The Drunkard

Lothian captured the dog at last, and held him pressed to his side.

"I am very glad to see the old chap again. Look here, William, just you go quietly over to the Mortland Arms, don't look as if you were going on any special errand, – but you know – and get a bottle of whiskey. Draw the cork and put it back in the bottle so that I can take it out with my fingers when I want to. Then bring it quietly up here."

"Yessir," said Tumpany. "That'll be all right, sir," and departed with a somewhat ludicrous air of secrecy and importance that tickled his master's sense of humour and made him smile.

It was by no means the first time that Tumpany had carried out these little confidential missions.

In ten minutes the man was back again, with the bottle.

"Shall I leave the dog, sir?"

"Yes, you may as well. He's quite happy."

Tumpany went away.

Gilbert rose from bed, the bottle in his hand, and looked round for a hiding-place. The wardrobe! That would do. He put it in one of the big inside pockets of a shooting-coat which was hanging there and carefully closed the door.

As he did so, he caught sight of his face in the panel-mirror. It was sly and unpleasant. Something horrible seemed to be peeping out.

He shook his head and a slight blush came to his cheeks.

The eyes under the bandaged brow, the smirk upon the clear-cut mouth… "Beastly!" he said aloud, as if speaking of some one else – as indeed he really was, had he but realised it.

Now he would sleep, to be fresh for the night. Bromide – always a good friend, though not so certain in its action as in the past – Ammonium Bromide should paralyse his racing brain to sleep.

He dissolved five tablets in a little water and drank the mixture.

When Mary came noiselessly into the room, three hours later, he was sleeping calmly. One arm was round the Dog Trust, who was sleeping too.

Her husband looked strangely youthful and innocent. A faint smile hung about his lips and her whole heart went out to him as he slept.

It was after midnight.

Deep peace brooded over the poet's household. Only he was awake. The dog slumbered in his kennel, the servants in their rooms, the Sweet Chatelaine of the Old House lay in tranquil sleep in her own chamber.

.. On a small oak table by Gilbert's bedside, three tall candles were burning in holders of silver. Upon it also was an open bottle of whiskey, the carafe of water from the washstand and a bedroom tumbler.

The door was locked.

Gilbert was sitting up in bed. Upon his raised knees a pad of white paper was resting. In his hand was a stylographic pen of red vulcanite, and a third of the page was covered with small delicate writing.

His face was flushed but quite motionless. His whole body in its white pyjama suit was perfectly still. The only movement was that of the hand travelling over the page, the only sound that of the dull grinding of the stylus, as it went this way and that.

There was something sinister about this automaton in the bed with its moving hand. And in our day there is always something a little fantastic and unreal about candlelight..

How absolutely still the night was! Not a breath of air stirred.

The movements, the stir and tumult of the mind of the person so rigid in the bed were not heard.

What was it, who was it, that was writing in the bed?

Who can say?

Was it Gilbert Lothian, the young and kindly-natured man who reverenced all things that were pure, beautiful and of good report?

Or was it that dreadful other self, the Being created out of poison, that was laying sure and stealthy fingers upon the Soul, that "glorious Devil large of heart and brain"?

Who can tell?

The subtle knowledge of the great doctor could not have said, the holy love of the young matron could not have divined.

These things are hidden yet, and still will be.

The hump of the bed-clothes sank. The pad fell flat. The figure stretched out towards the table, there was the stealthy trickle of liquid, the gurgle of a body, drinking.

Then the bed-clothes rose once more, the pad went to its place, the figure stiffened; and the red pen moved obedient to that which controlled it, setting down the jewelled words upon the page.

– The first of the long series of letters that the Girl of the Library was destined to receive! Not the most beautiful perhaps, not the most wonderful. Passion was not born yet, and if love was, there was no concrete word of it here. No one but Gilbert Lothian ever knew what was born on that fated midnight, when he wrote this first subtle letter, deadly for this girl to receive, perhaps, from such a man, at such a time in her life.

A love letter without a word of love.

These are passages from the letter: —

.. "So, Rita, I am going to write a great poem for you. Will you take it from your friend? I think you will, for it will be made for you in the first place and wrought with all my skill.

"I am going to call it 'A Lady in a Library.' No one will know the innermost inwardness of it but just you and me. Will not that be delightful, Rita mia amica? When you answer this letter, say that it will be delightful, please!

"'A Lady in a Library!' Are not the words wonderful – say it quietly to yourself – 'A Lady in a Library!'"

This was the poem which appeared two months afterwards in the English Review and definitely established Gilbert Lothian's claim to stand in the very forefront of the poets of his decade. It is certain to live long. More than one critic of the highest standing has printed his belief that it will be immortal, and many lovers of the poet's work think so too.

.. "The Lady and the Poet meet in a Library upon a golden afternoon. She is the very Spirit and Genius of the place. She has drawn beauty from many brave books. They have told her their secrets as she moves among them, and lavished all their store upon her. Some of the beauty which they hold has passed into her face, and the rosy tints of youth become more glorious.

"Oh, they have been very generous!

"The thin volume of Keats gave her eyes their colour, but an old and sober-backed edition of Coleridge opened its dun boards and robbed the magic stanzas of 'Kubla Khan' to give them their mystery and wonder.

"Milton bestowed the music of her voice, but it came from the second volume in which Comus lies hid. Her smile was half Herrick and half Heine, and her hair was spun in a 'Wood near Athens' by the fairies – Tom III, Opera Glmi Shakespeare, Editio e Libris Podley!– upon a night in Midsummer."

"Random thoughts, Cupid! random thoughts! They come to me like moths through the still night, and I put them down for you. A grey-fawn Papillon de nuit is fluttering round my candles now and sometimes he falls flapping and whirring on my paper like a tiny clock-work toy. But I will not kill him. I am happy in writing to my friend, distilling my friendship for you in the lonely laboratory of self, so he shall go unharmed. His ancestors may have feasted upon royal tapestries and laid their eggs in the purple robes of kings!

"What are the moths like in Kensington this night, Cupid? – But of course you are asleep now. I make a picture for myself of you sleeping.

"The whole village is asleep now, save only me, and I am trying to reconstruct our afternoon and evening together, five days ago or was it six? It is more than ever possible to do that at midnight and alone, though every detail is etched upon my memory and I am only adding colour.

"How happy we were! It is so strange to me to think how instantly we became friends – as we are agreed we are always to be, you and I. And think of all we still have to find out about each other! There are golden days coming in our friendship, all sorts of revelations and surprises. There are so many enchanted places in the Kingdom of Thought to which I have the key, so many doors I shall open for you.

"Ours shall be a perfect friendship – of your bounty I crave again what you have already given! – and I will build it up as an artificer in rare woods or stained marbles, a carver of moon-stones, a builder of temples in honey-coloured Travertine, makes beautiful states in which the soul can dwell, out of beautiful perishable things.

"How often do two people meet as you and I have met? Most rarely. Men and women fall in love, sometimes too early, sometimes too late. There is a brief summer, and then a long winter of calm grey days which numb the soul into acquiescence, or stab the dull tranquillity with the lightnings of tragedy and woe.

"We have the better part! We are to be friends, Rita, you and I – that is the rivulet of repeated melody which runs through my first letter to you. Some sad dawn will rise for me, when you tell of something nearer and more poignant than anything I can offer you. It will be a dawn in which, for you the trumpets, the sackbuts and the psalteries of Heaven will sound. And your friend will bless you; and retire to the back of the scene with a most graceful bow!

"In the last act of the play, when all the players appear as Nymphs and Graces, and Seasons, your friend will be found wearing the rich yet sober liveries of Autumn, saluting Spring and her Partner with a courtly song, and a dance which expresses his sentiments according to the best choreographic traditions.

"But, as he retires among the last red leaves of the year, and walks jauntily down the forest rides as the setting sun shows the trees already bare, he will know one thing, even if Spring does not know it then – when she turns to her Partner.

"He will know that in her future life, his voice, his face, can never be quite forgotten. Sometimes, at the feast, 'surgit amari aliquid' that he is not present there with the wistful glance, the hands that were ever reverent, the old familiar keys!

"For a brief instant of recollection, he will have for you 'L'effet d'un clair-de-lune par une nuit d'été'. And you will say to yourself, 'Ami du temps passés, vos paroles me reviennent comme un écho lointain, comme le son d'un cloche apporté par le vent; et il me semble que vous êtes là quand je lis des passages d'amour dans vos livres'."

A click of glass against glass, the low sound of drinking, a black shadow parodied and repeated upon the ceiling in the candle-glow.

The letter is nearly finished now – the bottle is nearly empty.

"'Tiens!' I hear you say – by the way, Rita, where did you learn to speak such perfect French? They tell me in Paris and, Mon Dieu! in Tours even! that I speak well. Mais, toi! ..

"Well 'How stupid!' I hear you say. 'Why does Gilbert strike this note of the 'cello and the big sobbing flutes at the very beginning of things?'

"Why, indeed? I hardly know myself. But it is very late now. The curtains of the dark are already shaken by the birth-pangs of the morning. Soon the jocund noises of dawn will begin.

"Let it be so for you and me. There are long and happy days coming in our friendship. The end is not yet! Soon, quite soon, I will return to London with a pocket-full of plans for pleasure, and the magician's wand polished like the poker in the best parlour of an evangelical household, and charged with the most superior magic!

"Meanwhile I shall write you my thoughts as you must send me yours.

"I kiss your hand,"GILBERT LOTHIAN."

The figure rose from the bed, gathering the papers together, putting them into a drawer of the dressing-table.

It staggered a little.

"I'm drunk," came in a tired voice, from lips that were parched and dry.

With trembling hands the empty bottle was hidden, the glass washed out and replaced, the door noiselessly unlocked.

Then Lothian lurched to the open window.

It was as he had said, dawn was at hand. But a thick grey mist hid everything. Phantoms seemed to sway in it, speaking to each other with tiny doll-like squeaks.

There were no jocund noises as he crept back into bed and fell into a stupor, snoring loudly.

No jocund noises of Dawn.

CHAPTER IV

DICKSON INGWORTH UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

"On n'est jamais trahi que par ses siens."

– Proverb of Provence.

Lothian and Dickson Ingworth were driving into Wordingham.

It was just after lunch and there was a pleasant cold-snap in the air, a hint of Autumn which would soon be here.

The younger man was driving, sending the cob along at a good pace, quite obviously a skilful and accustomed whip.

His host sat by his side and looked up at him with some curiosity, a curiosity which had been growing upon him during the last few days.

Ingworth was certainly good-looking, in a boyish, rather rakish fashion. There were no indications of dissipation in his face. He was not a dissipated youth. But there was, nevertheless, in the cast of the features, something that suggested rather more than staidness. The hair was dark red and very crisp and curly, the mouth was well-shaped and rather thick in the lips. Upon it, more often than not, was the hint of a smile at some inward thought, "rather like some youthful apprentice pirate, not adventured far upon the high seas yet, but with sufficient experience to lick the chops of memory now and then" .. thus Gilbert's half amused, half wondering thought.

And the eyes? – yes, there was something a little queer about the eyes. They were dark, not very steady in expression, and the whites – by Jove! that was it – had a curious opalescence at times. Could it possibly be that his friend had a touch of the tar-brush somewhere? It was faint, elusive, born more of a chance thought than of reality perhaps, and yet as the dog-cart bowled along the straight white road Gilbert wondered more and more.

He had known the lad, who was some two and twenty years of age, for twelve months or more. Where had he met him? – Oh, yes, at an exhibition of caricatures in the Carfax Gallery. Cromartie had introduced them. Ingworth had made friends at once. In a graceful impulsive way he had taken Lothian into a corner, and, blushing a good deal, had told him how much he had wanted to know him. He had just come down from Oxford; he told the poet how eagerly he was being read by the younger men there.

That was how it had begun.

Friendship was an immediate result. Lothian, quite impervious to flattery and spurning coteries and the "tea-shops," had found this young man's devotion a pleasant thing. He was a gentleman and he didn't bore Gilbert by literary talk. He was, in short, like an extremely intelligent fag to a boy in the sixth form of a public school. He spoke the same language of Oxford and school that Gilbert did – the bond between them was just that, and the elder and well-known man had done all he could for his protégé.

From Gilbert's point of view, the friendship had occurred by chance, it had presented no jarring elements, and he had drifted into it with good-natured acquiescence.

It was a fortnight after Mary had sent the invitation to Ingworth, who could not come at the moment, being kept in London by "important work." He had now arrived, and this was the eighth day of his visit.

"I can't understand Tumpany letting this beast down," Ingworth said. "He's as sure footed as possible. Was Tumpany fluffed?"

"I suppose he was, a little."

"Then why didn't you drive, Gilbert?"

"I? Oh, well, I did myself rather well in the train coming down, and so I thought I'd leave it to William!"

Gilbert smiled as he said this, his absolutely frank and charming smile – it would have disarmed a coroner!

Ingworth smiled also, but here was something self-conscious and deprecating. He was apologising for his friend's rueful but open statement of fact. The big man had said, in effect, "I was drunk," the small man tried to excuse the plain statement with quite unnecessary sycophancy.

"But you couldn't have been very bad?"

"Oh, no, I wasn't, Dicker. But I was half asleep as we got into the village, and as you see this cart is rather high and with a low splashboard. My feet weren't braced against the foot-bar and I simply shot out!"

Ingworth looked quickly at Lothian, and chuckled. Then he clicked his tongue and the trap rolled on silently.

Lothian sat quietly in his place, smoking his cigar. He was conscious of a subtle change in this lad since he had come down. It interested him. He began to analyse as Ingworth drove onwards, quite oblivious of the keen, far-seeing brain beside him.

– That last little laugh of Ingworth's. There was a new note in it, a note that had sounded several times during the last few days. It almost seemed informed with a slight hint of patronage, and also of reservation. It wasn't the admiring response of the past. The young man had been absolutely loyal in the past, though no great strain had been put upon his friendship. It was not difficult to be friends with a benefactor – while the benefactions last. Certainly on one occasion – at the Amberleys' dinner-party – he had behaved with marked loyalty. Gilbert had heard all about it from Rita Wallace. But that, after all, was an isolated instance. Lothian decided to test it..

"Of course I wasn't tight," he said suddenly and with some sharpness.

"My dear old chap," the lad replied hastily – too hastily – "don't I know?"

It wasn't sincere! How badly he did it! Lothian watched him out of the corner of his eye. There was certainly something. Dickson was changed.

Then the big mind brushed these thoughts away impatiently. It had enough to brood over! This small creature which was just now intruding in the great and gathering sweep of his daily thoughts might well be dissected some other time.

Lothian's head sank forward upon his chest. His eyes lost light and speculation, the mouth set firm. Instinctively he crossed his arms upon his breast, and the clean-shaved face with the growing heaviness of contour mingled with its youth, made an almost Napoleonic profile against the bright grey arc of sky over the marshes.

Ingworth saw it and wondered. "One can see he's a big man," he thought with a slight feeling of discomfort. "I wonder if Toftrees is right and his reputation is going down and people are beginning to find out about him?"

He surveyed the circumstances of the last fortnight – two very important weeks for him.

Until his arrival in Norfolk about a week ago he had not seen Lothian since the night of the party at the Amberleys', the poet having left town immediately afterwards. But he had met, and seen a good deal of Herbert Toftrees and his wife.

These worthy people liked an audience. Their somewhat dubious solar system was incomplete without a whole series of lesser lights. The rewards of their industry and popularity were worth little unless they were constantly able to display them.

Knowing their own disabilities, however, quite aware that they were in literature by false pretences so to speak, they preferred to be reigning luminaries in a minor constellation rather than become part of the star dust in the Milky Way. Courtier stars must be recruited, little eager parasitic stars who should twinkle pleasantly at their hospitable board.

Dickson Ingworth, much to his own surprise and delight, had been swept in. He thought himself in great good luck, and perhaps indeed he was.

Nephew of a retired civilian from the Malay Archipelago, he had been sent to Eton and Oxford by this gentleman, who had purchased a small estate in Wiltshire and settled down as a minor country squire. The lad was destined to succeed to this moderate establishment, but, at the University, he had fallen into one of those small and silly "literary" sets, which are the despair of tutors and simply serve as an excuse for general slackness. The boy had announced his intention of embracing a literary career when he had managed to scrape through his pass schools. He had a hundred a year of his own – always spent before he received it – and the Wiltshire squire, quite confident in the ultimate result, had cut off his allowance. "Try it," he had said. "No one will be more pleased than I if you make it a success. You won't, though! When you're tired, come back here and take up your place. It will be waiting for you. But meanwhile, my dear boy, not a penny do you get from me!"

So Dickson Ingworth had "embraced a literary career." The caresses had not as yet been returned with any ardour. Conceit and a desire to taste "ginger in the mouth while it was hot" had sent him to London. He had hardly ever read a notable book. He had not the slightest glimmerings of what literature meant. But he got a few short stories accepted now and then, did some odd journalism, and lived on his hundred a year, a fair amount of credit, and such friends as he was able to make.

In his heart of hearts the boy knew himself for what he was. But his good looks, his youth – most valuable asset of all! – and the fact that he would some day have some sort of settled position, enabled him to rub along pretty well for the time.

Without much real harm in him – he was too lacking in temperament to be really wicked – he was as cunning as an ape and justified his good opinions of his cleverness by the fact that his laborious little tricks constantly succeeded. He was always achieving infinitesimal successes.

He had marked out Gilbert Lothian, for instance, and had succeeded in making a friend of him easily enough.

Lothian rarely thought ill of any one and any one could take him in. To do Ingworth justice he liked Lothian very much, and really admired him. He did not understand him in the least. His poems were rather worse Greek to him than the Euripidean choruses he had learnt by heart at school. At the same time it was a great thing to be Fidus Achates to the poet of the moment, and it was extremely convenient – also – to have a delightful country house to retire to when one was hard up, and a patron who not only introduced one to editors, but would lend five pounds as a matter of course.

Perhaps there was really some Eastern taint in the young fellow's blood. At any rate he was sly by nature, had a good deal of undeveloped capability for treachery latent within him, and, encouraged by success, was becoming a marked parasite.

Lazy by nature, he soon discovered how easy it was – to take one example – to look up the magazines of three years back, steal a situation or a plot, adapt it to the day, and sell it for a guinea or two. His small literary career had hitherto been just that. If he had been put upon the rack he could not have confessed to an original thought. And it was the same in many other aspects of his life. He made himself useful. He was always sympathetic and charming to some wife in Bohemia who bewailed the inconstancy of her husband, and earned the title of a "nice, good-hearted boy." On the next evening he would gladly sup with the husband and the chorus girl who was the cause of the trouble, and flatter them both.

Master Dickson Ingworth, it will be seen, was by no means a person of fine nature. He was simply very young, without any sort of ideals save the gratification of the moment, and would, no doubt, become a decent member of society in time.

In a lower rank of life, and without the comfortable inheritance which awaited him, he would probably have become a sneak-thief or a blackmailer in a small way.

In the event, he was destined to live a happy and fairly popular life in the Wiltshire Grange, and to die a much better man than he was at two and twenty. He was not to repent of, but to forget, all the calculated meannesses of his youth, and at fifty he would have shown any one to the door with horror who suggested a single one of the tricks that he had himself been guilty of in his youth.

And, parasite always, he is displayed here because of the part he is destined to take in the drama of Gilbert Lothian's life.

"I've been seeing a good deal of Toftrees lately, Gilbert," Ingworth said with a side glance.

Lothian looked up from his reverie.

"What? Oh, yes! – the Toftrees. Nice chap, Toftrees, I thought, when I met him the other night. Awfully clever, don't you think, to get hold of such an enormous public? Mind you, Dicker, I wouldn't give one of his books to any one if I could help it. But that's because I want every one to care for real literature. That's my own personal standpoint. Apart from that, I do think that Mr. and Mrs. Toftrees deserve all they get in the way of money and popularity and so on. There must be such people under the modern conditions, and apart from their work they both seem most interesting."