Chapter 7

What she precisely asked of him, muttering, wheezing, whining, snivelling, as she did, repeating herself--with her burthen of "O dear, O dear, O dear!"--I don't know. Her lost girl, her fine up-standing girl, her Nance, her only one, figured in it as needing mercy. Her "Oh, sir, I ask you kindly!" and "Oh, sir, for this once ...!" made me sick: yet he bore with her as she ran on, dribbling tears and gin in a mingled flood; he bore with her, heard her in silence, and in the end, by a look which I was not able to discover, quieted and sent her shuffling back to her place. So soon as she was down, the life-guardsman was on his feet, a fine figure of a man. He marched unfalteringly up, stiffened, saluted, and then, observing the ritual of hand to shoulder, hand to chin, spoke out his piece like the honest fellow he was; spoke it aloud and without fear, evenly and plainly. I thought that he had got it by heart, as I thought also of another person I was to hear by-and-by. He wanted, badly it seemed, news of his sweetheart, whom he was careful to call Miss Dixon. She had last been heard of outside the Brixton Bon Marche, where she had been seen with a lady friend, talking to "two young chaps" in Volunteer uniform. They went up the Brixton Road toward Acre Lane, and Miss Dixon, at any rate, was never heard of again. It was wearing him out; he wasn't the man he had been, and had no zest for his meals. She had never written; his letters to her had come back through the "Dead Office." He thought he should go out of his mind sometimes; was afraid to shave, not knowing what he might be after with "them things." If anything could be done for him he should be thankful. Miss Dixon was very well connected, and sang in a choir. Here he stopped, saluted, turned and marched away into the night. I heard him pass a word or two to the policeman, who turned aside and blew his nose. The hospital nurse, who spoke in a feverish whisper, then a young woman from the Piccadilly gas-lamps, who cried and rocked herself about, followed; and then, to my extreme amazement, two ladies with cloaks and hoods over evening gowns--one of them a Mrs. Stanhope, who was known to me. The taller and younger lady, chaperoned by my friend, I did not recognise. Her face was hidden by her hood.

I was now more than interested, it seemed to me that I was, in a sense, implicated. At any rate I felt very delicate about overhearing what was to come. It is one thing to become absorbed in a ritual the like of which, in mid-London, you can never have experienced before, but quite another thing to listen to the secret desires of a friend in whose house you may have dined within the month. However--by whatever casuistries I might have compassed it--I did remain. Let me hope, nay, let me believe of myself that if the postulant had proved to be my friend, Mrs. Shrewton Stanhope, herself, I should either have stopped my ears or immediately retired.

But Mrs. Stanhope, I saw at once, was no more than _dame de compagnie_. She stood in mid-ring with bent head and hands clasped before her while the graceful, hooded girl approached nearer to the mysterious oracle and fulfilled the formal rites demanded of all who sought his help. Her ringed left hand was laid upon his right shoulder, her fair right hand upheld his chin. When she began to speak, which she did immediately and without a tremor, again I had the sensation of hearing one who had words by heart. This was her burden, more or less. "I am very unhappy about a certain person. It is Captain Maxfield. I am engaged to him, and want to break it off. I must do that--I must indeed. If I don't I shall do a more dreadful thing. I do hope you will help me. Mrs. ----, my friend, was sure that you would. I do hope so. I am very unhappy." She had commanded her voice until the very end; but as she pitied herself there came a break in it. I heard her catch her breath; I thought she would fall,--and so did Mrs. Stanhope, it was clear, for she went hurriedly forward and put an arm round her waist. The younger lady drooped to her shoulder; Mrs. Stanhope inclined her head to the person--not a sign from him, mind you--and gently withdrew her charge from the ring. The pair then hurried across the park in the direction of Knightsbridge, and left me, I may admit, consuming in the fire of curiosity and excitement which they had lit.

Petitions succeeded, of various interest, but they seemed pale and ineffectual to me. Before all or nearly all of the waiting throng had been heard I saw uneasiness spread about it. Face turned to face, head to head; subtle but unmistakable movements indicated unrest. Then, of the suddenest, amid lifted hands and sighed-forth prayers the youthful object of so much entreaty, receiver of so many secret sorrows, seemed to fade and, without effort, to recede. I know not how else to describe his departure. He backed away, as it were, into the dark. The people were on their feet ere this. Sighs, wailing, appeals, sobs, adjurations broke the quietness of the night. Some ran stumbling after him with extended arms; most of them stayed where they were, watching him fade, hoping against hope. He emptied himself, so to speak, of light; he faded backward, diminishing himself to a luminous glow, to a blur, to a point of light. Thus he was gone. The disappointed crept silently away, each into silence, solitude and the night, and I found myself alone with the policeman.

Now, what in the name of God was all this? I asked him, and must have it. He gave me some particulars, admitting at the outset that it was a "go." "They seem to think," he said, "that they will get what they want out of him--by wire. Let him bring them a wire in the morning; that's the way of it. Anything in life, from sudden death to a penn'orth of bird-seed. Death! Ah, I've heard 'em cringe to him for death, times and again. They crawl for it--they must have it. Can't do it theirselves, d'ye see? No, no. Let him do it--somehow. Once a week, during the season--his season, I should say, because he ain't here always, by no means--they gets about like this; and how they know where to spot him is more than I can tell you. If I knew it, I would--but I don't. Nobody knows that--and yet they know it. Sometimes he's to be found here two weeks running; then it'll be the Regent's Park, or the Knoll in the Green Park. He's had 'em all the way to Hampstead before now, and Primrose Hill's a likely place, they tell me. Telegrams: that's what he gives 'em--if he's got the mind. But they don't get all they want, not by no means. And some of 'em gets more than they want, by a lot." He thought, then chuckled at a rather grim instance.

"Why, there was old Jack Withers, 'blue-nosed Jack' they calls him, who works a Hammersmith 'bus! Did you ever hear of that? That was a good one, if you like. Now you listen. This Jack was coming up the Brompton Road on his 'bus--and I was on duty by the Boltons and see him coming. There was that young feller there too--him we've just had here--standing quiet by a pillar-box, reading a letter. One foot he had in the roadway, and his back to the 'bus. Up comes old Jack, pushing his horses, and sees the boy. Gives a great howl like a tom-cat. 'Hi! you young frog-spawn,' he says, 'out of my road,' and startled the lad. I see him look up at Jack very steady, and keep his eye on him. I thought to myself, 'There's something to pay on delivery, my boy, for this here.' Jack owned up to it afterwards that he felt queer, but he forgot about it. Now, if you'll believe me, sir, the very next morning Jack was at London Bridge after his second journey, when up comes this boy, sauntering into the yard. Comes up to Jack and nods. 'Name of Withers?' he says. 'That's me,' says old Jack. 'Thought so,' he says. 'Telegram for you.' Jack takes it, opens it, goes all white. 'Good God!' he says; 'good God Almighty! My wife's dead!' She'd been knocked down by a Pickford that morning, sure as a gun. What do you think of that for a start?

"He served Spotty Smith the fried-eel man just the very same, and lots more I could tell you about. They call him Quidnunc--Mister Quidnunc, too, and don't you forget it. There's that about him I--well, sir, if it was to come to it that I had to lay a hand on him for something out of Queer Street I shouldn't know how to do it. Now I'm telling you a fact. I shouldn't--know--how--to--do it."

He was not, obviously, telling me a fact, but certainly he was much in earnest. I commented upon the diversity of the company, and so learned the name of my friend Mrs. Stanhope's friend. He clacked his tongue. "Bless you," he said, "I've seen better than to-night, though we did have a slap-up ladyship and all. That was Lady Emily Rich, that young thing was, Earl of Richborough's family--Grosvenor Place. But we had a Duchess or something here one night--ah, and a Bishop another, a Lord Bishop. You'd never believe the tales we hear. He's known to every night-constable from Woolwich to Putney Bridge--and the company he gets about him you'd never believe. High and low, and all huddled together like so many babes in a nursing-home. No distinction. You saw old Mother Misery get first look-in to-night? My lady waited her turn, like a good girl!" His voice sank to a whisper. "They tell me he's the only living soul--if he _is_ a living soul--that's ever been inside the Stock Exchange and come out tidy. He goes and comes in as he likes--quite the Little Stranger. They all know him in Throgmorton Street. No, no. There's more in this than meets the eye, sir. He's not like you and me. But it's no business of mine. He don't go down in my pocket-book, I can tell you. I keep out of his way--and with reason. He never did no harm to me, nor shan't if I can help it. Quidnunc! Mister Quidnunc! He might be a herald angel for all I know."

I went my way home and to bed, but was not done with Quidnunc.

The next day, which was the first day of the Eton and Harrow Match, I read a short paragraph in the _Echo_, headed "Painful Scene at Lord's," to the effect that a lady lunching on Lord Richborough's drag had fainted upon the receipt of a telegram, and would have fallen had she not been caught by the messenger--"a strongly built youth," it said, "who thus saved what might have been a serious accident." That was all, but it gave me food for thought, and a suspicion which Saturday confirmed in a sufficiently startling way. On that Saturday I was at luncheon in the First Avenue Hotel in Holborn, when a man came in--Tendring by name--whom I knew quite well. We exchanged greetings and sat at our luncheon, talking desultorily. A clerk from his office brought in a telegram for Tendring. He opened it and seemed thunder-struck. "Good Lord!" I heard him say. "Good Lord, here's trouble." I murmured sympathetically, and then he turned to me, quite beyond the range where reticence avails. "Look here," he said, "this is a shocking business. A man I know wires to me--from Bow Street. He's been taken for forgery--that's the charge--and wants me to bail him out." He got up as we finished and went to write his reply: I turned immediately to the clerk. "Is the boy waiting?" I asked. He was. I said "Excuse me, Tendring," and ran out of the restaurant to the street door. There in the street, as I had suspected, stood my inscrutable, steady-eyed, smiling Oracle of the night. I stood, meeting his look as best I might. He showed no recognition of me whatsoever. Then, as I stood there, Tendring came out. "Call me a cab," he told the hall-porter; and to Quidnunc he said, "There's no answer. I'm going at once." Quidnunc went away.

Now Tendring's friend, I learned by the evening paper, was one Captain Maxfield of the Royal Engineers. He was committed for trial, bail refused. I may add that he got seven years.

So much for Captain Maxfield! But much more for Lady Emily Rich, of whose fate I have now to tell. My friend, Mrs. Shrewton Stanhope, was very reserved, would tell me nothing, even when I roundly said that I had fancied to see her in the park one evening. She had the hardihood to meet my eyes with a blank denial, and very plainly there was nothing to be learned from her. A visit, many visits to the London parks at the hour between eleven and midnight taught me no more; but being by now thoroughly interested in the affairs of Lady Emily Rich I made it my business to get a glimpse of her. She was, it seemed, the only unmarried daughter of the large Richborough family which had done so well in that sex, and so badly in the other that there was not only no son, but no male heir to the title. That, indeed, expired with Lady Emily's father. I don't really know how many daughters there were, or were not. Most of them married prosperously. One of them became a Roman princess; one married a Mr. Walker, an American stock-jobber (with a couple of millions of money); another was Baroness de Grass--De Grass being a Jew; one became an Anglican nun to the disgust (I was told) of her family. Lady Emily, whose engagement to the wretched Maxfield was so dramatically terminated was, I think, the youngest of them. I saw her one night toward the end of the season at the Opera. Tendring, who was with me, pointed her out in a box. She was dressed in black and looked very scared. She hardly moved once throughout the evening, and when people spoke to her seemed not to hear. She was certainly a very pretty girl. It may have been fancy, or it may not, but I could have sworn to the corner of a pinky-brown envelope sticking out of the bosom of her dress. I don't think I was mistaken; I had a good look through the glasses. She touched it shortly afterward and poked it down. At the end I saw her come out. A tall girl, rather thin; very pretty certainly, but far from well. Her eyes haunted me; they had what is called a hag-ridden look. And yet, thought I, she had got her desire of Quidnunc. Ah, but had she? Hear the end of the tale.

I say that I saw her come out, that's not quite true. I saw her come down the staircase and stand with her party in the crowded lobby. She stood in it, but not of it; for her vague and shadowed eyes sought otherwhere than in those of the neat-haired young man who was chattering in front of her. She scanned, rather, the throng of people anxiously and guardedly at once, as if she was looking for somebody, and must not be seen to look. As time wore on and the carriage delayed, her nervousness increased. She seemed to get paler, she shut her eyes once or twice as though to relieve the strain which watching and waiting put upon them, and then, quite suddenly, I saw that she had found what she expected; I saw that her empty eyes were now filled, that they held something without which they had faded out. In a word, I saw her look fixedly, fiercely and certainly at something beyond the lobby. Following the direction she gave me, I looked also. There, assuredly, in the portico, square, smiling and assured of his will, I saw Quidnunc stand, and his light eyes upon hers. For quite a space of time, such as that in which you might count fifteen deliberately, those two looked at each other. Messages, I am sure, sped to and fro between them. His seemed to say, "Come, I have answered you. Now do you answer me." Hers cried her hurt, "Ah, but what can I do?" His, with their cool mastery of time and occasion, "You must do as I bid you. There's no other way." Hers pleaded, "Give me time," and his told her sternly, "I am master of time--since I made it." The throng of waiting people began to surge toward the door; out there in the night link-boys yelled great names. I heard "Lord Richborough's carriage," and saw Lady Emily clap her hand to her side. I saw her reach the portico and stand there hastily covering her head with a black scarf; I saw her sway alone there. I saw her party go down the steps. The next moment Quidnunc flashed to her side. He said nothing, he did not touch her. He simply looked at her--intently, smiling, self-possessed, a master. Her face was averted; I could see her tremble; she bowed her head. Another carriage was announced--the Richborough coach then was gone. I saw Quidnunc now put his hand upon her arm; she turned him her face, a faint and tender smile, very beautiful and touching, met his own. He drew her with him out of the press and into the burning dark. London never saw her again.

I don't attempt to explain what is to me inexplicable. Was my policeman right when he called Quidnunc a herald angel? Is there any substance behind the surmise that the ancient gods still sway the souls and bodies of men? Was Quidnunc, that swift, remorseless, smiling messenger, that god of the winged feet? The Argeiphont? Who can answer these things? All I have to tell you by way of an epilogue is this.

A curate of my acquaintance, a curate of St. Peter's, Eaton Square, some few years after these events, took his holiday in Greece. He went out as one of a tourist party, but having more time at his disposal than was contemplated by the contracting agency, he stayed on, chartered a dragoman and wandered far and wide. On his return he told me that he had seen Lady Emily Rich at Pherae in Arcadia, and that he had spoken to her. He had seen her sitting on the door-step of a one-storied white house, spinning flax. She wore the costume of the peasants, which he told me is very picturesque. Two or three half-naked children tumbled about her. They were beautiful as angels, he said, with curly golden hair and extremely light eyes. He noticed that particularly, and recurred to it more than once. Now Lady Emily was a dark girl, with eyes so deeply blue as to be almost black.

My friend spoke to her, he said. He had seen that she recognised him; in fact, she bowed to him. He felt that he could not disregard her. Mere commonplaces were exchanged. She told him that her husband was away on a journey. She fancied that he had been in England; but she explained half-laughingly that she knew very little about his affairs, and was quite content to leave them to him. She had her children to look after. My friend was surprised that she asked no question of England or family matters; but, in the circumstances, he added, he hardly liked to refer to them. She served him with bread and wine before he left her. All he could say was that she appeared to be perfectly happy.

It is odd, and perhaps it is more than odd, that there was a famous temple of Hermes in Pherae in former times. Pindar, I believe, acclaimed it in one of his Epinikean odes; but I have not been able to verify the reference.

THE SECRET COMMONWEALTH

The interest of my matter has caused me to lose sight of myself and to fail in my account of the flight of time over my head. That is, however, comparable with the facts, which were that my attention was then become solely objective. I had other things to think of than the development of my own nature. I had other things to think of, indeed, than those which surround us all, and press upon us until we become permanently printed by their contact. Solitary as I had ever been in mind, I now became literally so by choice. I became wholly absorbed in that circumambient world of being which was graciously opening itself to my perceptions--how I knew not. I was in a state of momentary expectation of apparitions; as I went about my ostensible business I had my ears quick and my eyes wide for signs and tokens that I was surrounded by a seething and whirling invisible population of beings, like ourselves, but glorified: yet unlike ourselves in this, that what seemed entirely right, because natural, to them would have been in ourselves horrible. The ruthlessness, for instance, of Quidnunc as he pursued and obtained his desire, had Quidnunc been a human creature, would have been revolting; the shamelessness of the fairy wife of Ventris had she been capable of shame, how shameful had that been! But I knew that these creatures were not human; I knew that they were not under our law; and so I explained everything to myself. But to myself only. It is not enough to explain a circumstance by negatives. If Quidnunc and Mrs. Ventris were not under our law, neither are the sun, moon and stars, neither are the apes and peacocks. But all these are under some law, since law is the essence of the Kosmos. Under what law then were Mrs. Ventris and Quidnunc? I burned to know that. For many years of my life that knowledge was my steady desire; but I had no means at hand of satisfying it. Reading? Well, I did read in a fashion. I read, for example, Grimm's _Teutonic Mythology_, a stout and exceedingly dull work in three volumes of a most unsatisfying kind. I read other books of the same sort, chiefly German, dealing in etymology, which I readily allow is a science of great value within its proper sphere. But to Grimm and his colleagues etymology seemed to me to be the contents of the casket rather than the key; for Grimm and his colleagues started with a prejudice, that Gods, fairies and the rest have never existed and don't exist. To them the interest of the inquiry is not what is the nature, what are the laws of such beings, but what is the nature of the primitive people who imagined the existence of such beings? I very soon found out that Grimm and his colleagues had nothing to tell me.

Then there was another class of book; that which dealt in demonology and witchcraft, exemplified by a famous work called _Satan's Invisible World Discovered_. Writers of these things may or may not have believed in witches and fairies (which they classed together); but in any event they believed them to be wicked, the abomination of uncleanness. That made them false witnesses. My judgment revolted against such ridiculous assumptions. Here was a case, you see, where writers treated their subject too seriously, having the pulpit-cushion ever below their hand, and the fear of the Ordinary before their eyes.[3] Grimm and his friends, on the other hand, took it too lightly, seeing in it matter for a treatise on language. I got no good out of either school, and as time goes on I don't see a prospect of any adequate handling of the theme. I should like to think that I myself was to be the man to expound the fairy-kind candidly and methodically--candidly, that is, without going to literature for my data, and with the notion definitely out of mind that the fairy God-mother ever existed. But I shall never be that man, for though I am candid to the point of weakness, I am not to flatter myself that I have method. But to whomsoever he may be that undertakes the subject I can promise that the documents await their historian, and I will furnish him with a title which will indicate at a glance both the spirit of his attack and the nature of his treatise.

[Footnote 3: The Reverend Robert Kirk, author of the _Secret Commonwealth_, was a clergyman and a believer in the beings of whom his book professed to treat. He found them a place in his Pantheon; but he knew very little about them. I shall have to speak of him again I expect. He is himself an object-lesson, though his teachings are naught.]