Arise and fly The reeling faun, the sensual feast
Move upward, working out the beast
And let the ape and tiger die.
tennyson, In Memoriam
For the twenty-ninth time that morning Sam caught the cook’s eye, directed his own to a row of bells over the kitchen door and then eloquently swept them up to the ceiling. It was noon. One might have thought Sam glad to have a morning off; but the only mornings off he coveted were with more attractive female company than that of the portly Mrs. Rogers.
E’s not ‘imself,” said the dowager, also for the twenty-ninth time. If she felt irritated, however, it was with Sam, not the young lord upstairs. Ever since their return from Lyme two days before, the valet had managed to hint at dark goings-on. It is true he had graciously communicated the news about Winsyatt; but he had regularly added “And that ain’t ‘alf of what’s a-foot.” He refused to be drawn. “There’s sartin confidences” (a word he pronounced with a long i) “as can’t be yet spoken of, Mrs. R. But things ‘as ‘appened my heyes couldn’t ‘ardly believe they was seein’.
Sam had certainly one immediate subject for bitterness. Charles had omitted to dismiss him for the evening when he went out to see Mr. Freeman. Thus Sam had waited in and up until after midnight, only to be greeted, when he heard the front door open, by a black look from a white face.
Why the devil aren’t you in bed
Cos you didn’t say you was dinin’ out, Mr. Charles.
I’ve been at my club.
Yes, sir.
And take that insolent look off your damned face.
Yes, sir.
Sam held out his hands and took—or caught—the various objects, beginning with sundry bits of outdoor apparel and terminating in a sulphurous glare, that Charles threw at him. Then the master marched majestically upstairs. His mind was now very sober, but his body was still a little drunk, a fact Sam’s bitter but unseen smirk had only too plainly reflected.
You’re right, Mrs. R. ‘E’s not ‘imself. ‘E was blind drunk last night.
I wouldn’t ‘ave believed it possible.
There’s lots o’ things yours truly wouldn’t ‘ave believed possible, Mrs. R. As ‘as ‘appened hall the same.
E never wants to cry off
Wild ‘osses wouldn’t part my lips, Mrs. R.” The cook took a deep-bosomed breath. Her clock ticked beside her range. Sam smiled at her. “But you’re sharp, Mrs. R. Very sharp.
Clearly Sam’s own feeling of resentment would very soon have accomplished what the wild horses were powerless to effect. But he was saved, and the buxom Mrs. Rogers thwart-ed, by the bell. Sam went and lifted the two-gallon can of hot water that had been patiently waiting all morning at the back of the range, winked at his colleague, and disappeared.
There are two kinds of hangover: in one you feel ill and incapable, in the other you feel ill and lucid. Charles had in fact been awake, indeed out of bed, some time before he rang. He had the second sort of hangover. He remembered only too clearly the events of the previous night.
His vomiting had driven the already precarious sexual element in that bedroom completely out of sight and mind. His unhappily named choice had hastily risen, pulled on her gown, and then proved herself to be as calm a nurse as she had promised to be a prostitute. She got Charles to his chair by the fire, where he caught sight of the hock bottle, and was promptly sick again. But this time she had ready a basin from the washstand. Charles kept groaning his apologies between his retches.
Most sorry . . . most unfortunate . . . something disagreed...” “It’s all right, sir, it’s all right. You just let it come.
And let it come he had had to. She went and got her shawl and threw it round his shoulders. He sat for some time ludicrously like an old granny, crouched over the basin on his knees, his head bowed. After a while he began to feel a little better. Would he like to sleep? He would, but in his own bed. She went and looked down into the street, then left the room while he shakily got dressed. When she came back she herself had put on her clothes. He looked at her aghast.
You are surely not...
Get you a cab, sir. If you just wait...
Ah yes ... thank you.
And he sat down again, while she went downstairs and out of the house. Though he was by no means sure that his nausea was past, he felt in some psychological way profound-ly relieved. Never mind what his intention had been; he had not committed the fatal deed. He stared into the glowing fire; and strange as it may seem, smiled wanly.
Then there came a low cry from the next room. A silence, then the sound came again, louder this time and more pro-longed. The little girl had evidently wakened. Her crying— silence, wailing, choking, silence, wailing—became intoler-able. Charles went to the window and opened the curtains. The mist prevented him seeing very far. There was not a soul to be seen. He realized how infrequent the sound of horses’ hooves had become; and guessed that the girl might have to go some way to find his hansom. As he stood undecided, there was a heavy thumping on the wall from the next house. A vindictive male voice shouted angrily. Charles hesitated, then laying his hat and stick on the table, he opened the door through to that other room. He made out by the reflect-ed light a wardrobe and an old box-trunk. The room was very small. In the far corner, beside a closed commode, was a small truckle bed. The child’s cries, suddenly renewed, pierced the small room. Charles stood in the lit doorway, foolishly, a terrifying black giant.
Hush now, hush. Your mother will soon return.” The strange voice, of course, only made things worse. Charles felt the whole neighborhood must wake, so penetrat-ing were the screams. He struck his head in distress, then stepped forward into the shadow beside the child. Seeing how small she was he realized words were useless. He bent over her and gently patted her head. Hot small fingers seized his, but the crying continued. The minute, contorted face ejected its great store of fear with bewildering force. Some desperate expedient had to be found. Charles found it. He groped for his watch, freed its chain from his waistcoat and dangled it over the child. The effect was immediate. The cries turned to mewling whimpers. Then the small arms reached up to grab the delicious silver toy; and were allowed to do so; then lost it in the bedclothes and struggled to sit and failed. The screams began again.
Charles reached to raise the child a little against her pillow. A temptation seized him. He lifted her out of the bed in her long nightgown, then turned and sat on the commode. Holding the small body on his knees he dandled the watch in front of the now eager small arms. She was one of those pudgy-faced Victorian children with little black beads for eyes; an endearing little turnip with black hair. And her instant change of mood, a gurgle of delight when at last she clasped the coveted watch, amused Charles. She began to lall. Charles muttered answers: yes, yes, very pretty, good little girl, pretty pretty. He had a vision of Sir Tom and the bishop’s son coming on him at that moment ... the end of his great debauch. The strange dark labyrinths of life; the mystery of meetings.
He smiled; for it was less a sentimental tenderness that little child brought than a restoration of his sense of irony, which was in turn the equivalent of a kind of faith in himself. Earlier that evening, when he was in Sir Tom’s brougham, he had had a false sense of living in the present; his rejection then of his past and future had been a mere vicious plunge into irresponsible oblivion. Now he had a far more profound and genuine intuition of the great human illusion about time, which is that its reality is like that of a road—on which one can constantly see where one was and where one probably will be—instead of the truth: that time is a room, a now so close to us that we regularly fail to see it.
Charles’s was the very opposite of the Sartrean experience. The simple furniture around him, the warm light from the next room, the humble shadows, above all that small being he held on his knees, so insubstantial after its mother’s weight (but he did not think at all of her), they were not en-croaching and hostile objects, but constituting and friendly ones. The ultimate hell was infinite and empty space; and they kept it at bay. He felt suddenly able to face his future, which was only a form of that terrible emptiness. Whatever happened to him such moments would recur; must be found, and could be found.
A door opened. The prostitute stood in the light. Charles could not see her face, but he guessed that she was for a moment alarmed. And then relieved.
Oh sir. Did she cry
Yes. A little. I think she has gone back to sleep now.
I ‘ad to go down to the Warren Street stand. They was all off ‘ere.
You are very kind.
He passed her child to her, and watched her as she tucked it back into its bed; then abruptly turned and left the room. He felt in his pocket and counted out five sovereigns and left them on the table. The child had reawoken, and its mother was quietening it again. He hesitated, then silently left the room.
He was inside the waiting hansom when she came running down the steps and to the door. She stared up at him. Her look was almost puzzled, almost hurt.
Oh sir ... thank you. Thank you.
He realized that she had tears in her eyes; no shock to the poor like unearned money.
You are a brave, kind girl.
He reached out and touched her hand where it clasped the front sill. Then he tapped with his stick.
