The Garden at No. 19/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
AT THE NEW BOHEMIANS
I CARRIED the steps into the house and came back to my easy chair and book. I did not read, however; I was in a considerable elation at having made the acquaintance of my charming neighbor and at finding her even more charming than her face had promised. I liked her child-like frankness of attitude to me. I saw no reason why we should not become friends. We seemed both of us lonely persons.
I pondered her confused admissions about the beast in the garden. She, too, had not seen the horror; like myself she had only felt it. I had had the impression that it had been on the little strip of lawn before the cupola. Plainly the shrubs hid that strip from the door of the dining-room of No. 19. I was more curious than ever about the doings of her uncle; and I was sure that she could throw a bright light on them, if she would. The natural curiosity of an intelligent girl would take a great deal of baulking; and Pamela seemed an uncommonly intelligent girl. Also she had plenty of leisure to devise methods of gratifying it. Probably she had learned most of what there was to learn before her uncle had taken thought to prevent her learning. It was odd that he should lock her in her bedroom on the nights on which his friends came. What did they come for? I made no doubt that she knew. I hoped that if we became friends she would tell me. I had the keenest desire to know.
The next evening I ate my dinner quickly to get the sooner into the garden; and when I came into it, I heard the clicking whirr of the sewing-machine. I set my chair on the spot I thought nearest to it and said, not too loudly, "Good evening, Miss Woodfell."
The clicking whirr ceased, and Pamela said, "Good evening, Heine."
"How is the dress getting on?" I said.
"Not very fast. But you mustn't talk too loud."
I said in a lower tone: "If you were to keep the sewing-machine going, it would blur the sound of our voices. It's a pity that your uncle's so—so—"
"Grumpy," said Pamela, setting the machine going.
"Grumpy be it. I have always thought it the duty of neighbors to be friendly. Don't you think so?"
"It depends on the neighbors, I should think," she said.
"It does indeed," I said. "And it seems to me that you and I are just the kind of neighbors who ought to be friendly. Have there been any more horrors in your garden?"
"Now, you mustn't ask questions about that—you mustn't really," she said quickly.
"I see. But I may ask questions about other things?"
"What other things?"
"Well, about you, for example."
"About me? But what do you want to know about me?" she said in a tone of some wonder.
"Everything," I said quickly. "And you see if we start with a certain amount of knowledge of one another, we can talk so much more easily."
"Yes, we could. And I suppose I could ask questions about you."
"Of course—as many as you like. We can set about a mutual catechism and protract it. It would be interesting. I don't know about you. But I'm rather lonely and dull."
"I'm lonely, but I'm not dull—and you, you have plenty of books—at least you read a great deal," she said.
"That makes the human voice all the more pleasant a change."
"Oh, yes, it does," she said.
Without more ado I began to catechise her, and presently she was answering my questions and questioning me. I told her of my tedious life in London; and I learned that, like myself, she had spent her childhood in the country. When she was eleven her mother had died, and she had come to live with her uncle at No. 19. At first she had found her life unspeakably dreary; and its dreariness had driven her to books. When she was fourteen, nearly four years ago, the old woman who kept house for her uncle had died, and he had told her that she must take her place. Probably the light house-work had been good for her; it meant that she had to move about and use her muscles. With out it she might have spent all her time poring over books.
Woodfell of course played a considerable part in her story; and he stood out as an old curmudgeon. He was indeed a student; he would be silent, absorbed in his work, for weeks on end; then he would for a while display himself in a talkative mood and again sink back into his silence. He seemed to have never tried to brighten her dull life. I gathered, too, that he gave her very little money.
If my life had been dull, hers had been dreary; it was plainly my bounden duty to brighten it. I was in all conscience ready to do that duty. It chafed me that I could not see the play of expression on her charming face as she talked.
That was the first of many talks, talks after the manner of Pyramus and Thisbe, on the long, delightful summer evenings. They became the most important part of my life, a refreshment after the tedious labors of the office. I was greatly annoyed when a wet evening prevented our talking. That prosaic instrument, the sewing-machine, proved very useful; if I heard its clicking, we might talk; if it were silent, her uncle was not safely shut away in his study.
Sometimes we met outside, in Hertford Park; and my pleasure in talking with her was increased, for I could watch her face. I remember very well our first meeting. I came out of the railway station one evening and turned to go up to my tobacconist's shop to buy cigarettes, and saw her ten yards away, peering wistfully into a sweet-shop.
My heart leapt in me, and I walked quickly to her and said: "Good evening, Miss Woodfell. Are you going to waste your pocket-money on sweets?"
She turned to me, flushing and smiling, with shining eyes.
As we shook hands she said: "Yes; I'm very fond of sweets. I'm going to spend a penny on them."
"Let us go inside and look at them closer," I said.
We went into the shop. It had nothing exquisite to offer, but I found that she liked mixed chocolates better than anything; and I bought her two pounds of the best they had. She was beyond words delighted.
Then I took her to a confectioner's shop in the main street, and we ate ices. We spent an hour over those ices, talking.
Then we went home, and as we turned into the Walden road I said: "I don't think we had better be seen arriving together—in view of your uncle's grumpiness. It might mean that he would forbid you to have anything more to do with me."
"That's just what I was thinking," she said uneasily.
"I don't like hiding our acquaintance from him, because any kind of secrecy is a bore. But the only way to deal with unreasonable people is to humor their unreasonableness. After all, there is no reason in the world why we shouldn't be friends."
"No, there isn't," she said firmly. "And there is no use in giving uncle the chance of making himself disagreeable."
"I must try to make his acquaintance. Then it will be all right."
"I'm afraid you'll find it very hard—impossible," she said, shaking her head.
"One can but try," I said.
She went on, and I let her get home before I followed her.
It was the very next night, at a meeting of the New Bohemians, that I learned about the piece of wood I had brought down from the top of the sycamore. That distinguished society meets on one evening a week at a tavern and smokes and talks; also it drinks, for the good of the house, during the intervals in the conversation. Its talk is apt to be righteously fierce, and hardly a meeting passes without the floor being strewed with the mangled relics of the reputation of some literary, political or theological idol of the British public. It is composed of poets, artists, novelists, journalists and solicitors; and on that evening I was sitting between two novelists. One of them, Marks, of a sonorous voice and deeply ringing laugh, is known for his admirable prose to every cultivated Englishman. The other, Gibson, always seems to me anxious to draw from the other members of the society not so much the honest expression of their real opinions on all matters as the most violent possible honest expression of their real opinions.
He and Marks had been talking about the Mysteries, a favorite subject with them, since Marks' novels are mystical and Gibson is interested in comparative religion. Gibson was maintaining that the mystica vannus Iacchi, of which Virgil speaks, was the bull-roarer. He was maintaining that the bull-roarer was probably used in the Bacchic mysteries in the same way as it always has been used in the other mysteries, as indeed it is used to-day among the savage tribes which celebrate mysteries. Marks was doubtful; the vannus was a winnow-ing-fan, and he thought that there was a good deal to be said for the view of the commentators that mystica meant only "carried in the mysteries." Gibson said a few kind words about the commentators.
Then I said, "What is a bull-roarer?"
"A bull-roarer is a small piece of wood hollowed out with a string attached to it. You whirl it round and it makes a roaring sound. It is used among savages to summon the initiates to the mysteries and to warn women and children and the boys who have not yet been initiated to keep away," said Gibson.
"Why, then, that's what I found on the top of a sycamore!" I cried. "And that was the roaring I heard."
"You found a bull-roarer on the top of a sycamore?" said Gibson.
"Yes; the leather thong must have broken off short and it flew up into the tree. That explains why the roaring broke off short," I said.
"Where do you live?" said Marks quickly in an uneasy tone.
"At No. 20 Walden road, Hertford Park," I said.
"At No. 20 Walden road," Marks repeated, and the note of uneasiness in his voice was clearer than ever.
"Ah, I see you know Woodfell," I said.
He hesitated; then he said in his deep, sonorous voice, "Yes, I know Woodfell—a great student—a great student."
"He's my neighbor. But I don't know him," I said.
"A difficult man to know—very difficult," said Marks.
He might have gone on to say something more about him, but Gibson made one of his incurably trivial remarks to the chairman, and the storm burst. With great promptitude he dragged, or rather flung, Marks into it, and in the raging of the poets and Anglicans the subject dropped. But several times during the rest of the evening I caught Marks looking at me with very thoughtful, searching eyes.
When, at midnight, the meeting broke up I came out with Marks, and we walked together towards the Tube station at Piccadilly Circus.
"I should be very pleased if you would not tell Woodfell that I came to the help of his niece and got the bull-roarer from the top of the sycamore for her," said I.
"Has "Woodfell a niece? She doesn't live at No. 19?" said Marks, stopping short and looking at me with a troubled face.
"Yes, she does. Oughtn't she to live at No. 19?" I said quickly, troubled in my turn.
Marks went on in silence for a few steps; then he said: "Why not? Why not? But of course I'll say nothing to Woodfell about the matter."
"Thank you. I think she finds him rather grumpy," I said.
"I've no doubt of it," said Marks. "He is short-tempered." He seemed to hesitate; then he added, "And I would rather that you, too, didn't talk about that bull-roarer."
"Very good, I won't," I said.
We went on in silence, and half-way up the Haymarket he said: "I take it that Woodfell looks after his niece carefully."
"I don't think he looks after her at all. In fact, he neglects her," I said.
Marks frowned, but said no more, and in the station we parted to go to our different Tubes.
I had certainly food for thought. It seemed that the object I had found for Pamela was the bull-roarer used in the mysteries; I had been awakened by its roaring in the night; the natural inference was that it had been used in the celebration of the mysteries at No. 19.
I knew something of the mysteries, as celebrated by the ancients, from my classical reading, but not much. I had an impression that the initiates had kept their secret well, and that the speculations of those who had studied them were very vague, and left the matter in the realm of conjecture. I was not greatly interested in the fact that mysteries of a kind were celebrated at No. 19. But I was deeply interested in the fact that Marks had shown a genuine, deep uneasiness on hearing that Pamela was living at No. 19. I could not get it out of my mind that she was in peril; and it seemed likely that that peril was connected with the mysteries they had celebrated.
It did seem absurd that a young girl living in a quiet, self-respecting suburb like Hertford Park should be in some obscure peril connected with the ancient mysteries. The more I thought of it the more absurd it seemed. But I had not only Marks' uneasiness to strengthen my growing belief in her danger, I had also that strange, terrifying experience of the beast in the garden. I had almost persuaded myself that it had been chiefly fancy; but now I found myself again filling with the conviction that it had not been fancy. The coughing grunt, the brushing sound of a pendulous belly drawn over turf might have been fancy. Some curious rustling might have caused my ears to play me false, and even awakened in me that inexplicable, unnerving terror. But I assured myself that the sickly, clinging smell had been no fancy, that it gave the lie to the belief that the rest had been fancy. Pamela might very well be in some great danger, all the greater for its obscurity.
That was reason enough for any action on my part; it justified any intrusion on Woodfell's privacy. I had only known Pamela a little while, but already I felt a strong sense of responsibility for her. I already felt her to be the most important person in my life. I would use every effort to protect her. I must keep a close watch on No. 19 and the mysterious doings of Woodfell.
I was in a very fortunate position to do this. I was up early next morning and set about turning my front room into my living room and study. I had been using the back room, the dining-room, as my living room and study, because of its outlook on to the garden and the pleasant green of the sycamores. I moved the furniture, the bookshelves and the books into the front room, and I was pleased with the change. The room was larger, airier, and better lighted; and the green trees above the garden wall opposite gave it nearly as pleasant an outlook. I made the change in order that I might keep a watch on No. 19 from the front as well as the back. I had in my mind that Pamela might be in danger from some malefic practices of her uncle, she might also be in danger from his associates. I wanted to see them.
I began to keep a more careful watch on the garden of No. 19. As the impression of the horror of the beast had grown fainter, I had slackened in it. Now again, after it was dark, I would go up to the empty top room at the back of the house and look down into the suspect garden, straining my eyes and ears. Sometimes a rustling would send a little chill down my back or set my scalp pricking. Sometimes the moonlight fell on the little cupola, and I wondered about it. I had a fancy that the little structure was the center of the mystery. Perhaps under its cup-shaped roof lay the entrance to that dark pathway to the Abyss up which the terrifying beast had come.
In the meantime I was strengthening my friendship with Pamela. On many fine evenings we talked through the leafy screen which separated the gardens. On wet evenings my new position in the front of the house enabled me to see her if she left No. 19 on some errand, and I was quick to sally out after her.
One evening as we were talking in the garden we had a narrow escape. She had been saying something to me, and the words had scarcely died on her lips when her uncle cried from the dining-room, "Who are you talking to, Pamela?"
I heard Pamela gasp; then she said coolly, "I was talking to Heine."
Her uncle's footsteps came crunching along the gravel; then he said in a jeering tone: "You and your Heine. That German Jew knew nothing—a man who believed that the old gods were so worn out and senseless that they muddled about in a monastery on the beastly Frisian coast. It's likely, isn't it?"
"Never mind, I like to talk to him," said Pamela, and I caught the subdued, mischievous glee in her tone.
"Oh, well, for all his ignorance he was a pretty writer," said Woodfell, who seemed in one of his rare expansive moods. "He was the only great writer, outside metaphysics, Germany ever produced. And the German philosophers didn't know everything—not by any means. The reason only takes you half way. Schopenhauer with a little more knowledge might have done great things. But he didn't know, and he never had the chance to know. Well, well, if you must admire a German, you might do worse than admire Heine, and he wasn't one."
He went back into the house.
I kept silence till I heard faintly the bang of his study door; then I said in a low voice, "That was an escape."
"Yes," said Pamela, laughing softly; "but uncle didn't know, and he didn't get the chance to know, and he's not going to get the chance to know. I like to talk to you, and I shall. Only for the future I shall talk with my face towards the house. I ought to have done it before."
I heard her shift her chair.
It was a few evenings after that that a happy thought came to me. As I was coming from the railway station I met her in the main road on her way to the shops, and was inspired to suggest that we should start in half an hour for Richmond and walk through the park. She accepted the suggestion with joy. We took a train to Richmond, a cab to the top of the hill, and went into the park.
We had not gone far when she said: "Let's get among the trees. I haven't been in a wood for years and years, and I used to love them so."
I found that she did indeed love them. Once among the trees, her steps lagged; her eyes were shining; her nostrils, drawing in the woodland scents, dilated; she seemed to more than ever wear the air of a wild, woodland creature.
"I know now what you are," I said softly. "I always knew that you were something, and I fancied that it was a shepherdess of Sicily. But I was wrong; you're a wood-nymph; a hamadryad."
"A wood-nymph? Oh, I wish I were!" she said. "Then—then, of course, I should be able to see Pan without going mad."
"You want to see Pan?" I said in some surprise at the odd fancy.
"Yes—I do," she said slowly. "But only of course I didn't go mad. He's very terrible."
"Not so very terrible, surely," I said. "I must lend you 'The Plea of Pan.' If you're interested in him, you'd like it."
"Oh, but he is terrible—truly terrible," she said. "I've seen a statue—a real statue of him, and it is terrible—and—and—fascinating."
"Where did you see it?" I said.
She shook her head, looked fearfully round the dusky thicket, and shrank a little closer to me. Some of her fearfulness seemed to pass into me, and of a sudden I filled with a sense that the thicket was a place of strange dangers. I slipped my arm through hers, drew her quickly out of it into a broad stretch of turf flooded with the golden light of the setting sun, and breathed more freely.
We looked at one another with eyes in which that sudden fear still lingered.
"I caught your fear," I said.
"Fear's a horrid thing—especially when it comes on you suddenly," she said with a little shiver; and she spoke as one having had experience.
"You speak as if you'd been frightened again and again. Surely you've not been frightened often."
"Not often, thank goodness! But often enough," she said.
"As when you found that beast in the garden the other Sunday?"
"Yes," she said,. and added in a thoughtful tone, "I wonder who it was?"
"Who? You don't suppose it was a person?" I cried.
"I don't think any animal could have frightened us like that."
"No, that's true. And of course an animal could not have understood your uncle's exorcism. It would have been wasted on an animal."
I stopped short, and faced her:
"B—B—But where d—d—does it l—l—land me?" I stammered as my first doubts and fears came thronging back.
She shook her head.
"Oh, but there was its smell. Human beings don't smell like that," I said confidently.
"Devils do," she said.