Murchison was so startled by the immediate response to his invocation that he involuntarily exclaimed, ‘Good Lord!’ which was the invocation of his brother's ‘graspin' de'il,’ and had nothing whatever to do with the deity he had been invoking with such fervour a moment ago. He heard a footstep on the gravel beside him, and held his breath. A hand touched his arm.
‘You seem to have lost your way pretty thoroughly,’ said a voice, and Murchison came back to earth with a bump.
‘Unless you are going to call on the Keeper of the King's Books, you are decidedly wide of the mark,’ continued the voice. ‘Would you like me to put you on the track of the gate? I have a pretty good sense of direction. I think you will find me a reliable guide.’
The voice was that of an educated man, and it had the indefinable something that is only to be found in the voice of one who habitually associates with educated men. It was also a strangely resonant voice. He had only heard one other voice as resonant as that. Curious how his mind kept on going back to his brief soldiering that afternoon. He was so astray among his thoughts that he neglected to answer his interlocutor, and the invisible voice went on again.
‘I think you had better come along with me, whether you want to or not. No, I am not a policeman, but you don't appear to me to be in any state to take care of yourself at the moment, and Christian charity compels me to lend you a hand as far as the gate. Or, since you were calling upon the Great God Pan, you may prefer to call it pagan charity. But in any case you had better come with me lest you get yourself locked in and have to spend the night in these insalubrious precincts.’
Murchison, feeling very foolish, allowed himself to be led by the arm through the darkness, made a desperate snatch at his scattered wits, and managed to say:
‘I'm frightfully sorry. I am afraid you must think me an awful fool. I'm not drunk, really. I - I was just thinking of something else, and got lost in the fog.’
‘Hullo? I have heard that voice before somewhere. I never forget a voice. Now, who is it?’ exclaimed his invisible companion.
Murchison stiffened. He wondered what sort of confidence trick was about to be played upon him, and did not answer.
‘Quite right,’ continued the voice, ‘never tell a stranger your name in the dark. But I'll tell you my name, however, for I am pretty certain I know you. My name is Brangwyn. Now can you place me?’
If the Great God Pan had appeared in person the effect upon Murchison could not have been more overwhelming. It took him so long to collect his wits and answer that his companion began to think that he had been mistaken in identifying him; but at last he managed to say:
‘Good Lord, sir, is it you?’
‘Yes, it's me all right, and from your mode of address I think you must have been one of my cubs. Now which is it? Roberts? Atkinson? Murchison? Yes, I believe you are Murchison. Am I right?’
‘Yes,’ said Murchison, and that was all he could find to say. When one has offered one's soul to the devil, according to all the traditions of one's upbringing, and the god of one's youth suddenly accosts one out of the darkness, the association of ideas is irresistible. Murchison had been deeply stirred by the uprushing rebellion at his thwarted life; his wits were astray in the fourth dimension and could not readily be recalled, and the sudden voice in the darkness that answered his invocation had seemed to turn all his imaginations into reality, and the old gods had verily come again for him. They were all about him, pressing in upon him; for his mind had turned bottom-side up with the shock and reaction that had caught him off his guard, and for the moment subconsciousness had superseded reason and taken charge of his affairs.
Brangwyn could not see his companion's face in the murk, but he listened attentively to the timbre of his voice, for his quick ear told him that something was very much amiss with this man, and that he was under high emotional tension. He remembered well the alert, eager youngster of the last years of the War, and wondered what the years of peace had made of him.
‘How has life used you since last we met?’ he asked.
‘I'm still alive,’ said Murchison, with a curt laugh.
A dull orange glow loomed up through the haze ahead of them.
‘I expect those are the lamps by the gates. At least, I hope they are,’ said Brangwyn. ‘Now, if I can continue to pilot you successfully, I will steer you into a certain teashop of my acquaintance in Southampton Row and ask you to join me at a cup of tea.’
Murchison accepted with more than the eagerness that is normally due to the offer of a cup of tea, and Brangwyn wondered if he were down and out and starving. Queer things happened during the peace to fellows who had been temporary gentlemen during the War. But he was wrong. It was not food for which Murchison was starving, but something quite different.
Now that there were the street lamps and the kerb to guide them, it was easier going. Bloomsbury is a land of right angles, and it was only a matter of knowing how many streets to cross until the right turning was reached in order to find Southampton Row. Once there, the lit-up shops gave them all the guidance they needed, and in a few moments they turned into a big café whose brightness almost blinded them after the gloom in which they had been groping for so long.
Brangwyn led the way to a corner table, and for the first time was able to see the face of his companion as they sat down opposite each other.
So this is what the alleged peace had made of that fine youngster? If he had seen him in the street he would not have known him. There was a family likeness to what he had been, but no more.
He studied him closely. He was looking rather dazed and self-conscious, Brangwyn thought, and wondered what had been at the bottom of that extraordinary outcry of ‘Io Pan’ in the foggy forecourt of the British Museum. It was exceedingly curious that the fellow should have turned up when he did, for he had just been thinking that the type of man he was looking for was the Murchison type. Big-boned, upstanding, Nordic. The Viking breed, in fact; and Murchison, if he remembered aright, was a Yorkshireman, and therefore probably of Viking stock. He studied him closely, after handing him the menu to distract his attention from the inspection. It would not do to be sentimental because the fellow was down on his luck. Nor must he jump to the conclusion that, because the youngster had been the right sort, the man was all that could be desired. Strange things can happen to men in the vital 10 years between 20 and 30, especially in times of stress. He must be cautious, and not let impulse, masquerading as intuition, lead him astray. A mistake would have very far-reaching repercussions.
Murchison looked up from the menu, having made his choice, and for the first time met the eyes of the elder man that had been fixed on him so steadily. He, too, had been making use of the menu for other purposes than those it was intended for, and under cover of its perusal had contrived to pull himself together. Crumpets were agreed upon, and the waitress departed, leaving them alone together. They had the place to themselves, all other wayfarers having been driven home by the fog.
Brangwyn had no mind to come straight to the point. He wanted to walk round his companion sniffing before he committed himself. It would not be fair to rouse the fellow's hopes and then dash them. So he turned the talk on to old comrades and wartime experiences, and Murchison followed him thankfully, for he had no mind to be asked about himself, since he had nothing good to tell, and had no love for pitching a hard-luck story.
So they chatted contentedly over their tea and cigarettes, and Brangwyn watched the likeness to the lad he had known come back into the face of the man opposite him.
‘Have you far to go tonight, before you get home?’ he asked at length, when empty plates gave them no further excuse to defy a hovering waitress who obviously wanted to get rid of them and go home herself.
‘Acton,’ said Murchison curtly, brought down to earth abruptly by the word.
‘Good Lord, you'll never get there,’ said Brangwyn, secretly delighted, and grabbing his opportunity. ‘Let me put you up for the night at my place. I've got bachelor quarters just round the corner. We'll brew rum punch over the fire and make a night of it.’
Murchison agreed eagerly. This was a treat beyond all expectation. Brangwyn had all his old fascination for him. He could imagine nothing more delightful than to sit up half the night yarning with him; and, above all, to meet him on an equality; for there is a great gulf fixed between 20 and 40, but the gap between 33 and 53 is by no means unbridgeable. The younger man was now mature, and the elder still in his prime.
They left the shop together, and found that the fog had lifted considerably, which was fortunate, for Brangwyn's abode was by no means easy to find, even by daylight, and he had been wondering whether he had promised more than he could fulfil in inviting his companion to go home with him.
They left Southampton Row, and went down an alley, crossed a square, and went down another alley. It was a cross-country journey, and the district was distinctly insalubrious; Brangwyn was not sorry to have a companion when he saw the lounging groups in alley entrances, for this was a night on which an assault could be committed with impunity.
Despite the slum to which it had been reduced, the district had a charm of its own, and even the extremes of grime and dilapidation of the houses could not destroy the grace of the Georgian architecture, though what the drains must be like it was better not to inquire.
They turned south, into a street of mean shops, and Brangwyn inserted a key in a narrow door beside an Italian restaurant on the corner, and entered. Sufficient light from the street lamp shone through the fanlight to reveal the worn oilcloth of the entry, and a long flight of dingy stairs leading upwards into darkness and flanked on either side by a wall bereft of handrail. It was an unprepossessing abode, and Murchison concluded that Brangwyn must also have come down in the world since the War, for he had been reputed to have money.
At the top of the stairs there was another door, and this also Brangwyn unlocked with a latch-key, though why both doors should require keys was difficult to understand, for no other entrance opened into the slot-like passage and stairs. Brangwyn switched on the light and held the door open for his companion to enter, and Murchison found himself in another world.
The entire upper part of the corner house and its two neighbours had been reconstructed, leaving the facade intact, so that there was nothing outside to hint at what was within. To all appearances the three houses were as dingy as the rest of the street, for such painting as had been done to their woodwork had been carefully matched with the surrounding grime, and dingy Nottingham lace curtains were stretched against the glass of the windows, hidden from the eyes of the occupants of the house by inner curtains of thin golden silk.
A whole floor had been pulled clean out of the corner house, making the lounge hall into which they entered spacious and lofty. A great chimney of mellowed brick, salved from the discarded party wall, occupied the rear angle of the fan-shaped apartment; on its wide, flat hearth a pile of wood and peat awaited lighting, though the place was warm almost to stuffiness with central heating. Thick soft rugs lay about on the dark polished parquetry of the floor, and a divan and two vast armchairs flanked the hearth. Books lined the walls from the floor to the gallery, supported on massive posts of old timber that had once been floor-joists, and on to the gallery opened doors that were presumably bedrooms and what house agents call the usual offices.
Brangwyn bent down and put a match to the pile on the hearth.
‘I believe in plenty of fire-lighters,’ he said, as the flames roared up the chimney. ‘Those are the sort of little things that make all the difference to life, and you never can get women to understand them.’
‘Take this chair,’ he continued, ‘and mind how you sit down; it is on wheels instead of casters.’
Despite the warning, Murchison felt the chair go from under him, and sat down sooner than he meant to.
Brangwyn stretched out a hand to a cocktail cabinet and drew it towards him, for it also was on wheels. Murchison noted that all the heavy furniture was mounted on small, rubber-tyred wheels, and marvelled that no one had ever before thought of such a simple device for increasing comfort and minimizing labour. He drew his great chair up to the now blazing fire with a single easy kick of his heel, and stretched out in luxurious comfort, giving himself up to his brief hour of enjoyment. This was the way a man ought to live. Solid comfort, but no show or fuss; and, above all, no servants to make themselves a nuisance and pinch the drinks. He remembered that even in the front line Brangwyn had always believed in being comfortable, and managed to be so, too, within 24 hours of the biggest push. Moreover, he believed in everyone he was responsible for being comfortable also, as being the best way to get the best work out of them.
Brangwyn was a tall, slight, dark-skinned man; and his black hair, brushed straight back from his forehead, was greying over the ears and receding over the temples. That was the only difference the years had made to him, thought Murchison, as he watched him picking and choosing among a formidable array of bottles. Murchison had never seen him in mufti before, and thought it became him better than uniform; for that ascetic looking scholar's head had always seemed rather incongruous sticking out of a tunic, though his bearing was soldierly enough.
The cocktail Brangwyn finally evolved, after much thought and care and accuracy, was amber-coloured and aromatic, not quite like anything Murchison had ever met before; but it had an authentic kick in it, as was evidenced by the sudden glow of his chilled skin and the livening up of his dazed brain. It amused him to observe that Brangwyn, who looked so ascetic, could be so fastidious in every detail of his way of living. Everything about him seemed to have had the most careful thought lavished on it, though nothing in itself was of any great intrinsic value. Even the compactness of the cocktail cabinet had been forced to find room for three sets of glasses, amber, green and rose, to set off the complexions of the various kinds of drinks, and in its recesses he caught a glimpse of a pile of small black bowls, with silver bases, and wondered what manner of tipple was imbibed out of these.
‘Getting a trifle warm, don't you think?’ said Brangwyn.
Murchison had thought for some time past it was getting decidedly warm, what with the cocktails, fire and central heating. Brangwyn rose and opened a cupboard in the wall, inset among the books, and revealed an array of what looked like voluminous silk dressing-gowns ranged on hangers; he selected a dark crimson one, and then paused and eyed Murchison and selected another of peacock blue shading off to emerald.
‘Like this?’ he questioned. Murchison did not quite know what was expected of him, and returned a polite non-committal affirmative.
‘Then shed your coat and collar and get into it,’ said Bran ‘The slippers are in the pocket.’
Murchison did as he was bid, shedding coat, waistcoat and collar after the example of his host, and girding himself about with the flowing silk, amazed to find the extraordinary change that came over his mood as the folds fell about him. In this garb he could have invoked the Great God Pan without any embarrassment.
‘I always change my kit when I come indoors,’ said Brangwyn. ‘I find it helps me to think.’
‘It's dashed nice stuff,’ said Murchison. ‘What does it smell of? It's got the same flavour as the cocktails.’
‘Sandalwood,’ said Brangwyn.
‘But you don't put sandalwood in the cocktails?’
‘No, essential oil of santal.’
‘How do you get it to mix?’
‘Smear it round the glass, and the spirit picks up the aromatic essence.’
They sank into a companionable silence after another round of cocktails, watching the fire change and glow and fall apart in caves of flame. The peat and the pinewood of which it was made smelling sweet and aromatic, blending harmoniously with the sandal-flavoured cocktail. Murchison had never realized before the way in which odour and flavour reinforce each other.
He found Brangwyn an extraordinarily interesting study, apart from the liking and respect he had always had for him. He had evidently brought the art of living up to the level of an applied science. Murchison approved with a sigh of envy. That, beyond all question, was the right way to live; but it needed cash, and plenty of it, for the development of its fine flower, and he, for his part, had had to bring the art of doing without to the level of a science.
‘You like my little place?’ Brangwyn broke the silence conversationally.
‘I like it immensely,’ said Murchison. ‘But don't you find it rather noisy, what with kids playing in the street, and barrel-organs, and chuckings-out from the local pub? Especially in summer when the windows are open.’
‘We never hear them,’ said Brangwyn. ‘I put sheets of good thick plate-glass inside the windows, and the ventilation comes down the old chimneys with the aid of electric fans.
‘I suppose you wonder why I elect to live in a slum?’ he continued. ‘I am like Oscar Wilde; I can manage without necessities so long as I can have luxuries. I dropped a good deal of money through the War; rents are high in decent parts, so I picked up this bit of slum property cheap because it was too far gone to be worth reconditioning. I didn't attempt to recondition it. I gutted it. I left the front alone because if I had put in decent windows I should have only have had ‘em broken twice a week and been assaulted every time I opened the front door. It isn't tactful to make yourself out to be better than your neighbours in this part of the world. They think I am going out disguised for a crime when they see me in my best togs, and entirely approve. If anyone comes around inquiring if I live here, the entire street swears I am non-existent without waiting to be asked. It suits me excellently.
‘The chaps in the shops underneath are my tenants; in fact the lad in the bookshop is a manager, not a tenant, because book-collecting is one of my hobbies. The fellow in the Italian restaurant has to look after me as part of his rent. It works admirably. You should see him supervising the charwomen. I will give him a ring when we want supper, and he will come up the back stairs and produce it out of his hat.’