He began to walk rapidly towards Fleet Street, having remembered a venerable tavern where he could dine, and where the risk of encountering anyone he knew—on such a night—was negligible.
The Strand was deserted. Every now and again he emerged into an oasis of clarity, but Fleet Street was a drifting darkness, and he had great difficulty in discovering the narrow alley leading to the tavern. At last, however, he detected an ochreous blur which proved to be the solitary light over the entrance.
He went into a room, the character and furniture of which has remained unchanged for centuries. It had heavily-timbered grimed windows, a low-planked ceiling, a floor covered with sawdust. Flames flickered merrily in a projecting fireplace. On one side was a long oak table: on the other were high stiff-backed partitions, sombre with age—resembling old-fashioned pews, with hard cushionless seats—which boxed off half-a-dozen diners to each ancient table. The room was as brown as an old meerschaum and rich with the aroma of ages. It is said that Charles II ate a chop here with Nell Gwynne.
The place was empty. Trent chose the inmost seat of the first partition on the left, the back of which was surmounted by a brass rail from which hung a short green curtain. Immediately behind him was a box, designed for greater privacy, containing a table for four.
Whether it was the result of wandering through wraith-like streets, or the effect of the time-haunted atmosphere of the tavern, or the beginning of illness, he was unable to determine, but gradually his surroundings seemed remote and he experienced a strange mental isolation which alienated him even from his memories. He dined, feeling like a man who knows he is dreaming, then—just after the waiter had brought his black coffee—he heard two men enter the box immediately behind him.
Something unusual in the sound of their movements arrested his attention, but this was soon explained, for he heard one say to the other:
“Bit of a tight fit. Can you manage? Give me those things. That’s more like it.”
Evidently his companion had crutches. A moment later he sank heavily on to the bench. He had chosen the corner seat, consequently only the green curtain separated him from Trent.
“That’s better! Put my crutches in the corner. Not surprised the place is empty. It’s a hell of a night. We’d better have a drink, Rendell.”
The two men continued to talk, but Trent ceased to listen. He felt ill and irritable. Then, just after the waiter had served them with drinks, he heard the crippled man say:
“Well, when are you going to tell me why you, of all people, have suddenly become interested in Ivor Trent?”
The sound of his own name seemed to widen, like an expanding circle, till it filled the room.
“It’s like this, Marsden. As you know, I’m a consulting mining engineer—I’ve done very well out of it in my day. I’ve no need to work, and, anyway, there isn’t much doing. So I draw retaining fees nowadays while waiting for things to get going again. I tell you that to show you that I’ve leisure. But the essential fact is this: I lost my wife nearly a year ago and——”
“My dear fellow, I’m dreadfully sorry! I’d no idea——”
“Nearly a year ago,” Rendell repeated. “I had a pretty bad time and I’m having a pretty bad one still. Well, in June, someone gave me Trent’s last novel. I was in Germany. I read a good deal, but I don’t read fiction as a rule. Anyway, this book rang my bell. I’ve read it three times and I’m interested in the man who wrote it. That’s why I sent you a line after all these years. I knew you’d know everything about him.”
“Don’t you believe it. I know all about his books. Oddly enough, I’ve just attempted a critical study of him as a novelist, but I don’t know him really well as a man.”
“I thought you’d known him for years?”
“So I have, on and off. I suppose, nowadays, we meet about once a year. I owe him a lot, but that’s another story. Incidentally, I rang him up to-night, hoping he’d be able to come along, but he’s away. Anyhow, this is what I want to know. Why did Trent’s last novel interest you so much?”
After a long pause, Rendell said slowly:
“I suppose it was this, really. The man who wrote that book knows all about loneliness.”
Marsden laughed.
“Only as the result of observation.”
“That may be,” Rendell replied doggedly, “but he knows all about it nevertheless. I’ve been down the road and I know the scenery.”
There was a long silence, then they began to discuss what they would eat, consulting the waiter at some length.
Trent remained motionless in his corner. Had he been well enough, he would have paid the bill and gone. It would be simple enough to leave unobserved. But he felt dizzy and knew, from recent experience, that the slightest additional exertion might have unpleasant results. To stay, and to overhear, were therefore inevitable. Marsden was, literally, only a few inches from him. So Trent remained, huddled in his corner.
A few minutes later, Rendell asked:
“What sort of age is Trent?”
“About forty.”
“What’s he look like?”
“You’d notice him anywhere. He’s tall, dark, powerful—broad forehead, and odd penetrating eyes. But a physical inventory only describes him, it doesn’t convey him. Directly you see him, you feel he’s exceptional.”
“Does he know a lot of people?”
“Oh yes, no end.” Then, after a pause, Marsden added: “Did you say you’d read only one book of his?”
“Yes, the last one.”
“Well, as you’re interested in him, you’d better get his first novel. That tells you all about him till he was twenty-one. It’s called Two Lives and a Destiny.”
“That’s an odd title.”
“It’s an odd book. Roughly, this is the story. Ivor was an only child. When he was seven he was told that his mother had died. She was very lovely and he had worshipped her. The description of their last meeting is one of the best things in the book. But that’s by the way. The legend of his mother’s death held good till he was twenty-one.”
“The legend!” Rendell exclaimed.
“Well, these were the facts. She had gone to Italy with her lover. It ended disastrously, for, three years later, she died in poverty. She wrote to her husband on her deathbed, begging him to come and to bring Ivor. He did not answer the letter. She died—and a year or two later her lover committed suicide.”
“Good God! And what sort of man was the husband?”
“You’ll find a first-rate portrait of him in Two Lives and a Destiny. He was fifteen years older than she was. He must have been about forty when she left him. He was a distinguished-looking man, rich, independent, and proud as the devil.”
“Did you know him, Marsden, or are you quoting the novel?”
“I knew him, but my knowledge of him comes from the novel. Ivor and I were at school together and I often spent part of the holidays with the Trents, as my people were in India. Old Trent was devilish impressive: cultured, aristocratic, self-sufficient. Seemed to look down on life, if you know what I mean. No use for emotional people. But I’ll say this for him: he had great physical courage. There’s a description in the novel of how he stopped a bolting horse in the Row when Ivor was ten. We thought he was God Almighty when we were kids.”
“But do you mean that he never referred to Ivor’s mother for fourteen years?”
“Never! There wasn’t a photograph of her in the house. He cut himself off from everyone who had known her. He moved to London after she left him. Before then, they had lived in Suffolk. He took the most elaborate precautions to ensure that Ivor should not learn the truth. And he did everything to widen and deepen his influence over him. Above all, he instilled his own contempt for women into him. And he did it with great subtlety.”