CHAPTER VIII
THE TIGER
"For every Manne there lurketh hys Wilde Beast."
SARDUS AQUINAS (1512).
I
Brun, meeting Christopher one day, had asked him to tea in his flat, andthen, remembering his interest in the Beaminster history, invited him tobring Breton with him.
"I haven't seen him for years. I'd like to see him again."
Christopher had accepted this invitation, and now on a sultry afternoonin June found himself sitting in Brun's rooms. Brun's sitting-room had aglazed and mathematical appearance as though, from cushions to ceiling,it had been purchased at a handsome price from a handsome warehouse. Itwas not comfortable, it was very hot.... The narrow street squeezedbetween Portland Square and Great Portland Street lay on its back, thelittle windows of its mean houses gasping like mouths for air, the hardsun pouring pitilessly down.
No weather nor atmosphere ever affected Brun. His clothes as well as hisbody had that definite appearance of something outside change ordisorder. He might have been, one would allow, something else at earlierstages before this final result had been achieved (as a painting ispresented to the observer before its completion), but surely now nothingwould ever be done to him again. Surveying him, he appeared less a manwith a history, origins, destinies about him than an opinion or acriticism. He was designed exactly by Nature for cynical observation,and was intended to play no other part in life.
"Well, Christopher?" said Brun. "Hot, isn't it?"
"My word--yes. Breton's coming along presently."
"Good. I've asked Arkwright the explorer. Nice fellow." They sat insilence for a little. Then Brun said:
"Interested in writers, Christopher?"
"Not very much. Why?"
"Just been lunching with a young novelist, Westcott. What he saidinterested me. Of course, he's very young, got no humour, takes himselfdreadfully seriously, but he asked my advice--and it is as a sign of thetimes over here that I mention it."
"Go ahead."
"He tells me that a number of young novelists are going to bandthemselves into a kind of Artists' Young Liberty movement--artists,poets, novelists, some thirty altogether--going to have a magazine, doall kinds of things. Some of the older men will scoff. At the sametime----"
"Well?" said Christopher.
"They'd asked him to join. He wanted my opinion."
"What did you say?"
"He interested me--he was a kind of test case. It would mean that,commercially, from the popular point of view, it would put him back foryears. Those young men will all be put down as conceited cranks. Theywill tilt at the successful popular men like Lawson and the others, willworship at the feet of the unsuccessful 'Great' men like Lester andCotton. The papers will hate 'em, the public will be indifferent. Theresult will be that, in the end, they may do a big thing--at any ratethey'll have done a fine thing, but they'll all die on the way, Iexpect."
Brun spoke with enthusiasm unusual for him.
"How was this a test of Westcott?" asked Christopher.
"Well--would he go or no? He's at the kind of parting of the ways. Ibelieve success is coming to him, if he wants it; but he'll have tobuild another wall in front of his Tiger either before the success orafter. If he joins this crowd of men, there'll be no walls for him everagain."
Christopher knew that when Brun had some idea that he was pleasantlypursuing and had secured an audience nothing would stay or hinder him.
He pushed a chair towards him.
"What do you mean by your Tiger?" he asked.
"My Tiger is what every man has within him--I don't mean, you know, anasty habit or a degrading passion or anything of necessityvicious--only my theory is that every man is given at the outset of lifea Beast in the finest, noblest sense with whom through life he has gotto settle. It may be an Ambition, or a Passion, or a Temptation, or aVirtue, what you will, but with that Beast he's got to live. Now it'saccording to his dealings with the Beast that the man's great or no. Ifhe faces the Beast--and the Beast is generally something that a manknows about himself that nobody else knows--the Beast can be used,magnificently used. If he's afraid, pretends the Tiger isn't there,builds up walls, hides in cities, does what you will, then he must beprepared for a life of incessant alarm, and he may be sure that at somemoment or another the Tiger will make his spring--then there'll be acrisis!
"Over here in England you're hiding your Tigers all the time. That's whyyou're muddled--about Art, Literature, Government, everything thatmatters--and an old woman like the Duchess of Wrexe--sharp enoughherself, mind you--uses all of you.
"No Beaminster has ever faced his or her Tiger yet, and they're down,like knives, on everyone who does and everything that shows the Tiger'sbright eyes----
"But I see--oh, Lord! I see--a time coming, yes, here in England, whenthe Individual, the great man, is coming through, when the Duchess willbe dead and the Beaminster driven from power and every man with hisTiger there in front of him, faced and trained, will have his chance--
"More brain, more courage, no muddle--God help the day!"
"You see things moving--everywhere?"
"Everywhere. These fellows, Randall and the rest, are bringing theirTigers with 'em. They're going to put them there for all the world tosee. It's only another party out against the Duchess, _she_ wants allthe Tigers hidden--only herself to know about them--then she can do herwork. She'll hate these fellows until they've made their stand and thenshe'll try to adopt them in order to muzzle them the better in the end.
"If Westcott hides his Tiger, forgets he's there, his way's plainenough. He'll make money, the Duchess will ask him to tea. Let him jointhese fellows and his Tiger may tear all his present self to pieces."
"What about yourself, Brun?"
"Oh, I'm nothing! I'm the one great exception. No Tiger thinks me worthwhile. I merely observe, I don't feel--and you have to feel to keep yourTiger alive."
Brun's little lecture was over. He suddenly drew his body together,clapped his mental hands to dismiss the whole thing and was drawingWestcott to the door.
"But I talk--how I talk! You bear with me, Christopher, because I mustgo on, you know. It means nothing--absolutely nothing. But they willhave arrived now, so down we go. I go on in my sleep, exactly the same.And now tea--and I will talk less because Breton talks a great deal andso does Arkwright, and so do you...."
II
Arkwright came, and after a little, Breton. But the meeting was not asuccess. Arkwright had heard a good deal about Breton's reputation, andalthough, on the whole, he was tolerant of any backsliding in women, hemade what he called his liking for "clean men" an excuse for muchnarrow-mindedness.
It is quite a mistake to suppose that living in solitude and dangermakes a human being tolerant. It has the precisely opposite effect.Arkwright was more frightened of a man who was not "quite right withsociety" than of any number of enraged natives. With natives one knewwhere one was. Whereas with a man like this ...
Breton, anxious to please, made the mistake of showing his anxiety.Seeing an enemy round every corner he was a little theatrical, toodemonstrative, too foreign. Arkwright disliked his beard and themovement of his hands. "He wouldn't have come, had he known...."
Breton had, of course, at once perceived this man's hostility. Returningto England had involved, as he had known that it must, a life ofbattles, skirmishes, retreats, wounds, and every kind of hostility.People did not forget and even had they desired to do so, hisrelationship family history prevented Breton's oblivion.
He was ready for discourtesy, however eager he may have been forfriendship. But what the Devil, he thought, is this fellow doing here atall? If Brun brought him in he must have told him just whom he was tomeet, and if he came with that knowledge about him, why then should henot behave like a gentleman? Breton's half timid advance towardsfriendliness now yielded to curt hostility.
Brun maintained his silence and only watched the two men with anamusement just
concealed. Conversation at last ceased and the heat beat,in waves, through the open windows and the air seemed now to bestiffened into bronze. Beyond the room all the city lay waiting for thecool of the evening.
Christopher liked Arkwright and Arkwright liked Christopher.
Christopher had read one of Arkwright's books and spoke of it withpraise and also intelligence, and nothing goes to an author's heart likeintelligent appreciation from an unbiassed critic. But Breton was not tobe won over. He sat deep in his chair and replied in sulky monosyllableswhenever he was addressed.
Christopher soon gave him up and the three men talked amongstthemselves.
The heat of the afternoon passed and a little breeze danced into theroom, and the hard brightness of the sky changed to a pale primrose thathad still some echo of the blue in its faint colour.
The city had uttered no sound through the heat of the day, but nowvoices came up to the windows: the distant crying of papers, the call ofsome man with flowers, then the bells of the Round Church began to ringfor evensong.
Breton sat there, wrapped in sulky discontent. In his heart he waswretched. Christopher had deserted him; these men would have nothing todo with him. As was his nature everything about him was exaggerated. Hehad come to Brun's rooms that afternoon, feeling that men had taken himback to their citizenship again. Now he was more urgently assured of hisostracism than before. Who were these men to give themselves these airs?Because he had made one slip were they to constitute themselves hisjudges? These Beaminster virtues again--the trail of his family at everystep, that same damnable hypocrisy, that same priggish assumption of theright to judge. Better to die in the society of those friends of his whohad suffered as he had done, from the judgment of the world--no scorn ofsinners there, no failure in all sense of true proportion.
Christopher got up to go. He gave Arkwright his card. "Come in and dineone night and tell me all you're doing----"
"Of course I'll come," Arkwright said. "Only you're much too busy----"
"Indeed no," said Christopher. "One day next week you'll hear fromme----"
Breton got up. "I'll come with you," he said to Christopher.
The two men went away together.
When they were gone Arkwright said to Brun, "Now that's the kind of manI like----"
"Yes," said Brun, laughing. "Better than the other fellow, eh?"
Arkwright smiled. "More my sort, I must confess."
III
Christopher and Breton did not speak until they reached Oxford Circus.Here everything, flower-women, omnibuses, grey buildings, grimy men andwomen--was drowned in purple shadow. It might be only a moment's beauty,but now beneath the evening star, frosted silver and alone in a blueheaven, sound advanced and receded with the quiet rhythm of water oversand. For an instant a black figure of an omnibus stood against the blueand held all the swell, the glow, the stir at a fixed point--then lifewas once more distributed.
Here, as they turned down Oxford Street Christopher broke silence. Heput his arm through Breton's:
"Well, Frank? Sulks not over yet?"
Breton broke away. "It's all very well, but I suppose I'm to pretendthat I like being insulted by any kind of fool who happens to turn up.Good God, Chris, you'd think I was a child by the way you talk to me."
"And so you are a child," said Christopher impatiently, "and a thanklesschild too. Sometimes I wonder why I keep on bothering with you."
Christopher was, like other Scotchmen, a curious mixture of amiabilityand irascibility; his temper came from his pride and Breton had learnt,many years ago, to fear it. In fact, of all the things in life that hedisliked doing, quarrelling with Christopher was the most agreeable.Then there were stubbornness and tenacity that were hard indeed to dealwith. But to-day he was reckless; the heat of the afternoon and now thebeauty of the evening had both, in their different ways, contributed tohis ill-temper. He knew, even now, that afterwards he would regret everyword that he uttered, but he let his temper go.
"I wonder that you do bother," he said. "Let me alone and let me find myown way."
"Don't be a fool," Christopher answered. "There's nothing in the worldfor us to quarrel about, only I can't bear to see you giving such awrong impression of yourself to strangers--sulking there as though youwere five years old----"
"All very well," retorted Breton; "you didn't hear the way that fellowinsulted me. I'll wring his neck if I meet him again. I'll----"
"Now, enough of that!" Christopher's voice was stern. "You know quitewell, Frank, that you're hardly in a position to wring anyone's neck.You remember the account I gave you of my little dispute with yourgrandmother----"
"Thank you," said Breton fiercely. "You remind me rather frequently ofthe kind things you do for me."
And all the time something in him was whispering to him, "_What_ a foolyou are to talk like this!"
Christopher's voice now was cold: "That's hardly fair of you. I'mturning up here----" They paused. Breton looked away from him up intothe quiet blue recesses of the side street. Christopher went on: "I onlymean that if I were you I should drop hanging on to the skirts of afamily who don't want you. I should set about and get some work to do,cut all those rotten people you go about with, and behave decently tostrangers when you meet them. That's all. Good night."
And Christopher was gone.
Breton stood there, for a moment, with the tide of his misery full uponhim. Then he turned down Oxford Street and drove his way through thecrowds of people who were coming up towards the Circus. He was alone,utterly alone in all the world. Everyone else had a home to go to, healone had nowhere.
Only a few weeks ago he had come back to England, with money enough tokeep him alive and a fine burning passion of revenge. That family of hisshould lament the day of his birth, that old woman should be down on herknees, begging his mercy. Now how cold and wasted was that revenge! Whata fool was he wincing at the ill-manners of a stranger, quarrelling withthe best friend man ever had.
How evilly could Life desert a man and kill him with loneliness.
And then his mood changed; if Christopher and the rest intended to casthim off, let them. There were his old friends--men and women who hadbeen ostracized by the world as he had been--they would know how totreat him.
He turned into the silence and peace of Saxton Square and there met MissRand, who was also walking home. The statue was wrapped in blue mist,the trees were fading into grey and the evening star seemed to havetaken Saxton Square under its special protection.
"Good evening, Miss Rand."
"Good evening, Mr. Breton."
"Isn't it a lovely evening?"
"Yes. But _hasn't_ it been hot?"
Miss Rand did not look as though she could ever, under any possiblecircumstances, be hot, so neat and cool was she, but she said yes it hadbeen.
"Isn't it odd the way that as soon as it's fine people begin to complainjust as they do when it's wet?"
"It gives them something to talk about--just as it's giving us somethingnow," said Miss Rand, laughing.
Breton looked at her and liked her. She seemed so strong and wise andsafe. She would surely always give one the kind of sensibleencouragement that one needed. She would be a good person in whom toconfide.
They were on the top doorstep now.
"No. I've got a key." He let her pass him.
They stood for a moment in the hall together.
He spoke, as he always did, on the instant's inspiration:
"Miss Rand?"
"Yes."
"I'm alone such a lot--in my evenings I mean. I wonder--might I comedown sometimes and just talk a little? You don't know how bad thinkingtoo much is for me, and if I might----"
"Why, of course, Mr. Breton--whenever you like."
Seeing her now, he thought, just now, with her sudden colour she lookedquite pretty.
"I expect you could advise me--help me in lots of ways----"
"If there's anything mother or I can do, Mr. Breton, you've only got toask--Good ni
ght----"
The door closed behind her.
He went up to his room, a less miserable man.