"Dear Sir," he wrote (or rather, some woman had written for him), "I came across your Poems the other day; by chance, I must confess, and not by choice. I have something to say to you about them, and I would therefore be glad if you could call on me here, to-morrow. I say, call on me; for I am an old man, and you, if I am not mistaken, are a young one; and I say to-morrow, because the day after to-morrow I may not have that desire to see you which I feel to-day.
"Faithfully yours,
"Walter Fielding.
"PS.--You had better come in time for lunch at one o"clock."
Rickman"s hand trembled as he answered that letter. All evening he said to himself, "To-morrow I shall see Fielding"; and the beating of his heart kept him awake until the dawn of the wonderful day. And as he dressed he said to himself, "To-day I shall see Fielding." That he should see him was enough. He could hardly bear to think what Fielding had to say to him.
He had risen early, so as to go down into Surrey on his bicycle.
About noon he struck into the long golden road that goes straight across the high moor where the great poet had built him a house.
Inside his gates, a fork of the road sloped to the sh.o.r.e of a large lake fringed with the crimson heather. The house stood far back on a flat stretch of moor, that looked as if it had been cut with one sweep of a gigantic scythe from the sheltering pine-woods.
He saw Fielding far off, standing at the door of his house to welcome him. Fielding was seventy-five and he looked sixty. A strong straight figure, not over tall nor over slender, wearing, sanely but loosely, the ordinary dress of an English gentleman. A head with strong straight features, ma.s.ses of white hair that hid the summit of the forehead, a curling moustache and beard, close-clipped, showing the line of the mouth still red as in his youth. A head to be carved in silver or bronze, its edges bitten by time, like the edges of an antique bust or coin.
"So you"ve come, have you?" was his greeting which the grasp of his hand made friendly.
He took Rickman straight into his study, where a lady sat writing at a table in the window.
"First of all," said he, "I must introduce you to Miss Gurney, who introduced you to me."
Miss Gurney rose and held out a slender feverish hand. She did not smile (her face narrowed so abruptly below her cheekbones that there was hardly room for a smile on it), but her eyes under their thick black brows turned on him an eager gaze.
Her eyes, he thought, were too piercing to be altogether friendly. He wondered whether it was the flame in them that had consumed her face and made it so white and small.
She made a few unremarkable remarks and turned again to her writing table.
"Yes, Gertrude, you may go."
Her sallow nervous hands had already begun gathering up her work in preparation for the word that banished her. When it came she smiled (by some miracle), and went.
They had a little while to wait before luncheon. The poet offered whisky and soda, and could hardly conceal his surprise when it was refused.
"You must forgive me," he said presently, "for never having heard of you till yesterday. My secretary keeps these things from me as a rule.
This time she allowed herself to be corrupted."
Rickman felt a sudden interest in Miss Gurney.
"Your poems were sent to her by a friend of hers, with the request--a most improper one--that I should read them. I had no intention of reading them; but I was pleased with the volume at first sight. It was exactly the right length."
"The right length?"
"Yes, small octavo; the very best length for making cigar lighters."
Rickman had heard of the sardonic, the cruel humour with which Fielding scathed his contemporaries; still, he could hardly have expected even him to deal such a violent and devilish blow. Though he flushed with the smart he bore himself bravely under it. After all, it was to see Fielding that he had come.
"I am proud," said he, "to have served so luminous a purpose."
His readiness seemed to have disarmed the formidable Fielding. He leaned back in his chair and looked at the young man a moment or two without speaking. Then the demon stirred in him again with a malignant twinkle of his keen eyes.
"You see I was determined to treat you honourably, as you came to me through a friend of Miss Gurney"s. But for her, you would have gone where your contemporaries go--into the waste-paper basket. They serve no purpose--luminous or otherwise." He chuckled ominously. "I had the knife ready for you. But if you want to know why I paused in the deed of destruction, it was because I was fascinated, positively fascinated by the abominations of your ill.u.s.trator. And so, before I knew what I was doing (or I a.s.sure you I would never have done it), I had read, actually read the lines which the creature quotes at the bottom of his foul frontispiece. Why he quoted them I do not know--they have no more to do with his obscenities than I have. And then--I read the poem they were taken from."
He paused. His pauses were deadly.
"You have one great merit in my eyes."
Rickman looked up with a courageous smile, prepared for another double-edged pleasantry more murderous than the last.
"You have not imitated me."
For one horrible moment Rickman was inspired to turn some phrase about the hopelessness of imitating the inimitable. He thought better of it; but not before the old man divined his flattering intention. He shook himself savagely in his chair.
"Don"t--please don"t say what you were going to say. If you knew how I loathe my imitators. I shouldn"t have sent for you if you had been one of them."
His mind seemed to be diverted from his present victim by some voluptuous and iniquitous reminiscence. Then he began again. "But you and your _Saturnalia_--Ah!"
He leant forward suddenly as he gave out the interjection like a growl.
"Do you know you"re a very terrible young man? What do you mean by setting my old cracked heart dancing to those detestable tunes? I wish I"d never read the d----d things."
He threw himself back in his chair.
"No, no; you haven"t learnt any of those tunes from me. My Muse wears a straighter and a longer petticoat; and I flatter myself she has the manners of an English gentlewoman."
Rickman blushed painfully this time. He had no reply to make to that.
"I didn"t mean," Fielding went on, "to talk to you about your _Saturnalia_.
But _On Harcombe Hill_, and _The Song of Confession_--those are great poems."
Rickman looked up, startled out of his self-possession by the unexpected words and the sudden curious vibration in the voice that uttered them. Yet he could hardly realize that Fielding was praising him.
"They moved me," said Fielding, "as nothing moves me now, except the Psalms of David. I have been a great poet, as poets go nowadays; but"
(he smiled radiantly) "the painful conviction is forced upon me that you will be a greater--if you live. I wanted to tell you this, because n.o.body else is likely to find it out until you"re _dead_. You may make up your mind to that, my friend."
"I had made up my mind to many things. But they don"t matter--now."
Fielding ignored the compliment. "_Has_ any one found it out? Except yourself?"
"Only one person."
"Man or woman?"
He thought of Maddox, that irresponsible person. "A man. And perhaps he hardly counts."
The old poet gave him a keen glance from his all-knowing eyes.
"There _is_ one other person, who apparently doesn"t count, either.
Well, I think that was the luncheon-bell."