Sinister Street Volume Ii Part 44

Yet he still lingered by the books. Habit was strong enough to make him feel it necessary at least to pretend to read during the hours before breakfast. Finally in desperation he pulled out one of the magazines, and as he did so a small volume bound in paper fell onto the floor. It was Manon Lescaut, and Michael was pleased that the opportunity was given to him of reading a book he had for a long time meant to read.

Moreover, if it were disappointing, this edition was so small that it would fit easily into his pocket and be no bother to carry. He wondered rather how Manon Lescaut had come into this bookshelf, and he opened it at an aquatint of ladies deject and lightly clothed--_c'est une douzaine de filles de joie_, said the inscription beneath. Here, Michael feared, was the explanation of how the Abbe Prevost found himself squeezed away between Pearson's and The Strand. Here at last was evidence in these rooms of a personal choice. Here spoke, if somewhat ign.o.bly, the character of the purchaser. Michael slipped the small volume into his pocket and went out.

The great lawns in front of New Quad stretched for his solitary pleasure in the golden emptiness of morn. At such an hour it were vain to repine; so supreme was beauty like this that Michael's own departure from Oxford appeared to him as unimportant as the fall of a petal unshaken by any breath of summer wind. With the air br.i.m.m.i.n.g to his draught and with early bees restless along the herbaceous border by the stream's parapet, Michael began to read Manon Lescaut. He would finish this small volume before breakfast, unless the fumes of the sun should drug him out of all power to award the Abbe his fast attention. The great artist was stronger than the weather, and Michael read on while the sun climbed the sky, while the noises of a new day began, while the footsteps of hurrying scouts went to and fro.

It was half-past eight when he finished that tale of love. For a few moments he sat dazed, visualizing that dreadful waste near New Orleans where in the sand it was so easy for the star-crossed Chevalier to bury the idol of his heart.

Porcher was surprised to find Michael up and wide awake.

"You oughtn't to have gone and tired yourself like that, sir," he said reproachfully.

Michael rather resented putting back the little book among those magazines. He felt it would be almost justifiable to deprive the owner of what he so evidently did not esteem, and he wondered if, when he had cut the pages with his prurient paper-knife the purchaser had wished at the end of this most austere tale that he had not spent his money so barrenly. _C'est une douzaine de filles de joie._ It was a bitter commentary on human nature, that a mere aquatint of these poor naked creatures jolting to exile in their tumbril should extort half a crown from an English undergraduate to probe their history.

"Dirty-minded little beast," said Michael, as he confiscated the edition of Manon Lescaut, placing it in his suitcase. Then he went out into St.

Mary's Walks, and at the end of the longest vista sat down on a garden-bench beside the Cherwell. Before him stretched the verdurous way down which he had come; beyond, taking shape among the elms, was the college; to right and left were vivid meadows where the cattle were scarcely moving, so lush was the pasturage here; and at his side ran the slow, the serpentine, the tree-green tranquil Cher.

As he sat here among the bowers of St. Mary's, the story he had just read came back to him with a double poignancy. He scarcely thought that any tale of love could purify so sharply every emotion but that of pity too profound for words. He wondered if his father had loved with such a devotion of self-destruction as had inspired des Grieux. It was strange himself should have been so greatly moved by a story of love at the moment when he was making ready to enter the world. He had not thought of love during all the time he had been up at Oxford. Now he went back in memory to the days when Lily had the power to shake his soul, even as the soul of des Grieux had been shaken in that inn-yard of Amiens, when coming by the coach from Arras he first beheld Manon. How trivial had been Lily's infidelity compared with Manon's: how shallow had been his own devotion beside the Chevalier's. But the love of des Grieux for Manon was beyond the love of ordinary youth. The Abbe by his art had trans.m.u.ted a wild infatuation, a foolish pa.s.sion for a wanton into something above even the chivalry of the n.o.blest lover of the Middle Ages. It was beyond all tears, this tale; and the dry grief it now exacted gave to Michael in some inexplicable way a knowledge of life more truly than any book since Don Quixote. It was an academic tale, too: it was told within the narrowest confines of the most rigid form.

There was not in this narrative one illegitimate device to excite an easy compa.s.sion in the reader: it was literature of a quality marmoreal, and it moved as only stone can move. The death of Manon in the wilderness haunted him even as he sat here: almost he too could have prostrated himself in humiliation before this tragedy.

"There is no story like it," said Michael to the sleek river. _N'exigez point de moi que je vous decrive mes sentiments, ni que je vous rapporte mes dernieres expressions._ And it was bought by an undergraduate for half a crown because he wanted to stare like the peasant-folk. _C'est une douzaine de filles de joie._ How really promising that ill.u.s.tration must have looked: how the coin must have itched in his pocket: how carefully he must have weighed the slimness of the book against his modesty: how easy it had been to conceal behind those magazines.

But he could not sit here any longer reconstructing the shamefaced curiosity of a dull young freshman, nor even, with so much to arrange this last morning, could he continue to brood upon the woes of the Chevalier des Grieux and Manon Lescaut. It was time to go and rouse Lonsdale. Lonsdale had slept long enough in those ground-floor rooms of his where on the first day of the first term the inextricable Porcher had arranged his wine. It did not take long to drag Lonsdale out of bed.

"You slack devil, I've not been to bed at all," said Michael.

"More silly a.s.s you," Lonsdale yawned. "Now don't annoy me while I'm dressing with your impressions of the sunrise." Michael watched him eat his breakfast, while he slowly and with the troublesome aid of his eyegla.s.s managed to focus once again the world.

"I was going to tell you something deuced interesting about myself when you buzzed off this morning. You've heard of Queenie Molyneux--well, Queenie ..."

"Wait a bit," Michael interrupted. "I haven't heard of Queenie Molyneux."

"Why, she's in the Pink Quartette."

Michael still looked blank, and Lonsdale adjusting his eyegla.s.s looked at him in amazement.

"The Pink Quartette in My Mistake."

"Oh, that rotten musical comedy," said Michael. "I haven't seen it."

Lonsdale shook his head in despair, and the monocle tinkled down upon his plate. When he had wiped it clean of marmalade, he asked Michael in a compa.s.sionate voice if he _never_ went to the theater, and with a sigh returned to the subject of Queenie.

"It's the most extraordinary piece of luck. A girl that everyone in town has been running after falls in love with me. Now the question is, what ought I to do? I can't afford to keep her, and I'm not cad enough to let somebody else keep her, and use the third latchkey. My dear old chap, I don't mind telling you I'm in the deuce of a fix."

"Are you very much in love with her?" Michael asked.

"Of course I am. You don't get Queenies chucked at your head like turnips. Of course I'm frightfully keen."

"Why don't you marry her?" Michael asked.

"What? Marry her? You don't seem to understand who I'm talking about.

Queenie Molyneux! She's in the Pink Quartette in My Mistake."

"Well?"

"Well, I can't marry a chorus-girl."

"Other people have," said Michael.

"Well, yes, but--er--you know, Queenie has rather a reputation. I shouldn't be the first."

"The problem's too hard for me," said Michael.

In his heart he would have liked to push Manon Lescaut into Lonsdale's hands and bid him read that for counsel. But he could not help laughing to himself at the notion of Lonsdale wrestling with the moral of Manon Lescaut, and if the impulse had ever reached his full consciousness, it died on the instant.

"Of course, if this motor-car business is any good," Lonsdale was saying, "I might be able in a year or two to compete with elderly financiers. But my advice to you ..."

"You asked for my advice," said Michael, with a smile.

"I know I did. I know I did. But as you haven't ever been to see My Mistake--the most absolutely successful musical comedy for years--why, my dear fellow, I've been thirty-eight times!... and my advice to you is 'avoid actresses.' Oh, yes, I know it's difficult, I know, I know."

Lonsdale shook his head so often that the monocle fell on the floor, and his wisdom was speechless until he could find it again.

Michael left him soon afterward, feeling rather sadly that the horizon before him was clouding over with feminine forms. Alan would soon be engaged to his sister. It was delightful, of course, but in one way it already placed a barrier between their perfect intercourse. Maurice would obviously soon be thinking of nothing but women. Already even up at Oxford a great deal of his attention had been turned in that direction: and now Lonsdale had Queenie. This swift severance from youth by all his friends, this preoccupation with womanhood was likely to be depressing, thought Michael, unless himself also fell in love. That was very improbable, however. Love filled him with fear. The Abbe Prevost that morning had expressed for him in art the quintessence of what he knew with sharp prevision love for him would mean. He felt a dread of leaving Oxford that quite overshadowed his regret. Here was shelter--why had he not shaped his career to stay forever in this cold peace? And, after all, why should he not? He was independent. Why should he enter the world and call down upon himself such troubles and torments as had vexed his youth in London? From the standpoint of moral experience he had a right to stay here: and yet it would be desolate to stay here without a vital reason, merely to grow old on the fringe of the university. Could he have been a Fellow, it would have been different: but to vegetate, to dream, to linger without any power of art to put into form even what he had experienced already, that would inevitably breed a pernicious melancholy. On the other hand, he might go to Plashers Mead. He might almost make trial of art. Guy would inspire him, Guy living his secluded existence with books above a stream. Whatever occurred to him in the way of personal failure, he could on his side encourage Guy. His opinion might be valuable, for although he seemed to have no pa.s.sion to create, he was sure his judgment was good. How Guy would appreciate Manon; and perhaps like so many cla.s.sics he had taken it as read, nor knew yet what depths of pity, what profundities of beauty awaited his essay.

Michael made up his mind that instead of going to London this afternoon he would ride over to Wychford and either stay with Guy or in any case announce his speedy return to stay with him for at least the rest of the summer. Alan would escort his mother and Stella home. It would be easier for Alan that way. His mother would be so charming to him, and everything would soon be arranged. With this plan to unfold, Michael hurried across to Ninety-nine. Alan was already up. Everything was packed. Michael realized he could already regard the digs without a pang for the imminence of final departure. Perhaps the Abbe Prevost had deprived him of the capacity for a merely sentimental emotion, at any rate for the present.

Alan looked rather doubtful over Michael's proposal.

"I hate telling things in the train," he objected.

"You haven't got to tell anything in the train," Michael contradicted.

"My mother is sure to invite you to dinner to-night, and you can tell her at home. It's much better for me to be out of it. I shall be back in a few days to pack up various things I shall want for Plashers Mead."

"It's a most extraordinary thing," said Alan slowly, "that the moment you think there's a chance of my marrying your sister, you drop me like a hot brick."

Michael touched his shoulder affectionately.

"I'm more pleased about you and her than about anything that has ever happened," he said earnestly. "Now are you content?"

"Of course, I oughtn't to have spoken to her," said Alan. "I really don't know, looking back at last night, how on earth I had the cheek. I expect I said a lot of rot. I ought certainly to have waited until I was in the Home Civil."

"You must chuck that idea," said Michael. "Stella would loathe the Civil Service."

"I can't marry ..." Alan began.

"You've got to manage her affairs. She has a temperament. She also has land." Then Michael explained about Prescott, and so eloquent was he upon the need for Stella's happiness that Alan began to give way.

"I always thought I should be too proud to live on a woman," he said.

"Don't make me bring forward all my arguments over again," Michael begged. "I'm already feeling very f.a.gged. You'll have all your work cut out. To manage Stella herself, let alone her piano and let alone her land, is worth a very handsome salary. But that's nothing to do with it.