XXXVI
A certain Sunday in November, more than three months after she had gone to live in Madeira Crescent, was so important an occasion for the Princess as to require reporting with a certain fulness. Early in the afternoon a loud peal from her door-knocker came to her ear; it had a sound of resolution, almost of defiance, which made her look up from her book and listen. She was sitting alone by the fire, over a heavy volume on Labour and Capital. It was not yet four o’clock, but she had had candles this hour; a dense brown fog made the daylight impure without suggesting an answer to the question of whether the scheme of nature had been to veil or to deepen the sabbatical dreariness. She was not tired of Madeira Crescent, such an idea she would indignantly have repudiated; but the prospect of a visitor had a happy application—the possibility even of his being an ambassador or a cabinet minister or another of the eminent personages with whom she had conversed before embracing the ascetic life. They had not knocked at her present door hitherto in any great numbers, for more reasons than one; they were out of town and she had taken pains to diffuse the belief that she had left England. If the impression prevailed it was exactly the impression she had desired; she forgot this fact whenever she felt a certain surprise—even, it may be, a certain irritation—in perceiving that people were not taking the way to Madeira Crescent. She was making the discovery, in which she had had many predecessors, that to hide in London is only too easy a game. It was very much in that fashion that Godfrey Sholto was in the habit of announcing himself when he reappeared after the intervals she explicitly imposed on him; there was a witless grace, for so world-worn a personage, in the point he made of showing that he knocked with confidence, that he had as good a right as any other. This afternoon she would have accepted his visit: she was perfectly detached from the shallow, frivolous world in which he lived, but there was still a freshness in her renunciation which coveted reminders and enjoyed comparisons—he would prove to her how right she had been to do exactly what she was doing. It didn’t occur to her that Hyacinth Robinson might be at her door, for it had been understood between them that save by special appointment he was to come to her only in the evening. She heard in the hall, when the servant arrived, a voice she failed to recognise; but in a moment the door of the room was thrown open and the name of Mr. Muniment pronounced. It may be noted at once that she took pleasure in the sound, for she had both wished to see more of Hyacinth’s extraordinary friend and had given him up—so little likely had it begun to appear that he would put himself out for her. She had been glad he wouldn’t come, as she had told Hyacinth three months before; but now that he had come she was still more glad.
Presently he was sitting before her on the other side of the fire, his big foot crossed over his big knee, his large, gloved hands fumbling with each other, drawing and smoothing in places the gloves of very red, new-looking dogskin that appeared to hurt him. So far as the size of his extremities and even his attitude and movement went he might have belonged to her former circle. With the details of his dress remaining vague in the lamplight, which threw into relief mainly his powerful, important head, he might have been one of the most considerable men she had ever known. The first thing she said to him was that she wondered extremely what had brought him at last to present himself: the idea, when she proposed it, had clearly so little attracted him. She had only seen him once since then—the day she met him coming into Audley Court when she was leaving it after a visit to his sister—and, as he probably remembered, she had not on that occasion repeated her invitation.
“It wouldn’t have done any good, at the time, if you had,” Muniment returned with his natural laugh.
“Oh I felt that; my silence wasn’t accidental!” the Princess declared with due gaiety.
“I’ve only come now—since you’ve asked me the reason—because my sister has hammered at me, week after week, dinning it into me that I ought to. Oh I’ve been under the lash! If she had left me alone I wouldn’t have come.”
The Princess blushed on hearing these words, but neither with shame nor with pain; rather with the happy excitement of being spoken to in a manner so fresh and original. She had never before had a visitor who practised so racy a frankness or who indeed had so curious a story to tell. She had never before so completely failed, and her failure greatly interested her, especially as it seemed now to be turning a little to success. She had succeeded promptly with every one, and the sign of it was that every one had rendered her a monotony of homage. Even poor little Hyacinth had tried, in the beginning, to say grand things to her. This very different type of man appeared to have his thoughts fixed on anything but flowers of speech; she felt the liveliest hope that he would move further and further away from that delusion. “I remember what you asked me—what good it would do you. I couldn’t tell you then; and though I now have had a long time to turn it over I haven’t thought of it yet.”
“Oh but I hope it will do me some,” the young man said. “A fellow wants a reward when he has made a great effort.”
“It does me some,” the Princess freely answered.
“Naturally the awkward things I say amuse you. But I don’t say them for that, but just to give you an idea.”
“You give me a great many ideas. Besides, I know you already a good deal.”
“From little Robinson, I suppose,” said Muniment.
She had a pause. “More particularly from Lady Aurora.”
“Oh she doesn’t know much about me!” he protested.
“It’s a pity you say that, because she likes you.”
“Yes, she likes me,” he serenely admitted.
Again his hostess hesitated. “And I hope you like her.”
“Aye, she’s a dear old girl!”
The Princess reflected that her visitor was not a gentleman, like Hyacinth; but this made no difference in her present attitude. The expectation that he would be a gentleman had had nothing to do with her interest in him; that had in fact rested largely on his probably finding felicity in a deep indifference to the character. “I don’t know that there’s any one in the world I envy so much,” she observed; a statement that her visitor received in silence. “Better than any one I’ve ever met she has solved the problem—which if we are wise we all try to solve, don’t we?—of getting out of herself. She has got out of herself more perfectly than any one I’ve ever known. She has merged herself in the passion of doing something for others. That’s why I envy her,” she concluded with an explanatory smile, as if perhaps he didn’t understand her.
“It’s an amusement like any other,” said Paul Muniment.
“Ah not like any other! It carries light into dark places; it makes a great many wretched people considerably less wretched.”
“How many, eh?” asked the young man, not exactly as if he wished to dispute but as if it were always in him to enjoy discussing.
The Princess wondered why he should wish to argue at Lady Aurora’s expense. “Well, one who’s very near to you, to begin with.”
“Oh she’s kind, most kind; it’s altogether wonderful. But Rosy makes her considerably less wretched,” Muniment added.
“Very likely, of course; and so she does me.”
“May I inquire what you’re wretched about?” he went on.
“About nothing at all. That’s the worst of it. But I’m much happier now than I’ve ever been.”
“Is that also about nothing?”
“No, about a sort of change that has taken place in my life. I’ve been able to do some little things.”
“For the poor, I suppose you mean. Do you refer to the presents you’ve made to Rosy?” the young man asked.
“The presents?” She appeared not to remember. “Oh those are trifles. It isn’t anything one has been able to give. It’s some talks one has had, some convictions one has arrived at.”
“Convictions are a source of very innocent pleasure,” said the young man, smiling at his interlocutress with his bold, pleasant eyes, which seemed to project their glance further and drive it harder than any she had seen.
“Having them’s nothing. It’s the acting on them,” the Princess replied.
“Yes; that doubtless too is good.” He continued to look at her patiently, as if he liked to consider that this might be what she had asked him to come for. He said nothing more, and she went on:
“It’s far better of course when one’s a man.”
“I don’t know. Women do pretty well what they like. My sister and you have managed, between you, to bring me to this.”
“It’s more your sister, I suspect, than I. But why, after all, should you have disliked so much to come?”
“Well, since you ask me,” said Paul Muniment, “I’ll tell you frankly, though I don’t mean it uncivilly, that I don’t know what to make of you.”
“Most people don’t,” returned the Princess. “But they usually take the risk.”
“Ah well, I’m the most prudent of men.”
“I was sure of it; that’s one of the reasons I wanted to know you. I know what some of your ideas are—Hyacinth Robinson has told me; and the source of my interest in them is partly the fact that you consider very carefully what you attempt.”
“That I do—I do,” he agreed.
The tone in which he said this would have been almost ignoble, as regards a kind of northern canniness latent in it, had it not been corrected by the character of his face, his youth and strength, his almost military eyes. The Princess recognised both the shrewdness and the natural ease as she rejoined: “To do anything in association with you would be very safe. It would be sure to succeed.”
“That’s what poor Hyacinth thinks,” he said.
She wondered a little that he could allude in that light tone to the faith their young friend had placed in him, considering the consequences such a trustfulness might yet have; but this curious mixture of qualities could only make her visitor, as a tribune of the people, more interesting to her. She abstained for the moment from touching on the subject of Hyacinth’s peculiar position and only pursued: “Hasn’t he told you about me? Hasn’t he explained me a little?”
“Oh his explanations are grand!” Muniment laughed. “He’s fine sport when he talks about you.”
“Don’t betray him,” she said gently.
“There’s nothing to betray. You’d be the first to admire it if you were there. Besides, I don’t betray,” he added.
“I love him very much,” said the Princess; and it would have been impossible for the most impudent cynic to smile at the manner in which she made the declaration.
Her guest accepted it respectfully. “He’s a sweet little lad and, putting her ladyship aside, quite the light of our humble home.”
There was a short pause after this exchange of amenities, which the Princess terminated by inquiring: “Wouldn’t some one else do his work quite as well?”
“His work? Why, I’m told he’s a master-hand.”
“Oh I don’t mean his bookbinding.” Then she added: “I don’t know if you know it, but I’m in correspondence with a certain person. If you understand me at all you’ll know whom I mean. I’m acquainted with many of our most important men.”
“Yes, I know. Hyacinth has told me. Do you mention it as a guarantee, so that I may know you’re sound?”
“Not exactly; that would be weak, wouldn’t it?” the Princess asked. “My soundness must be in myself—a matter for you to appreciate as you know me better; not in my references and vouchers.”
“I shall never know you better. What business is it of mine?”
“I want to help you,” she said; and as she made this earnest appeal her face became transfigured: it wore an expression of the most passionate yet the purest longing. “I want to do something for the cause you represent; for the millions who are rotting under our feet—the millions whose whole life is passed on the brink of starvation, so that the smallest accident pushes them over. Try me, test me; ask me to put my hand to something, to prove that I’m as deeply in earnest as those who have already given proof. I know what I’m talking about—what one must meet and face and count with, the nature and the immensity of your organisation. I’m not trifling. No, I’m not trifling.”
Paul Muniment watched her with his steady smile until this sudden outbreak had spent itself. “I was afraid you’d be like this—that you’d turn on the fountains and let off the fireworks.”
“Permit me to believe you thought nothing about it. There’s no reason my fireworks should disturb you.”
“I have always had a fear of clever women.”
“I see—that’s a part of your prudence,” said the Princess reflectively. “But you’re the sort of man who ought to know how to use them.”
He made no immediate answer to this; the way he appeared to regard her suggested that he was not following closely what she said so much as losing himself in certain matters which were beside that question—her beauty, for instance, her grace, her fragrance, the spectacle of a manner and quality so new to him. After a little, however, he brought out irrelevantly: “I’m afraid I’m awfully rude.”
“Of course you are, but it doesn’t signify. What I mainly object to is that you don’t meet my questions. Wouldn’t some one else do Hyacinth Robinson’s work quite as well? Is it necessary to take a nature so delicate, so intellectual? Oughtn’t we to keep him for something finer?”
“Finer than what?”
“Than what he’ll be called upon to do.”
“And pray what’s that?” the young man demanded. “You know nothing about it; no more do I,” he added in a moment. “It will require whatever it will. Besides, if some one else might have done it no one else volunteered. It happened that Robinson did.”
“Yes, and you nipped him up!” the Princess returned.
This expression made Muniment laugh. “I’ve no doubt you can easily keep him if you want him.”
“I should like to do it in his place—that’s what I should like,” said the Princess.
“As I say, you don’t even know what it is.”
“It may be nothing,” she went on with her grave eyes fixed on her visitor. “I daresay you think that what I wanted to see you for was to beg you to let him off. But it wasn’t. Of course it’s his own affair and you can do nothing. But oughtn’t it to make some difference if his opinions have changed?”
“His opinions? He never had any opinions,” Muniment replied. “He’s not like you and me.”
“Well then, his feelings, his attachments. He hasn’t the passion for the popular triumph that he had when I first knew him. He’s much more tepid.”
The Princess stared. “Do you mean that you are giving up——?”
“A fine, stiff conservative’s a thing I perfectly understand,” said Paul Muniment. “If I were on the top I’d stick.”
“I see, you’re not narrow,” she breathed appreciatively.
“I beg your pardon, I am. I don’t call that wide. One must be narrow to penetrate.”
“Whatever you are you’ll succeed,” said the Princess. “Hyacinth won’t, but you will.”
“It depends upon what you call success!” the young man returned. And in a moment, before she could take it up, he added as he looked about the room: “You’ve got a lovely home.”
“Lovely? My dear sir, it’s hideous. That’s what I like it for,” she hastened to explain.
“Well, I like it, but perhaps I don’t know the reason. I thought you had given up everything—pitched your goods out of window for a grand scramble.”
“It’s what I have done. You should have seen me before.”
“I should have liked that,” he quite shamelessly smiled. “I like to see solid wealth.”
“Ah you’re as bad as Hyacinth. I’m the only consistent one!” the Princess sighed.
“You’ve a great deal left, for a person who has given everything away.”
“These are not mine—these abominations—or I would give them too!” Paul’s hostess returned artlessly.
He got up from his chair, still looking over the scene. “I’d give my nose for such a place as this. At any rate, you’re not yet reduced to poverty.”
“I’ve a little left—to help you.”
“I’d lay a wager you’ve a great deal,” he declared with his north-country accent.
“I could get money—I could get money,” she continued gravely. She had also risen and was standing before him.
These two remarkable persons faced each other, their eyes met again, and they exchanged a long, deep glance of mutual scrutiny. Each seemed to drop a plummet into the other’s mind. Then a strange and, to the Princess, unexpected expression passed over the countenance of her guest; his lips compressed themselves as in the strain of a strong effort, his colour rose and in a moment he stood there blushing like a boy. He dropped his eyes and stared at the carpet while he repeated: “I don’t trust women—I don’t trust clever women!”
“I’m sorry, but after all I can understand it,” she said; “therefore I won’t insist on the question of your allowing me to work with you. But this appeal I will make: help me a little yourself—help me!”
“How do you mean, help you?” he asked as he raised his eyes, which had a new, conscious look.
“Advise me; you’ll know how. I’m in trouble—I’ve gone very far.”
“I’ve no doubt of that!” Paul laughed.
“I mean with some of those people abroad. I’m not frightened, but I’m worried. I want to know what to do.”
“No, you’re not frightened,” Muniment returned after a moment.
“I’m, however, in a sad entanglement. I think you can straighten it out. I’ll give you the facts, but not now, for we shall be interrupted—I hear my old lady on the stairs. For this you must come back to me.”
As she spoke the door opened, and Madame Grandoni appeared cautiously, creeping, as if she didn’t know what might be going on in the parlour. “Yes, I’ll come back,” said Paul quietly but clearly enough; with which he walked away, passing Madame Grandoni on the threshold and overlooking the hand-shake of farewell. In the hall he paused an instant, feeling his hostess behind him; whereby he learned that she had not come to exact from him this omitted observance, but to say once more, dropping her voice so that her companion, through the open door, might not catch: “I could get money—I could!”
He passed his hand through his hair and, as if he had not heard, observed: “I’ve not after all given you half Rosy’s messages.”
“Oh that doesn’t matter!” she answered as she turned back into the parlour.
Madame Grandoni was in the middle of the room, wrapped in her old shawl, looking vaguely round her, and the two ladies heard the house-door close. “And pray who may that be? Isn’t it a new face?” the elder one inquired.
“He’s the brother of the little person I took you to see over the river—the chattering cripple with the wonderful manners.”
“Ah she had a brother! That then was why you went?”
It was striking, the good humour with which the Princess received this rather coarse thrust, which could have been drawn from Madame Grandoni only by the petulance and weariness of increasing age and the antipathy she now felt to Madeira Crescent and everything it produced. Christina bent a calm, charitable smile on her ancient support and replied: “There could have been no question of our seeing him. He was of course at his work.”
“Ah how do I know, my dear? And is he a successor?”
“A successor?”
“To the little bookbinder.”
“Mia cara,” said the Princess, “you’ll see how absurd that question is when I tell you he’s his greatest friend!”