The House of Baltazar

by William John Locke

“You and yours.” That was the lawyer’s phrase. On the last word two pairs of eyes were bent on him narrowly and significantly. The unmistakable hint—the only one during the interview—of Godfrey’s complicity, he had repudiated with indignation. The consequences concerned himself alone. They smiled again. “Let it be so, then,” said they, “for the sake of argument. . . .” As he walked along the burning street he wondered how much they knew, how much they guessed. Save for that significant glance, both the grey politician and the longlipped lawyer had been as inscrutable as Buddhist idols. And he, John Baltazar, had been hopelessly outmatched.

Yet, after all, at a cost, he had won the game. Godfrey was saved. Mechanically he put his hand to the breast pocket of his thin summer jacket and felt the incriminating document crackle beneath his touch. That and the sheet of clotted passion of which he had confessed himself the author. . . . He continued his way westwards, down the mean and noisy Theobald’s Road, half conscious of his surroundings. The drab men and women who jostled him on the pavement and passed him in the roadway traffic seemed the happy creatures of a dream—happy in the inalienable possession of their London heritage. . . . Fragments of the recent interview passed through his mind. His adversaries had threatened not to stand alone on the written disclosure of War Office secrets. They could bring evidence of leakage through Lady Edna, for some time past, of important military information. He could quite believe it. The written paper could scarcely be the boy’s sole infatuated indiscretion; and as for the lady—revealed as she was yesterday, he counted her capable of any betrayal. Bluff or not, he had yielded to the threat. While the paper remained in Donnithorpe’s possession, Godfrey was in grave peril. . . . “You and yours.” The phrase haunted him. If he defied them, they would strike through him at Godfrey.

Were they aware of farce? If so, why, save for this veiled allusion, did Godfrey, the real lover, seem to matter so little? During the interview their attitude puzzled him, until he became aware of Donnithorpe’s implacable enmity towards him, John Baltazar. And now he wondered whether the pose of the injured husband were not a blind for revenge rooted in deeper motives. Only a fortnight or so ago Godfrey had said:

“The little beast hates you like poison.”

He had asked why. Parrot-like, Godfrey had quoted from Lady Edna’s report of the conversation before his father’s visit to Moulsford.

“A Triton like you gives these political minnows the jumps.”

He had laughed at the affectionate exaggeration. But was the boy right after all? Certainly he had paid scant courtesy to Donnithorpe, whom he had lustily despised as one of the brood of little folk still parasitically feeding on the Empire which they had done their best to bring to ruin. Was this the abominable little insect’s vengeance?

He halted at the hurrying estuary of Hart Street, Bloomsbury, took off his hat, and again mopped his forehead and the short thatch of thick brown hair. The words of Dr. Rewsby of Water-End flashed across his mind—“Have you generally conducted your life on these extravagant principles?” . . . and . . . “I should say you were cultivating a very bad habit, and I should advise you to give it up.” And he remembered his confession, a year ago, to the sagacious doctor: “You have the most comforting way in the world of telling me that I’m the Great Ass of the Universe.”

“That man’s diagnosis,” said Baltazar to himself, putting on his hat, “was perfectly correct. I am.”

He marched in his unconsciously hectoring way down Holborn and Oxford Street, deep in his thoughts. Yes, once again his episodical life history had repeated itself. The same old extravagant principles had once again prevailed. They were part and parcel of his being, resistless as destiny. Once again, without thought of the future, he had cast the glowing present to the winds. Once again he had proved himself the Great Ass of the Universe. But what did it matter? Godfrey was saved. Again he made the papers crackle in his pocket. He had told him he would give his life for him. He strode along fiercely. By God! Stupendous Ass that he might be, he had never in his life broken a vow or a promise. . . . Apart from the passionate love he had conceived for the boy, there was no reparation adequate for his twenty years’ unconscious neglect. He swung his stick to the peril of the King’s lieges on the pavement. It was a young man’s world—this new world that was to follow the war. Old men like himself were of brief account. Godfrey should have his chance, unstained, unfettered in the new world which his generation, throwing mildewed tradition on a universal bonfire, would have to mould.