Part 48

The hostess distributed the liquor, but Hyacinth was scarcely able to swallow it, though it was highly appreciated by his companions. His indifference to this luxury excited much discussion and conjecture, the others bandying theories and contradictions, and even ineffectual jokes, about him, over his head, with a volubility which seemed to him unnatural. Poupin and Schinkel professed the belief that there must be something very curious the matter with a man who couldn’t smack his lips over a drop of that tap; he must either be in love or have some still more insidious complaint. It was true that Hyacinth was always in love—that was no secret to his friends—and it had never been observed to stop his thirst. The Frenchwoman poured scorn on this view of the case, declaring that the effect of the tender passion was to make one enjoy one’s victual (when everything went straight, _bien entendu;_ and how could an ear be deaf to the whisperings of such a dear little _bonhomme_ as Hyacinth?), in proof of which she deposed that she had never eaten and drunk with such relish as at the time—oh, it was far away now—when she had a soft spot in her heart for her rascal of a husband. For Madame Poupin to allude to her husband as a rascal indicated a high degree of conviviality. Hyacinth sat staring at the empty table with the feeling that he was, somehow, a detached, irresponsible witness of the evolution of his fate. Finally he looked up and said to his friends, collectively, “What on earth’s the matter with you all?” And he followed this inquiry by an invitation that they should tell him what it was they had been saying about him, since they admitted that he had been the subject of their conversation. Madame Poupin answered for them that they had simply been saying how much they loved him, but that they wouldn’t love him any more if he became suspicious and _grincheux_. She had been telling Mr Schinkel’s fortune on the cards, and she would tell Hyacinth’s if he liked. There was nothing much for Mr Schinkel, only that he would find something, some day, that he had lost, but would probably lose it again, and serve him right if he did! He objected that he had never had anything to lose, and never expected to have; but that was a vain remark, inasmuch as the time was fast coming when every one would have something—though indeed it was to be hoped that he would keep it when he had got it. Eustache rebuked his wife for her levity, reminded her that their young friend cared nothing for old women’s tricks, and said he was sure Hyacinth had come to talk over a very different matter—the question (he was so good as to take an interest in it, as he had done in everything that related to them) of the terms which M. Poupin might owe it to himself, to his dignity, to a just though not exaggerated sentiment of his value, to make in accepting Mr Crookenden’s offer of the foremanship of the establishment in Soho; an offer not yet formally enunciated but visibly in the air and destined—it would seem, at least—to arrive within a day or two. The old foreman was going to set up for himself. The Frenchman intimated that before accepting any such proposal he must have the most substantial guarantees. “_Il me faudrait des conditions très-particulières_.” It was singular to Hyacinth to hear M. Poupin talk so comfortably about these high contingencies, the chasm by which he himself was divided from the future having suddenly doubled its width. His host and hostess sat down on either side of him, and Poupin gave a sketch, in somewhat sombre tints, of the situation in Soho, enumerating certain elements of decomposition which he perceived to be at work there and which he would not undertake to deal with unless he should be given a completely free hand. Did Schinkel understand, and was that what Schinkel was grinning at? Did Schinkel understand that poor Eustache was the victim of an absurd hallucination and that there was not the smallest chance of his being invited to assume a lieutenancy? He had less capacity for tackling the British workman to-day than when he began to rub shoulders with him, and Mr Crookenden had never in his life made a mistake, at least in the use of his tools. Hyacinth’s responses were few and mechanical, and he presently ceased to try to look as if he were entering into the Frenchman’s ideas.

“You have some news—you have some news about me,” he remarked, abruptly, to Schinkel. “You don’t like it, you don’t like to have to give it to me, and you came to ask our friends here whether they wouldn’t help you out with it. But I don’t think they will assist you particularly, poor dears! Why do you mind? You oughtn’t to mind more than I do. That isn’t the way.”

“_Qu’est-ce qu’il dit—qu’est-ce qu’il dit, le pauvre chéri?_” Madame Poupin demanded, eagerly; while Schinkel looked very hard at her husband, as if to ask for direction.

“My dear child, _vous vous faites des idées!_” the latter exclaimed, laying his hand on him remonstrantly.

But Hyacinth pushed away his chair and got up. “If you have anything to tell me, it is cruel of you to let me see it, as you have done, and yet not to satisfy me.”

“Why should I have anything to tell you?” Schinkel asked.

“I don’t know that, but I believe you have. I perceive things, I guess things, quickly. That’s my nature at all times, and I do it much more now.”

“You do it indeed; it is very wonderful,” said Schinkel.

“Mr Schinkel, will you do me the pleasure to go away—I don’t care where—out of this house?” Madame Poupin broke out, in French.

“Yes, that will be the best thing, and I will go with you,” said Hyacinth.

“If you would retire, my child, I think it would be a service that you would render us,” Poupin returned, appealing to his young friend. “Won’t you do us the justice to believe that you may leave your interests in our hands?”

Hyacinth hesitated a moment; it was now perfectly clear to him that Schinkel had some sort of message for him, and his curiosity as to what it might be had become nearly intolerable. “I am surprised at your weakness,” he observed, as sternly as he could manage it, to Poupin.

The Frenchman stared at him an instant, and then fell on his neck. “You are sublime, my young friend—you are sublime!”

“Will you be so good as to tell me what you are going to do with that young man?” demanded Madame Poupin, glaring at Schinkel.

“It’s none of your business, my poor lady,” Hyacinth replied, disengaging himself from her husband. “Schinkel, I wish you would walk away with me.”

“_Calmons-nous, entendons-nous, expliquons-nous!_ The situation is very simple,” Poupin went on.

“I will go with you, if it will give you pleasure,” said Schinkel, very obligingly, to Hyacinth.

“Then you will give me that letter first!” Madame Poupin, erecting herself, declared to the German.

“My wife, you are an imbecile!” Poupin groaned, lifting his hands and shoulders and turning away.

“I may be an imbecile, but I won’t be a party—no, God help me, not to that!” protested the Frenchwoman, planted before Schinkel as if to prevent his moving.

“If you have a letter for me, you ought to give it to me,” said Hyacinth to Schinkel. “You have no right to give it to any one else.”

“I will bring it to you in your house, my good friend,” Schinkel replied, with a little wink that seemed to say that Madame Poupin would have to be considered.

“Oh, in his house—I’ll go to his house!” cried the lady. “I regard you, I have always regarded you, as my child,” she declared to Hyacinth, “and if this isn’t an occasion for a mother!”

“It’s you that are making it an occasion. I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Hyacinth. He had been questioning Schinkel’s eye, and he thought he saw there a little twinkle of assurance that he might really depend upon him. “I have disturbed you, and I think I had better go away.”

Poupin had turned round again; he seized the young man’s arm eagerly, as if to prevent his retiring before he had given a certain satisfaction. “How can you care, when you know everything is changed?”

“What do you mean—everything is changed?”

“Your opinions, your sympathies, your whole attitude. I don’t approve of it—_je le constate_. You have withdrawn your confidence from the people; you have said things in this spot, where you stand now, that have given pain to my wife and me.”

“If we didn’t love you, we should say that you had betrayed us!” cried Madame Poupin, quickly, taking her husband’s idea.

“Oh, I shall never betray you,” said Hyacinth, smiling.

“You will never betray us—of course you think so. But you have no right to act for the people when you have ceased to believe in the people. _Il faut être conséquent, nom de Dieu!_” Poupin went on.

“You will give up all thoughts of acting for me—_je ne permets pas ça!_” exclaimed his wife.

“It is probably not of importance—only a little fraternal greeting,” Schinkel suggested, soothingly.

“We repudiate you, we deny you, we denounce you!” shouted Poupin, more and more excited.

“My poor friends, it is you who have broken down, not I,” said Hyacinth. “I am much obliged to you for your solicitude, but the inconsequence is yours. At all events, good-night.”

He turned away from them, and was leaving the room, when Madame Poupin threw herself upon him, as her husband had done a moment before, but in silence and with an extraordinary force of passion and distress. Being stout and powerful she quickly got the better of him, and pressed him to her ample bosom in a long, dumb embrace.

“I don’t know what you want me to do,” said Hyacinth, as soon as he could speak. “It’s for me to judge of my convictions.”

“We want you to do nothing, because we _know_ you have changed,” Poupin replied. “Doesn’t it stick out of you, in every glance of your eye and every breath of your lips? It’s only for that, because that alters everything.”

“Does it alter my engagement? There are some things in which one can’t change. I didn’t promise to believe; I promised to obey.”

“We want you to be sincere—that is the great thing,” said Poupin, edifyingly. “I will go to see them—I will make them understand.”

“Ah, you should have done that before!” Madame Poupin groaned.

“I don’t know whom you are talking about, but I will allow no one to meddle in my affairs.” Hyacinth spoke with sudden vehemence; the scene was cruel to his nerves, which were not in a condition to bear it.

“When it is Hoffendahl, it is no good to meddle,” Schinkel remarked, smiling.

“And pray, who is Hoffendahl, and what authority has he got?” demanded Madame Poupin, who had caught his meaning. “Who has put him over us all, and is there nothing to do but to lie down in the dust before him? Let him attend to his little affairs himself, and not put them off on innocent children, no matter whether they are with us or against us.”

This protest went so far that, evidently, Poupin felt a little ashamed of his wife. “He has no authority but what we give him; but you know that we respect him, that he is one of the pure, _ma bonne_. Hyacinth can do exactly as he likes; he knows that as well as we do. He knows there is not a feather’s weight of compulsion; he knows that, for my part, I long since ceased to expect anything from him.”

“Certainly, there is no compulsion,” said Schinkel. “It’s to take or to leave. Only _they_ keep the books.”

Hyacinth stood there before the three, with his eyes on the floor. “Of course I can do as I like, and what I like is what I _shall_ do. Besides, what are we talking about, with such sudden passion?” he asked, looking up. “I have no summons, I have no sign. When the call reaches me, it will be time to discuss it. Let it come or not come: it’s not my affair.”

“Certainly, it is not your affair,” said Schinkel.

“I can’t think why M. Paul has never done anything, all this time, knowing that everything is different now!” Madame Poupin exclaimed.

“Yes, my dear boy, I don’t understand our friend,” her husband remarked, watching Hyacinth with suspicious, contentious eyes.

“It’s none of his business, any more than ours; it’s none of any one’s business!” Schinkel declared.

“Muniment walks straight; the best thing you can do is to imitate him,” said Hyacinth, trying to pass Poupin, who had placed himself before the door.

“Promise me only this—not to do anything till I have seen you first,” the Frenchman begged, almost piteously.

“My poor old friend, you are very weak.” And Hyacinth opened the door, in spite of him, and passed out.

“Ah, well, if you _are_ with us, that’s all I want to know!” the young man heard him say, behind him, at the top of the stairs, in a different voice, a tone of sudden, exaggerated fortitude.

XLIV

Hyacinth hurried down and got out of the house, but he had not the least intention of losing sight of Schinkel. The odd behaviour of the Poupins was a surprise and annoyance, and he had wished to shake himself free from it. He was candidly astonished at the alarm they were so good as to feel for him, for he had never perceived that they had gone round to the hope that the note he had signed (as it were) to Hoffendahl would not be presented. What had he said, what had he done, after all, to give them the right to fasten on him the charge of apostasy? He had always been a free critic of everything, and it was natural that, on certain occasions, in the little parlour in Lisson Grove, he should have spoken in accordance with that freedom; but it was only with the Princess that he had permitted himself really to rail at the democracy and given the full measure of his scepticism. He would have thought it indelicate to express contempt for the opinions of his old foreign friends, to whom associations that made them venerable were attached; and, moreover, for Hyacinth, a change of heart was, in the nature of things, much more an occasion for a hush of publicity and a kind of retrospective reserve; it couldn’t prompt one to aggression or jubilation. When one had but lately discovered what could be said on the opposite side one didn’t want to boast of one’s sharpness—not even when one’s new convictions cast shadows that looked like the ghosts of the old.

Hyacinth lingered in the street, a certain distance from the house, watching for Schinkel’s exit and prepared to remain there if necessary till the dawn of another day. He had said to his friends, just before, that the manner in which the communication they looked so askance at should reach him was none of his business—it might reach him as it could. This was true enough in theory, but in fact his desire was overwhelming to know what Madame Poupin had meant by her allusion to a letter, destined for him, in Schinkel’s possession—an allusion confirmed by Schinkel’s own virtual acknowledgment. It was indeed this eagerness that had driven him out of the house, for he had reason to believe that the German would not fail him, and it galled his suspense to see the foolish Poupins try to interpose, to divert the missive from its course. He waited and waited, in the faith that Schinkel was dealing with them in his slow, categorical Teutonic way, and only objurgated the cabinet-maker for having in the first place paltered with his sacred trust. Why hadn’t he come straight to him—whatever the mysterious document was—instead of talking it over with French featherheads? Passers were rare, at this hour, in Lisson Grove, and lights were mainly extinguished; there was nothing to look at but the vista of the low black houses, the dim, interspaced street-lamps, the prowling cats who darted occasionally across the road, and the terrible, mysterious, far-off stars, which appeared to him more than ever to see everything and to tell nothing. A policeman creaked along on the opposite side of the way, looking across at him as he passed, and stood for some minutes on the corner, as if to keep an eye on him. Hyacinth had leisure to reflect that the day was perhaps not far off when a policeman might have his eye on him for a very good reason—might walk up and down, pass and repass, as he mounted guard over him.

It seemed horribly long before Schinkel came out of the house, but it was probably only half an hour. In the stillness of the street he heard Poupin let his visitor out, and at the sound he stepped back into the recess of a doorway on the same side, so that, in looking out, the Frenchman should not see him waiting. There was another delay, for the two stood talking together interminably and in a low tone on the doorstep. At last, however, Poupin went in again, and then Schinkel came down the street towards Hyacinth, who had calculated that he would proceed in that direction, it being, as Hyacinth happened to know, that of his own lodging. After he had heard Poupin go in he stopped and looked up and down; it was evidently his idea that Hyacinth would be waiting for him. Our hero stepped out of the shallow recess in which he had been flattening himself, and came straight to him, and the two men stood there face to face, in the dusky, empty, sordid street.

“You didn’t let them have the letter?”

“Oh no, I retained it,” said Schinkel, with his eyes more than ever like invisible points.

“Then hadn’t you better give it to me?”

“We will talk of that—we will talk.” Schinkel made no motion to satisfy his friend; he had his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and his appearance was characterised by an exasperating assumption that they had the whole night before them. He was intolerably methodical.

“Why should we talk? Haven’t you talked enough with those people, all the evening? What have they to say about it? What right have you to detain a letter that belongs to me?”

“_Erlauben Sie_: I will light my pipe,” the German remarked. And he proceeded to this business, methodically, while Hyacinth’s pale, excited face showed in the glow of the match that he ignited on the rusty railing beside them. “It is not yours unless I have given it to you,” Schinkel went on, as they walked along. “Be patient, and I will tell you,” he added, passing his hand into his companion’s arm. “Your way, not so? We will go down toward the Park.” Hyacinth tried to be patient, and he listened with interest when Schinkel said, “She tried to take it; she attacked me with her hands. But that was not what I went for, to give it up.”

“Is she mad? I don’t recognise them,” Hyacinth murmured.

“No, but they lofe you.”

“Why, then, do they try to disgrace me?”

“They think it is no disgrace, if you have changed.”

“That’s very well for her; but it’s pitiful for him, and I declare it surprises me.”

“Oh, he came round, and he helped me to resist. He pulled his wife off. It was the first shock,” said Schinkel.

“You oughtn’t to have shocked them, my dear fellow,” Hyacinth replied.

“I was shocked myself—I couldn’t help it.”

“Lord, how shaky you all are!”

“You take it well. I am very sorry. But it is a fine chance,” Schinkel went on, smoking away. His pipe, for the moment, seemed to absorb him, so that after a silence Hyacinth resumed—

“Be so good as to reflect that all this while I don’t in the least understand what you are talking about.”