Kitabı oku: «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.