“Quite right. Shut the door. Sit down.”
“He” was even more abrupt than the girl, and Vance obeyed him rather like a boy obeying a schoolmaster. He put his hat on the table. He was wondering what the devil to say.
“You’ll excuse me, sir—but this is a rather singular occasion.”
It was. And so was the remark; but to Vance’s surprise “he” appeared to regard the statement as natural, inevitable. The harsh and handsome face emitted a little gleam of self-conscious complacency.
“Other people have made that remark. The prophet is not quite without honour. Your name?”
“My name is Vance.”
“He” allowed himself a transient, grim smile.
“Advance! Yet another omen. Even a great man must have his joke.”
“Quite so,” said Vance, wondering whether the man in the chair was a madman, or a sort of self-made prophet, or both.
He felt that the old man in the chair had him at a disadvantage, for “he” now knew his visitor’s name and could assume some reason for the visit, whereas Vance was like a small boy caught trespassing. Apparently “he” was accustomed to visitors calling upon him, for he had shown no surprise when Vance—another stranger—had walked into his room. Vance used his eyes, and tried guile. He noticed what appeared to be a pile of manuscript lying on the table.
“May I ask you a favour, sir? I should like your autograph.”
The angry blue eyes observed him.
“Autographs! Are you a collector of autographs? Is that the only reason——?”
“Not at all, sir. But I should value——”
He produced a fountain-pen and a note-book and, getting up, offered them to the man in the arm-chair. And with complete solemnity the man in the chair proceeded to sign his name on a blank page of Vance’s note-book. He signed it with a flourish, and with éclat:
“Hector March.”
He handed the pen and the book back to Vance with the air of a great man accustomed to the conferring of such favours.
“Some day, Mr. Vance, I think that signature will possess some significance.”
Vance hurried to agree.
“Inevitably so, sir.”
But who the devil was Hector March? Was he anybody; had he been anybody? Obviously Mr. Hector March himself had no doubts upon the matter. He took himself with very great seriousness. He was not exactly humble.
Vance put his pen and note-book away, and wondered what the next move was to be. Possibly he may have appeared a little embarrassed, but his embarrassment suited the occasion. Hector March was not unaccustomed to finding embarrassment in his visitors. Apparently he accepted it as a natural tribute.
He said:
“So, you are one of my disciples, Mr. Vance.”
Vance, caught unawares, sustained the illusion.
“Obviously, sir. That is to say—I was powerfully attracted. I had to come.”
Mr. March replied with a stately and consenting movement of his arrogant head.
“I understand. The light shines—even from this upper chamber. People come to me from the ends of the earth. They carry away my message.”
Vance, thinking of the red blind, could say truthfully that he had been conscious of Mr. March’s light for quite a long time. He was reminded of the eastern sages, and of the words of wisdom spoken to their disciples. No doubt this red-headed old man would present him with words of wisdom, and having expressed his gratitude he would be able to get up and go.
“If I might say so, sir—I should like to carry away a message.”
Mr. March’s blue eyes fixed him.
“Ah, yes, a message. My message is always the same. Nearly two thousand years ago a man preached the religion of love. Then—I—came to preach the religion of hate. Hate alone, young man, can cleanse and renew the world.”
So that was it! And Vance decided that he was ready to go, but he was not to get away so easily. The prophet of hate was a multitudinous talker; he welcomed an audience, even an audience of one; and for another half an hour Vance sat there and was made to feel like a boy listening to a fanatical sermon.
Mr. March breathed upon him like a dragon of wrath. His angry blue eyes glared. He had an extraordinary flow of language. He erupted hate as a volcano spews lava.
But at the end of half an hour Vance did manage to leave his chair, and edge gradually towards the door.
“I assure you, sir, it has been a great privilege to listen——”
“Come again, Mr. Vance, come again. Youth is ripe soil. I sow the seed.”
“You do, sir. Good night, sir,” and Vance escaped down the stairs and out into the dingy dimness of Mordant Street.
What a man! What an adventure! So the red blind had veiled a furious old herald of revolution. And Vance wanted to laugh. He did laugh, but his laughter had a raw edge to it. He felt that he had been in the presence of something that was evil.
He remembered the girl. What was her share in the business? Was she the old red dragon’s daughter?
Anthony Vance’s curiosity was increased; it became humanized. On the Sunday morning he went to his club, and searched for the name of Hector March in “Who’s Who” and in a biographical dictionary. It was possible that March had been a somebody in his day, and had lived on as a derelict, back-street celebrity, but Vance did not find the name of March in “Who’s Who.”
Vance lunched at his club. On entering the dining-room he saw old Vansittart, one of the club worthies, sitting at a window table, and Vance joined him. Vansittart knew everybody or about everybody who was or had been, and he liked to talk. Vance opened the subject.
“I’ve come across a queer person, a sort of second edition of Karl Marx. Came across him quite by chance. I have been looking up his name, but I can’t find it anywhere.”
Vance was a very young and new member, but he was what is called a nice lad, bright but not too obviously opinionated, and old Vansittart smiled upon him.
“A back number?”
“Very much a front number, sir, in his own estimation. Has a message for civilization. Writes, too—I should imagine.”
“What’s his name?”
“March, Hector March.”
Old Vansittart’s wrinkled face seemed to sharpen.
“March?—March? Not—the—March?”
“That’s all I know, sir. He has a red head growing grey, and he talks red ruin.”
“Good Lord, man, don’t tell me you have unearthed Hector March? Why—that was one of the sensations of the political world some thirty years ago. The sudden and utter disappearance of March.”
“I have never heard about it. May I know?”
“March was one of those comet-like persons who flash out of nowhere. He could talk; he had a wonderful gift of the gab, and an immense swelled head. He appeared first in the Midlands. He carried a fiery cross. He had a very red tail. He lost his first two contests; but at the third attempt he was elected for some manufacturing constituency.
“For some years he was a sort of infant terror in the ‘House,’ a red-headed, irrepressible Jack-in-the-box. He was brilliant. Obviously he thought himself the coming man on the side of what he called progress. He talked hate. He was the sort of man who would shed tears while proposing to string every little tradesman to a lamp-post. And then he disappeared, vanished like a red-hot shot dropped into the sea.”
“Disappeared? But members of Parliament don’t disappear.”
“March did. It was a mystery. He vanished. Even his constituents did not know what had become of him. Not that anyone was vastly grieved. His hymn of hate had began to be a little boring. We English are not good haters. His career went plop. He was turned out like a gas jet.”
“But surely——?”
“There was gossip. Of course, the obvious explanation was that March had to disappear. There was some very good reason for it.”
“A scandal?”
“Oh, more than a mere scandal. I’ve heard that his
private life was a bit ragged. Probably—something—happened. But how the devil did you come across him? He was supposed to be dead and forgotten.”
Vance did not tell the whole tale.
“Just chance. I met him through a mutual acquaintance. He lives in the top-floor back room of a house in a seedy street. He just sits in a chair and spouts universal hatred. There seems to be people who go to listen to him. But—by Jove——”
A sudden idea had come to him. He remembered the grey rug covering March’s knees, and that March had sat there rather like a man who had lost the power of movement.
“By Jove!—that’s it. I believe he is paralysed. He can’t walk.”
“Ah!” said old Vansittart with a look of interest and of shrewdness; “that rather tallies with the tale that was told. March broke himself over—oh—well—you can guess. And he has nothing left but a tongue.”
Vance smoked his Sunday cigar alone in a corner of the reading-room. He wanted to think over Vansittart’s recollections. They were like the settings of a strange picture; they made it more vividly sinister and singular, the live portrait of that immense old egotist with his angry eyes and his palsied legs, frothing out hatred in that back-street room. Helpless, forgotten, abandoned, he retained nothing but hatred and a poisonous tongue.
But the girl? Was she the daughter? And how did March live? Did he live on the girl’s earnings? Was he both prophet and parasite?—for so many prophets have condescended to exist as parasites.
Vance’s interest deepened and broadened.
He wanted to find out about that girl with her crisp, cold face, and her air of deliberate detachment.
Recalling approximately the time when she had descended upon him with her little attaché case Vance supposed that he might count upon her appearing in Mordant Street at much the same hour. He decided to try and shadow her. He wanted to complete his human cross-word puzzle. He was somewhat his own master at Killick & Paul’s, and late on the Monday afternoon he took a taxi to Camden Town.
Dusk was falling when he entered Mordant Street, the same dim, foggy dusk. He walked past No. 21, and decided to loiter by the builder’s yard at the end of the passage. From there he would just be able to distinguish anyone’s emergence from No. 21.
He had waited less than ten minutes when he saw a figure detach itself from the door of No. 21. It descended the steps, and on leaving the gate turned towards him. Vance lounged against the wall with his hat pulled down and his overcoat collar turned up. The girl went past him as though he were part of the wall.
He followed, but with circumspection. She led him through various unknown streets; she walked fast; her goal was Mornington Crescent tube station. Vance managed to get sufficiently near to see her take a twopenny ticket from the automatic machine. He had to hurry. He got into the lift with her, and into the same coach; she appeared quite unaware of him as her shadow. She left the train at Leicester Square, and he followed her out into the street.
Three minutes later he had pursued her to the back entrance of the “Pantheon.” She disappeared, and he could draw his own conclusions. In all probability she was employed at the Pantheon as a waitress, or book-keeper, or cloak-room attendant.
Vance strolled on. In the tube lift he had been able to observe the girl’s face. It attracted him. It had aloofness, and pride. She was not the sort of girl to whom you applied the word “pretty.” She looked hard with that modern, feminine hardness; she had a sleek, firm skin; her chin and lips were crisp and decided. But there was a something in her eyes, a sense of mystery behind the mask.
Vance decided to dine at the Pantheon. It was a popular restaurant, but not too much so. It was patronized by people who had a margin, and did not go grey over the spending of an unexpected sixpence. You might dress, or you might not. Vance turned in and reserved a table, and then walked on to his club to kill time until half-past seven.
Now—if his luck continued? It did continue. The Pantheon had three big rooms, and Vance found that a table had been reserved in a corner of the central room. He sat down with his back to the wall, and looked about him. The service was feminine, with a maître d’hotel and a wine waiter in addition. Two girls approached Vance’s table. One of them wore a red rosette with red letters in the centre: H.W. The head waitress was March’s supposed daughter.
It was she who handed Vance the menu. She was polite, detached yet attentive.
“What will you take, sir. Grape fruit? Yes. Thick or clear soup?”
She wrote down the dishes, and left the slip with the other waitress.
“Do you wish for the wine list, sir?”
“Please.”
“I’ll send the wine waiter to you.”
Obviously she was supremely efficient. She served, because it was her job, and she did not appear to despise it. She did not suggest a condescending superiority. She was natural and courteous and cold. She did not smile. She kept her dignity.
During the meal Vance watched her. It seemed to him that she held herself very much apart from the other girls; in her free moments she stood aloof, surveying the room. Almost she had an air of being above all these prosperous people who did nothing but eat and drink and chatter; her very slimness and her calm pallor suggested asceticism; she saw so much food.
Vance took to dining at the Pantheon every evening. He arranged to have the same table reserved. And every evening March’s daughter went through the same ritual; she wrote down his dishes; she remained impersonal and polite.
“Soup to-night, sir?”
That was the only indication that she gave that she recognized him as a regular patron.
But he began to dare to give her a little bow and to wish her good evening. His homage, such as it was, took care to be frigid and formal. She was the gentlewoman. If the average man should dare to assume her to be as silly as his sex playfulness he would be withered, frozen.
For Vance had a feeling that this girl had her own Godiva ride through life, and that she kept her scorn for Peeping Toms. She had something to bear, something to suffer. Her pale slimness was like a stalk carrying the serenity of a voiceless scorn. In her way she had an uniqueness.
He waited. He dined and was persistently courteous and careful. If the ice of her aloofness was to be broken it would have to be done delicately.
But how?
The easy thing made no appeal to such a man as Vance. He might be a merchant, but he valued some of the goods that cannot be had for money. He was the hunter and he had the hunter’s guile. He decided that the time was ripe for a second visit to the prophet of red ruin; he might meet the daughter and he might not. Diplomacy has its appeal.
So No. 21 Mordant Street saw him again. He arrived there at about three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. The same glum, square person opened the door.
“Is Mr. March in?”
“Oh, yes; he’s always in.”
Said Vance, drawing a bow at a venture:
“It’s rather hard—to be paralysed. Is Miss March in?”
“No.”
Vance climbed the stairs, having made sure of two pieces of information. He found the prophet sitting in the same chair. He looked older, feebler, but his blue eyes still glared. He welcomed his audience.
“Ha! So you’ve come again. And you are English, young man. That’s unusual.”
Vance led the conversation in a particular direction.
“The English are slow to move, sir.”
“Fools, Mr. Vance; fools. Sentimental fools. A prophet is not without honour—save——”
“Exactly, sir. But then there are people who believe in you. Your daughter must believe in you.”
And suddenly he saw those harsh blue eyes flare up.
“Children, sir! I have suffered indescribable things from my children. Egotists, individualists, English. I have cast them off. Kitty—alone—has respect, reverence.”
“Had you many children, sir?”
“Seven. But we are not speaking of children.
And what is your work, young man?”
Vance was not quite candid.
“I work in a big business.”
“Ha, big business! What I call big blackguardism. One of the exploited, a black ant.”
Vance could not resist a sly question.
“Yes, black ants, if you like. But granting the ant idea, your scheme, sir, would just change our colour, and make us red ants instead of black.”
Mr. March’s fingers gripped the folds of the grey rug covering his knees; he had a way of clawing at that grey rug when he was excited. Vance’s question had excited him, and he was about to reply to it when the door opened and the daughter entered. She was wearing a black hat and a coat edged with some cheap fur.
Vance stood up. He made a little stiff movement; he managed to smile.
She stared at him. Her eyes were like two dark points. He felt transfixed. She said nothing.
Her father, as ever, absorbed in his own affairs, saw nothing.
“Catherine—this is Mr. Vance—one of my disciples.”
There was a pause, a kind of brittleness in the air, and then Vance, with a faintly smiling assumption of serenity, picked up his hat and made for the door.
“Time I was going, sir. Perhaps—another day—we will continue the argument.”
He found himself on the stairs, only to realize that Kitty March was following him. He was just a little scared of Kitty March. He paused in the hall with his hand on the door-handle.
“Remarkable man, your father.”
She said not a word, and he opened the door and was about to close it when she made it plain that she too was coming out. And Vance walked to the little iron gate and waited. He knew that she intended him to wait, and that if he did not wait she would claim him as a coward.
She stood there looking straight into his face.
“What’s the game?”
“I beg your pardon, Miss March.”
“Are you one of the fools?”
“Well, really—I don’t quite know. I’d like to explain if I can.”
She said:
“Look here, are you one of his crowd? I don’t quite get you. Idiots who talk that sort of stuff don’t dine regularly at a place like the Pantheon.”
The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping Page 39