CHAPTER LXXI
It was five o"clock, and d.i.c.ky Pilkington was at his ease stretched before the fire in a low chair in the drawing-room of the flat he now habitually shared with Poppy Grace. It was beat.i.tude to lie there with his legs nicely toasting, to have his tea (which he did not drink) poured out for him by the most popular little variety actress in London, and to know that she had found in him her master. This evening, his intellect in play under many genial influences, d.i.c.ky was once more raising the paean of Finance. Under some piquant provocation, too; for Poppy had just informed him, that she "didn"t fancy his business."
"Now, look here," said d.i.c.ky, "you call yourself an artist. Well--this business of mine isn"t a business, it"s an art. Think of the delicacy we "ave to use. To know to a hairsbreadth how far you can go with a man, to know when to give him his head with the snaffle and when to draw him in with the curb. It"s a feelin" your way all along. Why, I knew a fellow, a broker--an uncommonly clever chap he was, too--ruined just for want of a little tact. He was too precipitate, began hauling his man up just when he ought to have let him go. He"d no imagination, that fellow. (Don"t you go eating too much cake, Popsie, or you"ll make your little nose red.) I don"t know any other profession gives you such a grip of life and such a feelin" of power. You"ve got some young devil plungin" about, kickin" up his heels all over the shop, say. He thinks he"s got the whole place to break his neck in; and you know the exact minute by your watch that you can bring him in grovellin" on your office floor. It"s the iron "and in the velvet glove," said d.i.c.ky.
"I know what you"re driving at, and I call it a beastly shame."
"No, it isn"t. I shouldn"t wonder if old Rickets paid up all right, after all."
"And if he doesn"t?"
"If he doesn"t--Well--"
"I say, though, think wot a lot he"s paid you. Can"t you let him go?"
d.i.c.ky shook his head and smiled softly as at some interior vision.
"You"ll ruin him for a dirty fifty pounds?"
"I won"t ruin him. And it isn"t for the money, it"s for the game. I like," said d.i.c.ky, "to see a man play in first-cla.s.s style. But I don"t blame him if he hasn"t got style so long as he"s got pluck. In fact, I don"t know that of the two I wouldn"t rather have pluck. I"ve seen a good many men play this game, but I"ve never seen any one who came up to old Razors for pluck _and_ style. It"s a treat to see him.
Do you suppose I"m going to cut in now and spoil it all by giving him points? That would take all the gilt off the gingerbread. And do you suppose he"d let me? Not he; he"s spreading the gilt on thick, and he"d see me d----d first."
d.i.c.ky smoked, with half-closed eyes fixed on the fire, in speechless admiration. He felt that he was encouraging the display of high heroism by watching it. He singled out a beautiful writhing flame, spat at it, and continued: "No, I"ll take good care that Rickets doesn"t starve. But I"m going to stand by and see him finish fair. If you like, Popsie, you can back him to win. I don"t care if he _doe"_ win. It would be worth it for what I"ve got out of him."
By what he had got out of him d.i.c.ky meant, not three thousand seven hundred and odd pounds, but a spectacle beyond all comparison exciting and sublime. For that he was prepared to abandon any further advantage that might be wrung from the Harden library by a successful manipulation of the sales.
Poppy did not back Rickman to win; but she determined to call on him at his rooms, and leave a little note with a cheque and a request that he would pay d.i.c.ky and have done with him. "You"d better owe it to me than to him, old chappy"; thus she wrote in the kindness and impropriety of her heart. But Rickman never got that little note.
CHAPTER LXXII
Of all the consequences of that terrible dinner at Rankin"s there was none that Rickman resented more than the loss of his overcoat. As he lay between his blankets he still felt all the lashings of the east wind around his shivering body. He was awake all that night, and the morning found him feverish with terror of the illness that might overtake him before he attained his end. He stayed in bed all day to prevent it, and because of his weakness, and for warmth.
But the next day there came a mild and merciful thaw, a tenderness of Heaven that was felt even under the tiles in Howland Street. And the morning of that day brought a thing that in all his dreams he had not yet dreamed of, a letter from Lucia.
He read it kneeling on the floor of his garret, supporting himself by the edge of the table. It was only a few lines in praise of the Elegy (which had appeared in _The Planet_ the week before) and a postscript that told him she would be staying at Court House with Miss Palliser till the summer.
He knelt there a long time with his head bowed upon his arms. His brains failed him when he tried to write an answer, and he put the letter into his breast-pocket, where it lay like a loving hand against his heart. And yet there was not a word of love in it.
The old indomitable hope rose in his heart again and he forced himself to eat and drink, that he might have strength for the things he had to do. That night he did not sleep, but lay wrapt in his beatific pa.s.sion. His longing was so intense that it created a vision of the thing it longed for. It seemed to him that he heard Lucia"s soft footfall about his bed, that she came and sat beside his pillow, that she bowed her head upon his breast, and that her long hair drifted over him. For the beating of his own heart gave him the sense of a presence beside him all night long, as he lay with his right arm flung across his own starved body, guarding her letter, the letter that had not a word of love in it.
In the morning he discovered that another letter had lain on his table under Lucia"s. It was from d.i.c.ky Pilkington, reminding him that it wanted but seven days to the thirtieth. d.i.c.ky said nothing about any willingness to renew the bill. What did it matter? d.i.c.ky would renew it, d.i.c.ky must renew it; he felt that there was force in him to compel d.i.c.ky to renew it. He went out and bought a paper with the price of a meal of milk (he couldn"t p.a.w.n his good clothes; their a.s.sistance was too valuable in interviews with possible employers). He found the advertis.e.m.e.nt of an Exeter bookseller in want of a foreman and expert cataloguer at a salary of ninety pounds. He answered it by return. In the list of his credentials he mentioned that he had catalogued the Harden library (a feat, as he knew, sufficient to const.i.tute him a celebrity in the eyes of the Exeter man). He added that if the bookseller felt inclined to consider his application he would be obliged by a wire, as he had several other situations in view.
The bookseller wired engaging him for six months. The same day came a cheque for ten pounds from _The Planet_, the honorarium for the Elegy.
He sent the ten pounds to d.i.c.ky at once (by way of showing what he could do) with a curt note informing him of his appointment and requesting a renewal for three months, by which time his salary would cover the remainder still owing.
Feeling that no further intellectual efforts were now required of him he went out to feed on the fresh air. As he crossed the landing an odour of hot pottage came to meet him. Through the ever-open door he caught a glimpse of a woman"s form throned, as it were, above clouds of curling steam. A voice went out, hoa.r.s.e with a supreme emotion.
"Come in, you there, and "ave a snack, wontcher?" it said.
"No, thank you," he answered.
"Garn then. I"ll snack yer for a ----y fool!"
And from the peaceableness of the reply he gathered that this time the lady was not soliciting patronage but conferring it.
He was no longer hungry, no longer weighed upon by his exhausted body.
A great restlessness had seized it, a desire to walk, to walk on and on without stopping. The young day had lured him into the Regent"s Park. So gentle was the weather that, but for bare branches and blanched sky, it might have been a day in Spring. As he walked he experienced sensations of indescribable delicacy and lightness, he saw ahead of him pellucid golden vistas of metaphysical splendour, he skimmed over fields of elastic air with the ease and ecstasy of a blessed spirit.
When he came in he found that the experience prolonged itself through the early night, even when he lay motionless on his bed staring at the wall. And as he stared it seemed to him that there pa.s.sed upon the wall clouds upon clouds of exquisite and evanescent colour, and that strange forms appeared and moved upon the clouds. He saw a shoal of fishes (they _were_ fishes, radiant, iridescent, gorgeous fishes, with the tails of peac.o.c.ks); they swam round and round the room just under the cornice, an ever-revolving, ever-floating frieze. He was immensely interested in these decorative hallucinations. His brain seemed to be lifted up, to be iridescent also, to swim round and round with the swimming fishes.
He woke late in the morning with a violent sore throat and pain in all his body. He was too giddy to sit up and help himself, but he knocked weakly on the thin wall. His neighbour roused herself at the faint summons and appeared. She stood at the foot of the bed with her hands on her hips and contemplated him for a moment. He tried to speak, but his tongue seemed to be stuck burning to the roof of his mouth. He pointed to his throat.
"Yes, I dessay," said she. "I said you"d get somefing and you"ve got it." So saying she disappeared into her own apartment.
As he saw her go despair shook him. He thought that he was abandoned.
But presently she returned, bringing a cup of hot tea with a dash of gin in it from her own breakfast.
"I"d a seen to you afore ef you"d let me," she said. "You tyke it from me, young man, wot you wants is a good hot lining to your belly. I"d "ave given it to you ef you"d a let me. I"m a lydy as tykes her dinner reg"ler, I am. No, you don"t--" This, as he turned away his head in protest. She however secured it firmly with one filthy hand, while with the other she held the reeking cup to his lips. She had put it to her own first to test the heat and quality of the brew. Yet he was grateful. He had some difficulty in swallowing; and from time to time she wiped his mouth with her villainous ap.r.o.n; and he was grateful still, having pa.s.sed beyond disgust.
She perceived the grat.i.tude. "Garn," said she, "wot"s a cup er tea?
I"d a seen to yer afore ef you"d a let me."
She continued her ministrations; she brought coal in her own scuttle and after immense pains she lighted a fire in the wretched grate. Then she smoothed his bed-clothes till they were covered with her s.m.u.tty trail. She would have gone for a doctor then and there, but difficulty arose. For doctors meant hospitals, and the man below threatened to sell his lodger"s "sticks" if rent were not forthcoming. She cast her eyes about in search of p.a.w.nable articles. They fell upon his clothes.
She took up his shirt and examined it carefully, appraising the sleeve links and the studs. But when she touched the coat, the coat that had Lucia"s letter in the breast-pocket, Rickman turned in his bed and made agonizing signs, struggling with the voice that perished in his burning throat.
"Wot"s the good," said she, "of a suit when yer can"t wear it? As I telled you wot you wa--No, the"s no sorter use your making fyces at me. And you keep your ----y legs in, or I"ll--" The propositions that followed were murmured in a hoa.r.s.e but crooning tone such as a mother might have used to soothe a fractious child. She went away, carrying the clothes with her, and turned out the pockets in her den.
On her return she sent the man below to fetch the doctor. But the man below fell in with boon companions on the way, and no doctor came. All that night the woman watched by Rickman"s bedside, heedless of her luck. She kept life in him by feeding him with warm milk and gin, a teaspoonful at a time. Rickman, aware of footsteps in the room, fancied himself back again in Rankin"s dressing-room. The whole scene of that evening floated before him all night long. He had a sense of presences hostile and offended, of being irretrievably disgraced. In the recurring nightmare he saw Lucia Harden instead of Mrs. Rankin. So persistently did he see her that when he woke he could not shake off the impression that she had been actually, if unaccountably, present, a spectator of his uttermost disgrace. He could never look her in the face again. No, for he was disgraced; absolutely, irredeemably, atrociously disgraced. Beyond all possibility of explanation and defence; though he sometimes caught himself explaining and pleading against those offended phantoms of his brain. Why should he suffer so?
Just because of his inability to deal with Rankin"s never-ending dinner, or to pay a debt of millions, many millions of figures that climbed up the wall. He was not sure which of these two obligations was laid upon him.
He became by turns delirious and drowsy, and the woman fetched a doctor early the next day. He found enteric and blood-poisoning also, of which Rickman"s illness at the Rankins" must have been the first warning symptoms.
"He"ll have to go to the hospital; but you"d better send word to his friends."
""E ain"t got no friends. And _I_ dunno "oo "e is."
The doctor said to himself, "Gone under," and looked round him for a clue. He examined a postcard from Spinks and a parcel (containing an overcoat) from Rankin, with the novelist"s name and address inside the wrapper. The poet"s name was familiar to the doctor, who read _Metropolis_. He first of all made arrangements for removing his patient to the hospital. Then in his uncertainty he telegraphed to Jewdwine, to Rankin and to Spinks.
The news of Rickman"s illness was thus spread rapidly among his friends. It brought Spinks that afternoon, and Flossie, the poor Beaver, dragged to Howland Street by her husband to see what her woman"s hands could do. They entered upon a scene of indescribable confusion and clangour. Poppy Grace, arrived on her errand (for which she had attired herself in a red dress and ermine tippet), had mounted guard over the unconscious poet.
"Ricky," cried Poppy, bending over him, "won"t you speak to me? It"s Poppy, dear. Don"t you know me?"
"No, "e don"t know yer, so you needn"t arsk "im."