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Buried Alive

<h1>CHAPTER III</h1> <h2>The Photograph</h2> From the moment of Mrs. Challice's remarks in favour of matrimonial agencies Priam Farll's existence became a torture to him. She was what he had always been accustomed to think of as "a very decent woman"; but really...! The sentence is not finished because Priam never finished it in his own mind. Fifty times he conducted the sentence as far as 'really,' and there it dissolved into an uncomfortable cloud. "I suppose we shall have to be going," said she, when her ice had been eaten and his had melted. "Yes," said he, and added to himself, "But where?" However, it would be a relief to get out of the restaurant, and he called for the bill. While they were waiting for the bill the situation grew more strained. Priam was aware of a desire to fling down sovereigns on the table and rush wildly away. Even Mrs. Challice, vaguely feeling this, had a difficulty in conversing. "You are like your photograph!" she remarked, glancing at his face which--it should be said--had very much changed within half-an-hour. He had a face capable of a hundred expressions per day. His present expression was one of his anxious expressions, medium in degree. It can be figured in the mask of a person who is locked up in an iron strongroom, and, feeling ill at ease, notices that the walls are getting red-hot at the corners. "Like my photograph?" he exclaimed, astonished that he should resemble Leek's photograph. "Yes," she asseverated stoutly. "I knew you at once. Especially by the nose." "Have you got it here?" he asked, interested to see what portrait of Leek had a nose like his own. And she pulled out of her handbag a photograph, not of Leek, but of Priam Farll. It was an unmounted print of a negative which he and Leek had taken together for the purposes of a pose in a picture, and it had decidedly a distinguished appearance. But why should Leek dispatch photographs of his master to strange ladies introduced through a matrimonial agency? Priam Farll could not imagine--unless it was from sheer unscrupulous, careless bounce. She gazed at the portrait with obvious joy. "Now, candidly, don't you think it's very, very good?" she demanded. "I suppose it is," he agreed. He would probably have given two hundred pounds for the courage to explain to her in a few well-chosen words that there had been a vast mistake, a huge impulsive indiscretion. But two hundred thousand pounds would not have bought that courage. "I love it," she ejaculated fervently--with heat, and yet so nicely! And she returned the photograph to her little bag. She lowered her voice. "You haven't told me whether you were ever married. I've been waiting for that." He blushed. She was disconcertingly personal. "No," he said. "And you've always lived like that, alone like; no home; travelling about; no one to look after you, properly?" There was distress in her voice. He nodded. "One gets accustomed to it." "Oh yes," she said. "I can understand that." "No responsibilities," he added. "No. I can understand all that." Then she hesitated. "But I do feel so sorry for you... all these years!" And her eyes were moist, and her tone was so sincere that Priam Farll found it quite remarkably affecting. Of course she was talking about Henry Leek, the humble valet, and not about Leek's illustrious master. But Priam saw no difference between his lot and that of Leek. He felt that there was no essential difference, and that, despite Leek's multiple perfections as a valet, he never had been looked after--properly. Her voice made him feel just as sorry for himself as she was sorry for him; it made him feel that she had a kind heart, and that a kind heart was the only thing on earth that really mattered. Ah! If Lady Sophia Entwistle had spoken to him in such accents...! The bill came. It was so small that he was ashamed to pay it. The suppression of gratuities enabled the monarch of this bevelled palace to offer a complete dinner for about the same price as a thimbleful of tea and ten drachms of cake a few yards away. Happily the monarch, foreseeing his shame, had arranged a peculiar method of payment through a little hole, where the receiver could see nothing but his blushing hands. As for the conjurers in evening dress, they apparently never soiled themselves by contact with specie. Outside on the pavement, he was at a loss what to do. You see, he was entirely unfamiliar with Mrs. Challice's code of etiquette. "Would you care to go to the Alhambra or somewhere?" he suggested, having a notion that this was the correct thing to say to a lady whose presence near you was directly due to her desire for marriage. "It's very good of you," said she. "But I'm sure you only say it out of kindness--because you're a gentleman. It wouldn't be quite nice for you to go to a music-hall to-night. I know I said I was free for the evening, but I wasn't thinking. It wasn't a hint--no, truly! I think I shall go home--and perhaps some other----" "I shall see you home," said he quickly. Impulsive, again! "Would you really like to? Can you?" In the bluish glare of an electricity that made the street whiter than day, she blushed. Yes, she blushed like a girl. She led him up a side-street where was a kind of railway station unfamiliar to Priam Farll's experience, tiled like a butcher's shop and as clean as Holland. Under her direction he took tickets for a station whose name he had never heard of, and then they passed through steel railings which clacked behind them into a sort of safe deposit, from which the only emergence was a long dim tunnel. Painted hands, pointing to the mysterious word 'lifts,' waved you onwards down this tunnel. "Hurry up, please," came a voice out of the spectral gloom. Mrs. Challice thereupon ran. Now up the tunnel, opposing all human progress there blew a steady trade-wind of tremendous force. Immediately Priam began to run the trade-wind removed his hat, which sailed buoyantly back towards the street. He was after it like a youth of twenty, and he recaptured it. But when he reached the extremity of the tunnel his amazed eyes saw nothing but a great cage of human animals pressed tightly together behind bars. There Was a click, and the whole cage sank from his sight into the earth. He felt that there was more than he had dreamt of in the city of miracles. In a couple of minutes another cage rose into the tunnel at a different point, vomited its captives and descended swiftly again with Priam and many others, and threw him and the rest out into a white mine consisting of numberless galleries. He ran about these interminable galleries underneath London, at the bidding of painted hands, for a considerable time, and occasionally magic trains without engines swept across his vision. But he could not find even the spirit of Mrs. Alice Challice in this nether world. <h2>The Nest</h2> On letter-paper headed "Grand Babylon Hotel, London," he was writing in a disguised backward hand a note to the following effect: "Duncan Farll, Esq. Sir,--If any letters or telegrams arrive for me at Selwood Terrace, be good enough to have them forwarded to me at once to the above address.--Yours truly, H. Leek." It cost him something to sign the name of the dead man; but he instinctively guessed that Duncan Farll might be a sieve which (owing to its legal-mindedness) would easily get clogged up even by a slight suspicion. Hence, in order to be sure of receiving a possible letter or telegram from Mrs. Challice, he must openly label himself as Henry Leek. He had lost Mrs. Challice; there was no address on her letter; he only knew that she lived at or near Putney, and the sole hope of finding her again lay in the fact that she had the Selwood Terrace address. He wanted to find her again; he desired that ardently, if merely to explain to her that their separation was due to a sudden caprice of his hat, and that he had searched for her everywhere in the mine, anxiously, desperately. She would surely not imagine that he had slipped away from her on purpose? No! And yet, if incapable of such an enormity, why had she not waited for him on one of the platforms? However, he hoped for the best. The best was a telegram; the second-best a letter. On receipt of which he would fly to her to explain.... And besides, he wanted to see her--simply. Her answer to his suggestion of a music-hall, and the tone of it, had impressed him. And her remark, "I do feel so sorry for you all these years," had--well, somewhat changed his whole outlook on life. Yes, he wanted to see her in order to satisfy himself that he had her respect. A woman impossible socially, a woman with strange habits and tricks of manner (no doubt there were millions such); but a woman whose respect one would not forfeit without a struggle! He had been pushed to an extremity, forced to act with swiftness, upon losing her. And he had done the thing that comes most naturally to a life-long traveller. He had driven to the best hotel in the town. (He had seen in a flash that the idea of inhabiting any private hotel whatever was a silly idea.) And now he was in a large bedroom over-looking the Thames--a chamber with a writing-desk, a sofa, five electric lights, two easy-chairs, a telephone, electric bells, and a massive oak door with a lock and a key in the lock; in short, his castle! An enterprise of some daring to storm the castle: but he had stormed it. He had registered under the name of Leek, a name sufficiently common not to excite remark, and the floor-valet had proved to be an admirable young man. He trusted to the floor-valet and to the telephone for avoiding any rough contact with the world. He felt comparatively safe now; the entire enormous hotel was a nest for his shyness, a conspiracy to keep him in cotton-wool. He was an autocratic number, absolute ruler over Room 331, and with the right to command the almost limitless resources of the Grand Babylon for his own private ends. As he sealed the envelope he touched a bell. The valet entered. "You've got the evening papers?" asked Priam Farll. "Yes, sir." The valet put a pile of papers respectfully on the desk. "All of them?" "Yes, sir." "Thanks. Well, it's not too late to have a messenger, is it?" "Oh no, sir." ("'Too late' in the Grand Babylon, oh Czar!" said the valet's shocked tone.) "Then please get a messenger to take this letter, at once." "In a cab, sir?" "Yes, in a cab. I don't know whether there will be an answer. He will see. Then let him call at the cloak-room at South Kensington Station and get my luggage. Here's the ticket." "Thank you, sir." "I can rely on you to see that he goes at once?" "You can, sir," said the valet, in such accents as carry absolute conviction. "Thank you. That will do, I think." The man retired, and the door was closed by an expert in closing doors, one who had devoted his life to the perfection of detail in valetry. <h2>Fame</h2> He lay on the sofa at the foot of the bed, with all illumination extinguished save one crimson-shaded light immediately above him. The evening papers--white, green, rose, cream, and yellow--shared his couch. He was about to glance at the obituaries; to glance at them in a careless, condescending way, just to see the sort of thing that journalists had written of him. He knew the value of obituaries; he had often smiled at them. He knew also the exceeding fatuity of art criticism, which did not cause him even to smile, being simply a bore. He recollected, further, that he was not the first man to read his own obituary; the adventure had happened to others; and he could recall how, on his having heard that owing to an error it had happened to the great so-and-so, he, in his quality of philosopher, had instantly decided what frame of mind the great so-and-so ought to have assumed for the perusal of his biography. He carefully and deliberately adopted that frame of mind now. He thought of Marcus Aurelius on the futility of fame; he remembered his life-long attitude of gentle, tired scorn for the press; he reflected with wise modesty that in art nothing counts but the work itself, and that no quantity of inept chatter could possibly affect, for good or evil, his value, such as it might be, to the world. Then he began to open the papers. The first glimpse of their contents made him jump. In fact, the physical result of it was quite extraordinary. His temperature increased. His heart became audible. His pulse quickened. And there was a tingling as far off as his toes. He had felt, in a dim, unacknowledged way, that he must be a pretty great painter. Of course his prices were notorious. And he had guessed, though vaguely, that he was the object of widespread curiosity. But he had never compared himself with Titanic figures on the planet. It had always seemed to him that his renown was different from other renowns, less--somehow unreal and make-believe. He had never imaginatively grasped, despite prices and public inquisitiveness, that he too was one of the Titanic figures. He grasped it now. The aspect of the papers brought it home to him with tremendous force. Special large type! Titles stretching across two columns! Black borders round the pages! "Death of England's greatest painter." "Sudden death of Priam Farll." "Sad death of a great genius." "Puzzling career prematurely closed." "Europe in mourning." "Irreparable loss to the world's art." "It is with the most profound regret." "Our readers will be shocked." "The news will come as a personal blow to every lover of great painting." So the papers went on, outvying each other in enthusiastic grief. He ceased to be careless and condescending to them. The skin crept along his spine. There he lay, solitary, under the crimson glow, locked in his castle, human, with the outward semblance of a man like other men, and yet the cities of Europe were weeping for him. He heard them weeping. Every lover of great painting was under a sense of personal bereavement. The very voice of the world was hushed. After all, it was something to have done your best; after all, good stuff was appreciated by the mass of the race. The phenomena presented by the evening papers was certainly prodigious, and prodigiously affecting. Mankind was unpleasantly stunned by the report of his decease. He forgot that Mrs. Challice, for instance, had perfectly succeeded in hiding her grief for the irreparable loss, and that her questions about Priam Farll had been almost perfunctory. He forgot that he had witnessed absolutely no sign of overwhelming sorrow, or of any degree of sorrow, in the thoroughfares of the teeming capital, and that the hotels did not resound to sobbing. He knew only that all Europe was in mourning! "I suppose I was rather wonderful--am, I mean"--he said to himself, dazed and happy. Yes, happy. "The fact is, I've got so used to my own work that perhaps I don't think enough of it." He said this as modestly as he could. There was no question now of casually glancing at the obituaries. He could not miss a single line, a single word. He even regretted that the details of his life were so few and unimportant. It seemed to him that it was the business of the journalists to have known more, to have displayed more enterprise in acquiring information. Still, the tone was right. The fellows meant well, at any rate. His eyes encountered nothing but praise. Indeed the press of London had yielded itself up to an encomiastic orgy. His modesty tried to say that this was slightly overdone; but his impartiality asked, "Really, what could they say against me?" As a rule unmitigated praise was nauseous but here they were undoubtedly genuine, the fellows; their sentences rang true! Never in his life had he been so satisfied with the scheme of the universe! He was nearly consoled for the dissolution of Leek. When, after continued reading, he came across a phrase which discreetly insinuated, apropos of the policeman and the penguins, that capriciousness in the choice of subject was perhaps a pose with him, the accusation hurt. "Pose!" he inwardly exclaimed. "What a lie! The man's an ass!" And he resented the following remark which concluded a 'special memoir' extremely laudatory in matter and manner, by an expert whose books he had always respected: "However, contemporary judgments are in the large majority of cases notoriously wrong, and it behooves us to remember this in choosing a niche for our idol. Time alone can settle the ultimate position of Priam Farll." Useless for his modesty to whisper to him that contemporary judgments were notoriously wrong. He did not like it. It disturbed him. There were exceptions to every rule. And if the connoisseur meant anything at all, he was simply stultifying the rest of the article. Time be d----d! He had come nearly to the last line of the last obituary before he was finally ruffled. Most of the sheets, in excusing the paucity of biographical detail, had remarked that Priam Farll was utterly unknown to London society, of a retiring disposition, hating publicity, a recluse, etc. The word "recluse" grated on his sensitiveness a little; but when the least important of the evening papers roundly asserted it to be notorious that he was of extremely eccentric habits, he grew secretly furious. Neither his modesty nor his philosophy was influential enough to restore him to complete calm. Eccentric! He! What next? Eccentric, indeed! Now, what conceivable justification------? <h2>The Ruling Classes</h2> Between a quarter-past and half-past eleven he was seated alone at a small table in the restaurant of the Grand Babylon. He had had no news of Mrs. Challice; she had not instantly telegraphed to Selwood Terrace, as he had wildly hoped. But in the boxes of Henry Leek, safely retrieved by the messenger from South Kensington Station, he had discovered one of his old dress-suits, not too old, and this dress-suit he had donned. The desire to move about unknown in the well-clad world, the world of the frequenters of costly hotels, the world to which he was accustomed, had overtaken him. Moreover, he felt hungry. Hence he had descended to the famous restaurant, whose wide windows were flung open to the illuminated majesty of the Thames Embankment. The pale cream room was nearly full of expensive women, and expending men, and silver-chained waiters whose skilled, noiseless, inhuman attentions were remunerated at the rate of about four-pence a minute. Music, the midnight food of love, floated scarce heard through the tinted atmosphere. It was the best imitation of Roman luxury that London could offer, and after Selwood Terrace and the rackety palace of no gratuities, Priam Farll enjoyed it as one enjoys home after strange climes. Next to his table was an empty table, set for two, to which were presently conducted, with due state, a young man, and a magnificent woman whose youth was slipping off her polished shoulders like a cloak. Priam Farll then overheard the following conversation:-- Man: Well, what are you going to have? Woman: But look here, little Charlie, you can't possibly afford to pay for this! Man: Never said I could. It's the paper that pays. So go ahead. Woman: Is Lord Nasing so keen as all that? Man: It isn't Lord Nasing. It's our brand new editor specially imported from Chicago. Woman: Will he last? Man: He'll last a hundred nights, say as long as the run of your piece. Then he'll get six months' screw and the boot. Woman: How much is six months' screw? Man: Three thousand. Woman: Well, I can hardly earn that myself. Man: Neither can I. But then you see we weren't born in Chicago. Woman: I've been offered a thousand dollars a week to go there, anyhow. Man: Why didn't you tell me that for the interview? I've spent two entire entr'actes in trying to get something interesting out of you, and there you go and keep a thing like that up your sleeve. It's not fair to an old and faithful admirer. I shall stick it in. Poulet chasseur? Woman: Oh no! Couldn't dream of it. Didn't you know I was dieting? Nothing saucy. No sugar. No bread. No tea. Thanks to that I've lost nearly a stone in six months. You know I was getting enormous. Man: Let me put that in, eh? Woman: Just try, and see what happens to you! Man: Well, shall we say a lettuce salad, and a Perrier and soda? I'm dieting, too. Waiter: Lettuce salad, and a Perrier and soda? Yes, sir. Woman: You aren't very gay. Man: Gay! You don't know all the yearnings of my soul. Don't imagine that because I'm a special of the Record I haven't got a soul. Woman: I suppose you've been reading that book, Omar Khayyam, that every one's talking about. Isn't that what it's called? Man: Has Omar Khayyam reached the theatrical world? Well, there's no doubt the earth does move, after all. Woman: A little more soda, please. And just a trifle less impudence. What book ought one to be reading, then? Man: Socialism's the thing just now. Read Wells on Socialism. It'll be all over the theatrical world in a few years' time. Woman: No fear! I can't bear Wells. He's always stirring up the dregs. I don't mind froth, but I do draw the line at dregs. What's the band playing? What have you been doing to-day? Is this lettuce? No, no! No bread. Didn't you hear me tell you? Man: I've been busy with the Priam Farll affair. Woman: Priam Farll? Man: Yes. Painter. You know. Woman: Oh yes. Him! I saw it on the posters. He's dead, it seems. Anything mysterious? Man: You bet! Very odd! Frightfully rich, you know! Yet he died in a wretched hovel of a place down off the Fulham Road. And his valet's disappeared. We had the first news of the death, through our arrangement with all the registrars' clerks in London. By the bye, don't give that away--it's our speciality. Nasing sent me off at once to write up the story. Woman: Story? Man: The particulars. We always call it a story in Fleet Street. Woman: What a good name! Well, did you find out anything interesting? Man: Not very much. I saw his cousin, Duncan Farll, a money-lending lawyer in Clement's Lane--he only heard of it because we telephoned to him. But the fellow would scarcely tell me anything at all. Woman: Really! I do hope there's something terrible. Man: Why? Woman: So that I can go to the inquest or the police court or whatever it is. That's why I always keep friendly with magistrates. It's so frightfully thrilling, sitting on the bench with them. Man: There won't be any inquest. But there's something queer in it. You see, Priam Farll was never in England. Always abroad; at those foreign hotels, wandering up and down. Woman (after a pause): I know. Man: What do you know? Woman: Will you promise not to chatter? Man: Yes. Woman: I met him once at an hotel at Ostend. He--well, he wanted most tremendously to paint my portrait. But I wouldn't let him. Man: Why not? Woman: If you knew what sort of man he was you wouldn't ask. Man: Oh! But look here, I say! You must let me use that in my story. Tell me all about it. Woman: Not for worlds. Man: He--he made up to you? Woman: Rather! Priam Farll (to himself): What a barefaced lie! Never was at Ostend in my life. Man: Can't I use it if I don't print your name--just say a distinguished actress. Woman: Oh yes, you can do that. You might say, of the musical comedy stage. Man: I will. I'll run something together. Trust me. Thanks awfully. At this point a young and emaciated priest passed up the room. Woman: Oh! Father Luke, is that you? Do come and sit here and be nice. This is Father Luke Widgery--Mr. Docksey, of the Record. Man: Delighted. Priest: Delighted. Woman: Now, Father Luke, I've just got to come to your sermon to-morrow. What's it about? Priest: Modern vice. Woman: How charming! I read the last one--it was lovely. Priest: Unless you have a ticket you'll never be able to get in. Woman: But I must get in. I'll come to the vestry door, if there is a vestry door at St. Bede's. Priest: It's impossible. You've no idea of the crush. And I've no favourites. Woman: Oh yes, you have! You have me. Priest: In my church, fashionable women must take their chance with the rest. Woman: How horrid you are. Priest: Perhaps. I may tell you, Miss Cohenson, that I've seen two duchesses standing at the back of the aisle of St. Bede's, and glad to be. Woman: But I shan't flatter you by standing at the back of your aisle, and you needn't think it. Haven't I given you a box before now? Priest: I only accepted the box as a matter of duty; it is part of my duty to go everywhere. Man: Come with me, Miss Cohenson. I've got two tickets for the Record. Woman: Oh, so you do send seats to the press? Priest: The press is different. Waiter, bring me half a bottle of Heidsieck. Waiter: Half a bottle of Heidsieck? Yes, sir. Woman: Heidsieck. Well, I like that. We're dieting. Priest: I don't like Heidsieck. But I'm dieting too. It's my doctor's orders. Every night before retiring. It appears that my system needs it. Maria Lady Rowndell insists on giving me a hundred a year to pay for it. It is her own beautiful way of helping the good cause. Ice, please, waiter. I've just been seeing her to-night. She's staying here for the season. Saves her a lot of trouble. She's very much cut up about the death of Priam Farll, poor thing! So artistic, you know! The late Lord Rowndell had what is supposed to be the finest lot of Farlls in England. Man: Did you ever meet Priam Farll, Father Luke? Priest: Never. I understand he was most eccentric. I hate eccentricity. I once wrote to him to ask him if he would paint a Holy Family for St. Bede's. Man: And what did he reply? Priest: He didn't reply. Considering that he wasn't even an R.A., I don't think that it was quite nice of him. However, Maria Lady Rowndell insists that he must be buried in Westminster Abbey. She asked me what I could do. Woman: Buried in Westminster Abbey! I'd no idea he was so big as all that! Gracious! Priest: I have the greatest confidence in Maria Lady Rowndell's taste, and certainly I bear no grudge. I may be able to arrange something. My uncle the Dean---- Man: Pardon me. I always understood that since you left the Church---- Priest: Since I joined the Church, you mean. There is but one. Man: Church of England, I meant. Priest: Ah! Man: Since you left the Church of England, there had been a breach between the Dean and yourself. Priest: Merely religious. Besides my sister is the Dean's favourite niece. And I am her favourite brother. My sister takes much interest in art. She has just painted a really exquisite tea-cosy for me. Of course the Dean ultimately settles these questions of national funerals, Hence... At this point the invisible orchestra began to play "God save the King." Woman: Oh! What a bore! Then nearly all the lights were extinguished. Waiter: Please, gentlemen! Gentlemen, please! Priest: You quite understand, Mr. Docksey, that I merely gave these family details in order to substantiate my statement that I may be able to arrange something. By the way, if you would care to have a typescript of my sermon to-morrow for the Record, you can have one by applying at the vestry. Waiter: Please, gentlemen! Man: So good of you. As regards the burial in Westminster Abbey, I think that the Record will support the project. I say I think. Priest: Maria Lady Rowndell will be grateful. Five-sixths of the remaining lights went out, and the entire company followed them. In the foyer there was a prodigious crush of opera cloaks, silk hats, and cigars, all jostling together. News arrived from the Strand that the weather had turned to rain, and all the intellect of the Grand Babylon was centred upon the British climate, exactly as if the British climate had been the latest discovery of science. As the doors swung to and fro, the stridency of whistles, the throbbing of motor-cars, and the hoarse cries of inhabitants of box seats mingled strangely with the delicate babble of the interior. Then, lo! as by magic, the foyer was empty save for the denizens of the hotel who could produce evidence of identity. It had been proved to demonstration, for the sixth time that week, that in the metropolis of the greatest of Empires there is not one law for the rich and another for the poor. Deeply affected by what he had overheard, Priam Farll rose in a lift and sought his bed. He perceived clearly that he had been among the governing classes of the realm. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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