Manalive (G. K. Chesterton, 1912).pdf

7/27/2019 Manalive (G. K. Chesterton, 1912).pdf

1/329

MANALIVE

GILBERT K. CHESTERTON


2/329

THE LIBRARYOFTHE UNIVERSITYOF CALIFORNIAGIFT OF

Mrs. Warren Gregory


3/329

y-N >uo'\Mj


4/329


5/329


6/329


7/329

(^Sttf-ji^

MANALIVE


8/329

BY THE SAME A UTHORHERETICSORTHODOXYGEORGE BERNARD SHAWALL THINGS CONSIDEREDTHE BALL AND THE CROSSTHE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILLTHE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN


9/329

MANALIVEBY

G. K. CHESTERTON

NEW YORKJOHN LANE COMPANYMCMXII


10/329

Copyright, 191 2, by

JOHN LANE COMPANY

GIFT


11/329

*\U

CONTENTSPART ITHE ENIGMAS OF INNOCENT SMITH

CHAPTEX PAGEI How the Great Wind Came to Beacon

House iII The Luggage of an Optimist .... 26

III The Banner of Beacon 48IV The Garden of the God 71V The Allegorical Practical Joker . . 95PART II

THE EXPLANATIONS OF INNOCENT SMITHI The Eye of Death; or, The MurderCharge 137

II The Two Curates; or, The BurglaryCharge 184III The Round Road; or, The Desertion

Charge 235IV The Wild Weddings; or, The PolygamyCharge 275V How the Great Wind Went from Bea-con House 305

MS09065


12/329


13/329

MANALIVEPART ITHEENIGMAS OF INNOCENT SMITH

CHAPTER IHOW THE GREAT WIND CAME TO BEACON

HOUSE

AWIND sprang high in the west like awave of unreasonable happiness andtore eastward across England, trailing with itthe frosty scent of forests and the cold intoxi-cation of the sea. In a million holes and cor-ners it refreshed a man like a flagon, andastonished him like a blow. In the inmostchambers of intricate and embowered housesit woke like a domestic explosion, littering thefloor with some professor's papers till theyseemed as precious as fugitive, or blowing


14/329

MAN ALIVEout the candle by which a boy read "TreasureIsland" and wrapping him in roaring dark.But everywhere it bore drama into undra-matic lives, and carried the trump of crisisacross the world. Many a harassed motherin a mean backyard had looked at fivedwarfish shirts on the clothes-line as at somesmall, sick tragedy; it was as if she had hangedher five children. The wind came and theywere full and kicking as if five fat imps hadsprung into them; and far down in her op-pressed subconsciousness she half rememberedthose coarse comedies of her fathers when theelves still dwelt in the homes of men. Manyan unnoticed girl in a dank, walled gardenhad tossed herself into the hammock with thesame intolerant gesture with which she mighthave tossed herself into the Thames ; and thatwind rent the waving wall of woods and liftedthe hammock like a balloon, and showed hershapes of quaint cloud far beyond, and pic-tures of bright villages far below, as if sherode heaven in a fairy boat. Many a dustyclerk or curate plodding a telescopic road ofpoplar3 thought for the hundredth time thatthey were like the plumes of a hearse, when


15/329

MANALIVEthis invisible energy caught and swung andclashed them round his head like a wreath orsalutation of seraphic wings. There was init something more inspired and authoritativeeven than the old wind of the proverb; forthis was the good wind that blows nobodyharm.The flying blast struck London just where

it scales the northern heights, terrace aboveterrace, as precipitous as Edinburgh. It wasround about this place that some poet, prob-ably drunk, looked up astonished at all thosestreets gone skywards, and (thinking vaguelyof glaciers and roped mountaineers) gave itthe name of Swiss Cottage, which it has neverbeen able to shake off. At some stage of thoseheights a terrace of tall gray houses, mostlyempty and almost as desolate as the Gram-pians, curved round at the western end, sothat the last building, a boarding establish-ment called "Beacon House," offered abruptlyto the sunset its high, narrow, and toweringtermination, like the prow of some desertedship.The ship, however, was not wholly deserted.The proprietor of the boarding-house, a Mrs.

3


16/329

MANALIVEDuke, was one of those helpless persons uponwhom fate wars in vain; she smiled vaguelyboth before and after all her calamities; shewas too soft to be hurt. But by the aid (orrather under the orders) of a strenuous nieceshe always kept the remains of a clientele,mostly of young but listless folks. And therewere actually five inmates standing discon-solately about the garden when the great galebroke at the base of the terminal tower behindthem, as the sea bursts against the base of anoutstanding cliff.All day that hill of houses over London hadbeen domed and sealed up with cold cloud.Yet three men and two girls had at last foundeven the gray and chilly garden more toler-able than the black and cheerless interior.When the wind came it split the sky andshouldered the cloudland left and right; un-barring great clear furnaces of rolling gold.The burst of light released and the burst ofair blowing seemed to come almost simulta-neously; and the wind especially caught every-thing in a throttling violence. The brightshort grass lay all one way like brushed hair.Every shrub in the garden tugged at its roots

4


17/329

MANALIVElike a dog at the collar, and strained everyleaping leaf after the hunting and extermina-ting element. Now and again a twig wouldsnap and fly like a bolt from an arbalest.The three men stood stiffly and aslant againstthe wind, as if leaning against a wall. Thetwo ladies disappeared into the house.Rather, to speak truly, they were blown intothe house. Their two frocks, blue and white,looked like two big broken flowers, drivingand drifting upon the gale. Nor is such apoetic fancy inappropriate, for there wassomething oddly romantic about this inrushof air and light after a long, leaden, and un-lifting day. Grass and garden trees seemedglittering with something at once good andunnatural like a fire from fairyland. Itseemed like a strange sunrise at the wrong endof the day.The girl in white dived in quickly enough,for she wore a white hat of the proportionsof a parachute, which might have wafted heraway into the coloured clouds of evening.She was their one splash of splendour and ir-radiated wealth in that impecunious place(staying there temporarily with a friend), an

5


18/329

MANALIVEheiress in a small way, by name RosamundHunt, brown eyed, round faced, but resoluteand rather boisterous. On top of her wealthshe was good-humoured and rather good-looking; but she had not married, perhaps be-cause there was always a crowd of men roundher. She was not fast (though some mighthave called her vulgar) , but she gave irreso-lute youths an impression of being at oncepopular and inaccessible. A man felt as ifhe had fallen in love with Cleopatra, or asif he were asking for a great actress at thestage door. Indeed, some theatrical spanglesseemed to cling about Miss Hunt; she playedthe guitar and the mandoline; she alwayswanted charades ; and with that great rendingof the sky by sun and storm, she felt a girlishmelodrama swell again within her. To thecrashing orchestration of the air, the cloudsrose like the curtain of some long expectedpantomime.Nor, oddly enough, was the girl in blue en-

tirely unimpressed by this apocalypse in a pri-vate garden ; though she was one of the mostprosaic and practical creatures alive, she wasindeed no other than the strenuous niece whose

6


19/329

MANALIVEstrength alone upheld that mansion of decay.But as the gale swung and swelled the blueand white skirts till they took on the monstrousmushroom contours of Victorian crinolines, asunken memory stirred in her that was almostromance; a memory of a dusty volume of"Punch" in an aunt's house in infancy; pic-tures of crinoline hoops and croquet hoopsand some pretty story, of which perhaps theywere a part. This half-perceptible fragrancein her thoughts faded almost instantly, andDiana Duke entered the house even morepromptly than her companion. Tall, slim,aquiline, and dark, she seemed made for suchswiftness. In body she was of the breed ofthose birds and beasts that are at once longand alert, like greyhounds or herons or evenlike an innocent snake. The whole house re-volved on her as on a rod of steel. It wouldbe wrong to say that she commanded ; for herown efficiency was so impatient that she obeyedherself before any one else obeyed her. Be-fore electricians could mend a bell or lock-smiths open a door, before dentists couldpluck a loose tooth, or butlers draw a tightcork, it was done already with the silent vio-

7


20/329

MANALIVElence of her slim hands. She was light; butthere was nothing leaping about her lightness.She spurned the ground; and she meant tospurn it. People talk of the pathos and fail-ure of plain women; but it is a more terriblething that a beautiful woman may succeed ineverything but womanhood."It's enough to blow your head off," saidthe young woman in white, going to the look-ing-glass.The young woman in blue made no reply,but put away her gardening gloves, and thenwent to the sideboard and began to spread outan afternoon cloth for tea."Enough to blow your head off I say," said

Miss Rosamund Hunt, with the unruffledcheeriness of one whose songs and speecheshad always been safe for an encore."Only your hat, I think," said Diana Duke;

"but I dare say that is sometimes more im-portant."

Rosamund's face showed for an instant theoffence of a spoilt child, and then the humourof a very healthy person. She broke into alaugh and said, "Well, it would have to be abig wind to blow your head off."

8


21/329

MANALIVEThere was another silence; and the sunset

breaking more and more from the sunderingclouds, filled the room with soft fire andpainted the dull walls with ruby and gold."Somebody once told me," said Rosamund

Hunt, "that it's easier to keep one's head whenone has lost one's heart.""Oh, don't talk about such rubbish," saidDiana with savage sharpness.Outside, the garden was clad in a golden

splendour; but the wind was still stiffly blow-ing, and the three men who stood their groundmight also have considered the problem ofhats and heads. And, indeed, their position,touching hats, was somewhat typical of them.The tallest of the three abode the blast in ahigh silk hat, which the wind seemed tocharge as vainly as that other sullen tower, thehouse behind him. The second man tried tohold on a stiff straw hat at all angles, and ul-timately held it in his hand. The third hadno hat, and, by his attitude, seemed never tohave had one in his life. Perhaps this windwas a kind of fairy wand to test men andwomen, for there was much of the three menin this difference.

9


22/329

MANALIVEThe man in the solid silk hat was the em-

bodiment of silkiness andsolidity.

He wasa big, bland, bored, and (as some said) boringman, with flat fair hair and handsome heavyfeatures; a prosperous young doctor by thename of Warner. But if his blondness andblandness seemed at first a little fatuous, it iscertain that he was no fool. If RosamundHunt was the only person there with muchmoney, he was the only person who had asyet found any kind of fame. His treatise on"The Probable Existence of Pain in the Low-est Organisms" had been universally hailed bythe scientific world as at once solid and dar-ing. In short, he undoubtedly had brains;and perhaps it was not his fault if they werethe kind of brains that most men desire toanalyze with a poker.The young man who put his hat off and onwas a scientific amateur in a small way, andworshipped the great Warner with a solemnfreshness. It was in fact at his invitation thatthe distinguished doctor was present; forWarner lived in no such ramshackle lodging-house, but in a professional palace in HarleyStreet. This young man was really the

10


23/329

MANALIVEyoungest and best looking of the three. Buthe was one of those persons, both male and fe-male, who seem doomed to be good-lookingand insignificant. Brown haired, high col-oured, and shy, he seemed to lose the delicacyof his features in a sort of blur of brown andred as he stood blushing and blinking againstthe wind. He was one of those obvious un-noticeable people : every one knew that he wasArthur Inglewood, unmarried, moral, de-cidedly intelligent, living on a little money ofhis own, and hiding himself in the two hob-bies of photography and cycling. Everybodyknew him and forgot him; even as he stoodthere in the glare of golden sunset there wassomething about him indistinct, like one ofhis own red-brown amateur photographs.The third man had no hat; he was lean, inlight, vaguely sporting clothes, and the largepipe in his mouth made him look all theleaner. He had a long ironical face, blue-black hair, the blue eyes of an Irishman, andthe blue chin of an actor. An Irishman hewas, an actor he was not, except in the olddays of Miss Hunt's charades, being, as a mat-ter of fact, an obscure and flippant journalist

ii


24/329

MANALIVEnamed Michael Moon. He had once beenhazily supposed to be reading for the Bar;but (as Warner would say with his ratherelephantine wit) it was mostly at another kindof bar that his friends found him. Moon,however, did not drink, nor even frequentlyget drunk, he simply was a gentleman wholiked low company. This was partly becausecompany is quieter than society, and if he en-joyed talking to a barmaid (as apparently hedid), it was chiefly because the barmaid didthe talking. Moreover he would often bringother talent to assist her. He shared thatstrange trick of all men of his type, intellec-tual and without ambition, the trick of goingabout with his mental inferiors. There wasa small resident Jew named Moses Gould inthe same boarding-house, a little man whosenegro vitality and vulgarity amused Michaelso much that he went round with him frombar to bar, like the owner of a performingmonkey.The colossal clearance which the wind hadmade of that cloudy sky grew clearer and

clearer; chamber within chamber seemed toopen in heaven. One felt one might at last

12


25/329

MANALIVEfind something lighter than light. In thefullness of this silent effulgence all things col-lected their colours again, the gray trunksturned silver and the drab gravel gold. Onebird fluttered like a loosened leaf from onetree to another, and his brown feathers werebrushed with fire.

"Inglewood," said Michael Moon, with hisblue eye on the bird, "have you any friends ?"Doctor Warner mistook the person ad-dressed, and turning a broad beaming face,said,"Oh, yes, I go out a great deal."Michael Moon gave a tragic grin, andwaited for his real informant, who spoke amoment after in a voice curiously cool, freshand young, as coming out of that brown andeven dusty exterior.

"Really," answered Inglewood, "I'm afraidI've lost touch with my old friends. Thegreatest friend I ever had was at school, afellow named Smith. It's odd you shouldmention it, because I was thinking of himto-day, though I haven't seen him for sevenor eight years. He was on the science sidewith me at school, a clever fellow though

13


26/329

MANALIVEqueer, and he went up to Oxford when Iwent to Germany. The fact is, it's rather asad story. I often asked him to come andsee me, and when I heard nothing I madeinquiries you know. I was shocked to learnthat poor Smith had gone off his head. Theaccounts were a bit cloudy of course. Somesaying he had recovered again, but they al-ways say that. About a year ago I got a tele-gram from him myself. The telegram, I'msorry to say, put the matter beyond a doubt."

"Quite so," assented Dr. Warner stolidly;"insanity is generally incurable.""So is sanity," said the Irishman, andstudied him with a dreary eye."Symptoms?" asked the doctor. "What

was this telegram?""It's a shame to joke about such things,"said Inglewood, in his honest, embarrassedway; "the telegram was Smith's illness, notSmith. The actual words were, 'Man foundalive with two legs.'

""Alive with two legs," repeated Michael,

frowning. "Perhaps a version of alive andkicking? I don't know much about people

14


27/329

MANALIVEout of their senses; but I suppose they oughtto be kicking.""And people in their senses?" askedWarner, smiling.

"Oh, they ought to be kicked," said Michaelwith sudden heartiness."The message is clearly insane," continued

the impenetrable Warner. "The best test isa reference to the undeveloped normal type.Even a baby does not expect to find a manwith three legs.""Three legs," said Michael Moon, "wouldbe very convenient in this wind."A fresh eruption of the atmosphere had

indeed almost thrown them off their balanceand broken the blackened trees in the garden.Beyond, all sorts of accidental objects couldbe seen scouring the wind-scoured sky, straws,sticks, rags, papers, and, in the distance, a dis-appearing hat. Its disappearance, however,was not final; after an interval of minutesthey saw it again, much larger and closer,a white panama, towering up into the heavenslike a balloon, staggering to and fro for aninstant like a stricken kite, and then settling

i5


28/329

MANALIVEin the centre of their own lawn as falteringlyas a fallen leaf."Somebody's lost a good hat," said DoctorWarner shortly.Almost as he spoke, another object came

over the garden wall, flying after the flutteringpanama. It was a big green umbrella. Afterthat came hurtling a huge yellow Gladstonebag, and after that came a figure like a flyingwheel of legs, as in the shield of the Isle ofMan.

But though for a flash it seemed to havefive or six legs, it alighted upon two, likethe man in the queer telegram. It took theform of a large light-haired man in gay greenholiday clothes. He had bright blonde hairthat the wind brushed back like a German's,a flushed eager face like a cherub's and aprominent pointing nose, a little like a dog's.His head, however, was by no means cherubicin the sense of being without a body. On thecontrary, on his vast shoulders and shape,generally gigantesque, his head looked oddlyand unnaturally small. This gave rise to ascientific theory (which his conduct fully sup-ported) that he was an idiot.

16


29/329

MANALIVEInglewood had a politeness instinctive and

yet awkward. His life was full of arrestedhalf gestures of assistance. And even thisprodigy of a big man in green, leaping thewall like a bright green grasshopper, did notparalyze that small altruism of his habits insuch a matter as a lost hat. He was steppingforward to recover the green gentleman'sheadgear, when he was struck rigid with aroar like a bull's.

"Unsportsmanlike!" bellowed the big man."Give it fair play, give it fair play!" Andhe came after his own hat quickly, but cau-tiously, with burning eyes. The hat hadseemed at first to droop and dawdle as inostentatious languor on the sunny lawn; butthe wind again freshening and rising it wentdancing down the garden with the devilryof a pas-de-quatre. The eccentric wentbounding after it with kangaroo leaps andbursts of breathless speech, of which it wasnot always easy to pick up the thread: "Fairplay, fair play . . . sport of kings . . .chase their crowns . . . quite humane. . . tramontana . . . cardinal chasered hats . . . old English hunting . . .

i7


30/329

MANALIVEstarted a hat in Bramber Combe . . . hatat bay . . . mangled hounds. . . . Gothim!"As the wind rose out of a roar into a shriek,

he leapt into the sky on his strong, fantasticlegs, snatched at the vanishing hat, missed it,and pitched sprawling face foremost on thegrass. The hat rose over him like a bird intriumph; but its triumph was premature.For the lunatic, flung forward on his hands,threw up his boots behind, waved his two legsin the air like symbolic ensigns (so that theythought again of the telegram), and actuallycaught the hat with his feet. A prolongedand piercing yell of wind split the welkinfrom end to end. The eyes of all the menwere blinded by the invisible blast, as by astrange, clear cataract of transparency rush-ing between them and all objects about them.But as the large man fell back in a sittingposture, and solemnly crowned himself withthe hat, Michael found, to his increduloussurprise, that he had been holding his breathlike a man watching a duel.While that tall wind was at the top of itssky-scraping energy, another short cry was

18


31/329


32/329

MANALIVEto and fro in the thundering wind like athistle, and flamed in the full sunshine like abonfire. The green, fantastic human figure,vivid against its autumn red and gold, wasalready among its highest and craziestbranches, which by bare luck did not breakwith the weight of his big body. He wasup there among the last tossing leaves andthe first twinkling stars of evening, still talk-ing to himself cheerfully, reasoningly, halfapologetically, in little gasps. He might wellbe out of breath, for his whole preposter-ous raid had gone with one rush; he hadbounded once the wall like a football, sweptdown the garden like a slide, and shot up thetree like a rocket. The other three menseemed buried under incident piled on inci-dent, a wild world where one thing beganbefore another thing left off. All three hadthe first thought. The tree had been therefor the five years they had known the board-ing-house. Each one of them was active andstrong. No one of them had even thoughtof climbing it. Beyond that, Inglewood feltfirst the mere fact of colour. The brightbrisk leaves, the bleak blue sky, the wild green

20


33/329

MANALIVEarms and legs, reminded him irrationally ofsomething glowing in his infancy; somethingakin to a gaudy man on a golden tree; per-haps it was only a painted monkey on a stick.Oddly enough, Michael Moon, though moreof a humorist, was touched on a tenderernerve, half remembered the old, young the-atricals with Rosamund, and was amused tofind himself almost quoting Shakespeare

"For valour is not love, a HerculesStill climbing trees in the Hesperides."

Even the immovable man of science hada bright, bewildered sensation that the TimeMachine had given a great jerk, and goneforward with rather rattling rapidity.He was not, however, wholly prepared forwhat happened next. The man in green,riding the frail topmost bough like a witchon a very risky broomstick, reached up andrent the black hat from its airy nest of twigs.It had been broken across a heavy bough inthe first burst of its passage, a tangle ofbranches had torn and scored and scratchedit in every direction, a clap of wind andfoliage had flattened it like a concertina; nor

21


34/329

MANALIVEcan it be said that the obliging gentlemanwith the sharp nose showed any adequatetenderness for its structure when he finallyunhooked it from its place. When he hadfound it, however, his proceedings were bysome counted singular. He waved it with aloud whoop of triumph, and then immedi-ately appeared to fall backwards off the tree,to which, however, he remained attached byhis long strong legs, like a monkey swung byhis tail. Hanging thus head downwardsabove the unhelmed Warner, he gravely pro-ceeded to drop the battered silk cylinder uponhis brows. "Every man a king," explainedthe inverted philosopher; "every hat (conse-quently) a crown. But this is a crown out ofheaven."And he again attempted the coronation of

Warner, who, however, moved away withgreat abruptness from the hovering diadem;not seeming, strangely enough, to wish forhis former decoration in its present state."Wrong, wrong!" cried the obliging per-

son hilariously. "Always wear uniform, evenif it's shabby uniform! Ritualists may al-ways be untidy. Go to a dance with soot on

22


35/329

MANALIVEyour shirt-front; but go with a shirt-front.Huntsman wears old coat; but old pink coat.Wear a topper, even if it's got no top. It'sthe symbol that counts, old cock. Take yourhat, because it is your hat after all; its naprubbed all off by the bark, dears, and its brimnot the least bit curled; but for old sakes'sake it is still, dears, the nobbiest tile in theworld."

Speaking thus, with a wild comfortableness,he settled or smashed the shapeless silk hatover the face of the disturbed physician, andfell on his feet among the other men, still talk-ing, beaming and breathless."Why don't they make more games out ofthe wind?" he asked in some excitement."Kites are all right, but why should it onlybe kites? Why, I thought of three othergames for a windy day while I was climbingthat tree. Here's one of them: you take alot of pepper"

"I think," interposed Moon, with a sardonicmildness, "that your games are already suffi-ciently interesting. Are you, may I ask, aprofessional acrobat on a tour, or a travellingadvertisement of Sunny Jim? How and why

23


36/329

MANALIVEdo you display all this energy for clearingwalls and climbing trees in our melancholy,but at least rational, suburbs ?"The stranger, so far as so loud a person wascapable of it, appeared to grow confidential.

"Well, it's a trick of my own," he con-fessed candidly. "I do it by having twolegs."Arthur Inglewood who had sunk into thebackground of this scene of folly, started andstared at the newcomer with his short-sighted eyes screwed up and his high colourfiercely heightened."Why, I believe you're Smith," he cried

with his fresh, almost boyish voice; and thenafter an instant's stare, "and yet I'm not sure."

"I have a card, I think," said the unknown,with baffling solemnity; "a card with my realname, my titles, offices, and true purpose onthis earth."He drew out slowly from an upper waist-coat pocket a scarlet card-case, and as slowlyproduced a very large card. Even in the in-stant of its production, they fancied it was ofa queer shape, unlike the cards of ordinarygentlemen. But it was there only for an in-

24


37/329

MANALIVEstant; for as it passed from his fingers toArthur's, one or other slipped his hold. Thestrident, tearing gale in that garden carriedaway the stranger's card to join the wildwaste-paper of the universe; and that great,western wind shook the whole house andpassed.

25


38/329

CHAPTER IITHE LUGGAGE OF AN OPTIMIST

WE all remember the fairy tales of sciencein our infancy, which played with thesupposition that large animals could jump inthe proportion of small ones. If an elephantwere as strong as a grasshopper, he could (Isuppose) spring clean out of the ZoologicalGardens and alight trumpeting upon Prim-rose Hill. If a whale could leap from thewater like a trout, perhaps men might lookup and see one soaring above Yarmouth likethe winged island of Laputa. Such naturalenergy, though sublime, might certainly beinconvenient, and much of this inconvenienceattended the gaiety and good intentions of theman in green. He was too large for every-thing, because he was lively as well as large.By a fortunate physical provision most verysubstantial creatures are also reposeful; andmiddle class boarding-houses in the lesser

26


39/329

MANALIVEparti of London are not built for a man as bigat a bull, and as excitable as a kitten.When Inglewood followed the stranger intothe boarding-house, he found him talkingearnestly and (in his own opinion) privatelyto the helpless Mrs. Duke. That fat, faintlady could only goggle up like a dying fish atthe enormous new gentleman, who politelyoffered himself as lodger, with vast gesturesof the wide white hat in one hand, and theyellow Gladstone bag in the other. Fortu-nately, Mrs. Duke's more efficient niece andpartner was there to complete the contract;for, indeed, all the people of the house hadsomehow collected in the room. This factin truth was typical of the whole episode.The visitor created an atmosphere of comiccrisis; and from the time he came into thehouse to the time he left it, he somehow gotthe company to gather and even follow(though in derision), as children gather andfollow a Punch and Judy. An hour ago, andfor four years previously, these people hadavoided each other, even when they reallyliked each other. They had slid in and outof dismal and deserted rooms in search of par-

27


40/329

MANALIVEticular newspapers or private needlework.Even now they all came casually, as with vary-ing interests; but they all came. There wasthe embarrassed Inglewood, still a sort of redshadow; there also the unembarrassed War-ner, a pallid, but solid substance. There wasMichael Moon offering like a riddle the con-trast of the horsy crudeness of his clothes, andthe sombre sagacity of his visage. He wasnow joined by his yet more comic crony,Moses Gould. Swaggering on short legs witha prosperous purple tie, he was the gayest ofgodless little dogs ; but like a dog also in this,that however he danced and wagged with de-light, the two dark eyes on each side of hisprotuberant nose glistened gloomily like blackbuttons. There was Miss Rosamund Hunt,still with the fine white hat framing hersquare, good-humoured face; and still withher native air of being dressed for some partythat never came off. She also, like Mr.Moon, had a new companion, new so far asthis narrative goes, but in reality an old friendand protegee. This was a slight, youngwoman in black, and in no way notable butfor a load of dull red hair, of which the shape

28


41/329

MANALIVEsomehow gave her pale face that triangular,almost peaked appearance which was givenby the lowering headdress and deep rich ruffof the Elizabethan beauties. Her surnameseemed to be Gray, and Miss Hunt called herMary, in that indescribable tone applied to anold dependent who has practically become afriend. She wore a small silver cross on hervery businesslike black clothes, and was theonly member of the party who went to church.Last, but the reverse of least, there was DianaDuke, studying the newcomer with eyes ofsteel, and listening carefully to every idioticword he said. As for Mrs. Duke, she smiledup at him ; but never dreamed of listening tohim. She had never really listened to any onein her life; which some said was why she hadsurvived.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Duke was pleased withher new guest's concentration of courtesy uponherself; for no one ever spoke seriously toher any more than she listened seriously toany one. And she almost beamed as thestranger, with yet wider and almost whirlinggestures of explanation with his huge hat andbag, apologized for having entered by the wall

29


42/329

MANALIVEinstead of the front door. He was under-stood to put it down to an unfortunate familytradition of neatness and care of his clothes."My mother was rather strict about it, to

tell the truth," he said, lowering his voice, toMrs. Duke. "She never liked me to lose mycap at school. And when a man's been taughtto be tidy and neat it sticks to him."

Mrs. Duke weakly gasped that she was surehe must have had a good mother ; but her nieceseemed inclined to probe the matter further.

"You've got a funny idea of tidiness," shesaid, "if it's jumping garden walls and clam-bering up garden trees. A man can't verywell climb a tree tidily.""He can clear a wall neatly," said MichaelMoon; "I saw him do it."Smith seemed to be regarding the girl withgenuine astonishment. "My dear younglady," he said, "I was tidying the tree. Youdon't want last year's hats there, do you, anymore than last year's leaves. The wind takesoff the leaves, but it couldn't manage the hat;that wind, I suppose, has tidied whole foreststo-day. Rum idea this is, that tidiness is atimid, quiet sort of thing; why, tidiness is a

30


43/329

MANALIVEtoil for giants. You can't tidy anything with-out untidying yourself; just look at my trou-sers. Don't you know that? Haven't youever had a spring cleaning?""Oh, yes, sir," said Mrs. Duke, almost

eagerly. "You will find everything of thatsort quite nice." For the first time she hadheard two words that she could understand.

Miss Diana Duke seemed to be studyingthe stranger in a sort of spasm of calculation ;then her black eyes snapped with decision,and she said that he could have a particularbedroom on the top floor if he liked, and thesilent and sensitive Inglewood, who had beenon the rack through these cross purposes,eagerly offered to show him up to the room.Smith went up the stairs four at a time, andwhen he bumped his head against the ultimateceiling, Inglewood had an odd sensation thatthe tall house was much shorter than it usedto be.Arthur Inglewood followed his old friendor his new friendfor he did not veryclearly know which he was. The face lookedvery like his old schoolfellow's at one secondand very unlike at another.

3*


44/329

MANALIVEAnd when Inglewood broke through his

native politeness so far as to say suddenly, "Isyour name Smith?" he received only the un-enlightening reply, "Quite right. Quiteright. Very good. Excellent I" Which ap-peared to Inglewood, on reflection, rather thespeech of a new-born babe accepting a name,than of a grown-up man admitting one.

Despite this double about identity, the hap-less Inglewood watched the other unpack, andstood about his bedroom in all the importantattitudes of the male friend. Mr. Smith un-packed with the same kind of whirling ac-curacy with which he climbed a tree;throwing things out of his bag as if they wererubbish, yet managing to distribute quite aregular pattern all round him on the floor.As he did so he continued to talk in thesame somewhat gasping manner (he hadcome upstairs four steps at a time, but even

without this his style of speech was breath-less and fragmentary) ; and his remarks werestill a string of more or less significant butoften separate pictures.

"Like the day of judgment," he said, throw-ing a bottle so that it somehow settled, rock-

32


45/329

MANALIVEing on its right end. "People say vastuniverse . . . infinity and astronomy ; notsure ... I think things are too close to-gether . . . packed up; for travelling. . . stars too close really . . . why,the sun's a star, too close to be seen properly;the earth's a star, too close to be seen at all. . . too many pebbles on the beach ; oughtall to be put in rings ; too many blades of grassto study . . . feathers on a bird make thebrain reel; wait till the big bag is unpacked. . . may all be put in our right placesthen."Here he stopped, literally for breath;

throwing a shirt to the other end of the room,and then a bottle of ink so that it fell quiteneatly beyond it. Inglewood looked roundon this strange, half-symmetrical disorderwith an increasing doubt.

In fact, the more one explored Mr. Smith'sholiday luggage, the less one could make any-thing of it. One peculiarity of it was that al-most everything seemed to be there for thewrong reason; what is secondary with everyone else was primary with him. He wouldwrap up a pot or pan in brown paper; and the

3 33


46/329

MANALIVEunthinking assistant would discover that thepot was valueless or even unnecessary, andthat it was the brown paper that was trulyprecious. He produced two or three boxesof cigars, and explained with plain perplexingsincerity that he was no smoker, but thatcigar-box wood was by far the best for fret-work. He also exhibited about six small bot-tles of wine, white and red; and Inglewood,happening to note a Volnay which he knewto be excellent, supposed at first that thestranger was an epicure in vintages. He wastherefore surprised to find that the next bottlewas a vile sham claret from the colonies,which even colonials (to do them justice) donot drink. It was only then that he observedthat all six bottles had those bright metallicseals of various tints, and seemed to have beenchosen solely because they gave the threeprimary and three secondary colours: red,blue, and yellow; green, violet, and orange.There grew upon Inglewood an almost creepysense of the real childishness of this creature.For Smith was really, so far as human psychol-ogy can be, innocent. He had the sensual-ities of innocence; he loved the stickiness of

34


47/329

MANALIVEgum and he cut white wood greedily as if hewere cutting a cake. To this man wine wasnot a doubtful thing to be defended or de-nounced; it was a quaintly-coloured syrup,such as a child sees in a shop window. Hetalked dominantly and rushed the social situ-ation; but he was not asserting himself, likea superman in a modern play. He was sim-ply forgetting himself, like a little boy at aparty. He had somehow made a giant stridefrom babyhood to manhood, and missed thatcrisis in youth when most of us grow old.As he shunted his big bag, Arthur observedthe initials I. S. printed on one side of it, andremembered that Smith had been called Inno-cent Smith at school, though whether as aformal Christian name or a moral descriptionhe could not remember. He was just aboutto venture another question, when there wasa knock at the door, and the short figure ofMr. Gould offered itself, with the melancholyMoon, standing like his tall crooked shadow,behind him. They had drifted up the stairsafter the other two men with the wanderinggregariousness of the male."Hope there's no intrusion," said the bearn-

35


48/329

MANALIVEing Moses with a glow of good nature, butnot the airiest tinge of apology."The truth is," said Michael Moon withcomparative courtesy, "we thought we mightsee if they had made you comfortable. MissDuke is rather"

"I know," cried the stranger, looking upradiantly from his bag; "magnificent isn'tshe? Go close to herhear military musicgoing by, like Joan of Arc."

Inglewood started and stared at the speakerlike one who has just heard a wild fairy tale,which nevertheless contains one small andforgotten fact. For he remembered how hehad himself thought of Jeanne d'Arc yearsago, when, hardly more than a schoolboy, hehad first come to the boarding-house. Longsince the pulverizing rationalism of his friendDr. Warner had crushed such youthful igno-rances and disproportionate dreams. Underthe Warnerian scepticism and science of hope-less human types, Inglewood had long cometo regard himself as a timid, insufficient, and"weak" type, who would never marry; to re-gard Diana Duke as a materialistic maidserv-ant; and to regard his first fancy for her as the

36


49/329

MANALIVEsmall, dull farce of a collegian kissing hislandlady's daughter. And yet the phraseabout military music moved him queerly; asif he had heard those distant drums."She has to keep things pretty tight, as is

only natural," said Moon, glancing round therather dwarfish room, with its wedge ofslanted ceiling, like the conical hood of adwarf."Rather a small box for you, sir," said the

waggish Mr. Gould."Splendid room, though," answered Mr.Smith enthusiastically, with his head beside

his Gladstone bag. "I love these pointed sortsof rooms, like Gothic. By the way," he criedout, pointing in quite a startling way."Where does that door lead to?""To certain death, I should say," answeredMichael Moon, staring up at a dust-stainedand disused trap-door in the sloping roof ofthe attic. "I don't think there's a loft there;and I don't know what else it could lead to."Long before he had finished his sentence, theman with the strong green legs had leapt atthe door in the ceiling, swung himself some-how on to the ledge beneath it, wrenched it

37


50/329

MANALIVEopen after a 8truggle, and clambered throughit For a moment they saw the two symboliclegs standing like a truncated statue, then theyvanished. Through the hole thus burst in theroof appeared the empty and lucid sky ofevening, with one great many-coloured cloudsailing across it like a whole county upsidedown.

"Hullo, you fellows!" came the far cry ofInnocent Smith, apparently from some remotepinnacle. "Come up here ; and bring some ofmy things to eat and drink. It's just the spotfor a picnic."With a sudden impulse Michael snatchedtwo of the small wine bottles, one in each solidfist; and Arthur Inglewood, as if mesmerized,groped for a biscuit tin and a big jar of ginger.The enormous hand of Innocent Smith ap-pearing through the aperture, like a giant'sin a fairy tale, received these tributes and borethem off to the eyrie, then they both hoistedthemselves out of the window. They wereboth athletic, and even gymnastic ; Inglewoodthrough his concern for hygiene, and Moonthrough his concern for sport, which was notquite so idle and inactive as that of the average

38


51/329

MANALIVEiportsman. Also they both had a light-headed,celestial sensation when the door was burst inthe roof, as if a door had been burst in the sky,and they could climb on to the very roof ofthe universe. They were both men who hadlong been consciously imprisoned in the com-monplace, though one took it comically, andthe other seriously. They were both men,nevertheless, in whom sentiment had neverdied. But Mr. Moses Gould had an equalcontempt for their suicidal athletics and theirsubconscious transcendentalism, and he stoodand laughed at the thing with the shamelessrationality of another race.When the singular Smith, astride of a chim-ney-pot, learnt that Gould was not following,his infantile officiousness and good-natureforced him to dive back into the attic to com-fort or persuade; and Inglewood and Moonwere left alone on the long gray-green ridgeof the slate roof, with their feet against guttersand their backs against chimney-pots, lookingagnostically at each other. Their first feelingwas that they had come out into eternity; andthat eternity was very like topsy-turvydom.One definition occurred to one of them; that

39


52/329

MANALIVEhe had come out into the light of that lucidand radiant ignorance in which all beliefs hadbegun. The sky above them was full ofmythology. Heaven seemed deep enough tohold all the gods. The round of the etherturned from green to yellow gradually like agreat unripe fruit. All around the sunkensun it was like a lemon; round all the east itwas a sort of golden green, more suggestiveof a greengage; but the whole had still theemptiness of daylight and none of the secrecyof dusk. Tumbled here and there across thisgold and pale green were shards and shatteredmasses of inky purple cloud, which seemedfalling towards the earth in every kind ofcolossal perspective. One of them really hadthe character of some many-mitred, many-bearded, many-winged Assyrian image, hugehead downwards, hurled out of heaven ; a sortof false Jehovah, who was perhaps Satan.All the other clouds had preposterous pin-nacled shapes ; as if the god's palaces had beenflung after him.And yet, while the empty heaven was fullof silent catastrophe, the height of humanbuildings above which they sat held here and

40


53/329

MANALIVEthere a tiny and trivial noise that was the exactantithesis ; and they heard some six streets be-low a newsboy calling, and a bell bidding tochapel. They could also hear talk out of thegarden below; and realized that the irrepress-ible Smith must have followed Gould down-stairs, for his eager and pleading accents couldbe heard, followed by the half-humorous pro-tests of Miss Duke, and the full and veryyouthful laughter of Rosamund Hunt. Theair had that cold kindness that comes after astorm. Michael Moon drank it in with asserious a relish as he had drunk the little bottleof cheap claret, which he had emptied almostat a draught. Inglewood went on eatingginger very slowly and with a solemnity un-fathomable as the sky above him. There wasstill enough stir in the freshness of the atmos-phere to make them almost fancy they couldsmell the garden soil and the last roses of theautumn. Suddenly there came from the dark-ening garden a silvery ping and pong whichtold them that Rosamund had brought out thelong-neglected mandoline. After the first fewnotes there was more of the distant bell-likelaughter.

4i


54/329

MAN ALIVE"Inglewood," said Michael Moon, "have

you ever heard that I am a blackguard?""I haven't heard it, and I don't believe

it," answered Inglewood, after an odd pause."But I have heard you werewhat they callrather wild."

"If you have heard that I am wild, you cancontradict the rumour," said Moon, with anextraordinary calm; "I am tame. I am quitetame ; I am about the tamest beast that crawls.I drink too much of the same kind of whiskeyat the same time every night. I even drinkabout the same amount too much. I go to thesame number of public-houses. I meet thesame damned women with mauve faces. I/hear the same number of dirty storiesgener-ally

the same dirty stories. You may reassuremy friends, Inglewood, you see before youa person whom civilization has thoroughlytamed."Arthur Inglewood was staring with feelings

that made him nearly fall off the roof; for in-deed the Irishman's face, always sinister, wasnow almost demoniacal."Christ confound it," cried out Moon, sud-

denly clutching the empty claret bottle, "this42


55/329

MANALIVEis about the thinnest and filthiest wine I everuncorked, and it's the only drink I have reallyenjoyed for nine years. I was never wilduntil just ten minutes ago." And he sent thebottle whizzing, a wheel of glass, far awaybeyond the garden into the road, where, inthe enormous evening silence, they could evenhear it break and part upon the stones."Moon," said Arthur Inglewood, rather

huskily, "you mustn't be so bitter about iteverybody has to take the world as he finds it;of course one often finds it a bit dull""That fellow doesn't," said Michael de-

cisively; "I mean that fellow Smith. I havea fancy there's some method in his madness.It looks as if he could turn into a sort of won-derland any minute by taking one step out ofthe plain road. Who would have thought ofthat trap-door? Who would have thought thatthis cursed colonial claret could taste quitenice among the chimney-pots? Perhaps thatis the real key of fairyland. Perhaps NoseyGould's beastly little Empire cigarettes oughtonly to be smoked on stilts, or somewhere ofthat sort. Perhaps Mrs. Duke's cold leg ofmutton would seem quite appetizing at the top

43


56/329

MANALIVEof a tree. Perhaps even my damned, dirty,monotonous drizzle of old Bill Whiskey""Don't be rough on yourself," said Ingle-wood, in serious distress. "The dullness isn'tyour fault or the whiskey's. Fellows whodon'tfellows like me I meanhave just thesame feeling that it's all rather flat at a failure.But the world's made like that; it's all survival.Some people are made to get on, like Warner,and some people are made to stick quiet, likeme. You can't help your temperament. Iknow you're much cleverer than I am; butyou can't help having all the loose ways of apoor literary chap, and I can't help having allthe doubts and helplessness of a small scientificchap, any more than a fish can help floating,or a fern help curling up. Humanity, asWarner said so well in that lecture, really con-sists of quite different tribes of animals all dis-guised as men."

In the dim garden below, the buzz of talkwas suddenly broken by Miss Hunt's musicalinstrument banging with the abruptness of ar-tillery into a vulgar but spirited tune.Rosamund's voice came up rich and strong

44


57/329

MANALIVEin the words of some fatuous, fashionable coonsong"Darkies sing a song on the old plantation,Sing it as we sang it in the days long since gone by."InglewoocTs brown eyes softened and sad-

dened still more as he continued his mono-logue of resignation to such a rollicking andromantic tune. But the blue eyes of MichaelMoon brightened and hardened with a lightthat Inglewood did not understand. Manycenturies, and many villages and valleys, wouldhave been happier if Inglewood or Ingle-wood's countrymen had ever understood thatlight, or guessed at the first blink that it wasthe battle star of Ireland."Nothing can ever alter it, it's in thewheels of the universe," went on Inglewood,

in a low voice ; "some men are weak and somestrong, and the only thing we can do is toknow that we are weak. I have been in lovelots of times, but I could not do anything forI remembered my own fickleness. I haveformed opinions, but I haven't the cheek topush them, because I've so often changed

45


58/329

MANALIVEthem. That's the upshot, old fellow. Wecan't trust ourselves, and we can't help it."Michael had risen to his feet, and stoodpoised in the perilous position at the end ofthe roof, like some dark statue hung above itsgable. Behind him, huge clouds of an almostimpossible purple turned slowly topsy-turvy inthe silent anarchy of heaven. Their gyrationmade the dark figure seem yet dizzier.

"Let us . . ." he said, and was suddenlysilent.

"Let us what?" asked Arthur Inglewood,rising equally quickly though somewhat morecautiously, for his friend seemed to find somedifficulty of speech."Let us go and do some of these things wecan't do," said Michael.At that same moment there burst out of thetrap-door below them, the cockatoo hair andflushed face of Innocent Smith, calling tothem that they must come down as the "con-cert" was in full swing, and Mr. Moses Gouldabout to recite "Young Lochinvar."As they dropped into Innocent's attic theynearly tumbled over its entertaining impedi-menta again. Inglewood, staring at the lit-

46


59/329

MANALIVEtered floor, thought instinctively of the litteredfloor of a nursery. He was, therefore, themore moved, and even shocked, when his eyefell on a large well-polished American re-volver.

"Hullo," he cried, stepping back from thesteely glitter, as men step back from a serpent;"are you afraid of burglars, or when and whydo you deal death out of that machine gun?"

"Oh, that!" said Smith, throwing it a singleglance; "I deal life out of that," and he wentbounding down the stairs.

47


60/329

CHAPTER IIITHE BANNER OF BEACON

A LL next day at Beacon House there was*-*- a crazy sense that it was everybody'sbirthday. It is the fashion to talk of institu-tions as cold and cramping things. The truthis that when people are in exceptionally highspirits, really wild with freedom and inven-tion, they always must, and they always do,create institutions. When men are wearythey fall into anarchy; but while they are gayand vigorous they invariably make rules.This, which is true of all the churches and re-publics of history, is also true of the mosttrivial parlour game or the most unsophisti-cated meadow romp. We are never free untilsome institution frees us; and liberty cannotexist till it is declared by authority. Even thewild authority of the harlequin Smith wasstill authority, because it produced everywherea crop of crazy regulations and conditions.

48


61/329

MANALIVEHe filled every one with his own half-lunaticlife; but it was not expressed in destruction,but rather in a dizzy and toppling construc-tion. Each person with a hobby found itturning into an institution. Rosamund's songsseemed to coalesce into a kind of opera; Mi-chael's jests and paragraphs into a magazine.His pipe and her mandoline seemed be-tween them to make a sort of smoking concert.The bashful and bewildered Arthur Ingle-wood almost struggled against his own grow-ing importance. He felt as if, in spite of him,his photographs were turning into a picturegallery, and his bicycle into a gymkana.But no one had any time to criticize theseimpromptu estates and offices, for they fol-lowed each other in wild succession like thetopics of a rambling talker.

Existence with such a man was an obstaclerace made of pleasant obstacles. Out of anyhomely and trivial object he could drag reelsof exaggeration, like a conjuror. Nothingcould be more shy and impersonal than poorArthur's photography. Yet the preposterous Smith was seen assisting him eagerly throughsunny morning hours, and an indefensible

49


62/329

MANALIVEsequence described as "Moral Photography"began to unroll itself about the boarding-house. It was only a version of the oldphotographer's joke which produces the samefigure twice on one plate, making a manplay chess with himself, dine with himself,and so on. But these plates were more mysti-cal and ambitious ; as "Miss Hunt forgets Her-self," showing that lady answering her owntoo rapturous recognition with a most appall-ing stare of ignorance; or "Mr. Moonquestions Himself," in which Mr. Moonappeared as one driven to madness underhis own legal cross-examination, which wasconducted with a long forefinger and an airof ferocious waggery. One highly success-ful trilogyrepresenting Inglewood recog-nizing Inglewood, Inglewood prostratinghimself before Inglewood, and Inglewoodseverely beating Inglewood with an umbrellaInnocent Smith wanted to have enlargedand put up in the hall, like a sort of fresco,with the inscription

"Self-knowledge, self-reverence, self-control :These three alone will make a man a prig."

Tennyson.50


63/329

MANALIVENothing, again, could be more prosaic

and impenetrable than the domestic energiesof Miss Diana Duke. But Innocent hadsomehow blundered on the discovery thather thrifty dressmaking went with aconsiderable feminine care for dresstheone feminine thing that had never failedher solitary self-respect. In consequenceSmith pestered her with a theory (whichhe really seemed to take seriously) thatladies might combine economy with mag-nificence if they would draw light chalkpatterns on a plain dress and then dust themoff again. He set up "Smith's LightningDressmaking Company" with two screens,a cardboard placard, and box of bright softcrayons; and Miss Diana actually threwhim an abandoned black overall or workingdress on which to exercise the talents of amodiste. He promptly produced for hera garment aflame with red and gold sun-flowers; she held it up an instant to hershoulders, and looked like an empress. AndArthur Inglewood, some hours afterwardscleaning his bicycle (with his usual air ofbeing inextricably hidden in it), glanced up,

5i


64/329

MANALIVEand his hot face grew hotter, for Dianastood laughing for one flash in the doorway,and her dark robe was rich with the greenand purple of great decorative peacocks, likea secret garden in the Arabian Nights. Apang, too swift to be named pain or pleasure,went through his heart like an old-worldrapier. He remembered how pretty hethought her years ago, when he was readyto fall in love with anybody; but it was likeremembering a worship of some Babylonianprincess in some previous existence. At hisnext glimpse of her (and he caught himselfawaiting it), the purple and green chalk wasdusted off, and she went by quickly in herworking clothes.As for Mrs. Duke, none who knew thatmatron could conceive her as actively resistingthis invasion that had turned her house upsidedown. But among the most exact observers itwas seriously believed that she liked it. Forshe was one of those women who at bottom re-gard all men as equally mad, wild animals ofsome utterly separate species. And it isdoubtful if she really saw anything more ec-centric or inexplicable in Smith's chimney-pot

52


65/329

MANALIVEpicnics or crimson sunflowers than she had inthe chemicals of Inglewood or the sardonicspeeches of Moon. Courtesy, on the otherhand, is a thing that any one can understand;and Smith's manners were as courteous as theywere unconventional. She said he was "a realgentleman," by which she simply meant akind-hearted man, which is a very differentthing. She would sit at the head of the tablewith fat, folded hands and a fat, folded smilefor hours and hours, while every one else wastalking at once. At least, the only other ex-ception was Rosamund's companion, MaryGray, whose silence was of a much more eagersort. Though she never spoke she alwayslooked as if she might speak any minute.Perhaps this is the very definition of a com-panion. Innocent Smith seemed to throwhimself, as into other adventures, into the ad-venture of making her talk. He never suc-ceeded, yet he was never snubbed; if heachieved anything, it was only to draw atten-tion to this quiet figure, and to turn her, byever so little, from a modesty to a mystery.But if she was a riddle, every one recognizedthat she was a fresh and unspoilt riddle, like

53


66/329

MANALIVEthe riddle of the sky and the woods in spring.Indeed, though she was rather older than theother two girls, she had an early morning ar-dour, a fresh earnestness of youth, which Rosa-mund seemed to have lost in the mere spend-ing of money, and Diana in the mere guardingof it. Smith looked at her again and again.Her eyes and mouth were set in her face thewrong waywhich was really the right way.She had the knack of saying everything withher face: her silence was a sort of steady ap-plause.But among the hilarious experiments of thatholiday (which seemed more like a week'sholiday than a day's) one experiment towerssupreme, not because it was any sillier or moresuccessful than the others, but because out ofthis particular folly flowed all the odd eventsthat were to follow. All the other practicaljokes exploded of themselves and left vacancy;all the other fictions returned upon themselvesand were finished, like a song. But the stringof solid and startling eventswhich were toinclude a hansom cab, a detective, a pistol, anda marriage licencewere all made primarily

54


67/329

MANALIVEpossible by the joke about the High Court ofBeacon.

It had originated not with Innocent Smith,but with Michael Moon. He was in a strangeglow and pressure of spirits, and talked in-cessantly ; yet he had never been more sarcastic,and even inhuman. He used his old uselessknowledge as a barrister to talk entertain-ingly of a tribunal that was a parody on thepompous anomalies of English law. TheHigh Court of Beacon, he declared, was asplendid example of our free and sensible con-stitution. It had been founded by King Johnin defiance of Magna Charta, and now held ab-solute power over windmills, wine and spiritlicences, ladies travelling in Turkey, revisionof sentences for dog-stealing and parricide, aswell as anything whatever that happened inthe town of Market-Bosworth. The wholehundred and nine seneschals of the HighCourt of Beacon met once in every four cen-turies; but in the intervals (as Mr. Moon ex-plained) the whole powers of the institutionwere vested in Mrs. Duke. Tossed aboutamong the rest of the company, however, the

55


68/329

MANALIVEHigh Court did not retain its historical andlegal seriousness, but was used somewhatunscrupulously in a riot of domestic detail.If somebody spilt the Worcester sauce on thetablecloth, he was quite sure it was a ritewithout which the sittings and findings of theCourt would be invalid; or if somebodywanted a window to remain shut, he wouldsuddenly remember that none but the thirdson of the lord of the manor of Penge hadthe right to open it. They even went thelength of making arrests and conductingcriminal inquiries. The proposed trial ofMoses Gould for patriotism was rather abovethe heads of the company, especially of thecriminal; but the trial of Inglewood on acharge of photographic libel, and his tri-umphant acquittal upon a plea of insanity,were admitted to be in the best traditions ofthe Court.But when Smith was in wild spirits he

grew more and more serious, not more andmore flippant like Michael Moon. Thisproposal of a private court of justice whichMoon had thrown off with the detachmentof a political humorist, Smith really caught

56


69/329

MANALIVEhold of with the eagerness of an abstractphilosopher. It was by far the best thingthey could do, he declared, to claim sover-eign powers even for the individual house-hold."You believe in Home Rule for Ireland;

I believe in Home Rule for homes," hecried eagerly to Michael. "It would bebetter if every father could kill his son, aswith the old Romansit would be better,because nobody would be killed. Let's issuea Declaration of Independence from BeaconHouse. We could grow enough greens inthat garden to support us, and when the tax-collector comes let's tell him we're self-sup-porting, and play on him with the hose.. . . Well, perhaps, as you say, we couldn'tvery well have a hose, as that comes fromthe main; but we could sink a well in thischalk, and a lot could be done with water-jugs. . . . Let this be really BeaconHouse. Let's light a bonfire of independenceen the roof, and see house after house answer-ing it across the valley of the Thames I Let usbegin the League of the Free Families!Away with Local Government! A fig for

57


70/329

MAN ALIVELocal Patriotism! Let every house be asovereign state as this is, and judge its ownchildren by its own law, as we do by theCourt of Beacon 1 Let us cut the painter,and begin to be happy together, as if we wereon a desert island!"

"I know that desert island," said MichaelMoon; "it only exists in the 'Swiss FamilyRobinson.' A man feels a strange desire forsome sort of vegetable milk, and crash comesdown some unexpected cocoanut from someundiscovered monkey. A literary man feelsinclined to pen a sonnet, and at once anofficious porcupine rushes out of a thicket,and shoots out one of his quills."

"Don't you say a word against the 'SwissFamily Robinson,'

" cried Innocent with greatwarmth. "It mayn't be exact science, butit's dead accurate philosophy. When you'rereally shipwrecked, you do really find whatyou want. When you're really on a desertisland, you never find it a desert. If we werereally besieged in this garden we'd find a hun-dred English birds and English berries thatwe never knew were here. If we weresnowed up in this room, we'd be the better

58


71/329

MANALIVEfor reading scores of books in that bookcasethat we don't even know are there; we'd havetalks with each other; good, terrible talks,that we shall go to the grave without guessing ;we'd find materials for everything : christening,marriage or funeralyes, even for a Corona-tion, if we didn't decide to be a republic.""A Coronation on 'Swiss Family' lines, Isuppose," said Michael, laughing. "Oh, Iknow you would find everything in thatatmosphere. If we wanted such a simplething, for instance, as a Coronation Canopy,we should walk down beyond the geraniumsand find the Canopy Tree in full bloom. Ifwe wanted such a trifle as a crown of gold,why, we should be digging up dandelions,and we should find a gold mine under thelawn. And when we wanted oil for the cere-mony, why, I suppose, a great storm wouldwash everything on shore, and we should findthere was a whale on the premises.""And so there is a whale on the premisesfor all you know," asseverated Smith, strikingthe table with passion. "I bet you've neverexamined the premises! I bet you've neverbeen round at the back as I was this morning

59


72/329

MAN ALIVEfor I found the very thing you say couldonly grow on a tree. There's an old sortof square tent up against the dustbin ; it's gotthree holes in the canvas, and a pole's broken,so it's not much good as a tent, but as aCanopy" And his voice quite failed himto express its shining adequacy; then he wenton with controversial eagerness. "You see Itake every challenge as you make it. I believeevery blessed thing you say couldn't be herehas been here all the time. You say youwant a whale washed up for oil. Why, there'soil in that cruet-stand at your elbow; and Idon't believe anybody has touched it orthought of it for years. And for your goldcrown, we're none of us wealthy here, but wecould collect enough ten shilling bits from ourown pockets to string round a man's head forhalf an hour; or one of Miss Hunt's goldbangles is nearly big enough to"The good-humoured Rosamund was almostchoking with laughter. "All is not gold thatglitters," she said ; "and besides""What a mistake that is!" cried InnocentSmith, leaping up in great excitement. "Allis gold that glittersespecially now we are a60


73/329

MANALIVESovereign State. What's the good of a Sov-ereign State if it can't define a sovereign?We can make anything a precious metal, asmen could in the morning of the world. Theydidn't choose gold because it was rareyourscientists can tell you twenty sorts of slimemuch rarer. They chose gold because it wasbrightbecause it was a thing hard to findbut pretty when you've found it. You can'tfight with golden swords or eat goldenbiscuits ; you can only look at itand you canlook at it out here."With one of his incalculable motions he

sprang back and burst open the doors into thegarden. At the same time, also, with one ofhis gestures that never seemed at the instantso unconventional as they were, he stretchedout his hand to Mary Gray, and led her outon to the lawn as if for a dance.The French windows, thus flung open, let

in an evening even lovelier than that of theday before. The west was swimming withsanguine colours, and a sort of sleepy flamelay along the lawn. The twisted shadows ofthe one or two garden trees showed upon thissheen, not gray or black, as in common day-

61


74/329

MANALIVElight, but like arabesques written in vivid vio-let ink on some page of eastern gold. Thesunset was one of those festive, and yet mys-terious conflagrations in which common thingsby their colours remind us of costly or curiousthings. The slates upon the sloping roofburned like the plumes of a vast peacock, inevery mysterious blend of blue and green.The red-brown bricks of the wall glowed withall the October tints of strong ruby and tawnywines. The sun seemed to set each objectalight with a different coloured flame, like aman lighting fireworks; and even Innocent'shair, which was of a rather colourless fairness,seemed to have a flame of pagan gold on it ashe strode across the lawn towards the one tallridge of rockery."What would be the good of gold," he wassaying, "if it did not glitter? Why should wecare for a black sovereign any more than ablack sun at noon? A black button would dojust as well. Don't you see that everythingin this yard looks like a jewel? And will youkindly tell me what the deuce is the good ofa jewel except that it looks like a jewel?Leave off buying and selling, and start look-

62


75/329

MANALIVEing! Open your eyes; and you'll wake up inthe New Jerusalem."

"All is gold that glitters:Tree and tower of brass

Rolls the golden evening airDown the golden grass;Kick the cry to Jericho,How yellow mud is sold;

All is gold that glitters,For the glitter is the gold."

"And who wrote that?" asked Rosamund,amused."No one will ever write it," answered

Smith, and cleared the rockery with a flyingleap.

"Really," said Rosamund to Michael Moon,"he ought to be sent to an asylum. Don'tyou think so?"

"I beg your pardon," inquired Michael,rather sombrely; his long, swarthy head wasdark against the sunset, and either by acci-dent or mood he had the look of somethingisolated and even hostile amid the social ex-travagance of the garden.

"I only said Mr. Smith ought to go to anasylum," repeated the lady.

*3


76/329

MANALIVEThe lean face seemed to grow longer and

longer; for Moon was unmistakably sneering."No," he said; "I don't think it's at all neces-sary.""What do you mean?" asked Rosamundquickly. "Why not?"

"Because he is in one now," answeredMichael Moon in a quiet but ugly voice."Why, didn't you know?""What?" cried the girl, and there was abreak in her voice; for the Irishman's faceand voice were really almost creepy. Withhis dark figure and dark sayings in all thatsunshine he looked like the devil in paradise."I'm sorry," he continued, with a sort of

harsh humility. "Of course we don't talkabout it much . . . but I thought we allreally knew.""Knew what?""Well," answered Moon, "that BeaconHouse is a certain rather singular sort of

house. A house with the tiles loose, shallwe say? Innocent Smith is only the doctorthat visits us ; hadn't you come when he calledbefore? As most of our maladies are melan-cholic, of course he has to be extra cheery.

64


77/329

MANALIYESanity, of course, seems a very bumptiouseccentric thing to us. Jumping over a wallclimbing a treethat's his bedside man-ner.""You daren't say such a thing!" cried Rosa-mund in a rage. "You daren't suggest thatI""Not more than I am," said Michael

soothingly. "Not more than the rest of us.Haven't you ever noticed that Miss Dukenever sits stilla notorious sign? Haven'tyou ever observed that Inglewood is alwayswashing his handsa known mark of mentaldisease. I, of course, am a dipsomaniac."

"I don't believe you," broke out his com-panion, not without agitation. "I've heardyou had some bad habits"

"All habits are bad habits," said Michael,with deadly calm. "Madness does not comeby breaking out, but by giving in; by set-tling down in some dirty, little, self-repeatingcircle of ideas; by being tamed. You wentmad about money, because you're an heiress.""It's a lie," cried Rosamund furiously. "Inever was mean about money.""You were worse," said Michael, in a low

6$


78/329

MANALIVEvoice, and yet violently. "You thought thatother people were. You thought every manwho came near you must be a fortune-hunter;.you would not let yourself go and be sane;and now you're mad, and I'm mad; and serveus right.""You brute," said Rosamund quite white."And is this true?"With an intellectual cruelty of which the

Celt is capable when his abysses are in revolt,Michael was silent for some seconds, and thenstepped back with an ironical bow. "Notliterally true, of course," he said ; "only reallytrue. An allegory, shall we say? A socialsatire.""And I hate and despise your satires," criedRosamund Hunt, letting loose her whole forci-

ble female personality like a cyclone; andspeaking every word to wound. "I despise itas I despise your rank tobacco, and your nasty,loungy ways, and your snarling, and yourRadicalism, and your old clothes, and yourpotty little newspaper, and your rotten failureat everything. I don't care whether you callit snobbishness or not, I like life and success,and jolly things to look at, and action. You

66


79/329

MANALIVEwon't frighten me with Diogenes; I preferAlexander."

"Victrix causa dex" said Michael gloom-ily, and this angered her more, as, not knowingwhat it meant, she imagined it to be witty.

"Oh, I dare say you know Greek," she said,with cheerful inaccuracy; "you haven't donemuch with that either," and she crossed thegarden, pursuing the vanished Innocent andMary.

In doing so she passed Inglewood, who wasreturning to the house slowly, and with athought-clouded brow. He was one of thosemen who are quite clever, but quite the reverseof quick. As he came back out of the sunsetgarden into the twilight parlour, Diana Dukeslipt swiftly to her feet, and began puttingaway the tea things. But it was not beforeInglewood had seen an instantaneous pictureso unique, that he might well have snapshottedit with his everlasting camera. For Dianahad been sitting in front of her unfinishedwork with her chin on her hand, lookingstraight out of the window in pure thoughtlessthought."You are busy," said Arthur, oddly embar-

67


80/329

MANALIVErassed with what he had seen, and wishing toignore it."There's no time for dreaming in thisworld," answered the young lady with herback to him.

"I have been thinking lately," said Ingle-wood in a low voice, "that there's no time forwaking up."She did not reply, and he walked to the win-dow and looked out on the garden.

"I don't smoke or drink you know," he saidirrelevantly, "because I think they're drugs.And yet I fancy all hobbies, like my cameraand bicycle, are drugs too. Getting under ablack hood, getting into a dark roomgettinginto a hole anyhow. Drugging myself withspeed, and sunshine, and fatigue, and fresh air.Pedalling the machine so fast that I turn intoa machine myself. That's the matter with allof us. We're too busy to wake up."

"Well," said the girl solidly, "what is thereto wake up to?""There must be!" cried Inglewood, turninground in a singular excitement. "There must

be something to wake up to! AH we dois preparationsyour cleanliness, and my

68


81/329

MANALIVEhealthiness, and Warner's scientific appliances.We're always preparing for somethingsome-thing that never comes off. I ventilate thehouse, and you sweep the house, but what isgoing to happen in the house?"She was looking at him quietly, but withvery bright eyes, and seemed to be searchingfor some form of words which she could notfind.

Before she could speak, the door burst open,and the boisterous Rosamund Hunt, in herflamboyant white hat, boa, and parasol, stoodframed in the doorway. She was in a breath-ing heat, and on her open face was an expres-sion of the most infantile astonishment.

"Well, here's a fine game," she said, pant-ing; "what am I to do now I wonder. I'vewired for Dr. Warner, that's all I can think ofdoing.""What is the matter?" asked Diana rathersharply, but moving forward, like one used tobe called upon for assistance.

"It's Mary," said the heiress, "my compan-ion, Mary Gray; that cracked friend of yourscalled Smith has proposed to her in the gar-den, after ten hours' acquaintance, and he

69


82/329

MANALIVEwants to go off with her now for a speciallicence."Arthur Inglewood walked to the openFrench windows and looked out on the garden,

still golden with evening light. Nothingmoved there but a bird or two hopping andtwittering; but beyond the hedge and railings,in the road outside the garden gate, a hansom-cab was waiting, with the yellow Gladstonebag on top of it.

70


83/329

CHAPTER IVTHE GARDEN OF THE GOD

DIANA DUKE seemed inexplicably irri-tated at the abrupt entrance and utter-ance of the other girl.

"Well," she said shortly, "I suppose MissGray can decline him if she doesn't want tomarry him.""But she does want to marry him!" criedRosamund in exasperation. "She's a wild,wicked fool, and I won't be parted from her."

"Perhaps," said Diana icily; "but I reallydon't see what we can do.""But the man's balmy, Diana," reasoned her

friend angrily. "I can't let my nice governessmarry a man that's balmy! You or somebodymust stop it! Mr. Inglewood, you're a mango and tell them they simply can't."

"Unfortunately, it seems to me they simplycan," said Inglewood, with a depressed air."I have far less right of intervention than Miss

7*


84/329

MANALIVEDuke ; besides having far less moral force thanshe.""You haven't either of you got much," cried

Rosamund, the last stays of her formidabletemper giving way; "I think I'll go some-where else for a little sense and pluck. Ithink I know some one who will help me morethan you do, at any rate . . . he's a can-tankerous beast, but he's a man and has a mind,and knows it. . . ." And she flung outinto the garden, with cheeks aflame, and theparasol whirling like a Catharine wheel.She found Michael Moon standing underthe garden tree, looking over the hedge;hunched like a bird of prey, with his largepipe hanging down his long blue chin. Thevery hardness of his expression pleased her,after the nonsense of the new engagement, andthe shilly-shallying of her other friends.

"I am sorry I was cross, Mr. Moon," shesaid frankly. "I hated you for being a cynic;but I've been well punished, for I want a cynicjust now. I've had my fill of sentimentI'mfed up with it. The world's gone mad, Mr.Moonall except the cynics, I think. Thatmaniac Smith wants to marry my old friend

72


85/329

MANALIVEMary, and sheand shedoesn't seem tomind."

Seeing his attentive face still undisturbedlysmoking, she added smartly, "I'm not jokingthat's Mr. Smith's cab outside. He swearshe'll take her off now to his aunt's, and go fora special licence. Do give me some practicaladvice, Mr. Moon."Mr. Moon took his pipe out of his mouth,held it in his hand for an instant reflectively,and then tossed it to the other side of the gar-den. "My practical advice to you is this,"he said: "Let him go for his special licence,and ask him to get another one for you andme.

"Is that one of your jokes?" asked the younglady. "Do say what you really mean."

"I mean that Innocent Smith is a man ofbusiness," said Moon with ponderous preci-sion. "A plain, practical man; a man of af-fairs; a man of facts and the daylight. Hehas let down twenty ton of good buildingbricks suddenly on my head, and I am glad tosay they have woken me up. We went to sleepa little while ago on this very lawn, in this verysunlight. We have had a little nap for five

73


86/329

MANALIVEyears or so, but now we're going to be married,Rosamund, and I can't see why that cab. . . ."

"Really," said Rosamund stoutly, "I don'tknow what you mean.""What a lie!" cried Michael, advancing onher with brightening eyes. "I'm all for liesin an ordinary way; but don't you see that to-night they won't do? We've wandered into aworld of facts, old girl. That grass growing,and that sun going down, and that cab at thedoor, are facts. You used to torment and ex-cuse yourself by saying I was after yourmoney, and didn't really love you. But if Istood here now, and told you I didn't love youyou wouldn't believe me. For truth is inthis garden to-night."

"Really, Mr. Moon . . ." said Rosamund,rather more faintly.He kept two big blue magnetic eyes fixedon her face. "Is my name Moon?" he asked."Is your name Hunt? On my honour, theysound to me as quaint and distant as Red In-dian names. It's as if your name was 'Swim,'and my name was 'Sunrise.' But our realnames are Husband and Wife, as they werewhen we fell asleep."

74


87/329

MANALIVE"It is no good," said Rosamund, with real

tears in her eyes ; "one can never go back.""I can go where I damn please," saidMichael, "and I can carry you on my shoul-der.""But really, Michael, really, you must stop

and think!" cried the girl earnestly. "Youcould carry me off my feet I dare say, soul andbody, but it may be bitter bad business for allthat. These things done in that romantic rush,like Mr. Smith's, theythey do attract women,I don't deny it. As you say, we're all tellingthe truth to-night. They've attracted poorMary, for one. They attract me, Michael.But the cold fact remains: imprudent mar-riages do lead to long unhappiness and disap-pointmentyou've got used to your drinks andthingsI shan't be pretty much longer""Imprudent marriages 1" roared Michael."And pray where in earth or heaven are thereany prudent marriages? Might as well talkabout prudent suicides. You and I havedawdled round each other long enough, andare we any safer than Smith and Mary Graywho met last night? You never know a hus-band till you marry him. Unhappy! Of

75


88/329

MANALIVEcourse you'll be unhappy! Who the devil areyou that you shouldn't be unhappy, like themother that bore you? Disappointed I Ofcourse we'll be disappointed ! I, for one, don'texpect till I die to be so good a man as I amat this minute, for just now I'm fifty thousandfeet high, a tower with all the trumpets shout-ing.""You see all this," said Rosamund, with agrand sincerity in her solid face, "and do youreally want to marry me?""My darling, what else is there to do?"reasoned the Irishman. "What other occupa-

tion is there for an active man on this earth,except to marry you? What's the alternativeto marriage, barring sleep? It's not liberty,Rosamund. Unless you marry God, as ournuns do in Ireland, you must marry Man; thatis Me. The only third thing is to marry your-selfto live with yourselfyourself, yourself,yourselfthe only companion that is neversatisfiedand never satisfactory."

"Michael," said Miss Hunt, in a very softvoice, "if you won't talk so much, I'll marryyou."

"It's no time for talking," cried Michael76 \


89/329

MANALIVEMoon. "Singing is the only thing. Can'tyou find that mandoline of yours, Rosamund.""Go and fetch it for me," said Rosamund,with crisp and sharp authority.The lounging Mr. Moon stood for one splitsecond astonished, then he shot away across thelawn, as if shod with the feathered shoes outof the Greek fairy tale. He cleared threeyards and fifteen daisies at a leap, out of merebodily levity; but when he came within a yardor two of the open parlour windows, his flyingfeet fell in their old manner like lead; hetwisted round and came back slowly, whistling.The events of that enchanted evening were notat an end.

Inside the dark sitting-room of which Moonhad caught a glimpse, a curious thing had hap-pened, almost an instant after the intemperateexit of Rosamund. It was something which,occurring in that obscure parlour, that seemedto Arthur Inglewood like heaven and earthturning head over heels, the sea being the ceil-ing and the stars the floor. No words can ex-press how it astonished him, as it astonishes allsimple men when it happens. Yet the stiffestfemale stoicism seems separated from it, only

77


90/329

MANALIVEby a sheet of paper or a sheet of steel. It indi-cates no surrender, far less any sympathy.The most rigid and ruthless woman can beginto cry, just as the most effeminate man cangrow a beard. It is a separate sexual power,and proves nothing one way or the other aboutforce of character. But to young men igno-rant of women, like Arthur Inglewood, to seeDiana Duke crying was like seeing a motor-car shedding tears of oil.He could never have given (even if hisreally manly modesty had permitted it) anyvaguest vision of what he did when he saw thatportent. He acted as men do when a theatrecatches firevery differently from what theywould have conceived themselves as acting,whether for better or worse. He had a faintmemory of certain half-stifled explanations,that the heiress was the one really payingguest, and she would go, and the bailiffs (inconsequence) would come; but after that heknew nothing of his own conduct except by theprotests it evoked."Leave me alone, Mr. Inglewoodleave mealonethat's not the way to help."

78


91/329

MANALIVE"But I can help you," said Arthur, with

grinding certainty; "I can, I can, I can. . . .""Why, you said," cried the girl, "that youwere much weaker than me.""So I am weaker than you," said Arthur, in

a voice that went vibrating through every-thing, "but not just now.""Let go my hands!" cried Diana. "I won'tbe bullied."

In one element he was much stronger thanshe, the matter of humour. This leapt up inhim suddenly and he laughed, saying:"Well, you are mean. You know quite wellyou'll bully me all the rest of my life. Youmight allow a man the one minute of his lifewhen he's allowed to bully."

It was as extraordinary for him to laugh asfor her to cry; and for the first time since herchildhood Diana was entirely off her guard."Do you mean you want to marry me?" shesaid."Why, there's a cab at the door!" cried

Inglewood, springing up with an unconsciousenergy and bursting open the glass doors thatled into the garden,

79


92/329

MANALIVEAs he led her out by the hand they realized

somehow for the first time that the house andgarden were on a steep height over London.And yet, though they felt the place to be up-lifted, they felt it also to be secret: it was likesome round-walled garden on the top of oneof the turrets of heaven.Inglewood looked around dreamily, hisbrown eyes devouring all sorts of details w

Documents

Manalive (G. K. Chesterton, 1912).pdf