The Far Horizon

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Poppy rose, clapping her hands together with irritation.

"Sir Abel's cure be hanged!" she cried. "What do I care about his idiotic
old liver or his gout, or anything else. Let him pay the price of steadily
over-eating himself for more than half a century. I've no use for him.
What I have a use for is you, dear man; more than ever now, don't you
see," her voice softened, became caressing, "after our recent little
explanation. And you shan't kill yourself. I won't have it. I won't allow
it. Therefore be reasonable, my good dear. Put away your mania of
self-immolation--or keep it exclusively for my benefit. Write and tell the
Barking man to hurry up with his liver and his gout. Tell him you're being
sweated to death dragging his rotten old banking cart, and that he's just
got to come home and set you free, and get between the shafts and do the
dragging and sweating himself.--Ah, there's the hansom. You must go. I'd
no notion it was so late."

And so it came about that, once more, Dominic Iglesias followed the
Lady of the Windswept Dust into the faintly scented bedchamber, where
fantastic brightness of gaslight and moonlight chequered the polished
surfaces of the dark furniture, the green silk coverlet and hangings,
the dimly-patterned ceiling and walls. His instinct was to pass on, as
quickly as might be, to the secure commonplace of the landing without. But
half-way across the room, at the foot of the low-pillared and brass-inlaid
bedstead, Poppy St. John stopped, and turned swiftly, barring his passage
with extended arms.

"Stay a minute, for probably we shall never meet in this poor little house
again, best beloved one," she said. "It is too far out. I must move into
town. Lionel puts the play into rehearsal next week, and I must live near
the theatre. And then, too--well, you know, since I've made up my mind,
it's best to clean the slate even in respect of one's dwelling-place.
Memories stick, stick like a leech; and they raise emotions of a slightly
disturbing character sometimes. I am sure of myself; and yet I know it's
safest to make a clean sweep of whatever reminds me of all the forbidden
dear damned lot. I regret nothing--don't imagine that. I'm keen on my
work. The artist, after all, is the strongest thing in me. I'm quite
happy, now I have made up my mind. My nose is in the air. I can look
creation in the face without winking an eyelid. I can respect myself. And
I'm tremendously grateful to Lionel Gordon for taking me on spec, and to
Fallowfeild for greasing the creature's Caledonian-Teutonic-Hebraic palm
for me. Still--still--you can imagine, can't you, that, take it all round,
it's not precisely a Young Woman's Christian Association blooming picnic
party for me just at present?"

Poppy dashed her hand across her eyes, half laughing, half sobbing.

"Ah, love me, Dominic, love me, in your own way, the clean way--that's all
I ask, all that I want--only love me always," she said.

She laid her hands on Iglesias' shoulders and threw back her head. And he,
holding her, bending down kissed her white face, soft heavy hair, over-red
lips, her tragic and unfathomable eyes--which looking on the evil and
measuring the very actual immediate delights of it, still had courage, in
the end, to reject it and choose the good--kissed them reverently,
gravely, proudly, with the chastity and chivalry of perfect friendship.

"Ah! that's better. I'm better. Bless you; don't be afraid. I'll play fair
to the finish--only keep well. Quit that rotten old bank.--Now go, dear
man, go," Poppy said.

CHAPTER XXXIII

During the past six weeks events had galloped. To Iglesias it appeared
that changes were in course of arriving in battalions. He neither hailed
nor deplored them, but met them with a stoical patience. To realise them
clearly, in all their bearings, would have been to add to the sense of
fatigue from which he too constantly suffered. More than sufficient to
each day was the labour thereof. So he looked beyond, to the greater
repose and freedom which, as he trusted, lay ahead.

Upon the morning immediately in question he had closed his work at the
bank. Sir Abel's demeanour had been characteristic. His clothes, it is
true, still hung loosely upon him. His library chair and extensive
writing-table appeared a world too big. For he was shrunken and had
become an old man. Yet, though signs of chastening thus outwardly declared
themselves, in spirit he had regained tone and returned to his former high
estate. Along with the revival of financial security had come a revival of
pomposity, an addiction to patronage in manner and platitudes in speech.
He had ceased to be humble and human, self-righteous self-complacency
again loudly announcing itself.

"So you propose to retire, you ask to be relieved of your duties, my good
friend?" he asked of Iglesias, who had requested the favour of an
interview in his private room. "Let us, then, congratulate ourselves upon
the fact that I have returned from my sojourn upon the continent with so
far renovated health that I feel equal to meeting the arduous
responsibilities of my position unaided; and am not, consequently,
compelled, out of a sense of duty either to myself or to my colleagues, to
offer any objection to your retirement. Before we part I should, however,
wish to place it clearly on record that my confidence, both in the
soundness of my own judgment and in our capacity, as capitalists, to meet
any strain put upon our resources, was not misplaced. This no one can, I
think, fail to admit. Our house emerges from this period of trial with the
hall-mark of public sympathy and esteem upon it. And, in this connection,
it is instructive to note the working of the law of compensation. This
war, for example, which to the ordinary mind might have appeared an
unmixed evil, since it threatened to jeopardise our position among the
leading financiers of the capital of the civilised world, has, in the
event, served, not only to consolidate our position, but to unmask the
practices of that unscrupulous and self-seeking member of our firm, my
unhappy nephew Reginald, and afford us legitimate excuse for his removal.
We appeared to touch on disaster; but, by that very means, we have been
enabled to rid ourselves of a canker. Still this must remain a painful
subject."

Sir Abel became pensive, fixing his gaze, the while, upon the portrait
adorning the wall over against him. To an acute observer the said portrait
had always been subtly ironical. Now it had become coarsely so--a
merciless caricature of the shrivelled old gentleman whom it represented,
and to whom it bore much the same resemblance as a balloon soaring
skywards, fully inflated, bears to that same object with half the gas let
out of it in a condition of flabby and wobbling semi-collapse.

"A painful subject," he repeated nobly--"I refrain from enlarging upon it,
and pass to other matters. As to the part you yourself have borne in the
history of our recent anxieties, Iglesias, I feel I cannot do less than
tender you the thanks of myself and my co-partners. I do not disguise from
you that a tendency existed to criticise my action in summoning you, to
dub your business methods antiquated, and question your ability to march
with the times. But these objections proved, I am happy to think,
unfounded. The faith I reposed in you has been justified. And I may tell
you, in confidence, that, should the occasion for doing so arise, my
colleagues will in future have as little hesitation in calling upon your
services as I should have myself."

The speaker paused, as for applause. And Dominic, who had remained
standing during this prolonged oration--no suggestion having been made on
the present occasion that he should be seated--proceeded to acknowledge
the peculiar compliment just paid him, with somewhat sardonic courtesy.

"Your words are extremely reassuring, Sir Abel," he remarked calmly.

The gentleman addressed regarded him sharply for a moment, as though
doubtful of the exact purport of his words. Then, suspicion of covert
sarcasm being clearly inadmissible, Sir Abel spoke again in his largest
platform manner, although the tones of his voice, like his person, were
shrunken, docked of the fulness of their former rotundity and unction.

"It has ever been my effort to reward merit by encouragement," he replied.
"And, were testimony to the wisdom of my practice, in this particular,
needed, I should point, I candidly tell you, my good friend, to the
excellent results of my recent demand upon your cooperation and support."
He leaned sideways in his chair, assuming the posture of the portrait,
conscious of having really said a very handsome thing indeed to his
ex-head-clerk. "For," he added, "I sincerely believe in the worth of
example. It is hardly too much to assert that a generous and high-minded
employer eventually stamps the employed with a reflection, at least, of
his own superior qualities."

Again he paused. But truth to tell, Dominic Iglesias had not only grown
very weary of discourse and discourser, but somewhat impatient also. He had
hoped better things of the man after the nasty shaking fortune had
recently given him. Consequently he was disappointed; for it was very
effectually borne in upon him that only absence of feathers makes for
grace in a goose. Once the nudity of the foolish bird covered, it hisses,
and that loudly, to the old tune. Hence, in the interests of Christian
charity, he agreed with himself to cut short the interview, lest anger
should get the better of toleration.

"I think we have now discussed all questions calling for your personal
attention, Sir Abel," he said, "and all documents and correspondence
relating to affairs during your absence have been placed in your hands. If
therefore you have nothing further to ask me, I need not encroach any
longer upon your valuable time."

With that, after a brief pause, he moved towards the door; but the other
man, half rising from his chair, called after him.

"Iglesias, your attention for one moment--that matter of a salary?"

"I supposed I had made my terms perfectly clear, Sir Abel," Dominic
remarked coldly.

"No doubt, in the first instance. But should you have reconsidered your
decision, and should you think the pension you enjoy an insufficient
remuneration, I am empowered to make you the offer, in addition, of a
fixed salary for the past six months."

Listening to which tardy and awkward recognition of his own rather
princely dealings, Mr. Iglesias' temper began to rise, his jaw to grow
rigid, and his eyes dangerously alight.

"I am not in the habit of changing my mind, Sir Abel," he said. "I
proposed to make you a free gift of my time and such experience as I
may possess. Nothing has occurred to alter or modify that intention.
There are circumstances, into which I do not choose to enter, which would
render it extremely distasteful to me to accept anything--over and above
my pension--from yourself or from any member of your family or firm."

Here Sir Abel, who had been standing, sagged down,
half-empty-balloon-like, into his chair. Again he eyed Iglesias sharply,
doubtful of the exact purport of his speech. But again suspicion of covert
sarcasm, still more of covert rebuke, being to him quite inconceivable, he
rejoined with a condescension which he could not but feel was altogether
praiseworthy:

"Enough, enough, my good friend. That is sufficient. I will detain you no
longer; but will merely add that I commend your reticence while
appreciating the sentiments which dictate your refusal. These it is easy
to interpret. They shall not be forgotten, since they constitute a very
suitable acknowledgment of the advantages and benefits which have accrued
to you during you long association with my partners and myself."

Later, journeying westward upon the 'bustop, Dominic Iglesias meditated in
a spirit of humorous pity upon the above conversation. He was very glad he
had not lost his temper. Eyes blinded by self-worship, an inpenetrable
hide, these things, too, have their uses in time--very practical uses,
which it would be silly to ignore. Why, then, be angry? The truly wise
man, as Dominic told himself with a somewhat mournful smile, learns to
leave such time-wise fools as Sir Abel Barking to Almighty God for
chastisement, because--if it can be said without irreverence--the
Almighty alone has wit enough to deal with them. And, for his comfort on
lower levels, he reminded himself that though the house of Barking might
show him scant gratitude, and attribute its financial resurrection to its
own inherent virtue, this was not the opinion held by outsiders. The
manager of Pavitt's Bank, and certain members of Goome, Hills, Murray &
Co., had congratulated Iglesias, personally, upon his admirable conduct
of affairs during the crisis, and assured him of the high respect they had
conceived for his judgment, his probity, and business acumen. In this
there was satisfaction of a silent but deep-seated sort--satisfaction of
pride, since he had accomplished that which he had set forth to
accomplish: satisfaction of honour through unbiassed and unsolicited
commendation. With that satisfaction he bade himself rest thankfully
content, while turning his thoughts to other and more edifying subjects.

And, in this connection, it was inevitable that a former journeying
westward upon a 'bustop should occur to him, with its strange record of
likeness and unlikeness in circumstance and outlook. Then, as now,
somewhat outworn in mind and in health, he had closed a period of
labour and faced new conditions, new habits, unaccustomed freedom and
leisure. But now on matters of vital, because of eternal, importance, his
mind was at rest. Loneliness and on-coming old age had ceased to disquiet
him. The ship of his individual fate no longer drifted rudderless or
risked danger of stranding, but steered steadily, fearlessly, towards the
promise of a secure and lovely harbourage. The voyage might be long or
short. At this moment Dominic supposed himself indifferent in the matter,
since he believed--not presumptuously, but through the outreaching of a
great faith--that the end was certain. And meditating, just now, upon that
gracious conviction, while the red-painted half-empty omnibus fared onward
down Piccadilly, a sense of the unusual graciousness of things immediate
and visible took hold on him.

For to-day the monstrous mother, London-town, wore a pensive and delicate
aspect. The tender melancholy of early autumn was upon her, she looking
etherealised and even youthful, as does a penitent cleansed from the soil
of past transgressions by fasting and tears. No doubt she would sin again
and befoul herself, for the melting moods of a great city are transient;
yet for the moment she showed very meek and mild. The atmosphere was
clear, with the exquisite clarity which follows abundant and welcome rain
after a spell of heat and drought. The trees, somewhat sparse in foliage,
were distinct with infinite gradations of blonde, golden, and umber tints,
as of burnished metal, against their black branches and stems. The endless
vista of grey and red buildings, outlined finely yet without harshness,
towered up into a thin, sad, blue sky overspread with long-drawn shoals
and islands, low-shored and sinuous, of pale luminous cloud. Upon the
grey pavements the bright-coloured dress of a woman--mauve, green, or
pink--took on a peculiar value here and there, amid the generality of
darkly clad pedestrians. And in the traffic, too, the white tilt of a van
or rather barbaric reds and yellows of the omnibuses, stood away from the
sombre hues of the mass of vehicles. The air, as Iglesias met it--he
occupying the seat on the right immediately behind that of the driver--was
soft, yet with a perceptible freshness of moisture in it; a cool, wistful
wind seeming to hail from very far, the wings of it laden less with
hopeful promise than with rare unspoken farewells, gentle yet penetrating
regrets; so that Dominic, even while welcoming the refreshment of it, was
moved in spirit with impressions of impending finality as though it spoke
to him of things finished, laid aside, not wholly without sorrow
relinquished and--so far as outward seeming went--forgot.

Involuntarily his eyes filled with tears. Then he reproached himself. Of
what had he to complain? The will must indeed be weak, the spiritual
vision reprehensively clouded, if these vague voices of nature could so
disturb the serenity of the soul. Thus he reasoned with himself, almost
sternly. But, just then, the flaming rose-scarlet bill on the knife-board
of a passing omnibus attracted his attention, along with the announcement,
in big letters, which it set forth. To-night the Twentieth Century Theatre
opened its winter season with a new piece by that admirable but all too
indolent and intermittent dramatist, Antony Hammond; and in it Poppy St.
John played the leading lady's part.

CHAPTER XXXIV

Opposite St. Mary Abbott's church Mr. Iglesias lighted down from the
'bustop. His eyes were still dazzled by those flaming bills.--Lionel
Gordon was advertising handsomely. The knife-board of every second omnibus
displayed them, now he came to look.--His thought turned in quickened
interest towards the Lady of the Windswept Dust and all that the said
advertisements stood for in her case. He had seen her a few days ago,
after rehearsal, and she had warned him off being present tonight.

"It's all going like hot cakes, dear man," she had said gaily, "still, as
you love me, don't come. I should be more nervous of you than ninety dozen
critics. I shall want you badly, all the same, don't doubt that; and I
shall play to you, all the while, though you're not there. But--don't you
understand?--if I actually saw you it might come between me and my part. I
shouldn't be sure who I really was, and that would make me as jumpy as a
sick cat. You shall know--I'll wire to you directly the show's over; but
I'd best have my first round quite alone with the public. And then a first
night is always a bit jungly--not quite fair on the play or the company,
or the audience either for that matter. A play's the same as a ship, if
there's any real art in it. It needs time to find itself. So just wait,
like a lamb, till we've all shaken into place, and I'm quite at home in
the saddle."

And in truth Dominic Iglesias had plenty to occupy his time and attention
at this particular juncture, irrespective of Poppy's _debut_ at the
Twentieth Century Theatre. For tomorrow would close his connection with
Cedar Lodge, as to-day had closed his connection with Messrs. Barking
Brothers & Barking. The mind in hours of fatigue, when vitality is low and
the power of concentration consequently deficient, has a tendency to work
in layers, so to speak, one strain of thought overlying another. Hence it
was that Iglesias' contemplation of those gaudy advertisements, and of
their bearing upon Poppy's fortunes, failed to oust the premonitions of
finality which had come to and somewhat perturbed him as he looked upon
the pensive tearwashed face of London-penitent, cleansed by the breath of
the wistful far-hailing autumn wind. Involuntarily, and notwithstanding
his repudiation of them, he continued to question those premonitions and
the clinging melancholy of them, asking whether they bore relation
merely to the two not wholly unwelcome partings above indicated; or
whether the foreboding induced by them did not find its source in some
sentiment, some intuition of approaching change, far more intimate and
profound than cessation of employment or alteration of dwelling-place.
Then, as he walked on up Church Street another layer of thought presented
itself. For he could not but call to mind how many hundred times he had
trodden that pavement before close against the close-packed traffic, the
high barrack-wall on the right hand, the row of modest shop-fronts on
the left, on his way home to the little house in Holland Street. Once more
that house was home to him. He would cross its familiar threshold to-day
as master. Yet how differently to of old! How steep the hill was! How
languid and spent he became in ascending it--slowly, deliberately, instead
of with light-footed energy and indifference! And this made him ask
himself, what if these premonitions of finality, of impending farewells,
of compulsory relinquishment, had indeed a very special and definite
significance, being sent to him as heralds of the approach of a common
yet--to each individual being--unique and altogether tremendous change?
What if that haunting curiosity of the unknown--concerning which he had
spoken with Poppy St. John amid the white magic of the moonlight during
the enchanted hour of his and her friendship--was to be satisfied very
soon?

Iglesias drew himself up to his full height, fatigue and bodily weakness
alike forgotten, and stood for a little space at the turn into Holland
Street, hat in hand, facing the delicately chill wind and looking away
into the fine perspective of sky overspread by shoals and islands of pale
luminous cloud. Calmly--yet with the sharp amazement inevitable when
things taken for granted, tacitly and nominally accepted throughout a
lifetime, suddenly advance into the immediate foreground, becoming actual,
tangible, imperative--he asked himself, was death so very near, then? At
the church of the Carmelite Priory just above--the high slated roofs and
slender iron crockets of which overtopped the parapets of the intervening
houses--a bell tolled as the officiating priest, in giving the
Benediction, elevated the sacred Host. And that note, at once austere and
plaintive, striking across the hoarse murmur and trample of the streets,
was very grateful to Dominic Iglesias. For it assured him of this, at
least, that when for him the supreme hour did indeed strike and he was
called upon to go forth alone--as every soul must go--to meet the
impenetrable mystery which veils the close of the earthly chapter, he
would not go forth unbefriended, but absolved, anointed, fortified, made
ready--in so far as readiness for so stupendous an ordeal is possible--by
the rites of Holy Church.

"_Fiat misericordia tua Domine super nos: quemad-modum speravimus te. In
te Domine speravi: non confundar in aeternum,_" he quoted half aloud.

And then could not forbear to smile, gravely and somewhat sadly,
registering the deep pathos of the fact that the majestic hymn of praise
and thanksgiving, dedicated by the use of Christendom throughout centuries
to the celebration of highest triumph, still ends brokenly with a
childlike sob of shrinking, of entreaty, and very human pain.

Meditating upon which, and upon much implied by it, not only of sorrow but
of consolation for whoso is not afraid to understand, Iglesias moved
onward. But so closely do things absurd and trivial jostle things august
and of profound significance in daily happenings--he was speedily aroused
from meditation and his attention claimed by example of quite another
order of pathos to that suggested by the concluding verses of the _Te
Deum_. Some little way ahead a brown-painted furniture van was backed
against the curb. From the cave-like interior of it coatless white-aproned
men bore a miscellaneous collection of goods--among others a battered
dapple-grey rocking-horse with flowing mane and tail--across the yard-wide
strip of garden, and in at the front door of a small old-fashioned house.
Bass mats were strewn upon the pavement. Sheets of packing paper
pirouetted down the roadway before the wind. While, standing in the midst
of the litter, watching the process of unloading with perplexed and even
agitated interest, was a whimsical figure--large of girth, short of limb,
convex where the accredited lines of beauty demand, if not concavity, at
least a refined flatness of surface.

The Latin, unlike the Anglo-Saxon, does not consider it necessary as
soon as adolescence is past to extirpate his heart; or, failing successful
performance of that heroic operation, strictly to limit the activities
of it to his amours, legitimate or otherwise. Hence Dominic Iglesias
felt no shame that the sight of his old plaything, or of his old
school-fellow--now unhappily estranged from and suspicious of him--should
provoke in him a great tenderness. Upon the battered rocking-horse his
heart rode away to the dear sheltered happiness of childhood, while
towards his former school-fellow it went forth in unmixed kindliness. For
it appeared to him that for one who had so lately held converse with
approaching death, it would be a very scandal of light-minded pettiness to
nourish resentment against any fellow creature. In near prospect of the
eternal judgment, private and temporal judgment can surely afford to
declare a universal amnesty in respect of personal slights and injuries.
Therefore, after but a moment's hesitation, he went on, laid his hand upon
George Lovegrove's shoulder, and called him affectionately by name.

"Dominic!" the latter cried, and stood staring. "Well to be sure--you did
surprise me! To think of meeting you just by accident to-day, like this!"

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