II
Breton had, indeed, no destination. He had been frightened of a whole evening with Christopher.
He was frightened of everything, of everybody—above all, of himself. He found himself, with a sense of surprise, as though he were the helpless actor in some bad dream, standing in Oxford Circus. Surely it was a dream.
The sky, grey and lowering, was yet tinged with a smoky red. He had an overpowering sense of the minuteness of humanity, so that the crowds crossing and recrossing the Circus seemed like tiny animals crawling over the surface of a pond from which the water had been drained.
His old fancy of the waterways came back to him and now he thought that Oxford Circus, often a maelstrom of tossing, whirling humanity, had run dry and lay stagnant, filled with dying life, beneath the red-tinged sky.
Ever lower and lower that sky seemed to fall. Theatres, restaurants on that evening were almost deserted. People stood about in groups, saying that soon the thunder would be upon them, wondering at this weather in March, watching, with curious eyes, the sky.
Breton was near madness that evening. He was near madness to this extent, that he was not certain of reality. Were those lamp-posts real? What was the meaning of those strange high buildings in whose heart there burnt so sinister a light? He watched them expecting that at any moment these would burst into flame and with a screaming rattling flare go tossing to the sky.
Near him a girl said, "All right—of course it ain't of no moment what I might happen to pre-fere—Oh, no!"
A mild young man answered her: "Well, if yer want ter go to the Oxford why not say so? That's what I say. Why not say so 'stead of 'angin' about——"
"Oh! 'angin' about! Say that again and off I go. 'Angin' about! I'd like to know——"
"I didn't say anythink about your 'angin' about. Yer catch a feller up so quickly, Bertha. What I mean to say——"
"Oh! yer and yer meanin's. Don't know what yer do mean, if the truth were known. 'Ere's a pleasant way of spendin' an evenin'——"
Breton regarded them with curiosity. Were they real? Did they feel the strange oppression of this lowering sky as strongly as he did? Were they uncertain as to whether these buildings were alive or no? Perhaps they could tell him whether those omnibuses that came lumbering so heavily up Regent Street were safe and secure.
Oddly enough, although he tried, he could not remember exactly what it was that Christopher had told him. Something, of course, to do with his grandmother. Everything was to do with her.... She was the one who was driving him to destruction. Always she was stepping forward, sending him down when he was climbing up, at last, to safety, always it was she who stood behind him, on the watch lest some happiness or success should come his way.
He felt as though he would like to go and force his way into 104 Portland Place and face the woman and tell her what she had done to him. Yes, that would be a fine thing—to see all those Beaminster relations gathering round, protesting, frightened.
And then it occurred to him that he really did not know the way to Portland Place. Things were so strange to-night. He knew that it was close at hand, but he was afraid that he would never find it. He was really afraid that he would never find it.
Some man jostled into him, apologized and moved away. The contact cleared his brain, asserted the reality of the buildings, the crowds, the cabs and carriages. He pulled himself together and began slowly to walk down Oxford Street in the direction of Tottenham Court Road.
He remembered very clearly and distinctly what it was that Christopher had told him. Rachel was in danger because her husband had heard of her friendship with him, Breton....
It would not have been Francis Breton if he had not taken this piece of news and looked at it in its most sensational colours. He had, through all these last weeks, been striving to accustom himself to the agony of enduring life without her. He dimly perceived that it was the emptiness of life rather than any actual loss of any particular person that was so terrible to him. He had still, very fine and beautiful, his memory of the day when she had come to him in his rooms, and had that day been followed by a secret relationship between them and many hours spent together, then his passion would have been very genuine and moving.
But, after all, she had flashed into his life, and then flashed out of it again, and, so swiftly with him did moods follow one upon another, and ideals and ambitions and despairs and glories jostle together in his brain, that she might have remained, very happily raised to a fine altar in his temple, very distantly recognized as a beautiful episode now closed and contemplated only from a worshipping distance, had any other figure or incident definitely occupied his attention.
But no figure, no incident had arrived. He had had, during all these weeks, no drama into which he might fling his fine feelings, his great ambitions, his glorious sacrifices. Of genuine sincerity were these moods of his—he had never stood sufficiently beyond himself to arrive at any definite insincerity about any of his movements or impulses—but of all things in the world he could not endure that his life should be empty, and empty now it had been for, as it seemed to his swift impatience, a long, long time.
Christopher's news did touch him very deeply. He would instantly have sacrificed his life, his honour, anything at all, for Rachel, and the fact that he would enjoy the drama of that sacrifice did not rob it of any atom of its sincerity.
But the pity of it was that he really did not see what he could do. Had he been able, here and now, to rush into the Portland Place house and seize his grandmother by the throat and shake her, or had it been possible to appear before Roddy Seddon, to declare himself the only culprit, to proclaim that he was ready for any condemnation, any punishment, then, in spite of all his unhappiness, he would be now a happy man, but, alas, the only possible action was to pause, to see what happened, to wait—and waiting it was that sent him mad.
One action indeed was possible and that was that he should put a close to his wretched existence. On this close and sterile night such an action did not appear at all absurd. It had fine elements about it, it would deal a sure blow at his grandmother and all that family who had treated him so basely. What a headline for the papers! "Suicide of member of one of England's noblest families!" Rachel should be, no longer, annoyed with his unfortunate presence: he would make it, of course, quite obvious that she had had nothing to do with his sad end.
He looked about him, with an air of fine melancholy, at the passers-by. Little they knew of the terrible tragedy that was even now preparing in their midst!
He felt almost happy again as he turned this solution over and over again. Some people would be sorry—Christopher, Lizzie Rand, and Rachel: above all, it must be heavy upon the consciences of the Duchess and her wretched children. They had driven him to his death and must bear the blame to the grave and beyond.
Very faintly the rolling of thunder could be heard as the storm approached the town.
He was standing outside the Oxford Music Hall, and he thought that he would go inside for a little time that he might avoid the rain ... and then upon that followed the reflection that it did not matter whether he was wet or no—he would soon be dead.
Faintly behind these gloomy resolves some voice seemed to tell him that if he could only pass safely through this night fortune would again be kind to him. "Wait," something told him. "Be patient for once in your life".... But no, to wait any more was impossible. Some fine action, some splendid defiance or heroic defence, here and now ... otherwise he would show the world that he had courage, at least, to die. Most of his impetuous follies had their origin in his conviction that the eyes of the world were always upon him.
He paid his money and walked into the circle promenade. Behind him was a bar at which several stout gentlemen and ladies were happily conversational. In front of him a crowd of men and women leaned forward over the back of the circle and listened to the entertainment.
On the stage, in a circle of brilliant light, a thin man with a melancholy face, a top hat and pepper-and-salt trousers was singing—
"Straike me pink and straike me blue,
Straike me purple and crimson too
I'll be there,
Lottie dear,
Down by the old Canteen."
"Now," said the gentleman, "once more. Let's 'ave it—all together."
There was a moment's pause, then the orchestra began very softly and, in a kind of ecstasy the crowd sang—
"Straike me pink and straike me blue,
Straike me purple and crimson too," etc.
Breton sat down on a little velvet seat near the bar and gloomily looked about him. Did they only realize, these people, the tragedy that was so close to them, then would they very swiftly cease their silly singing. The place was hot, infernally hot. It glowed with light, it crackled with noise, it was possessed with a glaring unreality. It occurred to him that to make a leap upon the railing at the back of the circle, to stand for one instant balanced there before the frightened people, then to plunge, down, down, into the stalls—that would be a striking finish! How they would all scream, and run and scatter! ... yes ...
Against the clinking and chatter of the bar he would hear the voice of the funny man: "And so I says to 'er, 'Maria, if you're tryin' to prove to me that it's two in the mornin', then I says what I want to know is oo's been 'elpin' yer to stay awake all this time? That's what....'"
It was then that, in spite of himself, he was drawn from his moody thoughts by the eyes of the girl standing near the bar against the wall. She was a small, timid, rather pale girl in a huge black hat. She wore a long trailing purple dress and soiled white gloves, and was looking, just now, unhappy and frightened.
He had noticed her because of the contrast that her white face and small body made with her grand untidy clothes, but, looking at her more closely, he saw something about her that stirred all his sympathy and protection.
Like most Englishmen he was at heart an eager sentimentalist and he was, just now, in a mood that responded instantly to anyone in distress.
He forgot for the moment his desperate plans of self-destruction. A fat red-faced man came from the bar towards her, with two drinks; he was himself very unsteady and uncertain in his movements and his smile was both vacuous and full of purpose. He lurched towards her, put his hand upon her shoulder to steady himself, then, as one of the glasses spilled, cursed.
She refused the drink, but he continued to press it upon her. His fat hand wandered about her neck, stroked her chin, and he was leaning now so that his face almost touched hers.
Breton heard him say—
"Well, if you won't drink—damme—come along, my dear—let's be goin'." She shook her head, her eyes growing larger and larger.
"Nonshensh," he said. "Darn nonshensh." She glanced about her desperately, but no one, save Breton, was watching them. She caught his eyes, pitifully, eagerly.
The man put his arm about her and tried to draw her from the wall.
"Come," he said. "We'll go home."
She drew away. He pulled at her hand. "Damn the O——Place. Wash the matter? You got to come."
Then he seized her by the arm, and, still lurching from side to side, began to move away.
"No, no," she whispered, obviously terrified of a scene, but using all her strength to resist. Her eyes again met Breton's.
"That lady," he said, advancing to the stout gentleman, "is a friend of mine."
The man looked at him with an expression astonished, simply and rather puzzled.
"Wash—wash...?" he said.
"You'll be so good as to leave that lady alone."
"Well, I'm b——well damned. Oh! gosh." The stout gentleman contemplated him with furious amazement.
"'Oo the b——'ell I'd like to know? Get out or I'll kick yer out."
The quarrel had by now gathered its crowd.
The stout gentleman, lurching forward, aimed a blow at Breton which missed him.
"Let her alone, do you hear?" cried Breton.
The stout gentleman, amazed, apparently, at a world that defied all the probabilities, turned, caught the girl by the body and, dragging her with him, pushed past his opponent.
Breton seized him by the waist, turned him round so that, with a little puzzled gasp, he half fell, half sat upon the cushioned seat against the wall.
Then Breton offered the girl his arm and walked away with her, conscious that an attendant had arrived rather late upon the scene and was now abusing the stout gentleman, whilst a sympathetic little crowd listened and advised.
He walked down the stairs with the girl. "That was decent of you," she said. "Most awfully——"
Beyond the doors the world was a hissing, spurting deluge of rain.
A cab was called and she climbed into it.
"What about coming back?" she said. He shook his head.
"Not to-night. You have a good rest. That's what you want."
"Well, I am done. Meet 'nother night p'raps——"
"I hope so," he said politely. He raised his hat and the cab splashed away.
"Another cab, sir?" said the commissionaire.
"No, thanks," said Breton, and plunged out into the rain. The air was fresh and cool. Streams of water danced and spurted on the gleaming pavements.
Breton walked along. The little adventure had swept completely from his mind his earlier desperate decisions.
There were still things for him to do! Poor little girl ... he was glad that he had been there! What a fool he had been all these weeks, sitting there, letting himself go to pieces because the world had gone badly! What sort of a creature was he? Well, he was some good yet. Just one twist of the hand and that man had gone down ... Yes, she was grateful.... Her eyes had shone.
And what of the candles, his business? Why had he allowed that to drop when he had made, already, so good a start? He would be in the City early to-morrow. Business was humming just now.
And Rachel? Rachel!
Let him be content to have her as his ideal, his fine beacon to light him on, to hold him to his work and do the best that was in him!
After all, things were for the best. They would always have their fine memories, one of the other. Nothing to spoil that idyll.
He arrived, soaked to the very skin, at his door. "Funny," he thought, "how that thunder depresses one. I've been moody for weeks. Air's ever so much clearer now. God, didn't that old beast tumble?—Poor little girl—she was grateful though!"
Then as he opened the door, he remembered what Christopher had, that evening, told him.
"To-morrow," he said to himself, in a fine glow of hope and confidence, "to-morrow I'll get to work and soon stop that wicked old woman's mouth. Rachel—God bless her—I'll show her what I'm like...."
He climbed the dark stairs as though he were storming a town.