The Creators Part 47

"I wanted you," he said, "to like _them_."

"I do like them."

He glanced at her sidelong and softly.

"Tell me," she said. "What have they done to look so happy, and so perfectly at peace?"

"That's it. They haven't done anything."

"Not to do things--that's the secret, is it?"

"Yes," he said, "I almost think it is."

"I wonder," said she.

XXI

Brodrick was right. Nina was not there.

At the moment when Jane arrived, anxious and expectant, in Kensington Square, Nina and Tanqueray were sitting by the window of the room in Adelphi Terrace.

They were both silent, both immobile in the same att.i.tude, bowed forward, listening intently, the antagonistic pair made one in their enchantment, their absorption.

A young man stood before Tanqueray. He stood a little behind Nina where she sat in the window-seat. One shoulder leaned beside her against the shutter. He was very tall, and as he stood there his voice, deep and rhythmic, flowed and vibrated above them, giving utterance to the thing that held them.

Nina could not see him where she sat. It was Tanqueray who kept on looking at him with clear, contemplative eyes under brows no longer irritable.

He was, Tanqueray thought, rather extraordinary to look at. Dressed in a loosely-fitting suit of all seasons, he held himself very straight from the waist, as if in defiance of the slackness of his build. His eyes, his alien, star-gazing eyes, were blue and uncannily clear under their dark and delicate brows. He had the face of a Celt, with high cheek-bones, and a short high nose; the bone between the nostrils, slightly prominent like a b.u.t.tress, saved the bridge of it from the final droop. He had the wide mouth of a Celt, long-lipped, but beautifully cut. His thick hair, his moustache, his close-clipped, pointed beard, were dark and dry. His face showed a sunburn whitening.

It had pa.s.sed through strange climates. He had the look, this poet, of a man who had left some stupendous experience behind him; who had left many things behind him, to stride, star-gazing, on. His face revealed him as he chanted his poems. Unbeautiful in detail, its effect as a whole was one of extraordinary beauty, as of some marvellously pure vessel for the spiritual fire. Beside him, it struck Tanqueray that Nina showed more than ever a murky flame.

The voice ceased, but the two remained silent for a moment.

Then Tanqueray spoke one word, "Splendid!"

Nina turned her head and looked up at the poet. His eyes were still following his vision. Her voice recalled him.

"Owen," she said, "will you bring the rest? Bring down all you've got."

Tanqueray saw as she spoke to him that there came again that betraying tenderness about her mouth; as she looked at him, her eyes lifted their hoods, revealing the sudden softness and surrender.

And as Tanqueray watched her he was aware that the queer eyes of the man were turned on him, rather than on Nina. They looked through him, as if they saw with a lucidity even more unendurable than his, what was going on in Tanqueray's soul.

He said something inaudible to Nina and went out of the room with a light, energetic stride.

"How can you stand his eyes?" said Tanqueray; "it's like being exposed to the everlasting stare of G.o.d."

"It is, rather."

"What's his name again?"

"Owen Prothero."

"What do you know about him."

She told him what she knew. Prothero was, as Tanqueray saw, an unlicked Celt. He had been, if Tanqueray would believe it, in the Indian Medical Service, and had flung it up before he got his pension. He had been to British Central Africa on a commission for investigating sleeping sickness; he spoke of it casually as if it were the sort of thing you naturally were on. He had volunteered as a surgeon in the Boer War. And with it all he was what Tanqueray saw.

"And his address?" Tanqueray inquired.

"He lives here."

"Why shouldn't he?" He answered her challenging eyes. They shot light at him.

"He is a great poet? I _was_ right?"

"Absolutely. He's great enough for anybody. How on earth did you get hold of him?"

She was silent. She seemed to be listening for the sound of Prothero's feet on the stair.

He was soon with them, bringing his sheaf of ma.n.u.script. He had brought all he had got. The chanting began again and continued till the light failed.

And as Tanqueray listened the restless, irritable devilry pa.s.sed from his face. Salient, thrust forward toward Prothero, it was the face of a winged creature in adoration, caught suddenly into heaven, breasting the flood of the supernal light. For Tanqueray could be cruel in his contempt for all clevernesses and littlenesses, for all achievements that had the literary taint; but he was on his knees in a moment before the incorruptible divinities. He had the immortal's scent for immortality.

When the chanting ceased they talked.

Tanqueray warned Prothero of the horrors of premature renown. Prothero declared that he had none. n.o.body knew his name.

"Good," said Tanqueray. "Celebrity's all very well at the end, when you've done the things you want to do. It's a bad beginning. It doesn't matter quite so much if you live in the country where n.o.body's likely to know you're celebrated till you're dead. But if you _will_ live in London, your only chance is to remain obscure."

"There are in London at this moment," he continued, "about one thousand celebrated authors. There are, I imagine, about fifty distinct circles where they meet. Fifty distinct h.e.l.ls where they're bound to meet each other. h.e.l.ls where they're driven round and round, meeting each other.

Steaming h.e.l.ls where they sit stewing in each other's sweat----"

"_Don't_, George!" cried Nina.

"Loathsome h.e.l.ls, where they swarm and squirm and wriggle in and out of each other. Sanguinary, murderous h.e.l.ls, where they're all tearing at each other's throats. How can you hope, how can you possibly hope to do anything original, if you're constantly breathing that atmosphere?

Horrid used-up air that authors--beasts!--have breathed over and over and over again."

"As if," said Nina, "_we_ weren't authors."

"My dear Nina, n.o.body would think it of us. n.o.body would have thought it of Jinny if she hadn't gone and got celebrated."

"You'll be celebrated yourself some day."

"I shall be dead," said he. "I shan't know anything about it."

At this point Prothero, with an exquisite vagueness, stated that he wanted to get work on a paper. He was not, he intimated, looking to his poems to keep him. On the contrary, he would have to keep them.