and began to talk
of something else.
of something else.
Fletcher - Lucian the Dreamer
Then the title came to me rather unexpectedly, you know, and when found that could indulge my tastes —well, indulged them.
'
And you prefer the desert to the drawing-room? ' she said, watching him.
Lots he said fervently. Lots Sprats smiled.
should advise you,' she said, to cut London the day your book appears. You'll be Hon, you know. '
Oh, but he exclaimed, you don't quite recognise what sort of book is. It's not an exciting narrative— no bears, or Indians, or scalpings, you know. It's— well, it's bit dry—scientific stuff, and so on. '
Sprats smiled the smile of the wise woman and shook
her head. — doesn't matter what
dry or delicious, dull or enlivening,' she remarked sagely, the people who'll lionise you won't read though they'll swear to your
face that they sat up all night with it. You'll see l5dng about, with the pages all cut and book-marker sticking out, but most of the people who'll rave to your face about wouldn't be able to answer any question that you asked them concerning it. Lionising an
it
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153
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
amusing feature of social life in England —if you don't like the prospect of it, run away. '
' I shall certainly run,' he answered. ' I will go soon. I think, perhaps, that you exaggerate my importance, but I don't want to incur any risk—it isn't pleasant to be stared at, and pointed out, and all that sort of— of '
' Of rot! ' she said. ' No—it isn't, to some people. To other people it seems quite a natural thing. It never seemed to bother Lucian Damerel, for example. You cannot realise the adulation which was showered upon him when he first flashed into the literary heavens. All the women were in love with him; all the girls love-sick because of his dark face and wondrous hair; he was stared at wherever he went; and he might have break- fasted, lunched, and dined at somebody else's expense every day. ' —
* And he liked that? ' asked Saxonstowe.
* It's a bit difficult,' answered Sprats, * to know what Lucian does like. He plays lion to perfection. Have you ever been to the Zoo and seen a real first-class, Ai diamond-of-the-first- water sort of lion in his cage? —
when he is filled with meat? Well, you'll have noticed that he gazes with solemn eyes above your head—he never sees you at all—you aren't worth it. If he should happen to look at you, he just wonders why the devil you stand there staring at him, and his eyes show a sort of cynical, idle contempt, and become solenm and ever-so-far-away again. Lucian plays lion in that way beautifully. He looks out of his cage with eyes that scorn the miserable wondering things gathered open-mouthed before him. '
' We all live in cages,' answered Sprats. ' You had better hang up a curtain in front of yours if you don't wish the crowd to stare at you. And now come—I will show you my children. '
Saxonstowe followed her all over the house with exemplary obedience, secretly admiring her mastery of
especially
' Does he Uve in a cage? ' asked Saxonstowe.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
153
detail, her quickness of perception, and the motherly
fashion in which she treated her charges. He had never I been in a children's hospital before, and he saw some
sights that sent him back to Sprats's parlour a somewhat sad man.
' I dare say you get used to it,' he said, ' but the sight of all that pain must be depressing. And the poor little mites seem to bear it well—bravely, at any rate. '
Sprats looked at him with the speculative expression which always came into her face when she was endeavouring to get at some other person's real self.
* So you, too, are fond of children? ' she said, and responded cordially to his suggestion that he might per- haps be permitted to come again. He went away with a cheering consciousness that he had had a gUmpse into a little world wherein good work was being done—it had seemed a far preferable world to that other world of fashion and small things which seethed all around it.
On the following day Saxonstowe spent the better part of the morning in a toy-shop. He proved a good cus- tomer, but a most particular one. He had counted heads at the children's hospital : there were twenty-seven in all, and he wanted twenty-seven toys for them. He insisted on a minute inspection of every one, even to the details of the dolls' clothing and the attainments of the mechanical froga, and the young lady who attended upon him decided that he was a nice gentleman and free-handed, but terribly exacting. His bill, however, yielded her a handsome commission, and when he gave her the address of the hospital she felt sure that she had spent two hours in conversation —on the merits of toys— with a young duke, and for the rest of the day she enter- tained her shopmates with reminiscences of the supposed ducal remarks, none of which, according to her, had been of a very profound nature.
Saxonstowe wondered how soon he might call at the hospital again—at the end of a week he found himself kicking his heels once more in the room wherein Noah, his family, and his animals trooped gaily down the slopes
154
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
of Mount Ararat. When Sprats came in she greeted him
with an abrupt question.
' Was it you who sent a small cart-load of toys here
last week? ' she asked.
' I certainly did send some toys for the children,' he
answered.
' I thought it must be your
handiwork,' she said. ' Thank you. You will now receive a beautifully
written, politely worded letter of thanks, inscribed on thick, glossy paper by the secretary —do you mind? '
* Yes, I do mind! ' he exclaimed. ' Please don't tell the secretary —what has he or she to do with it ? '
' Very well, I won't,' she said. ' But I will give you a practical tip : when you feel impelled to buy toys for children in hospital, buy something breakable and cheap —it pleases the child just as much as an expensive play- thing. There was one toy too many,' she continued, laughing, ' so I annexed that for myself—a mechanical spider. I play with it in my room sometimes. I am not above being amused by small things. ' —
After this Saxonstowe became a regular visitor he was accepted by some of the patients as a friend ' and admitted to their confidences. They knew him as the Lord,' and announced that ' the Lord ' had said this, or done that, in a fashion which made other visitors, not in the secret, wonder if the children were delirious and had dreams of divine communications. He sent these new friends books, and fruit, and flowers, and the house was gayer and brighter that summer than it had ever been since the brass plate was placed on its door.
One afternoon Saxonstowe arrived with a weighty- looking parcel under his arm. Once within Sprats's parlour he laid it down on the table and began to untie the string. She shook her head.
* You have been spending money on one or other of my children again,' she said. * I shall have to stop it. ' ' No,' he said, with a very shy smile. ' This — is —
for you. '
' For me? ' Her eyes opened with something like
quick,
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
155
incredulous wonder. * What an event ! * she said; * I so seldom have anything given to me. What is it? —
let me see—it looks like an enormous box of chocolate. '
* It's—it's the book,' he answered,' shamefaced as a schoolboy producing his first verses. There ! that's it,' and he placed two formidable-looking volumes, very new and very redolent of the bookbinder's establishment, in her hands. ' That's the very first copy,' he added. ' I wanted you to have it. '
Sprats sat down and turned the books over. He had written her name on the fly-leaf of the first volume, and his own underneath it. She glanced at the maps, the engravings, the diagrams, the scientific tables, and a sudden flush came across her face. She looked up at him.
' I should be proud if I had written a book like this ! ' she said. ' It means—such a lot of—well, of manliness, somehow. Thank you. And it is really pubHshed at last? '
* It is not supposed to be published until next Monday,' he answered. * The reviewers' copies have gone out to-day, but I insisted on having a copy sup- pHed to me belore any one handled another —I wanted you to have the very first. '
* Because I think you'll understand it,' he said; ' and you'll read it. '
' Why? ' she asked.
' Yes,' she answered, ' I shall read it, and I think I shall understand. And now all the lionising will begin. '
Saxonstowe shrugged his shoulders.
* If the people who really know about these things
think I have done well, I shall be satisfied,' he said. * I don't care a scrap about the reviews in the popular papers —I am looking forward with great anxiety to the
criticisms of two or three scientific periodicals. '
' You were going to run away from the lionising busi- ness/ she said. * When are you going? —there is
nothing to keep you, now that the book is out. '
156
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
Saxonstowe looked at her. He was standing at the
of the table on which she had placed the two volumes of his book; she was sitting in a low chair at its side. She looked up at him; she saw his face grow
edge
very grave.
' I didn't think anything would keep me,' he said,
' but I find that something is keeping me. It is you. Do you know that I love you? '
The colour rose in her cheeks, and her eyes left his for an instant; then she faced him.
' I did not know it until just now,' she answered, laying her hand on one of the volumes at her side. ' I knew it then, because you wished me to have the first- fruits of your labour. I was wondering about it—as we talked. '
' Well? ' he said.
' Will you let me be perfectly frank with' you? ' she said. * Are you sure about yourself in this?
' I am sure,' he answered. ' I love you, and I shall never love any other woman. Don't think that I say that in the way in which I dare say it's been said a million times—I mean it. '
' Yes,' she said; ' I imderstand. You wouldn't say anything that you didn't mean. And I am going to be
truthful with you. I don't think it's wrong of me to tell you that I have a feeling for you which I have not, and never had, for any other man that I have known. I could depend on you—I could go to you for help and advice, and I should rely on your
equally
I have felt that since we met, as man and woman, a few weeks ago. '
strength.
' Then ' he began.
' Stop a bit,' she said, ' let me finish. I want to be brutally plain-spoken —it's really best to be so. I want you to know me as I am. I have loved Lucian Damerel ever since he and I were boy and girl. It is, perhaps, a curious love — you might say that there is very much more of a mother's, or a sister's, love in it than a wife's. Well, I don't know. I do know that it nearly broke
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 157
my heart when I heard of his marriage to Haidee. I cannot tell —I have never been able to tell —in what exact way it was that I wanted him, but I did not want her to have him. Perhaps all that, or most of that, feel- ing has gone. I have tried hard, by working for others, to put all thought of another woman's husband out of my mind. But the thought of Lucian is still there— it may, perhaps, always be there. While it is—even in the least, the very least degree—you understand, do you not? ' she said, with a sudden note of eager appeal breaking into her voice.
' Yes,' he answered, ' I understand. '
She rose to her feet and held out her hand to him.
' Then don't let us try to put into words what we can
feel much better,' she said, smiling. * We are friends
— always. And you are going away. '
The children found out that for some time at any rate
there would be no more visits from the Lord. But the toys and the books, the fruit and flowers, came as regu- larly as ever, and the Lord was not forgotten.
XVIII
During the greater part of that summer Lucian had been working steadily on two things : the tragedy which Mr. Harcourt was to produce at the Athenaeum in December, and a new poem which Mr. Robertson intended to pubHsh about the middle of the autumn season. Lucian was flying at high game in respect of both. The tragedy was intended to introduce somethmg of the spirit and dignity of Greek art to the nineteenth- century stage— there was to be nothing common or mean in connection with its production; it was to be a gorgeous
CHAPTER
but one of high
direct intention in writing it was to set English dramatic art on an elevation to which it had never yet been lifted. The poem was an equally ambitious attempt to revive
spectacle,
the epic; its subject, the Norman Conquest,
Lucian's mind since boyhood, and from his tenth year onwards he had read every book and document procur-
He had the work during his Oxford days; the greater part of it was now in type, and Mr. Robertson was incurring vast expense in the shape of author's correc-
able which treated of that fascinating period. begun
tions. Lucian polished and rewrote in a fashion that was exasperating; his pubHsher, never suspecting that so many alterations would be made, had said nothing
and he of profits. ' What a pity that you did not make all your altera-
about them in drawing up a formal agreement, was daily obliged to witness a disappearance
tions and corrections before sending the manuscript to press ! ' he exclaimed one day, when Lucian called with a bundle of proofs which had been hacked about in such 158
distinction, and Lucian's
had filled
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
159
a fashion as to need complete resetting. ' It would have saved a lot of trouble—and expense. '
Lucian stared at him with the eyes of a young owl, round and wondering.
' How on earth can you see what a thing looks like until it's in print? ' he said irritably. 'What are printers for? '
* Just so—just so! ' responded the publisher. * But really, you know, this book is being twice set—every sheet has had to be pulled to pieces, and it adds to the expense. '
Lucian's eyes grew rounder than ever.
' I don't know an5^ing about that,' he answered.
* That is your province — don't bother me about it. ' Robertson laughed. He was beginning to find out, after some experience, that Lucian was imperturbable
on ' certain points. ' Very well,' he said.
By the bye, how much more copy is there—or if copy is too vulgar a word for your
mightiness, how many more lines or verses? '
* About four hundred and fifty lines,' answered
Lucian.
' Say another twenty-four pages,' said Robertson.
' Well, it runs now to three hundred and fifty—that means that it's going to to be a book of close upon four hundred pages. '
* Well? ' questioned Lucian.
' I was merely thinking that it is a long time since the public was asked to buy a volume containing four hundred pages of blank verse,' remarked the publisher.
' I* hope this won't frighten anybody. '
You make some very extraordinary remarks,' said
Lucian, with unmistakable signs of annoyance. * What
do' you mean? ' ' Oh, nothing, nothing !
answered Robertson, who was on sufficient terms of intimacy with Lucian to be able to chaff him a little. * I was merely thinking of trade
considerations. ' " * You appear to be always
merely thinking
"
of
i6o
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
something extraordinary,' said Lucian. ' What can trade considerations have to do with the length of my
poem ? '
' What indeed? ' said the pubUsher.
and began to talk
of something else. But when Lucian had gone he looked rather doubtfully at the pile of interlineated proof, and glanced from it to the thin octavo with which the new
poet had won all hearts nearly five years before.
wish it had been just a handful of gold hke that! ' he said to himself. * Four hundred pages of blank verse all at one go ! —it's asking a good deal, unless it catches on with the old maids and the dowagers, like the Course
Well, we shall see; but I'd rather have some of your earlier lyrics than this
weighty ' performance, indeed !
Lucian finished his epic before the middle of July, and fell to work on the final stages of his tragedy. He had promised to read it to the Athenaeum company on the first day of the coming October, and there was still much to do in shaping and revising it. He began to feel impatient and irritable; the sight of his desk annoyed him, and he took to running out of town into the country whenever the wish for the shade of woods and the peace- fulness of the lanes came upon him. Before the end
of Time and the Epic of Hades.
Lucian, my boy—I would
^
' I
of the month he felt unable to work, and he repaired to Sprats for counsel and comfort.
' I don't know how or why it is,* he said, telling her
his troubles, ' but I don't feel as if I had a bit of work
left in me. I haven't any power of concentration left—
I'm always wanting to be doing something else. And
yet I haven't worked very hard this year, and we have
been away a great deal. It's nearly time for going away
again, too—I believe Haidee has already made some
arrangement. '
* Lucian,' said Sprats, ' why don't you go down to
Simonstower? They would be so glad to have you at the vicarage —there's heaps of room. And just think
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
i6i
how jolly 'it is there in August and September—I wish I
could go ! —some memory of the old
Lucian's face lighted up
days had suddenly fired his soul. He saw the famiHar scenes once more under the golden sunlight—the grey castle and its Norman keep, the winding river, the shelv- ing woods, and, framing all, the gold and purple of the moorlands.
' Yes, of course — it's Simonstower that I want. ^ We'll go at once.
' Simonstower ! ' he exclaimed.
Sprats, why can't you come too? '
Sprats shook her head.
' I can't,' she answered. ' I shall have a holiday in
September, but I can't take a single day before. I'm sure it will do you good if you go to Simonstower, Lucian —the north-country air will brighten you up. You haven't been there for four years, and the sight of the old faces and places will act like a tonic'
' I'll arrange it at once,' said Lucian, delighted at the idea, and he went off to announce his projects to Haidee. Haidee looked at him incredulously.
of, Lucian? ' she said. * Don't you remember that we're cramful of engage- ments from' the beginning of August to the end of September? She recited a list of arrangements already entered into, which included a three-weeks' sojourn on
* Whatever are you thinking
Eustace Darlington's steam-yacht, and a fortnight's stay
at his shooting-box in the Highlands. ' Had you for-
gotten? ' she asked. '
' I believe I had! ' he replied; we seem to have so
Look here: do you know, I think I'll back out. I must have this tragedy finished for Harcourt and his people by October, and I can't do it if
many engagements.
I go rushing about from one place to another. I think I shall go down to Simonstower and have a quiet time
and finish my work there — I'll
Darlington. '
' As you please,' she answered.
keep my engagements. '
explain it all to
' course, I shall Of
L
i62 LUCTAN THE DREAMER
* Oh, of course,' he said. ' You won't miss me, you know. I suppose there are lots of other people going? ' ' I suppose so,' she replied carelessly, and there was
an end of the conversation. Lucian explained to Darlington that night that he would not be able to keep his engagement, and set forth the reasons with a fine air of devotion to business. Darlington sympathised, and applauded Lucian 's determination—he knew, he said, what a lot depended upon the success of the new play, and he'd no doubt Lucian wouldn't feel quite easy until it was all in order. After that he must have a long rest—it would be rather good fun to winter in Egypt. Lucian agreed, and next day made his prepara- tions for a descent upon Simonstower. At heart he was
rather more than glad to escape the yacht, the Highland shooting-box, and the people whom he would have met. He cared little for the sea, and hated any form of sport which involved the slaying of animals or birds; the thought of Simonstower in the last weeks of summer was grateful to him, and all that he now wanted was to find himself in a Great Northern express gliding out of King's Cross, bound for the moorlands.
He went round to the hospital on the morning of his departure, and told Sprats with the glee of a schoolboy who is going home for the holidays, that he was off that very afternoon. He was rattling on as to his joy when Sprats stopped him.
' Haidee? ' he said. * But Haidee is not
She's joining a party on Darlington's yacht, and they're going round the coast to his place in the Highlands. I was to have gone, you know, but really I couldn't have worked, and I must work—it's absolutely neces- sary that the play should be finished by the end of
* And Haidee? ' she asked. ' Does she like it? '
September. '
Sprats looked anxious and troubled.
' Look here, Lucian,' she said, ' do you think it's quite right to leave Haidee like that? —isn't it rather neglecting your duties? '
going.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 163
' But why? ' he asked, with such sincerity that it
became plain to Sprats that the question had never even entered his mind. ' Haidee's all right. It would be beastly selfish on my part if I dragged her down to Simonstower for nearly two months — you know, she doesn't care a bit for the country, and there would be no society for her. She needs sea air, and three weeks on' Darlington's yacht will do her a lot of good. '
Who are the other people? ' asked Sprats.
' Oh, I don't know,' Lucian replied. ' The usual Darlington lot, I suppose. Between you and me.
Sprats, I'm glad I'm not going. I get rather sick of that sort of thing—^it's too much of a hot-house existence. And I don't care about the people one meets, either. '
* And yet you let Haidee meet them ! ' Sprats ex-
claimed. ' Really, Lucian, you grow more and more
paradoxical. '
' But Haidee likes them,' he insisted. * That's just
the sort of thing she does like. And if she likes why shouldn't she have it? '
You are curious couple,' said Sprats.
think we are to be praised for our common-sense
view of things,' he said. am often told that am a dreamer —you've said so yourself, you know —but in real, sober truth, I'm an awfully matter-of-fact sort of
don't live on illusions and ideals and things — worship the God of the Things that Are! '
Sprats gazed at him as mother might gaze at child who boasts of having performed an impossible task.
Oh, you absolute baby! ' she said. Is your pretty head stuffed with wool or with feathers? Paragon of
person.
of all the Practical wonder don't shrivel in your presence like bit of bacon before an Afric sun. Do you think
Common-Sense! Compendium Qualities!
you'll catch your train?
Not stay here listening to abuse. Seriously,
Sprats, it's all right—about Haidee, mean,' he said
appealingly.
you were glissading down precipice at hundred
a
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'
a
a I it,
I I'* if I
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a
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i64
LUCIAN THE DREMIER
miles a minute, Lucian, everything would be all right with you until your head broke off or you snapped in two,' she answered. ' You're the Man who Never Stops to Think. Go away and be quiet at Simonstower— - you're mad to get there, and you'll probably leave it within a week. '
calculation, however, Sprats was Lucian went down to Simonstower and stayed there three weeks. He divided his time between the
vicarage and the farm; he renewed his acquaintance with the villagers, and had forgotten nothing of anything relating to them; he spent the greater part of the day in the open air, Uved plainly and slept soundly, and during the second week of his stay he finished his tragedy. Mr. Chilverstone read it and the revised proofs of the epic; as he had a great liking for blank verse, rounded periods, and the grand manner, he prophesied success for both. Lucian drank in his applause with eagerness
he had a great belief in his old tutor's critical powers, and felt that whatever he stamped with the seal of his admiration must be good. He had left London in some- what depressed and irritable spirits because of his in- ability to work; now that the work was completed and praised by a critic in whom he had good reason to repose the fullest confidence, his spirits became as light and joyous as ever.
Lucian would probably have remained longer at Simonstower but for a chance meeting with Lord Saxon- stowe, who had got a little weary of the ancestral hall and had conceived a notion of going across to Norway and taking a long walking tour in a district well out of the tourist track. He mentioned this to Lucian, and— why, he could scarcely explain to himself at the moment
asked him to go with him. Lucian 's imagination was fired at the mere notion of exploring a country which he had never seen before, and he accepted the invitation with fervour. A week later they sailed from Newcastle, and for a whole month they spent nights and days side by side amidst comparative solitudes. Each began to
In making this wrong.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 165
understand the other, and when, just before the end of September, they returned to England, they had becorne firm friends, and were gainers by their pilgrimage in more ways than one.
CHAPTER XIX
When Lucian went back to town Haidee was winding up a short round of visits in the North; she rejoined him a week later in high spirits and excellent health.
had been delightful; everybody had been nice to her; no end of people had talked about Lucian and his new play — she was dreaming already of the glories of the first night and of the radiance which would centre about herself as the wife of the briUiant young author. Lucian had returned from Norway in equally
health and spirits; he was confident about the tragedy and the epic: he and his wife therefore settled down to confront an immediate prospect of success and pleasure. Haidee resumed her usual round of social gaieties; Lucian was much busied with rehearsals at the theatre and long discussions with Harcourt; neither had a care nor an anxiety, and the wheels of their little world moved smoothly.
Saxonstowe, who had come back to town for a few weeks before going abroad again, took to calling a good deal at the little house in Mayfair. He had come to understand and to like Lucian, and though they were as dissimilar in character as men of different tempera- ment can possibly be, a curious bond of friendship, expressed in tacit acquiescence rather than in open avowal, sprang up between them. Each had a respect for the other's world—a respect which was amusing to Sprats, who, watching them closely, knew that each admired the other in a somewhat sheepish, schoolboy fashion. Lucian, being the less reserved of the two, made no secret of his admiration of the man who had done things the doing of which necessitated bravery, endurance, and self-denial. He was a fervent wor- shipper—almost to a pathetic extreme—of men of
action: the sight of soldiers marching made his toes 1 66
Everything
good
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
167
tingle and his eyes fill with the moisture of enthusiasm; he had been so fascinated by the mere sight of a great Arctic explorer that he had followed him from one town to another during a lecturing tour, simply to stare at him and conjure up for himself the scenes and adventures through which the man had passed. He dehghted in hearing Saxonstowe talk about his life in the deserts, and enjoyed it all the more because Saxonstowe had small gift of language and told his tale with the blushes of a schoolboy who hates making a fuss about anjrthing that he has done. Saxonstowe, on his part, had a sneaking liking, amounting almost to worship, for men who live in a world of dreams — he had no desire to live in such a world himself, but he cherished an
immense respect for men who, like Lucian, could create. Sometimes he would read a page of the new epic and wonder how on earth it all came into Lucian 's head; Lucian at the same moment was probably turning over the leaves of Saxonstowe' s book and wondering how a man could go through all that that laconic young gentle- man had gone through and yet come back with a stiff upper lip and a smile.
* You and Lucian Damerel appear to have become something of friends,' Lady Firmanence remarked to her nephew when he called upon her one day. ' I don't know that there's much in common between you. '
' Perhaps that is why we are friends,' said Saxon- stowe. ' You generally do get on with people who are a bit different to yourself, don't you? '
Lady Firmanence made no direct answer to this question.
' I've no doubt*Lucian is easy enough to get on with,' she said dryly. The mischief in him, Saxonstowe, is that he's too easy-going about everything. I suppose you know, as you're a sort of friend of the family, that a good deal is being said about Mrs. Damerel and Eustace Darlington? '
' No,' said Saxonstowe; ' I'm not in the way to hear that sort of thing. '
i68 LUCIAN THE DREAMER
' I don't know that you're any the better for being out of the way. I am in the way. There's a good deal being said,' Lady Firrnanence retorted with some asperity. ' I beheve some of you young men think it a positive crime to hsten to the smallest scrap of gossip— it's nothing of the sort. If you live in the world you must learn all you can about the people who make up the world. '
Saxonstowe nodded. His eyes fixed themselves on a toy dog which snored and snuffled at Lady Fir- manence's feet.
' And in this particular case? ' he said.
* Why was Lucian Damerel so foohsh as to go off in one direction while his wife went in another with the man she originally meant to marry? ' inquired Lady Firmanence. ' Come now, Saxonstowe, would you have done that? '
' No,' he said hesitatingly, ' I don't think I should; but then, you see, Damerel looks at things differently. I don't think he would ever give the foolishness of it a thought, and he would certainly think no evil—he's as guileless as a child. '
' Well,' remarked Lady Firmanence, ' I don't admire him any the more for that. I'm a bit out of love with grown-up children. If Lucian Damerel marries a wife he should take care of her. Why, she was three weeks on Darlington's yacht, and three weeks at his place in Scotland (of course there were lots of other people there too, but even then it was foolish), and he was with her at two or three country houses in Northumberland later on—I met them at one myself. ' '
' Lucian and his wife,' said Saxonstowe, fond of having their own way. '
are very
Lady Firmanence looked at her nephew out of her
eye-comers. '
' Oh ! ' she said, with a caustic irony, you think so,
do you? Well, you know, young people who like to have their own way generally come to grief. To my
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 169
mind, your new friends seem to be qualifying for trouble/
Saxonstowe studied the pattern of the carpet and traced bits of it out with his stick.
' Do you think men like Damerel have the power of reckoning things up? ' he said, suddenly looking at his
' I don't quite understand these things, but he always seems to me to
aunt with a quick, appealing glance.
be a bit impatient of anything that has to do with every- day life, and yet he's keen enough about it in one way. He's a real good chap, you know—kindly natured and
and all that. You soon find that in him. And I don't beheve he ever had a wrong thought of anybody—he's a sort of confiding trust in other people that's a bit amusing, even to me, and I haven't seen
open-hearted
such an awful lot of the world. But
a sudden pause and shook his head.
' He came to Lady Firmanence
laughed. " "
' Yes, but,' she repeated. ' That but makes all the difference. But this is Lucian Damerel—he is a
child who sits in a gaily caparisoned, comfortably appointed boat which has been launched on a wide river that runs through a mighty valley. He has neither sail nor rudder, and he is so intent on the beauty of the scenery through which he is swept that he does not recognise their necessity. His eyes are fixed on the rose- flushed peak of a far-off mountain, the glitter of the sunshine on a dancing wave, or on the basket of provi- sions which thoughtful hands have put in the boat. It may be that the boat will glide to its destination in safety, and land him on the edge of a field of velvety grass wherein he can lie down in peace to dream as long as he pleases. But it also may be that it will run on a rock in mid-stream and knock his fool's paradise into a cocked hat—and what's going to happen then? ' asked Lady Firmanence.
' Lots of things might happen,' said Saxonstowe, smiling triumphantly at the thought of beating his clever relative at her own game. * He might be able to swim.
170
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
for example. He might right the boat, get into it again, and learn by experience that one shouldn't go fooling about without a rudder. Some other chap might come along and give him a hand. Or the river might be so shallow that he could walk ashore with no more dis- comfort than he would get from wet feet. *
her lips and regarded her nephew with a fixed stare which lasted until the smile
died out of his face.
* Or there might be a crocodile, or an alligator, at
hand, which he could saddle and bridle, and con- vert into a park hack,' she said. * There are indeed many things which might happen; what I'm chiefly concerned about is, what would happen if Lucian's Httle boat did upset? I confess that I should know Lucian Damerel much more thoroughly, and have a more accurate conception of him, if I knew exactly what he would say and do when
Lady Finnanence pursed
There is no moment in life, Saxonstowe, wherein a man's real self, real character,
real quality, is so severely tested and laid bare as that unexpected one in which Fortune seizes him by the scruff of his neck and bundles him into the horsepond of adversity—it's what he says and does when he comes up spluttering that stamps him as a man or a mouse. '
Saxonstowe felt tolerably certain of what any man would say under the circumstances alluded to by Lady Firmanence, but as she seemed highly delighted with her similes and her epigrams, he said nothing of his convic- tions, and soon afterwards took his departure^
the upsetting happened.
CHAPTER XX
On a certain Monday morning in the following November, Lucian's great epic was published to the trade and the world, and the leading newspapers devoted a good deal of their space to remarking upon its merits, its demerits, and its exact relation to literature. Lucian found a pile of the London morning dailies of the superior sort awaiting his attention when he descended
to his breakfast-room, and he went through them systematically. When he had made an end of them he looked across the table at Haidee, and he smiled in what she thought a rather queer way.
' I say, Haidee ! ' he exclaimed, ' these reviews are— well, they're not very flattering. There are six mighty voices of the press here, — Times, Telegraph, Post, News, Chronicle, and Standard—and there appears to be a strange unanimity of opinion in their pronunciations. The epic poem seems to be at something of a discount. '
The reviews, in fact, were not couched in an enthusiastic vein—taking them as a whole they were cold. There was a ring of disappointment in them. One reviewer, daring to be bold, plain, and somewhat brutal, said there was more genuine poetry in any one page of any of Mr. Damerel's previous volumes than in the whole four hundred of his new one. Another openly declared his belief that the poem was the result of long years of careful, scholarly labour, of constant polishing, resetting, and rewriting; it smelled strongly of the lamp, but the smell of the lamp was not in evidence in the fresh, free, passionate work which they had previously had from the same pen. Mr.
And you prefer the desert to the drawing-room? ' she said, watching him.
Lots he said fervently. Lots Sprats smiled.
should advise you,' she said, to cut London the day your book appears. You'll be Hon, you know. '
Oh, but he exclaimed, you don't quite recognise what sort of book is. It's not an exciting narrative— no bears, or Indians, or scalpings, you know. It's— well, it's bit dry—scientific stuff, and so on. '
Sprats smiled the smile of the wise woman and shook
her head. — doesn't matter what
dry or delicious, dull or enlivening,' she remarked sagely, the people who'll lionise you won't read though they'll swear to your
face that they sat up all night with it. You'll see l5dng about, with the pages all cut and book-marker sticking out, but most of the people who'll rave to your face about wouldn't be able to answer any question that you asked them concerning it. Lionising an
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153
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
amusing feature of social life in England —if you don't like the prospect of it, run away. '
' I shall certainly run,' he answered. ' I will go soon. I think, perhaps, that you exaggerate my importance, but I don't want to incur any risk—it isn't pleasant to be stared at, and pointed out, and all that sort of— of '
' Of rot! ' she said. ' No—it isn't, to some people. To other people it seems quite a natural thing. It never seemed to bother Lucian Damerel, for example. You cannot realise the adulation which was showered upon him when he first flashed into the literary heavens. All the women were in love with him; all the girls love-sick because of his dark face and wondrous hair; he was stared at wherever he went; and he might have break- fasted, lunched, and dined at somebody else's expense every day. ' —
* And he liked that? ' asked Saxonstowe.
* It's a bit difficult,' answered Sprats, * to know what Lucian does like. He plays lion to perfection. Have you ever been to the Zoo and seen a real first-class, Ai diamond-of-the-first- water sort of lion in his cage? —
when he is filled with meat? Well, you'll have noticed that he gazes with solemn eyes above your head—he never sees you at all—you aren't worth it. If he should happen to look at you, he just wonders why the devil you stand there staring at him, and his eyes show a sort of cynical, idle contempt, and become solenm and ever-so-far-away again. Lucian plays lion in that way beautifully. He looks out of his cage with eyes that scorn the miserable wondering things gathered open-mouthed before him. '
' We all live in cages,' answered Sprats. ' You had better hang up a curtain in front of yours if you don't wish the crowd to stare at you. And now come—I will show you my children. '
Saxonstowe followed her all over the house with exemplary obedience, secretly admiring her mastery of
especially
' Does he Uve in a cage? ' asked Saxonstowe.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
153
detail, her quickness of perception, and the motherly
fashion in which she treated her charges. He had never I been in a children's hospital before, and he saw some
sights that sent him back to Sprats's parlour a somewhat sad man.
' I dare say you get used to it,' he said, ' but the sight of all that pain must be depressing. And the poor little mites seem to bear it well—bravely, at any rate. '
Sprats looked at him with the speculative expression which always came into her face when she was endeavouring to get at some other person's real self.
* So you, too, are fond of children? ' she said, and responded cordially to his suggestion that he might per- haps be permitted to come again. He went away with a cheering consciousness that he had had a gUmpse into a little world wherein good work was being done—it had seemed a far preferable world to that other world of fashion and small things which seethed all around it.
On the following day Saxonstowe spent the better part of the morning in a toy-shop. He proved a good cus- tomer, but a most particular one. He had counted heads at the children's hospital : there were twenty-seven in all, and he wanted twenty-seven toys for them. He insisted on a minute inspection of every one, even to the details of the dolls' clothing and the attainments of the mechanical froga, and the young lady who attended upon him decided that he was a nice gentleman and free-handed, but terribly exacting. His bill, however, yielded her a handsome commission, and when he gave her the address of the hospital she felt sure that she had spent two hours in conversation —on the merits of toys— with a young duke, and for the rest of the day she enter- tained her shopmates with reminiscences of the supposed ducal remarks, none of which, according to her, had been of a very profound nature.
Saxonstowe wondered how soon he might call at the hospital again—at the end of a week he found himself kicking his heels once more in the room wherein Noah, his family, and his animals trooped gaily down the slopes
154
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
of Mount Ararat. When Sprats came in she greeted him
with an abrupt question.
' Was it you who sent a small cart-load of toys here
last week? ' she asked.
' I certainly did send some toys for the children,' he
answered.
' I thought it must be your
handiwork,' she said. ' Thank you. You will now receive a beautifully
written, politely worded letter of thanks, inscribed on thick, glossy paper by the secretary —do you mind? '
* Yes, I do mind! ' he exclaimed. ' Please don't tell the secretary —what has he or she to do with it ? '
' Very well, I won't,' she said. ' But I will give you a practical tip : when you feel impelled to buy toys for children in hospital, buy something breakable and cheap —it pleases the child just as much as an expensive play- thing. There was one toy too many,' she continued, laughing, ' so I annexed that for myself—a mechanical spider. I play with it in my room sometimes. I am not above being amused by small things. ' —
After this Saxonstowe became a regular visitor he was accepted by some of the patients as a friend ' and admitted to their confidences. They knew him as the Lord,' and announced that ' the Lord ' had said this, or done that, in a fashion which made other visitors, not in the secret, wonder if the children were delirious and had dreams of divine communications. He sent these new friends books, and fruit, and flowers, and the house was gayer and brighter that summer than it had ever been since the brass plate was placed on its door.
One afternoon Saxonstowe arrived with a weighty- looking parcel under his arm. Once within Sprats's parlour he laid it down on the table and began to untie the string. She shook her head.
* You have been spending money on one or other of my children again,' she said. * I shall have to stop it. ' ' No,' he said, with a very shy smile. ' This — is —
for you. '
' For me? ' Her eyes opened with something like
quick,
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
155
incredulous wonder. * What an event ! * she said; * I so seldom have anything given to me. What is it? —
let me see—it looks like an enormous box of chocolate. '
* It's—it's the book,' he answered,' shamefaced as a schoolboy producing his first verses. There ! that's it,' and he placed two formidable-looking volumes, very new and very redolent of the bookbinder's establishment, in her hands. ' That's the very first copy,' he added. ' I wanted you to have it. '
Sprats sat down and turned the books over. He had written her name on the fly-leaf of the first volume, and his own underneath it. She glanced at the maps, the engravings, the diagrams, the scientific tables, and a sudden flush came across her face. She looked up at him.
' I should be proud if I had written a book like this ! ' she said. ' It means—such a lot of—well, of manliness, somehow. Thank you. And it is really pubHshed at last? '
* It is not supposed to be published until next Monday,' he answered. * The reviewers' copies have gone out to-day, but I insisted on having a copy sup- pHed to me belore any one handled another —I wanted you to have the very first. '
* Because I think you'll understand it,' he said; ' and you'll read it. '
' Why? ' she asked.
' Yes,' she answered, ' I shall read it, and I think I shall understand. And now all the lionising will begin. '
Saxonstowe shrugged his shoulders.
* If the people who really know about these things
think I have done well, I shall be satisfied,' he said. * I don't care a scrap about the reviews in the popular papers —I am looking forward with great anxiety to the
criticisms of two or three scientific periodicals. '
' You were going to run away from the lionising busi- ness/ she said. * When are you going? —there is
nothing to keep you, now that the book is out. '
156
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
Saxonstowe looked at her. He was standing at the
of the table on which she had placed the two volumes of his book; she was sitting in a low chair at its side. She looked up at him; she saw his face grow
edge
very grave.
' I didn't think anything would keep me,' he said,
' but I find that something is keeping me. It is you. Do you know that I love you? '
The colour rose in her cheeks, and her eyes left his for an instant; then she faced him.
' I did not know it until just now,' she answered, laying her hand on one of the volumes at her side. ' I knew it then, because you wished me to have the first- fruits of your labour. I was wondering about it—as we talked. '
' Well? ' he said.
' Will you let me be perfectly frank with' you? ' she said. * Are you sure about yourself in this?
' I am sure,' he answered. ' I love you, and I shall never love any other woman. Don't think that I say that in the way in which I dare say it's been said a million times—I mean it. '
' Yes,' she said; ' I imderstand. You wouldn't say anything that you didn't mean. And I am going to be
truthful with you. I don't think it's wrong of me to tell you that I have a feeling for you which I have not, and never had, for any other man that I have known. I could depend on you—I could go to you for help and advice, and I should rely on your
equally
I have felt that since we met, as man and woman, a few weeks ago. '
strength.
' Then ' he began.
' Stop a bit,' she said, ' let me finish. I want to be brutally plain-spoken —it's really best to be so. I want you to know me as I am. I have loved Lucian Damerel ever since he and I were boy and girl. It is, perhaps, a curious love — you might say that there is very much more of a mother's, or a sister's, love in it than a wife's. Well, I don't know. I do know that it nearly broke
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 157
my heart when I heard of his marriage to Haidee. I cannot tell —I have never been able to tell —in what exact way it was that I wanted him, but I did not want her to have him. Perhaps all that, or most of that, feel- ing has gone. I have tried hard, by working for others, to put all thought of another woman's husband out of my mind. But the thought of Lucian is still there— it may, perhaps, always be there. While it is—even in the least, the very least degree—you understand, do you not? ' she said, with a sudden note of eager appeal breaking into her voice.
' Yes,' he answered, ' I understand. '
She rose to her feet and held out her hand to him.
' Then don't let us try to put into words what we can
feel much better,' she said, smiling. * We are friends
— always. And you are going away. '
The children found out that for some time at any rate
there would be no more visits from the Lord. But the toys and the books, the fruit and flowers, came as regu- larly as ever, and the Lord was not forgotten.
XVIII
During the greater part of that summer Lucian had been working steadily on two things : the tragedy which Mr. Harcourt was to produce at the Athenaeum in December, and a new poem which Mr. Robertson intended to pubHsh about the middle of the autumn season. Lucian was flying at high game in respect of both. The tragedy was intended to introduce somethmg of the spirit and dignity of Greek art to the nineteenth- century stage— there was to be nothing common or mean in connection with its production; it was to be a gorgeous
CHAPTER
but one of high
direct intention in writing it was to set English dramatic art on an elevation to which it had never yet been lifted. The poem was an equally ambitious attempt to revive
spectacle,
the epic; its subject, the Norman Conquest,
Lucian's mind since boyhood, and from his tenth year onwards he had read every book and document procur-
He had the work during his Oxford days; the greater part of it was now in type, and Mr. Robertson was incurring vast expense in the shape of author's correc-
able which treated of that fascinating period. begun
tions. Lucian polished and rewrote in a fashion that was exasperating; his pubHsher, never suspecting that so many alterations would be made, had said nothing
and he of profits. ' What a pity that you did not make all your altera-
about them in drawing up a formal agreement, was daily obliged to witness a disappearance
tions and corrections before sending the manuscript to press ! ' he exclaimed one day, when Lucian called with a bundle of proofs which had been hacked about in such 158
distinction, and Lucian's
had filled
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
159
a fashion as to need complete resetting. ' It would have saved a lot of trouble—and expense. '
Lucian stared at him with the eyes of a young owl, round and wondering.
' How on earth can you see what a thing looks like until it's in print? ' he said irritably. 'What are printers for? '
* Just so—just so! ' responded the publisher. * But really, you know, this book is being twice set—every sheet has had to be pulled to pieces, and it adds to the expense. '
Lucian's eyes grew rounder than ever.
' I don't know an5^ing about that,' he answered.
* That is your province — don't bother me about it. ' Robertson laughed. He was beginning to find out, after some experience, that Lucian was imperturbable
on ' certain points. ' Very well,' he said.
By the bye, how much more copy is there—or if copy is too vulgar a word for your
mightiness, how many more lines or verses? '
* About four hundred and fifty lines,' answered
Lucian.
' Say another twenty-four pages,' said Robertson.
' Well, it runs now to three hundred and fifty—that means that it's going to to be a book of close upon four hundred pages. '
* Well? ' questioned Lucian.
' I was merely thinking that it is a long time since the public was asked to buy a volume containing four hundred pages of blank verse,' remarked the publisher.
' I* hope this won't frighten anybody. '
You make some very extraordinary remarks,' said
Lucian, with unmistakable signs of annoyance. * What
do' you mean? ' ' Oh, nothing, nothing !
answered Robertson, who was on sufficient terms of intimacy with Lucian to be able to chaff him a little. * I was merely thinking of trade
considerations. ' " * You appear to be always
merely thinking
"
of
i6o
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
something extraordinary,' said Lucian. ' What can trade considerations have to do with the length of my
poem ? '
' What indeed? ' said the pubUsher.
and began to talk
of something else. But when Lucian had gone he looked rather doubtfully at the pile of interlineated proof, and glanced from it to the thin octavo with which the new
poet had won all hearts nearly five years before.
wish it had been just a handful of gold hke that! ' he said to himself. * Four hundred pages of blank verse all at one go ! —it's asking a good deal, unless it catches on with the old maids and the dowagers, like the Course
Well, we shall see; but I'd rather have some of your earlier lyrics than this
weighty ' performance, indeed !
Lucian finished his epic before the middle of July, and fell to work on the final stages of his tragedy. He had promised to read it to the Athenaeum company on the first day of the coming October, and there was still much to do in shaping and revising it. He began to feel impatient and irritable; the sight of his desk annoyed him, and he took to running out of town into the country whenever the wish for the shade of woods and the peace- fulness of the lanes came upon him. Before the end
of Time and the Epic of Hades.
Lucian, my boy—I would
^
' I
of the month he felt unable to work, and he repaired to Sprats for counsel and comfort.
' I don't know how or why it is,* he said, telling her
his troubles, ' but I don't feel as if I had a bit of work
left in me. I haven't any power of concentration left—
I'm always wanting to be doing something else. And
yet I haven't worked very hard this year, and we have
been away a great deal. It's nearly time for going away
again, too—I believe Haidee has already made some
arrangement. '
* Lucian,' said Sprats, ' why don't you go down to
Simonstower? They would be so glad to have you at the vicarage —there's heaps of room. And just think
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
i6i
how jolly 'it is there in August and September—I wish I
could go ! —some memory of the old
Lucian's face lighted up
days had suddenly fired his soul. He saw the famiHar scenes once more under the golden sunlight—the grey castle and its Norman keep, the winding river, the shelv- ing woods, and, framing all, the gold and purple of the moorlands.
' Yes, of course — it's Simonstower that I want. ^ We'll go at once.
' Simonstower ! ' he exclaimed.
Sprats, why can't you come too? '
Sprats shook her head.
' I can't,' she answered. ' I shall have a holiday in
September, but I can't take a single day before. I'm sure it will do you good if you go to Simonstower, Lucian —the north-country air will brighten you up. You haven't been there for four years, and the sight of the old faces and places will act like a tonic'
' I'll arrange it at once,' said Lucian, delighted at the idea, and he went off to announce his projects to Haidee. Haidee looked at him incredulously.
of, Lucian? ' she said. * Don't you remember that we're cramful of engage- ments from' the beginning of August to the end of September? She recited a list of arrangements already entered into, which included a three-weeks' sojourn on
* Whatever are you thinking
Eustace Darlington's steam-yacht, and a fortnight's stay
at his shooting-box in the Highlands. ' Had you for-
gotten? ' she asked. '
' I believe I had! ' he replied; we seem to have so
Look here: do you know, I think I'll back out. I must have this tragedy finished for Harcourt and his people by October, and I can't do it if
many engagements.
I go rushing about from one place to another. I think I shall go down to Simonstower and have a quiet time
and finish my work there — I'll
Darlington. '
' As you please,' she answered.
keep my engagements. '
explain it all to
' course, I shall Of
L
i62 LUCTAN THE DREAMER
* Oh, of course,' he said. ' You won't miss me, you know. I suppose there are lots of other people going? ' ' I suppose so,' she replied carelessly, and there was
an end of the conversation. Lucian explained to Darlington that night that he would not be able to keep his engagement, and set forth the reasons with a fine air of devotion to business. Darlington sympathised, and applauded Lucian 's determination—he knew, he said, what a lot depended upon the success of the new play, and he'd no doubt Lucian wouldn't feel quite easy until it was all in order. After that he must have a long rest—it would be rather good fun to winter in Egypt. Lucian agreed, and next day made his prepara- tions for a descent upon Simonstower. At heart he was
rather more than glad to escape the yacht, the Highland shooting-box, and the people whom he would have met. He cared little for the sea, and hated any form of sport which involved the slaying of animals or birds; the thought of Simonstower in the last weeks of summer was grateful to him, and all that he now wanted was to find himself in a Great Northern express gliding out of King's Cross, bound for the moorlands.
He went round to the hospital on the morning of his departure, and told Sprats with the glee of a schoolboy who is going home for the holidays, that he was off that very afternoon. He was rattling on as to his joy when Sprats stopped him.
' Haidee? ' he said. * But Haidee is not
She's joining a party on Darlington's yacht, and they're going round the coast to his place in the Highlands. I was to have gone, you know, but really I couldn't have worked, and I must work—it's absolutely neces- sary that the play should be finished by the end of
* And Haidee? ' she asked. ' Does she like it? '
September. '
Sprats looked anxious and troubled.
' Look here, Lucian,' she said, ' do you think it's quite right to leave Haidee like that? —isn't it rather neglecting your duties? '
going.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 163
' But why? ' he asked, with such sincerity that it
became plain to Sprats that the question had never even entered his mind. ' Haidee's all right. It would be beastly selfish on my part if I dragged her down to Simonstower for nearly two months — you know, she doesn't care a bit for the country, and there would be no society for her. She needs sea air, and three weeks on' Darlington's yacht will do her a lot of good. '
Who are the other people? ' asked Sprats.
' Oh, I don't know,' Lucian replied. ' The usual Darlington lot, I suppose. Between you and me.
Sprats, I'm glad I'm not going. I get rather sick of that sort of thing—^it's too much of a hot-house existence. And I don't care about the people one meets, either. '
* And yet you let Haidee meet them ! ' Sprats ex-
claimed. ' Really, Lucian, you grow more and more
paradoxical. '
' But Haidee likes them,' he insisted. * That's just
the sort of thing she does like. And if she likes why shouldn't she have it? '
You are curious couple,' said Sprats.
think we are to be praised for our common-sense
view of things,' he said. am often told that am a dreamer —you've said so yourself, you know —but in real, sober truth, I'm an awfully matter-of-fact sort of
don't live on illusions and ideals and things — worship the God of the Things that Are! '
Sprats gazed at him as mother might gaze at child who boasts of having performed an impossible task.
Oh, you absolute baby! ' she said. Is your pretty head stuffed with wool or with feathers? Paragon of
person.
of all the Practical wonder don't shrivel in your presence like bit of bacon before an Afric sun. Do you think
Common-Sense! Compendium Qualities!
you'll catch your train?
Not stay here listening to abuse. Seriously,
Sprats, it's all right—about Haidee, mean,' he said
appealingly.
you were glissading down precipice at hundred
a
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a I it,
I I'* if I
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i64
LUCIAN THE DREMIER
miles a minute, Lucian, everything would be all right with you until your head broke off or you snapped in two,' she answered. ' You're the Man who Never Stops to Think. Go away and be quiet at Simonstower— - you're mad to get there, and you'll probably leave it within a week. '
calculation, however, Sprats was Lucian went down to Simonstower and stayed there three weeks. He divided his time between the
vicarage and the farm; he renewed his acquaintance with the villagers, and had forgotten nothing of anything relating to them; he spent the greater part of the day in the open air, Uved plainly and slept soundly, and during the second week of his stay he finished his tragedy. Mr. Chilverstone read it and the revised proofs of the epic; as he had a great liking for blank verse, rounded periods, and the grand manner, he prophesied success for both. Lucian drank in his applause with eagerness
he had a great belief in his old tutor's critical powers, and felt that whatever he stamped with the seal of his admiration must be good. He had left London in some- what depressed and irritable spirits because of his in- ability to work; now that the work was completed and praised by a critic in whom he had good reason to repose the fullest confidence, his spirits became as light and joyous as ever.
Lucian would probably have remained longer at Simonstower but for a chance meeting with Lord Saxon- stowe, who had got a little weary of the ancestral hall and had conceived a notion of going across to Norway and taking a long walking tour in a district well out of the tourist track. He mentioned this to Lucian, and— why, he could scarcely explain to himself at the moment
asked him to go with him. Lucian 's imagination was fired at the mere notion of exploring a country which he had never seen before, and he accepted the invitation with fervour. A week later they sailed from Newcastle, and for a whole month they spent nights and days side by side amidst comparative solitudes. Each began to
In making this wrong.
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 165
understand the other, and when, just before the end of September, they returned to England, they had becorne firm friends, and were gainers by their pilgrimage in more ways than one.
CHAPTER XIX
When Lucian went back to town Haidee was winding up a short round of visits in the North; she rejoined him a week later in high spirits and excellent health.
had been delightful; everybody had been nice to her; no end of people had talked about Lucian and his new play — she was dreaming already of the glories of the first night and of the radiance which would centre about herself as the wife of the briUiant young author. Lucian had returned from Norway in equally
health and spirits; he was confident about the tragedy and the epic: he and his wife therefore settled down to confront an immediate prospect of success and pleasure. Haidee resumed her usual round of social gaieties; Lucian was much busied with rehearsals at the theatre and long discussions with Harcourt; neither had a care nor an anxiety, and the wheels of their little world moved smoothly.
Saxonstowe, who had come back to town for a few weeks before going abroad again, took to calling a good deal at the little house in Mayfair. He had come to understand and to like Lucian, and though they were as dissimilar in character as men of different tempera- ment can possibly be, a curious bond of friendship, expressed in tacit acquiescence rather than in open avowal, sprang up between them. Each had a respect for the other's world—a respect which was amusing to Sprats, who, watching them closely, knew that each admired the other in a somewhat sheepish, schoolboy fashion. Lucian, being the less reserved of the two, made no secret of his admiration of the man who had done things the doing of which necessitated bravery, endurance, and self-denial. He was a fervent wor- shipper—almost to a pathetic extreme—of men of
action: the sight of soldiers marching made his toes 1 66
Everything
good
LUCIAN THE DREAMER
167
tingle and his eyes fill with the moisture of enthusiasm; he had been so fascinated by the mere sight of a great Arctic explorer that he had followed him from one town to another during a lecturing tour, simply to stare at him and conjure up for himself the scenes and adventures through which the man had passed. He dehghted in hearing Saxonstowe talk about his life in the deserts, and enjoyed it all the more because Saxonstowe had small gift of language and told his tale with the blushes of a schoolboy who hates making a fuss about anjrthing that he has done. Saxonstowe, on his part, had a sneaking liking, amounting almost to worship, for men who live in a world of dreams — he had no desire to live in such a world himself, but he cherished an
immense respect for men who, like Lucian, could create. Sometimes he would read a page of the new epic and wonder how on earth it all came into Lucian 's head; Lucian at the same moment was probably turning over the leaves of Saxonstowe' s book and wondering how a man could go through all that that laconic young gentle- man had gone through and yet come back with a stiff upper lip and a smile.
* You and Lucian Damerel appear to have become something of friends,' Lady Firmanence remarked to her nephew when he called upon her one day. ' I don't know that there's much in common between you. '
' Perhaps that is why we are friends,' said Saxon- stowe. ' You generally do get on with people who are a bit different to yourself, don't you? '
Lady Firmanence made no direct answer to this question.
' I've no doubt*Lucian is easy enough to get on with,' she said dryly. The mischief in him, Saxonstowe, is that he's too easy-going about everything. I suppose you know, as you're a sort of friend of the family, that a good deal is being said about Mrs. Damerel and Eustace Darlington? '
' No,' said Saxonstowe; ' I'm not in the way to hear that sort of thing. '
i68 LUCIAN THE DREAMER
' I don't know that you're any the better for being out of the way. I am in the way. There's a good deal being said,' Lady Firrnanence retorted with some asperity. ' I beheve some of you young men think it a positive crime to hsten to the smallest scrap of gossip— it's nothing of the sort. If you live in the world you must learn all you can about the people who make up the world. '
Saxonstowe nodded. His eyes fixed themselves on a toy dog which snored and snuffled at Lady Fir- manence's feet.
' And in this particular case? ' he said.
* Why was Lucian Damerel so foohsh as to go off in one direction while his wife went in another with the man she originally meant to marry? ' inquired Lady Firmanence. ' Come now, Saxonstowe, would you have done that? '
' No,' he said hesitatingly, ' I don't think I should; but then, you see, Damerel looks at things differently. I don't think he would ever give the foolishness of it a thought, and he would certainly think no evil—he's as guileless as a child. '
' Well,' remarked Lady Firmanence, ' I don't admire him any the more for that. I'm a bit out of love with grown-up children. If Lucian Damerel marries a wife he should take care of her. Why, she was three weeks on Darlington's yacht, and three weeks at his place in Scotland (of course there were lots of other people there too, but even then it was foolish), and he was with her at two or three country houses in Northumberland later on—I met them at one myself. ' '
' Lucian and his wife,' said Saxonstowe, fond of having their own way. '
are very
Lady Firmanence looked at her nephew out of her
eye-comers. '
' Oh ! ' she said, with a caustic irony, you think so,
do you? Well, you know, young people who like to have their own way generally come to grief. To my
LUCIAN THE DREAMER 169
mind, your new friends seem to be qualifying for trouble/
Saxonstowe studied the pattern of the carpet and traced bits of it out with his stick.
' Do you think men like Damerel have the power of reckoning things up? ' he said, suddenly looking at his
' I don't quite understand these things, but he always seems to me to
aunt with a quick, appealing glance.
be a bit impatient of anything that has to do with every- day life, and yet he's keen enough about it in one way. He's a real good chap, you know—kindly natured and
and all that. You soon find that in him. And I don't beheve he ever had a wrong thought of anybody—he's a sort of confiding trust in other people that's a bit amusing, even to me, and I haven't seen
open-hearted
such an awful lot of the world. But
a sudden pause and shook his head.
' He came to Lady Firmanence
laughed. " "
' Yes, but,' she repeated. ' That but makes all the difference. But this is Lucian Damerel—he is a
child who sits in a gaily caparisoned, comfortably appointed boat which has been launched on a wide river that runs through a mighty valley. He has neither sail nor rudder, and he is so intent on the beauty of the scenery through which he is swept that he does not recognise their necessity. His eyes are fixed on the rose- flushed peak of a far-off mountain, the glitter of the sunshine on a dancing wave, or on the basket of provi- sions which thoughtful hands have put in the boat. It may be that the boat will glide to its destination in safety, and land him on the edge of a field of velvety grass wherein he can lie down in peace to dream as long as he pleases. But it also may be that it will run on a rock in mid-stream and knock his fool's paradise into a cocked hat—and what's going to happen then? ' asked Lady Firmanence.
' Lots of things might happen,' said Saxonstowe, smiling triumphantly at the thought of beating his clever relative at her own game. * He might be able to swim.
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LUCIAN THE DREAMER
for example. He might right the boat, get into it again, and learn by experience that one shouldn't go fooling about without a rudder. Some other chap might come along and give him a hand. Or the river might be so shallow that he could walk ashore with no more dis- comfort than he would get from wet feet. *
her lips and regarded her nephew with a fixed stare which lasted until the smile
died out of his face.
* Or there might be a crocodile, or an alligator, at
hand, which he could saddle and bridle, and con- vert into a park hack,' she said. * There are indeed many things which might happen; what I'm chiefly concerned about is, what would happen if Lucian's Httle boat did upset? I confess that I should know Lucian Damerel much more thoroughly, and have a more accurate conception of him, if I knew exactly what he would say and do when
Lady Finnanence pursed
There is no moment in life, Saxonstowe, wherein a man's real self, real character,
real quality, is so severely tested and laid bare as that unexpected one in which Fortune seizes him by the scruff of his neck and bundles him into the horsepond of adversity—it's what he says and does when he comes up spluttering that stamps him as a man or a mouse. '
Saxonstowe felt tolerably certain of what any man would say under the circumstances alluded to by Lady Firmanence, but as she seemed highly delighted with her similes and her epigrams, he said nothing of his convic- tions, and soon afterwards took his departure^
the upsetting happened.
CHAPTER XX
On a certain Monday morning in the following November, Lucian's great epic was published to the trade and the world, and the leading newspapers devoted a good deal of their space to remarking upon its merits, its demerits, and its exact relation to literature. Lucian found a pile of the London morning dailies of the superior sort awaiting his attention when he descended
to his breakfast-room, and he went through them systematically. When he had made an end of them he looked across the table at Haidee, and he smiled in what she thought a rather queer way.
' I say, Haidee ! ' he exclaimed, ' these reviews are— well, they're not very flattering. There are six mighty voices of the press here, — Times, Telegraph, Post, News, Chronicle, and Standard—and there appears to be a strange unanimity of opinion in their pronunciations. The epic poem seems to be at something of a discount. '
The reviews, in fact, were not couched in an enthusiastic vein—taking them as a whole they were cold. There was a ring of disappointment in them. One reviewer, daring to be bold, plain, and somewhat brutal, said there was more genuine poetry in any one page of any of Mr. Damerel's previous volumes than in the whole four hundred of his new one. Another openly declared his belief that the poem was the result of long years of careful, scholarly labour, of constant polishing, resetting, and rewriting; it smelled strongly of the lamp, but the smell of the lamp was not in evidence in the fresh, free, passionate work which they had previously had from the same pen. Mr.
