CHAPTER L
One day, four years after the publication of Saturnalia, Rickman received a letter in an unknown hand; a woman's hand, but with a familiar vivid signature, the signature that is to be seen beneath the portraits of Walter Fielding, the greatest among contemporary poets, the living god of Rickman's idolatry.
"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 shore 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, masses 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 illustrator. And so, before I knew what I was doing (or I assure 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 nobody 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."
On their way to the dining-room he remarked: "That's another reason why I sent for you. Because I hear they've not been particularly kind to you. Don't suppose I'm going to pity you for that."
"I don't pity myself, sir."
"No—no—you don't. That's what I like about you," he added, taking his guest by the arm and steering him to his place.
At luncheon Miss Gurney took a prominent part in the conversation, which Rickman for her sake endeavoured to divert from the enthralling subject of himself. But his host (perceiving with evident amusement his modest intention) brought it up again.
"Don't imagine, for a moment," said he, "that Miss Gurney admires you. She hates young poets."
Miss Gurney smiled; but as Rickman saw, more in assent than polite denial. Throughout the meal she had the air of merely tolerating his presence there because it humoured the great man's eccentricity. From time to time she looked at him with an interest in which he detected a certain fear. The fear, he gathered, was lest his coming should disturb, or in any way do harm to the object of her flagrant adoration.
After she had left the table Fielding reproached him for mixing water with his wine.
"In one way," said he, "you're a disappointment. I should have preferred to see you drink your wine like a man."
"Unfortunately," said Rickman, "it's not so easy to drink it like a man, if you've ever drunk it like a beast."
"Ah-h. You're an even more remarkable person than I thought you were," said the poet, rising abruptly from the table.
He proposed that they should take a walk in the garden, or rather on the moor; for the heather ran crimson to the poet's doors, and the young pines stood sentinel at his windows.
They walked slowly towards the lake. On their way there Fielding stopped and drew a deep breath, filling his lungs with the pure, sweet air.
"Ah! that's better." He looked round him. "After all, we're right, Rickman. It's the poets that shall judge the world; and if we say it's beautiful, it is beautiful. And good."
Happy Fielding, thought Rickman. Fielding had never suffered as he had suffered; his dream had never been divorced from reality. It seemed fitting to the younger poet that his god should inhabit these pure and lofty spaces, should walk thus on golden roads through a land of crimson, in an atmosphere of crystal calm. He would have liked to talk to Fielding of Fielding; but his awe restrained him.
Fielding's mind did not wander long from his companion. "Let me see," said he, "do you follow any trade or profession?" He added with a smile, "besides your own?"
"I'm a journalist." Rickman mentioned his connection with The Museion and The Planet.
"Ah, I knew there was an unlucky star somewhere. Well, at any rate, you won't have to turn your Muse on to the streets to get your living. But a trade's better than a profession; and a craft's better than a trade. It doesn't monopolize the higher centres. I certainly had the impression that you had been in trade."
Rickman wondered who could have given it to him. Miss Gurney's friend, he supposed. But who was Miss Gurney's friend? A hope came to him that made his heart stand still. But he answered calmly.
"I was. I worked for two years in a second-hand bookshop as a bibliographical expert; and before that I stood behind the counter most of my time."
"Why did you leave it? You weren't ashamed of your trade?"
"Not of my trade, but of the way I had to follow it. I'm not ashamed of working for Mr. Horace Jewdwine."
He brought the name in awkwardly. In bringing it in at all he had some vague hope that it might lead Fielding to disclose the identity of the friend. Horace Jewdwine was a link; if his name were familiar to Fielding there would be no proof perhaps, but a very strong presumption that what he hoped was true.
"He is a friend of yours?"
"Yes." His hope leapt high; but Fielding dashed it to the ground.
"I never heard of him. I see," he said, "you've got a conscience. Have you also got a wife?"
"Not yet—but—"
"Good. So young a man as you cannot afford to keep both. I am so old that I may be pardoned if I give you some advice. But why should I? You won't take it."
"I should like to hear it all the same, sir."
"Well, well, it's cheap enough. Whatever you do, don't fritter yourself away upon the sort of women it may be your misfortune to have met."
It was beautifully done, this first intimation of his consciousness of any difference between them; between Rickman who had glorified a variety actress, and Walter Fielding whose Muse had "always had the manners of an English gentlewoman." And to Rickman's heart, amid vivid images of Poppies and Flossies, the memory of Lucia Harden stirred like a dividing sword.
"That is my advice," said Fielding. "But you will not take it."
"These things," said Rickman, "are not always in our power."
In the silence which followed he put the question that was burning in him.
"May I ask who the friend was who told Miss Gurney about me?"
"You may ask Miss Gurney; but I do not think she'll tell you. It seems to be a secret, and Miss Gurney, strange to say, is a young woman who can keep a secret."
He led the way to a seat overlooking the lake where they sat for awhile in silence, and Rickman found his thoughts roaming from his god.
Presently Fielding rose and turned back to the house. Rickman felt that the slow footsteps were measuring now the moments that he had to be with him. He was glad that they were slow.
Fielding stopped at his house-door, and stood for a second gazing earnestly at the young man.
"When you write anything," he said, "you may always send it to me. But no more—please—no more Saturnalia."
"There won't be any more Saturnalia."
"Good. I do not ask you to come again to see me."
Rickman struggled for an answer, but could not think of anything better than, "It's enough for me to have seen you once," which was not at all what he had meant to say.
Fielding smiled faintly; his humour pleased, Rickman fancied, with the ambiguity of his shy speech.
"I'm afraid I've tired you, sir," he said impulsively.
"You have not tired me. I tire myself. But here is Miss Gurney; she will look after you and give you tea."
"Geniality," he continued, "is not my strong point, as you may have perceived. And any unnatural effort of the kind fatigues me. My own fault."
"You have been very generous to me."
"Generous? There can't be any generosity between equals. Only a simple act of justice. It is you who have been good to me."
"I? To you?"
"Yes. You have satisfied my curiosity. I own that sometimes I have wanted to know what sort of voice will be singing after I am dead. And now I do know. Good-bye, and thank you."
He pressed his hand, turned abruptly and shuffled into the house. He was noticeably the worse for his walk, and Rickman felt that he had to answer for it to Miss Gurney.
"I'm afraid I've tired him. I hope I haven't done him harm."
Miss Gurney glanced sharply at him, turned, and disappeared through the study window. Her manner implied that if he had harmed Fielding she would make him feel it.
She came back still unsmiling. "No. You have not tired him."
"Then," said he as he followed her into the drawing-room, "I am forgiven?"
"Yes. But I did not say you had not done him harm."
The lady paused in her amenities to pour out his tea.
"Miss Gurney," he said as he took the cup from her, "can you tell me the name of the friend who sent my book to you?"
"No, I'm afraid I cannot."
"I see. After all, I am not forgiven?"
"I am not at all sure that you ought to be."
"I heard what he said to you," she went on almost fiercely. "That's why I hate young poets. He says there is only you to hate."
"So, of course, you hate me?"
"I think I do. I wish I had never heard of you. I wish he had never seen you. I hope you will never come again. I haven't looked at your poems that he praises so. He says they are beautiful. Very well, I shall hate them because they are beautiful. He says they have more life in them than his. Do you understand now why I hate them and you? He was young before you came here. You have made him feel that he is old, that he must die. I don't know what else he said to you. Shall I tell you what he said to me? He said that the world will forget him when it's listening to you."
"You misunderstood him." He thought that he understood her; but it puzzled him that, adoring Fielding as she did, she yet permitted herself to doubt.
"Do you suppose I thought that he grudged you your fame? Because he doesn't. But I do."
"You needn't. At present it only exists in his imagination."
"That's enough. If it exists there—"
"You mean, it will go down the ages?"
She nodded.
"And you don't want it to go?"
"Not unless his goes too, and goes farther."
"You need hardly be afraid."
"I'm not afraid. Only, he has always stood alone, so high that no one has touched him. I've always seen him that way, all my life—and I can't bear to see him any other way. I can't bear any one to touch him, or even to come anywhere near him."
"No one ever will touch him. Whoever comes after him, he will always stand alone. And," he added gently, "you will always see him so."
"Yes," she said, but in a voice that told him she was still unconsoled. "If I had seen him when he was young, I suppose I should always see him young. Not that I care about that so much. His youth is the part of him that interests me least; perhaps because it was never in any way a part of me."
He looked at her. Did she realize how far Fielding's youth, if report spoke truly, had belonged to, or in her own words, "been a part of" other women? Did she resent their part in him? He thought not. It was not so much that she was jealous of Fielding's youth, as that she shrank from any appearance of disloyalty to his age.
"And yet," she said, "I feel that no one has a right to be young when he is old. I hate young poets because they are young. I hate my own youth—"
Her youth? Yes, it was youth that leapt quivering in her tragic face, like a blown flame. Her body hardly counted except as fuel to the eager and incessant fire.
"Don't hate it," he said. "It is the most beautiful thing you have to give him."
"Ah—if I could give it him!"
He smiled. "You have given it him. He isn't old when he can inspire such devotion. He is to be envied."
He rose and held out his hand. As she took it, Miss Gurney's flame-like gaze rested on him a moment and grew soft.
"If you want to know, it was Lucia Harden who sent me your poems," said she. And he knew that for once Miss Gurney had betrayed a secret.
He wondered what had made her change her mind. He wondered whether Lucia had really made a secret of it. He wondered what the secret had to do with Fielding. And wondering he went away, envying him the love that kept its own divine fire burning for him on his hearth.