Fortitude by Hugh Walpole (page 5)

were all motionless. Beyond the shop the murmur of the gathering crowd was like the confused, blundering hum of bees; a band was playing stridently in Oxford Street.

Once Peter said: “It passes about three-thirty, doesn’t it? I think I’ll just go out and have a look later. It’ll be fine if only the sun comes.”

Mr. Zanti turned slowly round.

“I’m afraid, boy,” he said, “you’ll be wanted in ze shop. At two Herr Gottfried must be going out for some business–zere will be no one–I am zo zorry.”

They wanted to keep him there, that was evident. Or, at any rate, they didn’t want him to see the Procession.

“Very well,” he said cheerfully, “I’ll stay. There’ll be plenty more Processions before I die.” But why, why, why? What was there that they wanted him to avoid?

He went on arranging the piles of dusty books, the sense of weighty expectation growing on him with every instant. The clock struck one, but he did not go out to luncheon; the others were still motionless in their places.

Once Herr Gottfried spoke: “The people will have been waiting a much-more-than-necessary long time,” he said. “The police doubtless have frightened them, but there is still room to walk in the streets and there have been some unfortunates, since early in the morning–“

The street beyond the shop was now deserted because soldiers guarded its approach into Oxford Street; the shop seemed to be left high and dry, beyond the noise and confusion of the street.

Then there came into the silence a sharp sound that made Peter amongst his books, jump to his feet: the Russian girl was crying.

She stood there, leaning her thin dark body against the side of the door, surely the most desolate figure in the world. Her hands were about her face, her body heaved with her sobbing and the little sad noise came into the dusty tangled room and hung amongst the old broken books as though they only could sympathise and give it shelter. The band in Oxford Street was blazing with sound but it did not hide her crying.

Mr. Zanti crossed to her and spoke to her but she suddenly let her hands fall from her face and turned upon him, furiously, wildly–“You …” she said, “You …” and then as though the words choked her she turned back into the inner room. Peter saw Mr. Zanti’s face and it was puckered with distress like a child’s. It was almost laughable in its helpless dismay.

Two o’clock struck. “They’ll be starting in half an hour,” Herr Gottfried said.

“Women,” Mr. Zanti said, still looking distressfully about him, “they are, in truth, very difficult.”

And now there was no pretence, any longer, of disguising the nervous tension that was with them in the room. They were all waiting for something–what it might be Peter did not know, but, with every tick of the old brass clock, some event crept more nearly towards them.

Then Stephen came back.

He came in very quietly as though he were trying to keep the note of agitation that he must have felt on every side of him as near the normal as possible.

His face above his beard was grey and streaky and his breath came rapidly as though he had been running. When he saw Mr. Zanti his hand went up suddenly in front of his face as though he would protect himself from the other’s questioning.

“I’ve ‘eard nothing–” he said almost sullenly and then he turned and looked at Peter.

“Why must ‘e be ‘ere?” he said sharply to Zanti.

“Why not? Where else?” the other answered and the two men watched each other with hostility across the floor.

“I wish we’d all bloomin’ wull kept out of it,” Stephen murmured to himself it seemed.

Peter’s eyes were upon Mr. Zanti. That gentleman looked more like a naughty child than ever. In his eyes there was the piteous appeal of a small boy about to be punished for some grievous fault. In some strange way Peter was, it appeared, his court of appeal because he glanced towards him again and again and then looked away.

Peter could stand it no longer. He got up from the place where he was and faced them all.

“What is it? What have you all done? What is the matter with you all?”

The Russian girl had come back. Her face was white and her hair fell untidily about her eyes. She came forward fiercely as though she would have answered Peter, but Mr. Zanti motioned her back with his hand.

“No, no,” he said almost imploringly, “let the boy be–what has he to do with all this? Leave him. He has nothing to do with it. He knows nothing.”

“But I ought to know,” Peter burst in. “Why have I been kept in the dark all this time? What right have you–“

He broke off suddenly. Absolute silence fell amongst them all and they stood looking at the door, motionless, in their places. There was a new note in the murmuring of the crowd, and the swift steady passing of it came up the street to the shop and in at the door. Voices could be heard rising above others, and then the eager passing of some piece of news from one to another.

No one in the shop spoke. Outside in the deserted street there was silence and then the bands, as though driven by some common wave of feeling, seemed at the same moment to burst into a blare of music. Some voice, from the crowd, started “God save the Queen” and immediately it was taken up and flung into the air by a thousand voices. They must give vent to their feelings, some news had passed down the crowds like a flame setting fire to a chain of beacons.

“What is it?” Peter pressed forwards to the door. And at once he was answered. Men were running past the shop, crying out; one stopped for an instant and, wild with excitement, his hands gesticulating, stammering, the words tumbling from his lips, he shouted at them–“They’ve bin flinging bombs … dirty foreigners … up there by the Marble Arch–flinging them at the Old Lady. But it’s all right, by Gawd–only blew ‘imself up, dirty foreigner–little bits of ‘im and no one else ‘urt and now the Old Lady’s comin’ down the street–she’ll be ‘ere in quarter of an ‘our and won’t we show ‘er … by Gawd … flingin’ their dirty bombs up there by the Marble Arch and killin’ nobody but ‘imself–Gawd save the Old Lady–” he rushed on.

So that was it. Peter, standing in the middle of the room, looked at them all and understood at last amongst whom he had been working these seven years. They were murderers, the lot of them–all of them–Gottfried, Zanti … Stephen–Oh God! Stephen! He understood now for what they had been waiting.

He turned sick at the sudden realisation of it. It did not, at first, seem to touch himself in any way. At the first immediate knowledge of it he had been faced by its amazing incongruity. There by the Marble Arch, with bands flying, flags waving, in all the tumult of a Royal Progress some one had been blown into little pieces. Elsewhere there were people waiting, eating buns out of paper bags, and here in the shop the sun lighted the backs of rows of second-hand novels and down in Treliss the water was, very gently, lapping the little wooden jetty. Oh! the silly jumbling of things in this silly jumbling world!

And then he began to look more closely into it as it concerned himself. He saw with amazing clearness. He knew that it was Oblotzky the tall Russian who had been killed. He knew because Oblotzky was the lover of this Russian girl and he turned round to watch her, curiously, as one who was outside it all. She was standing with her back against the wall, her hands spread out flat, looking through the door into the bright street, seeing none of them. Then she turned and said something in Russian between her clenched teeth to Mr. Zanti. He would have answered her but very quietly and speaking now in English she flung at him, as though it had been a stone:

“God curse you! You drove him to it!” Then she turned round and left the room. But the tall man was blubbering like a child. He had turned round to them all, with his hands outstretched, appealing:

“But it’s not true!” he cried between his sobs, “it’s not true! I did all I could to stop them–I did not know that they would do things–not really–until now, this morning, when it was too late. It is the others, Sergius, Paslov, Odinsky–zey were always wild, desperate. But we, the rest of us, with us it was only tall words.”

Little Herr Gottfried, who had been silent behind them, came forward now and spoke:

“It is too late,” he said, “for this crying like a baby. We have no time–we must consider what must be done. If it is true, what that man says that Oblotzky has blown himself up and no other is touched then no harm is done. Why regret the Russian? He wanted a violent end and he has got it–and he has given it to no other. Often enough we are not so fortunate. He will have spoken to no one. We are safe.” Then he turned to Peter:

“Poor boy,” he said.

But Peter was not there to be pitied. He had only one thought, “Stephen, tell me–tell me. You did not know? You had nothing to do with this?”

Stephen turned and faced him. “No, Peter boy, nothing. I did not know what they were at. They–Zanti there–‘ad ‘elped me when I was in trouble years ago. They’ve given me jobs before now, but they’ve always been bunglers and now, thank the Lord, they’ve bungled again. You come with me, Mr. Peter–come along from it all. We’ll manage something. I’ve only been waiting until you wanted me.”

Zanti turned furiously upon him but the words that he would have spoken were for the moment held. The Procession was passing. The roar of cheering came up against the walls of the shop like waves against the rocks; the windows shook. There she was, the little Old Lady in her black bonnet, sitting smiling and bowing, and somewhere behind her a little dust had been blown into the air, had hung for a moment about her and then had once more settled down into the other dust from which it had come.

That was all. In front of her were the Royal Personages, on every side of her her faithful subjects … only a cloud of dust had given occasion for a surer sign of her people’s devotion. That, at any rate, Oblotzky had done.

The carriage passed.

Mr. Zanti now faced Peter.

“Peter–Boy–you must believe me. I did not know, believe me, I did not. They had talked and I had listened but there is so much talk and never anything is done. Peter, you must not go, you must not leave me. You would break my ‘eart–“

“All these years,” Peter said, “you have let me be here while you have deceived me and blinded me. I am going now and I pray to God that I may never see you again.”

“No, Boy, listen. You must not go like this. ‘Ave I not been good to you? ‘Ave I ever made you do anything wrong? ‘Ave I not always kept you out of these things? You are the only person zat I ‘ave ever loved. You ‘ave become my son to me. I am not wicked. I was not one of these men–these anarchists–but it is only that all my life I ‘ave wanted adventure, what you call Ro-mance. And I ‘ave found it ‘ere, there–one place, anuzzer place. But it ‘as never been wicked–I ‘ave never ‘armed a soul. What zat girl says it is not true–I would ‘ave done all to stop it if I could. But you–if you leave me now, I am all alone. There is no one in the world for me–a poor old man–but if you will be with me I will show you wonderful things.

“See,” he went on eagerly, almost breathlessly, “we ‘ave been socialists ‘ere, what you will. We ‘ave talked and talked. It amuses me–to intrigue, to pretend, to ‘ave games–one day it is Treason, another Brigands, another Travel–what you will. But never, never, never danger to a soul. Now only this morning did I ‘ear that they were going to do this. Always it had been words before–but this morning I got a rumour. But it was only rumour. I ‘ad not enough to be sure of my news. Stephen here and I–we could do nozzing–we ‘ad no time–I did not know where Oblotzky was–this girl ‘ere did not know–I could do nozzing–Peter, believe me, believe me–“

The man was no scoundrel. It was plain enough as he stood there, his eyes simple as a child’s, pleading still like a small boy.

A minute ago Peter had hated him, now he crossed over and put his hand on his shoulder.

“You have been wonderfully good to me,” he said. “I owe you everything. But I must go–all this has only made sure what I have been knowing this long time that I ought to do. I can’t–I mustn’t–depend on your charity any longer–it has been too long as it is. I must be on my own and then one day, when I have proved myself, I will come back to you.”

“No–Peter, Boy–come with me now. I will show you wonderful things all over Europe; we will have adventures. There is gold in Cornwall in a place I know. There is a place in Germany where there is treasure–ze world is full of ze most wonderful things that I know and you and I–we two–Oh! ze times we all ‘ave–“

“No,” … Peter drew back. “That is not my way. I am going to make my living here, in London–or die for it.”

“No–you must not. You will succeed–you will grow fat and sleepy and ze good things of the world and ze many friends will kill your soul. I know it … but come with me, first and we will ‘ave adventures … and _zen_ you shall write.”

But Peter’s face was set. The time for the new life had come. Up to this moment he had been passive, he had used his life as an instrument on which others might play. From henceforward his should be the active part.

The crowds were pouring up the street on their homeward way. Bands were playing the soldiers back to the barracks. Soon the streets would have only the paper bags left to them for company. The little bookshop hung, with its misty shelves about the three men…. Somewhere in another room, a girl was staring with white set face and burning eyes in front of her, for her lover was dead and the world had died with him.

After a little time amongst the second-hand novels Mr. Zanti sat, his great head buried in his hands, the tears trickling down through his fingers, and Herr Gottfried, motionless from behind his counter watched him in silent sympathy.

Peter and Stephen had gone together.

CHAPTER V

A NARROW STREET

I

The bomb was, that evening, the dominant note of the occasion. Through the illuminated streets, the slowly surging crowds–inhuman in their abandon to the monotonous ebb and flow as of a sweeping river–the cries and laughter and shouting of songs, that note was above all. An eye-witness–a Mr. Frank Harris, butcher of 82 Cheapside–had his veracious account journalistically doctored.

* * * * *

“I was standing quite close to the man, a foreigner of course, with a dirty hanging black moustache–tall, big fellow, with coat up over his ears–I must say that I wasn’t looking at him. I had Mrs. Harris with me and was trying to get her a place where she could see better, you understand. Then suddenly–before one was expecting it–the Procession began and I forgot the man, the foreigner, although he was quite up close against me. One was excited of course–a most moving sight–and then suddenly, when by the distant shouting we understood that the Queen was approaching, I saw the man break through. I was conscious of the man’s vigour as he rushed past–he must have been immensely strong–because there he was, through the soldiers and everybody–out in the middle of the street. It all happened so quickly of course. I heard vaguely that some one was shouting and I think a policeman started forward, but anyhow the man raised his arm and in an instant there was the explosion. It went off before he was ready I suppose, but the ground rocked under one’s feet. Two soldiers fell, unhurt, I have learnt since. There was a hideous dust, horses plunging and men shouting and then suddenly silence. The dust cleared and there was a hole in the ground, stones rooted up … no sign of the man but some pieces of cloth and men had rushed forward and covered something up–a limb I suppose…. I was only anxious of course that my wife should see nothing … she was considerably affected….”

So Mr. Harris of Cheapside, with the assistance of an eager and talented young journalist. But the fact remained in the heart of the crowd–blasted foreigner had had a shot at the Old Lady and missed her, therefore whatever gaiety may have been originally intended let it now be redoubled, shouted into frenzy–and frenzy it was.

“There was no clue,” an evening paper added to the criminal’s identity…. The police were blamed, of course…. Such a thing must never be allowed to occur again. It was reported that the Queen had in no way suffered from the shock–was in capital health.

Outside the bookshop Stephen and Peter had parted.

“I’ll meet you about half-past ten, Trafalgar Square by the lion that faces Whitehall; I must go back to Brockett’s, have supper and get my things, and say good-bye. Then I’ll join you … half-past ten.”

“Peter boy, we’ll have to rough it–“

“Oh! at last! Life’s beginning. We’ll soon get work, both of us–where do you mean to go?”

“There’s a place I been before–down East End–not much of a place for your sort, but just for a bit….”

For a moment Peter’s thoughts swept back to the shop.

“Poor Zanti!” He half turned. “After so many years … the good old chap.” Then he pulled himself up and set his shoulders. “Well, half-past ten–“

The streets were, at the instant, almost deserted. It was about five o’clock now and at seven o’clock they would be closed to all traffic. Then the surging crowds would come sweeping down.

Peter, furiously excited, hurried through the grimy deserts of Bloomsbury, to Brockett’s. To his singing, beating heart the thin ribbon of the grey street with the faint dim blue of the evening sky was out of place, ill-judged as a setting to his exultations. He had swept in the tempestuous way that was natural to him, the shop and all that it had been to him, behind him. Even Brockett’s must go with the rest. Of course he could not stay there now that the weekly two pounds had stopped. He quite savagely desired to be free from all business. These seven years had been well enough as a preparation; now at last he was to be flung, head foremost, into life.

He could have sung, he could have shouted. He burst through the heavy doors of Brockett’s. But there, inside the quiet and solemn building, another mood seized him. He crept quietly, on tiptoe, up to his room because he did not want to see any of them before supper. After all, he was leaving the best friends that he had ever had, the only home that he had ever really known. Mrs. Brockett, Norah Monogue, Robin, the Signor…. Seven years is a long time and one gets fond of a place. He closed his bedroom door softly behind him. The little room had been very much to him during all these years, and that view over the London roofs would never be forgotten by him. But he wondered, as he looked at it, how he had ever been able to sit there so quietly and write “Reuben Hallard.” Now, between his writing and himself, a thousand things were sweeping. Far away he saw it like the height of some inaccessible hill–his emotions, his adventures, the excitement of life made his thoughts, his ideas, thinner than smoke. He even, standing there in his little room and looking over the London roofs, despised the writer’s inaction…. Often again he was to know that rivalry.

A quarter of an hour before supper he went down to say good-bye to Miss Monogue. She was sitting quietly reading and he thought suddenly, as he came upon her, there under the light of her candles in the grey room, that she did not look well. He had never during their seven years’ friendship, noticed anything before, and now he could not have said what it was that he saw except perhaps that her cheeks were flushed and that there were heavy dark lines beneath her eyes. But she seemed to him, as he took her, thus unprepared, with her untidy hair and her white cheap evening dress that showed her thin fragile arms, to be something that he was leaving to face the world alone, something very delicate that he ought not to leave.

Then she looked up and saw him and put her book down and smiled at him and was the old cheerful Norah Monogue whom he had always known.

He stood with his legs apart facing her and told her:

“I’ve come to say good-bye.”

“Good-bye?”

“Yes–I’m going to-night. What I’ve been expecting for so long has happened at last. There’s been a blow up at the bookshop and I’ve got to go.”

For an instant the colour left her face; her book fell to the ground and she put her hand back on the arm of the chair to steady herself.

“Oh! how silly of me … never mind picking it up…. Oh thank you, Peter. You gave me quite a shock, telling me like that. We shall all miss you dreadfully.”

His affection for her was strong enough to break in upon the great overwhelming excited exultation that had held him all the evening. He was dreadfully sorry to leave her!… dear Norah Monogue, what a pal she’d been!

“I shall miss you horribly,” he said with that note in his voice that showed that, above all things, he wished to avoid a scene. “We’ve been such tremendous pals all this time–you’ve been such a brick–I don’t know what I should have done….” He pulled himself up. “But it’s got to be. I’ve felt it coming you know and it’s time I really lashed out for myself.”

“Where are you going?”

“Ah! I must keep that dark for a bit. There’s been trouble at the bookshop. It’ll be all right I expect but I don’t want Mother Brockett to stand any chance of being mixed up in it. I shall just disappear for a week or two and then I’ll be back again.”

She smiled at him bravely: “Well, I won’t ask what’s happened, if you don’t want to tell me, but of course–I shall miss you. After seven years it seems so abrupt. And, Peter, do take care of yourself.”

“Oh, I shall be all right.” He was very gruff. He felt now a furious angry reluctance at leaving her behind. He stormed at himself as a fool; one of the things that the strong man must learn of life is to be ruthless in these partings and breaking of relations. He stood further away from her and spoke as though he hated being there.

She understood him with wonderful tenderness.

“Well,” she said cheerfully, “I daresay it will be better for you to try for a little and see what you can make of it all. And then if you want anything you’ll come back to us, won’t you?… You promise that?”

“Of course.”

“And then there’s the book. I know that man in Heriot and Lord’s that I told you about. I’ll send it to them right away, if you like.”

“Aren’t they rather tremendous people for me to begin with? Oughtn’t I to begin with some one smaller?”

“Oh! there’s no harm in starting at the top. They can’t do more than refuse it. But I don’t think they will. I believe in it. But how shall I let you know what they say?”

“Oh, I’ll come in a week or two and see what’s happening–I’ll be on a paper by then probably. I say, I don’t want the others to know. I’ll have supper with them as usual and just tell Mother Brockett afterwards. I don’t want to have to say good-bye lots of times. Well”–he moved off awkwardly towards the door–“You’ve been most tremendously good to me.”

“Rot, Peter: Don’t forget me!”

“Forget you! The best pal I’ve ever had.” They clasped hands for a moment. There was a pause and then Peter said: “I say–there _is_ a thing you can do if you like–“

“Yes?–anything–“

“Well–about Miss Rossiter–you’ll be seeing her I suppose?”

“Oh yes, often–“

“Well, you might just keep her in mind of me. I know it sounds silly but–just a word or two, sometimes.”

He felt that he was blushing–their hands separated. She moved back from him and pushed at her hair in the nervous way that she had.

“Why, of course–she was awfully interested. She won’t forget you. Well, we’ll meet at supper.” She moved back with a last little nod at him and he went awkwardly out of the room with a curious little sense of sudden dismissal. Would she rather he didn’t know Miss Rossiter, he vaguely wondered. Women were such queer creatures.

As he went downstairs he wondered with a sudden almost shameful confusion whether he was responsible in some way for the awkwardness that the scene had had. He had noticed lately that she had not been quite herself when he had been with her–that she would stop in the middle of a sentence, that she would be, for instance, vexed at something he said, that she would look at him sometimes as though …

He pulled himself up. He was angry with himself for imagining such a thing–as though … Well, women _were_ strange creatures….

And then supper was more difficult than he had expected. They would show him, the silly things, that they were fond of him just when he would much rather have persuaded himself that they hated him. It was almost, as he told himself furiously, as though they knew that he was going; Norah Monogue was the only person who chattered and laughed in a natural way; he was rather relieved that after all she seemed to care so little.

He found that he couldn’t eat. There was a silly lump in his throat and he looked at the marble pillars and the heavy curtains through a kind of mist…. Especially was there Robin….

Mrs. Tressiter told him that Robin had something very important to say to him and that he was going to stay awake until he, Peter, came up to him.

“I told him,” she said, “that he must lie down and go to sleep like a good boy and that his father would punish him if he didn’t. But there! What’s the use of it? He isn’t afraid of his father the slightest. He would go on–something about a lion….”

At any rate this gave Peter an excuse to escape from the table and it was, indeed, time, for they had all settled, like a clatter of hens, on to the subject of the bomb, and they all had a great deal to say about it and a great many questions to ask Peter.

“It’s these Foreigners… of course our Police are entirely inadequate.”

“Yes–that’s what I say–the Police are really absurdly inadequate–“

“If they will allow these foreigners–“

“Yes, what can you expect–and the Police really can’t–“

Peter escaped to Robin. He glowered down at the child who was sitting up in his cot counting the flowers on the old wall-paper to keep himself awake.

“I always am so muddled after fourteen,” he said. “Never mind, I’m _not_ sleeping–“

Peter frowned at him. “You ought to have been asleep long ago,” he said. He wished the boy hadn’t got his hair tousled in that absurdly fascinating way and that his cheeks weren’t flushed so beautiful a red–also his nightgown had lost a button at the top and showed a very white little neck. Peter blinked his eyes–“Look here, kid, you must go to sleep right away at once. What do you want?”

“It’s that lion–the one the lady had–I want it.”

“You can’t have it–the lady’s got it.”

“Well–take me to see them–the real ones–there are lots somewhere Mother says.” Robin inserted his very small hand into Peter’s large one.

“All right, one day–we’ll go to the ‘Zoo.”

Robin sighed with satisfaction–he lay down and murmured sleepily to himself, “I love Mister Peter and lions and Mother and God,” and was suddenly asleep.

Peter bent down over the cot and kissed him. He felt miserably wretched. He had known nothing like it since that day when he had said good-bye to his mother. He wondered that he could ever have felt any exultation; he wondered that writing and glory and ambition could ever have seemed worth anything to him at all. Could he have had his prayer granted he would have prayed that he might always stay in Brockett’s, always have these same friends, watch over Robin as he grew up, talk to Norah Monogue–and then all the others … and Mr. Zanti. He felt fourteen years old … more miserable than he had ever been.

He kissed Robin again–then he went down to find Mrs. Brockett. Here, too, he was faced with an unexpected difficulty. The good lady, listening to him sternly in her grim little sitting-room, refused to hear of his departure. She sat upright in her stiff chair, her thin black dress in folds about her, the gas-light shining on her neatly parted hair.

“You see, Mrs. Brockett,” he explained to her, “I’m no longer in the same position. I can’t be sure of my two pounds a week any more and so it wouldn’t be right for me to live in a place like this.”

“If it’s expense that you’re thinking about,” she answered him grimly, “you’re perfectly welcome to stay on here and pay me when you can. I’m sure that one day with so clever a young man–“

“That’s awfully good of you, Mrs. Brockett, but of course I couldn’t hear of anything like that.” For the third time that evening he had to fight against a disposition to blow his nose and be absurd. They were, both of them, increasingly grim with every word that they spoke and any outside observer would have supposed that they were the deadliest of enemies.

“Of course,” she began again, “there’s a room that I could let you have at the back of the house that’s only four shillings a week and really you’d be doing me a kindness in taking it off my hands. I’m sure–“

“No, there’s more in it than that,” he answered. “I’ve got to go away–right away. It’s time I had a change of scene. It’s good for me to get along a bit by myself. You’ve all been too kind to me, spoilt me–“

She stood up and faced him sternly. “In all my years,” she said, “I’ve never spoilt anybody yet and I’m not likely to be going to begin now. Spoilt you! Bah!” She almost snorted at him–but there were tears in her eyes.

“I’m not a philanthropist,” she went on more dryly than ever, “but I like to have you about the house–you keep the lodgers contented and the babies quiet. I’m sure,” and the little break in her voice was the first sign of submission, “that we’ve been very good friends these seven years and it isn’t everywhere that one can pick up friends for the asking–“

“You’ve been splendid to me,” he answered. “But it isn’t as though I were going away altogether–you’ll see me back in a week or two. And–and–I say I shall make a fool of myself if I go on talking like this–“

He suddenly gripped her hand and wrung it again and again–then he burst away from her, leaving her standing there in the middle of the room.

The old black bag was very soon packed, his possessions had not greatly increased during these seven years, and soon he was creeping down the stairs softly so that no one should hear.

The hall was empty. He gave it one last friendly look, the door had closed behind him and he was in the street.

II

In its exuberance and high spirits and general lack of self-control London was similar to a small child taken to the Drury Lane Pantomime for the first time. Of the numbers of young men who, with hats on the back of their heads, passed arm-in-arm down the main thoroughfares announcing it as their definite opinion that “Britons never shall be slaves,” of the numbers of young women who, armed with feathers and the sharpest of tongues, showed conclusively the superiority of their sex and personal attractions, of the numbers of old men and old women who had no right whatever to be out on a night like this but couldn’t help themselves, and enjoyed it just as much as their sons and daughters did, there is here no room to tell. The houses were ablaze with light, the very lamp-posts seemed to rock up and down with delight at the spirit of the whole affair and the Feast of the Glorification of the Bomb that Didn’t Come Off was being celebrated with all the honours.

Peter was very soon in the thick of it. The grey silences of Bennett Square and Bloomsbury were left behind and with them the emotions of those tender partings. After all, it would only be a very few weeks before he would be back again among them all, telling them of his success on some paper and going back perhaps to live with them all when his income was assured.

And, anyhow, here he was, out to seek his fortune and with Stephen to help him! He battled with the crowd dragging the black bag with him and shouting sometimes in sheer excitement and good spirits. Young women tickled him with feathers, once some one linked arms with him and dragged him along, always he was surrounded with this sea of shouting, exultant humanity–this was life!

By the lion Stephen was waiting for him, standing huge and solemn as the crowd surged past. He pressed Peter’s arm to show that he was pleased to see him and then, without speaking, they pushed through, past Charing Cross station, and down the hill to the Underground.

Here, once again, there was startling silence. No one seemed to be using the trains at all.

“I’m afraid it ain’t much of a place that I’m taking yer to,” Stephen said. “We can’t pick and choose yer know and I was there before and she’s a good woman.”

A chill seemed to come with them into the carriage. Suddenly to Peter the comforts of Brockett’s stretched out alluring arms, then he pulled himself together.

“I’m sure it will be splendid,” he said, “and it will be just lovely being with you after all this time.”

They got out and plunged into a city of black night. Around them, on every side there was silence–even the broad central thoroughfare seemed to be deserted and on either side of it, to right and left, black grim roads like open mouths, lay waiting for the unwary traveller.

Down one of these they plunged; Peter was conscious of faces watching them. “Bucket Lane” was the street’s title to fame. Windows showed dim candles, in the distance a sharp cry broke the silence and then fell away again. The street was very narrow and from the running gutters there stole into the air the odour of stale cabbage.

“This is the ‘ouse.” Stephen stopped. Somewhere, above their heads, a child was crying.

CHAPTER VI

THE WORLD AND BUCKET LANE

I

A light flashed in the upper windows, stayed for a moment, and disappeared. There was a pause and then the door slowly opened and a woman’s head protruded.

She stared at them without speaking.

“Mr. Brant,” Stephen said. “I’m come back, Mrs. Williams ‘oping you might ‘ave that same room me and my friend might use if it’s agreeable.”

She stepped forward then and looked at them more carefully. She was a stout red-faced woman, her hair hanging about her face, her dirty bodice drawn tightly over her enormous bosom and her skirt pulled up in front and hanging, draggled behind her. Her long, dirty fingers went up to her face continually; she had a way of pushing at her teeth with them.

She seemed, however, pleased to see Stephen.

“Well, Mr. Brant,” she said, “come in. It’s a surprise I must say but Lord! as I’m always telling Mrs. Griggs oo’s on the bottom floor when she can afford ‘er rent which ‘asn’t been often lately, poor thing, owing to ‘aving ‘er tenth only three weeks back, quite unexpected, and ‘er man being turned off ‘is ‘ouse-painting business what ‘e’s been at this ten year and more–well come along in, I’m sure–“

They _were_ in by this time having been urged by their hostess into the very narrowest, darkest and smelliest passage that Peter had ever encountered. Somewhere behind the walls, the world was moving. On every side of him above and below, children were crying, voices swearing, murmuring, complaining, arguing; Peter could feel Mrs. Williams’ breath hot against his cheek. Up the wheezy stairs she panted, they following her. Peter had never heard such loquacity. It poured from her as though she meant nothing whatever by it and was scarcely aware indeed of the things that she was saying. “And it’s a long time, Mr. Brant, since we ‘ad the pleasure of seeing you. My last ‘usband’s left me since yer was ‘ere–indeed ‘e ‘av–all along of a fight ‘e ‘ad with old Colly Moles down Three Barrer walk–penal servitude, poor feller and all along of ‘is nasty temper as I was always tellin’ ‘im. Why the very morning before it ‘appened I remember sayin’ to ‘im when ‘e up and threw a knife at me for contradictin’ ‘is words I remember sayin’ to ‘im that ‘is temper would be the settlin’ of me but ‘e wouldn’t listen, not ‘e. Obstinate! Lord! that simply isn’t the word for it … but ‘ere’s the room and nobody been in it since Sairy Grace and she was always bringin’ men along with ‘er, dirty slut and that’s a month since she’s been and gone and I always like ‘aving yer, Mr. Brant, for you’re quiet enough and no trouble at all–and your friend looks pleasant I must say.”

The room was, indeed, remarkably respectable–not blessed with much furniture in addition to two beds and two chairs but roomy and with a large and moderately clean window.

“Now what about terms for me and my friend?” said Stephen.

Now followed friendly argument in which the lady and Stephen seemed perfectly to understand one another. After asserting that under no circumstances whatever could she possibly take less than at least double the price that Stephen offered her she suddenly, at the sound of a child’s shrill crying from below, shrugged her shoulders with: “There’s young ‘Lisbeth Anne again … well, Mr. Brant, ‘ave it your own way–I’m contented enough I’m sure,” and vanished.

But the little discussion had brought Peter to a sharp realisation of the immediate business of ways and means. Sitting on one of the beds afterwards with Stephen beside him he inquired–

“How much have we got, Stephen? I’ve got thirty bob.”

“Never you mind, Peter. We’ll soon be gettin’ work.”

“Why, of course. I’ll force ’em to take me. That’s all you want in these things–to look fierce and say you won’t go until they give you something–a trial anyhow.”

And sitting there on the bed with Stephen beside him he felt immensely confident. There was nothing that he could not do. With one swift movement he seemed to have flung from him all the things that were beginning to crowd in between him and his work. He must never, never allow that to happen again–how could one ever be expected to work if one were always thinking of other people, interested in them and their doings, involved with anarchists and bombs and romantic adventures. Why here he was with nothing in the world to hold him or to interfere and no one except dear old Stephen with whom he must talk. Ambition crept very close to him that night–ambition with its glittering, shining rewards, its music and colours–close to him as he sat in that bare, naked room.

“I’d rather be with you than any one in the world–we’ll have such times, you and I.”

Perhaps Stephen knew more about the world; perhaps during the years that he had been tumbled and knocked about he had realised that the world was no easy nut to crack and that loaves and fishes don’t come to the hungry for the asking. But Peter that night was to be appalled by nothing.

They sat up into the early morning, talking. The noises in the house and in the streets about them rose and fell. Some distant cry would climb into the silence and draw from it other cries set like notes of music to tumble back into a common scheme together.

“Steve, tell me about Zanti. Is he really a scoundrel?”

“A scoundrel? No, poor feller. Why, Mr. Peter, you ought to know better than that. ‘E ain’t got a spark of malice in him but ‘e’s always after adventure. ‘E knows all the queer people in Europe–and more’n Europe too. There’s nothin’ ‘e don’t put ‘is nose into in a clumsy, childish way but always, you understand, Mr. Peter, because ‘e’s after ‘is romantic fancies. It was when ‘e was after gold down in Cornwall–some old treasure story–that I came across ‘im and ‘e was kind to me…. ‘E was a kind-‘earted man, Mr. Zanti, and never meant ‘arm to a soul. And ‘e’s very fond of you, Mr. Peter.”

“Yes, I know.” Peter was vaguely troubled. “I hope I haven’t been unkind about him. I suppose it was the shock of the whole thing. But it was time I went anyway. But tell me, Stephen, what you’ve been doing all these years. And why you let me be all that time without seeing you–“

“Well, Mr. Peter, I didn’t think it would be good for you–I was knowing lots o’ strange people time and again and then you might have been mixed up with me. I’m safe enough now, I’m thinking, and I’d have been safe enough all the time the way Cornwall was then and every one sympathising with me–“

“But what have you been doing all the time?”

“I was in America a bit and there are few things I haven’t worked at in my time–always waiting for ‘er to come–and she will come some time–it’s only patience that’s wanted.”

“Have you ever heard from her?”

“There was a line once–just a line–_she’s_ all right.” His great body seemed to glow with confidence.

Peter would like then to have spoken about Clare Rossiter. But no–some shyness held him–one day he would tell Stephen.

He unpacked his few possessions carefully and then, on a very hard bed, dreaming of bombs, of Mrs. Brockett dressed as a ballet dancer, of Mr. Zanti digging for treasure beneath the grey flags of Bennett Square, of Clare Elizabeth Rossiter riding down Oxford Street amidst the shouts of the populace, of the world as a coloured globe on which he, Peter Westcott, the author of that masterpiece, “Reuben Hallard,” had set his foot … so, triumphant, he slept.

II

On the next morning the Attack on London began. The house in Bucket Lane was dark and grim when he left it–the street was hidden from the light and hung like a strip of black ribbon between the sunshine of the broader highways that lay at each end of it. It was a Jewish quarter-notices in Yiddish were in all the little grimy shop windows, in the bakers and the sweetshops and the laundries. But it was not, this Bucket Lane, a street without its dignity and its own personal little cleanliness. It had its attempts at such things. His own room and Mrs. Williams’ tea and bread and butter had been clean.

But as he came down out of these strange murmuring places with their sense of hiding from the world at large the things that they were occupied in doing, Bucket Lane stuck in his head as a dark little quarry into which he must at the day’s end, whatever gorgeous places he had meanwhile encountered, creep. “Creeping” was the only way to get into such a place.

Meanwhile he had put on his best, had blackened his shoes until they shone like little mirrors, had brushed his bowler hat again and again and looked finally like a sailor on shore for a holiday. Seven years in Charing Cross Road had not taken the brown from his cheeks, nor bent his broad shoulders.

At the Mansion House he climbed on to the top of a lumbering omnibus and sailed down through the City. It was now that he discovered how seldom during his seven years he had ventured beyond his little square of country. Below him, on either side of him, black swarms stirred and moved, now forming ahead of him patterns, squares, circles, then suddenly rising it appeared like insects and in a cloud surging against the high stone buildings. All men–men moving with eyes straight ahead of them, bent furiously upon some business, but assembling, retreating, advancing, it seemed, by the order of some giant hand that in the air above them played a game. Imagine that, in some moment of boredom, the Hand were to brush the little pieces aside, were to close the board and put it away, then, with what ignominy and feeble helplessness would these little black figures topple clumsily into heaps.

Down through the midst of them the omnibus, like a man with an impediment in his speech, surrounded by the chatter of cabs and carts and bicycles, stammered its way. The streets opened and shut, shouts came up to them and fell away. Peter’s heart danced–London was here at last and the silence of Bennett Square, the dark omens of Bucket Lane and the clamour of the city had together been the key for the unlocking of its gates.

Ludgate Hill caught them into its heart, held them for an instant, and then flung them down in the confusion of Fleet Street.

Here it was at last then with its typewriters and its telephones and its printing machines hurling with a whir and clatter the news of the world into the air, and above it brooding, like an immense brain–the God of its restless activity–the Dome of St. Paul’s.

Peter climbed down from his omnibus because he saw on his right a Public Reading Room. Here in tattered and anxious company, he studied the papers and took down addresses in a note book. He was frightened for an instant by the feet that shuffled up and down the floor from paper to paper. There was something most hopeless in the sound of that shuffle.

“‘Ave yer a cigarette on yer, Mister, that yer wouldn’t mind–“

He turned round and at once, like blows, two fierce gaunt eyes struck him in the face. Two eyes staring from some dirty brown pieces of cloth on end, it seemed, by reason of their own pathetic striving for notice, rather than because of any life inside them.

Peter murmured something and hurried away. Supposing that editors … but no, this was not the proper beginning of a successful day. But the place, down steps under the earth, with its miserable shadows was not pleasant to remember.

His first visit was to the office of _The Morning World_. He remembered his remark to Stephen about self-assertion, but his heart sank as he entered the large high room with its railed counter running round the centre of it–a barrier cold, impassable. Already several people were sitting on chairs that were ranged along the wall.

Peter went up boldly to the counter and a very thin young man with a stone hatchet instead of a face and his hair very wonderfully parted in the middle–so accurately parted that Peter could think of nothing else–watched him coldly over the barrier.

“What can I do for you?” he said.

“I want to see the Editor.”

“Have you an appointment?”

“No.”

“Oh, I’m afraid that it would be impossible without an appointment.”

“Is there any one whom I could see?”

“If you could tell me your business, perhaps–“

Peter began to be infuriated with this young man with the hatchet face.

“I want to know if there’s any place for me on this paper. If I can–“

“Oh!” The voice was very cold indeed and the iron barrier seemed to multiply itself over and over again all round the room.

“I’m afraid in that case you had better write to the Editor and make an appointment. No, I’m afraid there is no one…”

Peter melted away. The faces on the chairs were all very glad. The stone building echoed with some voice that called some one a long way away. Peter was in the street. He stood outside the great offices of _The Morning World_ and looked across the valley at the great dome that squatted above the moving threads of living figures. He was absurdly upset by this unfortunate interview. What could he have expected? Of what use was it that he should fling his insignificance against that kind of wall? Moreover he must try many times before his chance would be given him. It was absurd that he should mind that rebuff. But the hatchet-faced young man pursued him. He seemed to see now as he looked up and down the street, a hostility in the faces of those that passed him. Moreover he saw, here and there figures, wretched figures, moving in and out of the crowd, bending into the gutter for something that had been dropped–lean, haggard faces, burning eyes … he began to see them as a chain that wound, up and down, amongst the people and the carriages along the street.

He pulled himself together–If he was feeling these things at the very beginning of his battle why then defeat was certain. He was ashamed and, looking at his paper, chose the offices of _The Mascot_, a very popular society journal that brightened the world with its cheerful good-tempered smile, every Friday morning. Here the room in which he found himself was small and cosy, it had a bright pink wall-paper, and behind a little shining table a shining young woman beamed upon him. The shining young woman was, however, very busy at her typewriter and Peter was examined by a tiny office boy who seemed to be made entirely of shining brass buttons and shining little boots and shining hair.

“And what can I do for you, sir?” he said.

“I should like to see the Editor,” Peter explained.

“Your name?” said the Shining One.

Peter had no cards. He blamed himself for the omission and stammered in his reply.

The Boy gave the lady at the typewriter a very knowing look and disappeared. He swiftly returned and said that Mr. Boset could see Mr. Westcott for a few minutes, but for a few minutes only.

Mr. Boset sat resplendent in a room that was coloured a bright green. He was himself stout and red-faced and of a surpassing smartness, his light blue suit was very tight at the waist and very broad over the hips, his white spats gleamed, his pearl pin stared like an eye across the room, his neck bulged in red folds over his collar. Mr. Boset was eating chocolates out of a little cardboard box and his attention was continually held by the telephone that summoned him to its side at frequent intervals. He was however exceedingly pleasant. He begged Peter to take a chair.

“Just a minute, Mr. Westcott, will you? Yes–hullo–yes–This is 6140 Strand. Hullo! Hullo! Oh–is that you, Mrs. Wyman? Good morning–yes, splendid, thank you–never fitter–Very busy yes, of course–what–Lunch Thursday?… Oh, but delighted. Just let me look at my book a moment? Yes–quite free–Who? The Frasers and Pigots? Oh! delightful! 1.30, delightful!”

Mr. Boset, settled once more in his chair, was as charming as possible. You would suppose that the whole day was at Peter’s service. He wanted to know a great many things. Peter’s hopes ran high.

“Well–what have you got to show? What have you written?”

Peter had written a novel.

“Published?”

“No.”

“Well … got anything else?”

“No–not just at present.”

“Oh well–must have something to show you know–“

“Yes.” Peter’s hopes were in his boots.

“Yes–must have something to show–” Mr. Boset’s eyes were peering into the cardboard box on a voyage of selection.

“Yes–well–when you’ve written something send it along–“

“I suppose there isn’t anything I can do–“

“Well, our staff, you know, is filled up to the eyes as it is–fellows waiting–lots of ’em–yes, you show us what you can do. Write an article or two. Buy _The Mascot_ and see the kind of thing we like. Yes–Excuse me, the telephone–Yes–Yes 6140 Strand….”

Peter found himself once more in the outer room and then ushered forth by the Shining Boy he was in the street.

He was hungry now and sought an A.B.C. shop and there over the cold marble-topped tables consulted his list. The next attempt should be _The Saturday Illustrated_, one of the leading illustrated weeklies, and perhaps there he would be more successful. As he sat in the A.B.C. shop and watched the squares of street opposite the window he felt suddenly that no effort of his would enable him to struggle successfully against those indifferent crowds.

Above the houses in the patch of blue sky that filled the window-pane soft bundles of cloud streamed like flags before the wind. Into these soft grey meshes the sun was swept and with a cold shudder Fleet Street fell into shadow; beyond it and above it the great dome burned; a company of sandwich men, advertising on their stooping bodies the latest musical comedy, crept along the gutter.

III

At the offices of _The Saturday Illustrated_ they told him that if he returned at four o’clock he would be able to see the Editor. He walked about and at last sat down on the Embankment and watched the barges slide down the river. The water was feathery and sometimes streamed into lines like spun silk reflecting many colours, and above the water the clouds turned and wheeled and changed against the limpid blue. The little slap that the motion of the river gave to the stone embankment reminded him of the wooden jetty at Treliss–the place was strangely sweet–the roar of the Strand was far away and muffled.

As he sat there listening there seemed to come up to him, straight out of the river, strange impersonal noises that had to do with no definite sounds. He was reminded of a story that he had once read, a story concerning a nice young man who caught the disease known as the Horror of London. Peter thought that in the air, coming from nowhere, intangible, floating between the river and the sky something stirred….

Big Ben struck quarter to four and he turned once more into the Strand.

The editor of _The Saturday Illustrated_ was a very different person from Mr. Boset. At a desk piled with papers, stern, gaunt and sharp-chinned, his words rattled out of his mouth like peas onto a plate. But Peter saw that he had humorous twinkling eyes.

“Well, what can you do?”

“I’ve never tried anything–but I feel that I should learn–“

“Learn! Do you suppose this office is a nursery shop for teaching sucklings how to draw their milk? Are you ready for anything?”

“Anything–“

“Yes–they all say that. Journalism isn’t any fun, you know.”

“I’m not looking for fun.”

“Well, it’s the damnedest trade out. Anything’s better. But you want to write?”

“I must.”

“Yes–exactly. Well, I like the look of you. More blood and bones than most of the rotten puppies that come into this office. I’ve no job for you at the moment though. Go back to your digs and write something–anything you like–and send it along–leave me your address. Oh, ho! Bucket Lane–hard up?”

“I’m all right, thank you.”

“All right, I wasn’t offering you charity–no need to put your pride up. I shan’t forget you … but send me something.”

The clouds had now enveloped the sun. As Peter, a little encouraged by this last experience but tired with a dull, listless fatigue, crept into the dark channels of Bucket Lane, the rain began to fall with heavy solemn drops.

CHAPTER VII

DEVIL’S MARCH

I

There could be nothing odder than the picture that Brockett’s and Bennett Square presented from the vantage ground of Bucket Lane. How peaceful and happy those evenings (once considered a little dreary perhaps and monotonous) now seemed! Those mornings in the dusty bookshop, Mr. Zanti, Herr Gottfried, Mrs. Brockett, then Brockett’s with its strange kind-hearted company–the dining-room, the marble pillars, the green curtains–Norah Monogue!

Not only did it seem another lifetime when he had been there but also inevitably, one was threatened with never getting back. Bucket Lane was another world–from its grimy windows one looked upon every tragedy that life had to offer. Into its back courts were born muddled indecent little lives, there blindly to wallow until the earth called them back to itself again.

But it was in the attitude of Bucket Lane to the Great Inevitable that the essential difference was to be observed. In Bennett Square things had been expected and, for the most part, obtained. Catastrophes came lumbering into their midst at times but rising in the morning one might decently expect to go to rest at night in safety. In Bucket Lane there was no safety but defiance–fierce, bitterly humorous, truculent defiance. Bucket Lane was a beleaguered army that stood behind the grime and dirty walls on guard. From the earliest moment there the faces of all the babies born into Bucket Lane caught the strain of cautious resistance that was always to remain with them. Life in Bucket Lane, for every one from the youngest infant to the oldest idiot, was War. War against Order and Civilised Force. War also against that great unseen Hand that might at any moment swoop down upon any one of them and bestow fire, death and imprisonment upon its victims. To the ladies and gentlemen from the Mission the citizens of Bucket Lane presented an amused and cynical tolerance. If those poor, meek, frightened creatures chose some faint-hearted attempts at flattery and submission before this abominable Deity–well, they did no harm.

Mrs. Williams said to Miss Connacher, a bright-faced young woman from St. Matthew’s Mission–“And I’m sure we’re always delighted to see you, Miss. But you can’t ‘ave us goin’ and being grateful on our bended knees to the sort of person as according to your account of it gave me my first ‘usband ‘oo was a blackguard if ever there was one, and my last child wot ‘ad rickets and so ‘andsomely arranged me to go breakin’ my leg one night coming back from a party and sliding on the stairs, and in losin’ my little bit o’ charin’ and as near the workus as ever yer see–no–it ain’t common sense.”

To which Miss Connacher vaguely looking around for a list of Mrs. Williams’ blessings and finding none to speak of, had no reply.

But the astonishing thing was that Peter seemed at once to be seized with the Bucket Lane position. He was now, he understood, in a world of earthquake–wise citizens lived from minute to minute and counted on no longer safety. He began also to eliminate everything that was not absolutely essential. At Brockett’s he had never consciously done without anything that he wanted–in Bucket Lane he discarded to the last possible shred of possession.

He had returned from his first day’s hunting with the resolve that before he ventured out again he would have something to show. With a precious sixpence he bought a copy of _The Mascot_ and studied it–there was a short story entitled “Mrs. Adair’s Co.”–and an article on “What Society Drinks”–the remaining pages of the number were filled with pictures and “Chatter from Day to Day.” This gaily-coloured production lying on one of the beds in the dark room in Bucket Lane seemed singularly out of place. Its pages fluttered in the breeze that came through the window cracks–“Maison Tep” it cried feebly to the screaming children in the court below, “is a very favourite place for supper just now, with Maitre Savori as its popular chef and its admirably stocked cellars….”

Peter gave himself a fortnight in which to produce something that he could “show.” Stephen meanwhile had found work as a waiter in one of the small Soho restaurants; it was only a temporary engagement but he hoped to get something better within a week or two.

For the moment all was well. At the end of his fortnight, with four things written Peter meant to advance once more to the attack. Meanwhile he sat with a pen, a penny bottle of ink and an exercise book and did what he could. At the end of the fortnight he had written “The Sea Road,” an essay for which Robert Louis Stevenson was largely responsible, “The Redgate Mill,” a story of the fantastic, terrible kind, “Stones for Bread,” moralising on Bucket Lane, and the “Red-Haired Boy,” a somewhat bitter reminiscence of Dawson’s. Of this the best was undoubtedly “The Sea Road,” but in his heart of hearts Peter knew that there was something the matter with all of them. “Reuben Hallard” he had written because he had to write it, these four things he had written because he ought to write them … difference sufficient. Nevertheless, he put them into halfpenny wrappes and sent them away.

In the struggle to produce these things he had not found that fortnight wearisome. Before him, every day, there was the evening when Stephen would return, to which he might look forward. Stephen was always very late–often it was two o’clock before he came in, but they had a talk before going to sleep. And here in these evenings Stephen developed in the most wonderful way, developed because Peter had really never known him before.

Stephen had never appeared to Peter as a character at all. In the early days Peter had been too young. Stephen had, at that time, been simply something to be worshipped, without any question or statement. Now that worshipping had gone and the space that it left had to be filled by some new relationship, something that could only come slowly, out of the close juxtaposition that living together in Bucket Lane had provided.

And it was Stephen who found, unconsciously and quite simply, the shape and colour of Peter’s idea of him. Peter had in reality, nothing at all to do with it, and had Stephen been a whit more self-conscious the effect would have been spoiled.

In the first place Peter came quite freshly to the way that Stephen looked. Stephen expressed nothing, consciously, with his body; it was wonderful indeed considering its size and strength, the little that he managed to do with it. His eyes were mild and amiable, his face largely covered with a deep brown beard, once wildly flowing, now sharply pointed. He was at least six foot four in height, the breadth of shoulder was tremendous, but although he knew admirably what to do with it as a means of conveyance, of sheer physical habit, he had no conception of the possibilities that it held as the expression of his soul. That soul was to be found, by those who cared to look for it, glancing from his eyes, struggling sometimes through the swift friendliness of his smile–but he gave it no invitation. It all came, perhaps, from the fact that he treated himself–if anything so unconscious may be called treatment–as the very simplest creature alive. The word introspection meant nothing to him whatever, there were in life certain direct sharp motives and on these he acted. He never thought of himself or of any one else in terms of complexity; the body acted simply through certain clear and direct physical laws … so the spirit. He loved the woman who had dominated his whole life and one day he would find her and marry her. He loved Peter as he would love a son of his own if he possessed one, and he would be at Peter’s side so long as Peter needed him, and would rather be there than anywhere else. For the rest life was a matter of birth and death, of loving one man and hating another, of food and drink, and–but this last uncertainly–of some strange thrill that was stirred in him, at times, by certain sights and sounds.

He was glad to have been born … he would be quite ready to die. He did not question the reason of the one state or the other. For the very fact that life was so simple and unentangled he clung, with the tenacity and dumb force of an animal to the things that he had. Peter felt, vaguely, from time to time, the strength with which Stephen held to him. It was never expressed in word nor in action but it came leaping sometimes, like fire, into the midst of their conversation–it was never tangible–always illusive.

To Peter’s progress this simplicity of Stephen was of vast importance. The boy had now reached an age and a period where emotions, judgments, partialities, conclusions and surmises were fighting furiously for dominion. His seven years at Brockett’s had been, introspectively, of little moment. He had been too busy discovering the things that other people had discovered and written down to think very much about himself.

Now released from the domination of books, he plunged into a whirlpool of surmise about himself. During the fortnight that he sat writing his articles in Bucket Lane he flew, he sank, according to his moods. It seemed to him that as soon as he had decided on one path and set out eagerly to follow it others crossed it and bewildered him.

He was now on that unwholesome, absorbing, thrilling, dangerous path of self-discovery. Opposed to this was the inarticulate, friendly soul of Stephen. Stephen understood nothing and at the same time understood everything. Against the testing of his few simple laws Peter’s complexities often vanished … but vanished only to recur again, unsatisfied, demanding a subtler answer. It was during those days, through all the trouble and even horror that so shortly came upon them both, that Stephen realised with a dull, unreasoned pain, like lead at the heart, that Peter was passing inevitably from him into a country whither Stephen could not follow–to deal with issues that Stephen could not, in any kind of way, understand. Stephen realised this many days before Peter even dimly perceived it, and the older man by the love that he had for the boy whom he had known from the very first period of his growth was enabled, although dimly, to see beyond, above all these complexities, to a day when Peter would once more, having learnt and suffered much in the meanwhile, come back to that first simplicity.

But that day was far distant.

II

On the evening of the day on which Peter finished the last of his five attempts to take the London journals by storm Stephen returned from his restaurant earlier than usual–so early indeed, that Peter, had he not been so bent on his own immediate affairs, must have noticed and questioned it. He might, too, have observed that Stephen, now and again, shot an anxious, troubled glance at him as though he were uneasy about something.

But Peter, since six o’clock that evening, at which moment he had written the concluding sentence of “The Sea Road,” had been in deep and troubled thought concerning himself, and broke from that introspection, on Stephen’s arrival, in a state of unhappy morbidity and entire self-absorption.

Their supper was beer, sardines and cheese.

“It’s been pretty awful here this evening,” Peter said. “Old Trubbit on the floor below’s been beating his wife and she’s been screaming like anything. I couldn’t stand it, after a bit, and went down to see what I could do. The family was mopping her head with water and he was sitting on a chair, crying. Drunk again, of course, but he was turned off his job apparently this afternoon. They’re closing down.”

“‘Ard luck,” said Stephen, looking at the floor.

“Yes–it hasn’t been altogether cheerful–and his getting the chuck like that set me thinking. It’s awfully lucky you’ve got your job all right and of course now I’ve written these things and have got ‘something to show,’ I’ll be all right.” Peter paused for a moment a little uncertainly. “But it does, you know, make one a bit frightened, this place, seeing the way people get suddenly bowled over. There were the Gambits–a fortnight ago he was in work and they were as fit as anything … they haven’t had any food now for three days.”

“There ain’t anything to be frightened about,” Stephen said slowly.

“No, I know. But Stephen, suppose I _don’t_ get work, after all. I’ve been so confident all this time, but I mightn’t be able to do the job a bit…. I suppose this place is getting on my nerves but–I could get awfully frightened if I let myself.”

“Oh, you’ll be all right. Of course you’ll be getting something–“

“Yes, but I hate spending your money like this. Do you know, Stephen, I’d almost rather you were out of work too. That sounds a rotten thing to say but I hate being given it all like this, especially when you haven’t got much of your own either–“

“Between friends,” said Stephen slowly, swinging his leg backwards and forwards and making the bed creak under his weight, “there aren’t any giving or taking–it’s just common.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” said Peter hurriedly, frightened lest he should have hurt his feelings, “of course it’s all right between you and me. But all the same I’m rather eager to be earning part of it.”

They were silent for a time. Bucket Lane too seemed silent and through their little window, between the black roofs and chimneys, a cluster of stars twinkled as though they had found their way, by accident, into a very dirty neighbourhood and were trying to get out of it again.

Peter was busy fishing for his thoughts; at last he caught one and held it out to Stephen’s innocent gaze.

“It isn’t,” he said, “like anything so much as catching a disease from an infectious neighbourhood. I think if I lived here with five thousand a year I should still be frightened. It’s in the air.”

“Being frightened,” said Stephen rather hurriedly and speaking with a kind of shame, as though he had done something to which he would rather not own up, “is a kind of ‘abit. Very soon, Peter, you’ll know what it’s like and take it as it comes.”

“Oh,” said Peter, “if it’s that kind of being frightened–seeing I mean quite clearly the things you’re frightened of–why, that’s pretty easy. One of the first books I ever read–‘Henry Lessingham,’ by Galleon, you know, I’ve talked about him to you–had a long bit about it–courage I mean. He made it a kind of parable, countries you’d got to go through before you’d learnt to be really brave; and the first, and by far the easiest courage is the sort that you want when you haven’t got things–the sort the Gambits want–when you’re starving or out of a job. Well, that’s I suppose the easiest kind and yet I’m funking it. So what on earth am I going to do when the harder business comes along? … Stephen, I’m beginning to have a secret and uncomfortable suspicion that your friend, Peter Westcott, is a poor creature.”

“Thank the Lord,” said Stephen furiously and kicking out with his leg as though he had got some especial enemy’s back directly in front of him, “that you’ve finished them damned articles. You’ve been sittin’ here thinkin’ and writin’ till you’ve given yerself blue devils–down-along, too, with all them poor creatures hittin’ each other and drinkin’–I oughtn’t to have left yer up here so much alone–“

“No–you couldn’t help it, Stephen–it’s nothing to do with you. It’s all more than you can manage and nobody in the world can help me. It’s seven years and a bit now since I left Cornwall, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Stephen, looking across at him.

“All that time I’ve never had a word nor a sign from any one there. Well, you might have thought that that would be long enough to break right away from it…. Well, it isn’t–“

“Don’t you go thinking about all that time. You’ve cleared it right away–“

“No, I haven’t cleared it–that’s just the point. I don’t suppose one ever clears anything. All the time I was with Zanti I was reading so hard and living so safely that it was only at moments, when I was alone, that I thought about Treliss at all. But these last weeks it’s been coming on me full tide.”

“What’s been coming on you?”

“Well, Scaw House, I suppose … and my father and grandfather. My grandfather told me once that I couldn’t escape from the family and I can’t–it’s the most extraordinary thing–“

Stephen saw that Peter was growing agitated; his hands were clenched and his face was white.

“Mind you, I’ve seen my grandfather and father both go under it. My father went down all in a moment. It isn’t any one thing–you can call it drink if you like–but it’s simply three parts of us aching to go to the bad … aching, that’s the word. Anything rotten–women or drink or anything you like–as long as we lose control and let the devil get the upper hand. Let him get it once–_really_ get it–and we’re really done–“

Peter paused for a moment and then went on hurriedly as though he were telling a story and had only a little time in which to tell it.

“But that isn’t all–it’s worse than that. I’ve been feeling these last weeks as though my father were sitting there in that beastly house with that filthy woman–and willing me–absolutely with all his might–to go under–“

“But what is it,” said Stephen, going, as always, to the simplest aspect of the case, “that you exactly want to do?”

“Oh, I don’t know … just to let loose the whole thing–I did break out once at Brockett’s–I’ve never told anybody, but I got badly drunk one night and then went back with some woman…. Oh! it was all filthy–but I was mad, wild, for hours … insane–and that night, in the middle of it all, sitting there as plainly as you please, there in Scaw House, I saw my father–as plainly as I see you–“

“All young men,” said Stephen, “‘ave got to go through a bit of filth. You aren’t the sort of fellow, Peter, that stays there. Your wanting not to shows that you’ll come out of it all right.”

Here was a case where Stephen’s simplicities were obviously of little avail.

“Ah, but don’t you see,” said Peter impatiently, “it’s not the thing itself that I feel matters so much, although that’s rotten enough, but it’s the beastly devil–real, personal–I tell you I saw him catch my grandfather as tight as though he’d been there in the room … and my father, too. I tell you, this last week or two I’ve been almost mad … wanting to chuck it all, this fighting and the rest and just go down and grovel…”

“I expect it’s regular work you’re wanting,” said Stephen, “keeping your mind busy. It’s bad to ‘ave your sort of brain wandering round with nothing to feed on. It’ll be all right, boy, in a day or two when you’ve got some work.”

Peter’s head dropped forward on to his hands. “I don’t know–it’s like going round in a circle. You see, Stephen, what makes it all so difficult is–well, I don’t know … why I haven’t told you before … but the fact is–I’m in love–“

“I knew it a while back,” said Stephen quietly, “watching your face when you didn’t know I was lookin’–“

“Well, it’s all hopeless, of course. I don’t suppose I shall ever see her again … but that’s what’s made this looking for work so difficult–I’ve been wanting to get on–and every day seems to place her further away. And then when I get hopeless these other devils come round and say ‘Oh well, you can’t get her, you know. That’s as impossible as anything–so you’d better have your fling while you can….’ My God! I’m a beast!”

The cry broke from him with a bitterness that filled the bare little room.

Stephen, after a little, got up and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Nobody ain’t going to touch you while I’m here,” he said simply as though he were challenging devils and men alike.

Peter looked up and smiled. “What an old brick you are,” he said. “Do you remember that fight Christmas time, years ago? … You’re always like that…. I’ve been an ass to bother you with it all and while we’ve got each other things can’t be so bad.” He got up and stretched his arms.

“Well, it’s bedtime, especially as you’ve got to be off early to that old restaurant–“

Stephen stepped back from him.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” he said, “that’s off. The place ain’t paying and the boss shut four of us down to-night … I’m not to go back … Peter, boy,” he finished, almost triumphantly. “We’re up against it … I’ve got a quid in my pocket and that’s all there is to it.”

They faced one another whilst the candle behind them guttered and blew in the window cracks, and the cluster of stars, still caught in the dirty roofs and chimneys of Bucket Lane, twinkled, desperately–in vain.

CHAPTER VIII

STEPHEN’S CHAPTER

I

No knight–the hero of any chronicle–ever went forward to his battle with a braver heart than did Peter now in his desperate adventure against the world. His morbidity, his introspection, his irritation with Stephen’s simplicities fled from him… he was gay, filled with the glamour of showing what one could do… he did not doubt but that a fortnight would see him in a magnificent position. And then–the fortnight passed and he and Stephen had still their positions to discover–the money moreover was almost at an end… another fortnight would behold them penniless.

It was absurd–it was monstrous, incredible. Life was not like that–Peter bit his lip and set out again. Editors had not, on most occasions, vouchsafed him even an interview. Then had come no answer to the four halfpenny wrappers. The world, like a wall of shining steel, closed him in with impenetrable silence.

It was absurd–it was monstrous. Peter fought desperately, as a bird beats with its wings on the bars of its cage. They were having the worst of luck. On several occasions he had been just too late and some one had got the position before him. Stephen too found that the places where he had worked before had now no job for him. “It was the worst time in the world… a month ago now or possibly in a month’s time….”

Stephen did not tell the boy that away from London there were many things that he could do–the boy was not up to tramping. Indeed, nothing was more remarkable than the way in which Peter’s strength seemed to strain, like a flood, away. It was, perhaps, a matter of nerves as much as physical strength–the boy was burning with the anxiety of it, whereas to Stephen this was no new experience. Peter saw it in the light of some horrible disaster that belonged, in all the world’s history, to him alone. He came back at the end of one of his days, white, his eyes almost closed, his fingers twitching, his head hanging a little … very silent.

He seemed to feel bitterly the ignominy of it as though he were realising, for the first time, that nobody wanted him. He had come now to be ready to do anything, anything in the world, and he had the look of one who was ready to do anything. His blue coat was shiny, his boots had been patched by Stephen–there were deep black hollows under his eyes and his mouth had become thin and hard.

Stephen–having himself his own distresses to support–watched the boy with acute anxiety. He felt with increasing unhappiness, that here was an organism, a temperament, that was new to him, that was beyond his grasp. Peter saw things in it all–this position of a desperate cry for work–that he, Stephen, had never seen at all. Peter would sit in the evening, in his chair, staring in front of him, silent, and hearing nothing that Stephen said to him. With Stephen life was a case of having money or not having it–if one had not money one went without everything possible and waited until the money came again … the tide was sure to turn. But, with Peter, this was all a fight against his father who sat, apparently, in the dark rooms at Scaw House, willing disaster. Now, as Stephen and all the sensible world knew, this was nonsense–

It was also, in some still stranger way, a fight against London itself–not London, a place of streets and houses, of Oxford Street and Piccadilly Circus but London, an animal–a kind of dragon as far as Stephen could make it out with scales and a tail–

Now what was one to make of this except that the boy’s head was being turned and that he ought to see a doctor.

There was also the further question of an appeal to Brockett’s or Mr. Zanti. Stephen knew that Herr Gottfried or Mr. Zanti would lend help eagerly did they but know, and he supposed, from the things that Peter had told him, that there were also warm friends at Brockett’s; but the boy had made him swear, with the last order of solemnity, that he would send no word to either place. Peter had said that he would never speak to him again should he do such a thing. He had said that should he once obtain an independent position then he would go back … but not before.

Stephen did not know what to do nor where to go. In another month’s time the rent could not be paid and then they must go into the street and Peter was in no condition for that–he should rather be in bed. Mrs. Williams, it is true, would not be hard upon them, for she was a kind woman and had formed a great liking for Peter, but she had only enough herself to keep her family alive and she must, for her children’s sake, let the room.

To Stephen, puzzling in vain and going round and round in a hopeless circle, it seemed as though Peter’s brains were locked in an iron box and they could not find a key. For himself, well, it was natural enough! But Peter, with that genius, that no one should want him!

And yet through it all, at the back of the misery and distress of it, there was a wild pride, a fierce joy that he had the key with him, that he was all in the world to whom the boy might look, that to him and to him alone, in this wild, cold world Peter now belonged.

It was his moment….

II

At the end of a terrible day of disastrous rejections Peter, stumbling down the Strand, was conscious of a little public-house, with a neat bow-window, that stood back from the street. At the bottom of his trouser pocket a tiny threepenny piece that Stephen had, that morning, thrust upon him, turned round and round in his fingers. He had not spent it–he had intended to restore it to Stephen in the evening. He had meant, too, to walk back all the way to Bucket Lane but now he felt that he could not do that unless he were first to take something. This little inn with its bow-windows…. Down the Strand in the light of the setting sun, he saw again that which he had often seen during these last weeks–that chain of gaunt figures that moved with bending backs and twisted fingers, on and out of the crowds and the carriages–The beggars!… He felt, already, that they knew that he was soon to be one of their number, that every day, every hour brought him nearer to their ranks. An old man, dirty, in rags, stepped with an eager eye past him and stooped for a moment into the gutter. He rose again, slipping something into his pocket of his tattered coat. He gave Peter a glance–to the boy it seemed a glance of triumphant recognition and then he had slipped away.

Peter had had very little to eat during these last days and to-night, for the first time, things began to take an uncertain shape. As he stood on the kerb and looked, it seemed to him that the Strand was the sea-road at Treliss, that the roar of the traffic was the noise that the sea made, far below them. If one could see round the corner, there where the sun flung a patch of red light, one would come upon Scaw House in its dark clump of trees–and through the window of that front room, Peter could see his father and that old woman, one on each side of the fire-place, drinking.

But the sea-road was stormy to-night, its noise was loud in Peter’s ears. And then the way that people brushed against him as they passed recalled him to himself and he slipped back almost into the bow-window of the little inn. He was feeling very unwell and there was a burning pain in his chest that hurt him when he drew a deep breath … and then too he was very cold and his teeth chattered in fits as though he had suddenly lost control of them and they had become some other person’s teeth.

Well, why not go into the little inn and have a drink? Then he would go back to Bucket Lane and lie down and never wake again. For he was so tired that he had never known before what it was to be tired at all–only Stephen would not let him sleep…. Stephen was cruel and would not let him alone. No one would let him alone–the world had treated him very evilly–what did he owe the world?

He would go now and surrender to these things, these things that were stronger than he … he would drink and he would sleep and that should be the end of everything … the blessed end.

He swayed a little on his feet and he put his hand to his forehead in order that he might think more clearly.

Some one had said once to him a great many years ago–“It is not life that matters but the Courage that you bring to it.” Well, that was untrue. He would like to tell the man who had said that that he was a liar. No Courage could be enough if life chose to be hard. No Courage–

Nevertheless, the thought of somewhere a long time ago when some one had said that to him, slowly filled his tired brain with a distaste for the little inn with the bow-windows. He would not go there yet, just a little while and then he would go.

Almost dreaming–certainly seeing nothing about him that he recognised–he stumbled confusedly down to the Embankment. Here there was at any rate air, he drew his shabby blue coat more closely about him and sat down on a wooden bench, in company with a lady who wore a large damaged feather in her hat and a red stained blouse with torn lace upon it and a skirt of a bright and tarnished blue.

The lady gave him a nod.

“Cheer, chucky,” she said.

Peter made no reply.

“Down on your uppers? My word, you look bad– Poor Kid! Well, never say die–strike me blimy but there’s a good day coming–“

“I sat here once before,” said Peter, leaning forward and addressing her very earnestly, “and it was the first time that I ever heard the noise that London makes. If you listen you can hear it now–London’s a beast you know–“

But the lady had paid very little attention. “Men are beasts, beasts,” she said, scowling at a gap in the side of her boots, “beasts, that’s what they are. ‘Aven’t ‘ad any luck the last few nights. Suppose I’m losin’ my looks sittin’ out ‘ere in the mud and rain. There was a time, young feller, my lad, when I ‘ad my carriage, not ‘arf!” She spat in front of her–“‘E was a good sort, ‘e was–give me no end of a time … but the lot of men I’ve been meetin’ lately ain’t fit to be called men–they ain’t–mean devils–leavin’ me like this, curse ’em!” She coughed. The sun had set now and the lights were coming out, like glass beads on a string on the other side of the river. “Stoppin’ out all night, ducky? Stayin’ ‘ere? ‘Cause I got a bit of a cough!–disturbs fellers a bit … last feller said as ‘ow ‘e couldn’t get a bit o’ sleep because of it–damned rot I call it. ‘Owever it isn’t out of doors you ought to be sittin’, chucky. Feelin’ bad?”

Peter looked at her out of his half-closed eyes.

“I can’t bother any more,” he said to her sleepily. “They’re so cruel–they won’t let me go to sleep. I’ve got a pain here–in my chest you know. Have you got a pain in your chest?”

“My leg’s sore,” she answered, “where a chap kicked me last week–just because–oh well,” she paused modestly and spat again–“It’s comin’ on cold.”

A cold little wind was coining up the river, ruffling the tips of the trees and turning the leaves of the plane-trees back as though it wanted to clean the other sides of them.

Peter got up unsteadily. “I’m going home to sleep,” he said, “I’m dreadfully tired. Good-night.”

“So long, chucky,” the lady with the damaged feather said to him. He left her eyeing discontentedly the hole in her boot and trying to fasten, with confused fingers, the buttons of the red blouse.

Peter mechanically, as one walking in a dream, crept into an omnibus. Mechanically he left it and mechanically climbed the stairs of the house in Bucket Lane. There were two fixed thoughts in his brain–one was that no one in the world had ever before been as thirsty as he was, and that he would willingly commit murder or any violence if thereby he might obtain drink, and the other thought was that Stephen was his enemy, that he hated Stephen because Stephen never left him alone and would not let him sleep–also in the back of his mind distantly, as though it concerned some one else, that he was very unhappy….

Stephen was sitting on one of the beds, looking in front of him. Peter moved forward heavily and sat on the other bed. They looked at one another.

“No luck,” said Stephen, “Armstrong’s hadn’t room for a man. Ricroft wouldn’t see me. Peter, I’m thinking we’ll have to take to the roads–“

Peter made no answer.

“Yer not lookin’ a bit well, lad. I doubt if yer can stand much more of it.”

Peter looked across at him sullenly.

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” he said. “You’re always worrying–“

A slow flush mounted into Stephen’s cheeks but he said nothing.

“Well, why don’t you say something? Nothing to say–it isn’t bad enough that you’ve brought me into this–“

“Come, Mr. Peter,” Stephen answered slowly. “That ain’t fair. I never brought you into this. I’ve done my best.”

“Oh, blame me, of course. That’s natural enough. If it hadn’t been for you–“

Stephen came into the middle of the floor.

“Come, Peter boy, yer tired. Yer don’t know what yer saying. Best go to bed. Don’t be saying anything that yer’d be regretting afterwards–“

Peter’s eyes that had been closed, suddenly opened, blazing. “Oh, damn you and your talk–I hate you. I wish I’d never seen you–a rotten kind of friendship–” his voice died off into muttering.

Stephen went back to his bed. “This ain’t fair, Mr. Peter,” he said in a low voice. “You’ll be sorry afterwards. I ain’t ‘ad any very ‘appy time myself these last weeks and now–“

Their nerves were like hot, jangling wires. Suddenly into the midst of that bare room there had sprung between them hatred. They faced each other … they could have leapt at one another’s throats and fought….

Suddenly Peter gave a little cry that seemed to fill the room. His head fell forward–

“Oh, Stephen, Stephen, I’m so damned ill, I’m so damnably ill.”

He caught for a moment at his chest as though he would tear his shirt open. Then he stumbled from the bed and lay in a heap on the floor with his hands spread out–

Stephen picked him up in his arms and carried him on to his bed.

III

The little doctor who attended to the wants of Bucket Lane was discovered at his supper. He was a dirty little man, with large dusty spectacles, a red nose and a bald head. He wore an old, faded velveteen jacket out of the pockets of which stuck innumerable papers. He was very often drunk and had a shrew of a wife who made the sober parts of his life a misery, but he was kind-hearted and generous and had a very real knowledge of his business.

Mrs. Williams volubly could not conceal her concern at Peter’s condition–“and ‘im such a nice-spoken young genelman as I was saying only yesterday tea-time, there’s nothin’ I said, as I wouldn’t be willin’ to do for that there poor Mr. Westcott and that there poor Mr. Brant ‘oo are as like two ‘elpless children in their fightin’ the world as ever I see and ‘ow ever can I help ’em I said–“

“Well, my good woman,” the little doctor finally interrupted, “you can help here and now by getting some hot water and the other things I’ve put down here.”

When she was gone he turned slowly to Stephen who stood, the picture of despair, looking down upon Peter.

“‘E’s goin’ to die?” he asked.

“That depends,” the little doctor answered. “The boy’s been starved–ought never to have been allowed to get into this condition. Both of you hard up, I suppose?”

“As ‘ard up as we very well could be–” Stephen answered grimly.

“Well–has he no friends?”

There–the question at last. Stephen took it as he would have taken a blow between the eyes. He saw very clearly that the end of his reign had come. He had done what he could and he had failed. But in him was the fierce furious desire to fight for the boy. Why should he give him up, now, when they had spent all these weeks together, when they had struggled for their very existence side by side. What right had any of these others to Peter compared with his right? He knew very well that if he gave him up now the boy would never be his again. He might see him–yes–but that passing of Peter that he had already begun to realise would be accomplished. He might look at him but only as a wanderer may look from the valley up to the hill. The doctor broke in upon him as he stood hesitating there–

“Come,” he said roughly, “we have not much time. The boy may die. Has he no friends?”

Stephen turned his back to Peter. “Yes,” he said, “I know where they are. I will fetch them myself.”

The doctor had not lived in Bucket Lane all these years for nothing. He put his hand on Stephen’s arm and said: “You’re a good fellow, by God. It’ll be all right.”

Stephen went.

On his way to Bennett Square a thousand thoughts filled his mind. He knew, as though he had been told it by some higher power, that Peter was leaving him now never to return. He had done what he could for Peter–now the boy must pass on to others who might be able, more fittingly, to help him. He cursed the Gods that they had not allowed him to obtain work during these weeks, for then Peter and he might have gone on, working, prospering and the parting might have been far distant.

But he felt also that Peter’s destiny was something higher and larger than anything that he could ever compass–it must be Peter’s life that he should always be leaving people behind him–stages on his road–until he had attained his place. But for Stephen, a loneliness swept down upon him that seemed to turn the world to stone. Never, in all the years of his wandering, had he known anything like this. It is very hard that a man should care for only two creatures in the world and that he should be held, by God’s hand, from reaching either of them.

The door of Brockett’s was opened to him by a servant and he asked for Mrs. Brockett. In the cold and dark hall the lady sternly awaited him, but the sternness fell from her like a cloak when he told her the reason of his coming–

“Dear me, and the poor boy so ill,” she said. “We have all been very anxious indeed about poor Mr. Peter. We had tried every clue but could hear nothing of him. We were especially eager to find him because Miss Monogue had some good news for him about his book. There is a gentleman–a friend of Mr. Peter’s–who has been doing everything to find him–who is with Miss Monogue now. He will be delighted. Perhaps you will go up.”

Stephen can have looked no agreeable object at this time, worn out by the struggle of the last weeks, haggard and gaunt, his beard unkempt–but Norah Monogue came forward to him with both her hands outstretched.

“Oh, you know something of Peter–tell us, please,” she said.

A stout, pleasant-faced gentleman behind her was introduced as Mr. Galleon.

Stephen explained. “But why, why,” said the gentleman, “didn’t you let us know before, my good fellow?”

Stephen’s brow darkened. “Peter didn’t wish it,” he said.

But Norah Monogue came forward and put her hand on his arm. “You must be the Mr. Brant about whom he has so often talked,” she said. “I am so glad to meet you at last. Peter owes so much to you. We have been trying everywhere to get word of him because some publishers have taken his novel and think very well of it indeed. But come–do let us go at once. There is no time to lose–“

So they had taken his novel, had they? All these days–all these terrible hours–that starving, that ghastly anxiety, the boy’s terror–all these things had been unnecessary. Had they only known, this separation now might have been avoided.

He could not trust himself to speak to Bobby Galleon and Norah Monogue. These were the people who were going to take Peter away.

He turned and went, in silence, down the stairs.

At Bucket Lane Bobby Galleon took affairs into his own hands. At once Peter should be removed to his house in Chelsea–it would not apparently harm him to be moved that night.

Peter was still unconscious. Stephen stood in the back of the room and watched them make their preparations. They had all forgotten him. For a moment as they passed down the stairs Stephen had his last glimpse of Peter. He saw the high white forehead, the long black eyelashes, the white drawn cheeks…. At this parting Peter had no eye for him.

Bobby Galleon and Miss Monogue both spoke to Stephen pleasantly before they went away. Stephen did not hear what they said. Bobby took Stephen’s name down on a piece of paper…. Then they were gone. They were all gone.

Mrs. Williams looked through the door at him for a moment but something in the man’s face drove her away. Very slowly he put his few clothes together. He must tramp the roads again–the hard roads, the glaring sun, cold moon–always going on, always alone–

He shouldered his bag and went out….

BOOK III

THE ROUNDABOUT

CHAPTER I

NO. 72, CHEYNE WALK

I

Burnished clouds–swollen with golden light and soft and changing in their outline–were sailing, against a pale green autumn evening sky, over Chelsea.

It was nearly six o’clock and at the Knightsbridge end of Sloane Street a cloud of black towers quivered against the pale green.

The yellow light that the golden clouds shed upon the earth bathed the neat and demure houses of Sloane Street in a brief bewildered unreality. Sloane Street, not accustomed to unreality, regretted amiably and with its gentle smile that Nature should insist, once every day, for some half-hour or so, on these mists and enchantments. The neat little houses called their masters and mistresses within doors and advised them to rest before dressing for dinner and so insured these many comfortable souls that they should not be disturbed by any unwelcome violence on their emotions. Soon, before looking-glasses and tables shining with silver hair-brushes bodies would be tied and twisted and faces would be powdered and painted–meanwhile, for that dying moment, Sloane Street was lifted into the hearts of those burnished clouds and held for an instant in glory. Then to the relief of the neat and shining houses the electric lights came out, one by one, and the world was itself again….

Beyond Sloane Square, however, the King’s Road chattered and rattled and minded not at all whether the sky were yellow or blue. This was the hour when shopping must be done and barrows shone beneath their flaring gas, and many ladies, with the appearance of having left their homes for the merest minute, hurried from stall to stall. The King’s Road stands like a noisy Cheap Jack outside the sanctities of Chelsea. Behind its chatter are the quietest streets in the world, streets that are silent because they prefer rest to noise and not at all because they have nothing to say. The King’s Road has been hired by Chelsea to keep foreigners away, and the faint smile that the streets wear is a smile of relief because that noisy road so admirably achieves its purpose. In this mellow evening light the little houses glow, through the river mists, across the cobbles. The stranger, on leaving the King’s Road behind him, is swept into a quiet intimacy that has nothing of any town about it; he is refreshed as he might be were he to leave the noisy train behind him and plunge into the dark, scented hedge-rows and see before him the twinkling lights of some friendly inn. As the burnished clouds fade from the sky on the dark surface of the river the black barges hang their lights and in Cheyne Row and Glebe Place, down Oakley Street, and along the wide spaces of Cheyne Walk, lamps burn mildly in a hundred windows. Guarded on one side by the sweeping murmur of the river, on the other by the loud grimaces of the King’s Road Chelsea sinks, with a sound like a whisper of its own name, into evening….

As the last trailing fingers of the golden clouds die before the approaching army of the stars, as the yellow above the horizon gives way to a cold and iron blue, lights come out in that house with the green door and the white stone steps–No. 72, Cheyne Walk–that is now Peter Westcott’s home.

II

Peter had, on the very afternoon of that beautiful evening, returned from the sea; there, during the last three weeks, he had passed his convalescence and now, once again, he faced the world. Mrs. Galleon and the Galleon baby had been with him and Bobby had come down to them for the week-ends. In this manner Peter had had an opportunity of getting to know Mrs. Galleon with a certainty and speed that nothing else could have given him. During the first weeks after his removal from Bucket Lane, he had been too ill to take any account of his neighbours or surroundings. He had been sent down to the sea as soon as it was possible and it was here, watching her quietly or listening to her as she read to him, walking a little with her, playing with her baby, that he grew to know her and to love her. She had been a Miss Alice du Cane, at first an intelligent, cynical and rather trivial person. Then suddenly, for no very sure reason that any one could discover, her character changed. She had known Bobby during many years and had always laughed at him for a solemn, rather-priggish young man–then she