Chương Chương 6 · Enter a Lunatic_

. Enter a Lunatic_

The King of the Fairies, who was, it is to be presumed, the godfather

of King Auberon, must have been very favourable on this particular day

to his fantastic godchild, for with the entrance of the guard of the

Provost of Notting Hill there was a certain more or less inexplicable

addition to his delight. The wretched navvies and sandwich-men who

carried the colours of Bayswater or South Kensington, engaged merely

for the day to satisfy the Royal hobby, slouched into the room with a

comparatively hang-dog air, and a great part of the King's

intellectual pleasure consisted in the contrast between the arrogance

of their swords and feathers and the meek misery of their faces. But

these Notting Hill halberdiers in their red tunics belted with gold

had the air rather of an absurd gravity. They seemed, so to speak, to

be taking part in the joke. They marched and wheeled into position

with an almost startling dignity and discipline.

They carried a yellow banner with a great red lion, named by the King

as the Notting Hill emblem, after a small public-house in the

neighbourhood, which he once frequented.

Between the two lines of his followers there advanced towards the King

a tall, red-haired young man, with high features and bold blue eyes.

He would have been called handsome, but that a certain indefinable air

of his nose being too big for his face, and his feet for his legs,

gave him a look of awkwardness and extreme youth. His robes were red,

according to the King's heraldry, and, alone among the Provosts, he

was girt with a great sword. This was Adam Wayne, the intractable

Provost of Notting Hill.

The King flung himself back in his chair, and rubbed his hands.

"What a day, what a day!" he said to himself. "Now there'll be a row.

I'd no idea it would be such fun as it is. These Provosts are so very

indignant, so very reasonable, so very right. This fellow, by the look

in his eyes, is even more indignant than the rest. No sign in those

large blue eyes, at any rate, of ever having heard of a joke. He'll

remonstrate with the others, and they'll remonstrate with him, and

they'll all make themselves sumptuously happy remonstrating with me."

"Welcome, my Lord," he said aloud. "What news from the Hill of a

Hundred Legends? What have you for the ear of your King? I know that

troubles have arisen between you and these others, our cousins, but

these troubles it shall be our pride to compose. And I doubt not, and

cannot doubt, that your love for me is not less tender, no less

ardent, than theirs."

Mr. Buck made a bitter face, and James Barker's nostrils curled;

Wilson began to giggle faintly, and the Provost of West Kensington

followed in a smothered way. But the big blue eyes of Adam Wayne never

changed, and he called out in an odd, boyish voice down the hall--

"I bring homage to my King. I bring him the only thing I have--my

sword."

And with a great gesture he flung it down on the ground, and knelt on

one knee behind it.

There was a dead silence.

"I beg your pardon," said the King, blankly.

"You speak well, sire," said Adam Wayne, "as you ever speak, when you

say that my love is not less than the love of these. Small would it be

if it were not more. For I am the heir of your scheme--the child of

the great Charter. I stand here for the rights the Charter gave me,

and I swear, by your sacred crown, that where I stand, I stand fast."

[Illustration: "I BRING HOMAGE TO MY KING."]

The eyes of all five men stood out of their heads.

Then Buck said, in his jolly, jarring voice: "Is the whole world mad?"

The King sprang to his feet, and his eyes blazed.

"Yes," he cried, in a voice of exultation, "the whole world is mad,

but Adam Wayne and me. It is true as death what I told you long ago,

James Barker, seriousness sends men mad. You are mad, because you care

for politics, as mad as a man who collects tram tickets. Buck is mad,

because he cares for money, as mad as a man who lives on opium. Wilson

is mad, because he thinks himself right, as mad as a man who thinks

himself God Almighty. The Provost of West Kensington is mad, because

he thinks he is respectable, as mad as a man who thinks he is a

chicken. All men are mad but the humorist, who cares for nothing and

possesses everything. I thought that there was only one humorist in

England. Fools!--dolts!--open your cows' eyes; there are two! In

Notting Hill--in that unpromising elevation--there has been born an

artist! You thought to spoil my joke, and bully me out of it, by

becoming more and more modern, more and more practical, more and more

bustling and rational. Oh, what a feast it was to answer you by

becoming more and more august, more and more gracious, more and more

ancient and mellow! But this lad has seen how to bowl me out. He has

answered me back, vaunt for vaunt, rhetoric for rhetoric. He has

lifted the only shield I cannot break, the shield of an impenetrable

pomposity. Listen to him. You have come, my Lord, about Pump Street?"

"About the city of Notting Hill," answered Wayne, proudly, "of which

Pump Street is a living and rejoicing part."

"Not a very large part," said Barker, contemptuously.

"That which is large enough for the rich to covet," said Wayne,

drawing up his head, "is large enough for the poor to defend."

The King slapped both his legs, and waved his feet for a second in the

air.

"Every respectable person in Notting Hill," cut in Buck, with his

cold, coarse voice, "is for us and against you. I have plenty of

friends in Notting Hill."

"Your friends are those who have taken your gold for other men's

hearthstones, my Lord Buck," said Provost Wayne. "I can well believe

they are your friends."

"They've never sold dirty toys, anyhow," said Buck, laughing shortly.

"They've sold dirtier things," said Wayne, calmly: "they have sold

themselves."

"It's no good, my Buckling," said the King, rolling about on his

chair. "You can't cope with this chivalrous eloquence. You can't cope

with an artist. You can't cope with the humorist of Notting Hill. Oh,

_Nunc dimittis_--that I have lived to see this day! Provost Wayne, you

stand firm?"

"Let them wait and see," said Wayne. "If I stood firm before, do you

think I shall weaken now that I have seen the face of the King? For I

fight for something greater, if greater there can be, than the

hearthstones of my people and the Lordship of the Lion. I fight for

your royal vision, for the great dream you dreamt of the League of the

Free Cities. You have given me this liberty. If I had been a beggar

and you had flung me a coin, if I had been a peasant in a dance and

you had flung me a favour, do you think I would have let it be taken

by any ruffians on the road? This leadership and liberty of Notting

Hill is a gift from your Majesty, and if it is taken from me, by God!

it shall be taken in battle, and the noise of that battle shall be

heard in the flats of Chelsea and in the studios of St. John's Wood."

"It is too much--it is too much," said the King. "Nature is weak. I

must speak to you, brother artist, without further disguise. Let me

ask you a solemn question. Adam Wayne, Lord High Provost of Notting

Hill, don't you think it splendid?"

"Splendid!" cried Adam Wayne. "It has the splendour of God."

"Bowled out again," said the King. "You will keep up the pose.

Funnily, of course, it is serious. But seriously, isn't it funny?"

"What?" asked Wayne, with the eyes of a baby.

"Hang it all, don't play any more. The whole business--the Charter of

the Cities. Isn't it immense?"

"Immense is no unworthy word for that glorious design."

"Oh, hang you! But, of course, I see. You want me to clear the room of

these reasonable sows. You want the two humorists alone together.

Leave us, gentlemen."

Buck threw a sour look at Barker, and at a sullen signal the whole

pageant of blue and green, of red, gold, and purple, rolled out of

the room, leaving only two in the great hall, the King sitting in his

seat on the dais, and the red-clad figure still kneeling on the floor

before his fallen sword.

The King bounded down the steps and smacked Provost Wayne on the back.

"Before the stars were made," he cried, "we were made for each other.

It is too beautiful. Think of the valiant independence of Pump Street.

That is the real thing. It is the deification of the ludicrous."

The kneeling figure sprang to his feet with a fierce stagger.

"Ludicrous!" he cried, with a fiery face.

"Oh, come, come," said the King, impatiently, "you needn't keep it up

with me. The augurs must wink sometimes from sheer fatigue of the

eyelids. Let us enjoy this for half an hour, not as actors, but as

dramatic critics. Isn't it a joke?"

Adam Wayne looked down like a boy, and answered in a constrained

voice--

"I do not understand your Majesty. I cannot believe that while I fight

for your royal charter your Majesty deserts me for these dogs of the

gold hunt."

"Oh, damn your--But what's this? What the devil's this?"

The King stared into the young Provost's face, and in the twilight of

the room began to see that his face was quite white and his lip

shaking.

"What in God's name is the matter?" cried Auberon, holding his wrist.

Wayne flung back his face, and the tears were shining on it.

"I am only a boy," he said, "but it's true. I would paint the Red Lion

on my shield if I had only my blood."

King Auberon dropped the hand and stood without stirring,

thunderstruck.

"My God in Heaven!" he said; "is it possible that there is within the

four seas of Britain a man who takes Notting Hill seriously?"

"And my God in Heaven!" said Wayne passionately; "is it possible that

there is within the four seas of Britain a man who does not take it

seriously?"

The King said nothing, but merely went back up the steps of the dais,

like a man dazed. He fell back in his chair again and kicked his

heels.

"If this sort of thing is to go on," he said weakly, "I shall begin to

doubt the superiority of art to life. In Heaven's name, do not play

with me. Do you really mean that you are--God help me!--a Notting Hill

patriot; that you are--?"

Wayne made a violent gesture, and the King soothed him wildly.

"All right--all right--I see you are; but let me take it in. You do

really propose to fight these modern improvers with their boards and

inspectors and surveyors and all the rest of it?"

"Are they so terrible?" asked Wayne, scornfully.

The King continued to stare at him as if he were a human curiosity.

"And I suppose," he said, "that you think that the dentists and small

tradesmen and maiden ladies who inhabit Notting Hill, will rally with

war-hymns to your standard?"

"If they have blood they will," said the Provost.

"And I suppose," said the King, with his head back among the cushions,

"that it never crossed your mind that"--his voice seemed to lose

itself luxuriantly--"never crossed your mind that any one ever thought

that the idea of a Notting Hill idealism was--er--slightly--slightly

ridiculous?"

"Of course they think so," said Wayne.

"What was the meaning of mocking the prophets?"

"Where," asked the King, leaning forward--"where in Heaven's name did

you get this miraculously inane idea?"

"You have been my tutor, Sire," said the Provost, "in all that is high

and honourable."

"Eh?" said the King.

"It was your Majesty who first stirred my dim patriotism into flame.

Ten years ago, when I was a boy (I am only nineteen), I was playing on

the slope of Pump Street, with a wooden sword and a paper helmet,

dreaming of great wars. In an angry trance I struck out with my sword,

and stood petrified, for I saw that I had struck you, Sire, my King,

as you wandered in a noble secrecy, watching over your people's

welfare. But I need have had no fear. Then was I taught to understand

Kingliness. You neither shrank nor frowned. You summoned no guards.

You invoked no punishments. But in august and burning words, which are

written in my soul, never to be erased, you told me ever to turn my

sword against the enemies of my inviolate city. Like a priest pointing

to the altar, you pointed to the hill of Notting. 'So long,' you said,

'as you are ready to die for the sacred mountain, even if it were

ringed with all the armies of Bayswater.' I have not forgotten the

words, and I have reason now to remember them, for the hour is come

and the crown of your prophecy. The sacred hill is ringed with the

armies of Bayswater, and I am ready to die."

The King was lying back in his chair, a kind of wreck.

"Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord," he murmured, "what a life! what a life! All my

work! I seem to have done it all. So you're the red-haired boy that

hit me in the waistcoat. What have I done? God, what have I done? I

thought I would have a joke, and I have created a passion. I tried to

compose a burlesque, and it seems to be turning halfway through into

an epic. What is to be done with such a world? In the Lord's name,

wasn't the joke broad and bold enough? I abandoned my subtle humour to

amuse you, and I seem to have brought tears to your eyes. What's to be

done with people when you write a pantomime for them--call the

sausages classic festoons, and the policeman cut in two a tragedy of

public duty? But why am I talking? Why am I asking questions of a nice

young gentleman who is totally mad? What is the good of it? What is

the good of anything? Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!"

Suddenly he pulled himself upright.

"Don't you really think the sacred Notting Hill at all absurd?"

"Absurd?" asked Wayne, blankly. "Why should I?"

The King stared back equally blankly.

"I beg your pardon," he said.

"Notting Hill," said the Provost, simply, "is a rise or high ground of

the common earth, on which men have built houses to live, in which

they are born, fall in love, pray, marry, and die. Why should I think

it absurd?"

The King smiled.

"Because, my Leonidas--" he began, then suddenly, he knew not how,

found his mind was a total blank. After all, why was it absurd? Why

was it absurd? He felt as if the floor of his mind had given way. He

felt as all men feel when their first principles are hit hard with a

question. Barker always felt so when the King said, "Why trouble about

politics?"

The King's thoughts were in a kind of rout; he could not collect them.

"It is generally felt to be a little funny," he said vaguely.

"I suppose," said Adam, turning on him with a fierce suddenness--"I

suppose you fancy crucifixion was a serious affair?"

"Well, I--" began Auberon--"I admit I have generally thought it had

its graver side."

"Then you are wrong," said Wayne, with incredible violence.

"Crucifixion is comic. It is exquisitely diverting. It was an absurd

and obscene kind of impaling reserved for people who were made to be

laughed at--for slaves and provincials, for dentists and small

tradesmen, as you would say. I have seen the grotesque gallows-shape,

which the little Roman gutter-boys scribbled on walls as a vulgar

joke, blazing on the pinnacles of the temples of the world. And shall

I turn back?"

The King made no answer.

Adam went on, his voice ringing in the roof.

"This laughter with which men tyrannise is not the great power you

think it. Peter was crucified, and crucified head downwards. What

could be funnier than the idea of a respectable old Apostle upside

down? What could be more in the style of your modern humour? But what

was the good of it? Upside down or right side up, Peter was Peter to

mankind. Upside down he stills hangs over Europe, and millions move

and breathe only in the life of his Church."

King Auberon got up absently.

"There is something in what you say," he said. "You seem to have been

thinking, young man."

"Only feeling, sire," answered the Provost. "I was born, like other

men, in a spot of the earth which I loved because I had played boys'

games there, and fallen in love, and talked with my friends through

nights that were nights of the gods. And I feel the riddle. These

little gardens where we told our loves. These streets where we brought

out our dead. Why should they be commonplace? Why should they be

absurd? Why should it be grotesque to say that a pillar-box is poetic

when for a year I could not see a red pillar-box against the yellow

evening in a certain street without being wracked with something of

which God keeps the secret, but which is stronger than sorrow or joy?

Why should any one be able to raise a laugh by saying 'the Cause of

Notting Hill'?--Notting Hill where thousands of immortal spirits blaze

with alternate hope and fear."

Auberon was flicking dust off his sleeve with quite a new seriousness

on his face, distinct from the owlish solemnity which was the pose of

his humour.

"It is very difficult," he said at last. "It is a damned difficult

thing. I see what you mean; I agree with you even up to a point--or I

should like to agree with you, if I were young enough to be a prophet

and poet. I feel a truth in everything you say until you come to the

words 'Notting Hill.' And then I regret to say that the old Adam

awakes roaring with laughter and makes short work of the new Adam,

whose name is Wayne."

For the first time Provost Wayne was silent, and stood gazing dreamily

at the floor. Evening was closing in, and the room had grown darker.

"I know," he said, in a strange, almost sleepy voice, "there is truth

in what you say, too. It is hard not to laugh at the common names--I

only say we should not. I have thought of a remedy; but such thoughts

are rather terrible."

"What thoughts?" asked Auberon.

The Provost of Notting Hill seemed to have fallen into a kind of

trance; in his eyes was an elvish light.

"I know of a magic wand, but it is a wand that only one or two may

rightly use, and only seldom. It is a fairy wand of great fear,

stronger than those who use it--often frightful, often wicked to use.

But whatever is touched with it is never again wholly common; whatever

is touched with it takes a magic from outside the world. If I touch,

with this fairy wand, the railways and the roads of Notting Hill, men

will love them, and be afraid of them for ever."

"What the devil are you talking about?" asked the King.

"It has made mean landscapes magnificent, and hovels outlast

cathedrals," went on the madman. "Why should it not make lamp-posts

fairer than Greek lamps; and an omnibus-ride like a painted ship? The

touch of it is the finger of a strange perfection."

"What is your wand?" cried the King, impatiently.

"There it is," said Wayne; and pointed to the floor, where his sword

lay flat and shining.

"The sword!" cried the King; and sprang up straight on the dais.

"Yes, yes," cried Wayne, hoarsely. "The things touched by that are

not vulgar; the things touched by that--"

King Auberon made a gesture of horror.

"You will shed blood for that!" he cried. "For a cursed point of

view--"

"Oh, you kings, you kings!" cried out Adam, in a burst of scorn. "How

humane you are, how tender, how considerate! You will make war for a

frontier, or the imports of a foreign harbour; you will shed blood for

the precise duty on lace, or the salute to an admiral. But for the

things that make life itself worthy or miserable--how humane you are!

I say here, and I know well what I speak of, there were never any

necessary wars but the religious wars. There were never any just wars

but the religious wars. There were never any humane wars but the

religious wars. For these men were fighting for something that

claimed, at least, to be the happiness of a man, the virtue of a man.

A Crusader thought, at least, that Islam hurt the soul of every man,

king or tinker, that it could really capture. I think Buck and Barker

and these rich vultures hurt the soul of every man, hurt every inch of

the ground, hurt every brick of the houses, that they can really

capture. Do you think I have no right to fight for Notting Hill, you

whose English Government has so often fought for tomfooleries? If, as

your rich friends say, there are no gods, and the skies are dark above

us, what should a man fight for, but the place where he had the Eden

of childhood and the short heaven of first love? If no temples and no

scriptures are sacred, what is sacred if a man's own youth is not

sacred?"

The King walked a little restlessly up and down the dais.

"It is hard," he said, biting his lips, "to assent to a view so

desperate--so responsible...."

As he spoke, the door of the audience chamber fell ajar, and through

the aperture came, like the sudden chatter of a bird, the high, nasal,

but well-bred voice of Barker.

"I said to him quite plainly--the public interests--"

Auberon turned on Wayne with violence.

"What the devil is all this? What am I saying? What are you saying?

Have you hypnotised me? Curse your uncanny blue eyes! Let me go. Give

me back my sense of humour. Give it me back--give it me back, I say!"

"I solemnly assure you," said Wayne, uneasily, with a gesture, as if

feeling all over himself, "that I haven't got it."

The King fell back in his chair, and went into a roar of Rabelaisian

laughter.

"I don't think you have," he cried.

BOOK III