Part 26 (1/2)

The two men would sit together, sometimes talking, but far more often not, until a very late hour; and when the doors were closed upon them they often wandered aimlessly in the empty streets, dismissing their cares in contemplation of great moonlit buildings, or the strong, silent river, sliding under the solemn bridges; united from day to day more closely by the rare sympathy which asks no questions and finds its chief expression in silence. One thing they both hated--to be alone; but loneliness for them was not what most mortals understand by the name. There was company for them in inanimate things--in books, in pictures, and even in objects less expressive; they were men who did not fear their thoughts, who looked to the past for their greatest pleasures. And now for Rainham the whole of life was a thing so essentially weary and flavourless that the _ennui_ of little things seemed hardly worth consideration.

He was dumbly content to let destiny lead him whither it would, without apprehension, without expectation. Oswyn had asked him, one evening, just before they parted on the doorstep of the club, with a certain abruptness which the other had long since learnt to understand, why he was in London instead of being at Bordighera.

Rainham sighed, echoing the question as if the idea suggested was entirely novel.

”Why, because---- Well, for one thing, because you are in London and the Dollonds are at Bordighera. You don't know Mrs. Dollond?” he added, seeing that the other looked at him with a certain air of wistful distrust, a momentarily visible desire to see behind so obvious a veil.

”No, thank G.o.d!” said Oswyn devoutly, shrugging his bent shoulders, and turning away with a relapse into his unwonted impa.s.siveness.

”But you have apparently heard of her,” continued Rainham, with an effort toward humour. ”And I am afraid people have been slandering her. She is a very excellent person, the soul of good-nature, and as amusing as--as an American comic paper! But in my present state of health I'm afraid she would be a little too much for me. I can stand her in homeopathic doses, but the Riviera isn't nearly big enough for the two of us as permanencies. No, I think I shall wait until next winter now.”

Oswyn shot a quick glance at him, and then looked away as suddenly, and after a brief silence they parted.

Rainham was already beginning to consider himself secure from the inconvenient allusions to Lightmark and their altered relations, which he had at first nervously antic.i.p.ated. Oswyn rarely mentioned the other painter's name, and accepted, without surprise or the faintest appearance of a desire for explanation, the self-evident fact of the breach between the two quondam allies; regarding it as in the natural course of events, and as an additional link in the chain of their intimacy. Indeed, Lightmark had long ceased to be a component element of the atmosphere of Brodonowski's: he no longer brought the suns.h.i.+ne of his expansive, elaborate presence into the limits of the dingy little place; nor did its clever, shabby const.i.tuents, with their bright-eyed contempt for the popular slaves of a fatuous public, care to swell the successful throng who wors.h.i.+pped the rising genius in his new temple in Grove Road. The fact that in those days Rainham avoided Lightmark's name, once so often quoted; his demeanour, when the more ignorant or less tactical of their mutual acquaintances pressed him with inquiries as to the well-being and work of his former friend, had not failed to suggest to the intimate circle that there had been a rupture, a change, something far more significant than the general severance which had gradually been effected between them, the unreclaimed children of the desert, and Richard Lightmark, the brilliant society painter; something as to which it seemed that explanation would not be forthcoming, as to which questions were undesirable. The perception of this did not demand much subtlety, and, in accordance with the instincts of their craft, Rainham's reticence was respected.

”It was curious, when you come to think of it,” Copal said reflectively one evening after his return from a late autumnal ramble in Finistere, and while the situation was still new to him, ”very curious. Rainham and Lightmark were inseparable; so were Rainham and Oswyn. And all the time Lightmark and Oswyn were about as friendly as the toad and the harrow. Sounds like Euclid, doesn't it? Things equal to the same thing, and quite unequal to one another.”

”Yes,” a.s.sented McAllister, thoughtfully stroking his reddish beard.

”And there was a time--not so very long ago, either--when Lightmark and Oswyn were on pretty good terms too!”

”Ah, well; most people quarrel with old Oswyn sooner or later. But it certainly does look a little as if--as if Lightmark had done something and the other two had found it out--Oswyn first. However, it's no business of ours. I suppose he's safe to be elected next week,--though he isn't a Scotchman, eh, Sandy old man?”

”Quite,” said the other laconically.

And then their conversation was modulated into a less personal key as they resumed their discussion of the colony of American _pleinairistes_ with whom Rathbone had foregathered at Pontaven, and of the ”paintability” of fields of _sarrasin_ and poplars.

Rainham found it rather difficult to satisfy his inner self as to his real, fundamental motive for wintering in England. Sir Egbert's orders? They had not, after all, amounted to much more than an expression of opinion, and it was somewhat late for him to begin to obey his doctors. The transfer of his business? That could have been carried out just as well in his absence by his solicitors.

For some time after Kitty's death--and her illness had certainly at first detained him--he was able to a.s.sure himself that he was waiting until little Margot (so he called the child) should have secured a firm foothold in the affections of his foreman's family; the fact that the Bullens were so soon to leave him seemed to render this all more necessary. But now, in the face of Bullen's somewhat deferential devotion and his wife's vociferous raptures, there hardly seemed to be room for doubt on this score. For the present, at least, the child ran no risk greater than that of being too much petted.

And at last he was obliged to own that his inability to follow his established precedent was due to some moral deficiency, a species of cowardice which he could only vaguely a.n.a.lyse, but which was closely connected with his reluctance to isolate himself among the loquacious herd of those who sought for health or pleasure. If Oswyn would have accompanied him to the Riviera he would have gone; but Oswyn was not to be induced to forsake his beloved city, and so he stayed, telling himself that each week was to be the last.

On a bright day, when spring seemed to be within measurable distance in spite of the cold, he made an expedition with Margot to Kensington Gardens; and they pa.s.sed, on their way through the Park, the seat on which he had rested after his interview with Lady Garnett on that far-away October evening--the memory struck him now as of another life. It was frosty to-day, and the seat raised itself forlornly from quite a mound of snow. And when they left the Gardens he hailed a cab, and, before they had reached the Circus on their homeward journey, bade the man turn and drive northward, up Orchard Street and into Grove Road.

It was dusk now, and there were bright touches of light in the windows of the low, white house, which he glanced at almost surrept.i.tiously as they pa.s.sed, and two carriages waited before the outer door.

”My dear child,” he remarked suddenly to the little girl, who was growing almost frightened by his frowning silence, ”you should always, always remember that when a man has made a fool of himself, the best thing he can do is to clear out, and not return to his folly like the proverbial dog!”

Margot looked solemnly puzzled for a moment, and then laughed, deciding boldly that this was a new and elaborate game--a joke, perhaps--which she was too little to understand, but which politeness and good-fellows.h.i.+p alike required her at least to appear to appreciate. They were great friends already, these two.

Children always recognised an ally in the man who made so few friends among his peers, and for children--especially for pretty children of a prettiness which accorded with his own private views--Rainham had an undeniable weakness.

On slack days--and they were always slack now--loungers about the precincts of the dock often caught a glimpse of the child's fair hair above the low level of the dark bow-window which leaned outwards from Rainham's room; and the foreman had even gone so far as to suggest that his master was bringing her up to the business.

”Pays us for looking after her,” he confided to his wife, ”and looks after her himself!”

Mrs. Bullen laughed and then sighed, being a soft-hearted woman, and inclined to grieve over their impending desertion of their unbusinesslike master.

”Mr. Philip couldn't do more for her if he was her own father,” she acknowledged appreciatively.

Whereat Bullen had smiled with the superior air of one who knew--of one who had been down to the sea in s.h.i.+ps, and was versed in the mysteries of the great world, of fathers and of children.