An Opera and Lady Grasmere/Book 1/Chapter 8

EFORE turning in at his club that morning, Merceron marched off to Bond Street, where he bought a new hat and several pairs of the latest shade of gloves. He also found some boots that fitted him, and looked, besides, ever so much smarter than anything he had previously worn. Thence to his tailor's, whom he astonished with the most extensive order he had ever bestowed in that direction. He went to his bank as well, and filled his pocket with sovereigns and notes; why, he hardly knew, but it all seemed part of the new life whose continuance was now so close at hand. From here to his club, where he lunched as lightly as the bill of fare would permit.

Merceron's club was a small and, as these things go, a rather select institution; its address, a biggish house in Piccadilly that had once been private. He knew very few of the members—it had been to him more of a convenience than a social centre—and not even a casual acquaintance was in the dining-room as he sat down to his meal. There entered, indeed, a certain Carter-Page, a man whom he had known at Oxford, but who, for some reason of his own, had thought fit to ignore Merceron upon their re-colliding in town. Harvey had not lingered over the incident; he had had little time to give to Carter-Page, a familiar enough type of middle-class opportunist.

To-day, however, Carter-Page seemed to recover his memory. He nodded quite genially as he came down the room.

"I wonder whether he saw me come in? It's that hat, and the gloves and boots;—thinks I 've got a rise of some sort!" was Harvey's ungenerous interpretation of this altered demeanour.

But Carter-Page was not content with a nod; must needs come and take lunch at the same table.

"Didn't know you belonged—just joined, I suppose?" remarked Carter-Page, referring to the club.

"Three years ago," said Harvey.

"Really? Ought to have seen you before then; but I'm rather slack."

"Fellows used to say so at Oxford," from Harvey.

"You were at The House, weren't you?" asked Carter-Page, not visibly disconcerted.

"No."

Carter-Page changed the subject.

"Rather jolly club this,—quiet, you know: not quite smart, but so-so," he observed. "Ever play pills here?"

"Haven't touched a cue for ages."

"How do you like living in town? You go out a great deal, I suppose? Not working much, are you?"

"No; not at all."

"You chaps are lucky," said Carter-Page, with the air of a galley-slave. He was articled to a firm of solicitors, at whose office he turned up whenever he had nothing better to do. "You chaps are lucky. And there's always plenty going,—season's nearly over, though. I suppose you 'll go abroad?"

"I don't know," returned Harvey, who was obviously expected to say something. He rose to go.

"See you again: I usually lunch and look at the papers here. You 're a bit fagged? Don't look it, though."

"Morning," said Merceron.

It was time for action. A minute or two later, Harvey, gripping his umbrella, set out for the Park. He would be able to think there. As yet he had but trusted; but now he would want all his wits.

It was close on three o'clock, and the heavy clouds that darkened the midsummer sky, whose forerunners had already filled Merceron with a certain amount of indignation, now began to threaten. Large drops, falling singly, were their next intimation. Why was he not allowed to ponder undisturbed?

By the time he reached the Serpentine, the Park was dismal with fast pattering rain; the near bridge crossed a sheet of water from which Cockney oarsmen were fleeing in disgust. Who was she? Where did she live? "An earl's coronet and a yellow domino." Harvey had already repeated this formula a dozen times: how could he discover more? He was on the bridge, had halted midway, and was now looking down into the water as though half expecting to find his answer there.

"An earl's coronet and a yellow domino that had driven off towards Knightsbridge?"

He leaned over the parapet retelling these three beads. More—how could he discover more? and he stared ahead and round about, unmindful of the inclement downpour, trying to see beyond this trio, to enlarge this brief rosary. The landscape grew familiar, its detail noticeable,—dark sky, dripping foliage, and leaden water; the seats and benches along the shore were deserted; a man was moving among the chairs, placing them face to face so as to keep them dry. It was half-past three, and he had promised to call that afternoon. Where—where—where? Who—who—who? "An earl's coronet, a yellow domino, and Knightsbridge."

And now at last the first dull shaft of doubt grazed him, then a second that bruised. What a fool he had been not to ask her who she was, where she lived! Why had he not done so? She would have told him—he had been so near to her. And, brightening his misery, that moment came back to him; that moment of semi-surrender, brief, entrancing, when she had leant so heavy on his arm and looked up at him through half-closed eyes, and he had whispered, "This afternoon—this afternoon!" These words returned, mocking, bitter, extinguishing the light that had stolen over his anguish, now intensified. What a fool he had been!

Why had he not asked, asked—instead of fearing the commonplace question, the return to facts, and their jarring? This—this gazing at sky and water from under a dripping umbrella—was this not commonplace, jarring, a damper? Cold water enough for sure! He looked about him. Dismal—how dismal! Rain—how it rained! And the landscape!—now a possession, every line bitten into his mind; he could have gone home and reproduced it from memory alone, down to the one steeple that showed above the foliage, a slim, tapering thing, studded with points like a cactus!

And now his doubts, single at first, came crowding; where they had grazed and bruised, they pierced and sickened. Perhaps he would never find her again; perhaps she would leave London; perhaps to-day or to-morrow—perhaps was legion. His heart sank the deeper with each new possibility; and worst, most hateful of all, was his knowledge—a mocking, cruel voice this—his consciousness of the utter futility of his new programme, new philosophy, unless he could obtain this woman's help. For had he not built his new life up around her—was she not the heart of it and the kernel, its keystone, its Leit-motif? Without her, it could not be lived. The rest—the rest was lifeless; without her animating spirit, dead, soulless, profitless!

The rain still poured, the Park was near deserted. The rare passers-by hurried on regardless of all but their present scurryings towards shelter; oblivious to Merceron, to Merceron's assailment of doubt and fear and welling bitterness as he stood thinking on that forsaken structure—"An earl's coronet, a yellow domino that drove off towards Knightsbridge?" What a fool he was to entertain, why waste more time over, such a figment! His quest had been hopeless from the outset, an impossible conundrum—why follow it further? He looked below, the raindrops pitted the water's surface. Above, the clouds had grown still darker; the foliage was almost black. The landscape, with a skyline reaching from Kensington to Mayfair, had now become an obsession, a thing hateful yet persistent. He closed his eyes, it was still there.

Yet darker grew the clouds, and the rain continued. The new hat had lost much of its gloss, the patent leather of the new boots was dulling. He would go away; perhaps he might find the house in Piccadilly whose awning had invited them last night. But what could he ask for, and for whom? "An earl's coronet...?" He checked himself, he had had enough of that formula! Out of the heavy sky flashed a first streak of lightning, then thunder. The interval was filled by Merceron's cry:

"I have it—that man, Carter-Page—he knows—of course he knows!"

Merceron ran off to get a cab.

"I must find the little beast," he muttered on the way. "Of course he knows. Why was he so affable?—he's cut me for three years, and now—thank the merciful God that created snobs! Somebody must have told him that I was at that house last night, or else he saw me there, and she's—'An earl's coronet, a yellow domino, and Knightsbridge!'" cried Merceron joyfully, as he hailed the cab that drove him back to his club.