Edgar Saltus: The Man Part 17

"'Madame,' I would say, 'if you are trying to steal my little Snippsy, let me a.s.sure you, that though men may be scarce, hats are more so. A smart autumn model in exchange is my price.'"

At that Mr. Saltus would exclaim:--

"I would not go. I would scream and bite her, and she would be glad to let me drop."

"Not at all," I always replied, "for I would tell her that you have been expecting hydrophobia all these years and it has at last shown itself.

Then she would carry you off to the lethal chamber with all speed."

That remark always called forth a series of "Wows" in various keys. This story with variations was gone over and over, and as a rule was followed by one from me. Mr. Saltus was disappointed when it was not.

"What would you do," I asked, "if, upon going into your study you found a giant elemental sitting at your desk tampering with your copy?"

Woe to the typist who had the temerity to change even a comma in Mr.

Saltus' work. It was enough to incite him to murder.

"I would go mad,--seize the elemental and my vibrations alone would tear him to atoms."

"But suppose he was an all-powerful elemental,--a black magician, and he said that he was going to edit everything you wrote in the future?"

"Then," Mr. Saltus always said, "I would rush to the window, open it and jump out into the fourth dimension in the akasha."

The episode of the elemental ended there till the next telling. So much of Mr. Saltus' life had been sad and unsatisfying that the desire to dip for a time into make-believe was soothing and diverting to him. It was a region in which we spent many an hour.

CHAPTER XIII

During his stay in London, a year before, Mr. Saltus had made the acquaintance of a friend of mine,--a very remarkable woman, Mrs. M----, a lady of foreign birth and high social position, married to a Britisher.

Unique as a mother, untiring in the service of humanity, and possessing extraordinary supernormal powers, she gave him, firsthand and from personal investigation, information and understanding of so unusual a character, that Mr. Saltus regarded the privilege of knowing her as an unmerited blessing. She gave him also a curious old talisman--a tiny Rosicrucian cross that had once belonged to a world-renowned occultist. So frail and worn had it become by centuries of use, that twice it had been backed with gold to hold it together. It was the last earthly possession his hand relinquished in death.

Figuratively and literally, Mr. Saltus sat at Mrs. M----'s feet and absorbed what she gave him. Her influence on his life was more vital and far-reaching than that of any other human he ever met.

"Triple a.s.s that I was," he said over and over again after he met her. "I sent out 'Lords of the Ghostland' when I knew nothing. Had I but waited till now I could have written a masterpiece. Instead of that I turned out a skeleton,--no meat, no truth, no insides."

This fretted him constantly.

"If I live long enough," he said, "I will undo 'The Philosophy of Disenchantment' and 'The Anatomy of Negation,' as well as 'Lords of the Ghostland,' and epitomize all I have digested into a single volume and call it 'The History of G.o.d.' Then I will sing my _Nunc dimittis_, go to Adyar and put my pen at the service of Mrs. Besant."

It was a far step for the man who had once written, "There is no help here or anywhere." Years of study, reinforced by the chastening effect of thinking for another less practical and more highly strung than himself, had done much for him, but the increasing application of Theosophy to his daily life had done more. As far as he could, he made himself over--recognizing and combatting his weaknesses with heroic courage. Though the remnants of his fundamental fears remained and cropped up at unexpected times and places, they were modified to a remarkable degree. One could not antic.i.p.ate them however, and occasionally they led to rather amusing results.

It was after a prolonged period of insomnia and a nervous breakdown, super-induced by circ.u.mstances entirely unconnected with Mr. Saltus, and after I had been in bed for weeks, that one of these lapses occurred. He was an angel during this trying time, rushing up to Covent Garden daily to get me peaches (a luxury in England) and taking his meals on a tray at my bedside, after which he read aloud to me as long as I cared to have him do so. It was after a peaceful evening pa.s.sed in this way, that one of his fears reappeared for a moment, and in such a way that one with less understanding of his psychology would have been very angry.

Mr. Saltus' bed-room opened off my own, and it was our custom to leave the door ajar in case I should need something during the night. He was asleep and I was resting when a low "woof" came from the foot of my bed. Another "woof!" and then a growl followed. Toto was trained to be quiet and did not "woof" without cause. I sat up and listened. Light footsteps were audible from the drawing-room down stairs. I waited a moment or two to make sure, and then, speaking quite naturally but loudly enough to waken him, I said:--

"Get up, Snippsy. I think there are burglars down-stairs."

What followed was enough to frighten even the most hardened criminal. With a blood-curdling shriek, Mr. Saltus sprang from his bed, and slamming the door between our rooms locked it,--locking as well the other door giving on to the hallway. So unexpected was it, and so sudden, that it took me a moment to realize that instead of going to the rescue, he was, as he afterward admitted, curled up in bed, with the covering pulled over his head.

Somebody had to do something. Getting out of the bed I had not left for weeks, with Toto leading the way, I turned on the drawing-room lights from a switch, and tottered down stairs. The intruder was quite harmless,--a man who occupied a tiny pied-a-terre on the ground floor. He had mislaid his matches, and being on a friendly footing with us had, as he thought, come up noiselessly to help himself from our smoking-stand.

When with shaking legs I managed to get up the stairs again, Mr. Saltus met me on the landing. He had gained control of his nerves and was coming down to look after me. It was my hand which locked the door between our rooms that time, after calling him a "spineless jellyfish," an epithet which he had heard many times before and which always called forth the same reply:--

"Were our spines of the same rigidity we would have killed one another years ago."

None the less Mr. Saltus was none too keen for me to ask those of our friends who dropped in for tea, if they wanted to hear how he routed the burglar. How ever the telling of this affair sounds, it was not the result of fear in the accepted sense of the word. It was a condition of Mr.

Saltus' nerves only.

A day or so later, a specialist having been called in to see me, he suggested that pernicious anaemia might be aggravating my illness, and that transfusion of blood might be necessary. Mr. Saltus bared his arm in an instant, insisting that no time be lost and that his blood and no other be taken. It was however found to be a wrong diagnosis. Brave he always was, when there was no sudden impact on his nervous system.

Mr. Saltus loved London, the city, the life and the people. He loved even the greyness of it,--loved the British Museum and the parks, but most of his old friends had pa.s.sed on. One interesting figure silhouetted against the background of England,--one whom Mr. Saltus had known until then only through correspondence,--was T. P. O'Connor, M.P. Having seen quite a bit of him, and most pleasurably, the previous winter in Algeria, our first outing after I was able to be about, was to have tea on the Terrace at the House of Commons with him.

"I've read everything you have written," he told Mr. Saltus with a handshake.

"That you have survived it is the more amazing," Mr. Saltus answered.

Tea and time were consumed and forgotten. They were at home with each other in a moment, and Mr. Saltus was enchanted by "Tay Pay's" wit and charm.

They laughed and chatted like two boys in a tuck-shop.

It was upon returning from the House that afternoon that Mr. Saltus complained again of the pain in his legs.

"I walk less and less easily each day," he said. "What can be coming over me? Am I going to be paralyzed?"

A physician was consulted the following day, and a liniment prescribed, but the pain went on increasing. A few days after, and while Mr. Saltus was much depressed over his condition, we were invited to a dinner, which he accepted. Barring myself, the guests were all celebrities of various kinds,--playwrights, authors, actors, musicians and lecturers, with Mr.

Saltus the visiting comet. It was not until the taxi was at the door to take us that he announced:--

"Mr. Me, won't go."

There were no extenuating circ.u.mstances to excuse him, nor did he attempt to find or fake them. Past experience had shown him how transparent they were to me.

"I'm not up to the mark. I'm incapable of being a rapid-firing battery of wit, wisdom and epigrams," he announced.

"You should have realized your limitations sooner," I said, "for you cannot evade a dinner at the twelfth hour, when you are the guest of dishonour as well. We are already late. It's outrageous."

"Outrageous or not, I'm not going. You never do anything that is expected of you. Why should I? The less people see of me the better they will think of me. You must go and get me out of it as well as you can. Take a leaf out of my book and invent something."

That was too much.

"I won't have to invent, to tell them you are a lunatic resting from a lucid interval. No wonder there is no stampede for your work. You wrap yourself in impenetrability and expect the world to be clairvoyant. It won't do. I will be Balaam's a.s.s no longer. You must bray for yourself."

His braying was the usual "Wow! Wow! Please extract poor Snippsy. He'll take Totesy Babe for a walk in Kensington Gardens every day and be such a good boy ever after. Why do you care how I treat others? I'm always old dog Tray to you."

What could one do with such a man? He had to be taken "as is," the way they label goods on bargain counters, or not at all. I could have insisted, and taken him willing or not, for more than he disliked being dragged out against his will did he hate to have me seriously provoked with him. But what would have been the use? He would have gone had I insisted, but acquitted himself in such a way that his absence would have been preferable.

This was not the first time that such a thing had occurred.

When I was living in California he had refused to come to the dining-table in my own house, and gone to bed while the guests were arriving. Fate was against him, however, in that instance. I invented a fairy tale to cover his absence and all would have been well, but while the maid was pa.s.sing coffee in the drawing-room Mr. Saltus remembered a bottle of gin in the pantry. No one answering his ring, he slipped down the back stairway to secure it, and tripping, fell down the entire length, with such a thud that guests as well as servants were in doubt if a burglar or an earthquake was responsible. With one accord they rushed in the direction of the sound and discovered him in extreme negligee, to his even more extreme embarra.s.sment.

This was an episode he did not like referred to, but upon this second offense it was dragged out again in all its details!