Chapter Twenty Six.
Two Meetings.
For three days Roland lay in his shabby lodgings, too ill to stir from his bed; and but for the consciousness that, if he would accomplish his purpose, he must rouse himself, and determine to rally, the probability is that he would never have risen from it at all.
The effort must be made. His vitality, sadly impaired by a long course of semi-starvation, must be restored by the contrary treatment. He was not going to die in any such squalid hole as this, among the dirty and repellant semblances of humanity, who, under the circumstances, grudgingly ministered to his wants. Not he. He would get up; try whether the air would set him on his legs again, and if so, would certainly carry out his plan the very next day. His funds, considerably replenished by the price of parting with his last, faithful friend, would enable him to do this, only it must be done at once, and then—afterwards! Well, he had a plan.
Rising with an effort from his bed, Roland proceeded to dress himself, with infinite difficulty, for he felt wretchedly weak and dazed. Then at the picture which his distorted and cracked mirror presented him with, he fairly started. His beard, which he had allowed to grow at will since his misfortunes, was now plentifully streaked with grey, and with such alarming suddenness had this come about that he stared at his reflected face in amazement. Then he remembered with sardonic bitterness that this circumstance would yet further aid his plans. Who would recognise him now?
It was afternoon when he sallied forth. With a pang he missed his attached companion, and his sense of loneliness seemed enhanced tenfold. The short winter day was already closing in, and a keen north-easter, wafting particles of sleet from the black and riftless sky, chilled him to the bone. Anything, though, rather than remain longer in the frightful depression of his dingy rooms.
The dark sky and the winter gloom struck him as an earnest of what life was to be henceforth. The pinched and sour expression on the countenance of the British public struggling in the teeth of the biting north-easter, reflected aptly the attitude of the world towards him who is irrevocably down. Nothing was above a certain value—not even life, for may not life itself be held on terms too hard?
His wanderings had brought him to Charing Cross, and walking a little way up the Strand he turned into a well-known tavern to dine. Then it occurred to him that he might as well look out a certain train.
But the A.B.C. time-table, requisite for this purpose, was not among the resources of the establishment.
“Where can I get one, then?” he asked.
“We can send out for one, sir,” said the waiter.
“Then do.”
Not till an hour had passed was the A.B.C. put into his hands.
“Why the devil have you been so long about it?” he asked, rendered irritable by the fatigue and excitement of the day, as he snatched it in eager haste, and his hands trembled as he turned over the leaves.
“What the devil are you staring at now?” he cried, looking up and meeting the glance of the waiter, who was watching him curiously. The man muttered a word of apology and hastened away.
At length he found the train he wanted, put a mark against it, and turned down the corner of the page. Then he fell into a profound reverie. Suddenly he started up, paid his bill and hurried away.
“Tom,” said the waiter who had attended on him, hailing a colleague. “See that cove just gone out?”
“Yes.”
“Should you know him again?”
“Swear to him anywhere,” was the laconic reply.
“’E’s a queer ’un. Look. ’E’s left his time-table that he kicked up such a blessed row about gettin’. Wonder where ’e’s a-goin’. Look ’ere, it’s turned down and marked.”
At that moment Roland had suddenly come to a standstill in the street, and like the proverbial Caledonian, was swearing “at large.” For it had dawned upon him that he had forgotten his A.B.C. Should he go back for it? No; too far. He would get another.
But little he dreamed what gigantic importance to his weal or woe that trivial act of forgetfulness would one day assume.
The cold was cutting, and just now a gust of driving sleet swept down upon him, and in contrast he became aware of the glaring portico of a variety theatre just in front. There at any rate he would be warm. Once within, seated, with something to drink in front of him, and smoking a cigar—the first for several long months—he gave himself up to a sheer sense of warmth and physical comfort, which, combined with the effects of the stimulants, produced a state of dreamy placidity. To the performance he paid no attention whatever. Turn after turn was the same, dull, tawdry, idiotic—but each intensely respectable in its vulgar way.
Overcome by the stuffiness of the place, he went out for a little while. On his return the house was in a ferment of excitement. The star performer of the evening had just been on—and off; an athletic exhibition apparently, as the attendants were removing a net and tight rope, among other things; and a popular one, for some belated hand-clapping was still going on. But for him it had no more interest than had any of the others, nor did the overheard remarks made by those in the neighbourhood—to the effect that they wouldn’t have missed it for anything—strike him with any overwhelming sense of loss. Then, as the performance drew to an end, he made his way into the street.
The sleet showers had ceased, the wind had gone down, and the night, clear and fine, was an agreeable contrast to the confined atmosphere and garish interior of the theatre. Roland, threading the hurrying crowds homeward-bound from the numerous places of entertainment, felt small inclination to follow their example. He preferred the open air. Strolling down Whitehall, unaware of a figure in a long ulster following at some little distance behind, he reached Westminster Bridge. It seemed very still and quiet here. The bridge was destitute of passers-by, and the double crescent of lights twinkled like eyes upon the dark waters. The tide was at ebb, and the black current swirled beneath the piers with many a hiss and hollow gurgle, and the solitary watcher felt chained to the spot by a weird and intangible fascination. Just then, with sepulchral boom, “Great Tom” began tolling the hour of midnight.
The pedestrian turned to retrace his steps. As he did so the figure in the ulster stopped suddenly, and faced him. The move had been well timed. Roland gave a great start, and stared in bewildered fashion upon the face confronting him in the full glare of the lamplight, for he was looking into the limpid blue eyes of Lizzie Devine.
“Well!” she said, and there was a flash of white teeth as the full lips parted into a very attractive smile, which broadened into a little laugh at the sudden and cold look of disapproval which had frozen up the expression of the other’s face. “That’s right, think the worst of me,” she went on. “Only, if you do, you happen to be wrong—though it’s little enough difference it would make to you, I should suppose, even if you weren’t.”
“What on earth are you doing up here, Lizzie?” he said, ignoring the “feeler.”
“Left Cranston for good, eh?”
“Don’t know. I left soon after you did, so can’t give you all the latest news, I’m afraid.”
“There never is any down there, so that’s no loss,” he said with affected carelessness. But not for a moment did it deceive the other, and a great wave of pitiful tenderness welled up within her heart. She had all the admiration of her class for “gameness,” and now, as she noted the ravages which ill-fortune and consequent ill-health had wrought upon the appearance of this man, she needed none to tell her to what depths of poverty he had dropped. Yet he carried it—for her benefit at any rate—with the same careless ease as he had done the enviable circumstances under which they had last met.
“Why did you go out just before my ‘turn,’ and come back just after?” she said. “Did you know it was me?”
“Your ‘turn’?” he repeated mystified. “Very sorry, but I don’t quite follow.”
“You were in the Abracadabra the whole evening, and the only turn you missed was mine.”
He began to see. This, then, was Lizzie’s line at present, yet how on earth, under the absurd and Italianised stage-name on the programme, even if it had attracted his attention at all, could he ever have dreamed of looking for Lizzie Devine?
“Why, of course, I had no idea it was you,” he said.
“Well, you see, you needn’t have looked so black and suspicious at me. I’m a first-rate draw there, I can tell you, and that’s worth something a week. And I’ve got other engagements sticking out that are better still.”
“I’m delighted to hear it, Lizzie. And—how well you’re looking!”
“That’s more than you are,” she said quickly, the glow of pride and pleasure evoked by the compliment from his lips giving way to a helpless feeling of compunction and concern as she looked at him, the while in a confused whirl her thoughts were chasing each other round and round. She had heard enough of Cranston gossip to know what had happened between General Dorrien and his eldest son, and now the appearance of the latter, accidentally encountered after all this time, had enabled her shrewdly to fill up the gap. What could she do? If only she could help him. She had gone up in the world materially, and was going up still more—not by reason of her performance, which was only average, but by her rare physical attractiveness—and was commanding large salaries. Yet withal, she had kept straight by reason of the memory of the man talking with her here to-night; but ah! what a wreck he was compared with his former self, and the reason thereof nobody was more capable of appreciating. Yet she knew she was as powerless to help him in the slightest degree as yon ragged tramp “singing” outside the public-house over the road just before closing time; and that apart from the certainty that now he only saw her as the daughter of a flagrantly drunken and disreputable village rowdy.
“Getting late, isn’t it?” he said, misinterpreting her silence. “We might drop in somewhere and get a ‘split’ or something before closing time.”
“We’ll drop in and get something—yes,” she answered decisively, “but nowhere else than in my own place. You’re not too proud, are you—remembering old times on the other side? No, you can’t be.”
He laughed wearily. “I don’t know. I’m not much up to conviviality these days. I think I’ll go and turn in. Fact is I’m beastly tired.”
“Great Scott, but that’s a fine girl!” said a voice behind, obviously not intended to be heard by its object or her escort. “Wonder if she’ll be as disappointing as to the face.”
“They generally are,” said another.
There was that in the tone to make Roland Dorrien start. Three young men in evening dress and crush hats overtook and passed them, and simultaneously three heads came round to look at his companion. But one head remained around a moment longer than the others, and it took in not only the face of the girl but that of himself, and in it he beheld once more the face of his brother Hubert. And it needed not the start the latter gave to show that the recognition was not one-sided.