Mrs. Snell often spoke to her husband about "Miss Rita." "If that there Hands could be got rid of," she would say, "then it would be ever so much better. Poor silly thing that he is, with his face like the underside of a Dover sole! And two hundred a year for doing nothing more than what Miss Rita tells him! He calls her "Miss"--as I"m sure he should, her being a Commander"s daughter and him just a dirty Birmingham clerk! Miss Rita ought to have his two hundred a year, and him her thirty-five shillings a week. Thirty-five shillings! what is it for an officer"s daughter, that was born at Malta too! I"d like to give that old Podley a piece of my mind, I would!"
"In the first place he never comes here. In the second place he"s not a gentleman himself, so that don"t mean nothing to him," Snell would say on such occasion of talk.
He had been at the Bombardment of Alexandria and could not quite forget it... . "Now if it was Lord Charles what had started this--"--Magneta--" library, then _"e_ could "a" been spoke to--Podley!"
It was four o"clock on the afternoon of the day after the Amberleys"
dinner-party. Hands was away, staying beside his sick wife, and Rita Wallace proposed to close the library.
She had just got rid of the curate from a neighbouring church, who had discovered the deserted place--and her. Snubbed with skill the boy had departed, and as no one else would come--or if they did what would it matter?--Rita was about to press the b.u.t.ton of the electric bell upon her table and summon Snell.
The afternoon sunlight poured in upon the books from the window in the dome.
The place was cool and absolutely silent, save for the note a straying drone-bee made as his diapason swept this way and that.
Even here, as the sunlight fell upon the dusty gold and crimson of the books, summer was calling. The bee came close to Rita and settled for a moment upon the sulphur-coloured rose that stood in a specimen-gla.s.s upon her writing-table.
He was a big fellow, and like an Alderman in a robe of black fur, bearing a gold chain.
"Oh, you darling!" Rita said, thinking of summer and the outside world.
She would go to Kensington Palace Gardens where there were trees, green gra.s.s and flowers. "Oh, you darling! You"re a little jewel with a voice, a bit of the real country! I believe you"ve actually been droning over the hop-fields of Kent!"
She looked up suddenly, her eyes startled, the perfect mouth parted in vexation. Some one was coming, she might be kept any length of time--for the rare visitors to the Podley Library were generally bores.
... That silly curate might have returned!
The outer swing doors thudded in the hall, there was the click of a latch as the inner door was pushed open and Gilbert Lothian entered.
The girl recognised him at once, as he made his way under the dome towards her, and her eyes grew wide with wonder. Lothian was wearing a suit of grey flannel, his hair as he took off his straw hat was a little tumbled, his face fresh and clear.
"How do you do," he said, with the half-shy deference that came into his voice when he spoke to women. "It was such a lovely afternoon that I thought I might venture to bring back your copy of "Surgit Amari"
myself."
Rita Wallace flashed her quick, humorous smile at him--the connection between the weather and his wish was not too obvious. But her smile had pleasure of another kind in it also--he had wanted to see her again.
Lothian laughed boyishly. "I wanted to see you again," he said, in the very words of her thought.
The girl was flattered and delighted. There was not the slightest hint of self-consciousness in her manner, and the flush that came into her cheeks was one of pure friendliness.
"It is very kind of you to take so much trouble," she said in a voice as sweet as singing. "I was so disappointed when you had to go away so early from the Amberleys" last night."
She did not say the conventional thing about how much his poems had meant to her. Girls that he met--and they were not many--nearly always did, and he always disliked it. Such things meant nothing when they came as part of ordinary greetings. They jarred upon the poet"s sensitive taste and he was pleased and interested to find that this girl said nothing of the sort.
"Well, here"s the book," he said, putting it down upon Rita"s table.
"And I"ve written in it as you asked. Do you collect autographs then?"
She shook her head. "Oh, dear me no," she answered. "I think it"s silly to collect anything that isn"t beautiful. But, in a book one values, and with which one has been happy, the author"s autograph seems to add to the book"s personality. But I hate crazes. There are lots of girls that wait outside stage doors to make popular actors write in their books. Did you know that, Mr. Lothian?"
"No, I didn"t! Little donkeys! Hard lines on the actors. Even I get a few alb.u.ms now and then, and it"s a fearful nuisance. I put off writing in them and they lie about my study until they get quite a battered and dissipated look."
"And then?"
"Oh, I write in them. It would be impolite not to, you know. I have an invaluable formula. I write, "Dear Madam, I am very sorry to say that I cannot accede to your kind request for an autograph. The practice is one with which I am not in sympathy. Yours very truly, Gilbert Lothian!""
"That"s splendid, Mr. Lothian, better than sending a telegram, as some one did the other day to an importunate girl. They were talking about it last night at the Amberleys" after you left. I suppose that"s really what gave me courage to send "Surgit Amari" by Mr. d.i.c.kson Ingworth.
Mr. and Mrs. Toftrees said that they always write pa.s.sages from their novels when they are asked."
"Perhaps that"s a good plan," Lothian answered, listening to the "viols in her voice" and not much interested in the minor advertising arts of the Toftrees. What rare maiden was this with whom he was chatting? What had made him come to see her after all?--a mere whim doubtless--but was he not about to reap a very delightful harvest?
For he was conscious of immense pleasure as he stood there talking to her, and there was excitement mingled with the pleasure. It was as though he was advancing upon a landscape, and at every step something fresh and interesting came into view.
"I _did_ so dislike Mr. Toftrees and his wife," Rita said with a mischievous little gleam in her eyes.
"Did you?" he asked in surprise. "They seemed very pleasant people I thought."
"I expect that was because you thought nothing whatever about them, Mr.
Lothian," she replied.
He realised the absolute truth of the remark in a flash. The novelists had in no way interested him. He had not thought about these people at all--this maiden was a psychologist then! There was something subtly flattering in what she had said. His point of view had interested the girl, she had discovered it, small and unimportant though it was.
"But why did you dislike poor Mr. Toftrees?" he said, with an eminently friendly smile--already an unconscious note of intimacy had been sounded, he was interested to hear why she disliked the man, not the woman.
"He is pompous and insincere," she replied. "He tries to draw attention to his great success, or rather his notoriety, by pretending to despise it. Surely, it would be far more manly to accept the fact frankly, and not to hint that he could be a great artist if he could bring himself to do without a lot of money!"
Lothian wondered what had provoked this little outburst. It was quiveringly sincere, that he saw. His eyes questioned hers.
"It"s such dreadful appalling treacle they write! I saw a little flapper in the Tube two days ago, with the Toftrees" latest book--"Milly Mine." Her expression was ecstatic!"
"For my part I think that"s something to have done, do you know, to have taken that flapper out of the daily tube of her life into Romance.
Heaven with electric lights and plush fittings is better than none at all. I couldn"t grudge the flapper her ecstasy, nor Mr. Toftrees his big cheques. I should very much like to see the people in Tubes reading my books--it would be good for them--and to pouch enormous cheques myself--would be good for me! But there must be Toftrees sort of persons now that every one knows how to read!"
"Well, I"ll let his work alone," she answered, "but I certainly do dislike him. He was trying to run your work down last night--though we wouldn"t let him."
So the secret was out now! Lothian smiled and the quick, enthusiastic girl understood. A little ripple of laughter came from her.
"Yes, that"s it," she cried. "He did all he could."
"Did he? Confound him! I wonder why?"
Lothian asked the question with entire simplicity. Subtle-minded and complex as he was, he was incapable of mean thoughts and muddy envy when he was not under the influence of drink.
Poisoned, alas, he was entirely different. All the evil in him rose to the surface. As yet it by no means obscured or overpowered the good, but it became manifest and active.
In the case of this fine intellect and splendid artist, no less than in the worker in the slum or the labourer in the field, drink seemed an actual key to unlock the dark and secret doors of wickedness which are in every heart. Some coiled and sleeping serpent within him, no less than in them, raised its head into baleful life and sudden enmity of good.
A few nights ago, half intoxicated in a club--intoxicated in mind that is, for he was holding forth with a caustic bitterness and sharp brilliancy that had drawn a crowd around him--he had abused the work of Herbert Toftrees and his wife with contemptuous and venomous words.
He was quite unconscious that he had ever done so. He knew nothing about the couple and had never read a line of their works. The subject had just cropped up somehow, like a bird from a stubble, and he had let fly. It was pure coincidence that he had met the novelists at the Amberleys" and Lothian had entirely forgotten that he had ever mentioned their work at the club.