I now took a humble room and set to work on a new literary enterprise, avoiding everyone I had hitherto known, for being now almost a poor man, I was aware that ‘swagger society’ wished to blot me from its visiting-list. I lived with my own sorrowful thoughts, — musing on many things, training myself to humility, obedience, and faith with fortitude, — and day by day I did battle with the monster, Egotism, that presented itself in a thousand disguises at every turn in my own life as well as in the lives of others. I had to re-form my character, — to mould the obstinate nature that rebelled, and make its obstinacy serve for the attainment of higher objects than world’s renown, — the task was difficult, — but I gained ground a little with every fresh effort.
I had lived for some months like this in bitter self-abasement, when all the reading world was suddenly electrified by another book of Mavis Clare’s. My lately favoured first work was again forgotten and thrust aside, — hers, slated and screamed at as usual by the criticasters, was borne along to fame by a great wave of honest public praise and enthusiasm. And I? I rejoiced! — no longer grudging or envious of her sweet fame, I stood apart in spirit as it were, while the bright car of her triumph went by, decked, not only with laurels, but with roses, — the blossoms of a people’s love and honour. With all my soul I reverenced her genius, — with all my heart I honoured her pure womanliness! And in the very midst of her brilliant success, when all the world was talking of her, she wrote to me, a simple little letter, as gracious as her own fair name.
Dear Mr Tempest,
I heard by chance the other day that you had returned to England. I therefore send this note to the care of your publisher to express my sincere delight in the success your clever book has now attained after its interval of probation. I fancy the public appreciation of your work must go far to console you for the great losses you have had both in life and fortune, of which I will not here speak. When you feel that you can bear to look again upon scenes which I know will be sure to rouse in your mind many sad and poignant memories, will you come and see me?
Your friend
Mavis Clare.
A mist came before my eyes, — I almost felt her gentle presence in my room, — I saw the tender look, the radiant smile, — the innocent yet earnest joy in life and love of purity that emanated from the fair personality of the sweetest woman I had ever known. She called herself my friend! — ... it was a privilege of which I felt myself unworthy! I folded the letter and put it near my heart to serve me as a talisman, ... she, of all bright creatures in the world surely knew the secret of happiness! ... Some-day, ... yes, ... I would go and see her, ... my Mavis that sang in her garden of lilies, — some day when I had force and manliness enough to tell her all, — save my love for her! For that, I felt, must never be spoken, — Self must resist Self, and clamour no more at the gate of a forfeited Paradise! Some day I would see her, ... but not for a long time, ... not till I had, in part at least, worked out my secret expiation. As I sat musing thus, a strange memory came into my brain, ... I thought I heard a voice resembling my own, which said —
“Lift, oh lift the shrouding veil, spirit of the City Beautiful! For I feel I shall read in your eyes the secret of happiness!”
A cold shudder ran through me, — I sprang up erect, in a kind of horror. Leaning at my open window I looked down into the busy street below, — and my thoughts reverted to the strange things I had seen in the East, — the face of the dead Egyptian dancer, uncovered to the light again after two thousand years, — the face of Sibyl! — then I remembered the vision of the “City Beautiful,” in which one face had remained veiled, — the face I most desired to see! —— and I trembled more and more as my mind, despite my will, began to weave together links of the past and present, till they seemed growing into one and the same. Was I again to be the prey of evil forces? —— did some new danger threaten me? — had I, by some unconscious wicked wish invited new temptation to assail me?
Overcome by my sensations, I left my work and went out into the fresh air, ... it was late at night, — and the moon was shining. I felt for the letter of Mavis, — it pressed against my heart, a shield against all vileness. The room I occupied was in a house not far from Westminster Abbey, and I instinctively bent my steps towards that grey old shrine of kings and poets dead. The square around it was almost deserted, —— I slackened my pace, strolling meditatively along the narrow paved way that forms a short cut across into Old Palace Yard, ... when suddenly a Shadow crossed my path, and looking up, I came face to face with —— Lucio! The same as ever, — the perfect impersonation of perfect manhood! ... his countenance, pale, proud, sorrowful yet scornful, flashed upon me like a star! —— he looked full at me, and a questioning smile rested on his lips!
My heart almost stopped beating, ... I drew a quick sharp breath, ... again I felt for the letter of Mavis, and then, ... meeting his gaze fixedly and straightly in my turn, I moved slowly on in silence. He understood, — his eyes flashed with the jewel-like strange brilliancy I knew so well, and so well remembered, — and drawing back he stood aside and — let me pass! I continued my walk steadily, though dazed and like one in a dream, — till reaching the shadowed side of the street opposite the Houses of Parliament, I stopped for a moment to recover my startled senses. There again I saw him! —— the superb man’s form, — the Angel’s face, — the haunting, splendid sorrowful eyes! —— he came with his usual ease and grace of step into the full moonlight and paused, — apparently waiting for some one. For me? — ah no! — I kept the name of God upon my lips, — I gathered all the strength of faith within my soul, — and though I was wholesomely afraid of Myself, I feared no other foe! I lingered therefore — watching; — and presently I saw a few members of Parliament walking singly and in groups towards the House, — one or two greeted the tall dark Figure as a friend and familiar, and others knew him not. Still he waited on, ... and so did I. At last, just as Big Ben chimed the quarter to eleven, one man whom I instantly recognised as a well-known Cabinet minister, came walking briskly towards the House, ... then, and then only, He, whom I had known as Lucio, advanced smiling. Greeting the minister cordially, in that musical rich voice I knew of old, he took his arm, — and they both walked on slowly, talking earnestly. I watched them till their figures receded in the moonlight, ... the one tall, kingly and commanding, ... the other burly and broad, and self-assertive in demeanour; — I saw them ascend the steps, and finally disappear within the House of England’s Imperial Government, — Devil and Man, — together!
The Mighty Atom
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
The first edition’s title page
CHAPTER I.
A HEAVY storm had raged all day on the north coast of Devon. Summer had worn the garb of winter in a freakish fit of mockery and masquerade; and even among the sheltered orchards of the deeply-embowered valley of Combmartin, many a tough and gnarled branch of many a sturdy apple-tree laden with reddening fruit, had been beaten to the ground by the fury of the blast and the sweeping gusts of rain. Only now, towards late afternoon, were the sullen skies beginning to clear. The sea still lashed the rocks with angry thuds of passion, but the strength of the wind was gradually sinking into a mere breeze, and a warm saffron light in the west showed where the sun, obscured for so many hours, was about to hide his glowing face altogether for the night, behind the black vizor of our upward-moving earth. The hush of the gloaming began to permeate nature; flowers, draggled with rain, essayed to lift their delicate stems from the mould where they had been bowed prone and almost broken, �
�� and a little brown bird fluttering joyously out of a bush where it had taken shelter from the tempest, alighted on a window-sill of one of the nearest human habitations it could perceive, and there piped a gentle roundelay for the cheering and encouragement of those within before so much as preening a feather. The window was open, and in the room beyond it a small boy sat at a school-desk reading, and every now and then making pencil notes on a large folio sheet of paper beside him. He was intent upon his work, — yet he turned quickly at the sound of the bird’s song and listened, his deep thoughtful eyes darkening and softening with a liquid look as of unshed tears. It was only for a moment that he thus interrupted his studies, — anon, he again bent over the book before him with an air of methodical patience and resignation strange to see in one so young. He might have been a bank clerk, or an experienced accountant in a London merchant’s office, from his serious old-fashioned manner, instead of a child barely eleven years of age; indeed, as a matter of fact, there was an almost appalling expression of premature wisdom on his pale wistful features; — the ‘thinking furrow’ already marked his forehead, — and what should still have been the babyish upper curve of his sensitive little mouth, was almost though not quite obliterated by a severe line of constantly practised self-restraint. Stooping his fair curly head over the printed page more closely as the day darkened, he continued reading, pondering, and writing; and the bird, which had come to assure him as well as it could, that fine bright weather, — such weather as boys love, — might be expected to-morrow, seemed disappointed that its gay carol was not more appreciated. At any rate it ceased singing, and began to plume itself with fastidious grace and prettiness, peering round at the youthful student from time to time inquisitively, as much as to say,— “What wonder is this? The rain is over, — the air is fresh, — the flowers are fragrant, — there is light in the sky, — all the world of nature is glad, and rejoices, — yet here is a living creature shut up with a book which surely God never had the making of! — and his face is wan, and his eyes are sad, and he seems not to know the meaning of joy!”
The burning bars of saffron widened in the western heavens, — shafts of turquoise-blue, pale rose, and chrysoprase flashed down towards the sea like reflections from the glory of some unbarred gate of Paradise, — and the sun, flaming with August fires, suddenly burst forth in all his splendour. Full on Combmartin, with its grey old church, stone cottages, and thatched roofs overgrown with flowers, the cheerful radiance fell, bathing it from end to end in a shower of gold, — the waves running into the quiet harbour caught the lustrous glamour and shone with deep translucent glitterings of amber melting into green, — and through the shadows of the room where the solitary little student sat at work, a bright ray came dancing, and glistened on his bent head like the touch of some passing angel’s benediction. Just then the door opened, and a young man entered, clad in white boating flannels.
“Still at it, Lionel!” he said kindly. “Look here, drop it all for to-day! The storm is quite over; — come with me, and I’ll take you for a pull on the water.”
Lionel looked up, half surprised, half afraid.
“Does he say I may go, Mr. Montrose?”
“I haven’t asked him,” replied Montrose curtly, “I say you may, — and not only that you may, but that you must! I’m your tutor, — at least for the present, — and you know you’ve got to obey me, or else — !”
Here he squared himself, and made playfully threatening gestures after the most approved methods of boxing.
The boy smiled, and rose from his chair.
“I don’t think I get on very fast,” he said apologetically, with a doubtful glance at the volume over which he had been poring— “It’s all my stupidity I suppose, but sometimes it seems a muddle to me, and more often still it seems useless. How, for instance, can I feel any real interest in the amount of the tithes that were paid to certain bishops in England in the year 1054? I don’t care what was paid, and I’m sure I never shall care. It has nothing to do with the way people live nowadays, has it?”
“No, — but it goes under the head of general information,” — answered Montrose laughing,— “Anyhow, you can leave the tithes alone for the present, — forget them, — and forget all the bishops and kings too if you like! You looked fagged out, — what do you say to a first-class Devonshire tea at Miss Payne’s?”
“Jolly!” and a flash of something like merriment lit up Lionel’s small pale face— “But we’ll go on the water first, please! It will soon be sunset, and I love to watch a sunset from the sea.”
Montrose was silent. Standing at the open door he waited, attentively observing meanwhile the quiet and precise movements of his young pupil who was now busy putting away his books and writing materials. He did this with an almost painful care: wiping his pen, re-sharpening his pencil to be ready for use when he came back to work again, folding a scattered sheet or two of paper neatly, dusting the desk, setting up the volume concerning ‘tithes’ and what not, on a particular shelf, and looking about him in evident anxiety lest he should have forgotten some trifle. His tutor, though a man of neat taste and exemplary tidiness himself, would have preferred to see this mere child leaving everything in a disorderly heap, and rushing out into the fresh air with a wild whoop and bellow. But he gave his thoughts no speech, and studied the methodical goings to and fro of the patient little lad from under his half-drooped eyelids with an expression of mingled kindness and concern, till at last, the room being set in as prim an order as that of some fastidious old spinster, Lionel took down his red jersey-cap from its own particular peg in the wall, put it on, and smiled up confidingly at his stalwart companion.
“Now, Mr. Montrose!” he said.
Montrose started as from a reverie.
“Ah! That’s it! Now’s the word!”
Flinging on his own straw hat, and softly whistling a lively tune as he went, he led the way downstairs and out of the house, the little Lionel following in his footsteps closely and somewhat timidly. Their two figures could soon be discerned among the flowers and shrubs of the garden as they passed across it towards the carriage gate, which opened directly on to the high road, — and a woman watching them from an upper window pushed her fair face through a tangle of fuchsias and called,
“Playing truant, Mr. Montrose? That’s right! Always do what you’re told not to do! Good-bye, Lylie!”
Lionel looked up and waved his cap.
“Good-bye, mother!”
The beautiful face framed in red fuchsia flowers softened at the sound of the child’s clear voice, — anon, it drew back into the shadow and disappeared.
The woods and hills around Combmartin were now all aglow with the warm luminance of the descending sun, and presently, out on the sea which was still rough and sparkling with a million diamond-like points of spray, a small boat was seen, tossing lightly over the crested billows. William Montrose, B.A., ‘oor Willie’ as some of his affectionate Highland relatives called him, pulled at the oars with dash and spirit, and Lionel Valliscourt, only son and heir of John Valliscourt of Valliscourt in the county of Somerset, sat curled up, not in the stern, but almost at the end of the prow, his dreamy eyes watching with keen delight every wave that advanced to meet the little skiff and break against it in an opaline shower.
“I say, Mr. Montrose!” he shouted— “This is glorious!”
“Aye, aye!” responded Montrose, B.A. with a deep breath and an extra pull— “Life’s a fine thing when you get it in big doses!”
Lionel did not hear this observation, — he was absorbed in catching a string of seaweed, slimy and unprofitable to most people, but very beautiful in his eyes. There were hundreds of delicate little shells knitted into it, as fragile and fine as pearls, and every such tiny casket held a life as frail. Ample material for meditation was there in this tangle of mysterious organisms marvellously perfect, and while he minutely studied the dainty net-work of ocean’s weaving, across the young boy’s mind there flitted the dark shado
w of the inscrutable and unseen. He asked within himself, just as the oldest and wisest scholars have asked to their dying day, the ‘why’ of things, — the cause for the prolific creation of so many apparently unnecessary objects, such as a separate universe of shells for example, — what was the ultimate intention of it all? He thought earnestly, — and thinking, grew sorrowful, child though he was, with the hopeless sorrow of Ecclesiastes the Preacher and his incessant cry of ‘Vanitas vanitatem!’ Meantime the heavens were ablaze with glory, — the two rims of the friendly planets, earth and the sun, seemed to touch one another on the edge of the sea, — then, the bright circle was covered by the dark, and the soft haze of a purple twilight began to creep over the ‘Hangman’s Hills’ as they are curiously styled, — the Great and the Little Hangman. There is nothing about these grassy slopes at all suggestive of capital punishment, and they appear to have derived their names from a legend of the country which tells how a thief, running away with a stolen sheep tied across his back, was summarily and unexpectedly punished for his misdeed by the sheep itself, who struggled so violently, as to pull the cord which fastened it close round its captor’s throat in a thoroughly ‘hangman’ like manner, thus killing him on the spot. The two promontories form a bold and picturesque headland as seen from the sea, and Willie Montrose, resting for a moment on his oars, looked up at them admiringly, and almost with love in his eyes, just because they reminded him of a favourite little bit of coast scenery in his own more romantic and beautiful Scottish land. Then he brought his gaze down to the curled-up small figure of his pupil, who was still absorbed in the contemplation of his treasure-trove of sea-weed and shells.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 373
