“your idea,” said john meditatively, “as far as i can elucidate it from your somewhat wordy discourse, is that i should accompany you to this exceedingly out-of-the-way, this on your own showing entirely remote, secluded, and sequestered spot, for the sole purpose of affording you amusement in your so to speak out of work hours.”
“that,” returned corin admiringly, “is the idea in toto. it is marvellous with what ease and skill you have grasped and summed up the entire situation.”
john sighed.
“and might one be allowed to question what are the advantages to be gained from such a sojourn? what manner of recreation can the place afford? in a word, where do i come in?”
“advantages!” corin raised his eyes to the [pg 6]cobwebby rafters. “heavens above! isn’t my companionship an advantage? and for recreation what more can you desire than the contemplation of country lanes and wide moorland this glorious summer weather? think of it, man! the earth ablaze with purple heather, the sea blue and golden,—breathing, living, colour. anon there will be blackberries, great luscious clusters of blue-black fruit hanging ready for the plucking in every hedgerow. again, i ask, what more can you desire?”
john smiled grimly.
“i am not, i would have you observe, either an artist or a boy. your inducements fail to move me.”
“my companionship,” urged corin.
“the blatant conceit of the man,” sighed john.
corin changed his tone, descended to wheedling. “consider my loneliness,” he remarked pathetically. “from six o’clock—i can’t put in more than an eight-hour day—till midnight alone and unoccupied. six hours!”
“go to bed at nine and reduce the six hours by a simple process of subtraction to three, or play patience,” returned john unsympathetically.
[pg 7]
“inhuman brute,” mourned corin.
john merely laughed.
he was a tall young man, thirty or thereabouts, clean-shaven, bronzed, grey-eyed, and with a thin hooked nose. his mouth, below it, was slightly grim in repose. but, when he smiled, you forgot the grimness, and smiled involuntarily in response. also, you found yourself watching for the smile to come into play a second time. it had a curious manner of leaping first to his eyes in a sudden and illuminating flash. deserting them, it passed equally suddenly to his mouth, leaving the eyes sad. it was a disconcerting trick, a baffling magician’s trick, and left you wondering. in the matter of dress he was fastidious to a degree. at the moment his attire was the most immaculate suit of london clothes, grey trousers, frock coat, and all the rest of the paraphernalia. his silk hat, exceeding glossy, reposed on a worm-eaten oak chair near him. he had removed a pile of sketch books and a bunch of dilapidated lilies to make place for the hat. they lay now on the floor.
with corin, by contrast, clothes were a matter of necessity as mere covering, and no more. his [pg 8]tweed trousers and norfolk jacket had an out-all-night-in-the-wet-and-then-sat-upon air. in two words they looked loosely crumpled. paint spots adorned the left sleeve, in the crook of the elbow where his palette was wont to rest. his soft collar, attached to his shirt, was unbuttoned, and merely held together by a smoke-grey tie. briefly, in the matter of clothes, he was the prototype of the modern novelist’s art-student,—the type that emerges paint-stained, careless-clad, cheerfully bohemian, from the chapters of such novels as deal with the art world in chelsea.
but here it behoves me to walk warily lest i should hear a whisper of “glass houses,” for does not this very corin himself dwell in that most fascinating region of london? is not his studio within a bare five minutes of the dirty, muddy, grey, but wholly adorable thames, where it drifts past carlyle’s statue, smoke-grimed and weather-worn, and on past the old herbalist’s garden set back across the street?
in face, this same corin was plump, smooth-skinned, rosy-cheeked, fair-haired, with short-sighted blue eyes that gazed at you kindly from behind gold-rimmed spectacles. his own [pg 9]appearance caused him moments of acute anguish.
“look at me!” he would cry on occasions, having met his reflection in some unexpected mirror in a friend’s house or studio, “look at me! the soul of an artist, and the appearance of a benign and grown-up baby! if i didn’t know my own nature and character, i vow i’d be taken in. i am taken in when i come upon myself in this disgusting and unexpected fashion. who’s that odd, kindly, little pink-faced man? i ask myself. and then i realize it’s me, me, me! and, even while i’m swearing at the sight of myself, i look no more than a cross baby yelling for its feeding bottle. talk of purgatory! i get ten years of it every time i come opposite a looking-glass. the things ought to be abolished. they ought to be ground to powder, scattered like dust to the four winds of heaven. they merely pander to woman’s vanity. no man wants to look into one. if he looks like a man he doesn’t bother about it. if he looks like me—” at this juncture his anguish would become too acute for further speech.
there was a pause in the conversation, quite an [pg 10]appreciable pause, seeing that it lasted at least two and three-quarter minutes. then:
“so the matter is definitely settled,” announced corin with an air of finality, “and on tuesday next you and i, a couple of boon companions, wend our way to the charming, the altogether adorable and old-world village of malford, situated, so the guide-books tell us, precisely seven miles from whortley station, as the crow flies. why as the crow flies,” he continued ruminatively, “i have never been able to fathom. the information is of remarkably small use to the feathered species, and i have not yet been able to grasp what precise and particular use it is to mankind at large.”
john, whose attention had been wandering, roused himself.
“for sheer pertinacity,” he remarked suavely, “commend me to one, corin elmore, painter, poet, musician, theosophist, and fortune-teller; in short, dabbler in the arts and the occult sciences.”
“at all events you can hear mass at malford,” retorted corin succinctly. it would appear that “dabbler in the occult sciences” had pricked.
“truly?” john’s tone was politely interrogative. “at what distance from malford, as the crow flies?”
[pg 11]
“you can hear mass in malford, in the chapel, in delancey castle.” the statement was triumphant.
“delancey castle!” ejaculated john. for the first time interest, genuine interest, stirred in his voice. he began, in a manner of speaking, to sit up and take notice.
“delancey castle,” reiterated corin. and then suspiciously, “but why this sudden interest?”
“merely that i have heard of the place,” said john nonchalantly.
“who hasn’t?” corin’s voice was faintly edged with scorn. “one of the oldest baronial castles in england; situated in a park famed for its oaks and copper beeches; norman in origin, enlarged during the tudor period; minstrel’s gallery, secret chambers, terraced gardens. from all accounts it breathes the very essence of romance and bygone forgotten days. heavens above! were there indeed tongues in trees, and sermons in stones, i’ll swear there’s many a tale those old walls and the trees around them might disclose.”
“it is a matter for devout thanks,” returned [pg 12]john piously, “that the tongue of nature wags, in a manner of speaking, rather in accordance with our mood of the moment than by any actual physical volition of its own. we have quite enough to do to stop our ears to the human tongues around us. but, seriously, i had no idea that delancey castle was situated in this sequestered spot of yours.”
“sequestered spot of mine!” ejaculated corin. “i lay no claim to the spot. it exists not for my benefit, save in so far, i would have you note, as certain pecuniary advantages will accrue to me for work done in its lonely regions. nevertheless delancey castle is situated there, unless some good or evil genius has seen fit to remove it piecemeal since last thursday week. i saw it on that date with my own eyes, ‘set on an eminence’—again the guide-books—‘above the small village of malford. glimpses of its rugged grey towers may be observed among the lordly oaks and magnificent copper beeches for which the park is justly famed.’ i refer you to page one hundred and twenty-two of sanderson’s guide to country houses for the accuracy of my quotation.” he broke off to light a fresh cigarette, [pg 13]then looked at john, challenging him through his gold-rimmed spectacles.
“oh, i’ll not question the accuracy of your quotation,” retorted john. “but how about your former statement regarding the situation of the castle? you stated it was in the village. now i learn it is on an eminence above it.”
“hark to the quibbler!” cried corin.
“not at all,” returned john. “a castle on an eminence is a very different pair of shoes from a castle in a village, especially when it is incumbent upon one to seek that said castle in order to fulfil one’s devotional obligations.”
“if,” said corin reflectively, “i were a catholic—don’t get excited, there’s no smallest prospect of your ever claiming me as a convert—but if i were a catholic, i should not be so disgustingly slack about my religion as to object to walking up a small hill in order to attend my religious services.”
“i never said i objected to walking up a small hill,” remarked john. “i was merely pointing out the inaccuracy of your former statement.”
corin sighed patiently. “you make me tired with your quibbling. and that last remark distinctly wanders from the truth.”
[pg 14]
john smiled, not deigning further reply. it began as a small pitying smile for corin’s weakness of retort, it continued with a hint of pleasure, a tiny secret excitement as at the possibility of the fulfilment of some concealed desire. his heart had beaten at least three degrees quicker at the mention of delancey castle, and it had not yet resumed its normal gentle throbbing.
he waited silent. there was now but one thought uppermost in his mind. yet he could not voice it. the renewed suggestion—it surely would be renewed—must come from corin. for john to give spontaneous hint of yielding in the matter of recent discussion would be to run the risk—though possibly merely a faint risk—of giving himself away. faint or blatant, the risk was to be avoided at all cost. he smoked on, therefore, imperturbable, his eyes for the most part on a desk in a corner of the studio, an extremely untidy desk, covered with papers that looked for all the world as if they had been tossed thereon by a whirlwind, and then stirred by an exceedingly vigorous arm wielding a pitchfork. yet, for all that his eyes were upon the desk, his thoughts were upon corin.
[pg 15]
“speak, man, speak,” he was urging him by that mental process which is termed “willing.” “renew your persuasions; beg me again to accompany you on your lonely sojourn.”
but either corin was no medium, or john was no medium,—i have never been fully able to fathom whether the willer, or the willed, or both must be possessed of the mediumistic faculties for satisfactory results to accrue,—certain it is that corin sat placidly silent, apparently entirely oblivious of john’s mental efforts in his direction.
willing can be an exhausting process, at all events to one who is not an adept in the art. in john’s case, as the vigour of his efforts increased, his muscles grew tighter and tighter, till his very toes curled with spasmodic tension inside his shiny, polished, patent-leather boots, while a portentous frown drew his eyebrows firmly together till they practically met above his thin hooked nose.
corin, glancing suddenly in his direction, surprised an almost anguished expression of countenance.
“are you ill?” he ejaculated dismayed, and with a swift half-movement towards the cupboard where the brandy decanter was situated.
[pg 16]
john’s face relaxed on the instant.
“not in the least, thank you.”
“then what on earth were you making such faces about?” demanded corin.
“i was not aware that i was making faces,” said john with some dignity. “i was merely thinking.”
“thinking!” corin’s light arched eyebrows rose nearly to his fair hair. “then, man, for heaven’s sake don’t do it again. it’s—it’s really dangerous.”
john heaved himself out of his chair, bitterly conscious of the futility of his efforts.
“going?” said corin. and then solicitously, “sure you’re really all right?”
“quite, thanks,” returned john with faint asperity.
corin strolled with him to the door. john was half-way down the stairs when he heard a voice call after him:
“i’ll let you know about the train on tuesday.”
john halted, turned.
“well, really!” he ejaculated.
