CHAPTER XII

THE SCENE IN THE GARDEN COURT

Of course, it was not to be expected that these morning hours of sunshine (London having embarked, as it turned out, on a giddy whirl of a fortnight’s fine weather) would find us in the tension to which we were strung over-night. Such a thing would be unreasonable, almost inhuman. The merry jingle of the hansoms coming through the open windows, the glimpses of omnibus tops freighted with wearers of flower hats and frivolous muslins, the gay horn-blown ta-ran-ta-ra of the coaches crossing Trafalgar Square or climbing the Haymarket--this gladsome medley must banish problems which appealed to either science or credulity. London was astir and enjoying itself, and who were we that we should resist its decorus gaiety?

At that period motor-cars were still sufficiently uncommon in England to lend a piquant novelty to my suggestion that we should avail ourselves of a friend’s offer to me and borrow his car for the day. That was soon arranged. I sat with the chauffeur on the front seat, Karl and the ladies occupied the tonneau, and when Mrs. Hutchinson and her daughter had recovered from the silent dread of whirring past all other traffic and utilizing apparently impossible openings between heavy vehicles, they began to enjoy the ride immensely.

We ran through Surbiton, Esher, and Guildford, over the Hog’s Back to Farnham, where we ate with the normal appetites of four healthy Britons. We came home by way of Aldershot, Virginia Water, Windsor Great Park and Staines, driving gloriously not only through the royal domain but through several Acts of Parliament as well.

Karl, by reason of the nearing end of the Midsummer Term, must return to Oxford that night, so it was interesting to note how much he made of those flying hours of freedom. At least a year a minute fell away from the conventional coating of the decade which had sped since he and the girl were children together. “Mr. Grier,” and “Miss Hutchinson” quickly gave place to “Karl” and “Maggie.” We were not at Barnes Bridge on the outward journey before Karl had declared his fixed resolution to wheedle a motor-car out of his father the day he quitted the University, and the pair of them were planning where “we” should drive this chariot of delight during the wonderful summer of next year!

Maggie, it appeared, was much enamored of cathedrals. Here was a fine inspiration to provide excursions for long summer days! Bless you, they had seen Canterbury, Salisbury and Ely in a sentence, and were doing sums in the following breath to find out if far-away York were achievable. Ah, how potent the engineer who constructs that magic machine which carries the day-dreams of the young! What feats it accomplishes, how smoothly do its noiseless wheels glide over the most perfect of roads! Yet we all possess the treasure, and happy the man or woman who has not lost the joy of living, losing with it the willing slave which carries them whither they list. This wonder-coach is capable of astounding performances. It shall whisk you through many cities and strange lands. What does it matter if the scene be new to your eyes when you are brought to it by the sober stuffiness of a railway plus a return ticket? You have been there twice, that is all, and surely the first visit, in imagination, far surpassed the second, in reality.

Indeed, we enjoyed ourselves so greatly that the crassness of things in general was sure to bring about some unpleasantness. There is a substratum of truth in the old Celtic idea of certain people being fey before death. None of us died, I am glad to say, but we should have been wise had we outrageously made off with that motor-car, scurrying far from London ere nightfall, and leaving it to my ingenuity to explain matters to my lending friend.

We reached the hotel at six o’clock, and there was Signor Bocci impatiently awaiting the return of Mrs. Hutchinson and her violin-playing daughter. “Business is business,” you know, and really I could see no reason why the girl should not accept the splendid offer made by Steindal’s agent. He showed no disinclination to discuss it before Karl and me. Nay more, the little man said he was glad of our presence.

“You are-a men of affairs, yes,” he said volubly, “and in-a dis oafer I haf-a displayed to de signorina de career mos’ magnificent, is it-a not?”

Certainly his words were justified to outward seeming, though the very hyalescence of Steindal’s undertaking should have warned us that things were not so clear as they looked. Here was a girl of little more than eighteen, yet _the_ agent, one of the few men in the world of music who could make or break an artiste, was binding himself to give her two “star” performances in London, with full orchestra and distinguished vocal soloists, guaranteeing an expenditure of £200 on each concert, one in the autumn and another in the spring of the following year, agreeing to hand her three fourths of the proceeds after (and if) they exceeded the sum named, and, finally, pledging at least thirty public appearances at a fee of twenty guineas each within the ensuing twelve months! Think of it, ye budding geniuses! How the strings would twank and the pens splutter if some moon-frenzy seized impresario or publisher to give _you_ a start like that!

Karl, like Mrs. Hutchinson and myself, advised acceptance, though I discovered afterwards that he had a great repugnance to the notion of Maggie appearing on a public platform. That was natural enough, poor fellow. He didn’t want to have all the young sparks about town telling each other, and, what was even less endurable, telling Maggie, that she was the most beautiful creature under the sun. No man, short of an actor, can pretend that he likes his inamorata to face the footlights. Stageland has its own domestic idylls, to be sure--and very sweet and wholesome they oft may be--but they are of a different blend to those which find general acceptance.

Yet Maggie, who listened seriously to us all, urged with gentle insistence that no harm would be done if we gave Steindal’s magnanimity another day’s thought, and, when I saw that her mother was quite willing to accede to this request, I backed it up, with the result that Signor Bocci’s eyebrows became very fierce, and he murmured something about the impossibility of his principal keeping the offer open indefinitely.

“I do not think my daughter is asking for any unreasonable delay,” replied Mrs. Hutchinson with some spirit. “This is practically our first business interview. Your meeting with us on the landing-stage, though exceedingly kind on your part, can hardly be regarded as giving us an opportunity for full discussion. Therefore, to promise a decision to-morrow is speedy enough in all conscience, seeing that when I wrote to Mr. Steindal eight months ago he never even replied to my letter.”

This was a facer for Bocci. Nevertheless, he struggled gamely.

“Herr Steindal has a great-a many letters from-a de amateur,” he said. “He hear in New-a-York ’ow Mees Ootchinson blay--”

“He did nothing nothing of the kind,” cried the elder lady. “That is the extraordinary part of it. He met her, it is true, but he admitted he had not been to any of her concerts. I am beginning to think, signor, that my daughter is right and we others are wrong. Will you leave a copy of the contract for our consideration?”

“O-ah, yes,” said he instantly, and, being a man of rapid perception, he did not press any more for completion that day.

Certainly I was puzzled by Steindal’s tactics. Allowing that he was actuated by the basest motives, that Constantine was paying the bill, and that their precious compact would reveal its intent before many weeks had passed, it was, nevertheless, a singular course they had chosen. What possible harm could result to Maggie Hutchinson if she seized the splendid opening dangled before her eyes by the Jew? All he asked in return was a reasonable monopoly, voidable by his failure to carry out his undertakings in their entirety. From her point of view, it was the most convincing case of “Heads I win, tails you lose” I ever heard of in connection with a profession where contracts are apt to be one-sided.

And the haze did not lessen when Maggie became confidential that evening after dinner. Karl had gone, Mrs. Hutchinson was writing letters, and I had secured two chairs beneath the palms in the Garden Court. Here we could hear the band, watch the celebrities of the hour, and talk without listeners.

“I hope you are not a materialist,” said the girl, after I had uttered some truism about modern life.

“Perish the thought!” I answered, “though, as one more than double your extreme age, will you permit me to ask what is your definition of a materialist?”

“A gross person--a species of pig man,” was her sufficiently amazing reply.

“Are you thinking of Steindal?” I asked involuntarily, though I had resolved to keep clear of the topic for the hour.

“Oh, no. He was not in my mind at all. The music, the lights, the soft tones of the women’s dresses, all the harmony to eye and ear of our present surroundings, carried a thought to me. I cannot help knowing that within a very short distance of this pleasant place one can find great misery. Which of these states reveals the truth in life?”

“Both. It is well to hold a balance between them.”

“Thank you. Now, one has read how rich and well-born men and women, in other days, have had a vision which so influenced their lives that they forthwith abandoned wealth and rank, and devoted themselves to the painful service of their suffering brethren. Such visions may not be so frequent to-day, but it is a matter of constant occurrence for a similar result to be achieved, and achieved in a single hour, whereby the future years of existence are cast irrevocably into a new mold.”

“You are speaking solely of spiritual influences?” I asked.

She moved slightly. My question was unexpected. Some of these tender plants of human growth are so delicately constituted that they wince physically if you prod their souls with a verbal arrow.

“I can scarce distinguish between states,” she said, “nor have I thought or read deeply enough to claim any clear idea as to what constitutes spirituality. I suppose it sounds strange to hear a girl not yet nineteen talking of such matters at all. But in Berlin one is taught to think earlier than in England, and a musical training is prone to develop fanciful moods.”

She was fencing with me. I determined to risk another of those insidious arrow-flights.

“May I take it that your present introspective condition of mind arises from your experiences on board the _Merlin_?” I said.

“Yes.”

Her lips set with a snap. It was quite clear that however little Karl’s supernormal powers affected him they had exerted a truly remarkable influence on Maggie Hutchinson, an influence, too, so novel and mysterious that she seemed almost to fear its analysis. So I endeavored to help her.

“The man would be a fool who denied the enduring effect on the mind of a moment’s inspiration,” I said. “He might as well argue that the inconceivably rapid passage of an electric current through the body could not contort it permanently or even shrivel it into practical annihilation.”

“Ah!” she cried impulsively, “that is how it seems to me. Our poor frail human form cannot choose but obey the soul. At least it must be so if we would be governed by noble instincts and strive ever to reach a higher individual ideal. When the soul yields to the body there you have the downfall, the yielding of the man to the ape.”

She leaned forward, with her right elbow on her knee and her well-modeled chin supported by the thin, long, nervous fingers which bespoke the artistic faculty. Spatulate-fingered folk should keep away from strings and easels.

As it pleased her to attach an ethical significance to my words I did not gainsay her. Indeed, something told me to leave her to her thoughts for a little while, and, as she appeared to be listening intently to the music, I sank back into my chair and gave her the choice of continuing the conversation or not, as she saw fit.

The band, a small but most excellent orchestra, had just rendered a soft and harmonious prelude. I did not recognize the air until a violoncello, exquisitely played, struck into the swelling grandeur of Vulcan’s song from _Philemon et Baucis_. Perhaps the girl knew the words as well as the music. I did not. Looking them up afterwards, in Santley’s translation, I found them curiously à propos of the strange, all-surmounting force which was in our minds at the moment.

Where loud the brazen hammers sound, With lurid light the furnace glowing, Down in my kingdom underground, Aside vain ceremony throwing, I’m sovereign of all around.

Certainly my companion was given a glimpse of some underground kingdom illuminated by lurid light, for I quickly discovered that she was rapt into a state of exaltation which paid no heed to the visible world of fashion and light and music which surrounded us. I spoke to her gently more than once. It was useless. She sat there, with tireless eyelids and glistening eyes, to all outward semblance absorbed in Gounod’s majestic chant, but really, as I alone knew, unseeing and unhearing save to sights and sounds not given to my comprehension.

The suddenness of the thing was positively startling. According to Hooper’s experiences, supplemented by my own with Karl, it was probable she would regain ordinary consciousness if touched. Yet I forbore, hovering between anxiety on the girl’s behalf and desire not to break in on a trance which might yield some knowledge of actual value. I have often wondered since if any observant eyes among the crowd of loungers were watching us. We must have offered a queer picture, a scene from the charade of life as it is staged in a big London hotel--the wistful-eyed girl, in a graceful pose, gazing blankly into space, as it seemed, and pondering some wordless problem, and the gray-haired, sparely built man watching her with a keenness that must have been very puzzling to any onlooker.

At last the music ceased. There was some applause, and, to my great relief, Maggie regained her wits.

Then a spasm of real passion convulsed her face, as though some fierce gust had swept from a thunder-cloud to distort the smooth mirror of a lake. Reasoned thought was slow in resuming its sway. I was sure she would spring to her feet and scream aloud. Yet it was evident that each instant she was becoming more conscious of her environment and gaining strength to repress the agony which wrung her bosom.

With all my world-wandering and its consequent carelessness of mere outward effect, notwithstanding that wayward Celtic temperament which is apt to set Mrs. Grundy at defiance, the upper British crust of conventionality was sufficiently hard on me to demand a rapid glance around the Garden Court _to see if anybody was looking_!

The whole roomful of people might have been gaping at us with twenty scandal-power for all I cared a moment later. Maggie grasped my wrist with a strength which I would not have credited her with, though your skilled violinist must need have good muscles.

“I have heard Constantine raving most terribly,” she whispered, in tense accents, close to my ear. “He has arranged to sail from New York on Saturday, and his object in coming to England is to murder Karl!”