Chapter III: The True Metal

Alexis Secretan turns his back upon the solemn responsibilities of Tubal Street, Grosvenor Place, sick with anger and despair. He is angry with himself rather than with his aunt. He loathes himself for having invited such humiliation.

‘I ought to have known her better,’ he muses. ‘A woman who gives showy dinners and cheap wines, and talks of her friend the Duchess of Landsend, or the Countess of John-o’-Groat; a woman whose name appears in the subscription list of all the orthodox charities, just under the nobility, and who never keeps a servant six months. And yet she is my mother’s sister, of the same race; my mother, whose nature was all kindness, and with whom to give was as natural as to breathe.’

He stands at Hyde Park Corner, indifferent to the east wind and the falling snow,--fine small snow-flakes that lie unmelted where they fall.

‘Now which way shall I turn myself in search of a friendly soul?’ he asks.

He turns south-westward, perhaps to escape that biting easterly blast, and walks towards Brompton, listlessly, hopelessly, walking fast to keep himself warm, but with no settled purpose.

Past the Bell and Horns Tavern he stops and looks up at one of the houses in the high road, a house with a front garden--or railed enclosure, which courtesy calls garden--a snowy parallelogram, in which flourish four melancholy bushes, like dwarf cypresses in a graveyard. The house is neat and bright-looking, and a bill in the parlour window announces that apartments are to be let within.

Alexis opens the gate as if familiar with its structure, goes up to the door hesitatingly, knocks, and asks to see Mr. Plowden. He is ushered forthwith into the back parlour, where a man of about his own age, pale and thoughtful-looking, sits by an indifferent fire painting a map. A pile of unpainted maps, a battered old tin paint-box and brushes lie on the table before him. The thin white hand travels dexterously, rapidly over the paper, leaving a delicate line of colour behind it.

The map-painter looks up at Alexis, brush in hand, surveys him from head to foot, wonderingly, and drops the brush full of colour, on the map.

‘Captain Secretan!’ he exclaims, ‘Is it possible?’

‘It’s true, at any rate,’ answers Alexis, holding out his hand, which the other grasps affectionately. ‘Theoretically impossible, perhaps, but absolutely true. Just wash off that splash of cobalt, Dick. I shouldn’t like you to spoil one of your maps on my account.’

‘I’m so glad to see you,’ says Richard Plowden, dabbing the map with a sponge rather nervously. ‘I was afraid you’d quite forgotten me, and that we should never see you here again, either as a lodger or a friend. However, here you are, and I’m heartily glad to see you,’ poking the dingy little fire vigorously, and then holding out his hand again to Alexis; ‘but I’m afraid things haven’t been going so well with you as they ought. You look----’

‘Poor,’ interjects Alexis. ‘You’re not far out. Poverty and small-pox are unmistakable diseases. You can see them in a man’s face. Before you say another kind word to me, Dick, I must tell you the truth--the naked, unpleasant truth. I come to you as a beggar. Knowing how hard you work for every shilling you earn--knowing what a good fellow you are--good son, good friend, good Christian--I am mean enough to come here and ask you to help me. The worthless drone appeals to the honest, independent bee.’

‘So far as I can help you,’ replies Mr. Plowden, with undiminished kindliness, ‘I am at your service. You were a profitable lodger to my mother, and a kind friend to me. It isn’t many gentlemen in your position who would have condescended to associate with a lame invalid, who gets his living by painting maps. I know those evenings when you used to come and smoke your pipe down here were some of the happiest in my life.’

He walks about the room as he speaks, drags a chair to the fireside for Alexis, takes a loaf of bread, a bottle of anchovies, a pat of butter, and a bottle of ginger wine out of the chiffonier, spreads a napkin, and arranges this temperate refreshment on one side of the table, pushing his maps and colour-box to the other. He walks lame, but is active and hardy notwithstanding.

‘Do you suppose I should have spent many evenings with you if I had not found your company pleasant, Dick?’ says Alexis, lightly. ‘I found that you had read more and thought more than any fellow of my acquaintance, and it was refreshing to me to hear your ideas upon all manner of subjects. And then I flattered myself that you liked me, and were pleased with my talk of the gay world; above all, about that stage you love so well and see so little of. Do you remember how we used to discuss the actors of the day, Dick, and settle how Shakespeare ought to be interpreted?’

‘Do you think I can ever forget?’ asks Richard Plowden. ‘I’ve not so many friends that I can afford to forget the one who was the first to tell me I had a mind. Do you know, Captain Secretan, that I’ve had the impertinence to write a book since then? Do peg into those anchovies, captain, and don’t mind cutting the knobs off the loaf. I like crumb as well as crust.’

‘A book, Dick. An essay on the genius of Shakespeare!’

‘Nothing so ambitious, or so unlikely to sell. A geography for schools, on a new system. It is not published yet, but I have reason to believe that it will be, and that I shall make a little money by it. So you may have less compunction in borrowing a pound or two.’

‘Dear old Dick!’ exclaims Alexis, who has been doing ample justice to the anchovies and bread and butter, and warming himself with a glass of ginger wine. ‘Unhappily, it is not a question of a pound or two. I want ten pounds.’

Richard Plowden’s countenance falls. It is not that he would measure his friendship, but ten pounds is an awful sum.

‘If I ever can repay it I will, and with interest at a more than usurious rate. But it is almost a mockery to talk of repayment in my present condition.’

Richard limps to the chiffonier without a word, takes out a little japanned cash-box, unlocks it, and extracts therefrom a five-pound note and five sovereigns.

‘I had the money ready for the Christmas rent,’ he says, ‘but you are welcome to it. We shall be able to rub along without it, I dare say.’

What pinching and deprivation this rubbing along process will cost, Alexis can pretty well guess, for he has seen how the widow Plowden and her son live at the best of times.

He takes the money with a faltering hand, and turns away his face to hide the tears that disfigure it, the first that he has shed since he wept for his mother’s death.

Presently he grows cheerful again, resumes his seat, finishes his luncheon, and then tells Richard Plowden the story of his decadence, an unvarnished tale which his humble friend hears with deepest interest.

‘If you could put me in the way of earning a few shillings a week by any kind of labour, however humble, you would be doing me even a greater favour than you have done me this day; and yet, knowing your circumstances as I do, I feel as if you had given me ten years of your life instead of ten pounds.’

Richard Plowden promises that he will turn the matter over in his mind, and see what he can do, and so the two young men part, as firm friends as in the days when Mrs. Plowden’s first-floor lodger, the dashing young captain, was the object of her son’s affectionate admiration, his ideal of all that is noble and splendid in manhood.