‘For God’s sake,’ cried the wretched Somerset, ‘hold your tongue! You cannot imagine how you torture me!’
A shade of serious discomposure crossed the open countenance of Zero.
‘There are times,’ he said, ‘when I begin to fancy that you do not like me. Why, why, dear Somerset, this lack of cordiality? I am depressed; the touchstone of my life draws near; and if I fail’ — he gloomily nodded— ‘from all the height of my ambitious schemes, I fall, dear boy, into contempt. These are grave thoughts, and you may judge my need of your delightful company. Innocent prattler, you relieve the weight of my concerns. And yet . . . and yet . . .’ The speaker pushed away his plate, and rose from table. ‘Follow me,’ said he, ‘follow me. My mood is on; I must have air, I must behold the plain of battle.’
So saying, he led the way hurriedly to the top flat of the mansion, and thence, by ladder and trap, to a certain leaded platform, sheltered at one end by a great stalk of chimneys and occupying the actual summit of the roof. On both sides, it bordered, without parapet or rail, on the incline of slates; and, northward above all, commanded an extensive view of housetops, and rising through the smoke, the distant spires of churches.
‘Here,’ cried Zero, ‘you behold this field of city, rich, crowded, laughing with the spoil of continents; but soon, how soon, to be laid low! Some day, some night, from this coign of vantage, you shall perhaps be startled by the detonation of the judgment gun — not sharp and empty like the crack of cannon, but deep-mouthed and unctuously solemn. Instantly thereafter, you shall behold the flames break forth. Ay,’ he cried, stretching forth his hand, ‘ay, that will be a day of retribution. Then shall the pallid constable flee side by side with the detected thief. Blaze!’ he cried, ‘blaze, derided city! Fall, flatulent monarchy, fall like Dagon!’
With these words his foot slipped upon the lead; and but for Somerset’s quickness, he had been instantly precipitated into space. Pale as a sheet, and limp as a pocket-handkerchief, he was dragged from the edge of downfall by one arm; helped, or rather carried, down the ladder; and deposited in safety on the attic landing. Here he began to come to himself, wiped his brow, and at length, seizing Somerset’s hand in both of his, began to utter his acknowledgments.
‘This seals it,’ said he. ‘Ours is a life and death connection. You have plucked me from the jaws of death; and if I were before attracted by your character, judge now of the ardour of my gratitude and love! But I perceive I am still greatly shaken. Lend me, I beseech you, lend me your arm as far as my apartment.’
A dram of spirits restored the plotter to something of his customary self-possession; and he was standing, glass in hand and genially convalescent, when his eye was attracted by the dejection of the unfortunate young man.
‘Good heavens, dear Somerset,’ he cried, ‘what ails you? Let me offer you a touch of spirits.’
But Somerset had fallen below the reach of this material comfort.
‘Let me be,’ he said. ‘I am lost; you have caught me in the toils. Up to this moment, I have lived all my life in the most reckless manner, and done exactly what I pleased, with the most perfect innocence. And now — what am I? Are you so blind and wooden that you do not see the loathing you inspire me with? Is it possible you can suppose me willing to continue to exist upon such terms? To think,’ he cried, ‘that a young man, guilty of no fault on earth but amiability, should find himself involved in such a damned imbroglio!’ And placing his knuckles in his eyes, Somerset rolled upon the sofa.
‘My God,’ said Zero, ‘is this possible? And I so filled with tenderness and interest! Can it be, dear Somerset, that you are under the empire of these out-worn scruples? or that you judge a patriot by the morality of the religious tract? I thought you were a good agnostic.’
‘Mr. Jones,’ said Somerset, ‘it is in vain to argue. I boast myself a total disbeliever, not only in revealed religion, but in the data, method, and conclusions of the whole of ethics. Well! what matters it? what signifies a form of words? I regard you as a reptile, whom I would rejoice, whom I long, to stamp under my heel. You would blow up others? Well then, understand: I want, with every circumstance of infamy and agony, to blow up you!’
‘Somerset, Somerset!’ said Zero, turning very pale, ‘this is wrong; this is very wrong. You pain, you wound me, Somerset.’
‘Give me a match!’ cried Somerset wildly. ‘Let me set fire to this incomparable monster! Let me perish with him in his fall!’
‘For God’s sake,’ cried Zero, clutching hold of the young man, ‘for God’s sake command yourself! We stand upon the brink; death yawns around us; a man — a stranger in this foreign land — one whom you have called your friend—’
‘Silence!’ cried Somerset, ‘you are no friend, no friend of mine. I look on you with loathing, like a toad: my flesh creeps with physical repulsion; my soul revolts against the sight of you.’
Zero burst into tears. ‘Alas!’ he sobbed, ‘this snaps the last link that bound me to humanity. My friend disowns — he insults me. I am indeed accurst.’
Somerset stood for an instant staggered by this sudden change of front. The next moment, with a despairing gesture, he fled from the room and from the house. The first dash of his escape carried him hard upon half-way to the next police-office: but presently began to droop; and before he reached the house of lawful intervention, he fell once more among doubtful counsels. Was he an agnostic? had he a right to act? Away with such nonsense, and let Zero perish! ran his thoughts. And then again: had he not promised, had he not shaken hands and broken bread? and that with open eyes? and if so how could he take action, and not forfeit honour? But honour? what was honour? A figment, which, in the hot pursuit of crime, he ought to dash aside. Ay, but crime? A figment, too, which his enfranchised intellect discarded. All day, he wandered in the parks, a prey to whirling thoughts; all night, patrolled the city; and at the peep of day he sat down by the wayside in the neighbourhood of Peckham and bitterly wept. His gods had fallen. He who had chosen the broad, daylit, unencumbered paths of universal scepticism, found himself still the bondslave of honour. He who had accepted life from a point of view as lofty as the predatory eagle’s, though with no design to prey; he who had clearly recognised the common moral basis of war, of commercial competition, and of crime; he who was prepared to help the escaping murderer or to embrace the impenitent thief, found, to the overthrow of all his logic, that he objected to the use of dynamite. The dawn crept among the sleeping villas and over the smokeless fields of city; and still the unfortunate sceptic sobbed over his fall from consistency.
At length, he rose and took the rising sun to witness. ‘There is no question as to fact,’ he cried; ‘right and wrong are but figments and the shadow of a word; but for all that, there are certain things that I cannot do, and there are certain others that I will not stand.’ Thereupon he decided to return to make one last effort of persuasion, and, if he could not prevail on Zero to desist from his infernal trade, throw delicacy to the winds, give the plotter an hour’s start, and denounce him to the police. Fast as he went, being winged by this resolution, it was already well on in the morning when he came in sight of the Superfluous Mansion. Tripping down the steps, was the young lady of the various aliases; and he was surprised to see upon her countenance the marks of anger and concern.
‘Madam,’ he began, yielding to impulse and with no clear knowledge of what he was to add.
But at the sound of his voice she seemed to experience a shock of fear or horror; started back; lowered her veil with a sudden movement; and fled, without turning, from the square.
Here then, we step aside a moment from following the fortunes of Somerset, and proceed to relate the strange and romantic episode of The Brown Box.
DESBOROUGH’S ADVENTURE: THE BROWN BOX
Mr. Harry Desborough lodged in the fine and grave old quarter of Bloomsbury, roared about on every side by the high tides of London, but itself rejoicing in romantic silences and city peace. It was in Queen Squa
re that he had pitched his tent, next door to the Children’s Hospital, on your left hand as you go north: Queen Square, sacred to humane and liberal arts, whence homes were made beautiful, where the poor were taught, where the sparrows were plentiful and loud, and where groups of patient little ones would hover all day long before the hospital, if by chance they might kiss their hand or speak a word to their sick brother at the window. Desborough’s room was on the first floor and fronted to the square; but he enjoyed besides, a right by which he often profited, to sit and smoke upon a terrace at the back, which looked down upon a fine forest of back gardens, and was in turn commanded by the windows of an empty room.
On the afternoon of a warm day, Desborough sauntered forth upon this terrace, somewhat out of hope and heart, for he had been now some weeks on the vain quest of situations, and prepared for melancholy and tobacco. Here, at least, he told himself that he would be alone; for, like most youths, who are neither rich, nor witty, nor successful, he rather shunned than courted the society of other men. Even as he expressed the thought, his eye alighted on the window of the room that looked upon the terrace; and to his surprise and annoyance, he beheld it curtained with a silken hanging. It was like his luck, he thought; his privacy was gone, he could no longer brood and sigh unwatched, he could no longer suffer his discouragement to find a vent in words or soothe himself with sentimental whistling; and in the irritation of the moment, he struck his pipe upon the rail with unnecessary force. It was an old, sweet, seasoned briar-root, glossy and dark with long employment, and justly dear to his fancy. What, then, was his chagrin, when the head snapped from the stem, leaped airily in space, and fell and disappeared among the lilacs of the garden?
He threw himself savagely into the garden chair, pulled out the story-paper which he had brought with him to read, tore off a fragment of the last sheet, which contains only the answers to correspondents, and set himself to roll a cigarette. He was no master of the art; again and again, the paper broke between his fingers and the tobacco showered upon the ground; and he was already on the point of angry resignation, when the window swung slowly inward, the silken curtain was thrust aside, and a lady, somewhat strangely attired, stepped forth upon the terrace.
‘Señorito,’ said she, and there was a rich thrill in her voice, like an organ note, ‘Señorito, you are in difficulties. Suffer me to come to your assistance.’
With the words, she took the paper and tobacco from his unresisting hands; and with a facility that, in Desborough’s eyes, seemed magical, rolled and presented him a cigarette. He took it, still seated, still without a word; staring with all his eyes upon that apparition. Her face was warm and rich in colour; in shape, it was that piquant triangle, so innocently sly, so saucily attractive, so rare in our more northern climates; her eyes were large, starry, and visited by changing lights; her hair was partly covered by a lace mantilla, through which her arms, bare to the shoulder, gleamed white; her figure, full and soft in all the womanly contours, was yet alive and active, light with excess of life, and slender by grace of some divine proportion.
‘You do not like my cigarrito, Señor?’ she asked. ‘Yet it is better made than yours.’ At that she laughed, and her laughter trilled in his ear like music; but the next moment her face fell. ‘I see,’ she cried. ‘It is my manner that repels you. I am too constrained, too cold. I am not,’ she added, with a more engaging air, ‘I am not the simple English maiden I appear.’
‘Oh!’ murmured Harry, filled with inexpressible thoughts.
‘In my own dear land,’ she pursued, ‘things are differently ordered. There, I must own, a girl is bound by many and rigorous restrictions; little is permitted her; she learns to be distant, she learns to appear forbidding. But here, in free England — oh, glorious liberty!’ she cried, and threw up her arms with a gesture of inimitable grace— ‘here there are no fetters; here the woman may dare to be herself entirely, and the men, the chivalrous men — is it not written on the very shield of your nation, honi soit? Ah, it is hard for me to learn, hard for me to dare to be myself. You must not judge me yet awhile; I shall end by conquering this stiffness, I shall end by growing English. Do I speak the language well?’
‘Perfectly — oh, perfectly!’ said Harry, with a fervency of conviction worthy of a graver subject.
‘Ah, then,’ she said, ‘I shall soon learn; English blood ran in my father’s veins; and I have had the advantage of some training in your expressive tongue. If I speak already without accent, with my thorough English appearance, there is nothing left to change except my manners.’
‘Oh no,’ said Desborough. ‘Oh pray not! I — madam—’
‘I am,’ interrupted the lady, ‘the Señorita Teresa Valdevia. The evening air grows chill. Adios, Señorito.’ And before Harry could stammer out a word, she had disappeared into her room.
He stood transfixed, the cigarette still unlighted in his hand. His thoughts had soared above tobacco, and still recalled and beautified the image of his new acquaintance. Her voice re-echoed in his memory; her eyes, of which he could not tell the colour, haunted his soul. The clouds had risen at her coming, and he beheld a new-created world. What she was, he could not fancy, but he adored her. Her age, he durst not estimate; fearing to find her older than himself, and thinking sacrilege to couple that fair favour with the thought of mortal changes. As for her character, beauty to the young is always good. So the poor lad lingered late upon the terrace, stealing timid glances at the curtained window, sighing to the gold laburnums, rapt into the country of romance; and when at length he entered and sat down to dine, on cold boiled mutton and a pint of ale, he feasted on the food of gods.
Next day when he returned to the terrace, the window was a little ajar, and he enjoyed a view of the lady’s shoulder, as she sat patiently sewing and all unconscious of his presence. On the next, he had scarce appeared when the window opened, and the Señorita tripped forth into the sunlight, in a morning disorder, delicately neat, and yet somehow foreign, tropical, and strange. In one hand she held a packet.
‘Will you try,’ she said, ‘some of my father’s tobacco — from dear Cuba? There, as I suppose you know, all smoke, ladies as well as gentlemen. So you need not fear to annoy me. The fragrance will remind me of home. My home, Señor, was by the sea.’ And as she uttered these few words, Desborough, for the first time in his life, realised the poetry of the great deep. ‘Awake or asleep, I dream of it: dear home, dear Cuba!’
‘But some day,’ said Desborough, with an inward pang, ‘some day you will return?’
‘Never!’ she cried; ‘ah, never, in Heaven’s name!’
‘Are you then resident for life in England?’ he inquired, with a strange lightening of spirit.
‘You ask too much, for you ask more than I know,’ she answered sadly; and then, resuming her gaiety of manner: ‘But you have not tried my Cuban tobacco,’ she said.
‘Señorita,’ said he, shyly abashed by some shadow of coquetry in her manner, ‘whatever comes to me — you — I mean,’ he concluded, deeply flushing, ‘that I have no doubt the tobacco is delightful.’
‘Ah, Señor,’ she said, with almost mournful gravity, ‘you seemed so simple and good, and already you are trying to pay compliments — and besides,’ she added, brightening, with a quick upward glance, into a smile, ‘you do it so badly! English gentlemen, I used to hear, could be fast friends, respectful, honest friends; could be companions, comforters, if the need arose, or champions, and yet never encroach. Do not seek to please me by copying the graces of my countrymen. Be yourself: the frank, kindly, honest English gentleman that I have heard of since my childhood and still longed to meet.’
Harry, much bewildered, and far from clear as to the manners of the Cuban gentlemen, strenuously disclaimed the thought of plagiarism.
‘Your national seriousness of bearing best becomes you, Señor,’ said the lady. ‘See!’ marking a line with her dainty, slippered foot, ‘thus far it shall be common ground; there, at my window-sill, begi
ns the scientific frontier. If you choose, you may drive me to my forts; but if, on the other hand, we are to be real English friends, I may join you here when I am not too sad; or, when I am yet more graciously inclined, you may draw your chair beside the window and teach me English customs, while I work. You will find me an apt scholar, for my heart is in the task.’ She laid her hand lightly upon Harry’s arm, and looked into his eyes. ‘Do you know,’ said she, ‘I am emboldened to believe that I have already caught something of your English aplomb? Do you not perceive a change, Señor? Slight, perhaps, but still a change? Is my deportment not more open, more free, more like that of the dear “British Miss” than when you saw me first?’ She gave a radiant smile; withdrew her hand from Harry’s arm; and before the young man could formulate in words the eloquent emotions that ran riot through his brain — with an ‘Adios, Señor: good-night, my English friend,’ she vanished from his sight behind the curtain.
The next day Harry consumed an ounce of tobacco in vain upon the neutral terrace; neither sight nor sound rewarded him, and the dinner-hour summoned him at length from the scene of disappointment. On the next it rained; but nothing, neither business nor weather, neither prospective poverty nor present hardship, could now divert the young man from the service of his lady; and wrapt in a long ulster, with the collar raised, he took his stand against the balustrade, awaiting fortune, the picture of damp and discomfort to the eye, but glowing inwardly with tender and delightful ardours. Presently the window opened, and the fair Cuban, with a smile imperfectly dissembled, appeared upon the sill.
‘Come here,’ she said, ‘here, beside my window. The small verandah gives a belt of shelter.’ And she graciously handed him a folding-chair.
As he sat down, visibly aglow with shyness and delight, a certain bulkiness in his pocket reminded him that he was not come empty-handed.
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