The footsteps to and fro grew fewer. She moved to rise. Stirred by an impulse, I stretched out my hand, then seeing the flush upon her face, drew it back hastily. But the next moment, changing her mind, she held hers out to me, and I took it. It was the first clasp of a hand I had felt since six months before I had said good-bye to Hal. She turned and walked quickly away. I stood watching her; she never looked round, and I never saw her again.
I take no credit to myself for keeping straight, as it is termed, during these days. For good or evil, my shyness prevented my taking part in the flirtations of the streets. Whether inviting eyes were ever thrown to me as to others, I cannot say. Sometimes, fancying so—hoping so, I would follow. Yet never could I summon up sufficient resolution to face the possible rebuff before some less timid swain would swoop down upon the quarry. Then I would hurry on, cursing myself for the poorness of my spirit, fancying mocking contempt in the laughter that followed me.
On a Sunday I would rise early and take long solitary walks into the country. One winter's day—I remember it was on the road between Edgware and Stanmore—there issued from a by-road a little ahead of me a party of boys and girls, young people about my own age, bound evidently on a skating expedition. I could hear the musical ring of their blades, clattering as they walked, and the sound of their merry laughter so clear and bell-like through the frosty air. And an aching anguish fell upon me. I felt a mad desire to run after them, to plead with them to let me walk with them a little way, to let me laugh and talk with them. Every now and then they would pirouette to cry some jest to one another. I could see their faces: the girls' so sweetly alluring, framed by their dainty hats and furs, the bright colour in their cheeks, the light in their teasing eyes. A little further on they turned aside into a by-lane, and I stood at the corner listening till the last echo of their joyous voices died away, and on a stone that still remains standing there I sat down and sobbed.
I would walk about the streets always till very late. I dreaded the echoing clang of the little front door when I closed it behind me, the climbing of the silent stairs, the solitude that waited for me in my empty room. It would rise and come towards me like some living thing, kissing me with cold lips. Often, unable to bear the closeness of its presence, I would creep out into the streets. There, even though it followed me, I was not alone with it. Sometimes I would pace them the whole night, sharing them with the other outcasts while the city slept.
Occasionally, during these nightly wanderings would come to me moments of exaltation when fear fell from me and my blood would leap with joy at prospect of the fierce struggle opening out before me. Then it was the ghostly city sighing round me that seemed dead, I the only living thing real among a world of shadows. In long, echoing streets I would laugh and shout. Misunderstanding policemen would turn their bull's-eyes on me, gruffly give me practical advice: they knew not who I was! I stood the centre of a vast galanty-show: the phantom houses came and went; from some there shone bright lights; the doors were open, and little figures flitted in and out, the tiny coaches glided to and fro, manikins grotesque but pitiful crept across the star-lit curtain.
Then the mood would change. The city, grim and vast, stretched round me endless. I crawled, a mere atom, within its folds, helpless, insignificant, absurd. The houseless forms that shared my vigil were my fellows. What were we? Animalcule upon its bosom, that it saw not, heeded not. For company I would mingle with them: ragged men, frowsy women, ageless youths, gathered round the red glow of some coffee stall.
Rarely would we speak to one another. More like animals we browsed there, sipping the halfpenny cup of hot water coloured with coffee grounds (at least it was warm), munching the moist slab of coarse cake; looking with dull, indifferent eyes each upon the wretchedness of the others. Perhaps some two would whisper to each other in listless, monotonous tone, broken here and there by a short, mirthless laugh; some shivering creature, not yet case-hardened to despair, seek, perhaps, the relief of curses that none heeded. Later, a faint chill breeze would shake the shadows loose, a thin, wan light streak the dark air with shade, and silently, stealthily, we would fade away and disappear.
Chapter II.
Paul, Escaping from his Solitude, Falls into Strange Company, and becomes Captive to one of Haughty Mien.
All things pass, even the self-inflicted sufferings of shy young men, condemned by temperament to solitude. Came the winter evenings, I took to work: in it one may drown much sorrow for oneself. With its handful of fire, its two candles lighted, my “apartment” was more inviting. I bought myself paper, pens and ink. Great or small, what more can a writer do? He is but the would-be medium: will the spirit voices employ him or reject him?
London, with its million characters, grave and gay; its ten thousand romances, its mysteries, its pathos, and its humour, lay to my hand. It stretched before me, asking only intelligent observation, more or less truthful report. But that I could make a story out of the things I really knew never occurred to me. My tales were of cottage maidens, of bucolic yeomen. My scenes were laid in windmills, among mountains, or in moated granges. I fancy this phase of folly is common to most youthful fictionists.
A trail of gentle melancholy lay over them. Sentiment was more popular then than it is now, and, as do all beginners, I scrupulously followed fashion. Generally speaking, to be a heroine of mine was fatal. However naturally her hair might curl—and curly hair, I believe, is the hall-mark of vitality; whatever other indications of vigorous health she might exhibit in the first chapter, such as “dancing eyes,” “colour that came and went,” “ringing laughter,” “fawn-like agility,” she was tolerably certain, poor girl, to end in an untimely grave. Snowdrops and early primroses (my botany I worked up from a useful little volume, “Our Garden Favourites, Illustrated”) grew there as in a forcing house; and if in the neighbourhood of the coast, the sea-breezes would choose that particular churchyard, somewhat irreverently, for their favourite playground. Years later a white-haired man would come there leading little children by the hand, and to them he would tell the tale anew, which must have been a dismal entertainment for them.
Now and then, by way of change, it would be the gentleman who would fall a victim of the deadly atmosphere of my literature. It was of no particular consequence, so he himself would conclude in his last soliloquy; “it was better so.” Snowdrops and primroses, for whatever consolation they might have been to him, it was hopeless for him to expect; his grave, marked by a rude cross, being as a rule situate in an exceptionally unfrequented portion of the African veldt or amid burning sands. For description of final scenery on these occasions a visit to the British Museum reading-room would be necessary.