concerned him, decided to grasp it; and having done so looked up at
the girl, and smiled in rather a pleased way. But he dropped the hand
guiltily on hearing his wife's voice.
"Edward!--why are you loitering? Where are you?"
"Here, my dear," said Mr. Stocker, coming round the table, and still
looking about him as though marvelling at the place in which he found
himself. "Charming spot, this!"
"Charming fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Mrs. Stocker, sitting carefully on a
chair. "A mere back-yard--with nothing in it but rags and rubbish and
draughts. Surely you people don't live out here?" she asked, glaring
round upon them.
"We like to come here in the evening, aunt; it's very pleasant then,"
said Bessie. "Will you have some coffee, Aunt Julia?"
"No, I will not have some coffee--especially in the open air," said
Mrs. Stocker. "Nor will your uncle Edward have coffee," she added,
noting a tendency on the part of that gentleman to reach for one of the
cups; "it always disagrees with him. Not, of course, that I would wish
for a moment to interfere with your enjoyment, Edward--but I think I
know what is best for you."
Mr. Stocker sighed and turned away; found his way up to that improvised
seat against the wall; and, with that luck that usually attends such
men, discovered the loose board and almost went through; he was
frantically readjusting his balance when Daniel Meggison, as though
by the merest chance, strolled up to him and dropped a hand on his
shoulder, and smiled in a friendly way.
"Glad to see you, Ted--always glad to see you," he said, keeping a wary
eye upon Mrs. Stocker the while, and lowering his voice suddenly and
dramatically. "You don't happen to have change for half a sovereign, I
suppose?"
Mr. Stocker slipped his hand into his pocket, and brought out a small
gold coin. "I don't think I have," he began in a whisper; and then
discovered, something to his amazement, that by a species of conjuring
trick the coin had disappeared from his hand and was entering the
pocket of Mr. Daniel Meggison, who was beaming upon him.
"It doesn't matter--one coin's easier to remember," said Meggison. "You
shall have it back--certainly within a week. You're a man to know, sir."
Mrs. Stocker was speaking in her loud and strident tones. "I should not
be doing that duty that is imposed upon me by the mere fact of being
a woman and a Stocker, did I not speak my mind. I come here, and I
find you all drifting on in exactly the same way that you have always
done--in a shabby and shiftless manner, that seems to belong to you
and Arcadia Street. Don't interrupt me; there is only one being on this
earth that has a right to interrupt me--and he dare not do it." She
glared round upon Mr. Stocker as she spoke.
"We are very happy, Aunt Julia," said Bessie, who was delicately
sipping some of the half-cold stuff known to Amelia as coffee. "Father
has been a little unfortunate over the matter of finding employment."
"A misfortune that has dogged him nearly all his life," snapped Mrs.
Stocker. "In what direction are you looking, brother?"
"In all directions, my dear Julia," said Meggison, in a jubilant
tone that sprang from the fact that he had unexpected money in his
pocket. "I may be said to say to the world--'Give me work; help me to
discover work; give me some hard task, with appropriate pay attached to
it--and then see what I'll do!' I appeal to Bessie: am I not for ever
condemning the state of the labour market?"
"I have heard you speak of it often, father," said the girl.
"And what, for example, is Aubrey doing?" demanded Mrs. Stocker,
turning suddenly on that youth. "What are his prospects?"
"What he's doing at the present time is this," said the youth, opening
the door at the end of the garden--"he's goin' out. And the prospects,
as far as you're concerned, are that you won't see him again this
evenin'. I'm goin' to have a hundred up at the Arcadia Arms. Good
night!"
As he was swinging out of the door Mr. Daniel Meggison seized his arm,
and held him for a moment. "How dare you address a relative in such a
fashion, sir!" he cried. "Above all, how dare you suggest that you will
waste money upon such a pursuit. Your aunt is right; you should by this
time have decided what work you will seize upon in the world. There are
many maxims I might employ in such a case as yours--but I----"
"I wouldn't trouble, if I was you," said Aubrey, shaking himself free.
"As I've said before, I'm ready for anything in the way of work, if I
can only see it before me, and know what I've got to look forward to.
If it isn't there, don't blame me."
He went out of the door, slamming it behind him; his father, in a
sudden access of virtue, pulled open the door, and called after him
down the narrow alley which ran at the back of the houses--"Understand,
I will not permit you to frequent any such place as the Arcadia Arms--a
mere ordinary pot-house----"
His voice died away, and he contented himself by shaking a fist in the
direction of the retreating youth. He slammed the door, and turned
again to his sister.
"I think that I shall be compelled to go out myself, Julia," he said,
while his fingers lovingly caressed that small gold coin in his pocket.
"I must really look in at my club."
"Club? I didn't know you had one," said the lady, rising. "However, we
won't detain you; so soon as I know that Edward commands me to return
home I shall be quite willing to leave Arcadia Street."
Mr. Daniel Meggison took the hint at once, and hurried into the house;
a minute or two later he might have been observed shuffling down the
street in the direction of the Arcadia Arms, having exchanged his
smoking-cap for a grimy grey felt that was stuck jauntily on the side
of his head. Mrs. Stocker, having brought Mr. Stocker to his feet
by the simple expedient of turning to look at him, shook hands with
Bessie, and gave that young lady at parting a few words of much-needed
advice.
"Call things by their right names, my child," she said sternly. "A
garden's a garden--and a yard's a yard; this is a yard, and an untidy
one at that. Don't pretend; when you haven't got enough to eat, don't
eke it out with coffee badly served that nobody wants. Come out of your
dreams, and wake up to the realities of life. Don't forget, whenever
you feel inclined to think that you are any better off than you really
are, or have anything to be grateful for, that you're a mere ordinary
commonplace girl--or woman, if you like it better--and that your
mission in life is to slave from morning to night for people that don't
care a button about you. My advice to you is: clear away this rubbish,
and keep chickens or something of that sort. Good night."
It is probable that Mr. Stocker would have said something more
cheering, but for the fact that at the very moment he had grasped
Bessie's hand Mrs. Stocker looked back from the doorway, and called to
him; he departed hurriedly and obediently. The girl looked at the sorry
array of cups and saucers, and then at the poor wilderness about her;
all in a moment it seemed poor and mean and childish. She sank down on
to that box that was covered by the dingy old rug, and covered her
face with her hands.
The shadows were falling all about her, and the Princess next door, as
Gilbert Byfield had called her, was crying softly to herself.
CHAPTER III
THE PRINCE JUMPS OVER THE WALL
JUST how long Bessie might have sat there in the dusk of the garden
it is impossible to say; an interruption was to be provided. Almost
the last of her sobs had died away, and she was beginning to realize
that this kind of thing would not do at all, if her small world was to
be kept going, when the door leading into the little alley was opened
cautiously, and a young man came in. A very presentable young man, with
an honest face inclined to laughter, over which a look of relief was
stealing as he saw the girl sitting there. He closed the gate quietly,
and took a few steps towards her; paused and coughed. Instantly she
sprang to her feet, and faced him.
"Good evening!" he said. "Did I startle you?"
"Very much; I did not know there was anyone there. How long have you
been here?" she asked suspiciously.
"I came in this very moment," he assured her. "You see, I'm obliged to
come in that way, because there might be somebody--somebody looking
out for me at the front. Very handy house in that respect." He grinned
cheerfully, and she laughed for very sympathy.
"Haven't you any good news, Mr. Dorricott?" she asked, forgetting her
own troubles for a moment.
He shook his head. "I went down to the theatre, just to let them know I
was about, you know, and almost with the hope that someone might fall
ill--or be run over----"
"Don't!" she whispered with a shiver.
"I'm sorry, Miss Meggison--but a fellow gets absolutely murderous at
times, when he thinks of the people who stand in his way. Here am I,
without a shilling to bless myself with----"
"Everyone that I have ever known, and everyone that I ever shall know,
has been and will be in that state," exclaimed Bessie with conviction.
"I don't believe in all the stories about people having more money than
they know what to do with; I simply can't believe them. All the world
is poor and struggling--and everybody fights for money that they never
by any chance get. I know it!" she said with deep dejection.
"Well, it isn't quite like that," he replied. "There are fellows in the
profession, for instance, who are known to touch three figures a week,
and who simply live in motor-cars; it's a known fact. Other poor devils
like myself walk on with the crowd, or get an understudy--or something
of that kind."
"It must be nice to be an actor," said Bessie, looking at him with awe.
"It is--when you _are_ an actor," he replied solemnly. He moved away
a step or two restlessly, and then came back to her. "I say, Miss
Meggison--there's something I'd like to say to you."
"Not about the bill!" she pleaded.
"About the bill--yes; and about something else," he replied earnestly.
"The bill worries me horribly--and it worries me more in your case
than it would in the case of anyone else. I haven't any money, and
I've got a large appetite--which I endeavour to suppress as much as is
consistent with keeping a figure fit to be seen behind the footlights.
Many and many a tasty dish, Miss Meggison, which you may think I scorn,
I pass by because I simply feel that I have no right to touch it; it
would not be fair. I never come into your little dining-room without
seeing the figures of my bill in huge white characters on the wall; I'm
ashamed of myself."
"I wish you wouldn't speak of it," she urged.
"But I must speak of it; it haunts me," he exclaimed. "I know that in
time it will be all right; I know that in time I shall be able to pay
you in full--and pay other people as well. More than that, the time
will come when you will be proud of me--really proud of me."
"We're all proud of you now; I laugh still when I think of that time
when you gave me tickets for the pantomime, and I saw you as the front
part of the donkey."
"Don't!" he said in a low tone. "I know I was funny. Everyone said
so--but I could get no real expression into it; you can't when the
only way in which you can move your jaws is by a string. But I shall
do finer things than that. In the years to come I shouldn't be a bit
surprised if Arcadia Street was the scene of a rather imposing little
ceremony--on my account."
"Ceremony?" She looked at him in a bewildered fashion.
"Yes. They may in all probability affix a tablet to the house,
recording the fact that Harry Dorricott once lived here; it's
frequently done--there's a society for it. They will probably refer to
me then as 'poor Harry Dorricott'--and will say how much greater things
I might have done had I lived."
"Mr. Dorricott! You're not ill?"
"Oh dear, no; but I have a sort of feeling that I shall die young--or
at least comparatively young. So very many of our best people have
done that. I beg you won't alarm yourself, Miss Meggison," he added
hastily--"because I'm quite all right at the present moment; never felt
better in my life. The only thing that worries me is about you."
"About me?"
"Yes--because you see I'm actually living on you--and that's a shameful
thing. Perhaps you may wonder that I don't go away, and live on
somebody else--some fat and uninteresting old landlady, for instance,
who wouldn't matter so much."
"I shouldn't like you to do that, because she mightn't be kind to you,"
said Bessie.
"Oh--that isn't the reason," he replied, coming near to her, and
looking into her eyes. "You have been kind to me; there's never
been anyone in all the world that has done so much for me as you
have--helped me, and urged me on, and cheered me up. That's why,
although I owe you this money, I can't go away; I'd rather be a slave
to you than to anyone else. You didn't understand that--did you,
dear?" he whispered, not daring even to take her hands. "From the very
first moment, when I saw you looking out of the window into Arcadia
Street, my heart gave a sort of jump, and I knew exactly what had
happened to me. Bessie--it's because I love you that I can't go away."
"No--it isn't that; it's only because you're sorry for me, just as
quite a lot of other people are sorry for me," she said softly. "You
mustn't think that I don't understand, or that I'm ungrateful; I
shouldn't be telling the truth if I didn't say that it's quite the
nicest thing anyone has ever said to me in all my life. But I don't
love anyone--except my father--and Aubrey; I don't think I've got time
to love anyone. So you mustn't speak about it again, please; you must
forget it. And you can stay as long as you like--and the bill won't
matter."
"But you'll give me some better comfort than that, Bessie," urged the
boy. "I shan't always be poor; I shall make a great name for myself
some day, and then I shall be able to lift you out of all this, and
make you happy."
"I'm not sure that I want to be lifted out of it," she told him,
smiling. "Good night--and forget all about it. You're my friend always,
I know--and I want friends."
There in the dark garden, with perhaps an idea in his mind not wholly
theatrical, he lifted her hand to his lips before he turned away; and
she stood there, looking after him, with that warm touch still upon her
fingers, and with her heart beating a little more rapidly than usual.
After all, it must be nice to be loved, she thought; to be made much
of, and shielded from the cold, and from hunger and poverty; never
to listen to anything but gentle kindly words; never to have to meet
frowning tradesmen, or duns of any sort; never to trudge through the
streets on Saturday nights, with the certain knowledge that your skirts
were bedraggled, and your feet cold and wet, and that the money in the
thin worn purse had come perilously near to nothingness. Oh--that must
be good indeed!
She went back into the house--with a strange feeling that to-night
something had happened that had changed her; she would never be able to
make-believe any more as she had done. The touch of the boy's lips upon
her hand had wakened something in her that had merely lain dormant;
she cried out dumbly for her natural and proper birthright. The world
held something better for her, and it was denied her; she found herself
wondering, without being able to put the question into words, whether
she would ever get that which belonged to her, by right of the fact
that she was a woman, and young.
Mr. Aubrey Meggison came in presently, and insisted on telling her of a
few shots he had taken that night on the billiard-table--illustrating
his words by means of a walking-stick on the shabby cover of the
dining-room table--and how he had completely "wiped the floor" with his
opponent, to the unbounded astonishment of a choice circle which seemed
to consist of a billiard-marker, a bookmaker, and a long-dethroned
music-hall star. The triumphs of the evening, however, had not smoothed
his temper; he complained bitterly about the monotony of bread and
cheese, and pushed his food from him with a few elegant expressions of
disgust.
"Tact and forethought--that's what you're lackin', Bess," he suggested.
"You don't think to yourself what's the best thing to suit your
brother, and your brother's appetite. Not you; the first thing that
comes along'll do for him."
She bore his reproaches meekly, until presently he restlessly wandered
out of the house again. He encountered his father on the doorstep; and
Bessie heard a little wordy warfare between the two--Daniel Meggison
protesting virtuously that his son should be in bed at ten o'clock to
the minute--and that son suggesting airily that he knew what was best
for himself. Then Daniel came into the room, not too steadily, but
perhaps with the greater dignity on that account.
"What I've done this night will not soon be forgotten," he said,
with a roll of the head. "On their knees, they were, in a manner
of speaking--on their knees, my child. Nothing good enough for me;
apologies flying about everywhere. Haughty with them, mind you; no
sudden giving way on my part. At the same time--condescending; that's
the right word--condescending." He sat down, and waved his hand to show
exactly what manner he had adopted for the subjugation of the Arcadia
Arms, and fell asleep.
The shabby little room seemed intolerable, with the old man gurgling
and choking, and muttering in his sleep in his chair; once again the
girl slipped out into her garden. And now, as if to welcome her, the
kindly moon had come over the housetops, and was shedding a radiance
even there. She sat down at the table, and leant her elbows upon it;
she did not understand what this new and desperate longing was that
had come upon her. She had been content for so many years; had been
glad to accept things as they were, and to make the best of them. But
now to-night there was a new and passionate longing for a world and a
life that could never be hers at all. As she sat there, staring at the
shabby wall before her, the walls seemed to vanish; and there grew up
in their place a dim vision of a wide countryside, lying silent and
peaceful under the moon; of a life that was gentle and secure and easy.
And beyond that wide countryside, with a path of light made across it
by the moon, lay the shining sea. The vision was gone, just as rapidly
as it had come; the grey wall was there; out in the street coarse
hoarse voices sounded, and a shout of discordant laughter. She let her
hands fall on the table, and bowed her head upon her arms. What had she
to do with dreams?
It was at that precise moment that Mr. Gilbert Byfield determined to
walk out of the house next door into that plot of ground attached
to it which matched that in which Bessie Meggison was seated. That
particular plot of ground did not boast any of the adornments of the
Meggison garden; it was simply a stretch of bare earth, with scrubby
grass growing here and there in patches. Gilbert thought nothing of
that, because the place did not interest him, save for the fact that it
adjoined the garden next door; and he had already learned that in that
garden only was the Princess of Arcadia Street to be approached, if one
did it delicately. Accordingly he stole up to the dividing wall now,
and peered over it; and so, of course, saw that hopeless figure in the
moonlight, leaning over the old table.
As he had never seen her save with that demure brightness upon her
that seemed to belong to her, he was naturally shocked at this
sudden abandonment; besides, she looked pathetic indeed in her utter
loneliness in that place. He called softly to her over the wall.
"Hullo! I say--what's the matter?"
He called so softly that she did not hear him, nor did she change her
position. After a moment of hesitation, he glanced first at the back
of the house he had left, and then at the back of the other one; swung
himself up to the top of the wall; and jumped over. He alighted, as
luck would have it, on that defective board in the old box set under
the wall; swore softly to himself, and stepped down to the ground. The
noise he made had startled the girl; she got quickly to her feet, and
moved away from him.
"I'm dreadfully sorry," he began, smiling at her.
But she waved him back hurriedly. "Mr. Byfield!" she said in a whisper,
with a glance at the house. "Oh, please--you must go back!--you must
really go back!"
"If anyone comes, I can jump over in a moment," he said. "There's
nothing to be afraid of--and this is ever so much better than talking
over the wall, you know. By the way," he added ruefully, "I'm afraid
I've broken your--your ottoman."
"It doesn't matter," she said in a dull voice--"and it isn't an
ottoman. It's an old box."
"I don't believe it," he exclaimed. "It's an ottoman--and a very nice
one at that."
"You're laughing at me," she said, with the shyness of a child. "You
know it's all only pretending; you know what a shabby place this
is--really and truly. You've been good and kind about it; you've never
laughed at me, like other people."
"God forbid, child!"
"That's it!" she exclaimed quickly. "Child! That's what you think me;
that's what you believe me to be. If a child brought you a broken doll,
you'd be sorry, and make much of it, although in your heart you'd
laugh, because it was such a little thing to make a fuss about. And
you've been sorry for me--and have pretended with me that this place
was what it has never been. And in your heart you have never ceased to
laugh at me."
"In my heart I have never laughed at you at all," he said solemnly.
They had unconsciously drawn nearer to each other in the solitude
of the garden under the moon; their hands were touching. For now it
seemed that she wanted desperately to touch hands with some friendly
being--someone, for choice, who came out of the big world mysteriously,
as this man had done. She was so much of a child that she needed
comforting; so much of a woman that she needed loving.
"I was wrong to say that you had laughed at me," she said
penitently--"you have been the only one that has understood. I wonder
if you remember when you first looked over the wall?"
"Shall I ever forget it!" he exclaimed, in all honesty. "You see, I had
never imagined any place like this"--he glanced round about him, and
whimsically shook his head as he spoke--"and of course I was surprised.
And then I saw you--and I understood at once that you were so different
from anyone I had seen in Arcadia Street, or indeed anywhere. And so
we--we talked."
"I shall never forget it," she said. "I had always tried to
make-believe a little, because when one does that one gets away from
all the tiresome things--all the things that _must_ happen, and yet
that ought not to happen at all. You see, so many people seem always to
have held out hands to me for money; and I've had so little money to
give them."
"And so--just to enable you to forget them a little--you started this
great game of make-believe; this pretending that you were something
better (although that could never be, you know)--something bigger and
greater than you really were. The fine lady walked in her garden every
night, and saw the flowers grow, and heard the summer wind rustling the
trees and dreamed--what great dreams they were!"
She nodded, with shining eyes. "And then you one day looked over the
wall--and you seemed to understand in a moment. Any one else but you,
coming out of the big world, would simply have laughed, and would have
seen that this was an old carpet, too shabby even for the house--and
this a table we couldn't use for anything else--and that a box that no
one wanted. And yet in a moment--do you remember?--you knew perfectly
what each thing was. It was wonderful!"
"I remember." He nodded gravely. "I knew that was the ottoman--and
behind it the tapestry; I understood also how nice it was to have
coffee in the garden every evening. Arcadia Street doesn't run to
coffee--except in the morning."
"I had read somewhere--it was in a paper that came to the house--that
ladies and gentlemen take their coffee generally on the terrace.
Well, of course, we couldn't manage a terrace, and I couldn't quite
understand whether it was anything like the terrace you get to round
the corner, with the houses in a sort of half-circle, and the little
bit of green in front; only somehow I knew it couldn't be quite
like that; all I understood was that it was out of doors. So then
I understood the best thing I could do was to make the most of the
garden; and it really isn't half bad--is it?"
"It's a pity it isn't better appreciated," he said.
"Father said he didn't understand what I was driving at; and then he
always seemed to find the hole in the carpet and to trip over it. And
Amelia doesn't really make very good coffee; it's the sort you dare not
stir too much."
"Poor little Miss Make-Believe!" he said, a little sorrowfully. "I
wonder what you would do if the time came when some of your dreams came
true, when you didn't have to make-believe any more; when you walked
out of this place, and left behind all the shabby pretences of it. I
wonder what you would say then?"
"That's never likely to happen," she said, with a shake of the head.
"Father doesn't seem to belong to the rich side of the family. His
sister, who was here to-night--Aunt Julia, you know--has lots of money;
she owns houses, you know, and lives in Clapham."
"Wonderful Aunt Julia!" he said.
"Father has said over and over again that if he had what he deserves
he would be a rich man. I don't quite know what he means; he's never
very explicit about it. But sometimes at night, when he comes home
from--from his club, he cries a little, poor dear, and tells me what
he would give me if only he had what he ought to have. And I know he
would, too; he is really very generous by nature."
Gilbert Byfield knew enough of the girl's story by that time not to
need to ask questions. Ever since that first meeting with her, when he
had carefully gained her confidence over the wall, he had been able,
by the simple process of piecing together her innocent answers to his
questions, to understand what she did, and what sort of struggle she
was constantly engaged in. He summed up the shiftless father and the
shiftless son easily enough; understood, from the type of lodgers that
came to the house, how difficult it must be for this girl to make both
ends meet. Most he admired her unflinching courage, and above all that
curious fanciful child-like nature that nothing had been able to crush
or stamp out of her. With the most innocent feeling in the world, he
had fostered that, and encouraged it.
It had been hard at times to remember that she was not a child, and
that he had no right to treat her as such; it had, above all things,
been difficult for him to tell himself, over and over again, that the
life he lived in Arcadia Street was a sham, and that he was not the
poor man he seemed to be to her. She had been frankness itself with
him, and he should have been with her in return. Only of course he knew
that, once she understood that he was playing a part, her confidence
in him, as someone as poor as herself and as struggling, would be
gone. For a period not yet defined in any way he intended to keep that
fiction alive, and remain near her. And in that again there was no real
motive, save one of pity for the girl.
He asked a question now that had been on his lips many and many a time,
and yet that he had not uttered before. They were standing together
near the table, and she had one hand resting upon it; he noticed
how short the sleeve was, and guessed that she must long since have
outgrown this dress, and many others she possessed. He remembered
suddenly that her dresses had always seemed short. "How old are you,
little Make-Believe?" he asked.
"More than eighteen," she said; and laughed and blushed.
A shadow darkened the doorway of the house, and a man stood there.
Gilbert Byfield stood quite still, watching; for his presence there
would need explanation. The girl had drawn away from him, and was
peering at the man in the doorway; she spoke his name hesitatingly at
last--almost apologetically.
"Mr. Quarle?" she asked. "Do you want me?"
The man who stepped out from the doorway was a thickly-set man of
between fifty and sixty years of age, with thin grey hair and with a
somewhat sour-looking face. His shoulders were very broad, and he had
the appearance almost of a man whose head has been set too far forward;
the sharp clean-shaven face was thrust well out, as though the man
spent his time in peering into everything about him. He carried his
hands locked behind him; his voice was rather harsh. Certainly there
was nothing amiable-looking about him.
"I don't want you--but your father's asking for you," said the man.
"I'll go in at once," said Bessie. "Oh--Mr. Quarle," she added
nervously, slipping her hand through the arm of the man, and drawing
him forward a little--"this is Mr. Byfield--a friend of mine."
"Pleased to know you, sir," said Quarle, with a face that belied his
words. "New lodger?"
"I live--next door," said Gilbert, a little lamely. For the girl had
run into the house, and the situation was an absurd one. The only
fashion in which he could leave this man, whose appearance he did not
like, was by an undignified exit over the wall; and he had no wish for
that. He could have gone out into the little alley behind, but he knew
that the door at the end of his own particular garden was always kept
bolted. So he stood somewhat awkwardly looking at the newcomer, and
wondering whether he had better say something about the moon, or the
warmth of the night. The man relieved him of the difficulty by speaking
first.
"My name is Simon Quarle," he said, coming a step or two nearer to the
younger man, and lowering his voice. "You're not likely to have heard
of me; very few people have, because I keep myself to myself. It's a
habit of mine."
"And a very excellent habit too, I should imagine," said Gilbert with
meaning.
"I could wish it was a more general habit," retorted Quarle, with
a quick glance at the house. "Now, sir--I'm old enough to be your
father--old enough, under happier circumstances, to be the father of
that girl who has just left us. And the Lord knows she needs a father
badly."
"I believe she has one already," said Gilbert coldly.
"She supports a drunken reprobate who has that title," retorted the
man, with a snarl. "Perhaps, if he were worthy of the name, he might
have something to say to a man who sneaks over a back wall at night to
talk to his daughter."
Gilbert made a quick movement towards the man; Quarle did not flinch,
nor did he take his eyes from the face of the younger man. Again the
absurdity of his position was borne in upon Byfield; more than that, he
seemed to see in this strange creature someone who had a greater right
to say that he was the friend of Bessie--a friend of an older standing.
"You simply don't understand," said Gilbert. "From a younger man I
shouldn't stand it--but----"
"Never mind my years," said the other. "I'll do you the justice to
believe that yours has simply been the thoughtlessness of youth--the
carelessness of a man to whom women are all alike----"
"I see that you don't understand," broke in Gilbert hotly. "I have
been genuinely sorry to see this child slaving for those who should
really be supporting her; I have seen in her something purer and
sweeter than in any woman I have met yet."
"You're right there," said Simon Quarle, with a nod. "But you'd best
leave her alone to her garden, as she calls it, and to her dreams, and
to the hard workaday world she knows. You belong to another world; go
back to it."
"How do you know I belong to another world?" demanded Gilbert.
"Because I haven't lived in this one for nearly sixty years without
watching men, and growing to understand them. You don't belong to
Arcadia Street; you haven't the true stamp of it."
Gilbert took an impatient turn or two about the garden, and then came
back to this strange man, who had not moved. "But if I tell you that
I'm interested in her--that I want to help her----"
"Then I tell you that no help you can give her is of the sort she wants
or deserves," said Quarle steadily. "At the present time, you stand to
her doubtless as someone wonderful, who can talk to her as no man has
talked to her yet--understand her with the understanding of youth. And
presently, when the mood seizes you, you will turn your back on Arcadia
Street, and go off to the world you know and understand. But you will
leave her behind."
Again there was a pause between the two men, and again the younger one
strode about impatiently, and again the elder one stood still, watching
him. At last Gilbert came back to where Simon Quarle was standing.
"I beg your pardon if I spoke hastily just now," he said. "I had no
right to do that, because no man would speak as you have done unless he
was her friend."
"Thank you," said the other simply. "Anything else?"
"I want to help her--I want to lift her out of this slum in which she
lives--make some of her dreams come true. I am rich; I can do many
things secretly without her knowledge."
"You are young; would you marry her?"
"My dear sir--she's a child. Besides--I----"
"Besides--you belong to another world," broke in Quarle mockingly.
"Get back over your wall, my friend, and leave her alone. Much better
leave her to her dreams and her fancies, even if they are never to be
realized, than shatter them as you would shatter them. Get back over
your wall."
"You don't understand, and I don't suppose you ever will," exclaimed
Gilbert quickly. "But I shall find a way to help her yet."
"Perhaps--perhaps," said Simon Quarle, nodding his head slowly. "But
for the present get back over your wall!"
CHAPTER IV
THE PRINCESS GOES TO DINNER
THAT absurd business of climbing the wall again had to be got over, and
was safely accomplished; to do him justice, Mr. Simon Quarle refrained
from watching Gilbert's departure, and so took away one pang at least.
The last vision Gilbert had of him was as he dropped over into the
other garden, and, looking back, saw the old man standing with his
hands clasped behind his back, and his bent shoulders turned towards
where Gilbert had disappeared, and his eyes fixed upon the opposite
wall.
But whatever resolution Gilbert Byfield may have formed to help the
girl, and to lift her out from the sordid life in which he had found
her, for the present he did nothing. Indeed, for the moment he decided
after a restless night to abandon Arcadia Street altogether, and to
touch again that life to which he most properly belonged. He would go
back into that artificial existence, and, looking on this picture and
on that, would decide clearly which was the most worthy. Which is to
say in other words that the old life still drew him, and that this
quixotic thing about which he had concerned himself could be easily
laid aside, for a time at least.
Thus it happened that Mr. Jordan Tant, in his extremely neat and trim
chambers, was informed by his extremely neat and trim man-servant
one morning that Mr. Byfield had arrived. At the same moment the
man-servant was thrust aside, and Gilbert strode in.
"Now, I don't want a lot of fuss, or a lot of talk," said Gilbert, a
little impatiently; "you've just got to accept me as I am, and not talk
about what I have been, or what I have done. You should know by this
time that I cut up my life into slices; and when one slice is done with
I go on to the next with a new appetite. Arcadia Street is gone--lost
somewhere in the wilds of Islington. I am back again in civilization.
What's the news?"
"There's no news that I'm aware of," said Mr. Tant, a little sulkily.
"What news should there be?"
"Something's upset you, Tant," said Gilbert, with a laugh. "Come,
now--I'm sure to hear about it sooner or later; why not tell me now?"
Jordan Tant stood with his arms folded, and his head a little on one
side, and with an aggressive shoulder turned towards the other man.
When he began to speak he shook himself almost in the fashion of a
spoilt child that resents an injury.
"It isn't fair," he said, in his thin voice; "it really isn't fair. You
go away for an unlimited time, and in a sense you leave the field to
me. I cultivate that field; I'm careful about it; I am attentive and
anxious--in fact, I work very hard. Then suddenly you step in, and if I
may use such a term in so delicate a matter--you gather the crop."
"My dear Tant, you are really more Tant-like than ever," said Gilbert.
"Why won't you tell me what you really mean in half a dozen words?"
"One word will suffice," said Jordan, turning upon him, and speaking
with a sort of mild fierceness. "And that one word is--'Enid.' While
you've been living in your blessed Arcadia Street, on bread and cheese
and moonshine, I've been seeing much of Miss Ewart-Crane; and there
has been a gradually increasing respect for me in the family. You have
shamefully neglected the lady; I have given her companionship. Now you
turn up again, and will doubtless be welcomed with open arms, as having
returned to the fold. For you will the fatted calf be prepared; I shall
be lucky if I'm invited to the feast at all."
"My dear Tant," said Gilbert, laughing, "you are jumping at
conclusions. Because I walk out of Arcadia Street, and come back here,
is it to be said that I am about to take up the old life again in the
old way? Am I going to call on the fair Enid, and stay to lunch--or
perhaps drop in, in immaculate garments, for afternoon tea; or dine
with her and her esteemed mother in a state of hopeless boredom; and
take them afterwards to a theatre where the play's something I don't
want to see? Perish the thought! I'm going to leave all that sort of
thing to you."
Mr. Jordan Tant shook his head sadly. "It's quite impossible," he said.
"I'm a useful man when there's no one else about; there you have me in
a nutshell. If you had persisted in your folly, and had remained in
Arcadia Street, it might have happened that some fine morning, or some
fine evening, when Enid was more bored than usual, she would have said
that she would put up with me for the rest of her life; and we should
have got on very well. But about you always," he went on petulantly,
"is a species of storm-cloud--a very whirlwind of romantic excitement.
Now there's no whirlwind about me--and it's really the whirlwind
fellows that attract the girls. One never knows what you're going to
do; while, on the other hand, everyone knows what I'm going to do every
hour of the day. I'm a sort of damp squib, that just fizzles about on
its bit of ground, and does no harm to anybody; you're a gorgeous sort
of rocket, that might even set fire to a town if you felt that way
inclined. At all events, while I'm fizzing about down below, you'll be
illuminating your bit of sky."
"You're really most complimentary," said Gilbert Byfield. "But suppose
I tell you that I've no intention of stepping into the place you have
so laboriously made for yourself--what then?"
"It wouldn't make the least difference," said Tant, shaking his head.
"Mrs. Ewart-Crane is all for you; she never ceases to speak of you. I
think she knows that one of these days you'll go back and settle down
comfortably with Enid. You see, the thing is really arranged."
"Oh--nonsense!" exclaimed Gilbert impatiently. "That was a boy and girl
affair--a sort of arrangement made between our people, years and years
ago. Besides, suppose I don't want to settle down--what then?"
"They'll make you; they'll persuade you," said Mr. Tant gloomily.
"Mrs. Ewart-Crane is a mother, and has one thought in her mind, and
one only--Enid's future. You'll simply be told that you've got to get
married. After that, perhaps, they'll let you run about as much as you
like--that is, within limits."
"We shall see about that," said his friend. "By the way, what are you
doing to-night? We might dine together."
"I am taking Enid and her mother to dinner and to the theatre," said
Mr. Tant with dignity. "Perhaps you'd like to suggest that you will go
too?"
"Certainly," said Gilbert, with alacrity. "Most kind of you; I'll join
you with pleasure."
"I knew it!" Mr. Jordan Tant threw up his hands in a sort of comical
despair. "I can see myself escorting Mrs. Ewart-Crane all the evening,
and compelled to be polite while inwardly boiling. It's a very unfair
world."
Just as Gilbert was going Mr. Tant called him back, to deliver a word
of warning. "Understand me clearly, Byfield," he said, "I will not
have you springing in suddenly in any dramatic fashion. You shall be
announced in a commonplace way--your return referred to as something
quite of an ordinary kind. I will fetch the ladies this evening, but I
shall tell them that you await us at the restaurant. There shall be no
surprises."
"I don't want any surprises," said Gilbert, laughing.
Despite all his precautions, Mr. Tant found himself as usual very much
in the background when it came to that moment of meeting between the
gentleman from Arcadia Street and Mrs. Ewart-Crane and her daughter.
Mr. Tant had made all arrangements for a very excellent dinner; and he
endeavoured, with what dignity he might, to take the head of affairs.
But Enid was anxious to know everything concerning a certain Arcadia
Street that had been spoken of, and she leaned eagerly towards Gilbert,
demanding to know what he had been doing, and if it was really true
that he had lived among people who were a sort of savages--and what he
had had to eat, and how he had managed to live at all.
"There's nothing remarkable about it at all," said Mr. Tant savagely.
"Anyone would think that he had been exploring some wild region where
the foot of man had never trod; instead of which, he's simply been
living in a very thickly populated part of London, within a cab fare of
his own home--and all for a whim! Besides, slumming's out of date."
"It wasn't exactly slumming--and besides, he really went to study the
people--didn't you, Gilbert?" asked Enid, in her high voice. She was
a tall, handsome girl, with a good carriage, and an abundance of good
health and spirits; this evening she was particularly glad to see her
old friend back again in his place among men.
"What I never can understand," said Mrs. Ewart-Crane, adjusting a
bracelet on a very well-formed arm, "is why we need study men at
all--or women, for the matter of that. I grant you that in your own
sphere you are naturally interested in the people about you; but beyond
that I decline to go."
"Exactly, my dear Mrs. Ewart-Crane," broke in Tant. "Just what I
always say: let us remember always the dividing line, and stick to it.
We should get jumbled up in the most horrible way if we didn't remember
the dividing line always, and above all, if we didn't remember that the
people who live in the Arcadia Streets of the world are very right and
proper in their own places, and very wrong and improper elsewhere. The
people of position in this world are those who have come by right to
the top; it's fellows like Byfield that put wrong notions into their
heads, by mixing with 'em, and coming down, in a sense, to their level.
I assure you that when I discovered him he was living in a perfectly
shocking place."
Mrs. Ewart-Crane closed her eyes, and shivered. "Then I'm very glad
to think that he's left it," she said. "For my part, I wish to hear
no more about it; let us regard it as something happily done with and
forgotten."
"But I want to hear about it, mamma," persisted Enid, laughing
good-humouredly. "I'm quite sure there was an attraction down
there--wasn't there?" She turned to Gilbert with a smile.
"Many attractions," he replied evasively. "All sorts of poor people,
toiling cheerfully, and having rather a good time in their own way, in
spite of poverty."
"Don't let him put you off, Miss Enid," said Tant, a little
maliciously. "There was an attraction--I saw her, and I heard about
her. And I don't mind saying that she was very pretty."
"Gilbert!" The girl was looking at him quizzically. "I want to hear all
about this. What was she like? Big and rather brazen--quite a child of
nature, with what they call a heart of gold--eh? I know the sort."
"I beg again, Enid, that the subject may be dropped," said Mrs.
Ewart-Crane icily. But no one took the least notice of her.
"I'm afraid you don't know the sort," said Gilbert. He was annoyed at
the turn the conversation had taken--annoyed, too, at Jordan Tant for
his breach of faith. He hated the thought of discussing the girl with
these people; he knew that the more he tried to explain his feeling
about the matter, the less they would be able to understand. But the
rather haughty eyes of Enid were upon him, and he had to go on, against
his will. "The girl Tant is talking about is a little hard-working
thing, who lived in the next house to that in which I stayed; and she
keeps a drunken father and a reprobate brother by the simple process of
letting lodgings. Now you know all about it."
"How touching--and how romantic!" exclaimed the girl. "And the great
man from the great world took a deep interest in her, and stayed
perhaps a little longer in his slum on her account--eh?"
"For my part," said Mrs. Ewart-Crane stiffly, "since the subject must
be discussed, I have never been able to understand what people let
lodgings for. If they've got a house, why not live in it, and not give
over bits of it to other people?"
Gilbert Byfield glanced at his watch. "We shall be late for the first
act," he said.
"Which of course puts an end to the discussion," Enid said, as she rose
from the table. "Of course, if you'd like me to send her anything that
would be useful, I should be only too pleased. Mother likes me to be
charitable."
The play proved to be dull (at least to Gilbert Byfield), and the
evening seemed to stretch on interminably. For the man was haunted by
the miserable feeling that this child, in her common back-yard--this
girl he had understood, as he thought, so perfectly--could never by
any chance be understood by those who had not intimately touched her
life. He was puzzled to think what he could do to carry out that brave
determination of his to help her--to lift her out of her surroundings.
If he remained where he was, among his own people, and in his own
sphere, he deserted the child; if he went back to her, he deserted
them, and took up his life in surroundings uncongenial, except so far
as she was concerned. And he saw that it was utterly impossible to go
half-way about one matter or the other; Arcadia Street was not to be
brought into the West End and dumped down there.
It happened that between the acts he went out to smoke a cigarette,
and found himself, with a dozen other men, near the open doors of
the theatre. A few people were strolling listlessly outside in the
street--pausing now and then to stare in at the well-dressed men, and
to whisper. And once a girl went past--a thin shabby girl in black; and
he was reminded so forcibly of Bessie Meggison that, without knowing
what he did, he hurried out of the place, and went after her. Fifty
yards down the street she stopped to look in at a shop window; and it
was not Bessie at all, but someone quite different. Yet the thought
assailed him, as he went back to the theatre, that just in that fashion
the girl might be wandering alone in this horrible London--poorly clad,
and not too well fed. He hated the thought of his own prosperity; quite
unnecessarily called himself a brute, because he had had a good dinner,
and was supposed to be out in search of enjoyment.
Never for a moment, of course, did it occur to him that his point of
view was wrong; never for a moment did he understand that properly his
life could not touch the girl's, and could have nothing in common with
it. He accused himself unnecessarily, when the only mistake that had
been made in the whole matter was in going to Arcadia Street at all,
and above all going there under false colours. That point of view he
did not regard in the least.
But he walked home that night, after leaving his friends, feeling
miserably that it would have been better if he had buried himself
for ever in Arcadia Street; if in some impossible way, he could have
forgotten this selfish purposeless life he had always lived, and could
have flung himself into some real work that would have brought him
nearer in thought and feeling to the girl. Not for the first time he
cried out against artificiality; metaphorically speaking, he wanted to
put on rough clothing and thick boots, and plunge into the real fierce
work of the world.
Some sense of the injustice of the world in meting out such different
lots to such different women urged him, after a lapse of days during
which he had been at the beck and call of Enid, to go back to Arcadia
Street. He told himself that it would be merely an experimental visit;
he meant to see if something could not be done to shake old Meggison
into an understanding of his responsibilities, and perhaps even to urge
the derelict brother into an attempt to earn a living. That was what
he told himself; in the end, of course, it amounted to his going with
the prospect of seeing the girl, and of doing something, in a wholly
indefinite way, for her personally.
[Illustration: "'I MAY GO AWAY AGAIN AT A MOMENT'S NOTICE.'" _Page 66_]
He was a little shy about meeting her; so many ridiculous suggestions
had been thrown to him by Jordan Tant, and by Enid and her mother,
concerning this girl, that the old freedom between them, so far at
least as he was concerned, seemed a thing of the past. Even when that
summer evening arrived when, leaning over the wall, he saw her seated
in her garden, and called to her, it was with a new constraint.
"I've come back, you see," he said.
She was genuinely very glad to see him; he found himself wondering if
the eyes of Enid could by any chance ever light up at his coming as did
the eyes of this child. Things were different in Arcadia Street, he
knew; almost he wished that they were not--almost he wished that this
happy familiarity might obtain in other places with which he was more
naturally in touch.
"I thought--thought you were not coming back," said the girl. "And yet
I hoped----"
"Hoped that I was--eh?" he supplemented. "Even now, I don't know how
long I may be able to stop here; I may go away again at a moment's
notice--and never come back at all. Don't look so grave about it;
you can go on making-believe, you know, just as well as ever."
"It won't be quite the same," she said. "You see, in that you've helped
me--because, as I told you, you understood."
"And how have you been getting on?" he asked. "I mean, of course--the
house?"
She stood against the wall over which he leaned; she did not look up at
him when she replied. "Oh, pretty well, thank you," she said in a low
voice. "Nothing ever happens, you know, in Arcadia Street--except the
thing you don't want to happen."
"Your father?"
"Father is quite established again at his club; they think a lot of
him at his club," she said. "And Aubrey is positive he will hear of
something to do very shortly."
"That's good news," said Gilbert. "By the way--that Mr. Quarle I met
when I was here last--the night I came over into your garden--do you
know him very well?"
"Oh, yes; he's been a great friend of mine for nearly two years. But
for him I think we couldn't keep the house going; he is the only lodger
I have ever had who pays money without being asked for it. He's simply
wonderful. Not that he's well off; he's only retired from something,
and I don't think the something was very much before he retired from
it. But his payments--oh--they're beautifully regular!"
"He's a valuable man," said Gilbert, not without a curious little
feeling of jealousy that anyone else should be good to the girl except
himself. Then the thought of what he had meant to do--the remembrance
of the girl, shabby and forlorn, who had walked past the theatre that
night, and had been something like Bessie Meggison--urged him to say
something else.
"Bessie--(you don't mind my calling you Bessie--do you?)--have you ever
had a holiday? I mean, have you ever got away from this dull house for
one long evening--and seen bright lights, and happy faces--and heard
music? Have you ever done that?"
Still leaning against the wall, she shook her head slowly, without
looking up. "There hasn't been time--or money," she said simply.
"If you found the time--and I found the money?" he suggested. "What
then?"
She looked up at him wonderingly; did not seem for a moment to
understand what he meant. At last she said slowly--"I'm afraid it
wouldn't do, you know; it really wouldn't do at all. Someone would be
wanting me--someone would be calling for me."
"I should let them call for once," said Gilbert. "Just suppose for
once, little Make-Believe, that we went out of Arcadia Street--and far
beyond Islington--just our two selves. There are certain places called
theatres, you know."
She nodded, with a sigh. "I know," she said. "That is, of course,
I don't know much about what they're like inside; the outsides are
wonderful. But I expect they're very expensive."
"We might manage it--just for once," he urged. "I could save up, you
know--go without something."
It needed a lot of persuasion before she would consent at all; but at
last she named a night when it was probable that father would be more
in requisition at his club even than usual, and when Aubrey would be
engrossed in the mysteries of a billiard handicap. She would go then;
and, the better to preserve the proprieties (for Arcadia Street was
given to gossip), would meet him at a certain spot not a hundred yards
from the Arcadia Arms.
He began to understand, almost at the last moment, that the expedition
must be conducted in her own fashion; he had the delicacy to understand
that he must be shabby to match her poor shabbiness. So that it is
probable very few of his friends would have recognized Mr. Gilbert
Byfield, had they seen him waiting about at the corner of a certain
street in Islington, in a well-worn tweed suit and a billycock hat.
At that time he did not like the idea at all; he would have liked to
whirl her away in a hansom, and do the thing properly at a first-class
restaurant, with stalls at a theatre to follow. He wondered a little
how the evening was going to pass.
And yet, after all, it proved to be rather pleasant--viewed as a new
experience. Pleasant, to begin with, to see that little thin figure
coming towards him; to hold for a moment the little hand in the worn
glove, and to notice with satisfaction how neat she was, and how
tastefully dressed, despite the poor things she had on. He had the
grace to forget that a swift hansom might be hailed with the raising
of a hand; found an omnibus almost comfortable--quite delightful,
in fact, with the girl seated beside him, wearing upon her face that
extraordinary look of complete happiness. He forgot even to think what
his friends would have said had they seen him riding in such a vehicle,
dressed in such fashion, and with such a companion.
The choosing of a restaurant was a difficulty, because he scarcely knew
the cheaper or more dingy ones. She drew back in alarm at the prospect
of entering a place gay with electric light; became reconciled at last
to a little place of few tables and fewer waiters; sat open-eyed and
breathless at the glory of a fifth-rate place, with a decided smell of
the kitchen about it every time a creaking door was opened near her.
She did not talk much; only occasionally she glanced at him, and when
she did she smiled that slow grave smile of gratitude and friendliness.
Afterwards he found himself, for the first time in his life, in the
upper circle at a theatre; congratulated himself on the fact that a
friend he saw in a box below would not be likely to raise his eyes to
the third row of that particular part of the building. He contented
himself, not with looking at a play he had already seen, but with
watching the thin face of the girl beside him--the bright eyes and the
half-parted lips. Once, at a moment that was thrilling, she gripped
his arm; and for quite a long time kept her hand there, holding to him
while she watched the stage.
Coming out of the theatre, in the whirl and rush of people homeward
bound, he got her into the hansom almost before she knew what had
happened; it was only after the horse had started for Arcadia Street
that she looked up at him reproachfully--shocked and awed by this
friend who could spend so much money in a single evening. She voiced
that thought as they drove along.
"You'll have to go without quite a lot for this, Mr. Byfield--won't
you?" she asked wistfully. "I mean--it has been a frightfully expensive
evening."
"I don't mind--for once," said Gilbert. "The only question in my mind
is--have you really had a good time?"
She heaved a big sigh. "I should like to do it all over again," she
said softly--"but to do it much more slowly. It has been wonderful!"
This was the one man in all the world that had ever thought about
her, or had ever done her a kindness. Small wonder then that her eyes
spoke more than gratitude when she put that little hand into his again
in Arcadia Street, before the shabby house swallowed her up, and the
door closed upon her. No one saw her, because Arcadia Street, save on
Saturday nights, goes early to bed.
CHAPTER V
THE GREAT GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE
IN the course of many scrambling, shambling years Mr. Daniel Meggison
had learnt much, in the sordid sense, concerning the value of men. Had
it been necessary for him, at any time in his later life, to pass a
strict examination in the Gentle Art of Tapping People, he would in all
probability have come out of the ordeal with flying colours, as one
having vast experience.
For he could have told you to a nicety how, in the case of this man,
you must not try for more than half a crown, and must be jocular with
him; how, in another case, you might fly higher, and whine for a
sovereign, with a pitiful tale pitched to charm the coin out of his
pockets; and how, in other cases, you would have to drop your demands
so low as a shilling or even possibly a sixpence. It is not too much
to say that every man, in a very special sense, had for Mr. Daniel
Meggison his price; and that on all and sundry occasions he was only
too ready to exact that price from his fellows.
Exactly how far back in the years he had really made any attempt to
earn an honest living it is impossible to say, and he had probably
long since forgotten. It had at the beginning been a mere accidental
business; a temporary loss of work had thrown him into the willing
arms, as it were, of a wife who had always done something to help
him. It merely became necessary for her to increase her efforts; Mr.
Meggison was in no hurry to look for work, and gradually the truth
was forced upon him that he need never do so again. True, he made a
pretence, for something like twelve months, to gain a livelihood, but
with no ardour in the pursuit; and so gradually drifted into that great
and marvellous army which always in a big city manages to exist pretty
comfortably without working at all.
He learnt their tricks and their ways--even their little catch-phrases
slipped naturally from his tongue. He might have been heard talking
loudly concerning the affairs of the nation, and how they should be
conducted; he knew his newspaper by heart. More than that, he might
have been heard often demanding to know why this man and that did not
obtain the employment that was obviously waiting for him in a busy
world. And so in time he grew to the belief that he was in all respects
something of a poor gentleman, for whom others must provide money, and
who, by reason of a certain superiority of birth and education and
resources, stood outside the mere common grubbing workaday world.
There were, of course, mean shifts and petty frauds to be encountered;
but in time the man grew hardened even to those. There was a bed in
which he might sleep, and there was food for him, and tobacco always;
he became a familiar figure in his poor neighbourhood, and accepted
with each day that which was provided for him, not without grumbling.
In time the patient wife folded her hands, and sighed, and fell asleep;
and the patient daughter took up the burden quite naturally, as it had
been bequeathed to her. The legacy of the shiftless father, who was
always to be protected and looked after, descended to her, and was
taken up as a sacred trust.
But with that shiftless life that had been his portion so long the
man had not lost his natural cunning--the cunning of the creature
that preys upon his fellows. Money was necessary, for the occasional
replenishing of his scanty wardrobe, and for tobacco and drinks; he
would have been a poor thing without money in his pockets. Hence the
borrowing--hence the tapping of any and every one with whom he came in
contact. Therefore, too, it is small wonder that he turned his eyes at
last towards Gilbert Byfield, with something of a smacking of lips. For
here was higher game; here was a man who might, if handled carefully,
be a man of sovereigns instead of paltry shillings.
The man was not above playing the spy, and he had of course a jealous
interest in the fate of that chief breadwinner--his daughter. More than
once he had shivered, with a very genuine horror, at the prospect of
love or marriage being even suggested to her; had been short with Harry
Dorricott, when he had seen that boy's eyes turn with an unmistakable
look of affection in them in Bessie's direction. For what, in the name
of all that was tragic, was to become of Mr. Daniel Meggison if his
daughter left him?
From behind the curtain of a window he had seen the stranger who lived
next door talking to the girl over the wall; had been inclined to
resent that at once. At the same time, he had a craven feeling that it
would not do to upset Bessie; he had better watch, and be silent. So
he had seen other meetings, until at last that night had arrived when
Bessie was not in the house, and when she came in very late, and crept
up to her room like the guilty truant she was. And had there not been a
sound of wheels outside the house? Daniel Meggison shivered in his bed,
and wondered what he had done in all his blameless life to deserve this.
Questioned cautiously on the following morning, Bessie would say but
little. Yes--she had been out--all the evening--with a friend. No--she
had not spent money over it; she would not have thought of doing such
a thing; the friend had paid for everything. She hoped that her father
was not annoyed, and that he had not wanted for anything.
"No, my child, I am not suggesting that I wanted for anything; I spent
the greater part of the evening at my club," he replied stiffly. "Only,
of course, as a father I am naturally anxious for you--and I----"
"It was a very nice friend--a very nice one indeed," she broke in; and
he decided that it would not be wise to pursue the matter then.
For the sake of his very livelihood, however, he saw that he must be
alert; it might even happen that this precious child would be snatched
away from him. He went to that club of his less frequently; came into
the house at unexpected moments, and was to be found loitering about
on the staircase, and in rooms in which he had no business. Also he
haunted that garden, and had a watchful eye upon the house next door.
He hungered for another sight of this man who could afford to pay for
an evening's entertainment, and could travel in cabs.
He knew, of course, that Gilbert Byfield was not as other men in
Arcadia Street. Apart from his own observation, he knew instinctively
that Bessie had hitherto held aloof from everyone; had gone about
her duties soberly--a grown woman long before her time; he did her
the justice to know that no ordinary man would have attracted her
attention, or have drawn her away from the life her father had mapped
out for her even for an hour. More than that, those who dwell in
Arcadia Street have not money for evening pleasures or for cabs; and
there had been from the beginning a sort of mystery about this young
man who lived next door. Mr. Meggison determined to lie in wait for
that young man, and to confront him.
He began artfully. On one particular evening he did not, as usual,
shuffle off down the street, with his pipe between his teeth; he waited
about in the house instead. Bessie hinted that she supposed he would be
going out soon; he declared that he would wait a little while; he might
not, in fact, be going out at all. He seated himself in his shabby easy
chair, and declared that he was very comfortable where he was. He had
been too much at the club of late; home was the proper place for the
man and the head of a family, after all.
Bessie was moving towards the garden, when he sat up and called to her.
"I dislike the idea of your sitting out in that garden so much in the
evening, my child," he said, with a new tenderness that was startling
to the girl. "Here you've been cooped up in the house all day long--no
fresh air--no exercise; and now you expect to go and sit out there. We
must take care of you, Bessie. Much better go for a walk."
"But I like the garden, father," the girl urged faintly.
"For to-night, my dear--to please me," said Daniel Meggison, with an
unaccustomed smile--"go for a walk. There may be little matters of
shopping which you ordinarily leave to Amelia; go yourself on this
occasion; you will probably buy more economically than she will. You
must think of these matters in dealing with a household. Come, Bessie,
I know what is best for you; put your hat on, and go out."
She kissed him obediently, and thanked him for his care of her; and
went out into the hot streets. She was disappointed, because the garden
would have been welcome, and it might just have happened that a face
would look over the wall and a voice call to her; and then the ending
of the day would be good and complete.
But Daniel Meggison, like greater men before him, had a motive. He
desired to draw that shy being who dwelt on the other side of the wall;
to come face to face with him, if possible, and discover something
about him. He argued that it was a rare thing for Bessie not to be in
the garden late in the evening if the weather happened to be fine,
and that the man on the other side of the wall would be naturally
surprised, and perhaps alarmed. Mr. Daniel Meggison chuckled to himself
at the thought of his own cunning, and sat down in such a position that
he could watch the garden. He had not long to wait.
Mr. Gilbert Byfield was confident that on this particular evening the
girl would be in the garden; and he wanted to talk to her. She had
rather avoided him during these past few days, and he had already
come to understand that Arcadia Street was a remarkably dull place,
unless it was actually represented by her. Consequently, on this
evening he had determined that he would see her, if possible, and
that he would have a little tender whimsical explanation with her, in
which, appropriately enough, he would play the part of a species of
elderly friend or brother, and would in fact be very good to her. He
recognized that that feeling of protective tenderness for the girl was
growing; but he told himself sternly that it was, of course, merely the
protective tenderness of a friend. On that point he was very strong.
He had come back to Arcadia Street because he was interested in her;
and when the time came for him to leave Arcadia Street he would, of
course, leave it with regret on her account. He would not think about
it to-night; he simply recognized that the time was coming when he must
know Arcadia Street no more.
An inspection of the garden over the wall showed it to be empty,
but the lighted house was beyond. It occurred to him that in all
probability she had stepped inside for a moment; he would get over the
wall, and would surprise her when she came out again. He did so, and,
carefully avoiding the broken boards in the ottoman that was not an
ottoman, made his way cautiously towards the house. He sat down on one
of the rickety chairs near the crazy table, and waited.
This was Mr. Daniel Meggison's opportunity. He rose with an air of
importance, and laid down his pipe; pulled down his waistcoat, and
set his smoking-cap a little rakishly on one side of his head; and
sauntered out. He went with the air of a gentleman about to gaze upon
the beauty of the evening; his face was indeed turned towards the sky
at the moment that he emerged from the door and stepped on to the
ragged old carpet.
Gilbert Byfield had risen, in the surprise of the encounter; he stood
watching old Meggison. Meggison, for his part, allowed his eyes to come
down from their contemplation of the stars, and so gradually to rest
upon the intruder who stood before him. He gave a very fine start, in
the most approved fashion, and then stood in a dignified attitude, with
a hand thrust into his waistcoat, looking at Gilbert up and down.
"Sir!" exclaimed Meggison.
"I--I beg your pardon," stammered Gilbert, looking helplessly at the
wall over which he had scrambled.
"Sir--you are an intruder--a trespasser upon the privacy of my family,
my home, and my property!" said Mr. Meggison, keeping his voice
remarkably low, and watching the door leading to the house. "What do
you mean by it, sir?--what do you want?"
"There is nothing to make a fuss about, Mr. Meggison," said Gilbert
quietly. "I live next door here; I came over in order to have a word or
two with--with your daughter."
"Nothing to make a fuss about?" echoed Meggison, still in those
cautious tones. "Came over to see my daughter? And what do you suppose,
sir, her father will have to say to such a proceeding?"
"I do not wish to be offensive, Mr. Meggison," said the younger
man--"but I fancy her father has not troubled very much about her until
this moment. Don't bluster, sir; I am her friend before everything
else."
Daniel Meggison took a step forward, and looked at the other; took
a step back, and rolled his head threateningly; took another step
forward, and laid a hand on Byfield's arm. "Sir," he said solemnly--"I
am sure of it. Only you must forgive the anger and the suspicion of a
parent to whom his child is very precious. She has no mother, sir."
"I know that," said Gilbert. "I had no right, of course, to trespass on
your premises, Mr. Meggison--for that I owe you an apology. But I----"
"Not another word, sir--not another word, I beg," exclaimed Meggison,
taking his hand and wringing it. "I like the look of you, sir; I like
the blunt fearlessness with which you scramble over a wall; you are a
man, sir!"
"You're very good," replied Gilbert awkwardly. "Is Miss--Miss Meggison
in the house? I should like to speak to her."
"My daughter, sir, has gone out," said Meggison, seating himself, and
waving a hand grandiloquently towards the other chair, "on a necessary
errand connected with household matters. Poor child--poor child; I wish
sometimes she did not have to work so hard."
"So do I," said Gilbert, looking squarely at him. "She's young, you
know, Meggison--hardly more than a child; and all her youth is slipping
away, and she'll only know too late that it's gone. It seems a pity,
doesn't it?"
Daniel Meggison sniffed audibly, and turned his head away; began slowly
and methodically to search himself, until presently he drew from out
his clothing a doubtful-looking handkerchief. This he applied first to
one eye, and then to the other.
"Youth, sir, is a beautiful thing," he said. He gave a glance towards
the house, and then leant across the table, and laid a hand on the arm
of the younger man; he still kept that handkerchief to one eye, but
the other was bright and alert. "Don't misunderstand me; don't think
that I speak lightly. I have watched that child grow up--like a flower,
sir. I have lain awake at night thinking about her--wondering about
her--planning for her. I have mentioned to friends at my--my club that
I am tortured concerning her. 'What,' I have asked, 'is to become of
one so tender--so loving to an unfortunate father--so willing to work
for that unfortunate father?' That is the question I have asked others
as well as myself. Mr. Byfield, she is not strong; in other words, she
is very frail. Her mother was never strong; I worshipped her mother,
and her mother (I can say it with pride) was devoted to me. You are
her friend--Bessie's friend, I mean; has it ever occurred to you that
she is not strong? I am her father--you will understand my anxiety."
Gilbert Byfield had got up with some impatience from his chair, and
had moved away down the length of the garden. For a moment he could
not trust himself to speak, or to answer that hypocritical whining
voice. He knew, however, that if he was to do anything to help the girl
he must control himself, and must make what use he could of the one
instrument ready to his hand. So he walked back to the table, and stood
there, with his hands in his pockets, looking down at the old man.
"I am glad we think alike," he said slowly. "I do not think she is
strong; it is a thousand pities that she cannot be taken out of this
place--a thousand pities that she has to work so hard to--to support
other people."
"I agree with you," said Meggison, eagerly getting up from his chair,
and coming hurriedly round the table to the young man. "Sometimes,
sir," he exclaimed, with a sort of feeble passion--"sometimes I am
roused almost to madness at the thought that I am so helpless--that I
can do nothing. The truth of the matter is that I was never brought
up to do anything--not anything that would pay; I blame my parents
bitterly for that. My late wife--devoted soul!--would often say that I
was never really fitted to cope with the world. 'You are by nature and
by instinct, Daniel, a gentleman and a man of leisure,' she would say;
'it seems natural that others should provide for you.' And she knew
me--knew me intimately, sir."
"I'm sure she did," said Gilbert, looking at him steadily. "But we are
wandering from the subject a little--the subject of your daughter. Her
mother is gone; it is not too late to do something for the child."
"True--very true," exclaimed Meggison, with an air of deep
determination. "Bless you, my dear sir! Now--what shall we do? Let's
put our heads together."
As though he meant to carry that suggestion into effect literally, Mr.
Daniel Meggison pushed the old smoking-cap a little further on to one
side of his head, and leaned nearer to his companion, and assumed a
very wise expression. Gilbert, with a glance at the house, began to
speak in a cautious tone.
"It has to be understood, of course, in the first place, that whatever
is done is done for the girl only. Do you understand?"
Mr. Meggison stared at him almost with indignation; he opened his eyes
very wide. "Of course--of course--Bessie only. You leave that to me;
I'll see to that."
"I'll see to that also," retorted Gilbert. "In the second place,
whatever is done is done by you."
"By me?" The man stared at him with growing uneasiness. "But I
can't----"
"I mean that whatever is done for the girl must be done for her by her
father--so far as she knows. She is the last in the world to accept
anything from me, and I would not ask her to do so; it would be
an insult. I ask you to do so"--(Mr. Meggison pocketed that insult
cheerfully, and said nothing)--"because through you I can do what I
could not do for myself. For example, if we are to help this poor
daughter of yours, money will be required."
"Yes--of course--money," replied Mr. Meggison, rubbing his hands, and
nodding his head many times. "Oh, yes--of course money."
"And that must come through her father, as the only proper person
who can give it to her. Again, in other words, Meggison, it becomes
necessary, in order that this whim of mine may be carried out, that
you and I should have a little secret understanding with each other.
Whatever is necessary to be paid, I shall pay you, and you in turn will
pay----"
"Somebody else," broke in Meggison, nodding again, and laying a
forefinger against the side of his nose. "Splendid notion--and very
easy--eh?" He coughed, and hesitated for a moment. "Should I, for
instance--begin to-night?"
"I think not," said Gilbert quietly.
"Oh--you think not," Meggison replied with a look of disappointment.
"Well--perhaps you know best. What are your plans? I'm a man for hurry
always."
"My plans depend to a great extent upon you," said Gilbert. "I do not
imagine for a moment that you are possessed of any sum of money?"
"I am a most unfortunate man, sir, to whom much money should have come
had Fate treated me better. But I am not worth sixpence."
"Briefly, my plan is this," went on Gilbert, after a pause. "I would
like to give Bessie a sight of the better world that lies outside
Arcadia Street; not the world of London, and London streets and sights
and sounds; but that bigger world for which she longs--that freer world
of trees and flowers and blue skies. In other words, I would like to
give her a holiday. Now, can you by any possibility suggest some reason
why you should suddenly come into a little money, Mr. Meggison?"
"I can suggest a hundred reasons--but they would be equally romantic
and absurd," said Meggison, scratching the top of the smoking-cap
thoughtfully. "A rich relative of whom she has never heard--no--that
wouldn't do, because she knows all my relatives. Work that suddenly
brings in a lot of money? . . . No--she wouldn't believe in work, so
far as I'm concerned; that would require too great a stretch of the
imagination, I'm afraid. A lucky speculation? . . . No--one requires
capital for that."
"I'm afraid you'll have to fall back on a relative--a distant
relative--very much removed. Understand, it would only be a small
legacy."
"May I ask what you exactly mean by the term 'small'?" asked Daniel
Meggison.
"I would suggest a sum of about fifty pounds," said Gilbert quietly.
Mr. Daniel Meggison opened his mouth very wide, and then shut it with a
snap; opened it again, as though intending to speak; and blurted out a
faint echo of the sum that had been named.
"Fifty--fifty pounds!" Mr. Meggison came nearer, and touched Gilbert,
as though to discover whether or not he was actually real. Then
suddenly and harshly he burst out laughing. "Fifty pounds, indeed!
Don't attempt to fool me, please. Where will you get such a sum--and
you in Arcadia Street?"
"I have not always been in Arcadia Street, and I shall not always
remain here," said Gilbert. "As the world understands it, I am rather a
rich man, and the fifty pounds is quite easily to be found. I am living
in Arcadia Street for a whim, if you must know; that is part of our
secret understanding, Mr. Meggison. Come, now--is it a bargain?"
Daniel Meggison looked at the young man for only one moment longer;
then he seemed to leap at him, and to catch his hand between both his
own. "A bargain, sir?" he exclaimed, in a rapture. "Of course it's a
bargain--and in a noble cause, sir. Fifty pounds, did you say? It's a
fortune!"
"A fortune into which you have very strangely come," Gilbert reminded
him. "Don't say a word now; I can see your daughter coming straight
through the house towards us. Come round and see me to-morrow, and
we'll work out together this game of make-believe which you are to
play."
"I'll play it well until the end!" exclaimed Meggison, shaking his hand
again. "A great game of make-believe! Splendid notion!"
CHAPTER VI
SCHEMERS AND DREAMERS
BESSIE MEGGISON had no suspicion; for it was scarcely possible, in the
first place, that anyone should be interesting himself on her behalf.
She was glad to think that her father and Mr. Byfield had suddenly
grown to be to all appearances such excellent friends; although even
in that there was a lurking dread, lest the wily Daniel Meggison
should exercise that "tapping" process upon his new acquaintance. For
the rest, it simplified matters, and made it easier to carry on that
innocent intercourse with Gilbert.
The plotters meanwhile may be said to have watched each other's
movements with suspicion and distrust. Daniel Meggison was all for
immediate action; wanted to feel his fingers grasping that good money,
and putting it to such uses as only he, from a long experience, could
accurately name. Bessie should, of course, have a share in the good
things that were coming; but only, quite properly, after her father had
been satisfied; quixotic notions were not to be encouraged where a rich
young man absolutely offered to toss fifty pounds over a garden wall
in Islington. Gilbert Byfield, on the other hand, already began to
doubt whether after all he had not been a little precipitate; began to
suggest this, and to demand that, in the way of security. Not that he
regretted his action so far as Bessie was concerned; a single glance at
her white face was sufficient to speed him to the undertaking; but he
doubted the instrument he had been compelled to choose.
Daniel Meggison's idea of a rest and a holiday for his daughter, when
it came to the actual point of expression, seemed to consist in a
vague notion of driving about London all day long, with large cigars
for his own consumption, and new clothes, and an occasional visit
with some ceremony to a saloon bar; which was not of course quite the
idea that had been in the mind of Mr. Gilbert Byfield. The wily old
man had already drawn sundry sovereigns, on account of that imaginary
fortune, and still nothing had been done, when one evening he appeared
in Gilbert Byfield's rooms with a face of mystery, and with round eyes
that had a frightened look in them. He closed the door, and carefully
removed his dingy skull cap; combed out the last threads of its silk
tassel between his fingers; and looked up and spoke.
"Mr. Byfield, sir," he whispered--"my daughter is ill."
Gilbert got up quickly, and came across to where the little man was
standing. "What do you mean?" he demanded in a shocked voice.
"Fainted, sir--gave way suddenly, and became all at once, in a manner
of speaking, collapsed," said Meggison, nodding at him slowly. "Never
knew her do it before--but it's not unlikely she may do it again. Mr.
Byfield, sir--my heart bleeds."
"She must be got away--at once," said Gilbert hastily.
"She must be got away--at once," echoed Meggison, moistening his lips
with the tip of his tongue. "Just what I said, Mr. Byfield, sir, as she
was coming to. Not a moment to be lost--eh?"
"Not an instant," said Gilbert, beginning to pace up and down the room.
"We've waited too long already, Meggison, over that scheme of ours."
"Nearly a week--and nothing done," retorted the other, twisting the
skull cap round and shaking his head at it. "Not my fault, of course."
"It's only because I haven't known what to do, or how to do it," said
Gilbert, pondering. "But now we must wait no longer; you must take her
away at once."
"At once," said Meggison, putting on his cap with an air of
determination, as though he had quite made up his mind to start upon a
journey forthwith. "All times are alike to me, Mr. Byfield, sir; it's
only the question of money." His eyes were expectant.
"It's just the question of money, Meggison, that is troubling me,"
said Gilbert Byfield, seating himself on the end of his desk, and so
facing the little man at the door with folded arms. "If it hadn't been
the question of money, and the difficulty of dealing with it, and of
dealing with you, something would have been done before."
"Of dealing with me, Mr. Byfield, sir?" Daniel Meggison put his head
on one side, with a faint show of indignation.
"Frankly, Mr. Meggison, I do not know quite what you would do with any
substantial sum of money that might be placed in your hands. I do not
trust your discretion. I want to speak quite plainly."
"Don't spare my feelings," said Meggison, leaning against the door, and
folding his arms in turn. "I have been battered by the world; I can put
up with anything."
"You clear the ground beautifully," said Gilbert, smiling grimly.
"Frankly then, I don't care a rush about you or your son, or any of
you--with the sole exception of Bessie. I want to help her--and I
only use you because there's no one else that stands in such near
relation to her as you do. She wouldn't take money from me--but you
will; and so we've got to start some little fiction about the matter,
as I suggested. This very night, Mr. Meggison, you must come into your
property; but I shall have to be a sort of trustee, the better to keep
a tight hand upon what you do."
"You mentioned a sum of fifty pounds," said Meggison, after an
uncomfortable pause. "Fifty pounds is not much, when it comes to a
holiday; as fortunes are counted, it's nothing to speak of."
"I've altered my mind about that," said Gilbert. "Instead of providing
the money, I think I'll provide the place for a holiday, and see
that you have sufficient money to keep it going. I've a cottage in
Sussex--at a place they call Fiddler's Green; I've used it for fishing
and so forth; it's rather pretty, and it wouldn't be half a bad notion
to whisk this girl of yours away down there, and give her a holiday."
Daniel Meggison looked dubious. "It occurs to me, on the other hand,
Mr. Byfield, sir," he said, with a shake of the head, "that she might
find it dull. No society--no familiar figures such as she meets every
day; no intercourse with boon companions----"
"Perhaps you're thinking a little of yourself," said Gilbert, with a
smile. "I imagine we can trust your daughter to like the place to which
I'm thinking of sending her. We'll call it settled. Now for the method."
"Which I suppose is where I come in," retorted the other, a little
sourly.
"Exactly. We want a fine stretch of your imagination; we want
you to invent that mysterious relative, or that extraordinary
speculation--either of which shall in a moment provide you with a
substantial sum of money. What more natural, therefore, than that
you--devoted father--should immediately turn to your daughter with the
earnest desire that she should be the first to benefit by your good
fortune. The cottage at Fiddler's Green you rent, as a surprise to her;
you give her the rest she so sorely needs; you bring her back to London
in due course, with renewed strength to take up the battle of life."
"Back to Arcadia Street? It seems rather a tame ending, Mr. Byfield,
sir," said the little man, with a shake of the head.
"It's the ending we'll adopt for the present," retorted the younger
man. "And you understand, of course, that I must not appear in the
matter; I shall be as greatly surprised as she will be to hear of what
has happened. Remember always that she believes me to be almost as poor
and as struggling as herself."
"It's all right up to a point," said Meggison, pursing up his
lips and frowning; "what I don't like is the temporary nature of
it. Come, sir--don't be cheese-paring; why not do the thing more
handsomely--extend it a bit--eh?"
"All I intend to do is to give Bessie a short holiday at Fiddler's
Green, and to bring her back to London restored to health," said
Gilbert, with an air of finality.
"Well of course, Mr. Byfield, sir, you know best," Meggison said
doubtfully. "In the meantime I will go and see my child, and will
endeavour to act my part in that game of make-believe as becomes a
father and a man. If by any chance you should be walking in the garden
attached to this house a little later on, it might happen that Bessie
would have some startling news to impart to you. Splendid notion--eh?"
With restored good humour Daniel Meggison set the old skull cap
rakishly at one side of his head, and went downstairs, whistling softly
to himself, and seeing before him a golden vision that was not soon to
fade.
A visit to the Arcadia Arms gave him renewed confidence; through the
glass he held he saw, by no means darkly, a rosy prospect wherein
Gilbert Byfield continued from a mere matter of sentiment to supply the
wants of Daniel Meggison, at least, for the rest of that gentleman's
natural life. Daniel told himself, if not in so many words at least
with so many nods and winks, that he would be a very limpet--sticking
fast to his benefactor, and not to be shaken off. This young man had
talked lightly of fifty pounds--had spoken of them, in fact, in much
the same fashion in which Daniel Meggison might have spoken of fifty
pence. Over a second glass Mr. Meggison said that this sort of thing
should be encouraged; that men of sentiment were rare, and that for his
dear daughter's sake at least the chance should be snatched at. With
the draining of that glass Mr. Daniel Meggison had firmly persuaded
himself that it was his solemn duty to sink his own personal feelings
for the sake of his child, and to make war upon this young man. Not too
steadily he went down Arcadia Street with that idea in his mind.
Bessie had recovered, and was leaning upon the sympathetic Amelia,
inclined to laugh a little at this new weakness that had come upon
her. Her brother Aubrey stood looking at her in some dismay, with
his hands thrust in his pockets, and with the inevitable cigarette
drooping from his lips; for this was a new and uncommon disaster, which
threatened the source of his income. Not that he put it quite in that
crude fashion, but rather that he saw his small world shaken to its
foundations, and trembled a little in consequence.
Mr. Daniel Meggison was jocose. He wondered if by any chance Bessie
(always his favourite child!) was strong enough to bear a shock--to
hear news that might prove startling? Bessie a little faintly declared
that she was quite well--was sorry, in fact, to have caused such
trouble; she was ready for any news. Perhaps he had heard of a new and
profitable lodger?
"To the devil with all lodgers!" exclaimed Mr. Meggison, with a sudden
blustering violence. "We have done with lodgers for ever, my child;
henceforth this particular Englishman's house is his castle--inviolate.
Henceforth his child plays the lady, and takes that position in the
world to which, as her father's child, she has a right."
"You've stayed a bit long at the club, guv'nor," said Aubrey, applying
a light to his cigarette and winking at his sister. "'Tisn't quite fair
to worry Bess now--is it?"
"Be silent, sir!" Daniel Meggison turned upon him wrathfully. "What do
you understand of my methods--or even of me? While you, sir--a mere
hobbledehoy--a lout--a frequenter of low billiard saloons and such-like
places--while you are wasting your time and your substance in a species
of debauchery--your father is out and about in the world--looking here
and there and everywhere for opportunities. While you are wasting the
hard earnings of your sister, and squandering money to which you have
no right, I am turning that brain which has never really failed me yet
to account--and making money!"
By this time Daniel Meggison had worked himself into that state of mind
in which he was quite prepared to believe that he really had done the
wonderful thing he suggested. He soared in imagination in high finance;
dabbled with this and with that; held the great world of money in the
mere hollow of his hand. For the first time in his mean and shiftless
life he had his grip upon a man who was prepared to pay largely and
without question; and the education Daniel Meggison had received in a
hard world had prepared him to meet such a man, and to deal with him
in the right way. The more he talked the more his ideas grew, and the
more certain he was that he had tapped at last a gold mine. Moreover,
on this occasion he knew that he had played a stronger card than any he
had ever held before; his glance shifted to the figure of the girl, and
he recognized that her white face had a power to charm gold out of the
pockets of Mr. Gilbert Byfield, and that in her very innocence as to
the plot lay Meggison's real safety.
"You are excited, father dear," said Bessie, going to him with the
intention to put him in his chair. But he boisterously put an arm about
her, and stood thus in an attitude, facing the astonished Amelia and
the contemptuous Aubrey.
"Excited! I should think so, indeed," he exclaimed. "Who would not be
excited at the prospect of a sudden fortune--of an end to want and
pinching and--and general meanness? Who would not be excited at the
prospect of leaping, in one glorious moment, from Arcadia Street to
affluence; of stepping in a moment gloriously out of the shadows in
which for so long we have been plunged, into the splendid sunshine of
riches and plenty? Excited!--I am drunk with excitement!"
"When you feel yourself fairly sober again, it mightn't be a bad idea
to let us know what on earth you are talkin' about," suggested Aubrey,
leaning against the mantelpiece, and presenting a bored expression
to the company. "Not that I'm denyin', mind you, that you'd do a lot
if you had the chance; you've always impressed that on us, so that
we ain't likely to forget it. But what I argue is--show us something
solid."
Mr. Daniel Meggison laughed an easy laugh. "Something solid, sir,"
he ejaculated. "What if I tell you that I can to-night produce, if
necessary, a sum of fifty pounds----"
"Father!" The girl was clinging to his arm, looking at him in
bewilderment.
"What if I tell you that that is but the beginning--the forerunner of
many similar sums? Yes, my child, your father has at last justified
an existence that has in the past not perhaps been all that it might
have been. For the future, my dear Bessie, I will make amends; for the
future our relative positions will be changed. No longer shall you
trouble about lodgers--no longer shall you weigh this and that, or
reckon how much a shilling will do in this direction or in that; all
that is done with. We have for the first time in our lives that very
necessary thing--an income."
"But, father, I don't understand," she pleaded. "What has happened?
It's only some dream--something that in your good heart you wish might
come true--for my sake."
"I tell you it _has_ come true!" he exclaimed. "The chance of a
lifetime--a mere matter of fortunate speculation."
"Fortunate what?" demanded Aubrey contemptuously. "Where did you get
the money to speculate?"
"Borrowed capital," replied Meggison promptly. "What do you know of
such matters? I hear of a great many things in the world--stocks and
shares--this going up--that going down. It might have happened that I
had plunged the family deeper into ruin even than before; that was a
risk I had to take. But no"--he shook his head, and smiled with deep
wisdom--"I knew from the beginning that I was right. A pound or two in
the right direction--and a pound or two added to that. It mounted; it
grew into a perfect snowball, which, rolling on, added to itself with
every movement. So that to-night I stand before you revealed in my true
colours. To all intents and purposes I am a rich man!"
She broke down then for the first time. It never occurred to her for
a moment to doubt him; indeed she had always been secretly a little
proud of this man, who was a little better, in the matter of dignity
and deportment, than his fellows of Arcadia Street. Her life had at all
times been a surprising thing of chances; this greater chance that had
come was only what might in her dreams have been expected. Practical
only in the matter of dealing with the small details of her daily life,
she was utterly unpractical where it came to any question of dealing
with the world. This was but a coming true of all the best dreams she
had ever had.
She called him her dear, dear father; she blessed and praised him for
his cleverness; she called the astonished Aubrey to witness that she
had said over and over again that if only father had his chance he
would do better than anyone. They were not to mind her tears; she had
perhaps been a little tired and a little troubled at times; but all
that was done with now, and they should see her bright and smiling.
Above all, they had never had any real chance to show the best that was
in them in the life that was done with from to-night!
Mr. Aubrey Meggison was a little stunned. Feeling that perhaps it
might be well if he ranged himself on the side of this new financier,
he somewhat flabbily shook the hand of his parent, and murmured "Good
old guv'nor!" as an encouragement to that gentleman to do even better
yet. And then in a bewildered way, with Amelia the servant almost
light-headed from sheer excitement, they sat down to a hastily provided
supper, the better to discuss details.
"Of course you will understand that I have kept it all secret; I
intended to spring a surprise upon you," said Daniel Meggison, between
bites at an unaccustomed delicacy. "And I have done nothing by halves;
in fact, I may tell you that I have already provided a place in the
country--a mere modest cottage. Charming spot--Fiddler's Green,
Sussex," he added carelessly, with a secret determination to discover
from Gilbert exactly in what part of Sussex Fiddler's Green was
situated.
"Oh, my dear!" whispered Bessie under her breath, as she looked at this
new wonder. "The country--and a cottage! Is it a large cottage, father
dear?"
"Largish," said Mr. Meggison cautiously. "Roomy place--and well
furnished. Fishing, I understand, and other pursuits of a like nature."
"I will say that for the guv'nor--he has got large ideas," said Aubrey,
with a solemn nod. "I wish he'd taken me into his confidence as to the
locality--but still I'm not blaming him for that. Can't say I care much
for the country _as_ country--but I dare say I shall get used to it.
Rummy thing, though, that you should have kept the game going so well
that you haven't even added to your wardrobe, or changed your habits at
all. He's a sly 'un, the guv'nor," added the young gentleman, with a
wink at Bessie.
"I intended that it should all be a surprise; moreover, I intended to
assert myself, and to take for the first time my true position in the
family," said Mr. Meggison. "In this matter you will have to take your
time from me; when I say 'move,' we will move. Now, as I am perhaps
a little excited, I will just stretch my legs in the open air, and
perhaps look in at my club for a moment or two."
By that time the man had fully persuaded himself that all he said was
true--had fully made up his mind, in fact, that the great game on which
he was embarked could be played out to the end by sheer bluff and
cunning. Someone else was to pay the piper, but Mr. Daniel Meggison had
quite made up his mind that he would call the tune. And so elated was
he that he even unbent so far as to desire Aubrey to join him in that
stroll to the Arcadia Arms; so that father and son went off arm in arm,
with quite a new amiability sitting a little awkwardly upon them.
Meanwhile there was, of course, one person to whom it was absolutely
necessary that the great news should be told--one person who would
be glad for her sake, and yet, she hoped, a little sorry on his own
account. She went out into that garden of her dreams, feeling a little
strange now that the dreams were coming true--vaguely troubled in fact
that there should be no more necessity for pretence. She was like a
child that is promised with certainty a new and gorgeous toy, and yet
looks back, in the very act of going to it, with regret at the broken,
battered things left behind.
Not that the place seemed poor or common; it could never be that,
because of the memories it held. Nor did it look shabby even to-night,
with the grander prospect opening out in Bessie's imagination; she
would be in a sense regretful at the thought of leaving it, because so
much had happened there--every poor sordid stick and stone of it meant
so much more to her than to anyone else. She passed through the place
now smilingly, looking and listening for her friend.
And the friend was there; in the strangest fashion he looked over the
wall directly she emerged from the house. Of course he knew nothing of
the great and glorious news; that was for her to tell him. Pride was
in that thought, because all in a moment she was lifted nearer to him
by reason of her new riches. She was greater even than this wonderful
young man who could spend money recklessly on theatres and cabs. She
went straight to him now, and told him without parley all the great
news. He, expecting it, set himself to appear as surprised as she would
expect to find him.
"Mr. Byfield--there's something I want to tell you," she began.
"You've been my best friend--almost my only friend; so you must know
before anyone else. It's great good news."
"I'm very glad," he assured her, leaning on the wall, and looking down
at her. "What has happened? Another and a splendid lodger?"
She laughed and shook her head--laughed more light-heartedly than he
had ever known her. "It's nothing to do with lodgers; there are never
going to be any lodgers any more," she said; and he thought how even
the tired voice had changed in a little time. "Father has suddenly
grown very rich!"
He stared at her for a moment in utter bewilderment; he could not
understand. He was on the very point of correcting her, and of telling
her that the strange fortune which had come to her father was a matter
that would provide leisure for a period of a few weeks only, when
he reflected that he must know nothing about it. Doubtless she had
misunderstood old Meggison; that would be a matter to be set right
afterwards.
"I'm very glad," he said cordially. "Very rich--is he? And what's he
going to do with all his money?"
"He thought first of me; one might know he would do that," she said
proudly. "He's taken a house in the country--and he's going to take me
down there--and of course Aubrey."
"Oh--so Aubrey's going--is he?" said Gilbert slowly. "Anybody else?"
"I was only thinking, Mr. Byfield," she said shyly--"I was only
thinking that we should be glad if you would come down. I know father
would like it--and so should I. It's at Fiddler's Green."
"I shall be delighted," he exclaimed, smiling at the thought of this
strange invitation to his own place. "And I suppose you're going to
stop there until you're quite well and strong again--eh? You'll be
sorry to come back to Arcadia Street."
"But we're not coming back to Arcadia Street," she assured him.
"Father's going to give it all up; we're going to live down there for
ever. Think of it--in the country!"
The friendly darkness hid his bewildered face; he wondered what new
blunder Daniel Meggison had plunged them all into. Even as that thought
came to him the door at the end of the garden was opened, and old
Meggison came in. He was singing to himself in a high cracked falsetto,
and the hand that was not required to support him against the edge of
the door was solemnly beating time to the tune. He closed the door, and
leant against it; stared with drunken sternness at his daughter.
"Whash this?" he demanded. "Go in, m' child; go t' bed. Object mos'
strongly--endanger precious life. Go t' bed!"
Bessie went in quickly, and her father, after a preliminary stagger,
essayed to follow her. He was pulled up quickly by the stern hurried
voice of Gilbert Byfield.
"What have you been telling her?" demanded the young man.
Mr. Meggison winked solemnly. "A little exaggel-exaggeration," he
replied. "Splendid notion! Goo' night!"
CHAPTER VII
FAREWELL TO ARCADIA STREET
THE morning which followed that night of wild exaggerations found Mr.
Daniel Meggison in a despairing mood. He knew that he had gone too
far--understood that he had plunged not only himself but others into
this new sea of deceit in which they must all struggle together, and
from which only one hand--that of Mr. Gilbert Byfield--could drag them.
In the calmer mood following upon a severe headache, and a petulant
remembrance of certain absurd statements of the night before, Meggison
saw that he must substantiate much of what had been said at the
earliest possible opportunity. Bessie believed in him, and Bessie would
require to be satisfied; if even that considerable sum of fifty pounds
was to be wrung out of the matter, the game must be kept alive, for a
few days at least.
In a sense, however, Bessie had taken the matter out of his hands. Her
belief in him was so sublime and so fine that she had absolutely taken
him at his word; and that morning the one or two lodgers who only paid
when they were driven to it, and the one or two others who paid when by
chance they had any money, had special interviews with a radiant girl
in a shabby black frock, who told them with shining eyes that she was
sorry to get rid of them, and that the bills did not matter. The house
was to be given up; they were retiring to the country. So the lodgers
went away puzzled, thereafter to make arrangements for other lodgings,
where it was to be feared they might not find landladies who would deal
with them so generously.
Two lodgers were difficult to deal with: poor Harry Dorricott for
one, and Simon Quarle for another. It was hard to turn Harry out into
the world--harder still to make him understand that in one night his
divinity had been removed far out of his reach. He did not understand
in the least; he pleaded that he might have the new address, so that
in time to come he could forward his long overdue account. For the
rest, she cut short as delicately as she could his farewells and his
protestations.
It was not so easy to get rid of Mr. Simon Quarle. Mr. Simon Quarle
usually breakfasted late, because there was no business which claimed
him, as in the case of the others; and this morning Bessie came upon
him with a newspaper propped up against the cruet, and with a fork
busily going over a breakfast that had been already cut up for greater
expedition in eating. He looked up at her quickly as she came into the
room, and then frowningly resumed his breakfast and his newspaper;
which was in a sense his habit.
"If you please, Mr. Quarle--if I might speak to you," she began.
"Which is exactly what you're doing, you know," he retorted, not
unkindly.
"I thought I should like to know when it would be suitable to you to
go, Mr. Quarle."
He laid down his fork very slowly, and looked up at her; picked up the
fork again, and resumed his breakfast. "Don't talk nonsense, Bessie,"
he said.
"But, indeed, Mr. Quarle, I mean it," she urged. "The house is going to
be sold up--and all the lodgers are going. Of course I'm very sorry----"
"And pray what's the execution for this time?" he demanded, laying down
his fork finally with a sigh, and leaning back in his chair. "And how
much is it?"
"You won't understand," she exclaimed, taking a seat at the further
side of the table, and resting her chin on her folded hands, and
smiling across at him. "You've been so very good to me always, Mr.
Quarle, that I thought you'd be glad."
"Glad! Because once again you're in difficulties?"
"But we're not; it's quite the other way about," she exclaimed. "We're
only getting rid of this place--and the lodgers--and you--because
father has come into a lot of money, and is taking me down into the
country."
"Your father has come into a lot of money?" The man burst into a laugh,
and picked up his fork again. "Who's told him so?"
"Mr. Quarle--you are really most unkind," she said. "Father is much
more clever than anyone has ever imagined; he has speculated and made
money, while we have all thought that he has merely been living the
life of a--a gentleman--and doing nothing. Ask him yourself if you're
not sure."
"I will," said Quarle grimly.
"And will you please tell me when it will be convenient for you to go?"
she asked again. "Oh, please don't think that I'm anxious to get rid of
you; I'd like to keep you here for ever and ever; but of course I have
to remember that things are so different--and that father and Aubrey
must be considered. I'm sure you understand that."
Simon Quarle slowly laid down his fork for the last time, and pushed
his plate away from him. "Come here," he said gruffly.
She got up, and came round the table, and stood close to him; he took
one of the hands that was a little coarsened with work, and gently held
it while he spoke to her; and his voice was altogether changed.
"When I came here first you were a bit of a girl in short
frocks--shorter even than they are now--and I was sorry for you. I
could have gone to other lodgings----"
"I'm glad you didn't, Mr. Quarle," she whispered.
"But I didn't. I came here because I liked the look of you, and I
thought my bit of money might be useful. There was no woman in the
world that was anything to me--and I had no chicks--no one who cared a
button about me. I saw you grow up--and you didn't grow up half badly;
and I suppose because I'm an old fool, I'm fond of you."
"I know," she said softly.
"Consequently, I don't want any tricks to be played, or any infernal
nonsense to come into your life and to upset it. I'm not going to say
anything about family matters, because I suppose after all a father's
a father, no matter what color he is. Only I'm a business man, little
Bessie, and we must know that everything is fair and square and
straight. Do you understand?"
"Yes, of course I understand; only I think none of us quite know what
father is capable of," she responded.
"There I agree with you," he retorted grimly. "And I'll talk about
going when I've had a chance to inquire into the matter. Don't turn me
out before it's necessary; it happens that I'm rather a lonely man."
"You'll be able to come down and see us as often as you like--to stay
with us," she reminded him; but to that he made no answer.
That arch-plotter Daniel Meggison had been spending an anxious hour or
two in search of his patron. Inquiry at the front of the house next
door elicited the information that Mr. Gilbert Byfield was having his
bath; the landlady a little contemptuous concerning a man who found it
necessary to wash all over every day. An impromptu peep over the wall
at the back was equally useless. The only occupation left to Daniel
Meggison was to saunter about the house, and to carry things with a
high hand, and yet with a failing courage.
His man might escape at any moment, and go out into that world outside
Arcadia Street, and never come back. The people with whom hitherto
Daniel had had dealings were in the habit of repudiating a promise at a
day or even an hour's notice; it was quite on the cards that this young
man would do the same. Daniel Meggison began to wish that he had in
some fashion got the thing reduced to writing; more than that, he began
to doubt the actual value of that asset on which he had counted--his
daughter. Therefore Simon Quarle, coming upon him unexpectedly, and
thrusting his head out at him in characteristic fashion, found the man
in no mood for questions.
"It's all right," said Meggison, with a very distinct air of its being
all wrong. "I have been lucky--fortunate; I have kept my eyes open."
"How much have you made?" demanded Quarle stolidly. "Always better to
come to figures, you know."
"It doesn't concern you--and I am inclined to keep my particular
figures to myself," snapped Daniel Meggison. "Suffice it that this
system of living is ceasing; suffice it that I no longer find it
necessary to depend for my income upon lodgers whose payments are not
what they should be, and whose manners do not please me."
"Keep your temper, Meggison; there's nothing that should call for
personal remarks. If you didn't like my manners you could have got rid
of me years ago--always supposing, of course, that it suited me to go.
Meantime, we're no nearer to this mysterious fortune--are we? Exactly
in what particular investments were you so very lucky?"
"The investments were--were various," said Daniel Meggison, with a wave
of the hand. "A little bit in this--and a little bit in that; it's
taken quite a long time--but it's growing even now."
"Wonderful!" said Simon Quarle, nodding his head slowly. "Most
remarkable. And so you sell up everything here--and you start for the
country--eh? House cost much?"
"I have merely--merely rented it--hired it for a period," said Meggison.
"What I shall do with you," said Quarle, with a bullying shake of
his head at him, "will be to keep my eye on you. You've been doing
something mysterious--something you don't want talked about; I shall
find out presently what it is. You never were any good, you know--and
you never will be. Don't wave your arms about, and don't splutter at
me; bluster is the last dog that will frighten me. So far as you're
concerned I don't care a snap of the fingers--but I do care about the
girl."
"Sir--you are not the only one who cares about the girl," retorted
Daniel Meggison. "It is for her sake that I have done this; it is on
her account alone that I propose burying myself in the country, and
having what will probably prove a devilish dull time of it. I decline
to answer any further questions; it is no affair of yours."
He went away again on that hunt for Byfield; with the creeping on
of the hours his courage had fallen more and more. He had burnt his
boats, in the sense that even his daughter now was ranged against him
in that mad business of giving up what had, at the best and the worst,
been a livelihood for them all. He had hoped that she would have been
content to take her cue from him, and to march a little behind his
stride; he was appalled, now that he came to look at the thing from a
common-sense point of view, to see that she was bringing to bear upon
this new situation the characteristic energy that had helped her in
the old one. He had forced her to be self-reliant in the past; that
self-reliance now might well prove the undoing of them all.
He was returning from a hurried visit to the Arcadia Arms when he
met Gilbert Byfield in the street. He essayed a rather nervous "Good
morning, Mr. Byfield, sir"; but it halted on his tongue as Byfield
frowningly took him by the arm, and turned him round, and walked with
him up the street. Without a word that young man conducted him to the
door of that house in which he had taken a lodging; took him upstairs;
and having got him into the room where the desk littered with papers
stood, thrust him unceremoniously into a chair, and looked at him
sternly over folded arms.
"Now, Mr. Daniel Meggison--let me know what the game is," said Gilbert.
"Game, Mr. Byfield, sir?" asked Daniel innocently. "I'm sure, so far
as I'm concerned, there ain't any game; if I've been a bit playful in
mentioning matters--a joke's a joke--and I----"
"There is no joke about this, Meggison," broke in Gilbert. "I want you
to understand from the beginning that this is to be merely a holiday
for the girl; whatever innocent lie you tell must not go beyond that.
My cottage at Fiddler's Green is at your disposal for a few weeks; and
that will be the end of it."
"Have I said different?" pleaded Daniel passionately. "A bit of money
was what I've come into, and no more than that. I'll own that last
night, Mr. Byfield, sir, I was excited--exhilarated--perhaps a little
unduly happy. Mine has been a hard life, and if I may be said to have
looked upon the rosy wine in a joyful moment, is that always to be
thrown up in my face for ever after? Is there to be no charity extended
to me?"
"Last night you led your daughter to believe that this was no mere
matter of a little sudden money to provide her with a holiday--but
something in the nature of a fortune, that should mean ease and
contentment for the rest of her days."
"A playful exaggeration; she perfectly understands this morning," said
Daniel. "She knows her poor old father; she will take the thing in the
right spirit, and be grateful. I am a man of imagination, Mr. Byfield,
sir; I can assure you that a very ordinary duck with me may quite
easily and legitimately become a swan."
"Well--so that you have explained it, I suppose it's all right," said
Byfield slowly. "Only for her sake you must be careful."
"Careful, Mr. Byfield, sir?" exclaimed Daniel fervently. "From
this moment I will be more than discreet. I was careless last
night--reckless--unpardonably reckless. It shall not occur again; I'm
annoyed with myself."
"Well--we'll say no more about it," said Gilbert, a little sorry and
ashamed that he should have been so hard on anyone so abject. "Get
her away to Fiddler's Green as soon as possible; I'll arrange that
the house shall be ready, and that servants shall be there to look
after you. There's a housekeeper and others there, and they shall be
instructed that for the time being you are master, and that they take
their orders from you."
"That will be highly satisfactory," said Daniel, cheering up
wonderfully at the thought of the new importance that was to be his.
"But if you will pardon my suggesting such a thing--there is a little
matter of ready money----"
"Oh, you shall have ready money," said Gilbert impatiently. "There will
be certain things to be bought--certain expenses to be paid. I suggest
that you should be at Fiddler's Green for the next month or six weeks.
You will, I suppose, get someone to look after the place--your own
house I mean--in your absence?"
"I can quite safely leave that to my daughter," said Daniel, with a
sort of cold shudder going through him at the remembrance of what
had already been done in regard to the house. "She will provide for
everything, as she has always done. A most reliable good girl, Mr.
Byfield, sir."
The little man was so quiet now, and so humble and grateful, that
Gilbert had no hesitation in sitting down to write a cheque for a
certain sum to meet initial expenses. In the very act of writing it he
looked up, and spoke to the waiting Daniel Meggison; he was petulantly
anxious that his own point of view should be understood.
"You will understand, of course, Meggison, that I do this very
willingly and very cheerfully--just as I might do something to
help some poor child that could not help herself. For she _is_ a
child--isn't she?"
"A mere babe, sir, in the ways of the world--a toddler, who should
never have left her mother's knee," replied Meggison sentimentally.
"Had she been, of course, anything else I should never for an instant
have consented to this." He was carefully folding the cheque as he
spoke, and was making rapid calculations in his own mind.
"One other point, Meggison. It is possible that your daughter might
suspect that I had had something to do with the matter; I believe she
thinks that I am a little richer than the people she generally meets.
Therefore to avoid that, I have made up my mind to go away for a week,
so that she may not in any way connect me with what is being done. You
seem to have told your tale well--rather too well, if anything--and she
believes you; when you come back here you will find me perhaps in this
place again, quite in the ordinary way. So far as money is concerned,
you will find your credit good at Fiddler's Green, and my housekeeper
will order what is necessary for you. More than that, I will keep in
touch with you, and will let you have what other ready money you may
want. But no more talk of fortunes, Meggison, if you please."
"Certainly not, Mr. Byfield, sir; that was an indiscretion. I shall
have a month or six weeks in which to explain to Bessie that I cannot
go on beyond a certain time; she will understand perfectly. As for your
notion about going away--I applaud it, sir. Splendid notion!"
"I'm glad you approve," said Gilbert dryly. "I will write down here
exactly what you're to do to get to the house, so that you may in
your daughter's eyes appear to be already familiar with it; and you
will understand that to all intents and purposes you will be master
there so long as you are in it. No one will question your right to be
there--and no one will interfere with you."
Thus it happened, in the little drama that was afterwards to be played
out so strangely, that Gilbert Byfield, the better to preserve his
secret, left his lodging, and went back into the more seemly world that
knew him; while Daniel Meggison, knowing that the coast was clear, set
his hand boldly to the work he had to do, and burnt what boats were
left to him with a gay good will.
The cheque was cashed; and from that moment, with money in his pocket
and apparently unlimited credit for the first time in his life, Mr.
Daniel Meggison flung caution to the winds, and hurled himself with
zest into the new life that was opening before him. Arcadia Street
was shaken to its very foundations at finding that the Meggisons
were leaving--that the Meggisons were arraying themselves in new
clothing, that the Meggisons had turned their lodgers adrift, and
that the Meggisons actually had money to spend. Arcadia Street heard
rumours, and flung them further out into Islington, and even onward
into Highbury and other districts. If you wanted a quick word for
lucky or fortunate or anything of that sort, you simply said, "What
price Meggison?" and clicked your tongue; and so became in a moment
wonderfully expressive.
Bessie, for her part, had set about the business, if not exactly with
caution, at least with some forethought. The respectable part of the
furniture fetched a good price; a landlord who had long given up hope
compromised matters, and went away congratulating himself on having
got anything at all. Everyone suggested that the Meggisons might have
behaved better, but that on the other hand they might have behaved
worse. So that in the long run most people were satisfied; while quite
a number suggested that, after all, if any luck was coming to Arcadia
Street, Mr. Meggison--always quite the gentleman, mind you!--was the
man who should properly have it.
There came that tumultuous moment when the bare and empty house was to
be left, and when, with such personal luggage as they had contrived to
cram into several very new trunks, they were about to set out on their
way to Fiddler's Green. Aubrey Meggison, not desiring to be associated
with so public a departure, had casually suggested that he would "turn
up at the station"; Mr. Meggison had gone out hurriedly, with a promise
to be back in a moment; the actual business of leaving was left to
Bessie. The small servant Amelia had drifted away hopelessly back to
that institution from which she had come, there to wait until such time
as another situation should offer itself.
The cab was at the door, and the trunks were piled upon it; and Arcadia
Street had turned out to see the great departure. All the children
of Arcadia Street had long since seized upon points of vantage, and
had taken up positions on the pavement, leaving only a narrow lane,
down which Bessie must presently pass. The elders stood behind, and
suggested with sighs what they would have done if by any chance Dame
Fortune had swooped upon them. By all accounts, it seemed unanimously
resolved that they would have made something of a "splash," though
in what particular water they did not specify. And while they waited,
Bessie had gone through the blank and empty house for a final look at
it--and so out into that poor garden of her dreams.
The garden was stripped now; the box that had formed the ottoman was
naked and broken; the whole place a wilderness. Yet, as she stood in
it for a moment, she seemed to see it as it had been, and as it never
would be again; looked with eyes that were bright with tears at the
familiar shabby place.
"Good-bye--old garden!" she whispered. "You did your best for me--but
you never had a real chance. Yet I have loved you as I shall never love
any other place, however beautiful; because everything that was good
and kind has happened to me here. Good-bye; I hope someone may love you
half as well as I have done!"
So at last she fluttered out of the house, and into the cab, with
a kindly word or two for those that pressed about her; and quite
naturally, as it seemed, told the man to stop at the corner--at the
Arcadia Arms. Someone raised a feeble cheer; and one man, beating time,
amazingly started--"For he's a jolly good fellow"; then the cab rolled
away, with the younger part of Arcadia Street trailing after it.
Outside the Arcadia Arms it waited, with the girl sitting quietly
inside. It having been impressed upon Mr. Daniel Meggison inside
that he was wanted, and that the time had come for farewells, he was
presently prevailed upon to emerge. He appeared surrounded by friends,
with a new silk hat, that had been rubbed in places the wrong way, upon
the back of his head, and a large cigar with the band upon it in a
corner of his mouth, and a little uncertain as to what to do with his
legs. He shook hands with all and sundry, and murmured that he would
never forget them; was helped into the cab by a dozen willing hands;
and left to Arcadia Street the lasting remembrance that they had seen
him, as the cab drove away, burst into tears.
Arcadia Street, having been shaken to its depths, spent what was left
of the day in discussing the matter, and in talking about the Meggisons
in general, and Mr. Daniel Meggison in particular. And quite late at
night there were little knots of people gathered outside the empty
house, still talking of the glory that had fallen upon those who had
departed from it.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PRINCE CUTS THE KNOT
A DULL week in that civilization to which he obstinately refused to
be accustomed brought Gilbert Byfield back again--naturally, as it
seemed--to Arcadia Street. It had been a week spent practically between
three points of a compass which represented Enid and her mother--the
club--and his rooms. A fourth point, of a smaller sort, was represented
by Mr. Jordan Tant, who hovered about him anxiously, and wondered
without disguise why the man had ever come back at all.
Jordan Tant had made one or two remarks concerning the strange
little shabby girl of Arcadia Street, but had found, something to
his annoyance, that Gilbert appeared to take no interest whatever in
that matter, and was quite indifferent to anything that might be said
concerning it. Tant groaned in spirit at the thought that after all
Gilbert had returned to the ways of the world to which he belonged, and
that in due course Mr. Tant would be an interested spectator at some
such place as St. George's, Hanover Square, what time Gilbert Byfield
held the willing Enid by the hand.
Yet, as has been said, within a week Gilbert disappeared again--turning
into Arcadia Street, appropriately dressed for it, late on a warm
evening just as the lamps were being lighted. He had kept his rooms,
paying for them some time in advance; he put his key in the lock, and
opened the door, and went up. Lighting the gas in the shabby little
place, he saw that everything was just as he had left it, and nodded
slowly with satisfaction. While he was still looking about him, his
landlady bustled in to give him welcome, and to ask if there was
anything he required. He told her that there was nothing he wanted that
night, and somewhat curtly dismissed her when he saw that she was on
the point of beginning to relate some piece of news that was doubtless
of tremendous interest to her, if not to him. She went away, and he was
left alone.
Scarcely five minutes had elapsed when there came a quick thud at
the door, and it was opened unceremoniously enough. Looking round
frowningly, Gilbert saw before him the thick-set figure of the man
Simon Quarle--that man who lived at the house next door, and who had
once thrust himself so unwarrantably upon Gilbert in the garden. The
man was hat-less, and his strong almost scowling face was thrust
forward with its habitual bullying look.
"Good evening!" said Quarle abruptly, as he closed the door.
"Good evening!" replied Gilbert, not very graciously. "You wish to
speak to me?"
"I do; I've come up for that purpose. At the time I'm living just below
you."
"In this house?" Gilbert stared at him in some astonishment.
Simon Quarle nodded. "In this house," he said. "I didn't want to go
far when I left next door, and I found that they had a couple of rooms
vacant here. Nothing like so comfortable--but it serves."
"But why have you left next door?" asked Gilbert, after a pause.
"I left next door, if you wish to know, because next door left me,"
retorted Quarle. "You've been away, so I suppose you don't know. The
Meggisons have gone."
"Yes--I know that; I understood that they were going--into the country.
But that's no reason why you should leave, surely?"
"I can't very well live in an empty house with no furniture," snapped
Quarle, sitting down and rubbing his hands slowly backwards and
forwards on his knees. "At least--I don't intend to, while there are
furnished rooms to be had."
"Empty house? . . . no furniture? I'm afraid I don't understand," said
Gilbert slowly, and yet with an uncomfortable feeling in his mind that
he did understand after all. "Will you please tell me plainly what has
happened to my little friend--our little friend--Bessie?"
Simon Quarle stopped rubbing his knees for a moment, and frowned. "I
don't exactly know why you should feel yourself privileged to call her
'Bessie'; I've known her longer than you have, and I'm older than you
are. However, that's neither here nor there. The plain fact of it is
that that arch tippler and shuffler, Daniel Meggison, has suddenly come
into some money--or made some money--or stolen some money. He boasts
that for the rest of his natural days he need not do any work (not that
he has ever done any to my knowledge before)--and that he is going
to live like a lord in the country--for the sake of his daughter. The
letting of lodgings being quite out of the question for such a man in
such a position, the house and all the crazy furniture has been sold
up--and the family's gone."
Gilbert Byfield stood at his desk, looking down at it, and fingering
the papers upon it in an aimless fashion. He saw clearly enough the
position in which he was placed; understood only too well that Mr.
Daniel Meggison had decided to play that great game of make-believe in
the grand manner, being certain in his own mind that Gilbert Byfield
would hesitate to stop him. The pretty fiction which Gilbert had
himself invented must be kept alive until such time as Daniel Meggison
decided he had had his fling, and was prepared to come back to the
sober things of life. That at least was Gilbert's first thought.
"I suppose, Mr. Quarle, our friend Meggison did not happen to mention
to you what sum of money he had secured--did he?"
"I couldn't get a word out of him as to that--nor could I discover in
what particular investments he had been interesting himself," replied
Simon Quarle. "It struck me as somewhat peculiar that a man of that
type should suddenly come into money--by his own judicious speculation.
In other words, Mr. Byfield, there's a mystery about it."
"Well--at all events it doesn't concern me," said Gilbert, a little
coldly; for he was not inclined to give his confidence to this abrupt
bullying man who had so unceremoniously invaded his rooms.
"No--of course not," retorted Quarle. "How should it concern you? In
a sense, you know, Mr. Byfield," he went on, with a slyness that was
ominous--"I'm sorry for you. Things have been taken out of your hands a
little; you haven't been able to do quite what you desired--have you?"
"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," said Gilbert, turning over
the few letters that were on his table, and idly picking up one, the
handwriting of which was unfamiliar.
"The night I caught you trespassing you declared to me that you wanted
to help the girl--to do something for her."
"Well--and I didn't succeed. What then?" Gilbert glanced up at him with
an impatient frown.
"Very strange that it should happen that within a matter of days of
that time her father--penniless ne'er-do-well--should suddenly come
into money--eh?"
"A mere curious coincidence," responded the other quietly. "You'll
excuse me?" He indicated the letter he held, and Simon Quarle nodded.
Gilbert ripped open the envelope, letting it fall to the floor as he
unfolded the letter. Mr. Simon Quarle stooped forward politely and
picked up the envelope; let his eyes glance across it for a moment as
he laid it carefully on the desk. Then he sat with his hands on his
knees, and with his head thrust forward, looking out of half-closed
eyes at the man who was reading the letter.
The letter was from Bessie. It was a grateful, passionate, almost
childish thing--written to a friend who would understand her great new
happiness; and as he read it the man's face relaxed into a smile, and
his heart softened. After all, the cost was nothing, as compared with
this fine fruit; the game might go on for some time longer at least.
She was a child, with the heart and mind of a child unspoiled; and it
had been strangely given to him to have the power of bringing her into
a world where for the first time she tasted joy--where for the first
time she appeared to be radiantly happy. Yes--the cost was nothing.
His musings were cut short by the dry, hard voice of Simon Quarle. "So
she writes to you?" he said.
Gilbert looked round at him, visibly annoyed. "How do you know that?"
he demanded.
Simon Quarle pointed a finger at the envelope he had placed on the
desk. "I know the writing," he replied. "The weekly bills used to be
made out by her; I've got dozens of 'em. Well--there's nothing to be
offended about; how's she getting on?"
There was a curious note of wistfulness--almost a note of jealousy
in the man's tones; he seemed to rage at the thought that this other
man could have a letter from her that brought a softening smile
to his face, whilst he--that older friend Simon Quarle--sat there
empty-handed. The world was a bitter place just then, and he resented
its bitterness more than usual.
"She's well--and she's very happy," said Gilbert grudgingly.
"Anything about her dear father?"
"Father also appears to be very well--though nothing is said about his
particular happiness," replied the younger man, with a glance at the
letter. "You will be interested also perhaps to learn that Aubrey
finds the country somewhat dull . . . but perhaps you're not interested
in Aubrey?"
"I am not," replied Quarle. "I don't know that I'm particularly
interested in anyone except the girl." He got up, and moved across the
room, with his hands clasped behind his back; stopped without looking
round, and put a question. "How long, Mr. Byfield, does this precious
fortune last?"
"How in the world should I know?" demanded Gilbert, more savagely than
he intended. "You'd better ask Meggison; he knows all about it. And may
I suggest, Mr. Quarle, that I'm busy, and would rather be alone?"
Simon Quarle turned slowly, and walked towards the door; stopped there,
and looked over his shoulder back at Gilbert. "I'm sorry, Mr. Byfield,"
he said, in a tone that was singularly gentle--"I'm sorry that you find
it necessary to remind me that I'm not wanted; I'm more sorry still
that you shut me out, not only from your room but from your secrets.
Good night to you!"
"Stop!" cried Gilbert quickly, as the hand of the other man was upon
the door. "Come back, please; let there be no misunderstanding about
this. I have not meant to offend you in any way; I did not mean to be
abrupt. But you must not connect me in any way with this matter."
The other man came slowly back into the room, and stood for a moment
or two with his head bent, and his hands clasped behind him, and the
toe of one boot grinding slowly into the carpet. Without looking up he
said at last--"I'm an older man than you are, Byfield--and I know what
a beastly world we live in, from some points of view. Talk to me of
Meggison or his worthless son, and I don't care a snap of the fingers;
tell me about this girl, and the old blood in me fires up as it might
have done if it had ever been ordained that I should have a child of my
own. That's foolish, I know--but for once it happens to come straight
from my heart. I have a love for her that I have for nothing else on
God's earth; and I can't stand by now, and see her in all innocence
rushing on to a place where the feet of a stronger woman might not
tread. Do you or do you not understand for one moment what you're
doing?"
"I think so," said Gilbert quietly.
"I don't think you do. As I understand it, you've cheated this
girl--tried to draw her to you by a beggarly underhand payment of
pounds shillings and pence. That's nothing to you, and you can keep it
up for a long time; but where's it going to end? Who's going to tell
her the truth--you or I?"
They faced each other in the shabby room--white-faced. "What do you
mean by the truth?" asked Byfield at last.
"The truth--that your money buys the clothes she wears and the food she
eats; that every copper she drops into the hand of a beggar is so much
of your money. Who is to tell her that?" Simon Quarle did not flinch as
he stood waiting for his answer.
"You put the thing crudely, Mr. Quarle," said Gilbert at last. "I admit
that on the face of it the thing may be reduced to that; you have
surprised my secret, and you probably know as well as I do that I am
paying the small sum of money for this little whim--which pleases me
and can do no harm to anyone else. Stop--don't interrupt me; I repeat
that it can do no harm to anyone else, while on the other hand it may
do a great deal of good. The money is nothing to me--what it can buy
means a great deal to her."
"But the end--the end of it!" persisted Quarle. "What of that?"
"Let the end take care of itself," replied Gilbert. "I would not have
said so much as this to any other man; but I do you the justice to
believe that you are honestly very fond of her, and that you would do
a great deal on your own account to help her. Therefore I say that for
the present the matter must be left where it is."
"What was the original intention in your mind--apart from merely
helping her; what did you purpose doing?" demanded Quarle.
"I planned a holiday for the girl--and God knows she needed it badly.
Our friend Meggison probably--certainly misunderstood me."
"Exactly." Quarle nodded slowly, and grinned. "It was the purpose of
our friend Meggison to misunderstand you," he said. "Meggison, for the
first time in his life, finds a rich man with a soft spot in his heart;
it is a chance not to be missed. He proceeds to lie to everyone; to his
daughter, who believes in him completely--to others only too willing to
believe him. He displays some money; he has a house in the country to
which he is to go---- By the way--that house in the country?"
"Is mine," said Gilbert. "I originally intended that Meggison should
take the girl down there for a few weeks; that they should then return
to their own house. You know for yourself what he has done."
"The question is not so much what he has done as what you are going to
do," said the other. "The bubble must burst some day, you know."
Gilbert Byfield picked up the letter again, and looked at it
attentively; turned to the other man, and tapped the paper with a
forefinger. "She's very well--and very happy," he said slowly. "Think
of that, Quarle: for the first time in all her short life she is very
well and very happy. I say to you--to the devil with your conventions
and your laws--your prejudices and what not; this child is happy. I
think you know in your heart that I shall do her no harm; in mercy
let her remain where she is, for a little time at least, until I can
decide what is to be done. Would you drag her back here again to
slave for that drunken father and that lout of a brother; to face
semi-starvation, and bills and duns, and every other sordid item that
her life should never have known? Would you do that, Quarle?"
"Yes--I would," replied the other stoutly. "And keep her honest."
"She'll keep honest on her own account," said Gilbert. "For the
present, I tell you the thing must remain as it is. Meggison won't
speak, for his own sake; you won't speak--unless you want to break her
heart."
"I'll promise nothing," said Quarle angrily. "You think you've got me
in a corner so that I can't move--but I'll find a way to tell the truth
without hurting her--or if I do hurt her a little it'll only be for
her good. Oh--I wish I could make you understand what you're doing!"
"I tell you the thing was begun innocently enough," replied Gilbert.
"I'm not responsible for what has happened--except that I ought to have
known what kind of man Meggison was, and so have been prepared. For the
present the thing must stand--and you must be silent."
"It shan't stand an hour longer than I can prevent," was Simon Quarle's
final declaration as he went away.
Gilbert Byfield, reviewing the matter carefully so far as it had gone,
was disposed first to be righteously indignant, and then to be amused.
That which he had done on the mere quick generous impulse of the moment
had suddenly turned into something so enormous, and yet so cunningly
devised, that he did not quite see how he was to get out of it; on the
other hand, the sheer audacity of it held his unwilling admiration
even against his better judgment. At one moment he told himself that
he must honestly and frankly declare what had happened, and must set
himself right in the eyes of the girl; the next he saw that to do that
would be to break down her self-respect completely, and to strip old
Daniel Meggison of whatever virtues he possessed in the eyes of his
daughter--both clearly possible. Therefore, not knowing what to do, he
adopted what seemed to be the wisest course--and did nothing at all.
Arcadia Street having grown distasteful, alike because there was no
Bessie Meggison next door, and because the stern face of Mr. Simon
Quarle fronted him now and then on the staircase and in the street,
he determined once more to go back to his own ordinary mode of life,
at least for a week or two; and so came again in touch with Mr. Jordan
Tant and the rest. If he thought at all of what might be happening at
Fiddler's Green, he steadfastly strove to banish the matter from his
mind, and told himself that in that he had succeeded. Nevertheless he
was restless and unhappy; and his spirit hovered, as it were, in waking
and sleeping moments alike, between Arcadia Street and Fiddler's Green,
Sussex.
A fortnight later found him back again in Arcadia Street--there to
discover another letter from Bessie, gently suggesting that he might
have found time to write to her, and with a little general note of
wistfulness in it that tugged at his heartstrings. Almost he determined
to go down and see her; yet knew full well that he dared not do that,
for the simple reason that he could not face those clear eyes and look
into their depths. At last he told himself that he would get to work
there in Arcadia Street, and would leave the problem to work itself out.
Like most problems it was destined to work itself out in a wholly
unexpected fashion. It began to work itself out the very next day, with
the arrival of Mr. Simon Quarle, who came in quickly, and closed the
door, and looked at Byfield with a face of gloom. Gilbert waved his
hand towards a chair to indicate that this unceremonious guest should
sit down.
"Well--I've been to Fiddler's Green," was Quarle's first utterance, as
he seated himself, and squared his shoulders, and frowned at his host.
"You at Fiddler's Green? What for?"
"To see for myself what was going on; to understand for myself how the
Meggisons stand riches," said Quarle, evidently in a great state of
grim triumph. "I've seen them--talked with them--been snubbed by one at
least of them. Would you like to hear about it?"
"How's the girl?--how's Bessie?" asked Gilbert.
"Oh--I grant you'd be pleased with her," retorted Quarle grudgingly.
"As pretty as a picture--and with a smile in her eyes for the first
time. But the other two! The dogs--the scorpions--the blood-suckers!"
"Steady! I'm sure there's nothing to get excited about. What have they
done to you?"
"I stand for nothing--and I don't complain," replied Quarle. "But when
I see that snivelling lounger Daniel Meggison cutting a dash, sir,
in a hired carriage--when I see that ardent billiard-room enthusiast
Aubrey Meggison cutting an absurd figure about the country lanes on a
hired hack, and slapping his leg with a riding whip in the bar of the
local inn--when I think of the bills that are running up, and the price
there'll be to pay--plus the necessary explanations----"
"That will do, thank you, Quarle," said Gilbert, with a new gravity
upon him. "I'll go down there at once; I've delayed too long. I give
you my word I didn't think it was coming to this--I thought at least
they'd have the decency to be quiet."
"Decency, sir, is a word they don't understand. Only I tell you I'm
bitterly sorry for the girl. If I could in any way drown father and
son, or smother them, or get rid of them somehow, I'd cheerfully do it,
if it would keep her in ignorance of the truth. One word, Byfield:
you've got to be mighty careful, because either Daniel Meggison or
the boy is mean enough, if the game appears to be up, to tell the
truth--and not to tell it with too nice a tongue. Be careful."
Gilbert Byfield had crossed the room and had taken up a railway guide.
There was a look of decision about him that impressed Simon Quarle.
While the young man was busily fluttering the pages the door was
opened, and Mr. Jordan Tant sauntered in, as immaculate-looking as
ever. He glanced at the sturdy figure of Simon Quarle, and then looked
across at Byfield; coughed to attract the latter's attention.
Gilbert turned and looked at him. "Hullo, Tant," he exclaimed. "I'm
sure I'm very glad to see you. Let me make you known to my friend--Mr.
Simon Quarle."
The two nodded distantly after the introduction, and Tant stood
awkwardly while Gilbert still fluttered the pages. At last Gilbert
flung the book aside petulantly, and crossed over to his friend, and
shook hands with him.
"What's brought you to Arcadia Street?" he asked.
"Well, as a matter of fact, my dear Gilbert, I do not come exactly
on my own account, but for somebody else," responded Mr. Tant. "Mrs.
Ewart-Crane wanted a message conveyed to you, and I couldn't think of
your number, although, as I told her, I knew the house when once I got
into this beastly locality. Consequently, here I am."
"My friend Mr. Tant doesn't like Arcadia Street," said Gilbert, turning
to Simon Quarle.
"The young gentleman doesn't look as if he did," retorted Quarle, with
a curling lip.
"What I always say is, 'Let us draw the line,'" said Mr. Tant severely.
"However, my dear Gilbert, the message is this. The old lady--(by
which term, of course, I refer not at all discourteously to Mrs.
Ewart-Crane)--the old lady is anxious to get away into the country;
thinks Enid is not looking well, and so forth."
"I'm sorry," said Gilbert absently. "But what can I do?"
"There's that beautiful place of yours that you leave empty so
much--down at Fiddler's Green. Now, if you could let her have that----"
"I can't; it's quite out of the question," broke in Gilbert harshly,
with a glance at Simon Quarle.
"But, my dear Gilbert, she seems quite set on it," urged Mr. Tant.
"There can be no reason----"
"The reason is, young gentleman, that the house is full already," said
Simon Quarle. "Full of people, I mean."
"You must understand, Tant," said Gilbert, without looking at him,
"that I've lent the house to some friends of mine--for a time. Tell
Mrs. Ewart-Crane that I'm sorry; under any other circumstances I should
have been delighted."
"Oh, very well, my dear Byfield," said Mr. Tant. Then, as a thought
occurred to him, he suggested quickly--"Perhaps after your friends have
left--gone away from the house----"
"Mr. Byfield doesn't quite know when that's going to happen," said
Simon Quarle maliciously. "These friends are down there as a sort of
permanent arrangement--stop-as-long-as-they-like sort of thing."
"You seem to know a great deal about it," replied Tant, in his precise
tones.
"I do; I've just been to see them," Simon Quarle answered, with a grim
laugh. "The sort of guests, young gentleman, that you don't get rid of
in a hurry, I can assure you."
Gilbert plunged into the dangerous conversation hurriedly. "I don't
think anything more need be said, Mr. Quarle," he exclaimed. "If you'll
excuse me now, there are things I want to talk to Mr. Tant about. Good
day to you!"
Simon Quarle got up, and walked to the door of the room; turned there,
and spoke with characteristic bluntness. "Sorry if I've hurt anybody's
feelings," he said. "Of course, it's no business of mine."
He was gone, and the two younger men faced each other. It is safe to
say that Jordan Tant had always at the back of his mind one thought
dominating all others; the thought of Enid. The fact that Byfield had
gruffly refused even to consider the suggestion that the house should
be lent to her and her mother set the man's wits to work; the fact that
another man who obviously lived in Arcadia Street knew all about the
strange occupants of that house at Fiddler's Green stirred into being
a process commonly known as "putting two and two together." Mr. Jordan
Tant did some hard thinking.
"Please explain to Mrs. Ewart-Crane why I can't let her have the
house--and make my apologies!" said Gilbert after a pause.
"I will certainly do that--when I know what to say," said Tant,
putting his head on one side, and looking at his friend with a smile.
"My dear Gilbert--who have you been giving away your property to?"
"I have not been giving it away at all," retorted Gilbert. "I've simply
lent the house to some friends. Say no more about it."
Mr. Jordan Tant said no more about it. After an awkward pause he made a
remark, which in the connection was certainly startling. "By the way,
Gilbert, I noticed as I came into this house that your little friend
next door--the Princess, as you called her--has flitted."
Byfield, startled, swung round upon him. "And pray what the devil do
you think that's got to do with Fiddler's Green?" he demanded savagely.
Jordan Tant fairly leapt in his astonishment. "Really--I never said----
Why, Gilbert--you don't mean to say that you've sent her down to
Fiddler's Green?"
All this interference with what he had come to regard as his private
plans began to have a maddening effect upon Gilbert Byfield. He had
savagely to acknowledge to himself that he had failed; that that
impulsive generosity of which he had been guilty had been taken
advantage of by those in whose hands he was practically powerless. The
thought of that did not tend to mend his temper; and Tant was a handy
victim. Byfield squared his shoulders, and set his hands on his hips,
and gazed down at the shrinking little man with blazing eyes.
"And suppose I have sent her to Fiddler's
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