No More Learning

"

He was conscious that he could not bear himself as a man if the strain
continued much longer.

"I don't deserve anything else. I'll go, Dick. Oh, I'm so miserable. "

"Nonsense. You've nothing to worry about; I'd tell you if you had. Wait
a moment, dear. I've got something to give you first. I meant it for
you ever since this little trouble began. It's my Melancolia; she was a
beauty when I last saw her. You can keep her for me, and if ever you're
poor you can sell her. She's worth a few hundreds at any state of the
market. " He groped among his canvases. "She's framed in black. Is this
a black frame that I have my hand on? There she is. What do you think of
her? "

He turned a scarred formless muddle of paint towards Maisie, and the
eyes strained as though they would catch her wonder and surprise. One
thing and one thing only could she do for him.

"Well? "

The voice was fuller and more rounded, because the man knew he was
speaking of his best work. Maisie looked at the blur, and a lunatic
desire to laugh caught her by the throat. But for Dick's sake--whatever
this mad blankness might mean--she must make no sign. Her voice choked
with hard-held tears as she answered, still gazing at the wreck--"Oh,
Dick, it is good! "

He heard the little hysterical gulp and took it for tribute. "Won't you
have it, then? I'll send it over to your house if you will. "

"I? Oh yes--thank you. Ha! ha! " If she did not fly at once the laughter
that was worse than tears would kill her. She turned and ran, choking
and blinded, down the staircases that were empty of life to take refuge
in a cab and go to her house across the Parks. There she sat down in the
dismantled drawing-room and thought of Dick in his blindness, useless
till the end of life, and of herself in her own eyes. Behind the sorrow,
the shame, and the humiliation, lay fear of the cold wrath of the
red-haired girl when Maisie should return. Maisie had never feared her
companion before. Not until she found herself saying, "Well, he never
asked me," did she realise her scorn of herself. And that is the end of
Maisie.

* * * * *

For Dick was reserved more searching torment. He could not realise at
first that Maisie, whom he had ordered to go had left him without a word
of farewell. He was savagely angry against Torpenhow, who had brought
upon him this humiliation and troubled his miserable peace. Then his
dark hour came and he was alone with himself and his desires to get what
help he could from the darkness. The queen could do no wrong, but in
following the right, so far as it served her work, she had wounded her
one subject more than his own brain would let him know.

"It's all I had and I've lost it," he said, as soon as the misery
permitted clear thinking. "And Torp will think that he has been so
infernally clever that I shan't have the heart to tell him. I must think
this out quietly. "

"Hullo! " said Torpenhow, entering the studio after Dick had enjoyed two
hours of thought. "I'm back. Are you feeling any better? "

"Torp, I don't know what to say. Come here. " Dick coughed huskily,
wondering, indeed, what he should say, and how to say it temperately.

"What's the need for saying anything? Get up and tramp. " Torpenhow was
perfectly satisfied.

They walked up and down as of custom, Torpenhow's hand on Dick's
shoulder, and Dick buried in his own thoughts.

"How in the world did you find it all out? " said Dick, at last.

"You shouldn't go off your head if you want to keep secrets, Dickie. It
was absolutely impertinent on my part; but if you'd seen me rocketing
about on a half-trained French troop-horse under a blazing sun you'd
have laughed. There will be a charivari in my rooms tonight. Seven other
devils----"

"I know--the row in the Southern Soudan. I surprised their councils the
other day, and it made me unhappy. Have you fixed your flint to go? Who
d'you work for? "

"Haven't signed any contracts yet. I wanted to see how your business
would turn out. "

"Would you have stayed with me, then, if--things had gone wrong? " He put
his question cautiously.

"Don't ask me too much. I'm only a man. "

"You've tried to be an angel very successfully. "

"Oh ye--es! . . . Well, do you attend the function tonight? We shall
be half screwed before the morning. All the men believe the war's a
certainty. "

"I don't think I will, old man, if it's all the same to you. I'll stay
quiet here. "

"And meditate? I don't blame you. You observe a good time if ever a man
did. "

That night there was a tumult on the stairs. The correspondents poured
in from theatre, dinner, and music-hall to Torpenhow's room that they
might discuss their plan of campaign in the event of military operations
becoming a certainty. Torpenhow, the Keneu, and the Nilghai had bidden
all the men they had worked with to the orgy; and Mr. Beeton, the
housekeeper, declared that never before in his checkered experience had
he seen quite such a fancy lot of gentlemen. They waked the chambers
with shoutings and song; and the elder men were quite as bad as the
younger. For the chances of war were in front of them, and all knew what
those meant.

Sitting in his own room a little perplexed by the noise across the
landing, Dick suddenly began to laugh to himself.

"When one comes to think of it the situation is intensely comic.
Maisie's quite right--poor little thing. I didn't know she could cry
like that before; but now I know what Torp thinks, I'm sure he'd be
quite fool enough to stay at home and try to console me--if he knew.
Besides, it isn't nice to own that you've been thrown over like a broken
chair. I must carry this business through alone--as usual. If there
isn't a war, and Torp finds out, I shall look foolish, that's all. If
there is a way I mustn't interfere with another man's chances. Business
is business, and I want to be alone--I want to be alone. What a row
they're making! "

Somebody hammered at the studio door.

"Come out and frolic, Dickie," said the Nilghai.

"I should like to, but I can't. I'm not feeling frolicsome. "

"Then, I'll tell the boys and they'll drag you like a badger. "

"Please not, old man. On my word, I'd sooner be left alone just now. "

"Very good. Can we send anything in to you? Fizz, for instance.
Cassavetti is beginning to sing songs of the Sunny South already. "

For one minute Dick considered the proposition seriously.

"No, thanks, I've a headache already. "

"Virtuous child. That's the effect of emotion on the young. All my
congratulations, Dick. I also was concerned in the conspiracy for your
welfare. "

"Go to the devil--oh, send Binkie in here. "

The little dog entered on elastic feet, riotous from having been
made much of all the evening. He had helped to sing the choruses;
but scarcely inside the studio he realised that this was no place for
tail-wagging, and settled himself on Dick's lap till it was bedtime.
Then he went to bed with Dick, who counted every hour as it struck, and
rose in the morning with a painfully clear head to receive Torpenhow's
more formal congratulations and a particular account of the last night's
revels.

"You aren't looking very happy for a newly accepted man," said
Torpenhow.

"Never mind that--it's my own affair, and I'm all right. Do you really
go? "

"Yes. With the old Central Southern as usual. They wired, and I accepted
on better terms than before. "

"When do you start? "

"The day after tomorrow--for Brindisi. "

"Thank God. " Dick spoke from the bottom of his heart.

"Well, that's not a pretty way of saying you're glad to get rid of me.
But men in your condition are allowed to be selfish. "

"I didn't mean that. Will you get a hundred pounds cashed for me before
you leave? "

"That's a slender amount for housekeeping, isn't it? "

"Oh, it's only for--marriage expenses. "

Torpenhow brought him the money, counted it out in fives and tens, and
carefully put it away in the writing table.

"Now I suppose I shall have to listen to his ravings about his girl
until I go. Heaven send us patience with a man in love! " he said to
himself.

But never a word did Dick say of Maisie or marriage. He hung in the
doorway of Torpenhow's room when the latter was packing and asked
innumerable questions about the coming campaign, till Torpenhow began to
feel annoyed.

"You're a secretive animal, Dickie, and you consume your own smoke,
don't you? " he said on the last evening.

"I--I suppose so. By the way, how long do you think this war will last? "

"Days, weeks, or months. One can never tell. It may go on for years. "

"I wish I were going. "

"Good Heavens! You're the most unaccountable creature! Hasn't it
occurred to you that you're going to be married--thanks to me? "

"Of course, yes. I'm going to be married--so I am. Going to be married.
I'm awfully grateful to you. Haven't I told you that? "

"You might be going to be hanged by the look of you," said Torpenhow.

And the next day Torpenhow bade him good-bye and left him to the
loneliness he had so much desired.



CHAPTER XIV

Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He of the Faith spoke as master to slave;
Yet at the last, tho' the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the reiver,--
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He called upon Allah and died a believer. --Kizzilbashi.

"Beg your pardon, Mr. Heldar, but--but isn't nothin' going to happen? "
said Mr. Beeton.

"No! " Dick had just waked to another morning of blank despair and his
temper was of the shortest.

"'Tain't my regular business, 'o course, sir; and what I say is, 'Mind
your own business and let other people mind theirs;' but just before Mr.
Torpenhow went away he give me to understand, like, that you might be
moving into a house of your own, so to speak--a sort of house with rooms
upstairs and downstairs where you'd be better attended to, though I try
to act just by all our tenants. Don't I? "

"Ah! That must have been a mad-house. I shan't trouble you to take me
there yet. Get me my breakfast, please, and leave me alone. "

"I hope I haven't done anything wrong, sir, but you know I hope that as
far as a man can I tries to do the proper thing by all the gentlemen in
chambers--and more particular those whose lot is hard--such as you, for
instance, Mr. Heldar. You likes soft-roe bloater, don't you? Soft-roe
bloaters is scarcer than hard-roe, but what I says is, 'Never mind a
little extra trouble so long as you give satisfaction to the tenants. '"

Mr. Beeton withdrew and left Dick to himself. Torpenhow had been long
away; there was no more rioting in the chambers, and Dick had settled
down to his new life, which he was weak enough to consider nothing
better than death.

It is hard to live alone in the dark, confusing the day and night;
dropping to sleep through sheer weariness at mid-day, and rising
restless in the chill of the dawn. At first Dick, on his awakenings,
would grope along the corridors of the chambers till he heard some one
snore. Then he would know that the day had not yet come, and return
wearily to his bedroom.

Later he learned not to stir till there was a noise and movement in the
house and Mr. Beeton advised him to get up. Once dressed--and dressing,
now that Torpenhow was away, was a lengthy business, because collars,
ties, and the like hid themselves in far corners of the room, and search
meant head-beating against chairs and trunks--once dressed, there was
nothing whatever to do except to sit still and brood till the three
daily meals came. Centuries separated breakfast from lunch and lunch
from dinner, and though a man prayed for hundreds of years that his
mind might be taken from him, God would never hear. Rather the mind
was quickened and the revolving thoughts ground against each other as
millstones grind when there is no corn between; and yet the brain would
not wear out and give him rest. It continued to think, at length, with
imagery and all manner of reminiscences. It recalled Maisie and past
success, reckless travels by land and sea, the glory of doing work and
feeling that it was good, and suggested all that might have happened had
the eyes only been faithful to their duty. When thinking ceased
through sheer weariness, there poured into Dick's soul tide on tide of
overwhelming, purposeless fear--dread of starvation always, terror
lest the unseen ceiling should crush down upon him, fear of fire in the
chambers and a louse's death in red flame, and agonies of fiercer horror
that had nothing to do with any fear of death. Then Dick bowed his head,
and clutching the arms of his chair fought with his sweating self till
the tinkle of plates told him that something to eat was being set before
him.

Mr. Beeton would bring the meal when he had time to spare, and
Dick learned to hang upon his speech, which dealt with badly fitted
gas-plugs, waste-pipes out of repair, little tricks for driving
picture-nails into walls, and the sins of the charwoman or the
housemaids. In the lack of better things the small gossip of a servants'
hall becomes immensely interesting, and the screwing of a washer on a
tap an event to be talked over for days.

Once or twice a week, too, Mr.
Beeton would take Dick out with him when
he went marketing in the morning to haggle with tradesmen over fish,
lamp-wicks, mustard, tapioca, and so forth, while Dick rested his weight
first on one foot and then on the other and played aimlessly with the
tins and string-ball on the counter. Then they would perhaps meet one of
Mr. Beeton's friends, and Dick, standing aside a little, would hold his
peace till Mr. Beeton was willing to go on again.

The life did not increase his self-respect. He abandoned shaving as a
dangerous exercise, and being shaved in a barber's shop meant exposure
of his infirmity. He could not see that his clothes were properly
brushed, and since he had never taken any care of his personal
appearance he became every known variety of sloven. A blind man cannot
deal with cleanliness till he has been some months used to the darkness.
If he demand attendance and grow angry at the want of it, he must assert
himself and stand upright. Then the meanest menial can see that he is
blind and, therefore, of no consequence. A wise man will keep his eyes
on the floor and sit still. For amusement he may pick coal lump by lump
out of the scuttle with the tongs and pile it in a little heap in the
fender, keeping count of the lumps, which must all be put back again,
one by one and very carefully. He may set himself sums if he cares to
work them out; he may talk to himself or to the cat if she chooses to
visit him; and if his trade has been that of an artist, he may sketch
in the air with his forefinger; but that is too much like drawing a pig
with the eyes shut. He may go to his bookshelves and count his books,
ranging them in order of their size; or to his wardrobe and count his
shirts, laying them in piles of two or three on the bed, as they suffer
from frayed cuffs or lost buttons.

Even this entertainment wearies after a time; and all the times are
very, very long.

Dick was allowed to sort a tool-chest where Mr. Beeton kept hammers,
taps and nuts, lengths of gas-pipes, oil-bottles, and string.

"If I don't have everything just where I know where to look for it, why,
then, I can't find anything when I do want it. You've no idea, sir, the
amount of little things that these chambers uses up," said Mr. Beeton.

Fumbling at the handle of the door as he went out: "It's hard on you,
sir, I do think it's hard on you. Ain't you going to do anything, sir? "

"I'll pay my rent and messing. Isn't that enough? "

"I wasn't doubting for a moment that you couldn't pay your way, sir; but
I 'ave often said to my wife, 'It's 'ard on 'im because it isn't as
if he was an old man, nor yet a middle-aged one, but quite a young
gentleman. That's where it comes so 'ard. '"

"I suppose so," said Dick, absently. This particular nerve through long
battering had ceased to feel--much.

"I was thinking," continued Mr. Beeton, still making as if to go, "that
you might like to hear my boy Alf read you the papers sometimes of an
evening. He do read beautiful, seeing he's only nine. "

"I should be very grateful," said Dick. "Only let me make it worth his
while. "

"We wasn't thinking of that, sir, but of course it's in your own 'ands;
but only to 'ear Alf sing 'A Boy's best Friend is 'is Mother! ' Ah! "

"I'll hear him sing that too. Let him come this evening with the
newspapers. "

Alf was not a nice child, being puffed up with many school-board
certificates for good conduct, and inordinately proud of his singing.
Mr. Beeton remained, beaming, while the child wailed his way through
a song of some eight eight-line verses in the usual whine of a young
Cockney, and, after compliments, left him to read Dick the foreign
telegrams. Ten minutes later Alf returned to his parents rather pale and
scared.

"'E said 'e couldn't stand it no more," he explained.

"He never said you read badly, Alf? " Mrs. Beeton spoke.

"No. 'E said I read beautiful. Said 'e never 'eard any one read like
that, but 'e said 'e couldn't abide the stuff in the papers. "

"P'raps he's lost some money in the Stocks. Were you readin' him about
Stocks, Alf? "

"No; it was all about fightin' out there where the soldiers is gone--a
great long piece with all the lines close together and very hard words
in it. 'E give me 'arf a crown because I read so well. And 'e says the
next time there's anything 'e wants read 'e'll send for me. "

"That's good hearing, but I do think for all the half-crown--put it into
the kicking-donkey money-box, Alf, and let me see you do it--he might
have kept you longer. Why, he couldn't have begun to understand how
beautiful you read. "

"He's best left to hisself--gentlemen always are when they're
downhearted," said Mr. Beeton.

Alf's rigorously limited powers of comprehending Torpenhow's special
correspondence had waked the devil of unrest in Dick. He could hear,
through the boy's nasal chant, the camels grunting in the squares behind
the soldiers outside Suakin; could hear the men swearing and chaffing
across the cooking pots, and could smell the acrid wood-smoke as it
drifted over camp before the wind of the desert.

That night he prayed to God that his mind might be taken from him,
offering for proof that he was worthy of this favour the fact that he
had not shot himself long ago. That prayer was not answered, and indeed
Dick knew in his heart of hearts that only a lingering sense of humour
and no special virtue had kept him alive. Suicide, he had persuaded
himself, would be a ludicrous insult to the gravity of the situation as
well as a weak-kneed confession of fear.

"Just for the fun of the thing," he said to the cat, who had taken
Binkie's place in his establishment, "I should like to know how long
this is going to last. I can live for a year on the hundred pounds
Torp cashed for me. I must have two or three thousand at least in the
Bank--twenty or thirty years more provided for, that is to say. Then I
fall back on my hundred and twenty a year, which will be more by that
time. Let's consider.

"Twenty-five--thirty-five--a man's in his prime then, they
say--forty-five--a middle-aged man just entering politics--fifty-five
'died at the comparatively early age of fifty-five,' according to the
newspapers. Bah! How these Christians funk death! Sixty-five--we're only
getting on in years. Seventy-five is just possible, though. Great hell,
cat O! fifty years more of solitary confinement in the dark! You'll die,
and Beeton will die, and Torp will die, and Mai--everybody else will
die, but I shall be alive and kicking with nothing to do. I'm very sorry
for myself. I should like some one else to be sorry for me. Evidently
I'm not going mad before I die, but the pain's just as bad as ever.
Some day when you're vivisected, cat O! they'll tie you down on a little
table and cut you open--but don't be afraid; they'll take precious good
care that you don't die. You'll live, and you'll be very sorry then that
you weren't sorry for me. Perhaps Torp will come back or. . . I wish I
could go to Torp and the Nilghai, even though I were in their way. "

Pussy left the room before the speech was ended, and Alf, as he entered,
found Dick addressing the empty hearth-rug.

"There's a letter for you, sir," he said. "Perhaps you'd like me to read
it. "

"Lend it to me for a minute and I'll tell you. "

The outstretched hand shook just a little and the voice was not
over-steady. It was within the limits of human possibility that--that
was no letter from Maisie. He knew the heft of three closed envelopes
only too well. It was a foolish hope that the girl should write to
him, for he did not realise that there is a wrong which admits of no
reparation though the evildoer may with tears and the heart's best love
strive to mend all. It is best to forget that wrong whether it be caused
or endured, since it is as remediless as bad work once put forward.

"Read it, then," said Dick, and Alf began intoning according to the
rules of the Board School--"'I could have given you love, I could have
given you loyalty, such as you never dreamed of. Do you suppose I cared
what you were? But you chose to whistle everything down the wind for
nothing. My only excuse for you is that you are so young. ' That's all,"
he said, returning the paper to be dropped into the fire.

"What was in the letter? " asked Mrs. Beeton, when Alf returned.

"I don't know. I think it was a circular or a tract about not whistlin'
at everything when you're young. "

"I must have stepped on something when I was alive and walking about and
it has bounced up and hit me. God help it, whatever it is--unless it was
all a joke. But I don't know any one who'd take the trouble to play a
joke on me--Love and loyalty for nothing. It sounds tempting enough. I
wonder whether I have lost anything really? "

Dick considered for a long time but could not remember when or how he
had put himself in the way of winning these trifles at a woman's hands.

Still, the letter as touching on matters that he preferred not to think
about stung him into a fit of frenzy that lasted for a day and night.
When his heart was so full of despair that it would hold no more,
body and soul together seemed to be dropping without check through the
darkness.

Then came fear of darkness and desperate attempts to reach the light
again. But there was no light to be reached. When that agony had left
him sweating and breathless, the downward flight would recommence till
the gathering torture of it spurred him into another fight as hopeless
as the first. Followed some few minutes of sleep in which he dreamed
that he saw. Then the procession of events would repeat itself till he
was utterly worn out and the brain took up its everlasting consideration
of Maisie and might-have-beens.

At the end of everything Mr. Beeton came to his room and volunteered to
take him out. "Not marketing this time, but we'll go into the Parks if
you like. "

"Be damned if I do," quoth Dick. "Keep to the streets and walk up and
down. I like to hear the people round me. "

This was not altogether true. The blind in the first stages of their
infirmity dislike those who can move with a free stride and unlifted
arms--but Dick had no earthly desire to go to the Parks. Once and
only once since Maisie had shut her door he had gone there under Alf's
charge. Alf forgot him and fished for minnows in the Serpentine with
some companions. After half an hour's waiting Dick, almost weeping with
rage and wrath, caught a passer-by, who introduced him to a friendly
policeman, who led him to a four-wheeler opposite the Albert Hall. He
never told Mr. Beeton of Alf's forgetfulness, but. . . this was not the
manner in which he was used to walk the Parks aforetime.

"What streets would you like to walk down, then? " said Mr. Beeton,
sympathetically. His own ideas of a riotous holiday meant picnicking
on the grass of Green Park with his family, and half a dozen paper bags
full of food.

"Keep to the river," said Dick, and they kept to the river, and the rush
of it was in his ears till they came to Blackfriars Bridge and struck
thence on to the Waterloo Road, Mr. Beeton explaining the beauties of
the scenery as he went on.

"And walking on the other side of the pavement," said he, "unless I'm
much mistaken, is the young woman that used to come to your rooms to
be drawed. I never forgets a face and I never remembers a name, except
paying tenants, 'o course! "

"Stop her," said Dick. "It's Bessie Broke. Tell her I'd like to speak to
her again. Quick, man! "

Mr. Beeton crossed the road under the noses of the omnibuses and
arrested Bessie then on her way northward. She recognised him as the
man in authority who used to glare at her when she passed up Dick's
staircase, and her first impulse was to run.

"Wasn't you Mr. Heldar's model? " said Mr. Beeton, planting himself in
front of her. "You was. He's on the other side of the road and he'd like
to see you. "

"Why? " said Bessie, faintly. She remembered--indeed had never for long
forgotten--an affair connected with a newly finished picture.

"Because he has asked me to do so, and because he's most particular
blind. "

"Drunk? "

"No. 'Orspital blind. He can't see. That's him over there. "

Dick was leaning against the parapet of the bridge as Mr. Beeton pointed
him out--a stub-bearded, bowed creature wearing a dirty magenta-coloured
neckcloth outside an unbrushed coat. There was nothing to fear from such
an one. Even if he chased her, Bessie thought, he could not follow far.
She crossed over, and Dick's face lighted up. It was long since a woman
of any kind had taken the trouble to speak to him.

"I hope you're well, Mr. Heldar? " said Bessie, a little puzzled. Mr.
Beeton stood by with the air of an ambassador and breathed responsibly.

"I'm very well indeed, and, by Jove! I'm glad to see--hear you, I mean,
Bess. You never thought it worth while to turn up and see us again after
you got your money. I don't know why you should. Are you going anywhere
in particular just now? "

"I was going for a walk," said Bessie.

"Not the old business? " Dick spoke under his breath.

"Lor, no! I paid my premium"--Bessie was very proud of that word--"for a
barmaid, sleeping in, and I'm at the bar now quite respectable. Indeed I
am. "

Mr. Beeton had no special reason to believe in the loftiness of human
nature. Therefore he dissolved himself like a mist and returned to his
gas-plugs without a word of apology. Bessie watched the flight with a
certain uneasiness; but so long as Dick appeared to be ignorant of the
harm that had been done to him. . .

"It's hard work pulling the beer-handles," she went on, "and they've got
one of them penny-in-the-slot cash-machines, so if you get wrong by a
penny at the end of the day--but then I don't believe the machinery is
right. Do you? "

"I've only seen it work. Mr. Beeton. "

"He's gone.

"I'm afraid I must ask you to help me home, then. I'll make it worth
your while. You see. " The sightless eyes turned towards her and Bessie
saw.