CHAPTER XVI
The Rio of 1888 was seething at the vortex of the wordy battle foremancipation. The Ouvidor, the smart street of the town, so narrow thatcarriages were not allowed upon it, was the center of the maelstrom.Here crowded politician and planter; lawyers, journalists, and students;conservative and emancipationist.
At each end of the Ouvidor were squares where daily meetings were heldthe emotional surge of which threatened to lap over into revolution atany moment.
The emotion was real. Youths of twenty blossomed into verse neverequaled before or since in the writings of their prolific race. Anorator, maddened by the limits of verbal expression, shot himselfthrough the heart to add a fitting period to a thundered phrase. Womenforgot their own bondage, and stripped themselves of jewels for thecause.
Leighton and his son, wandering through these scenes, felt like ghosts.They had the certainty that all this had happened before. Their lonely,calm faces drew upon them hostile, wondering stares.
"Got a clean tablet in your mind?" asked Leighton one day as theyemerged from an unusually excited scene. "Write this down: Nothing boresone like somebody else's belated emotions. When you've had some womaninsist on kissing you after you're tired of her, you'll understand mebetter. In the meantime, this is bad enough. I can think of only onecure for what we've been through here, and that is a Sunday in London.Let us start."
"London!" breathed Lewis. "Are we going to London?"
"Yes, we are. It's a peculiar fact, well known and long cursed amongtravelers, that all the steamers in the world arrive in England onSaturday afternoon. We'll get to London for Sunday."
During the long voyage, for the first time since the day on which he metthe stranger, and which already seemed of long ago, Lewis had time tothink. A sadness settled on him. What were they doing at Nadir on thisstarry night? Were the goats corraled? Who had brought them in? Wasmammy crooning songs of low-swinging chariots and golden stairs? WasMrs. Leighton still patiently sewing? The Reverend Orme, was he stillsitting scowling and staring and staring? And Natalie? Was she there, orwas she gone, married? He drew a great, quivering sigh.
Leighton looked around.
"Trying to pick up a side-tracked car?"
Lewis smiled faintly, but understandingly.
"It's not quite side-tracked--yet," he said.
"Ah, boy, never look back," said Leighton. "But, no; do. Do look back.You're young yet. Tell me about it."
Then for a long time Lewis talked of Nadir: of the life there, of theReverend Orme, grown morose through unnamed troubles; of Mrs. Leighton,withered away till naught but patience was left; of happy mammy, grownsad; of Natalie, friend, playmate, and sacrifice.
"So they wanted to marry your little pal into motherhood twenty timesover, ready-made," said Leighton. "And you fought them, told 'em whatyou thought of it. You were right, boy; you were right. The wildernessmust have turned their heads. But you ought to have stayed with it. Whydidn't you stay with it? You're no quitter."
"There were things I said to the Reverend Orme," said Lewis,slowly--"things I knew, that made it impossible for me to stay."
"Things you knew? What things?"
Lewis did not answer.
* * * * *
It was on a gray Sunday that they entered London. In a four-wheeler, theroof of which groaned under a pyramid of baggage, they started out intothe mighty silence of deserted streets. The _plunk! plunk!_ of thehorse's shod hoofs crashed against the blank walls of the shutteredhouses and reverberated ahead of them until sound dribbled away down thegorge of the all-embracing nothing. Gray, gray; heaven and earth andlife were gray.
Lewis felt like crying, but Leighton came to the rescue. He was in highspirits.
"Boy, look out of the window. Is there anywhere in the world a youthspouting verse on a street corner?"
"No," said Lewis.
"Or an orator shooting himself to give point to an impassioned speech?"
"No."
"Or women shaking their bangles into the melting-pot for the cause offreedom?"
"No."
"I should say not. This is Sunday in London. Take off your hat. You arein the graveyard of all the emotions of the earth."
Up one flight of stairs, over a tobacconist's shop, Leighton raised anddropped the massive bronze knocker on a deep-set door. He saw Lewis'seyes fix on the ponderous knocker.
"Strong door to stand it, eh? They don't make 'em that way any more."
The door swung open. A man-servant in black bowed as Leighton entered.
"Glad to welcome you back, sir. I hope you are well, sir."
"Thanks, Nelton, I'm well as well. So is Master Lewis. Got his roomready? Show him the bath."
Lewis, looking upon Nelton, suddenly remembered a little room in the SulAmericano at Bahia. He felt sure that when Nelton opened his mouth itwould be to say, "Will you be wearing the white flannels to-night, sir,or the dinner-jacket?"
By lunch-time Leighton's high spirits were on the decline, by fouro'clock they had struck bottom. He kept walking to the windows, only toturn his back quickly on what he saw. At last he said:
"D'you know what a 'hundred to one shot' is?"
"No, sir," said Lewis.
"Well," said Leighton, "watch me play one." He sat down, wrote a hurriednote, and sent it out by Nelton. "The chances, my boy, are one hundredto one that the lady's out of town."
When Nelton came back with an answer, Leighton scarcely stopped to openit.
"Come on, boy," he called, and was off. By the time Lewis reached thestreet, his father was stepping into a cab. Lewis scrambled after him.
"Doesn't seem proper, Dad, to rush through a graveyard this way."
"Graveyard? It isn't a graveyard any more. I'll prove it to you in aminute."
It was more than a minute before they pulled up at a house that seemedto belie Leighton's promise. Its door was under a massive portico thecolumns of which rose above the second story. The portico was flanked bya parapeted balcony, upon which faced, on each side, a row of Frenchwindows, closed and curtained, but not shuttered.