Leonard Merrick

“ Life was made in various ways a burden to him, though no one meant any harm. "Good-morning; have you been to the theatre, Childers?" became the stock joke, a catch-phrase with which he was greeted by everybody; and when he did go to the theatre now, he slunk in late, and hid himself at the back of the gallery from shame.
It was when half of Duchêne's season of six weeks had expired that the chaff stopped; and it stopped abruptly. For the first time men spoke of Willy Childers in a tone of gravity. ”

“ It looked to her impossible that Rosa Duchêne would renounce her career and become the jest of Europe, in order to remain with Willy in Cape Town. ... But mightn't it look impossible because Rosa Duchêne was nothing but a great name to her? She was a woman, too. If a great woman loved him just as much, wouldn't she now be suffering just as much—wouldn't she ache to stay with him just as much as she herself was aching? ”

“ In Paris, when he had learnt the language, he would at least have felt at home; he would have drifted by slow degrees into a congenial set in London. But on the Diamond Fields, a young man who hoped to be a poet, and who already wrote verse, was an incongruity that defies comparison.
To give him his due, he was conscious that his presence was absurd there and justified the chaff that it received, and he loathed the "Fields" with a deeper loathing than any other member of its perspiring population. ”

“ Somerset explained that he would make time to see the solicitor to the estate and endeavour to arrange for the boy to be looked after in London; there were always fellows going over, and he could travel with someone else later on. That he himself should take him was impossible.
Willy did not remonstrate. But the end of the imaginary extension of Rosa's season was terribly near now; Rosa Duchêne, as a matter of fact, was at this time at Monte Carlo, dropping some of the Diamond Fields' money at the tables; and he felt hopelessly that the woman he loved was fading out of his life for ever. ”

“ In improving tales, when the misunderstood boy loses his sight, all his acquaintances reproach themselves for their cruelty towards him and flock to his simple parlour to listen to him talking like a tract and derive a lasting moral from the patience he displays. It did not happen like that in Willy Childers' case, because the men had no idea that they had shown any cruelty. Excepting for Ted Shepherd, and one or two other very occasional visitors, he passed his time in unbroken solitude. ”

“ I don't suppose many men'll be anxious to be my friends."
"Ah, well," exclaimed Teale, "‘a boy's best friend is his mother!" Ain't she, madame?"
"Gentlemen," said Polly, springing up, "I'm sure you two would like a cigar on the stoep! Don't move, Mr. Childers. They'll come back to you."
Johnny Teale stared.
"You would like a cigar on the stoep," she repeated. And as it was evident that she meant to be obeyed, they said that it was a very kind suggestion, and withdrew. Teale consoled himself with the idea that they were to be afforded a view of Willy on his knees. ”

“ Childers closed his eyes wearily—his sight had been troubling him of late—and leant back in his chair, wondering if life had any surprise in store for him—if anybody else on earth was so entirely wretched. ”

“ You fill me with emotions and ideas that tumble over one another. I shall pour them out in my work—my mind and heart are bursting sometimes, too small to hold all you make me feel. I'll dedicate every book to you—you who'll have inspired them all. Oh, thank God I'm a poet! To worship you as I do and be able to lay nothing at your feet would have been torture."
He wandered about the room, with her arm round him, while her troubled gaze turned from time to time to the roll of manuscript on the table.
"Did you believe I was an artist when we first met," he broke out again, "or was it only pity? ”

“ There was the contingency that a man might drop in on him and at the final instant destroy the whole fabric of the deception that she had weaved. She strove to persuade herself that she might preserve her lover's delusion more securely where she had only strangers to fear than she could have done on the Diamond Fields. ”

“ The result of Willy Childers' going to see Rosa Duchêne was really a foregone conclusion; gun-powder had met the spark and only one thing could happen,. A poet—that he was a pseudo poet matters very little—who had been eating his heart out on the Diamond Fields was confronted, for the first time in his life, with a beautiful woman who was a genius. ”

“ Childers is going Home very soon," said Shepherd, "and then all of us poor beggars'll be jealous of him."
"You and he may meet in London, madame," added Teale. "You'll go to the theatre next time madame Duchêne plays in London, won't you, Childers? Perhaps she'll let you call on her there, too?"
Polly shifted her chair irritably.
"Will you be able to go about in London, Mr. Childers?"
"I don't know many people in England," he said; "I'm afraid not. I shall be in Dulwich, with my mother."
"But you will make friends," she urged; "won't you? You won't be tied to the house always?" ”

“ Again."
"My lungs aren't strong," stammered Willy. "I know; they never have been. But what you're implying's news to me."
Polly rose in consternation.
"Do you mean that he's ill, doctor—very ill?"
"I mean," said Dr. Drysdale, suddenly evasive, "that I wouldn't recommend England for him, that's all. It isn't a climate that we choose when there's a tendency to any pulmonary complaint, and—and, as your husband says, his lungs aren't exactly strong."
There was a pause that lasted some time.
"We may as well go," said Childers, at last; "I'm glad to have had your opinion. Good-morning." ”

“ At last Somerset wrote to his sister that her boy had better return to Dulwich. He said wittily that there was "no opening on the Fields for poets"—he had discovered Willy's bent by this time—and warned her that living was expensive there; the future Laureate would loaf more cheaply at home. Mrs. Childers replied that she felt such surroundings to be desirable for the formation of her son's character. He had no father, and a young man who did not seem to have any proper ambition would be a great responsibility for her to cope with alone. ”

“ And you did—you did feel there was a bond between us? Tell me. I want so much of you, dearest! I want more, and more, and more every day. I want more than I can tell you, and more than the utmost. It's as if nature hadn't provided for such a love. ”

“ After the illusion of intimate confidence that is created by sympathising with a great actress through the range of emotions that she represents—laughing with her laughter, and grieving with her when she grieves—one leaves the theatre having seen nothing at all of her real nature. ”

“ William Childers, whose Reveries is now under our consideration, leaps at a bound into the fore- most place. His songs resemble those of Rossetti in terseness and beauty, while with Browning they escape at times to that stronghold whither science and materialism are not prepared to follow. Art so complex as Mr. Childers' was not possible until centuries of literature had passed, and an artist could overlook the field, essay each style, and evolve a metrical result which should be to that of earlier periods what the music of Meyerbeer and Rossini is to the narrower range of Piccini or Gluck. ”

“ Better than clerking—eh?"
"Better than trying niggers in the Pan, too," said the assistant magistrate. "Did you ever see her at home?"
Willy shook his head.
"Have you?"
"I saw her once, yes—in my last holiday. I don't know French, but I shall never forget it as long as I live—no kid! She is the greatest actress in the world; she turns you inside out."
"I wish she played in English," said Willy, firing his pipe; "she might just as well—they say she speaks it fluently. Have you got a match, baas?
Rose Duchêne had been tempted to Kimberley. ”

“ They said it would be blackguardly to play tricks with Childers now and objected a good deal in an irresolute way. But Teale set himself to argue their scruples into air. For Childers to have a conversation with Polly under the impression she was the actress "wouldn't do the poor chap any harm," he insisted—"on the contrary, it'd give him immense pleasure." And as to the humour of the sell, it would be one of the best practical jokes ever perpetrated in the camp.
That was true, and a strong temptation.
Reiterating that the victim need never know; that no disappointment was entailed ”

“ Indeed, it is said that the girl at Clapham received a tribute in verse from the assistant magistrate about this date. Anyhow suspicion arose; and Willy's reception of the tentative chaff was as damning as plain acknowledgement—and much more comical. Altogether it was voted the most comical thing that "the poet" could have done. "Childers in love," pure and simple, would have been an amusing object, but Willy Childers in love with Rosa Duchêne was a situation that tickled Du Toit's Pan uncontrollably. ”

“ The afternoon that they moved in, Polly went into town alone. She explained that there was something she wanted to buy—a shade for the parlour lamp; and Willy, who was vividly interested in the arrangement of their home although he could not see it, said, "Let it be a pretty colour, darling, something that'll make the room nice to look at in the evening!"
She left him on the stoep, where she would see him at the moment she reached the gate on her return. But when her purchase was made, she, did not hasten to rejoin him there. She turned up Adderley Street, instead, into an avenue. ”

“ In Kimberley, dress-suits were worn more frequently, but Kimberley was three miles from Du Toit's Pan and, by comparison, fashionable. There were even men in Kimberley who wore stiff collars every day. And the theatre was there. Du Toit's Pan had nothing but the Club, and an hotel, and a corrugated-iron church.
It was early when Childers and his chief met again and drove into the larger township. But a crowd had already collected under the electric lamps of Main Street. ”

“ The Diamond Fields were welcoming the only important actress that had then come to bless them, and it was nearly a minute before she could speak.
As the act proceeded, Childers found his throat tightening queerly. The story has been as much abused as any that was ever written; but sickly, unhealthy, morbid, or not, it is a story that appeals to almost every imaginative young man. It fascinates him strongly as it develops ”

“ You must be as daft as he is, you little fool. ... Oh, well, I don't care; do as you like—it can't last long, that's one thing! When are you coming again?"
"I'm coming to-morrow," said Polly. "And if you think it all so shocking, I wonder you let those swine bring him to my room. At all events, I don't guy him, as you meant me to."
Then she jumped up into the "cart" and drove away. And Somerset dropped into the Club and told Teale that, "funny as it sounded, he believed that girl was mashed on the boy" ”

“ When the morning broke at last, her predominant sensation was pleasure. Her own luggage was ready, and while Bad Shilling went for their breakfast she was busy packing the remaining things of Willy's. She was still on her knees, endeavouring to fasten the box, while Willy sat on it, when the Boy returned. His additional weight—for he was a "boy" of about forty years of age, weighing twelve stones—disposed of the matter; and they sat down to the coffee and steaks at the untidy table gaily, reminding each other that it was for the last time.
The negro had come back with a "cart" ”

“ The assistant magistrate was always among the first to know when the mail was in, being engaged to a girl in England. Later on she would make her home here, and cry to be back in Clapham.
Childers was also interested in the arrival of the mail. He had submitted his volume of poems four months since to perhaps the only firm of publishers left for it to go to, and it was within the bounds of possibility that there might be a line by this time conveying their "regrets."
"Are they delivering yet?" he asked.
"I didn't hear," said Mr. Shepherd; "my letters always come to the Club. ”

“ And Polly was interviewed and coached. A deputation went up to Kimberley to see her.
"We want you to help us in a tremendous spoof, Polly," they said. "You've heard of Willy Childers?"
No, she had not heard of him; who was he?
"Well, he thinks he's a poet, and he has lost his sight, and he's in love with Duchêne," explained Teale. "Now, we want to tell him we're going to introduce him to her, and then bring him to you—d'ye see? He'll make love to you as violently as he knows how, and you're to pretend to be awfully taken with him, and kid him on—d'ye see? ”

“ The prospect of sitting by Rosa Duchêne and hearing her talk, though he wouldn't see her, dizzied him. At night he could not sleep; and he passed the long morning praying to hear each hour strike on the little American clock that he had bought to let him know how the time went since his watch became useless. When Teale and the assistant magistrate arrived, and guided him up into the "cart," the effort of replying to them was pain. He thanked God when he could be silent. ”

“ He would rather have been left in peace with plenty of stationery than have had the business of any broker in the Market.
It was as a broker that he began. His uncle, Blake Somerset, was the manager of the Fortunatus Mining Company in Bultfontein; and when Willy came down from Oxford, Somerset wrote, to the Dulwich villa, that, "now all that damned University foolishness was over, the boy had better buckle to and try to make a living." ”