THE LAST STRAW
XIII.
"Thou in justice, If from the height of majesty we can Look down upon thy lowness and embrace it, Art bound with fervour to look up to me."
MASSINGER, _Roman Actor._
Haggard and distraught was Leander as he went about his business thatmorning, so mechanically that one customer, who had requested to havehis luxuriant locks "trimmed," found himself reduced to a state of penalbullet-headedness before he could protest, and another sacrificed hiswhiskers and part of one ear to the hairdresser's uninspired scissors.For Leander's eyes were constantly turning to the front part of hisshop, where his apprentice might come in at any moment with the answerto his appeal.
At last the moment came when the bell fixed at the door sounded sharply,and he saw the sleek head and chubby red face he had been so anxiouslyexpecting. He was busy with a customer; but that could not detain himthen, and he rushed quickly into the outer shop. "Well, William," hesaid, breathlessly, "a nice time you've been over that message! I gaveyou the money for your 'bus."
"Yusser, but it was this way: you said a green 'bus, and I took a green'bus with 'Bayswater' on it, and I didn't know nothing was wrong, andwhen it stopped I sez to the conductor, 'This ain't KensingtonGardings;' and he sez, 'No, it's Archer Street;' and I sez----"
"Never mind that now; you got to the shop, didn't you?"
"Yes, I got to the shop, sir, and I see the lady; but I sez to thatconductor, 'You should ha' told me,' I sez----"
"Did she give you anything for me?" interrupted Leander, impatiently.
"Yessur," said the boy.
"Then where the dooce is it?"
"'Ere!" said William, and brought out an envelope, which his master toreopen with joy. It contained his own letter!
"William," he said unsteadily, "is this all?"
"Ain't it enough, sir?" said the young scoundrel, who had guessed thestate of affairs, and felt an impish satisfaction at his employer'srejection.
"None of that, William; d'ye hear me?" said Leander. "William, I ain'tbeen a bad master to you. Tell me, how did she take it?"
"Well, she didn't seem to want to take it nohow at first," said the boy."I went up to the desk where she was a-sittin' and gave it her, andby-and-by she opened it with the tips of her fingers, as if it wouldbite, and read it all through very careful, and I could see her nosegoing up gradual, and her colour coming, and then she sez to me, 'Youmay go now, boy; there's no answer.' And I sez to her, 'If you please,miss, master said as I was not to go away without a answer.' So she sez,uncommon short and stiff, 'In that case he shall have it!'--like that,she says, as proud as a queen, and she scribbles a line or two on it,and throws it to me, and goes on casting up figgers."
"A line or two! where?" cried Leander, and caught up the letter again.Yes, there on the last page was Matilda's delicate commercialhandwriting, and the poor man read the cruel words, "_I have nothing toadvise; I give you up to your 'goddess'!_"
"Very well, William," he said, with a deadly calm; "that's all. Youyoung devil! what are you a-sniggering at?" he added, with a suddenoutburst.
"On'y something I 'eard a boy say in the street, sir, going along, sir;nothing to do with you, sir."
"Oh, youth, youth!" muttered the poor broken man; "boys don't growfeelings, any more than they grow whiskers!"
And he went back to his saloon, where he was instantly hailed withreproaches from the abandoned customer.
"Look here, sir! what do you mean by this? I told you I wanted to beshaved, and you've soaped the top of my head and left it to cool!What"--and he made use of expletives here--"what are you about?"
Leander apologized on the ground of business of a pressing nature, butthe customer was not pacified.
"Business, sir! your business is _here_: _I'm_ your business! And I cometo be shaved, and you soap the top of my head, and leave me all alone todry! It's scandalous! it's----"
"Look here, sir," interrupted Leander, gloomily; "I've a good deal ofprivate trouble to put up with just now, without having _you_ going onat me; so I must ask you not to 'arris me like this, or I don't knowwhat I might do, with a razor so 'andy!"
"That'll do!" said the customer, hastily. "I--I don't care about beingshaved this morning. Wipe my head, and let me go; no, I'll wipe itmyself,--don't you trouble!" and he made for the door. "It's my belief,"he said, pausing on the threshold for an instant, "that you're adangerous lunatic, sir; you ought to be shut up!"
"I dessay I shall have a mad doctor down on me after this," thoughtLeander; "but I shan't wait for _him_. No, it is all over now; the dieis fixed! Cruel Tillie! you have spoke the mandrake; you have thrust meinto the stony harms of that 'eathen goddess--always supposing thepolice don't nip in fust, and get the start of her."
No more customers came that day, which was fortunate, perhaps, for them.The afternoon passed, and dusk approached, but the hairdresser sat on,motionless, in his darkening saloon, without the energy to light asingle gas-jet.
At last he roused himself sufficiently to go to the head of the stairsleading to his "labatry," and call for William, who, it appeared, wascomposing an egg-wash, after one of his employer's formulae, and came up,wondering to find the place in darkness.
"Come here, William," said Leander, solemnly. "I just want a few wordswith you, and then you can go. I can do the shutting-up myself. William,we can none of us foretell the future; and it may so 'appen that you arelooking on my face for the last time. If it should so be, William,remember the words I am now about to speak, and lay them to 'art!...This world is full of pitfalls; and some of us walk circumspect and keepout of 'em, and some of us, William--some of us don't. If there's anyplaces more abounding in pitfalls than what others are, it is thenoxious localities known under the deceitful appellation of 'pleasure'gardens. And you may take that as the voice of one calling to you fromthe bottom of about as deep a 'ole as a mortal man ever plumped into.And if ever you find a taste for statuary growing on you, William, keepit down, wrastle with it, and don't encourage it. Farewell, William! Behere at the usual time to-morrow, though whether you will find _me_ hereis more than I can say."
The boy went away, much impressed by so elaborate and formal a parting,which seemed to him a sign that, in his parlance, "the guv'nor was goingto make a bolt of it."
Leander busied himself in some melancholy preparations for his impendingdeparture, dissolution, or incarceration; he was not very clear which itmight be.
He went down and put his "labatry" in order. There he had worked withall the fiery zeal of an inventor at the discoveries which were toconfer perpetual youth, in various sized bottles, upon a grateful world.He must leave them all, with his work scarcely begun! Another would stepin and perfect what he had left incomplete!
He came up again, with a heavy heart, and examined his till. There wasnot much; enough, however, for William's wages and any small debts. Hemade a list of these, and left it there with the coin. "They must settleit among themselves," he thought, wearily; "I can't be bothered withbusiness now."
He was thinking whether it was worth while to shut the shop up or not;when a clear voice sounded from above--
"Leander, where art thou? Come hither!"
And he started as if he had been shot. "I'm coming, madam," he calledup, obsequiously. "I'll be with you in one minute!"
"Now for it," he thought, as he went up to his sitting-room. "I wish Iwasn't all of a twitter. I wish I knew what was coming next!"
The room was dark, but when he got a light he saw the statue standing inthe centre of the room, her hood thrown back, and the fur-lined mantlehanging loosely about her; the face looked stern and terrible under itsbrilliant tint.
"Have you made your choice?" she demanded.
"Choice!" he said. "I haven't any choice left me!"
"It is true," she said triumphantly. "Your friends have deserted you;mortals are banded together to seize and disgrace you: you have norefuge but with me. But time is
short. Come, then, place yourself withinthe shelter of these arms, and, while they enfold you tight in theirmarble embrace, repeat after me the words which complete my power."
"There's no partickler hurry," he objected. "I will directly. I--I onlywant to know what will happen when I've done it. You can't have anyobjection to a natural curiosity like that."
"You will lose consciousness, to recover it in balmy Cyprus, withAphrodite (no longer cold marble, but the actual goddess, warm andliving), by your side! Ah! impervious one, can you linger still? Do younot tremble with haste to feel my breath fanning your cheek, my soft armaround your neck? Are not your eyes already dazzled by the gleam of mygolden tresses?"
"Well, I can't say they are; not at present," said Leander. "And, yousee, it's all very well; but, as I asked you once before, how are yougoing to _get_ me there? It's a long way, and I'm ten stone, if I'm anounce!"
"Heavy-witted youth, it is not your body that will taste perennialbliss."
"And what's to become of that, then?" he asked, anxiously.
"That will be left here, clasped to this stone, itself as cold andlifeless."
"Oh!" said Leander, "I didn't bargain for that, and I don't like it."
"You will know nothing of it; you will be with me, in dreamy grottoesstrewn with fragrant rushes and the new-stript leaves of the vine, wherethe warm air woos to repose with its languorous softness, and the wateras it wells murmurs its liquid laughter. Ah! no Greek would havehesitated thus."
"Well, I ain't a Greek; and, as a business man, you can't be surprisedif I want to make sure it's a genuine thing, and worth the risk, beforeI commit myself. I think I understand that it's the gold ring which isto bind us two together?"
"It is," she said; "by that pure and noble metal are we united."
"Well," said Leander, "that being so, I should wish to have it tested,else there might be a hitch somewhere or other."
"Tested!" she cried; "what is that?"
"Trying it, to see if it's real gold or not," he said. "We can easilyhave it done."
"It is needless," she replied, haughtily. "I will not suffer my power tobe thus doubted, nor that of the pure and precious metal through which Ihave obtained it!"
Leander might have objected to this as an example of that obscure feat,"begging the question;" for, whether the metal _was_ pure and precious,was precisely the point he desired to ascertain. And this desire wasquite genuine; for, though he saw no other course before him but thatupon which the goddess insisted, he did wish to take every reasonableprecaution.
"For all I know," he reasoned in his own mind, "if there's anythingwrong with that ring, I may be left 'igh and dry, halfway to Cyprus; orshe may get tired of me, and turn me out of those grottoes of hers! If Imust go with her, I should like to make things as safe as I could."
"It won't take long," he pleaded; "and if I find the ring's real gold, Ipromise I won't hold out any longer."
"There is no time," she said, "to indulge this whim. Would you mock me,Leander? Ha! did I not say so? Listen!"
The private bell was ringing loudly. Leander rushed to the window, butsaw no one. Then he heard the clang of the shop bell, as if the personor persons had discovered that an entrance was possible there.
"The guards!" said the statue. "Will you wait for them, Leander?"
"No!" he cried. "Never mind what I said about the ring; I'll risk that.Only--only, don't go away without me.... Tell me what to say, and I'llsay it, and chance the consequences!"
"Say, 'Aphrodite, daughter of Olympian Zeus, I yield; I fulfil thepledge; I am thine!'"
"Well," he thought, "here goes. Oh, Matilda, you're responsible forthis!" And he advanced towards the white extended arms of the goddess.There were hasty steps outside; another moment and the door would beburst open.
"Aphrodite, daughter of----" he began, and recoiled suddenly; for heheard his name called from without in a voice familiar and once dear tohim.
"Leander, where are you? It's all dark! Speak to me; tell me you'vedone nothing rash! Oh, Leander, it's Matilda!"
That voice, which a short while back he would have given the world tohear once more, appalled him now. For if she came in, the goddess woulddiscover who she was, and then--he shuddered to think what might happenthen!
Matilda's hand was actually on the door. "Stop where you are!" heshouted, in despair; "for mercy's sake, don't come in!"
"STOP WHERE YOU ARE!... FOR MERCY'S SAKE, DON'T COMEIN!"]
"Ah! you are there, and alive!" she cried. "I am not too late; and I_will_ come in!"
And in another instant she burst into the room, and stood there, hertear-stained face convulsed with the horror of finding him in suchcompany.