Christian climbed the stairs at Duke Street, and let himself into his apartments, with painstaking precautions against being overheard. There was an excess of zeal about Falkner which might easily impel him to present himself for service at even this most unseasonable hour.
The young man had still only formless notions of what he was going to do, but it was at least plain to him that Falkner was to have no part in the proceedings. He drew off his varnished boots as a further measure of security, and then, with more hesitation, removed his cloak and coat, and raised the inside blinds at the two windows. This sitting-room of his had rather pleased him formerly. He could recall having taken quite an affectionate interest in buying and arranging the rugs and pictures and bookcases with which he had supplemented the somewhat gaunt furnishing of his predecessor. But now, in this misty and reluctant light of the London morning, nothing seemed good to him as he looked about.
The pretty things of his own selection said no more to him than did the chattels he had taken over from a stranger. There was no spirit of home in them.
He moved noiselessly to the adjoining bedroom, and drew the curtains there as well, and glanced round. Here, too, he had the sense of beholding the casual appointments of a hotel chamber. Nothing made an appeal of intimacy to him. He reflected that in a day or two he should not be able to remember how his room looked—even if his memory attempted the fatuous task. Duke Street had been engraved on his cards for six months, but it had not made the faintest mark on his heart.
With an air of decision, he suddenly began to drag forth his clothes from the wardrobe and drawers, and spread them on the bed. In the tiny dressing-room beyond were piled his traveling bags, and these he brought out into the light. Upon consideration, however, the original impulse to take a good many things weakened and dwindled. To begin with, their secret removal was in no way practicable. Moreover, now that he thought of it, he did not want them. They would be simply encumbrances. He would take with him only the smallest handbag, with a change of linen and a few brushes.
Finally, the conviction that even this must be a nuisance became clear to him, and he desisted from the random packing he had begun. Still moving about as silently as possible, he changed his ceremonial tie for one of every-day wear, and put on a suit of sober-colored tweeds, and his easiest brown boots. The transfer of his watch, some loose gold and the roll of notes from one set of pockets to another, completed his preparations in the bedchamber. He tiptoed out to the larger room, and there, upon reflection, wrote a few lines for Falkner’s direction, saying merely that he was called away, and that matters were to go on as usual until he returned or sent further orders. He separated a banknote from the roll to place inside this note, but on second thoughts wrote a check instead, and sealing and directing the envelope, laid it in a conspicuous place on the table.
He noticed then, for the first time, that there were some letters from the evening post for him, neatly arranged on this table. He opened the nearest, and glanced at its contents: it was a note from his second cousin, Lady Milly Poynes, the fair-haired, fair-faced, fair-brained, fair-everything sister of Lord Lingfield, reminding him that she was depending upon his escort for the Private View of the Academy, and that the time for getting tickets was running very short. He laughed aloud at the conceit of the Royal Academy rising in his path as an obstacle at such a moment—and without more ado thrust this with the unopened letters into his pocket. Then, when he had made sure once more that he had his check-book, nothing remained to be done. He went softly forth, without so much as a thought of taking a farewell glance behind him, found a soft dark hat in the hallway and then closed the outer door with great care upon the whole Duke Street episode of his life.
“You are not to see me here again in a hurry,” he confided aloud to the banisters and steps, when he had descended to the first floor. Then he laughed to himself, and tripped gaily down the remaining flight.
There was no hesitation now in his mood. He walked briskly back through the square, and then down Waterloo Place, till he came to the Guards’ Memorial. He moved round this to the front, and looked up at one of the three bronze Guardsmen with the confident air of familiarity. He knew this immutable, somber face under every shifting aspect of light and shadow; he had stared at the mantling greatcoat and the huge bearskin of this hero of his a hundred times. The very first day of his arrival in London he had made the acquaintance of this statue, and had started, dazed and fascinated, at the strange resemblance it suggested. Thus his boy-father must have looked, with the beard and the heavy dress of the Russian winter. The metal figure came to mean to him more than all London beside. In the sad, strong, silent countenance which gazed down upon him he read forever the tragedy that gripped his heartstrings. Forever Honor, standing aloft, held the laurel wreath poised high above the warrior’s head—immovable in the air, never to descend to touch its mark. Christian had seen this wreath always through moist eyes.
This morning, for a wonder, no tearful impulse came to him as he looked upward. The impassive face was as gravely fine as ever, but its customary effect of pathos was lacking. There even seemed in its sightless eyes a latent perception of Christian’s altered mood. He lifted his hat soberly and saluted the statue.
Toward the Strand now he made his way, walking blithely, and humming to himself. He could not forbear to smile at a policeman he passed in front of St. Martin’s. Two elderly and much bewrapped cabmen stood stamping their feet beside a shelter, and they pointed toward their ridiculous old horses and battered growlers as he came along, with an air that moved him to glee. He gave them a shilling to divide, and went on, conscious of a novel delight in himself and in the world at large.
The big clock showed it to be half-past five. There was no blue in the sky, but the mist of daybreak was abating, and the air was milder. Not a living creature was visible along the naked length of the Strand. At the end, the beautiful spire of St. Mary’s rose from the dim grays about its base, exquisite in tints and contour as an Alpine summit in the moment before sunrise.
A turning to the left opened to Christian, unexpectedly, a scene full of motion and color. He had not thought himself so near Covent Garden, but clearly this must be it. He walked up toward the busy scene of high-laden vans, big cart-horses and swarming porters, wondering why no sign of all this activity was manifest in the sleeping Strand below, barely a stone’s throw distant. He saw the glowing banks of flowers within, as he approached, and made toward them, sighing already with pleasure at the promise they held out to him.
He might have read in the papers that it was a backward and a grudging April, this year, in the matter of flowers. But to Christian, no memory of the exuberant South suggested any rivalry with this wonderful show of northern blossoms. Tulips and daffodils, amaryllis and azaleas, rhododendrons, carnations, roses—he seemed to have imagined to himself nothing like this before. He spent over an hour among them, in the end making numerous purchases. At each stall he gave an address—always the same—and exacted the pledge of delivery at eight o’clock.
At last he could in reason buy nothing more, and he went out to look about him. He found the place where the market-men take drinks at all hours, and food and coffee when nature’s sternest demands can be positively no longer disregarded—but it did not invite his appetite. Some further time he spent in gazing wondering at the vast walls of vegetables and fruit being tirelessly built up and pulled down again, pondering meanwhile the question whether he should breakfast before eight o’clock, or at some indefinitely later hour. He partially solved the problem at length by buying a small box of Algerian peaches, and eating them where he stood. Then some exceptionally fine bananas tempted him further, and he finished with a delicate little melon from Sicily.
How it carried him back to the days of his youth—this early morning fragrance of the fresh fruit! It was as if he were at Cannes again—only buoyant now, and happy, and oh, so free! And in his pocket he could feel whenever he liked the soft, munificent crackle of over four thousand francs! The sapphire Mediterranean had surely never been so lovely to his gaze as was now the dingy Strand below.
The laggard hour came round at last. He descended to Arundel Street, and discovered the house he wanted, and found just within the entrance two or three of the flower-laden porters awaiting his arrival, For the rest, the building seemed profoundly unoccupied. He led the way up to the third floor, and had the plants set down beside the locked door which bore the sign “Miss Bailey.” Other similarly burdened porters made their appearance in turn, till the narrow hallway looked like a floral annex to the Garden itself.
He waited alone with his treasures for what seemed to him a very long time, then descended and stood at the street door till he was tired, then climbed the stairs again. The extraordinary quiet of the big building, filled with business offices as it was, puzzled him. He had no experience of early-morning London to warn him that English habits differed from those of the continent. It occurred to him that perhaps it was a holiday—conceivably one of those extraordinary interludes called Bank Holidays—and he essayed a perplexing computation in the calendar in the effort to settle this point.
Finally there began the sounds of steps, and the opening and closing of doors, below him. A tow-headed boy in buttons came up to his landing, stared in vacuous amazement at him and the flowers and passed on to the next floor. Noises of occupancy rose from the well of the staircase to bear him countenance, and suddenly a lift glided up past him in this well. He had not noticed the ropes or the iron caging before. He heard the slamming of the lift doors above, and the dark carriage followed on its smooth descent. Christian reproached himself for not having rung the bell and questioned the lift-man. He considered the feasibility of doing it now, but was deterred by the fear that the man would resent it. Then the lift came up again—and was stopping at his floor. There was a sharp note of girlish laughter on the instant of the halt, answered by a male guffaw.
A slight, erect, active young woman emerged from the lift, her face alive with mirth of some unknown character. Behind her, in the obscurity, Christian saw for an instant the vanishing countenance of the liftman, grinning widely. This hilarity, somehow, struck in him an unsympathetic chord.
The young woman, still laughing, spread an uncomprehending glance over Christian and his flowers. She moved past him, key in hand, toward the door which he had been guarding, with a puzzled eye upon him meanwhile. With the key in the lock she turned and decided to speak.
“What might all this be—the Temple Flower Show or the Crystal Palace?” she asked, with banter in her tone.
“These are for Miss Bailey,” said Christian, quite humbly.
“Must be some mistake,” said the girl decisively. “Did she order them herself? Were you there at the time? Did you see her? Where do they come from?”
Christian advanced a little into the light. “She has not ordered them,” he said, in his calmest voice. “I have not seen her for a long time. But I have brought them for her, and I think you may take it from me that they are hers.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she replied, lightly but with grace. “I didn’t understand. Things are forever being brought here that belong somewhere else. Men are so stupid in finding their way about! Well—I suppose we must get them inside. That is your idea, isn’t it?”
She spoke very rapidly, and with a kind of metallic snap in her tones. Christian answered her questions by a suave assenting gesture. “Miss Bailey is not likely to turn up much before half-past nine,” she went on, as if he had made the inquiry. “She lives so far out, and just now we’re not very busy. There’s nothing doing in new plays at this time of the year, and the lady novelists are all getting their own typewriters. If you’ll lend a hand, we’ll carry the things in.” Between them they bore in the various pots, and the big bouquets loosely wrapped in blue paper. The girl led the way through a large working-room to a smaller apartment, fitted as an office but containing also a sofa and a tall gas cooking-stove—and here on desk and center-table, chairs and windowsill, they placed the flowers. Christian watched her as she deftly removed their paper wrappings. She had a comely, small face of aspect at once alert and masterful. The skin was peculiarly fair, with a tinge of rose in the cheeks so delicately modulated that he found it in rivalry with the “Mrs. Pauls” she was unpacking. Her light hair was drawn plainly down over the temples in a fashion which he felt was distinguished, but said to himself he did not like. Her shrewd eyes took calm cognizance of him from time to time.
“They are very beautiful indeed,” she remarked with judicial approval, upon the completion of her task. Then, as upon an afterthought, she moved rapidly about, peering under the branches of the growing plants, and separating the cut flowers lightly with her hands. “There is no card anywhere, is there? I suppose you will want to leave a message? Here are pen and ink—if you wish to write anything.”
“Thank you,” Christian began, smilingly but with obvious hesitation. He looked at his watch. “If you don’t mind—if you’re quite sure I shan’t be in the way—I think I should like to wait till Miss Bailey comes.”
“Oh, you won’t be in the way,” the girl replied. She regarded him meditatively, with narrowed eyes. “I shouldn’t dust this room in any event—since the flowers are here; but you mustn’t come out into the big room—unless you want to get choked with blacks. Would you like a morning paper? I can send a boy out for one.”
“Thank you—you are very good—no,” Christian answered. “There are some books here—I shall amuse myself.”
The girl turned to leave him, and then on second thought moved over to the window and lifted the sash. “There’ll be no objection to your smoking if you like,” she informed him. Then she went out, closing the door behind her.
Christian walked to the window in turn, and looked down over the flowers to the narrow street below. It was full of young men in silk hats, toiling up the granite ascent like black ants. He reflected that they must be clerks and shopmen, going to their daily work from the Temple station or the Embankment. The suggestion of monotonous bondage which their swarming progress toward the wage-earning center gave forth, interested him. He yawned pleasurably at the thought of his own superb emancipation from duties and tasks of all descriptions.
He strolled over to the bookcase above the desk, and glanced at the volumes revealed through its glass doors. They seemed very serious books, indeed. “Economics of Socialism,” “Capitalist Production,” “The Ethics of Socialism,” “Towards Democracy”—so the titles ran that first met his eye. There were other groups—mainly of history and the essayists—but everything was substantial. His glance sought in vain any lightsome gleam of poetry or fiction. The legend on a thin red book, “Civilization: Its Cause and Cure,” whimsically caught his attention. He put his hand to the key in the bookcase door to get out the volume; then, hesitating, yawned, and looked over the shelves once more. There was nothing else—and really he desired to read nothing.
He would half recline in comfort upon the sofa instead, until his friend came. As a pleasing adjunct to this plan, he drew the table up close, and found room upon it, by crowding them together, for most of the flowers that had been bestowed elsewhere. He seated himself at his ease, with his head resting against the wall, and surveyed the plants and blossoms in affectionate admiration. It was delicious to think how na?ve her surprise would be—how great her pleasure! Truly, since his discovery of his birthright, remarkable and varied as had been his experiences, he had done nothing else which afforded him a tithe of the satisfaction he felt now glowing in all his veins. Here, at last, by some curious and devious chance, he had stumbled upon the thing that was genuinely worth doing.
He could hear the cheerful girl in the next room, whistling gently to herself as she moved the furniture about. There came presently the sound of other female voices, and then a sustained, vibrant rattle, quaintly accentuated like the ticking of a telegraph key, which he grew accustomed to, and even found pleasant to the ear.
He put his feet up on the edge............