Macheson

“ CHAPTER X MYSTERIES IN MAYFAIR That night, and for many nights afterwards, Macheson devoted himself to his work in the East End. The fascination of the thing grew upon him; he threw himself into his task with an energy which carried him often out of his own life and made forgetfulness an easy task. Night after night they came, these tired, white-faced women, with a sprinkling of sullen, dejected-looking men; night after night he pleaded and reasoned with them, striving with almost passionate earnestness to show them how to make the best of the poor thing they called life. ”

“ Macheson threw his remaining rug over the prostrate figure, and, lighting his pipe, strolled out into the spinney. The man’s coming filled him with a vague sense of trouble. He seemed so utterly out of keeping with the place, he represented an alien and undesirable note—a note almost of tragedy. All the time in his broken sleep he was muttering to himself. Once or twice he cried out in terror, once especially—Macheson turned round to find him sitting up on the rug, his brown eyes full of wild fear, and the perspiration running down his face. A stream of broken words flowed from his lips. ”

“ He’ll be an old man before he’s made up his mind which way he wants to go. This sort of thing’s good enough for me!”
The magnum had arrived, and Macheson lifted a foaming glass.
“Davenant,” he declared, “you are a philosopher. We will drink to life as it comes! To life—as it comes!”
They none of them noticed the little break in his voice. A party of newcomers claimed their attention. Macheson, too, had seen them. He had seen her. Like a ghost at the feast, he sat quite motionless, his glass half raised in the air, the colour gone from his cheeks, his eyes set in a hard fast stare. ”

“ He had the air of going through what might have been an everyday performance, ordered vermouth mixed, lit a cigarette, leaned back at his ease upon the cushioned seat, and told with zest and point a humorous story. There were women there, a dozen or more, some alone, some in little groups, women smartly enough dressed, good-looking, too, and prosperous, with gold purses and Paris hats, yet—lacking something. Macheson did not ask himself what it was. He felt it; he knew, too, that Holderness meant him to feel it. The shadow of tragedy was there—the world’s tragedy.... ”

“ Awfully studious chap Macheson was at college,” he added to the American girl. “Thought us chaps no end of rotters because we used to go the pace a bit. That’s so, isn’t it, Macheson?”
Macheson nodded.
“It is only the young who are really wise,” he declared coolly. “As we grow older we make fools of ourselves inevitably, either fools or beasts, according to our proclivities. Then we begin to enjoy ourselves.” ”

“ The lift had swung up to his floor, he heard the metal gate thrown open. There was a knock at the door, and Macheson walked in.
“Victor, by glory!”
Down went the pen, and Richard Holderness stood up at his desk with outstretched hands. Macheson [Pg 122] grasped them heartily and seated himself on the edge of the table.
“It’s good to see you, Dick,” he declared, “like coming back to the primitive forces of nature, unchanged, unchanging. The sight of you’s enough to stop a revolution.” ”

“ Macheson answered, “but I can’t exactly see——”
“That’s because you’re deficient,” Holderness shouted, wiping the tears from his eyes. “I haven’t laughed so much for ages. Here you come from the East to the West, with all the world’s tragedy tearing at your heart, flowing from your lips, a flagellator, a hater of the people to whom you speak, seeking only to strike and to wound, and they accept you as a new sensation! They bare their back to your whip! They have made you the fashion! ”

“ Holderness answered. “I could have told you so before, if it had been of any use. What about these Welshmen, though?”
“It’s hysteria,” Macheson declared. “If you can get through the hide, you can make the emotions run riot, stir them into a frenzy. ”

“ Holderness had answered. “It is a matter of the intelligence. As an artist, if I might dare to call myself one, I say that the [Pg 74] Christian life, if honestly lived, is the most beautiful thing of all the ages.”
Macheson walked down to the village with the memory of those words still in his brain. The bell was ringing for service from the queer, ivy-covered church, the villagers were coming down the lane in little groups. Macheson found himself one of a small knot of people, who stood reverently on one side, with doffed hats, just by the wooden porch. ”

“ Macheson produced his pipe, and his host a great tin of honeydew. Macheson helped himself slowly. He seemed to be trying to gain time.
“Blessed compact, ours,” the giant remarked, leaning back in his chair. “No probing for confidences, no silly questions. Out with it!”
“I’ve started wrong,” Macheson said. “I’ll have to go back on my tracks a bit anyway.”
Holderness grunted affably.
“Nothing like mistakes,” he remarked. “Best discipline in the world.”
“I started on a theory,” Macheson continued thoughtfully. “It didn’t pan out. The people I have been trying to get at are better left alone.” ”

“ Macheson, surprised, paused and turned round. It was Deyes who stood there, immaculately dressed in morning clothes, his long face pale as ever, his manner absolutely and entirely composed. He was [Pg 257] swinging his eyeglass by its narrow black ribbon, and leaning a little forward.
“Sir,” he said, once more addressing Macheson, “as one of the audience whose shortcomings have so—er—profoundly impressed you, may I take the liberty of asking you a question? I ask it of you publicly because I imagine that there are many others here besides myself to whom your answer may prove interesting.” ”

“ Holderness nodded.
“Bad luck,” he said. “This craving for something we haven’t got—can’t have—I wish I could find the germ. The world should go free of it for a generation. We’d build empires, we’d reconstruct society. It’s a deadly germ, though, Victor, and it’s the princes of the world who suffer most. There’s only one antidote—work!”
“Give me some,” Macheson begged.
The giant looked at him thoughtfully.
“Right,” he answered, “but not to-day. Clothes up in town?”
Macheson nodded.
“We’ll go on the bust,” Holderness declared. “I’ve been dying for a spree! We’ll have it. Where are you staying?” ”

“ East End work is all the same. One feels ashamed of preaching religion to a starving people.”
Macheson nodded his sympathy.
“I know what you mean,” he said. “It drove me from the East to the West. We should preach at the one and feed the other!... Of course, I personally have always been handicapped. I haven’t been able to subscribe to any of the established churches. But I do believe in the laws of retribution, whether you call them human or Divine. One’s moral delinquencies pay one out just as bodily excesses do. ”

“ Holderness asked.
“I’ll tell you,” Macheson answered. “You know I’ve seen a bit of what we call village life. Their standard isn’t high enough, of course. Things come too easily, their noses are too close to the ground. They are moderately sober, moderately industrious, but the sameness of life is at work all the time. It makes machines of the factory hands, animals of the country folk. I knew that before I started. I [Pg 123] thought I could lift their heads a little. It’s too big a task for me, Dick.” ”

“ Macheson smiled mirthlessly.
“But that is just what I do see,” he answered. “The conscience of every man who knows must be [Pg 245] haunted with them! The ghosts of starving men and unsexed women! What keeps their hands from our throats, Dick?”
“Common sense, you idiot,” Holderness answered cheerfully. “There’s a refuse heap for every one of nature’s functions. You may try to rake it out and cleanse it, but there isn’t much to be done. Hang that mission work, Victor! It’s broken more hearts than anything else on earth! A man can but do what he may.” ”

“ Macheson?”
“Older than I look and younger than I feel,” he answered, gazing into his empty glass.
“Have you found what you call your proclivities?” she asked.
“I am searching for them,” Macheson answered. “The trouble is one doesn’t know whether to dig or to climb.”
“Why should one search at all?” the other man [Pg 174] asked, drawing out a gold cigarette case from his trousers pocket, and carefully selecting a cigarette. “Life comes easiest to those who go blindfold. ”

“ Macheson answered. “I was at Oxford when I understood exactly the whole business, and it seemed like nothing but a curse to me. Then I talked to the dear old professor, and he showed me the way. I can honestly say that not one penny of that money has ever been spent, directly or indirectly, upon myself. I believe that if the old man could come to life and read my bank-book he’d have a worse fit than the one which carried him off. I appointed myself the trustee of his fortune, and it’s spread pretty well all over the world. ”

“ Macheson said—and once more waited.
“It isn’t a pleasant task,” Stephen continued, liking his errand less as he proceeded; “but I’ve had to tell Mrs. Foulton that—that, in short, Miss Thorpe-Hatton does not wish her tenants to accept you as a lodger.”
“Miss Thorpe-Hatton makes war on a wide scale,” Macheson remarked, smiling faintly.
“Well, after all, you see,” Hurd explained, “the whole place belongs to her, and there is no particular reason, is there, why she should tolerate any one in it of whom she disapproves?”
“None whatever,” Macheson assented gravely. ”

“ A small vehicle, something between a bath-chair and a miniature carriage, drawn by a fat, sleek pony, was turning into the lane from one of the splendid avenues which led to the house. A boy led the pony, a footman marched behind. Wilhelmina, in a plain white muslin dress and a black hat, was slowly preparing to descend. She smiled languidly, but pleasantly enough, at the line of curtseying women and men with doffed hats. The note of feudalism which their almost reverential attitudes suggested appealed irresistibly to Macheson’s sense of humour. ”

“ The tall footman sprang to the ground, the door flew open, [Pg 249] he saw a slim, familiar figure, veiled and dressed in a dark travelling costume, pass leisurely up the steps and into the arc of light which streamed through the open door. The brougham glided away, the door was closed, she was gone. Still Macheson leaned forward, watching the spot where she had been, his heart thumping against his sides, his senses thrilled with the excitement of her coming. Suddenly his attention was diverted in a curious manner. He became conscious that he was not the only watcher under the chestnut trees. ”

“ You’re young, shockingly young for any effective work. You can’t teach before you understand. Life [Pg 163] isn’t such a sink of iniquity as you young prigs at Oxford professed to find it. See the best of it and the worst. You’ll be able to put your finger on the weak spots quick enough.”
But the process of looking around wearied Macheson excessively—or was it something else which had crept into his blood to his immense unsettlement? ”

“ Mrs. Forrest’s pencil made a few illegible scribbles, she whispered a few inaudible words, and presently with a stretch and a sigh she came out of trance. We told her that the name of the control was established, but apparently Machaon meant nothing to her. She was much exhausted, and very soon I took her across to the house to go to bed, and presently rejoined Charles.
“Who was Machaon, anyhow?” he asked. “He sounds classical: more in your line than mine.”
I remembered enough Greek mythology to supply elementary facts, while I hunted for a particular book about Athens. ”

“ You have a friend, I think, in the house,—Mr. Russell? He seems of a coy and retiring nature."
"Excuse me, madam," said Dyson, "he is not coy, but he is a realist; and perhaps you are aware that no Carthusian monk can emulate the cloistral seclusion in which a realistic novelist loves to shroud himself. It is his way of observing human nature."
"Well, well," said the lady; "all this, though deeply interesting is not germane to our affair. I must tell you my history."
With these words the young lady proceeded to relate the
Novel of the White Powder. ”

“ Russell.
"Yes; it was taken about a fortnight ago by a lady."
"Indeed" said Dyson, always curious; "a young lady?"
"Yes, I believe so. She is a widow, and wears a thick crape veil. I have met her once or twice on the stairs and in the street, but I should not know her face."
"Well," said Dyson, when the beer had arrived, and the pipes were in full blast, "and what have you been doing? Do you find the work getting any easier?"
"Alas!" said the young man, with an expression of great gloom, "the life is a purgatory, and all but a hell. ”

“ Dyson took the parcel and his stick, and walked out of the shop with a nod, turning round as he passed the door. Travers had sunk into his seat, his face still white with terror, with one hand over his eyes, and Dyson speculated a good deal as he walked rapidly away as to what queer chords those could be on which he had played so roughly. He hailed the first hansom he could see and drove home, and when he had lit his hanging lamp, and laid his parcel on the table, he paused for a moment, wondering on what strange thing the lamplight would soon shine. ”

“ Well then, here was Machen in a hot-bed of the occult and the devilish, surrounded by books of all sorts, especially the strange, the weird and the curious. His room in the Clarendon Road held as many books as it could accommodate along with its occupant—the overflow was stacked between the rungs of a ladder on the landing outside. He was busy with notebooks once more, and writing furiously as ever—but in despair rather than the fine frenzy and high spirits of a few years before. For now he was deep in Rabelais and Balzac—and these books cast a spell upon him. ”