CHAPTER IX

THE MASTER

“Mr. Heron is dressing, sir.” The butler at Careton House Terrace looked with some disfavour at the dishevelled wild-eyed young man, who at 7 p.m. on Christmas Day, rang such frenzied peals at the bell, and asked for the son of the house, in such strange husky tones. It wasn’t usual; and the butler’s reply contained a tinge of severity mingled with its formal respect.

“I’ll go up to him.” Brushing past the astonished retainer, Sebastian rushed up the two flights of stairs; and, without knocking, entered Stuart’s bedroom.

Stuart, in evening-dress, was standing before the mirror, and polishing his eyeglass. “You, Levi? Why, what’s the matter?”

Sebastian stood just within the door, limbs and tongue alike paralysed of movement. There was so much--so much he had need to say to Stuart: the words buzzed and beat in his brain like swarms of hornets. All through his headlong passage through the deserted streets, he had been working up and up to this moment. He wanted to shout what he had done, and how he had done it; he wanted to assure Stuart over and over again that he regretted nothing, no, not even Letty; that he was grateful to the master for rescuing him from happiness, pointing out to him the cold path among the stars.... Stars? but they weren’t cold; they were throbbing hot--green and blue and red--like the glistening paper that was wrapped around a cracker ... and they were jigging and squibbing and somersaulting in front of his eyes--tumbling wheeling stars ... or were they sobs? Ridiculous! one couldn’t see sobs.... Somebody had been sobbing lately, he knew....

He took an uncertain step forward, held out his hands towards Stuart,--then reeled over into a chair, head dropped on to his arms.... He had to thank Stuart--was thanking him now--heard his own voice babbling the phrase over and over again.... “Curse you.... Curse you....”

He had not meant to say it. He had meant to say exactly the contrary: “I’ve done what you once did; you showed me the way; you----” But things were happening to him now totally beyond his own volition. The exultation of his deed accomplished transported him, maddened him, to strange contortions of speech, outside all reason:

“Curse you.... Curse you....”

* * * * *

In silence Stuart stood looking down upon the boy. He guessed what had happened; had anticipated, ever since their last conversation, that Sebastian would come bursting in upon him, to relate that he had smashed with Letty. It was better so; the two would never have understood each other rightly. And yet--wasn’t it a pity, after all, to have destroyed an idyll? A sudden remorse swept over Stuart; and with it, an awful desolation of uncertainty: What had he been doing with other people’s lives?... His metaphysics dropped away from under his feet, leaving him treading upon a void. For one wont to be so quietly sanely self-confident, the sensation was horrible. He could not remain any longer where he was, in the same room with ... with the wreckage. Stuart left Sebastian; went slowly down, and into his study. He was entertaining a large party of family and friends that evening at the Carlton; was already due at the Restaurant; felt disinclined to start. He strolled to the window, and looked out; the street wore that blank forlorn look which falls upon chimney-top and pavement on Christmas Day. Only once before had Stuart been so utterly miserable, so incomplete in himself, clutching for some outside reassurance that he existed at all; he had gone to Merle then, and laid his head in her lap, and she had asked no questions. But now Merle was on her honeymoon in France. And, besides, it was not Merle he wanted....

He crossed the room to the telephone. Was there any reason why he should not get what he wanted most? Only his theory--slippery ball on the summit of which he had insecurely balanced himself. It would be rather fun to jump off his own theory, and kick it away, hear it go bounding and bouncing on its course! Great fun! argued leprechaun.

--“Trunk. 904 Thatch Lane.”

It took some time before the connection was established. Stuart sat on the arm of a chair, and looked hard at the receiver. Presently the whir of the bell shrilled in his ear. It startled him, even though he was waiting for it so intently.

“Hello!”

... “Hello!” Evidently the maid at Bloemfontein.

“Can I speak to Miss Kyndersley, please?”

It never struck him that she might be out. She would not be out. That sort of thing had always happened right for him and Peter.

“Yes, sir. What name?”

“No name.”

After a pause, Peter’s voice:

“Hello!”

“Hello--Peter!”

She knew at once. He could tell that by the silence. That was like Peter; she would not reply till in control of her tumbled feelings.

At last: “A Merry Christmas to you, Stuart!”

Her mocking accent, in a vivid flash of memory, brought her image to his mind, as he had first seen her: Cavalier poise of the head; boyish figure wrapped close in a bronze cloak, shimmering gold where the light caught it, umber in its shadowy folds; a tingle about her movements, as of some hazardous quest in the air. His master-maid!... And what had he to do with loneliness now?

--“Peter, I want to take you home from Euston to Thatch Lane--to-night--at once. May I?”

A low gurgle of laughter:

“But, dear, I’m due in ten minutes at the Lorrimers’. They have a party.”

“And I’m due since half an hour at the Carlton. I have a party. Peter ... will you come?”

“To your party?”

“No. My God, no. Baldwin will look after all that. To Euston?” Silence again.... He was sure she had gone away from the receiver:

“Peter! Peter! Are you still there?”

“Yes.”

“Will you come?”

“Yes, Stuart.”

* * * * *

Quarter of an hour later, and his car was whirling him through the grim portals of Euston Station. The grey fogs clung thicker than ever about the great outer hall. The porters moved about like hobgoblins in a dream. Speechless and voiceless they all seemed, and yet the vaulted roof echoed and re-echoed with ceaseless hollow shouts. By dint of enquiries, Stuart found out that the 5.17 from Leaford, four stations further down the line than Thatch Lane, due at Euston since 6.20, had probably not yet started on its languid career, and need certainly not be expected at Euston till somewhere in the environment of nine o’clock. The giant clock pointed with its hands to three minutes past eight.

“That ull be the next h’in from Thatch Lane, sir. We’re bound to be a bit h’unpunctual Christmas-time. There’s the mails, sir. And people leavin’ their ’omes. An’ it’s a bit thick on the line further down, maybe. Thank you, sir.”

Throughout his life, Stuart vowed he did ample penance for his crowded sins, by this interminable period of waiting. He had forgotten now all about Sebastian; all about his remorse; the blanket of desolation had lifted from his spirit. He was merely one concentrated throb of impatience. Occasionally he dogged station-masters or signals, in the hope that these might be induced to render up their prey. Their prey was the 5.17 from Leaford. But they were immutable. Once he worked, feverishly, at an automatic machine, inducing it to yield box after box of matches, in order to feel that he could, of his own accord, make something _move_, even clockwork. Ghostly trucks clanked up and down the platforms; drifting wraiths asked him if he knew when and where impossible trains started for impossible places; he strove to give them all the help in his power, in order to placate the dark gods of Euston.

At twenty-five minutes past nine, the red eye of an engine glimmered far down the stretching parallels of steel; and Stuart was informed that this, in all probability, was the Leaford 5.17. Not even now would the porter commit himself to a certainty; this was the season when freakish spirits controlled the great terminus.

The linked cubes of light drew up beside the platform; doors opened, and people tumbled forth, an ever thickening crowd.

--Then Stuart saw Peter. She was walking swiftly in his direction. He moved forward to meet her. Silently, side by side, they went on to the barrier.

“We must see at once about your train to Thatch Lane,” said Stuart at last, in strictly matter-of-fact tones.

She replied gravely: “Yes, we mustn’t miss it on any account.” But her lips twitched a little at the corners.

Stuart’s star, evidently again in working order, manœuvred that the 7.41 to Leaford, stopping at Thatch Lane, should be girding its loins for departure, just as the pair strolled on to number four platform. They found an empty first-class compartment. The train still lingered; the guard seemed loth to wave his green flag; toyed with it, instead, and exchanged light badinage with the stoker. Stuart felt incapable of uttering a word till they were actually moving. Only the gathering speed could put an end to this intolerable strain. He examined the coloured photographs above the seats. The engine breathed heavily, crawled a couple of inches.... Stuart’s nerves jumped with relief!... then the 7.41 settled again into comfortable lethargy. It was only twenty to ten.

“Are you most interested in cathedrals or waterfalls?” came Peter’s cool voice, from the corner where she had ensconced herself. Stuart continued a dogged interest in the photographs. Cool?--he knew she was aflame, even as he. But they could both maintain their imperturbability ... for a few moments still.

After a little more coy reluctance, the engine decided firmly that this really wouldn’t do! and with a jolt and a shiver, tore headlong from the temptations of Euston, into the spectral beyond.

Stuart turned and looked at Peter.... She held out her hand:

“Give me a cigarette.”

Grimly he obeyed; and even shielded the match for her. Twice, deliberately, she inhaled, and puffed out the smoke. Then their eyes met again.... She rose, and through the partially open window, tossed the remainder of her cigarette. It fell away in a shower of sparks. Her action snapped the invisible rod which was holding them apart.... He crushed her against him. They rocked slightly with the motion of the train. Then, slowly, he loosened his grip. Her head fell back, so that her eyes were half-veiled by their lids. And he stammered:

“Your throat is as white as foam ... and curved ... like the curve of a wave!” From some dim memory the phrase had leapt into his mind, and he spoke it.

“Peter, I love you.”

“The love of a leprechaun?”

“No. The love of a man. A quite ordinary man.... Will you marry me, Peter?” he knelt crouching beside her, where she bent down to him from her seat.

“Peter, I shall always love you ... now and for ever and for all time. I want you near me, in my house, close up to me, bearing my name. My wife ... damn you, don’t laugh! I’m not pretending--I _am_ an ordinary man. I refuse to be treated any longer as a freak. I want to go on a honeymoon with you, Peter, to Paris and Italy, where all nice people go. I want to be just happy. No; I want you to be happy. I’ll buy you a ring, and introduce you to my mother, and furnish a house with you, and give dinner-parties, and----”

“Stuart, are you mad?” she cried, aghast. For Stuart to behave so sanely was indeed a most alarming sign of madness in him.

“Will you marry me, Peter?”

“I might as well put on a hair-shirt for the rest of my existence.” Then she looked down at the round dark head tilted back on to her lap; met his elfish, yet strangely tender smile; and, with a tightening of love which was almost painful in its intensity, tried to fix the moment--this moment within sight and sound of him--to stand for the blank moment which she knew lay inevitably ahead of her. The girl had no illusions as to the fate of those who link their happiness with something not quite human. The last six months had taught her. The memory of them was like black seas rolling foamless on to a dark shore. When the next theory seized him....

Politely she enquired after the last.

“I’ve rolled it down the hill,” Stuart confessed. “But I’ve had enormous fun with it. I’ve sacrificed to it, and I’ve argued against it--that was with Aureole and Ber----” he stopped just in time, and hastily covered his blunder: “and I’ve dangled it in front of a disciple, and I’ve treated it like a football. Really, a theory is a most excellent occupation!” And then he told her about Letty and Sebastian.

Peter listened thoughtfully:

“So they’ve broken away from each other, just as we did?”

“Something like that. I don’t expect they accomplished it as cleanly. Sebastian’s methods are inclined to be messy or theatrical. In fact, it was he who managed to put me off my ideas; he overdid them so disgracefully. And I doubt if he ever took a firm and logical grasp of them.”

“Then why--oh, Stuart, why didn’t you leave him alone?”

Stuart knitted his brows. “It was a _good_ theory,” he said, in much the same tone as the Mad Hatter once pleaded: “It was the _best_ butter!”

“But you’ve doubled back on it now.”

“Exactly. So somebody’s got to prove it, if I don’t. Hang it! one can’t leave theories lying loose about the world.”

“I’m thinking of Letty,” said Peter softly, flooded by pity for the girl now groping helplessly after her mate, not understanding why she had been deprived of him. She, Peter, had understood at the time--it hadn’t been so hard for her. “Oh, poor Letty ... poor little lovers....”

Stuart interrupted, rather uneasily: “She’ll marry a bank clerk, and be grateful to me for the rest of her life. Really and truly, Peter, I was trying to help them. They’d have been so miserable together. People who are blind, _must_ be helped.”

--The train drew up with a jerk at a station. Bewildered by this abrupt cessation to the speed at which they had been hurled through streaming space, Stuart scrambled to his feet. Grey fretting ghost-figures hurried past their window. He watched them, himself dreamily calm; it was inconceivable that anything from the outer world could break through the enchantment which held their compartment aloof and inviolate from all intrusion. Nevertheless, an intrepid hand suddenly clutched at the door-handle, turned it sharply, called to someone behind: “Plenty of room in here!”--And, before any preventive measures could be taken, two large women collapsed on the seat opposite Stuart and Peter.... And the train rushed on.

Stuart’s lips moved. If it were in prayer, then it was prayer of a very perverted form.

And Peter wondered, despairingly, if these were real females, or grotesque fiends sent by the night to torment them. They seemed to her fancy, preternaturally enormous. As never before, she craved now the bruise of Stuart’s lips, hard as iron; the lean, strong grip of his hands; tangible reassurance that he had indeed come back to her. If she could hold him as though he were a child, his head in the crook of her arm, if she could soothe those restless quick-moving limbs of his to a lulled content.... She glanced hopelessly at the two large women eating belated mince-pies from a paper bag. Then, in a low voice, asked Stuart if he had been present at Merle’s wedding. She had read accounts of it in the papers; it had been a magnificent function.

“Yes, I was there; so was the whole diplomatic world, ministerial, ambassadorial----”

“Never mind. Tell me about Jean de Cler.”

“He’s the right sort, I think,” Stuart granted handsomely. “Grey at the temples, distinguished, chivalrous; with that inborn ease of manner which marks the blue blood of the ‘ancien régime’--or something of the kind. He evidently adores Merle, and will spend his life cherishing her.”

“And she? Does she want to be cherished?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “She can’t help liking him--very much, I should say. And she’ll be in the _milieu_ which suits her best. Probably she’ll think of us sometimes, and be tormented--but she was never quite a pirate, you know; she only wore the costume. The wedding-dress suited her better; I’ve never seen anyone look so beautiful.”

“Did you speak to her?”

“For one second I pressed near enough to offer my congratulations.”

“In what form?”

“I said: ‘There was once a pig, Merle, who lived in a sty in Cornwall.’ And she smiled.--‘There were once two girls, Stuart, who sat in a trough that belonged to a pig who lived in a sty in Cornwall.’ Then Madame des Essarts wafted me out of the way; I believe she regards me as an unhealthy influence.”

... “There were once two girls, Stuart----” Peter understood why Merle had made no sign, had not invited her to the wedding. The jewel had definitely accepted her casket lined with pink; dared not risk the raising of the lid....

The large women had been listening with absorbed interest to the account of the wedding. Now, as the train slowed up again at the station before Thatch Lane, they gathered together their belongings, and departed.

* * * * *

For the two in their cramped galloping space of light, the circle of enchantment joined again as though it had never been snapped. The humid night whirled past their window. Stuart bent towards the girl; took her in his arms: “Lie still, dear,” ... and for the second time Peter lay still; mind and body and soul, still.

And, sighing, she wished this journey were already over--that already she were lying in bed--already asleep--and already waking at dawn to the knowledge of a world which again held Stuart.

There had been another dawn....

* * * * *

--“Because he did it ...” murmured the disciple.

THE END

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Transcriber's Note

p. vii "VI MERLE" changed to "VI. MERLE"

p. 13 "experiments." changed to "experiments.”"

p. 35 "already,”" changed to "already,"

p. 42 "“Oh," changed to "‘Oh,"

p. 83 "châtelaine," changed to "châtelaine"

p. 83 "Hellenes" changed to "Hellenes’"

p. 122 "“Did" changed to "Did"

p. 190 "‘Tyke’?" changed to "‘Tyke’?”"

p. 241 "Bounemouth" changed to "Bournemouth"

p. 258 "you!" changed to "you!”"

p. 308 ".,.." changed to "...."

p. 357 "be brought" changed to "he brought"

p. 383 "Silenty" changed to "Silently"

The following possible errors have been left as printed:

p. 159 our own exists

p. 242 adversity?

p. 345 devot

The following are used inconsistently in the text:

afterthought and after-thought

astir and a-stir

ballroom and ball-room

bedspread and bed-spread

bonbon and bon-bon

cloakroom and cloak-room

eyeglass and eye-glass

firelight and fire-light

fireplace and fire-place

hothouse and hot-house

injun and Injun

midstream and mid-stream

tiptoeing and tip-toeing

underworld and under-world

waterfowl and water-fowl