The Blower of Bubbles. Beverley Baxter

The Blower of Bubbles - Beverley Baxter


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like a tree smitten by an autumn gale. The Blower of Bubbles removed his bandage, and presented a stocky youth with three shillings.

      "Buy sweets for the crowd," he said, "and mind—play fair."

      "Right you har', guv'nor"; and the mob disappeared. And thus ended the riot of the slouch-cap against the silk hat. To-day, if you are passing the field during a match, you will see that the gamins are still there, but they shout only for Westminster.

      We were just turning away, when Basil Norman laid his hand on Grubbs's forearm, as a girl might do, and his eyes had a wistful look.

      "Before I change into more fitting garb," he said airily, then paused. … My breathing seemed to stop at the sight—his face had gone suddenly white, and his eyes were glazed.

      "Grubbs!" he cried, and his voice sounded hollow. "Don't you understand? … Oh, you damned fool, can't you see it's my heart?"

      V

      After Westminster I went to Cambridge, and succeeded in cultivating the Oxford manner, by which all Cambridge men are known. When I emerged from there I offered myself to the highest bidder (a sudden bankruptcy of my father having made an occupation essential).

      A London newspaper was the fortunate winner in the mad race for my services, though it would have been difficult for it to lose, as there was but one entry.

      I became a writer of power—not quite so much so as the gentleman to-day who wields his pen as he would a bludgeon, and succeeds in writing a powerful article each week; but still I was a writer of strength. I damned the present, doubted the future, and deplored the past. I became an honored member of the group of London writers whose entire genius is exhausted in criticism. I secured a bowing acquaintance with Bernard Shaw, and always spoke of H. G. Wells as Mr. Wells. It was obvious to me that to achieve literary success in England one must abuse England—but especially any one who tried to change her.

      Some of my confrères sided with Bernard Shaw and attacked middle-class morality and patriotism. Mr. Arnold Bennett had a certain following, though we agreed that his Five Towns stories were not really critical, but merely observant. We did not know at the time that he had it in him to write The Pretty Lady, which was to be neither. For myself, I was drawn towards Mr. Wells, and hit at everything like a blindfolded pugilist.

      We agreed with Granville Barker that Irving had reduced the value of Shakespeare by over-staging; and we endorsed the opinion of a dramatic critic, known to the public as "Jingle," who said that Shakespeare's lines were often worthy of an Oxford undergraduate.

      For pastime we abused Lord Roberts as a monomaniac, and Winston Churchill as a kleptomaniac with a passion for stealing the thunder of others. We even argued that the Church had lost its grip, and wrote eloquently on the value of doubt. With admirable esprit de corps we refrained from attacking the public-school system, though we realized that one could always get a hearing by so doing.

      And every year those schools were turning out their thousands and the universities their hundreds; every year our number was strengthened by well-routined brains that took to destructive criticism like a German to barbarity.

      Somebody was writing our puerile dramas; some one was producing the trash which flooded our book-stalls; some brain was conceiving the tawdry stuff which was educating the millions in the cinemas. … But we thanked Heaven that we were not as other men. We were England's educated class. For the education of England fails to teach one that a country's art and literature are as vital to the nation as speech to the individual.

      I took a flat in Sloane Square and read Russian novels. Whenever I discovered a new Russian author, I quoted him as if I had known him all my life; it used to pain me to find how unrecognized he was by my fellows. I attended the opera only on Russian nights, and I became a devotee of the Russian dancers. I used to quote Russian in my paper, and brought down the curse of a hundred typesetters upon my head.

      I think every writer has his Russian period.

      Once or twice I heard of Basil Norman, though our paths did not cross. Some one claimed that Norman could have been a great violinist, if—— Another told me that Punch had published a delicate little sonnet of his that had the quality of tears about it. There was no question (he said), if—— An artist I met had painted one landscape that defied criticism—even ours—and I spoke of the exquisite coloring and detail of the foreground.

      "I could not have done that," he said, "but for Basil Norman, who brooded over me like an inspiration. The work is mine, but the conception his. If——"

      Yet the world did not know of his existence. He remained a detached personality, treading lightly where sorrow was, singing his song of the sunlight wherever ears had become dulled with discouragement. A fantastic, gentle, twinkling-eyed prince in a kingdom of butterflies and violets. Try as I would, I could not refrain from contrasting my life of literary vivisection with his primrose youth that seemed eternal, springing from a genuine joy in living, a youth that was as perfect as a melody of Chopin's.

      "The happiest of Christmases, old Pest!"

      The subject of my thoughts was standing before me, and the bells were clamoring exultantly on the frosty air.

      I gripped his hand, and something in his eyes told me the truth. … He had come for me because I was lonely and needed him.

      And the message of the bells took on a new meaning.

      VI

      We walked into the brisk, vibrating sunshine of a glorious Christmas morning. He had taken my arm, and was chatting gayly on everything from "cabbages to kings." Sometimes his nostrils dilated, and he would look up as if he were actually drinking in the ozone of the air; and he seemed younger than ever, with a joyousness born of sheer intoxication with life. We walked for a mile, and all the time his mood was as happy and stimulating as the sunshine sparkling in the December air.

      Turning down a street, we passed a church from which the worshipers were emerging, and a mother with two sons on the brink of manhood held our attention for a moment. The lads had a gentleness of feature, an unconscious grace that sometimes is the attribute of adolescence, and their mother walked between them, proudly—they were her masterpieces. For some time Norman chatted amiably, but I could see that a pensive shadow was steadily creeping over the brilliancy of his spirits.

      "They tell me," he said in subdued tones, breaking suddenly from the topic in hand, "that both my parents hoped for a girl when I was born. And sometimes I have thought that there is a little of the feminine in my nature. I love the pretty things of life, and there are times when I have an unmistakable sense of intuition."

      I waited silently, but it was some moments before he resumed.

      "Somewhere ahead," he said dreamily, "in months or years to come, I see a vision of a woman in black, coming from church alone, and her head is bowed with grief——" He passed his hand over his brow with a weary, querulous movement, and shadows appeared beneath his eyes. "Where—where are the two sons? Not dead?"

      He smiled wistfully and replaced his hand in my arm.

      "The picture we saw just now," he said, "is my conception of England—the real England of noble mothers and noble sons. But something tells me that the woman in black is England too, mourning for her sons who will never—come back."

      With an effort he squared his shoulders and forced a laugh from his lips.

      "Pest!" he cried, "I should be burned as a witch. Heigho! it's a pretty go when one has to turn lugubrious on a Christmas morning. Cheer us up, Pest. Tell me about yourself—whom you are in love with, and your dreams for the days to come. Let's blow bubbles—shall we?—and see what fresh beauties we can find in this charming adventure called life!"

      And I laughed with him, exchanging philosophies light as air; but the chimes that rang out all about us had still another meaning. There was a warning in the pealing discords that broke on the quiet air; there was a requiem in the notes that lingered like an echo, then murmured ominously to silence.

      I shivered as though I had


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