The second room was as the
first, crowded with ghastly instruments; but beneath the lamp was a
wooden platform, and a figure stood on it. It was a large statue of a
naked woman, fashioned in green bronze; the arms were stretched out, and
there was a smile on the lips; it might well have been intended for a
Venus, and yet there was about the thing an evil and a deadly look. Mr. Mathias looked at it complacently. "Quite a work of art, isn't it?" he said. "It's made of bronze, as you see, but it has long had the name
of the Iron Maid. I got it from Germany, and it was only unpacked this
afternoon; indeed, I have not yet had time to open the letter of advice. You see that very small knob between the breasts? Well, the victim was
bound to the Maid, the knob was pressed, and the arms slowly tightened
round the neck. You can imagine the result." As Mr. Mathias talked, he patted the figure affectionately. I had turned
away, for I sickened at the sight of the man and his loathsome treasure. There was a slight click, of which I took no notice,--it was not much
louder than the tick of a clock; and then I heard a sudden whir, the
noise of machinery in motion, and I faced round. I have never forgotten
the hideous agony on Mathias's face as those relentless arms tightened
about his neck; there was a wild struggle as of a beast in the toils,
and then a shriek that ended in a choking groan. The whirring noise had
suddenly changed into a heavy droning. I tore with all my might at the
bronze arms, and strove to wrench them apart, but I could do nothing. The head had slowly bent down, and the green lips were on the lips of
Mathias. Of course I had to attend at the inquest. The letter which had
accompanied the figure was found unopened on the study table. The German
firm of dealers cautioned their client to be most careful in touching
the Iron Maid, as the machinery had been put in thorough working order. For many revolving weeks Mr. Burton delighted Dyson by his agreeable
conversation, diversified by anecdote, and interspersed with the
narration of singular adventures. Finally, however, he vanished as
suddenly as he had appeared, and on the occasion of his last visit he
contrived to loot a copy of his namesake's Anatomy. Dyson, considering
this violent attack on the rights of property, and certain glaring
inconsistencies in the talk of his late friend, arrived at the
conclusion that his stories were fabulous, and that the Iron Maid only
existed in the sphere of a decorative imagination. THE RECLUSE OF BAYSWATER. Amongst the many friends who were favored with the occasional pleasure
of Mr. Dyson's society was Mr. Edgar Russell, realist and obscure
struggler, who occupied a small back room on the second floor of a house
in Abingdon Grove, Notting Hill. Turning off from the main street and
walking a few paces onward, one was conscious of a certain calm, a
drowsy peace, which made the feet inclined to loiter; and this was ever
the atmosphere of Abingdon Grove. The houses stood a little back, with
gardens where the lilac and laburnum and blood-red may blossomed gayly
in their seasons, and there was a corner where an older house in another
street had managed to keep a back garden of real extent; a walled-in
garden whence there came a pleasant scent of greenness after the rains
of early summer, where old elms held memories of the open fields, where
there was yet sweet grass to walk on. The houses in Abingdon Grove
belonged chiefly to the nondescript stucco period of thirty-five years
ago, tolerably built with passable accommodation for moderate incomes;
they had largely passed into the state of lodgings, and cards bearing
the inscription "Furnished Apartments" were not infrequent over the
doors. Here, then, in a house of sufficiently good appearance, Mr.
Russell had established himself; for he looked upon the traditional
dirt and squalor of Grub Street as a false and obsolete convention, and
preferred, as he said, to live within sight of green leaves. Indeed,
from his room one had a magnificent view of a long line of gardens, and
a screen of poplars shut out the melancholy back premises of Wilton
Street during the summer months. Mr. Russell lived chiefly on bread and
tea, for his means were of the smallest; but when Dyson came to see him,
he would send out the slavey for six-ale, and Dyson was always at
liberty to smoke as much of his own tobacco as he pleased. The landlady
had been so unfortunate as to have her drawing-room floor vacant for
many months; a card had long proclaimed the void within; and Dyson, when
he walked up the steps one evening in early autumn, had a sense that
something was missing, and, looking at the fanlight, saw the appealing
card had disappeared. "You have let your first floor, have you?" he said, as he greeted Mr.
Russell. "Yes; it was taken about a fortnight ago by a lady." "Indeed," said Dyson, always curious; "a young lady?" "Yes, I believe so. She is a widow, and wears a thick crape veil. I have
met her once or twice on the stairs and in the street, but I should not
know her face." "Well," said Dyson, when the beer had arrived, and the pipes were in
full blast, "and what have you been doing? Do you find the work getting
any easier?" "Alas!" said the young man, with an expression of great gloom, "the life
is a purgatory, and all but a hell. I write, picking out my words,
weighing and balancing the force of every syllable, calculating the
minutest effects that language can produce, erasing and rewriting, and
spending a whole evening over a page of manuscript. And then in the
morning when I read what I have written--Well, there is nothing to be
done but to throw it in the waste-paper basket if the verso has been
already written on, or to put it in the drawer if the other side happens
to be clean. When I have written a phrase which undoubtedly embodies a
happy turn of thought, I find it dressed up in feeble commonplace; and
when the style is good, it serves only to conceal the baldness of
superannuated fancies. I sweat over my work, Dyson,--every finished line
means so much agony. I envy the lot of the carpenter in the side street
who has a craft which he understands. When he gets an order for a table,
he does not writhe with anguish; but if I were so unlucky as to get an
order for a book, I think I should go mad." "My dear fellow, you take it all too seriously. You should let the ink
flow more readily. Above all, firmly believe, when you sit down to
write, that you are an artist, and that whatever you are about is a
masterpiece. Suppose ideas fail you, say; as I heard one of our most
exquisite artists say, "It's of no consequence; the ideas are all there,
at the bottom of that box of cigarettes." You, indeed, smoke tobacco,
but the application is the same. Besides, you must have some happy
moments, and these should be ample consolation." "Perhaps you are right.