Robert Falconer Part 74

'With much pleasure. But, as I have given you an answer, you owe me one.'

'I do.'

'Have you adopted a child?'

'No.'

'Then you have some of your own?'

'No.'

'Then, excuse me, but why the warmth of your remarks on those who--'

'I think I shall be able to satisfy you on that point, if we draw to each other. Meantime I must leave you. Could you come to-morrow evening?'

'With pleasure.'

We arranged the hour and parted. I saw him walk into a low public-house, and went home.

At the time appointed, I rang the bell, and was led by an elderly woman up the stair, and shown into a large room on the first-floor--poorly furnished, and with many signs of bachelor-carelessness. Mr. Falconer rose from an old hair-covered sofa to meet me as I entered. I will first tell my reader something of his personal appearance.

He was considerably above six feet in height, square-shouldered, remarkably long in the arms, and his hands were uncommonly large and powerful. His head was large, and covered with dark wavy hair, lightly streaked with gray. His broad forehead projected over deep-sunk eyes, that shone like black fire. His features, especially his Roman nose, were large, and finely, though not delicately, modelled. His nostrils were remarkably large and flexile, with a tendency to slight motion: I found on further acquaintance that when he was excited, they expanded in a wild equine manner. The expression of his mouth was of tender power, crossed with humour. He kept his lips a little compressed, which gave a certain sternness to his countenance: but when this sternness dissolved in a smile, it was something enchanting. He was plainly, rather shabbily clothed. No one could have guessed at his profession or social position.

He came forward and received me cordially. After a little indifferent talk, he asked me if I had any other engagement for the evening.

'I never have any engagements,' I answered--'at least, of a social kind.

I am burd alane. I know next to n.o.body.'

'Then perhaps you would not mind going out with me for a stroll?'

'I shall be most happy,' I answered.

There was something about the man I found exceedingly attractive; I had very few friends; and there was besides something odd, almost romantic, in this beginning of an intercourse: I would see what would come of it.

'Then we'll have some supper first,' said Mr. Falconer, and rang the bell.

While we ate our chops--

'I dare say you think it strange,' my host said, 'that without the least claim on your acquaintance, I should have asked you to come and see me, Mr.--'

He stopped, smiling.

'My name is Gordon--Archie Gordon,' I said.

'Well, then, Mr. Gordon, I confess I have a design upon you. But you will remember that you addressed me first.'

'You spoke first,' I said.

'Did I?'

'I did not say you spoke to me, but you spoke.--I should not have ventured to make the remark I did make, if I had not heard your voice first. What design have you on me?'

'That will appear in due course. Now take a gla.s.s of wine, and we'll set out.'

We soon found ourselves in Holborn, and my companion led the way towards the City. The evening was sultry and close.

'Nothing excites me more,' said Mr. Falconer, 'than a walk in the twilight through a crowded street. Do you find it affect you so?'

'I cannot speak as strongly as you do,' I replied. 'But I perfectly understand what you mean. Why is it, do you think?'

'Partly, I fancy, because it is like the primordial chaos, a concentrated tumult of undetermined possibilities. The germs of infinite adventure and result are floating around you like a snow-storm. You do not know what may arise in a moment and colour all your future. Out of this ma.s.s may suddenly start something marvellous, or, it may be, something you have been looking for for years.'

The same moment, a fierce flash of lightning, like a blue sword-blade a thousand times shattered, quivered and palpitated about us, leaving a thick darkness on the sense. I heard my companion give a suppressed cry, and saw him run up against a heavy drayman who was on the edge of the path, guiding his horses with his long whip. He begged the man's pardon, put his hand to his head, and murmured, 'I shall know him now.' I was afraid for a moment that the lightning had struck him, but he a.s.sured me there was nothing amiss. He looked a little excited and confused, however.

I should have forgotten the incident, had he not told me afterwards--when I had come to know him intimately--that in the moment of that lightning flash, he had had a strange experience: he had seen the form of his father, as he had seen him that Sunday afternoon, in the midst of the surrounding light. He was as certain of the truth of the presentation as if a gradual revival of memory had brought with it the clear conviction of its own accuracy. His explanation of the phenomenon was, that, in some cases, all that prevents a vivid conception from a.s.suming objectivity, is the self-a.s.sertion of external objects. The gradual approach of darkness cannot surprise and isolate the phantasm; but the suddenness of the lightning could and did, obliterating everything without, and leaving that over which it had no power standing alone, and therefore visible.

'But,' I ventured to ask, 'whence the minuteness of detail, surpa.s.sing, you say, all that your memory could supply?'

'That I think was a quickening of the memory by the realism of the presentation. Excited by the vision, it caught at its own past, as it were, and suddenly recalled that which it had forgotten. In the rapidity of all pure mental action, this at once took its part in the apparent objectivity.'

To return to the narrative of my first evening in Falconer's company.

It was strange how insensible the street population was to the grandeur of the storm. While the thunder was billowing and bellowing over and around us--

'A hundred pins for one ha'penny,' bawled a man from the gutter, with the importance of a Cagliostro.

'Evening Star! Telegrauwff!' roared an ear-splitting urchin in my very face. I gave him a shove off the pavement.

'Ah! don't do that,' said Falconer. 'It only widens the crack between him and his fellows--not much, but a little.'

'You are right,' I said. 'I won't do it again.'

The same moment we heard a tumult in a neighbouring street. A crowd was execrating a policeman, who had taken a woman into custody, and was treating her with unnecessary rudeness. Falconer looked on for a few moments.

'Come, policeman!' he said at length, in a tone of expostulation.

'You're rather rough, are you not? She's a woman, you know.'

'Hold your blasted humbug,' answered the man, an exceptional specimen of the force at that time at all events, and shook the tattered wretch, as if he would shake her out of her rags.

Falconer gently parted the crowd, and stood beside the two.

'I will help you,' he said, 'to take her to the station, if you like, but you must not treat her that way.'

'I don't want your help,' said the policeman; 'I know you, and all the d.a.m.ned lot of you.'

'Then I shall be compelled to give you a lesson,' said Falconer.

The man's only answer was a shake that made the woman cry out.

'I shall get into trouble if you get off,' said Falconer to her. 'Will you promise me, on your word, to go with me to the station, if I rid you of the fellow?'