Lore of Proserpine

by Maurice Hewlett

Studying him closely over the top of my newspaper, by-and-by he fixed me with his intent, bright eyes. My heart beat quicker; but when he smiled—like the Pallas of Ægina—I smiled too. Then, without varying his expression, even while he smiled upon me, he vanished.

Vanished! There's no other word for it: he vanished; I did not see him go; I don't know whether he went or where he went. At one moment he was there, smiling at me, looking into my eyes; at the next moment he was not there. That's all there is to say about it. I flashed a glance through the gate into Bedford Row, another up to R—— Buildings, and even ran to the corner which showed me the length and breadth of Field Place. He was not gone any of these ways. These things are certain.

Now for the sequel. Mere fortune led me at four that afternoon into Bedford Row. A note had been put into my hands at the Record Office inviting me to call upon a client whose chambers were in that quarter, and I complied with it directly my work was over. Now as I walked along the Row, the boy of that morning's encounter was going into the entry of the house in which Fowkes and Vizards have their offices. I had just time to recognise him when the double knock announced his errand. I stopped immediately; he delivered in a telegram and came out. I was on the step. Whether he knew me or not he did not look his knowledge. His eyes went through me, his smiling mouth did not smile at me. My heart beat, I didn't know why; but I laughed and nodded. He went his leisurely way and I watched him, this time, almost out of sight. But while I stood so, watching, old Fowkes came bursting out of his office, tears streaming down his face, the telegram in his hand. "Where is he? Where is he?" This was addressed to me. I pointed the way. Old Fowkes saw his benefactor (as I suppose him to have been) and began to run. The lad turned round, saw him coming, waved him away, and then—disappeared. Again he had done it; but old Fowkes, in no way surprised, stood rooted to the pavement with his hands extended so far toward the mystery that I could see two or three inches of bony old wrist beyond his shirt-cuffs. After a while he turned and slowly came back to his chambers. He seemed now not to see me; or he was careless whether I saw him or not. As he entered the doorway he held up the telegram, bent his head and laid a kiss upon the pink paper.

But that is by no means all. Now I come, to the Richborough story, which all London that is as old as I am remembers. That part of London, it may be, will not read this book; or if it does, will not object to the recall of a case which absorbed it in 1886-87. I am not going to be indiscreet. The lady married, and the lady left England. Moreover, naturally, I give no names; but if I did I don't see that there is anything to be ashamed of in what she was pleased to do with her hand and person. It was startling to us of those days, it might be startling in these; what was more than startling was the manner in which the thing was done. That is known to very few persons indeed.

I had seen enough upon that April day, whose events form my prelude, to give me remembrance of the handsome telegraph boy. The next time I saw him, which was near midnight in July—the place Hyde Park—I knew him at once.

I had been sharing in Prince's Gate, with a dull company, an interminable dinner, one of those at which you eat twice as much as you intend, or desire, because there is really nothing else to do. On one side of me I had had a dowager whom I entirely failed to interest, on the other, a young person who only cared to talk with her left-hand neighbour. There was a reception afterward to which I had to stop, so that I could not make my escape till eleven or more. The night was very hot and it had been raining; but such air as there was was balm after the still furnace of the rooms. I decided immediately to walk to my lodging in Camden Town, entered by Prince's Gate, crossed the Serpentine Bridge and took a bee-line for the Marble Arch. It was cloudy, but not at all dark. I could see all the ankle-high railings which beset the unwary passenger and may at any moment break his legs and his nose, imperil his dignity and ruin his hat. Dimly ahead of me, upon a broad stretch of grass, I presently became aware of a concourse. There was no sound to go by, and the light afforded me no definite forms; the luminous haze was blurred; but certainly people were there, a multitude of people. I was surprised, but not alarmed. Save for an occasional wastrel of civilisation, incapable of degradation and concerned only for sleep, the park is wont to be a desert at that hour; but the hum of the traffic, the flashing cab lamps, never quite out of sight, prevent fear. Far from being afraid I was highly interested, and hastening my steps was soon on the outskirts of a throng.

A throng it certainly was, a large body of persons, male and female, scattered yet held together by a common interest, loitering and expectant, strangely silent, not concerned with each other, rarely in couples, with all their faces turned one way—namely, to the south-east, or (if you want precision) precisely to Hyde Park Corner. I have remarked upon the silence: that was really surprising; so also was the order observed, and what you may call decorum. There was no ribaldry, no skylarking, no shrill discord of laughter without mirth in it to break the solemnity of the gracious night. These people just stood or squatted about; if any talked together it was in secret whispers. It is true that they were under the watch of a tall policeman; yet he too, I noticed, watched nobody, but looked steadily to the south-east, with his lantern harmless at his belt. As my eyes grew used to the gloom I observed that all ranks composed the company. I made out the shell jacket, the waist and elongated limbs of a life-guardsman, the open bosom of an able seaman. I happened upon a young gentleman in the crush hat and Inverness of the current fashion; I made certain of a woman of the pavement and of ladies of the boudoir, of a hospital nurse, of a Greenwich pensioner, of two flower-girls sitting on the edge of one basket, of a shoeblack (I think), of a costermonger, and a nun. Others there were, and more than one or two of most categories: in a word, there was an assembly.

I accosted the policeman, who heard me civilly but without committing himself. To my first question, what was going to happen? he carefully answered that he couldn't say, but to my second, with the irrepressible scorn of one who knows for one who wants to know, he answered more frankly, "Who are they waiting for? Why, Quidnunc. Mister Quidnunc. That's who it is. Him they call Quidnunc. So now you know." In fact, I did not know. He had told me nothing, would tell me no more, and while I stood pondering the oracle I was sensible of some common movement run through the company with a thrill, unite them, intensify them, draw them together to be one people with one faith, one hope, one assurance. And then the nun, who stood near me, fell to her knees, crossed herself and began to pray; and not far off her a slim girl in black turned aside and covered her face with her hands. A perceptible shiver of emotion, a fluttering sigh such as steals over a pine-wood toward dawn ran through all ranks. Far to the south-east a speck of light now showed, which grew in intensity as it came swiftly nearer, and seemed presently to be a ball of vivid fire surrounded by a shroud of lit vapour. Again, as by a common consent, the crowd parted, stood ranked, with an open lane between. The on-coming flare, grown intolerably bright, now seemed to fade out as it resolved itself into a human figure. A human figure at the entry of the lane of people there undoubtedly was, a figure with so much light about him, raying (I thought) from him, that it was easy to observe his form and features. Out of the flame and radiant mist he grew, and showed himself to me in the trim shape and semblance, with the small head and alert air of a youth; and such as he was, in the belted tunic and peaked cap of a telegraph messenger, he came smoothly down the lane formed by the obsequious throng, and stood in the midst of it and looked keenly, with his cold, clear eyes and fixed and inscrutable smile, from one expectant face to another. There was no mistaking him whom all those people so eagerly awaited; he was my former wonder of Gray's Inn, the saviour of old Mr. Fowkes.

But all my former wonder paled before this my latter. For he stood here like some young Eastern king among his slaves, one hand on his hip, the other at his chin, his face expressionless, his eyes fixed but unblinking. Meantime, the crowd, which had stretched out arms to him as he came, was now seated quietly on the grass, intently waiting, watching for a sign. They sat, all those people, in a wide ring about him; he was in the midst, a hand to his chin.

Whether sign was made or not, I saw none; but after some moments of pause a figure rose erect out of the ring and hobbled toward the boy. I made out an old woman, an old wreck of womanhood, a scant-haired, blue-lipped ruin of what had once been woman. I heard her snivel and sniff and wheeze her "Lord ha' mercy" as she went by, slippering forward on her miserable feet, hugging to her wasted sides what remnant of gown she had, fawning before the boy, within the sphere of light that came from him. If he loathed, or scorned, or pitied her, he showed no sign; if he saw her at all his fixed eyes looked beyond her; if he abhorred her, his nostrils did not betray him. He stood like marble and suffered what followed. It was strange.