Lucian the dreamer

by J. S. Fletcher

It was impossible at this stage to do anything or say anything to shake Lucian’s confidence in his destiny. He meant to work hard and to do great things, and without being conceited he was sure of success—it seemed to him to be his rightful due. Thanks to the influence of his father in childhood and to that of Mr. Chilverstone at a later stage, he had formed a fine taste and was already an accomplished scholar. He had never read any trash in his life, and it was now extremely unlikely that he ever would, for he had developed an almost womanish dislike of the unlovely, the mean, and the sordid, and a delicate contempt for anything in literature that was not based on good models. Mr. Chilverstone had every confidence in him, and every hope of his future; it filled him with pride to know that he was sending so promising a man to his own university; but he was cast down when he found that Lord Simonstower insisted on Lucian’s entrance at St. Benedict’s, instead of at St. Perpetua’s, his own old college.

The only person who was full of fears was Sprats. She had been Lucian’s other self for six years, and she, more than any one else, knew his need of constant help and friendship. He was full of simplicity; he credited everybody with the possession of qualities and sympathies which few people possess; he lived in a world of dreams rather than of stern facts. He was obstinate, wayward, impulsive; much too affectionate, and much too lovable; he lived for the moment, and only regarded the future as one continual procession of rosy hours. Sprats, with feminine intuition, feared the moment when he would come into collision with stern experience of the world and the worldly—she longed to be with him when that moment came, as she had been with him when the frailty and coquetry of the Dolly kid nearly broke his child’s heart. And so during the last few days of his stay at Simonstower she hovered about him as a faithful mother does about a sailor son, and she gave him much excellent advice and many counsels of perfection.

‘You know you are a baby,’ she said, when Lucian laughed at her. ‘You have been so coddled all your life that you will cry if a pin pricks you. And there will be no Sprats to tie a rag round the wound.’

‘It would certainly be better if Sprats were going too,’ he said thoughtfully, and his face clouded. ‘But then,’ he continued, flashing into a smile, ‘after all, Oxford is only two hundred miles from Simonstower, and there are trains which carry one over two hundred miles in a very short time. If I should chance to fall and bump my nose I shall take a ticket by the next train and come to Sprats to be patched up.’

‘I shall keep a stock of ointments and lotions and bandages in perpetual readiness,’ she said. ‘But it must be distinctly understood, Lucian, that I have the monopoly of curing you—I have a sort of notion, you know, that it is my chief mission in life to be your nurse.’

‘The concession is yours,’ he answered, with mock gravity.

It was with this understanding that they parted. There came a day when all the good-byes had been said, the blessings and admonitions received, and Lucian departed from the village with a pocket full of money (largely placed there through the foolish feminine indulgence of Miss Pepperdine and Miss Judith, who had womanly fears as to the horrible situations in which he might be placed if he were bereft of ready cash) and a light and a sanguine heart. Mr. Chilverstone went with him to Oxford to see his protégé settled and have a brief holiday of his own; on their departure Sprats drove them to the station at Wellsby. She waved her handkerchief until the train had disappeared; she was conscious when she turned away that her heart had gone with Lucian.

CHAPTER XII

About the middle of a May afternoon, seven years later, a young man turned out of the Strand into a quiet street in the neighbourhood of Covent Garden and began looking about him as if endeavouring to locate the whereabouts of some particular place. Catching sight of the name William Robertson on a neighbouring window, with the word Publisher underneath it, he turned into the door of the establishment thus designated, and encountering an office-boy who was busily engaged in reading a comic journal inside a small pen labelled ‘Inquiries,’ he asked with great politeness if Mr. Robertson was at that moment disengaged. The office-boy in his own good time condescended to examine the personal appearance of the inquirer, and having assured himself that the gentleman was worthy his attention he asked in sharp tones if he had an appointment with Mr. Robertson. To this the stranger replied that he believed he was expected by Mr. Robertson during the afternoon, but not at any particular hour, and produced a card from which the office-boy learned that he was confronting the Viscount Saxonstowe. He forthwith disappeared into some inner region and came back a moment later with a young gentleman who cultivated long hair and an æsthetic style of necktie, and bowed Lord Saxonstowe through various doors into a pleasant ante-room, where he accommodated his lordship with a chair and the Times, and informed him that Mr. Robertson would be at liberty in a few moments. Lord Saxonstowe remarked that he was in no hurry at all, and would wait Mr. Robertson’s convenience. The young gentleman with the luxuriant locks replied politely that he was quite sure Mr. Robertson would not keep his lordship waiting long, and added that they were experiencing quite summer-like weather. Lord Saxonstowe agreed to this proposition, and opened the Times. His host or keeper for the time being seated himself at a desk, one half of which was shared by a lady typist who had affected great interest in her work since Lord Saxonstowe’s entrance, and who now stole surreptitious glances at him as he scanned the newspaper. The clerk scribbled a line or two on a scrap of paper and passed it across to her. She untwisted it and read: ‘This is the chap that did that tremendous exploration in the North of Asia: a real live lord, you know.’ She scribbled an answering line: ‘Of course I know—do you think I didn’t recognise the name?’ and passed it over with a show of indignation. The clerk indited another epistle: ‘Don’t look as if he’d seen much of anything, does he?’ The girl perused this, scribbled back: ‘His eyes and moustache are real jam!’ and fell to work at her machine again. The clerk sighed, caressed a few sprouts on his top-lip, and remarking to his own soul that these toffs always catch the girls’ eyes, fell to doing nothing in a practised way.

Viscount Saxonstowe, quite unconscious of the interest he was exciting, stared about him after a time and began to wonder if the two young people at the desk usually worked with closed windows. The atmosphere was heavy, and there was a concentrated smell of paper, and ink, and paste. He thought of the wind-swept plains and steppes on which he had spent long months—he had gone through some stiff experiences there, but he confessed to himself that he would prefer a bitter cold night in winter in similar solitudes to a summer’s day in that ante-room. His own healthy tan and the clearness of his eyes, his alert look and the easy swing with which he walked, would never have been developed amidst such surroundings, and the consciousness of his own rude health made him feel sorry for the two white slaves before him. He felt that if he could have his own way he would cut the young gentleman’s hair, put him into a flannel shirt and trot him round; as for the young lady, he would certainly send her into the country for a holiday. And while he thus indulged his fancies a door opened and he heard voices, and two men stepped into the ante-room.