The poet had been nourishing his soul down in
Devon. A petty windfall, a minim legacy, which plucked him from scholastic
bondage in a London suburb, was now all but consumed. He turned his face once
more to the mart of men, strong in the sanguine courage of two-and-twenty. His
luggage (the sum total of his personal property, except twenty pounds sterling)
consisted of a trunk and a portmanteau. The latter he kept beside him in the
railway carriage -- a small and very shabby portmanteau, but it guarded the
result of ten months' work, the manuscript volume (entitled The Hermit of
the Tor; and Other Poems) whereon rested all his hopes. A few articles of
clothing and of daily necessity were packed in the same receptacle. On reaching
London he would deposit his trunk at the station, and carry the small
portmanteau whilst he searched for a temporary lodging.
Green vales and bosky slopes of Devon; the
rolling uplands of Wiltshire, the streams and heaths and wooded hills of
Surrey. It was late autumn, and the day drew to its close. Through mists of
evening a red orb hung huge above the horizon; it crimsoned and grew lurid,
athwart the first driftings of London smoke; it disappeared amid towers and
chimneys and squalor multiform. The poet grasped his portmanteau, and leapt out
on to the platform of Waterloo Station.
One cheap room was all he wanted, and as he
could not carry his burden very far he turned southward, guided by memory of
the gray, small streets off Kennington Road. Twenty minutes' walk brought him
into a by-way where every other window offered its card of invitation to
wanderers such as he. At this hour of gloom there was little to choose between
one house and another. A few paces ahead of him sounded the knock of a telegraph
messenger. Where telegrams were delivered there must be, he thought, some
measure of civilisation; so he lingered till the boy had gone away, then
directed his steps to that door.
His rat-tat was answered by a young woman,
whose personal appearance surprised him. Her features were handsome and
intelligent, though scarcely amiable; her clothing indicated poverty, but was
not such as would be worn by a girl of the working class; her language and
manner completed the proof that she was no native of this region.
"Yes," she said, speaking distantly and nervously, "a single
room was to let, a room up at the top." The poet, as became a poet,
observed with emotional interest this unexpected figure. Only a wretched little
oil-lamp hung in the passage, and he could not see the girl's face very
distinctly; perhaps the first impression of sullenness was a mistake; it might
be only the shrinking self-respect of one whom circumstances had forced into a
false position. He noticed that in her hand she held a telegram.
"Would you let me see the room?"
"Please wait a moment."
She went upstairs, and soon reappeared with a
lighted candle. Leaving his portmanteau, he followed her through the usual
stuffy atmosphere to a chamber of the usual dreariness. His attendant placed
her candle within the room, then drew back and waited outside on the landing.
"I think this would do. What is the
rent?"
There was hesitation. The poet stepped forward,
and endeavoured to discern a face amid the shadows.
"Eight shillings -- I think," he was
at length answered.
Ah, then she was not the landlady. Perhaps the
daughter of people who had come to grief. He began to speak of details; she
answered shortly, but to his satisfaction.
"I shall be glad to take the room for a
week or two. I'll go and bring up my portmanteau."
"It is usual" -- he still could not
see the speaker -- "to pay a week's rent in advance."
"Oh, to be sure."
Determined to see her face in full light he
took up the candle, and stepped with it on to the landing. As if aware of his
motive, the girl stood in a retiring attitude; but she met his gaze, and they
looked, for an instant, steadily at each other. She was handsome, but her lips
had a hard, defiant expression, and in her eyes he read either the suffering of
a womanly nature or the recklessness of one indifferent to all good. Her speech
favoured the pleasanter interpretation; yet, after all, the countenance
disturbed rather than attracted him.
An old box stood by the head of the stairs; on
this he placed the candle, and then drew from his pocket the sum he had to pay.
The girl thanked him coldly. He ran downstairs, fetched his portmanteau, and
put it in a corner of the dark room. Then they again faced each other.
"By-the-bye," he said, wishing he
could draw her into conversation, "what's the address? I have come here by
mere chance."
She gave the information as briefly as
possible.
"Thank you. Now I must go out and get
something to eat."
The girl would not speak. There was nothing for
it but to turn and descend the stairs. She followed, and half-way down her
voice stopped him.
"When shall you be back to-night?"
"Not later than eleven, I think."
And so they parted, the poet taking a last look
at her as he opened the front door.
She had strongly affected his imagination. As
he walked towards Westminster, new rhymes and rhythms sang within him to the
roaring music of the street. The Devon hermitage was a far, faint memory.
London had welcomed him with so sudden a glimpse of her infinite romance that
he half repented his long seclusion.
At about the hour he had mentioned he returned
to seek a night's rest. Would the same face appear when the door opened? He
waited anxiously, and suffered a sad disappointment, for his knock was answered
by Just the kind of person that might have been expected -- the typical
landlady of cheap lodgings, a puffy, slatternly woman chewing a mouthful of the
supper from which she had risen.
"Good evening," said the poet, as
cheerfully as he could. "I am your new lodger."
The woman stared, as if failing to understand
him.
"I took a room at the top, early this
evening."
"You've made a mistake. It's the wrong
'ouse."
"But isn't this --?" he named the
address which the girl had given him.
"Yes, that's 'ere."
"I thought so. I remember the house
perfectly. You were out, I suppose. I saw a -- a young woman. I paid a week's
rent in advance."
This circumstantial story increased the
listener's astonishment. She glared with protuberant eyes, breathed quickly,
and gave a snort.
"Well, that's a queer thing. Wait a
minute."
She went upstairs, and could be heard to tap at
a door; but there followed no sound of voices. Then she came down again, and
asked for a description of the young woman who had acted as her representative.
The poet answered rather vaguely.
"We have somebody of that sort lodgin'
'ere, but she's out. You say you paid eight shillin's?"
"Yes. And left my portmanteau; you'll find
it upstairs.
Again the landlady disappeared. When she
returned her face exhibited a contemptuous satisfaction.
"There's no portmanty nowheres in this
'ouse. I told you you'd made a mistake. Try next door!"
The poet was staggered. Mistaken he could not
be; the little oil-lamp, a dirty engraving on the wall of the passage, remained
so clearly in his mind. A shapeless fear took hold upon him.
"Pray let me go up with you to the top
room. I know this was the house. Let me see the room."
The woman was impatient and suspicious. At this
moment there sounded from the back of the passage a male voice, asking,
"What's up?" A man came forward; the difficulty was explained. For a
second time the baffled poet essayed a description of the girl he remembered so
well.
"He means Miss Rowe," said the
husband. "She ain't in? Then you just take a light, and 'ave a good look
in her room."
They went up together to the first floor, and
the poet, unable to keep still, followed them at a distance. He was seriously
alarmed. If his portmanteau were to be lost -- heavens! His poems -- his only
copy! Some of the shorter ones he could rewrite from memory, but the backbone
of his volume, The Hermit of the Tor, could not be reproduced. And how
could the portmanteau have vanished? That girl -- Surely, surely, impossible!
Much rather suspect these vulgar people, or someone else of whom he knew
nothing.
Man and wife were searching within the room. He
heard feminine exclamations and a masculine oath. Unable to control himself he
pushed open the door.
"She's took her 'ook," said the man,
looking at him with a grin. "See -- 'ere's her tin box -- empty! nothing
as belongs to her in the room."
"And owin' a week's rent!" cried his
wife. "I might 'a' known better than to trust her. There wasn't no good in
her face. She's sloped with your eight bob and your portmanty, I'll take my
hoath!"
The poet seized the candle, and strode up the
higher flight of stairs. Yes, there was the old box on the landing; yes, this
was the room he had paid for. Pheu! pheu!
"Sal!" roared the man's voice, "'ev
a look and see if she's laid 'ands on anything of ours!"
The woman yelled at the suggestion, and began a
fierce rummage, high and low.
"I can't miss nothin'," she kept
shouting. And at length, "Go and fetch a p'liceman. D' y'ear, Matt? Go and
fetch a p'liceman. This 'ere young gent 'll be chargin' us with robbin'
him."
"Where's your receipt for the eight
bob?" asked her husband, turning angrily upon the poet.
"I took no receipt."
"That doesn't sound very likely."
"Likely or not, it's true," cried the
other, exasperated by this insult added to his misfortune. "Fetch a
policeman, or else I shall. We'll have this investigated."
"I'll jolly soon do that," was the
man's retort. "Think you're dealin' with thieves, do you? Begin that kind
o' talk, and I'll -- 'Ere, Sal, keep a heye on him whilst I go for the
copper."
What ensued calls for no detailed narrative.
Suffice it that by midnight all had been done that could be done in the way of
charges, defences, and official interrogation. Later, the poet sat talking with
his rough acquaintances in their own parlour. After all, the people had lost
nothing but a week's rent, and they were at length brought to some show of
sympathy with the stranger so shamefully treated under their roof. He, for his
part, decided still to occupy the bedroom, which would be let to him,
magnanimously, for seven-and-sixpence: whilst the police were trying to track
his plunderer he might as well remain on the spot. At one o'clock he went
gloomily to bed, and in his troubled sleep dreamt that he was chasing that
mysterious girl up hill and down dale amid the Devon moorland; she, always far
in advance, held his fated manuscript above her head, and laughed maliciously.
On the eighth anniversary of that
memorable day the poet could look back upon his loss with an amused
indifference. He was a poet still, but no longer uttered himself in verse. The
success of an essay in romantic fiction had shown him how to live by his pen,
and a second book made his name familiar "at all the libraries." For
a man of simple tastes he was in clover. He dwelt among the Surrey hills, and
on his occasional visits to London did not seek a lodging in the neighbourhood
of Kennington Road.
As for The Hermit of the Tor,
though often enough he wondered as to its fate, on the whole he was glad it had
never been published. To be sure, no publisher would have risked money on it.
In his vague recollection, the thing seemed horribly crude; he remembered a
line or two that made him shut his eyes and mutter inarticulately. The lyrics
might be passable; a couple of them, preserved in his mind, had got printed in
a magazine some five years ago. One of his ambitions at present was to write a
poetical drama, but he merely mused over the selected theme.
He was thus occupied one winter
afternoon as he strolled from the outlying cottage, which he had made his home,
to the nearest village. A footstep on the hard road caused him to look up, and
he saw the postman drawing near. This encounter saved the humble official a half-mile
walk; he delivered a letter into the poet's hands.
A letter redirected by his
publishers; probably the tribute of an admiring reader, such as he had not
seldom received of late. With a smile he opened it, and the contents proved to
be of more interest than he had anticipated.
'SIR, -- I have in my possession a
manuscript which bears your name, as that of its author, and dates from some
years back. It consists of poetical compositions, the longest of them entitled The
Hermit of the Tor. I cannot at present explain to you how these papers came
into my hands, but I should like to return them to their true owner, and for
this purpose I should be glad if you would allow me to meet you, at your own
place and time. But for a residence abroad, I should probably have addressed
you on the subject long before this, as I find that your name is well known to
English readers. Please direct your reply to Penwell's Library, Westbourne
Grove, W., and believe me,
'Faithfully yours,
EUSTACE GREY.'
At the head of the letter
there was no address. 'Eustace Grey' sounded uncommonly like a pseudonym.
Altogether a very surprising sequel to the adventure of eight years ago. Was
the writer man or woman? Impossible to decide from the penmanship, which was
bold, careless, indicative of character and of education. As a man, at all
events, the mysterious person must be answered, and curiosity permitted no
delay. Where should the meeting take place? He had no inclination to breathe
the air of London just now, and a journey of twenty miles might fairly be
exacted from a correspondent who chose to write in the strain of melodrama. Let
'Eustace Grey' come hither.
With all brevity the poet invited
him to take a certain train from Waterloo, which would enable him to reach the
cottage at about four in the afternoon, on a specified day.
The appointed hour was just upon
nightfall. With blind drawn, lamp lit, and a log blazing in the old fireplace,
the poet awaited his visitor, who might or might not come, for no second
communication had been received from him. If he came, he would doubtless take a
conveyance from the railway station, a mile and a half away; a rumble of wheels
would announce him. At a quarter past four no such signal was yet audible, but
five minutes later it struck upon the listener's ear. He stood up, and waited
in nervous expectancy.
The vehicle stopped by the door; a
knock sounded. A tap at the door of the sitting-room, and there appeared, led
by the servant, a tall lady. She was warmly and expensively clad; wraps and
furs disguised the outline of her figure, and allowed but an imperfect view of
her features. In a moment, however, she threw some of the superfluities aside,
and stood gazing at the poet, who saw now that she was a woman of not more than
thirty, with a strong, handsome face, and a form that pleased his eye. She
offered a hand.
"If I had known --" he
began, breaking the silence with voice apologetic. But she interrupted him.
"You wouldn't have brought me
all this way. Never mind. It's better. I shall be glad to have made a
pilgrimage to the home of the celebrated author."
Her language and utterance certainly
did not lack refinement, but she spoke with more familiarity than the poet was
prepared for. He judged her a type of the woman that lives in so-called smart
society. His pulses had a slight flutter; in observing and admiring her he all
but forgot the strange history in which she was concerned.
"The cab will wait for
me," she continued, "so I mustn't be long."
"I'm sorry for that,"
replied the poet, so far imitating her as to talk like an old acquaintance.
"You shall have a cup of tea at once." He rang a hand-bell.
"You've had a cold journey."
Whilst he spoke he saw her lay upon
the table a rolled packet, which was doubtless his manuscript. Then she seated
herself in an easy chair by the fireside, glanced round the room, smiled at her
own thoughts, and met his look with a steady gaze.
"Are you Eustace Grey?" he
inquired, taking a seat over against her.
"I chose the name at random. My
own doesn't matter. I am only an -- an intermediary, as you would say in a
book."
He searched her countenance closely,
persistently, without regard to good manners. It was no common face. Had he
ever seen it before? It did not charm him, but decidedly it affected his
imagination. This could not be an ordinary woman of fashion. He knew little of
the wealthy world, but his experience of life assured him that 'Eustace Grey'
was not now for the first time engaged in transactions which had a savour of
romance.
"Those are my verses?" He
pointed towards the table.
"Exactly as they left your
hands," she answered calmly.
"Or my portmanteau,
rather."
"Yes, your portmanteau."
She accepted the correction with a smile.
Surely he had not seen her
face before? Surely he had never heard her voice? At this moment the servant
entered with a tea-tray. The poet stood up and waited upon his visitor, As soon
as the door had closed she said:
"You are not married?"
"No -- unhappily."
"Please don't add the word in
compliment to me. I'm delighted to know that you keep your independence. Don't
marry for a long time. And you live here always?"
"Most of the year."
"Ah, you are not like ordinary
men.
"Nor you -- I was thinking --
like ordinary women."
"Well, no; I suppose not. She
looked at him with a peculiar frankness, with a softer expression than her face
had yet shown, and, whilst speaking, she drew off her left-hand glove. A
peculiarity in the movement excited her companion's attention; he saw that she
wore two rings, one of them of plain gold.
"I like your books," was
her next remark.
"I'm glad of it."
"Have you good health? You look
rather pale -- for one who lives in the country."
"Oh, I am very well."
"To be sure you have brains,
and use them. It's pleasant to know that there are such men." She
sipped her tea. "But time is going, and the driver and horse will
freeze."
"I have no stable," said
the poet, "but the man can sit by the kitchen fire and have some ale.
Anything to make your visit longer."
"Complimentary; but I am here
on business." She had grown more distant. "Of course, you want to
know how those papers came into my hands. I'll tell you, and make a short story
of it. I had them a year or two ago from a friend of mine -- a girl, who died.
She had stolen them." The listener gave a start, and looked at the face
before him more intently than ever. He detected no shrinking, but a certain
suggestion of defiance.
"She was a girl who did what is
supposed to be the privilege of men -- sowed wild oats. She came to an end of
her money, and found herself in a poor lodging -- somewhere in the south of
London --"
"Off Kennington Road,"
murmured the poet.
"Very likely. I forget. She had
got rid of all the clothing she could spare. She was a week behind with her
rent. Another day or two, and she would starve. No way of earning money, it
seemed. Poor thing, she thought herself something of an artist, and went about
offering drawings to the papers and the publishers; but I'm afraid the work was
poor to begin with, and got poorer as she did. The desperate state of things
made her fierce and ready for anything."
"However, she had a girl friend
who wrote to her now and then, addressing to the name she had assumed. This
friend lived far away in the north, and earned her own living. One afternoon,
just when things were at the blackest, there arrived a telegram: 'If you come
at once, I can promise you employment. Start immediately.' All very well, but
how was she to raise fifteen shillings or so for her journey? Now it happened
that at this moment she was the only person in the house. The landlady, she
knew, would be away for two or three hours; the husband wouldn't be home till
eight (it was now five), and another lodger had just gone out. I mention this --
you know why. Whilst she was still standing with the telegram in her hand, some
one knocked. She opened the door. A young man, carrying a portmanteau -- a very
nice-looking young man, who spoke softly and pleasantly -- had come for a
lodging; he wanted one room. She let him in, and took him upstairs.
"She did," murmured the
poet, his eyes staying about the room.
"And you remembered what
followed?"
"Remarkably well. I can
see-well, I'm not quite sure; but I think I can see her face."
"Can you? Well, until you had
left the house her intention was perfectly honest. She thought that, in return
for her service in letting the room the landlady might perhaps lend her money
for the journey north, and trust for repayment. But as soon as you had gone the
devil began whispering. Your money lay in her hand. Your portmanteau contained
things that would sell or pawn. The chance of a loan from the landlady was
dreadfully slight. You see? A man of imagination ought to understand."
"I do -- perfectly."
"She tried her keys on the
portmanteau. No use. But it was old and shaky. She prised open the lock. What
she found disappointed her; it wouldn't fetch many shillings. But she had taken
the fatal step. No staying in the house now. She put on her hat and jacket,
stuffed into her pockets the few things still left to her, caught up the
portmanteau -- and away!"
The poet could not help a laugh, and
his companion joined in it. But she was agitated, and her mirth had not a
genuine ring.
"And how much were my poor old
rags worth?"
"Five shillings."
"By Jove! You don't say
so!"
"She pawned them in a street
somewhere north of the Strand. But this gave her only thirteen shillings. Then
she sold the portmanteau; that brought eighteen-pence. Fourteen shillings and
sixpence. Next she sold or pawned her jacket; it brought three shillings."
"Poor girl! With such a journey
before her on a cold might! But the poems?"
"She looked at them, and was on
the point of throwing them away, but she didn't. She read some of them in the
train that night. And oh -- oh -- oh! how ashamed of herself she was then and
for many a long day! So much ashamed that she couldn't even feel afraid."
"And she got the employment
promised?"
"Yes. And sowed no more wild
oats. It was a poor living, but she struggled on -- until by chance she met a
very rich man, who took a fancy to her. She didn't care for him. In her life
she had only seen one man who really attracted her, but -- well, she made up
her mind to marry the rich man; and then -- she died. I knew her story already,
and at her death she left your poems in my care, to be restored if possible.
There they are."
With a careless gesture she rose.
"You are not going yet,"
exclaimed the poet.
"I am; this moment. I have a
train to catch."
"Hang the train! There's one at
about nine o'clock. I shall send away your cab."
She looked at him very coldly.
"I am going at once, and you
will be good enough to stay where you are."
"You won't even tell me your
name?"
"Not even that. Good-bye, poet!"
She gave him her hand. Holding it,
he gazed at her with bright eyes.
"I do remember your friend's
face. And how I wish' she could have spoken to me that night!"
"The ideal is never met in
life," she answered softly. "Put it into your books -- which I shall
always read."
The door closed, and he heard the
cab rumble away.
(English Illustrated Magazine,
1895)
(Provided by Mitsuharu
Matsuoka, Nagoya University, Japan,
on 2 October 1997.)